“When Ella heard all that, it only made her cry harder. We used to cry together, Ella and I, spend whole afternoons crying over the books Father made us study. But I was young enough that I thought maybe Ti Me could be right. Our first Christmas here was spent with Father and the other mission families, on our knees in the sun, praying to God. That afternoon, Ti Me told us she knew what would make us feel better, and that if we wished to feel happy again, we would come with her when she called us. And she did, later that night—Father was asleep, and Ti Me came to our room and called for both of us. I went right away. Ella only followed because I went first. I remember her in her nightshirt, her eyes wide in the dark, staring straight ahead in fear.

“Ti Me took us out of the city—we walked in the dark for what felt like hours. Ti Me was like our mother, but she was only a few years older than the two of us. So we were all children and able to walk far. I remember the moon was so bright and high above us—it looked like a rib bone, curved into the sky. I would look up at it when my feet were tired. We walked on the road out of Port-au-Prince, and then Ti Me turned down a path into the forest, away from the shoreline. We walked again there, in the dark, with the leaves pressing up on my skin. Ti Me is like my mother, I’ve told you so many times, but she is not a very affectionate girl, and when I began to cry at the brush of leaves, she only sighed and told me to walk faster. Ella kept whispering to me, ‘We will be sacrificed, and it will be your fault.’