STONEWALL HONOR BOOK • For fans of Patrick Ness and Tom McNeal comes a moving and page-turning novel that’s part ghost story, part love story. The lines between past and present, tales and truth, friends and lovers begin to blur when a boy's childhood friend returns to town.  Aidan Lockwood lives in a sleepy farming community known for its cattle ranches and not much else. That is, until Jarrod, a friend he hasn’t seen in years, moves back to town. It’s Jarrod who opens Aidan’s eyes to events he’s long since forgotten, and who awakes in him feelings that go beyond mere friendship. But as Aidan’s memories return, so do some unsettling truths about his family. As Aidan begins to probe into long-buried secrets, he may not be able to control what else is uncovered. Aidan will need to confront a family curse before he can lay claim to his life once more. “Brilliant storytelling that unearths new intersections of love and magic.” — New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld “A wonder itself—a coming-of-age, coming-out, and crossing-into-the-mystic novel all rolled into one.” —Tom McNeal, National Book Award finalist for Far Far Away  “If you don’t want a book with magic, mystery, lying parents, ancient curses, and true, true love (plus wonderful writing), then I’m not sure I care to know you. But if you do, then Wonders of the Invisible World is the book you’ve been waiting for.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club “The unpredictability of curses, magic, and love are inexorably entwined in this gracefully written story.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review   “Part ghost story, part love story, this page-turner is a captivating exploration of the power of place, family, memory, and time itself.” —Kirkus Reviews “Barzak expertly balances magical realism, historical flashbacks, and contemporary teen romance in Aidan’s journey of self-discovery.” —Booklist “The complexity of the pairing of real and the unreal . . . is striking, and rather haunting.” —Tor.com Christopher Barzak’s fiction includes the award-winning adult novel One for Sorrow, which was made into the major motion picture Jamie Marks Is Dead; the Nebula Award finalist The Love We Share Without Knowing; and the short-story collection Before and Afterlives, which won the Shirley Jackson Award. Christopher grew up in rural Ohio, has lived in a Southern California beach town and the capital of Michigan, and has taught English outside of Tokyo. Currently he teaches fiction writing in the Northeast Ohio MFA program at Youngstown State University. Learn more about him at christopherbarzak.com. Chapter One My Life in Paper Here’s the thing: we’re all as thin as paper. Like those paper people you used to find in old children’s magazines, inhabiting a two-page spread with other paper people, all of them hanging out somewhere together--at the park, at church, at school, at the mall, in the family room--until some kid took a pair of scissors to the dotted lines surrounding them and cut them out of their paper world. That’s us, that’s anyone. That was me. A cut-out paper person removed from the world I once belonged to. Until, one day, someone called my name. “Hey, Aidan. Aidan Lockwood!” And I looked up, startled, as if I’d just woken from a dream. I was leaning over, grabbing my copy of Hamlet from the bottom of my locker so I’d have it with me after history and not have to come back for it, when I heard my name. Normally I can recognize people by voice alone--a loud laugh from Aaron Anderson as he moves through the hallway with other basketball players flanking his sides, or the sound of Natalie Miller as she sings an old blues song in the choir room--but this was a voice I didn’t recognize. I could feel my brow furrow even as I pulled Shakespeare out of the locker and turned toward this voice, which, in a school as small as mine, should have been easy to place. “Look at you!” the voice said, almost like a command. And after peering down at myself like I might have a stain on my clothes or some unknown wound gushing blood, I looked up and spotted the guy who’d said it. He was my age, tall and lean, and he was carrying a couple of books under one muscle-braided arm as he came toward me, pushing a wave of floppy brown hair away from his even darker brown eyes. When he stopped in front of me, he said, “You haven’t changed a bit,” like we were old friends meeting for the first time in a long time. I looked around, hoping someone else would recognize him, would see him and say, “Hey, So-and-So, where have you been?” But no one did. It might as well have been just the two of us in that hallway, two strangers looking at each other, blinking. Two paper people in a high school background. I cocked my head, as if looking at him from a different angle might help me place him, but it was no good. Eventually I had to give up on the idea of identifying him and say, “I’m sorry?” He shook his head, biti