My breath catches. No, I will not think it. I will turn out beautifully, just like my saisa and Memi and GraMemi and her saisas and every Yakanna before me. I clench my robes in my hand.

The fog is suddenly so blindingly close, I can hardly see the bushes of berries steps in front of me. I shudder.

“Memi, can we get back to the chakusa? The clouds are snoozing far too close to the ground.” I touch my hair. It’s set in coiled rollers, and the humid air won’t be helpful for the style.

She gazes up to the sky and her brows kiss. “Yes, maybe you are right.”

Thunder rolls and I knot my skirt, the berries stored there like a sack dangling against my leg. I loop my arm under Memi’s and she grabs her walking stick and we turn back for our village. Her fingers hang loose at her side. Somewhere a branch cracks. She nudges me with her elbow and I let my hand hang by my side, tingling, warm, ready.

Ever since the veil was extended over the entire island, we have coexisted with the Grays. Most are friendly enough. They keep to their villages. We trade once each moon. They love our silk dyed robes and they’re very adept at metalworking.

But occasionally, a radical or two among the bunch gets beside himself, parched with ambition, envious at us—the “brown-skinned with magic” as they call us—and shoves his way into our village late at night, demanding we share our magic. Demanding we heal their ailing parent or some other reason they deserve to have what the Ancestors gave us: magic. We have rules, lines they cannot cross. When they barge in like that, armed with their sharp blades, with their demands and murder in their eyes, we cut them down. And tighten up our sentry patrols.

Thirteen have gone missing from our village in the past moon. Twenty-two before that. Four washed up on the shore, bloated and open-eyed. All appearing to have drowned. My chest pangs, my jaw tightens. The Grays did it… even the village Elders suspect it. But no one could ever prove it.

Memi taps her ears, snatching me from my ruing. Listen, I can practically hear her think. Branches crackle against the sound of crashing waves. It’s quiet, subtle, but goosebumps skitter up my arm. This part of the island is ours—its rivers, its trees, its kaeli berries. That’s the agreement. I bite down. And aside from Trading Meet each moon, no Gray has any reason to be over here. We respect their boundary. They never respect ours.