I fell asleep crying, wondering if I was right or wrong to have bowed my head during the service. I’d prayed to the only God I’d ever prayed to. I’d prayed for Tilly to get better and Antonia to come for me and for God to take good care of my parents and brother. But I’d felt nothing, not the tiny comfort that came from praying beside my mother or hearing the familiar song of the Qur’an being read. Maybe, I’d wondered, I’d gone too far from home for God to hear me.

In the morning, Shawna and Gabriel readied themselves for school. I stayed in bed until Shawna came back upstairs.

“It’s very late. I told Janet you were washing up and changing your clothes, so please hurry.”

I pulled the blanket over my face, not wanting her to see my face.

“Aryana?” she said gently. “Aren’t you going to get up? They’ll be upset.”

I could hear the concern in her voice, even if I couldn’t feel particularly moved by it this morning.

“Please. You still . . . you still have to get up.”

Maybe because of her, I shuffled my way to the bathroom, where I washed up and changed into a fresh pair of clothes. We ate breakfast together, dry cereal with one slice of apple for each of us. Hungry as I’d been when I’d gone to bed the night before, I barely touched a flake.

“Why aren’t you eating, Anna?” Janet asked, standing over me with her hands on her hips. “We will not allow wastefulness here. Surely you can understand that, coming from the kind of place you come from.”

I forced half a spoon of cereal into my mouth.

Gabriel gave me a hug before he left. He looked up at me with eyes round with hope, urging me to remember the earthworm he had dangled in front of me while we were in the garden and the rock Shawna had found that glittered with flecks of gold and silver. She’d slipped it into her pocket to ask her science teacher to confirm the treasure.

But that had been before last night. That seemed so long ago.

“Look under my bed. I have something special there. You can have one if you want,” Shawna whispered to me once she made sure Janet wasn’t close enough to hear.