I know where she’ll be—call it sisterly intuition—and I know the shortcuts. It takes longer than I thought to get there because the woods are a mossy jumble, treacherous if I didn’t have this old muscle memory, if I didn’t have visions from the past guiding me. But I don’t see him, tramping through its tangled alleys, and that’s the beauty of the shortcuts, of being prepared, of growing up in this chaos.

I only hope she made it here, too.

When I reach the cabin, the surrounding forest is quiet. Like all of the scaled and feathered creatures lurking in the shadows know a predator is near. I fling myself against the door, and it won’t open. I circle it once, and every window is bolted shut. Behind the cabin, in the bushes, I see a strange black box, a generator, I think, that’s making a humming sound. Above it, there’s a solitary window uncovered by vines. I climb onto the box, which is warm to the touch, and I work the window up. It’s heated, too, and it slides as if greased. I nudge it up as high as it goes, then shoulder my way inside, sliding one foot in, then the other. I’m in the kitchenette, where there once was a small stove that boiled water for tea. Where there once was an icebox and a sink. No running water. Now there’s just a wrench, sitting there from some leftover repair, and a dusty box of tea.

But the cabin isn’t completely dark. And I hear rustling, around the corner in the main room. I drop onto my feet with a muted thump, taking the wrench in hand. It’s a fool’s errand, protecting myself with this. But I’ll take anything afforded to me. I’ll fight like her, until the end. I turn the corner, and the breath is knocked out of me.

Tai, shoulders shaking hard, kneeling by the tea set. Curls of steam rising from the mouth of the pot. And a bioluminescent figure, a pale, barefoot figure in a white nightgown with long, faded brown hair, stroking her back. Tai turns to look at me, eyes shining with tears, with horror, with love, and that’s when I know.

“Mama?” I ask, stepping forward with the tool in hand.

The figure turns to me, and unending loops of shivers run through my body. I drop the wrench, and it lands with a dull thud.

It’s like her, but it’s definitively not her.

It’s this sylphlike reminder of her, a fragment of a dream of her. She doesn’t smile, but there’s love there, as palpable as ever, and I wonder if it’s my mind sending curling strands of old emotion for her, or if this vision feels what Mama felt.