to be alone, free from Ma and her fears for me.
Then I wasn’t alone anymore. I slipped down over another rock, covered in moss, and fell into a clearing where the ground was entirely covered in ivy. It knitted itself into a carpet of white-veined leaves and twisted up the trunks of four gigantic willow trees. Three girls were playing there, running and laughing and calling to one another. They stopped when they saw me. For a second I was scared again, as if I were back in the playground at school. Then the tallest one, with red hair that curled down her back, smiled and beckoned me. The other two—one with dark skin and a puff of dark dandelion hair, the other delicate as a bird with long brown hair—waved.
My sister, my sisters.
I stepped forward to meet them.
Scarlet
“What’s your name?”
“Goldie.”
“I’m Scarlet,” she said. Of the three girls, she seemed to be the leader. “This is Liyana—”
“Liyana Miriro Chiweshe,” the girl with the dandelion hair interjected, holding out her hand.
I stared at her hand, unsure of what to do, then took it. She shook for us both, then let me go.
“You can call me Ana,” she said, adding as an afterthought, “If you like.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“—and Bea,” Scarlet said, nodding at the bird-girl, who didn’t offer her hand. “We’re playing It. Want to join?”
I nodded again but didn’t say that, although I knew the rules, I’d never played before. It wasn’t a game that was possible without friends, unless you were good at conjuring imaginary ones, which I was. And good at not caring what other kids thought, which I wasn’t.
“Okay,” Scarlet said. “You can start. Count to ten to give us a chance—and the trees are safe, all right?”
I nodded a third time.
“Watch out for her.” Scarlet looked at Bea. “She’ll fool you into catching her—she always wants to be It.”
“All right,” I said, as Bea laughed. But if she wanted to be It, I’d happily let her. I’d rather stand under one of the willow trees and watch.
Scarlet gave the signal and my sisters flew off, shrieks of delight streaming like ribbons behind them. Liyana darted to the nearest tree and clung on, while Scarlet raced around the edge.
“Run, run as fast as you can,” Bea sang, skipping around me in ever-decreasing circles. “You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!”
I stepped forward, reaching out to grab the edge of her sleeve before she pulled away, laughing.
“I’m It,” Bea shouted. “I am, I am!”
I turned and dashed towards a tree. Bea, clearly keen to hold on to her elevated position, let me go.
“Oh, Goldie,” Scarlet said, slowing down to a stop. “What did I tell you? She’ll never catch any of us now.”
Bea marched up and down, echoing her refrain. Despite her irritation, Scarlet smiled. “You’re so weird,” she said to her sister. “I don’t get you at all.”
Bea grinned. “That’s because I’m an enigma.”
“Stop showing off with your fancy words,” Scarlet said, her voice tainted with both annoyance and affection. “You don’t even know what it means.”
Ignoring Scarlet, Bea looked at me. “It’s a shame,” she said, “that you won’t remember any of this in the morning.”
Liyana
Liyana sat at the end of her bed, the stolen cards in her lap. She’d been having strange dreams, the particulars of which she couldn’t quite remember when she woke, though she tried hard, squeezing her eyes shut, struggling to catch sight of the evaporating images. But, though Liyana couldn’t recall what she’d seen or heard, still the sense of the dream lingered, tapping at the edges of her thoughts, trying to catch her attention. She hoped the cards might help, might bring the images back, might turn them into a story. Though not like the story she’d seen before.
Liyana shuffled the cards. Again. And again. And once more for luck. As they sliced into one another, shifting from her right hand to her left, one snapped out of the pack and dropped to the floor.
Liyana slid down from the bed to pick it up. The Four of Cups. She stared at the picture: four women standing in a circle, each holding a star-engraved goblet aloft in a toast. An image tugged at the edges: moonlight on white leaves. Laughter. Girls calling her name.
Folding her legs, Liyana knelt on the bed and set the Four of Cups on the duvet in front of her. She picked another card. The Magician. A woman in a cloak held a shining wand that illuminated