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never have died. But if I stick to things that I might have been able to influence, I would go back to the spring of 2011.
    I had reached the age of coming out, but my debut had been postponed, so there shouldn’t have been anything special about that year. The snow had melted; it was time to do the spring sowing, and a new farmhand had to be hired—an April like any other.
    Aulikki had asked us to get out some clean sheets for the bed in the barn. Remember how we went out to pick pussy willows from the side of the brook and put them in a vase on the little bedside table? That was your idea. It was exciting that we were going to have a stranger at the house again, and you and I were speculating about what kind of person the new farmhand would be. Would he be grumbly and untalkative, or would he make jokes all the time? Would he be athletic, always doing chin-ups on the birch tree in the yard, or studious, shutting himself up in his room with his textbooks after his day’s work was done? Would he like the food we made for him? Would he be as thoughtful as one farmhand we’d had, who would go fishing on his time off and bring Aulikki his catch to add to dinner?
    The new hand was seventeen and was studying food science. Aulikki showed him around Neulapää. He would be sleeping in the barn, washing up in the sauna, and eating his meals in the kitchen. Aulikki introduced us, too. We curtsied and said our names. He asked which one of us had put the pussy willows in his room. You giggled and blushed when I told him it was your idea.
    There was always a lot of work to do at Neulapää in spring and early summer. So we helped Aulikki as well as we could. She had to save her strength for instructing and supervising the farmhand; she couldn’t manage heavy physical labor anymore. Since I was already fourteen I took responsibility for the meals. Your cooking skills still needed a lot of work then, but you helped me peel the vegetables and you knew how to poke the potatoes to see if they were done and set the table and carry the food out. The farmhand couldn’t come into the house except at mealtimes, and even then he could come only into the kitchen, because you and I weren’t officially of mating age and any fraternizing that could be associated with mating was not allowed.
    But a smell like fresh-cut grass started to float around you nevertheless, growing stronger whenever you saw the farmhand. Your cheeks would flush, and you read your Femigirl magazine stories more and more greedily.
    I mentioned this to Aulikki. She sighed and said that every eloi starts practicing falling in love at some point before she reaches mating age, and that you were obviously directing these feelings at the farmhand. She also said—rather cruelly, I thought—that it was good that your feelings weren’t returned because every eloi has to start competing for mascos eventually, and it’s better that she have some experience with disappointment from the beginning. But maybe it would be best if you didn’t help with serving the meals anymore.
    You cried and threw a tantrum at that, but Aulikki wouldn’t budge.
    Do you remember that day?
    I brought the farmhand dinner by myself. He didn’t seem to notice that anything was different. He ate, thanked me, and left. I washed the dishes and went to my room. When I got to the doorway, I stopped.
    On the floor was one of my favorite books, Native Plants of the Nordic Countries. A wonderful picture book. It had been cut up with scissors. I burst into tears. My library was so small and pitiful; I couldn’t bear to lose even one of my books. I’d read through them all many times, but they still gave me a lot of happiness, and there wasn’t really any way to get anything new to read about subjects that interested me. Aulikki could order books by mail about plant care or sewing, of course—those were things appropriate to her life—but it