burning-hot scalp and wondering at the contradiction of striving to stand out while also sweating to fit in.
Scarlet
When she had a little girl of her own, Scarlet vowed, she would spoil her rotten, would give her everything she asked for and plenty more she didn’t. She wasn’t entirely certain how to go about getting a daughter. But if her mother, who didn’t seem to want one, had managed to get one, then it couldn’t be too difficult. And once Scarlet had worked out the particulars, she would ensure that her child felt exceedingly and excessively loved.
Scarlet’s daughter would grow up under a blanket of devotion—she’d be almost smothered; she’d never have to cling to tiny maternal scraps, ripped cloths of almost affection. Scarlet didn’t know why her mother didn’t feel for her what mothers were supposed to feel, but she knew she would be different. Scarlet would dote on her daughter, would nurse her, would stroke her soft tufts of red hair, her plump cheeks, her tight curled fists. Scarlet would adore her daughter right from the start, before she’d done anything to earn it, when all Red (as she’d be called) could do was cry.
Scarlet often thought about how it might feel to be loved for no special reason at all. Without trying to twist yourself into agreeable knots, without having to give what you might not want to give, safe in the knowledge that you were loved for just being your simple self. With her own daughter, Scarlet determined to prove that unconditional love was possible, to prove that it was her mother and not her who was flawed.
Bea
“Careful!” Liyana called up to the soles of Bea’s disappearing shoes. “Don’t climb too high.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Scarlet shouted. “Go as high as you can!”
Bea paused to look down from the branch. When she met Scarlet’s gaze, she grinned, stood straighter, lengthening her spine, reaching towards the canopy. “I’m going all the way up!”
Why not? she thought. It wasn’t too far. And this place was different, after all. It wasn’t like Earth, where a fall from a tree this high would have killed her. The physical laws here were all askew—how else to explain the perpetually falling leaves?—gravity was more forgiving in Everwhere.
When Bea reached the highest branch, she found a firmer footing and readied herself to leap. Then, as she wiggled her toes to the edge, Bea looked down to find her sisters’ eyes, to make sure they were fixed on her.
“If you fall, I’ll catch you.” Liyana stood at the base of the tree, hands pressed to the trunk. “But please don’t fall.”
“I’m not going to fall,” Bea cried. “I’m going to fly!”
Leo
“Psst!”
Leo, stiff and straight in his dormitory bed, twisted in his blankets to turn halfway towards the bed beside his. He saw a hand reaching out across the darkness. He waited.
“Psst.”
“What?” Leo hissed.
The boy in the next bed waggled his hand, as if expecting Leo to take it.
“Marsden, Christopher,” he whispered. “You can call me Chris if you like.”
Leo looked down at the hand but didn’t shake it. “Penry-Jones, Leo.”
“Good to meet you,” Christopher said. He retracted his hand and sat up. Leo did the same. “You’re new, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why so late?”
“What do you mean?” Leo said, hugging his knees.
“Well, most boys start here before they’re six, don’t they? I did.”
“Yeah, well, my mother wanted me at home,” Leo said. “My father allowed it for a while, but when I turned eight, he insisted.”
Christopher slipped down under his blankets again and pressed his head into the pillow. “You’re lucky.” He smiled. “I bet your mother’s missing you like mad. Mine hasn’t even noticed I’m gone.”
Leo smiled back. “If you’ve been here three years, then I bet she has.”
Christopher gave a slight snort, as if he couldn’t even begin to tell Leo how wrong he was. “Do you miss your mother?”
“I, um . . .” Leo was reluctant to confess just how much he did.
“You can come in here with me,” Christopher whispered. “If you like.”
And Leo knew that, although several metres of floor and several inches of bedding separated them, Christopher still felt the frantic pulse of his loneliness unsettling the air. Leo cast a quick eye over the twelve other dormitory beds, at the boys cocooned in sleep and tight sheets. And before he could chicken out, Leo gave a quick tug to his sheets and set his feet onto the cold stone floor.
A few minutes later Christopher was asleep, curled towards Leo, his