Rory Power

But that’s the difference with us. Byatt’s never wanted anything she doesn’t have.

The way it happened is that the woods got it first. That’s what I think, anyway. Even before the wilderness reached inside us, it was seeping into the earth.

“I don’t know, Hetty,” she says. “Is it really friendship with you and Byatt?”

I’ve wondered. Of course I have. And I love Byatt more than anything, more than myself, more than the life I had before Raxter. But I know the warmth in my heart when I look at her. How it burns smooth and even, without a spark.

“Yes,” I say. “She’s my sister, Reese. She’s part of me.”

I wave it away. They’ve always told us the quarantine is the most important thing, but if I’m choosing between it and Byatt, it’s no choice at all

I wave it away. They’ve always told us the quarantine is the most important thing, but if I’m choosing between it and Byatt, it’s no choice at all

,” she says, but it’s pouring out of me, louder than I should be, angrier than I expected.

“Because I know you don’t care.” I keep on, a bitter twist to my words. “I know that makes you better than me, but I can’t just write the whole world off like you do.”

“I don’t care? Are you—” And then she breaks off like it hurts. For a second I can see it all laid out across her. The longing and the resignation and the betrayal, the sting of watching the island she loves steal the people she pretends she doesn’t.

For once I think I know what to say. It’s what people used to tell me when I was small, when my father was deployed. “You’re his daughter,” I say. “You’re not supposed to be the one protecting him

I think I have been a problem all my life. Here I am where problems go.

Part of me really thought it would be that simple. A locked door, somewhere deep in the house, and Byatt on the other side of it.

Part of me really was an idiot.

Part of me really thought it would be that simple. A locked door, somewhere deep in the house, and Byatt on the other side of it.

Part of me really was an idiot.