She wears an old-fashioned flower-print dress, like the ones those girls hanging on the tree wore. Her hair is drenched in blood and so is her dress. I’m not sure which is harder to look at, the blood or the bruised stitches crisscrossing her face.

She lifts her arms toward me as if waiting for me to pick her up even though she’s seven years old now.

I’m pretty sure my sister was not part of the massacre but here she is anyway. Somewhere in the forest, my mother says, “Look into her eyes. They’re the same as they’ve always been.”

But I can’t. I can’t look at her at all. Her eyes aren’t the same. They can’t be.

I turn and run from her.

Tears stream down my face and I call out into the woods away from the girl behind me. “Paige!” My voice cracks. “I’m coming. Hang on. I’ll be there soon.”

But the only sign of my sister is the crunching of the dead leaves as the new Paige shadows me through the woods.

4

I WAKE to my mom scraping something out of her sweater pocket. She puts it onto the windowsill where morning light filters through. It’s yellow-brown goo and crushed eggshells. She’s quite careful about it, trying to get every yucky drop onto the sill.

Paige breathes evenly, sounding like she’ll be knocked out for some time. I try to shake off the last of my dream, but wisps of it stay with me.

Someone knocks on the door.

The door opens and the freckled face of one of the twins peeks into our classroom. I don’t know which one so I just think of him as Dee-Dum. His nose wrinkles in distaste when he smells the rotten eggs.

“Obi wants to see you. He’s got some questions.”

“Great,” I say drowsily.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” He throws me an overly bright smile.

“What if I don’t want to go?”

“I like you, kid,” he says. “You’re a rebel.” He leans against the doorframe and nods his approval. “But to be honest, no one has the obligation to feed you, house you, protect you, be nice to you, treat you like a human being—”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” I drag myself out of bed, glad that I slept in a T-shirt and shorts. My sword thuds onto the floor. I had forgotten that I had it with me under the blanket.

“Shh! You’ll wake Paige,” whispers my mother.

Paige’s eyes open instantly. She lies there like the dead, staring at the ceiling.

“Nice sword,” Dee-Dum says too casually.

Alarm bells go off in my head. “Almost as good as a cow prodder.” I half-expect Mom to zap her prodder at him, but it hangs innocently on her cot frame.