It was that word that got her the rest of the way, torn and bleeding. At the top of the cliff, she crawled, grabbing wailing children, pulling them back, gathering them into her arms. Counting. How many, how many should there be? Jem, Mandy, Germain, Orrie, little Rob …

“Aidan,” she gasped. “Where’s Aidan?” Jem looked at her, white-faced and wordless, turned his head to look. Aidan was at the top of the cliff, starting to let himself down into the vines, to get to his mother.

“Aidan!” Germain shouted. “Don’t!”

Bree shoved the other children at Jem.

“Keep them,” she said, breathless, and lunged after Aidan, catching him by the arm just as he vanished over the edge. She hauled him up by main force and clutched him hard against her, struggling and weeping.

“I got to go, I gotta get Mam, let go, let me go …!” His tears were hot on her skin and his skinny body writhed like a snake, like the rusty grapevines, like the biting ants.

“No,” she said, hearing her own voice only faintly through the roaring in her ears. “No.” And held him tight.

I WAS SHOWING Fanny how to use the microscope, reveling in her shocked delight at the worlds within—though in some instances, it was plain shock, as when she discovered what was swimming in our drinking water.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “Most of them are quite harmless, and your stomach acid will dissolve them. Mind, there are nasty things in water sometimes, particularly if it’s had excrement in it—shit, I mean,” I added, seeing her lips silently frame “excrement.” Then the rest of what I’d said struck her and her eyes went round.

“Acid?” she said, and looked down, clutching her midsection. “In my stomach?”

“Well, yes,” I said, careful not to laugh. She had a sense of humor but was still very tentative in this new life, and feared being laughed at or made fun of. “It’s how you digest your food.”

“But it’s …” She stopped, frowning. “It’s … thr—strong. Acid. It eats right through … things.” She’d gone pale under the light tan the mountain sun had given her.

“Yes,” I said, eyeing her. “Your stomach has very thick walls, though, and they’re covered in mucus, so—”

“My stomach is full of snot?” She sounded so horrified that I had to bite my tongue and turn away for a moment, under the pretext of fetching a clean slide.

“Well, you find mucus pretty much all over the insides of your body,” I said, having got control of my face. “You have what are called mucous membranes and serous membranes; those secrete mucus wherever you need a bit of slipperiness.”

“Oh.” Her face went blank, and then she looked down below her clutching hands. “Is it—is that what you have between your legs? To make you … slippery when …”

“Yes,” I said hastily. “And when you’re pregnant, the slipperiness helps the baby come out. Here, let me show you …”