“I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus; that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: ‘Then,’ I cried, half desperate, ‘grant me at least a new servitude!'”

“Thank heavens,” Lottie breaks in. “Jane is ready to make a move. I was afraid she’d stay at that school till kingdom come.”

“Same here,” I say. “Imagine being stuck at Keziah forever? I’d go crazy like Mrs. Thomas, for sure.”

“Me too. But ‘a new servitude’ sounds dull. I want Jane to have excitement in her life.”

“Maybe she will.” I think about Jane’s future for a moment. “Jane’s got no money, so she has to find work, but work that’s new and different from what she knows. It’s the same for us. We’ll have to find jobs when we graduate from Keziah after next year. Just like Jane.”

“True,” Lottie says. “What are you going to do?”

If I was still with the pretties, I’d know the right answer to give, right away. It would go like this: I want to marry a good-looking man with money. We’ll live in a big house and spend the summer holidays in Durban or Mozambique.

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?”