The night before, I had felt our heart flickering, stumbling unevenly as it tried to pump blood to both of us. I wondered how long it’d keep beating. Morbidly, I wondered when it did stop, which of us would die first. Selfishly, I hoped it was me. I didn’t want to see Taema without that light in her eyes.

We passed the greenhouses with the mushrooms. We wouldn’t be able to help with our chores that afternoon.

We had to wait about half an hour for Confession, slumped against the church wall. There were two people ahead of us. They came out of the Confession room, looking all contemplative. When they saw us, they stopped, rested their hands on our shoulders, and kissed our foreheads. It was meant to be comforting, but I couldn’t help but feel they were saying goodbye. We’re not dead yet, I wanted to yell at them, bashing my fist against their faces to snap them out of it.

Finally, it was our turn. I pressed my forehead against Taema’s for a moment.

“T,” she whispered.

“T.”

It gave us strength.

Mana-ma’s Confessional was a tent erected within a secluded room of the church. It was made of white silk, and within were only low cushions and a low table, in soft pastel colors. Often there was tea if you wanted it. It was meant to be calming, like a shrine to truth and Purity and release. Really, it was more like a hippie psychologist’s room.

Mana-ma was perched on her usual cushion, dressed all in black, a stain on the pale colors of the Confessional. She held a cup of tea in her hands. Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at us. She seemed so damn proud. She was still buzzing from her triumph at the meadow.

Mana-ma looked like a mother—warm and generous, with laugh lines about her eyes. She had skin the same brown as us, eyes so dark they almost looked black, her hair in the same tight corkscrews around her face. No, the Hearth’s not inbred, but a lot of us are related distantly to each other, or near enough. It was hard to tell what age Mana-ma was—she always looks the same in my memory. Ageless. I used to think she knew everything. She was a Vessel for God, the embodiment of Love.

That was a lie, too.

I remember wondering what the hell she was up to, in that moment before she spoke to us. What was the point of getting us to connect? What was the drug?

“Sit, my children,” she said, gesturing.