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smile on her face.
    She heard her mother speak in hurried tones. Words, words, and more words. What was said made no sense. Leaving … Take her. … She’s a good girl. … She’s yours now. … Keep her. … Raise her. … I can’t take her with me. Not one more day. Not one more hour. Not one more slap. Not one more kick. … I’m not coming back.
    Her mother placed Adrianne’s hand into the hand of the woman in white. Then one last hard look. Was there sorrow? A whimper. A cry. A wail. Who made those sounds?
    “Hey,” Thomas said. “You okay?”
    His sudden appearance jolted her out of her dream.
    “I’m okay. Just thinking about the past.”
    Thomas held her close. This was not allowed, especially while she was still in her robes. But this was Thomas. An exception for him could always be made. Within their embrace she heard him choking back tears. Then he pulled back and kissed Adrianne on the cheek.
    “You be strong,” he said.
    She felt a twinge of guilt. For a moment she had actually forgotten her recent loss. For the first time in a long while, her mind was on someone other than the person Thomas assumed she was thinking of.
    She went to her cell on the upper floors — a small cubical area in one large shared room for all the girls. She curled up in bed, and drowned in her sheets. Sleep did not come easily. She tossed and turned until she found herself lying in bed staring at the high ceiling, listening to the silence until the sun went down and the room went dark, then the lights turned on. The silence was broken by the movement of careful feet as the others returned home from the games.
    There were twelve Sisters. Four were the Sisters who were best friends (who now attended the flames). Two were Sisters who were more than that. One was the-girl-with-the-curly-red-hair-that-was-slowly-turning-auburn. One was Stephanie the brave. One was Helen. One was the-girl-with-the-gray-eyes-who-didn’t-speak-too-much. One was the Mother. The last was Adrianne.
    In the night, the wind howled. Adrianne listened to the rain come down. It calmed quickly. It was if someone had opened a faucet, then shut it again. She fell asleep and wrestled in her dreams. In her sleep she was herself, but not herself. She went to the in-between space, neither here nor there, moving in and out of her body with ease, being herself, then staring at herself. It felt real. So fluid and natural, she was herself — just different.
    Adrianne woke the next morning at the pre-dawn hour. In the cool of the morning she realized how odd her night had been. What felt natural in her dreams was now strange. Adrianne was herself and no one else. Reality was reality. And reality didn’t change.
    Today it would be her and Helen and the-girl-with-the-gray-eyes-who-didn’t-talk-too-much and Stephanie tending the fire in Memorial Park. They ate a light breakfast, a little fruit, tea with no sweetener, and a piece of bread.
    “Come on, girls, let’s get this one started,” Stephanie said, and the four stood up, scraping their chairs across the hard stone floors.
     
    Adrianne hurried to the baths for her ritual cleansing. She put on her best starched white frock, bundled up her locs into the six traditional braids, and tied her hair up with a clean vitta, completing her look with a veil with a delicate purple-threaded hem. It draped loosely over her head. On the days they tended the fire they were expected to be formal and proper. One never knew who might make an appearance. Dignitaries. Film celebrities. Mourning mothers.
    The wind was bracing as it came over the water. The long stone paths along the river’s edge were wet from the night’s rain. The four of them walked together in the customary two-by-two square. They had lobbied hard for the privilege to walk in public without an escort.
    Through the park to the elevator, down into the subway, then onto the train. Adrianne always thought of her mother when she stood among the sleepy passengers on