stop being so soft and quiet. To stop being this sicker, subtler shade of her own spirit. To stop being so white, this pale ghost of herself. To stop being so cowardly. To stop being so full of fucking self-doubt.
Liyana needs to throw off her mother’s expectations. Enough of fading into the background, of trying so hard to be accepted, to fit into their adopted homeland with fake straight hair and soft voices. Why hadn’t her mother let her be who she truly was? Why had her mother fought so hard to shave off Liyana’s edges, to shape her into something suitable, to whittle her essence away? What good had it done but to leave Liyana full of fear? Fear of being different, fear of standing out, fear of being judged.
But Liyana will not succumb to this fear. She’s tried so hard to be accepted and approved of, to be well-spoken and well-behaved, to be that which she is not. But no longer. She has tried and she has failed. Her true self has been fighting to be felt, struggling to be seen. Now it will rise.
The priest was wrong. Liyana isn’t losing her grip on reality. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but she knows it’s nothing to fear. The voices are telling her something. And instead of being scared over the state of her sanity, Liyana will listen. She will consult her cards. Instead of cowering in the corner, she will leap into the fray. Instead of hiding from the enormity of the unknown, she’ll face it, will try to make sense of it. She’ll stop hiding, will stop avoiding her girlfriend and confront the situation. She’ll return Mazmo’s calls. She’ll apply for every single job she can find. And, even though she believes she has no sisters, Liyana will start looking for them.
A decade ago
Everwhere
You’ve been waiting for the next first-quarter moon, counting the days, the hours, the minutes. The first time you went was an accident. This time you’ve planned everything, down to the last second. You don’t know if there are any other entrances, so you go to the same place, the same gate you found yourself in front of before. At 3:33 a.m. What were you doing there? Can you remember? Could you explain yourself, if called upon? You probably wouldn’t care to. Alone on the streets of London in the early morning hours, wandering aimlessly, until you found yourself standing in front of a rather charming church on Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury. Not your usual neighbourhood. What brought you here last time? An overflow of sadness or an overflow of joy? Either way, you stood there for a while. An hour passed, maybe two. The church clock chimed and you glanced up.
That was when you felt it. A shift in the air. You looked around, wondering if someone was watching you. You saw nothing in the shadows but noticed the wrought-iron gate, a onetime entrance to the graveyard long since locked and barred. You gazed at it, for some reason caught and held—by the intricate workings in the metal, perhaps?—for several seconds. Just as, stepping forward, you reached up to touch the black petals of a metal rose, the moon came out from behind the clouds to cast a silver shimmer over the iron, and the moment you pressed your fingertips to the gate it swung open. As if it had been waiting for you.
Tonight, you arrive early. You can’t quite recall the exact time the gate opened before. You don’t know if it was important or not—how precise do you need to be?—but you’re not taking any chances. Although the experience of Everwhere has faded, it’s still been at the back of your mind, humming at the edges of every day, every hour, since you left. A few times, maybe more, you’ve taken long, circuitous walks home from work, simply to look at the gate, though you never tried to push it open, never even touched it. If anyone had asked, you’d have told them you were there for the chocolate pecan biscuits sold in the café across the street. You even told yourself the same thing at first, though you don’t especially like chocolate.
Tonight, the streets are empty, thanks to the lateness of the hour and the chill in the air. You hug your coat close, wish you’d worn a jumper and, almost, wish the café were open so you could have a cup of burning-hot coffee and even