“This place, this … ‘forest’ was the word you used, yes? This forest belongs to us all, but it can be shaped by those with more experience. I have been here for a long time by the standards of one as young as you. I can make the forest sing to match my breath. Without a guiding hand, it will turn itself toward what was lost. You were seeing the self you wear here shift to what will never be, to fit a soil so long lost that it may as well be left forgotten. That is fair, because it is true. It is also unfair, because it can never be again. Better for each harvest to hold to the shapes they bloomed in, here, where time has little hold.”

I stared at her, this woman who wore my face and spoke in riddles, trying to see through her pink skin and sweet smile to the alien I knew lurked beneath. It was a word filled with dark connotations: “lurk.” Like she meant to do me harm. But then, she might. We were, as everyone had been so eager to point out, killers, murderers, seeds scattered on unfriendly soil and left to germinate in our own way and in our own time. Maybe the ones who’d planted us—as carelessly as they had—had never intended us to be anything but harvest.

Her smile faltered. “There are no secrets here,” she said. “Not from your elders. Not from each other, in time. Once you have fully flowered, you will understand. You will step into the song, and you will know how much we love you. How is it you do not already know, when we found you such a good garden to grow in, when we left the shadow of the forest to keep you in comfort? What has this world done to you, to leave you so suspicious of your sister?”

“I’m an only child.”

“Oh, my dear, no. No. You have never been that.” She spread her arms. The meadow around us began to bloom, great flowers with dragonfly wings in place of petals breaking through the ground. Their perfume filled the air, and it was the scent of blood. Not human, but so close, coppery and rich with nutrients and iron. I breathed it in, and knew these flowers for both my past and my future, as they had always been, as they would always be.

The flower closest to First grew into the height and maturity I was used to seeing in the forest, its heavy head drooping slightly. She placed her hand on the fleshy spot where the stem joined with the flower, and said, “We come from such beautiful, humble beginnings, all of us. Almost any soil can nurture us this far. Then, if the soil is good, the next step is reached.”