"WHEN THE WORLD AROUND YOU IS BURNING, LOOK AT THE STARS."
Transfer student Minni Lee has a premonition. Not all is right at Newhurst University. Between a hateful blog post and the strange death of campus mean girl, Somin, exists a tangled mystery...
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PECULIAR THINGS HAPPEN AFTER THE DEATH OF A GIRL.
Girl dies, plastic condolences take the stage, and then come the tales.
It only took days for the floodgates to open. Min suddenly knew too much, a rock at the bottom of a sea of Somin trivia.
The rumors started off with light things, nothing out of the ordinary for NHU. Somin's old friends had their secrets exposed, and the dancer had sent a hate letter or two to an enemy. But the rumors escalated, as things tended to with Somin.
Min caught students whispering about threatening texts, physical aggression, and a nameless girl that had mysteriously fell down a flight of stairs in front of Somin.
But still, not all the stories about Somin were as evil. Even in her private dance mentoring session, poised at the barre, one look out of the grand windows to the white petals on the wind, is all it takes to remind her.
Somin could not tell her side of the story, could not offer any words to better her reputation. But her mother could and so she did.
Or well, she tried.
Somin's mother spoke on the nightly news program. Apparently, Somin's phone case had been covered in white patterned flowers before the fall, and by the time she landed, they were dyed a sickly red color from her own blood.
In the span of one night, Somin's mother saw the gift she gave her daughter for her eighteenth birthday shattered in an evidence bag and the twisted limbs of her daughter in a body bag.
Life was cruel like that. And for some odd reason, people were sparse with their sympathies.
Somin was no saint, but god, she was still human. She may have been hated, but she was loved all the same. The grieving wails of her mother, televised for all to see, had said as much.
Min was not foolish enough to think she could have done anything to save Somin, but did she have a responsibility to tell someone what she had heard? What if there really was a murderer walking free in the halls? What if she never jumped?
What if–
"Minni Lee!" Madame Dufort swatted the distracted girl on her back, beady eyes narrowed in reproach. Minni jumped out of her skin, tearing her gaze away from the trees. "Keep your spine straight. You are a ballerina, not the hunchback of Notre Dame."
"Yes, Madame." She swallowed, adjusting her position at the barre before continuing with her warm ups.
Dufort was a weathered older woman with grizzled brown hair and a razor-sharp smile. Min could scarcely tell if it was a grin or a grimace, but guessed it was the latter.
