And here is the girl’s mother, driving. A blue car now with a roof that opens and a back seat of unread magazines. A silk scarf is tied about her neck. A deep, soft green made by worms. It’s all that remains of them; a sacrifice not kind, but instinctual. The father gave the scarf to the mother for a birthday. She remembers the box: bright orange but pebbled to the touch.

There was perfume, too, spring in a bottle.

It was not the value of the gift so much as the effort to procure it that made her feel safe.

Her fingers pull sideways on the steering wheel as one foot pushes just enough. Tires on the wet road like faint ripping. Headlights fill each falling drop with gold.

The woman will soon be at the place she works, walking between desks toward her desk trailing fragrance like loose ribbon.

Now the girl Maxine is outside.

It’s recess and she moves over a grassy field with Doris, her best friend. The ground is drenched. Splinters of green stick to the toes of their shoes.

“Yesterday I raked all the leaves. Then guess what, Doris?”

“What?”

“Mummy and daddy and me jumped in them and then I had to rake them all again, by myself.”

Doris’s eyes move around but settle on nothing, actual sight diverted by imagination.

“There were leaves everywhere!” exclaims Maxine, now spreading the wings of her arms.

A passing boy stops, panting like a small dog. He turns to Maxine and Doris. His shoes and socks are drenched from the wet field.

“Did you see any animals in the leaves?” he asks.

The girls look at one another, then back at the boy.

“Sometimes animals live in the piles, you know,” he goes on.

“Yes, Gareth⁠—raccoons do,” Doris informs him.

“I didn’t see any of those,” Maxine admits, “but there’s an owl that lives in my tree.”

The boy’s hot cheeks redden. “Did you see it?”

Maxine glances upward through branches of memory, all the way to imagination. “No, because he was sleeping.”

“In the tree?” asks Doris.

Maxine nods. “Hmm. It’s his home. Way above the garden in a tree hole.”

“Can he touch the moon?” asks the boy. “Grab it like a cookie?”

“He drinks from the moon every night, actually,” says Maxine. “It’s where owl milk comes from.”

“Milk comes from cows,” says the boy. “Except chocolate milk, which is from a factory.”

“Well, I think all milk comes from the moon,” admits Doris.

“So . . . then what are cows?” asks the boy, blinking quickly.

“They’re aminals Gareth,” says Doris, “that stand around in fields looking at each other going mooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooo.”

They all do it.

They all go, mooooooOOOOooooOOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOoooo until bells clang over the field like ropes, pulling them in for lunch.

The clouds swim higher and drift as one.

Those who die are the same ones being born.