“A week, maybe more. Some things never go away. With the fire, at least, we won. We beat it. We made a difference. The other hurts will fade or not, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”

The seriousness of Lottie’s voice tells me that she speaks from experience. I hate to think of an older version of me with a key mark still visible on my wrinkled skin, still visited by dreams of fire and ash, decades from now.

“I wonder what’s in that letter that Jane Eyre picked up from the post office?” Lottie says, and she’s a genius for asking. England is far, far away from our small piece of Africa, and Jane’s problems will help to push our own worries away.

I slide Miss Eyre from under my pillow, wrap my blanket around my shoulders, and sit in the circle of candlelight that pools in front of our shared chest of drawers. Lottie sits next to me, also wrapped in her blanket, and I flip to the place where she left off when the fire bell rang. The words are hard to read in the flickering light, but I know how to make the situation right.

“Hold the book, Lottie.” I dive under my cot and drag out a suitcase. The weight of it makes my shoulders bow, and heat flares in my cheeks. Lottie is poor, but she’s no thief, while I am a first-class skinflint, a word that Lottie read aloud from The Oxford Dictionary on Friday night.

Skinflint: a person who spends as little money as possible. A miser.

Replace the word money with food and you have me right there. Lottie’s choice of word wasn’t personal, though. She also read out saber and then salacious, the definition of which had us both rolling with laughter.

I scoop an extra candle from the open suitcase, and Lottie’s eyes bug out at the sheer amount of bounty that I’ve kept hidden. It looks bad, I know, but there are rules to follow when it comes to using food. Food buys favors and pays bribes. Food keeps your pets sweet. Food gives you power, and you don’t give it away without getting something in return.

I light the second candle and keep my mouth shut about the rules. The rules are stupid. Food, I decide, is for eating.

“Choose something,” I tell Lottie, and sit down next to her.

“These?” Lottie points to a box of strawberry-cream biscuits, nervous. Strawberry creams buy a lot of favors.

“Fine,” I say. “Eat as many as you like.”

We settle against the chest of drawers and scoff down a strawberry-cream biscuit each before I start to read.

“‘If J.E., who advertised in the —shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the direction:—