It’s different with Lottie. With Lottie, there are no right or wrong answers—just the words that come out of your mouth. I close my eyes, and I search for a vision of my future that comes from my own mind and not from the ideas of others. After a moment of terrifying blankness, images flicker to life: stone buildings and snowcapped mountains, ocean waves rolling under a slate-gray sky and lazy rivers winding through a hot green jungle. A pang of longing blooms in my chest and spreads across me. For the first time, I know what I want from the future.

“I . . . I want to travel to all the places I’ve read about in books. Scotland and India. England and America. The Swiss Alps and Canada. Maybe study overseas.” My eyes fly open, and I glance at Lottie, afraid that I’ll find annoyance or, worse, ridicule written on her face. Daydreams are for children. And my daydreams of traveling overseas and studying in an ancient university hall covered in climbing ivy are . . . impossible. I’ll be lucky to get as far away as Joburg. Lottie’s expression is warm and curious with no trace of annoyance or ridicule. She takes me at my word.

“And you?” I throw the spotlight back onto her. “What do you want?”

She shrugs. “A small farm with cows and goats and a view of the mountains. I’d leave the trees for the birds, and the fields for the wild animals. There’s a river to swim in, and I have . . . uh . . .” Lottie leaves the sentence hanging and motions to Jane Eyre. “Enough about us. How’s Jane going to find a job and get free?”

I’d love to know the secret word that Lottie left off the end of her sentence, but now is not the time to push. The two of us speaking honestly to each other is wonder enough. I give her Jane Eyre and say, “Your turn.”

Lottie licks her lips and clears her throat. Reading aloud in class is indeed excruciating. Mistakes aren’t allowed. Mispronunciations are greeted with the whack of a ruler across your palm if the teacher is being kind, and a rap across the knuckles with the metal edge if the teacher is not.

“Go slow,” I say. “We’ve got plenty of time till lights-out.”

“Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.” Lottie begins reading where I left off, and I am Jane Eyre and I am also Adele Joubert, a mixed-race student at Keziah Christian Academy in the British protectorate of Swaziland, where lightning strikes outside the windows and wind tugs at the red flowers of the Christ-thorns. I am here, and I am there—balanced between two worlds.

It’s wonderful.

I forget that the Lord giveth and . . .