And so I listened: to the late-March wind, rattling the tall window above my cot; the rippling of girls’ exhales; the soughing of restless limbs. Here, in the smallest bedroom on the second floor, the sounds helped mute cries from the nursery. They also fought the slowing of my blinks. As did the light.

Across the high ceiling, shadows waltzed from a large lit candle. Set in mason jars, one was placed in every bedroom. The soft flames, ironically, were intended to aid our sleep, banishing monsters of the dark, in turn allowing staff down the hall to rest. The solution worked well for my roommates, minus the curly-haired redhead in the corner who wept regularly into her pillow.

And apparently one other girl.

“Yoo-hoo,” a voice whispered. “Whatcha got there?”

In the cot next to mine lay Poppy, a pale snip who’d only recently aged out of a different room. Still, it took me a second to grasp that her question was for me. Having exuded no desire to socialize, I’d grown accustomed to being treated like a ghost.

“Is it a toy?” She was gawking at my hand, the wooden train in it, set on my scratchy woolen blanket.

I’d made a habit of absently rolling my thumb over the wheels, as if rubbing luck out of a rabbit’s foot. I had all but forgotten it was there.

“Can I see?” She held out her hand. Such hope danced in her big doe eyes, dark as her pixie hair, I found myself passing the train her way.

She propped on her stomach and ran her fingers over the smokestack, then the undercarriage and driver’s cab.

“That part there,” I said, raspy from lack of use, “it can hide things.”

“Jeepers, really?” She studied it closer. “How?”

“Just pull on the chimney. The cab comes loose.”

Honest to goodness, I don’t know why I divulged anything. A means to keep awake, I guess. Reprieve from the monotony.

She gasped lightly at the discovery, and a rustling followed. I recalled the stowed note from Arie an instant before she held it out.

“Will you…read it to me?”

Her need for the help was surprising. Rumor had it she’d been abandoned in an alley at age three—about five years ago, I’d gather—and lived in the orphanage ever since. With the strict schooling here, I’d have thought her well capable of reading.

As if expecting this, she said, “I’m real good with numbers—arithmetic always comes easy. But letters, they get all mixed up.”

The old me would have been curious about why and how that looked. Now I just conceded by accepting the note. The girl waited, expectant.