We had to almost lie down on our sides, resting our cheekbones together so we could both look at her. Taema was nervous—even more nervous than me. I fought the urge to stroke her hair. I had to admit to myself that Taema still believed in Mana-ma, or at least she did a heck of a lot more than I did. She felt guilty knowing she might have to lie, whereas I didn’t give a fig.

We’d already lied by omission to Mana-ma, and it hadn’t sat well with my sister. We never told her about the tablet. How we (OK, mostly I) dreamed of the big, wide world and what we’d do if we could ever get to it. We didn’t tell her plenty of things. We skittered around the subject of sex and desire, pretending that we couldn’t become aroused when so close to each other. That wasn’t true.

“I welcome you into the Enclave of the Self,” Mana-ma intoned, resting her palms on our foreheads. “Close your eyes and imagine all darkness, all unhappiness, leaving you, leaving only Purity and light.”

We dutifully imagined this, breathing in and out, our chests rising and falling in tandem. I imagined I was covered in mud that dried and cracked and flaked off. The flakes scattered around me, whisking about on the wind like when paper has burned to ash. In my mind’s eye, I was just me, Taema nowhere around. When I opened my eyes, feeling her warmth, I felt no better, no lighter. Our heart was still weak. We were still dying.

“The darkness cannot flee until you give voice to it. State the nature of it and it can no longer hold any power over you. Confess, and be free. Let the darkness absorb deep into the Earth, so you may leave lighter than when you entered.”

I wasn’t in the mood for this. I’d believed it all, once upon a time, to a point. I don’t know why I was never as completely under Mana-ma’s spell as the others, what in me refused to give in. After we found the tablet, something irrefutable had changed in me. I knew this place wasn’t where I wanted to be. That Mana-ma might not be the real voice of God. It’s a scary thing, when all the beliefs you have shift under your feet like that. I didn’t know who to trust, how to feel, if my morals were my morals, or just the Hearth’s.

Taema spoke first. I listened to the gentle sound of her voice, my eyes half-closed.

“When our heart hurt,” she said, “I didn’t think of the Creator, or light, or goodness, like I should have done.”

“And what did you think of, my child?”