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registered her own voice, but her uncle obviously heard her; something shifted in the way he held himself. “I’m still I’m just a kid.” She could almost feel the dream ripping away from him, leaving something dull and resentful behind.
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    “You don’t need to be coming back to the house, then. Do you?” His voice squeezed out in a hostile croak. “Unless . . .” Then he turned away from her and ran, veering crazily up the path.
    As soon as he was gone Luce’s voice came back in force. She shrieked and wailed, ripping up clumps of grass. No one heard her, no one came to help. She screamed until her throat was raw, and then the tears poured out. But they couldn’t wash anything away.
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    3
    Changing
    For a long time Luce sprawled there sobbing, feeling the long sharp grass cutting at her cheeks, the icy wind pounding against her trembling back. She could still feel the sore places under her clothes where Peter’s fingers had dug into her like hooks piercing a struggling fish. She didn’t want to understand what had just happened to her. As long as she didn’t let herself understand all the implications of it, maybe she wouldn’t have to completely feel them either. But what she couldn’t help understanding was that her uncle, the only family she had left, had tried to rape her and then had run off and left her there all alone in this desolate spot high on the cliffs. He’d run away home, but he didn’t care that she had nowhere left to run to. The icy night rattled its long grass in her ears until it sounded like the air was full of bones. The cold sank into her body in a way it never had 36 i
    before, not even in the deepest snow. The cold took over her skin, her muscles, her brain, and then at last, with a tiny sigh like something breaking, it took over her heart.
    It frightened her to feel the cold bite right through her center that way, but once it was over, and her heart had truly become as chilled and bitter as the night all around her, she knew it was easier that way. The freezing wind didn’t bother her anymore, and a peculiar looseness and freedom began to spread through all her limbs. She started to feel like a wild, shapeless thing: a stray piece of starlight curled up on the grass like a glowing snake or a puddle of rainwater with human eyes. She was liquid, unbound by skin. Suddenly it all seemed funny to her. Maybe she was going to die, maybe this feeling was death, but that didn’t matter so much. Why hadn’t she understood before? She didn’t have to be the strange girl no one wanted, trying to disappear into the corners of her schoolrooms, trying to keep from getting hit by her uncle at home. No one would miss her. She could be a free thing, and spill into places where nobody would ever find her again.
    Just for a second Luce knew she did still have a choice. She could go back. Gum would miss her; he was almost as alone as she was. If she only chose it, she could pull her body back together, make it into arms and legs again, and go running home to huddle in her tiny bedroom with her heart pounding. Her uncle wouldn’t actually lock her out of the house, although he probably wouldn’t speak to her either. He was expecting her to come home, in fact, sooner or later. She could still be a regular girl. In a sudden flash she realized that he might even be just the smallest bit sorry.
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    She could be a girl, but then she’d spend the whole night, and the next night, and the next, sick with dread. Soon enough the time would come when greed or bitterness would overwhelm Peter’s shame again. He’d practically told her so. Every night she’d wrap herself in her blankets and wait shuddering for the moment when her door would creak open and his rough hands would crawl all over her, crushing her face against the pillow.
    No, Luce said. She didn’t have a voice anymore to say it with, but she knew the night heard her anyway. NO! And with that cry she poured herself out