I was an orphan. Not in a sad way, though. What I mean is that my parents didn’t want me. No one did. So I grew up in an orphanage, never having anything of my own, even time. Gotta look after the younger ones. Gotta make sure they’re not alone, give them someone. Gotta work for those few words of praise and thanks, the only ones I ever heard.

School was funny. I didn’t have friends, not really my choice. I looked weird, acted weird, was weird. Came from a different world to everyone else. So I kept to myself, doing homework between classes, living in the library. Didn’t read stories, though. Encyclopaedias, listening to podcasts about farming and watermills, imagining a quaint life out in the countryside. Somewhere without people. Because, if there were people, then I knew I’d be trying to please them. Didn’t have to think about it, just knew.

Well, that was a life I knew I’d never have. I did okay at school, my grades average. No plans to go to university. All I knew was the orphanage and, once I graduated, I intended on working there—or somewhere else with children.

“Is that really what you want?”

I paused, frowning as I looked around for who had said that.

“Loulou?”

I shook my head, then looked down at the girls, smiling. “It’s nothing, let’s keep going,” I said, pulling them back into action.

My morning routine, I walked the youngest girls to their kindergarten. It wasn’t exactly on my way, but not really out the way either, and they were all good girls who listened and didn’t run off. In the couple years I’d been doing it, we’d never had any problem worse than a scraped knee.

“Okay, let’s cross,” I said, tugging them over the road.

Quiet, there weren’t even any cars at this hour, all the traffic the other side of the school. So quiet I heard the truck before it was close.

My stomach fell. “Run! Quickly, quickly!” I shouted, pulling them, panic flooding my head, making it so hard to think. They screamed, ran, maybe fast enough, maybe not. Nothing made sense. Screams, all around me.

Behind me.

“Hatty!”

I pushed the last girl with me onto the pavement and then turned, running back to the fallen girl on the road. Out the corner of my eye, I knew the truck was there, closer and closer, horn blaring, like it was getting faster.

“Loulou,” Hatty whispered, her voice piercing me through everything else going on.

Picking her up, I said, “You’ll be fine.”

But she wouldn’t, I knew. Knew the truck was right behind me. Knew everything and yet didn’t know what to do.

So I threw her.

I fell to the side, moving as far as I could as fast as I could, and used that momentum to throw her that little more.

And then I died, gaze full of the children I’d never see again.

There was no pain, no regret, just a floating sensation. Floating in a twilight sea. Twisting and turning, no idea which way was up, no clue how long had passed, only knowing that every breath out felt so good. Never a breath in, only out. Like I was venting out every grievance I’d never dared say.

When I had no breath left, I finally heard a gentle laugh. Delicate, fluttering, like a breeze.

“Louise, such an end, such a beginning, everything between,” the voice said—the same voice I’d heard before—“I cannot bear to leave things like this. Tell me, are you satisfied?”

“Satisfied…” I whispered, curling up. Who could have been satisfied with that? The more I thought, the tighter I curled up, trying to hide the prickling tears threatening to spill. I wasn’t some monk who chose to give up material desires, nor a nun devoted to serving some greater good.

I was just a child who had nothing.

As if the voice had heard that, she chose that moment to stroke my head. A gentle touch, warm, sending a bloom of warmth down my spine, reaching into my every tensed muscle and relaxing them.

“How would you like to go to a fantastical world where you can do anything your heart desires?” she said.

No need to think, I said, “I’d like that very much.”

“What of a gift? Perhaps you would like to have incredible magical ability, or an affinity with the wildlife, or a knack for finding great treasures,” she said.

That all sounded great, but I already felt like she was doing a lot for me. “How about I don’t have any more periods?”

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Her laughter sounded again, more tinkling this time. “Really? Of all the wishes I could grant, you would ask for that?”

Getting defensive, I said, “I bet you don’t know what it’s like. Especially in the orphanage, it’s not like I had extra pads or spare clothes to wear. I dreaded those days so much….”

Her tone sounding much softer, she said, “It is granted. And please, find satisfaction in this life.”

Floating again, I felt her leave like a cloud blocking the sun, the warmth I took for granted bleeding away. Cold, my muscles tensed up again. Twilight sank into darkness, such darkness, endless darkness.

Then I gasped, jerking upright, drawing as much air into my lungs as I could. Light and sounds and air against my skin and ground beneath my butt. I felt it all, overwhelmed, gradually recovering until I could open my eyes.

A forest. Unfamiliar. The trees’ bark looked wine-stained, plants a peculiar periwinkle, ground reddish as if rusty. Well, she’d said it was a fantastical world.

A lot went through my mind. I guessed there were probably villages and towns and even cities, that there was magic and magical creatures to go with it, and probably a lot more. A vast and wondrous place, full of excitement.

I didn’t want that.

After some wandering, I found a stream and followed it up to a spring. The water came out warm, not hot, but pleasant. Looking around, it wasn’t exactly a clearing. Rather, some way up a mountain, the trees thinned out and woody shrubs stuck to the stream’s banks.

Like an echo, old podcasts played in my head, flashes of pages like a movie, and I moved.

A rocky outcrop close by, I started dragging fallen branches there. It surprised me how light the branches were, always thinking wood was kind of heavy, but apparently not—at least, not this wood. Once I had a good pile, I started weaving them as best I could, careful not to snap them. Scavenging for vines, I found enough to tie the edges of my makeshift wall together. Next, I plucked bunches of leaves and threaded them in, gradually making it more airtight. It wouldn’t keep off the rain, but at least stop a breeze.

As I did all that, I looked out for food. While I didn’t know what counted for common sense in this world, I avoided berries, picking fruits instead. There were also some patches of unusual leaves on the ground where I managed to find some vegetables.

Of course, nothing looked familiar, the shapes normal enough but with strange colours. A firm fruit like an apple, the skin fuzzy like a peach’s but a purplish colour. A carrot-like vegetable, except it was pinkish once washed.

Without a pot, there wasn’t much cooking I could do, but I cleared a space out by the spring and put together a fire there.

Although I hadn’t found anything like flint, I had some good sticks for the job. With the pointiest rock I’d found, I made a small hole in one stick, just big enough for the tip of my thinner stick to fit in, and started rolling that thinner stick between my hands. I was worried at first, but something like soot started to build up in the hole along with a trickle of smoke. Unsure how much I needed, I kept going for a bit longer, then carefully poured the “charcoal dust” into a pile of crushed leaves that looked like sawdust.

Worried the whole time, I nursed the trickle of smoke as it grew until, finally feeling the heat, I added dry bark to the pile, gently blowing. Step by step, the fire grew to engulf snapped branches.

With this, I wrapped up the vegetables in wet leaves and left them at the fire’s base. Evening settling in—and it wasn’t like I’d spent the day idle—I really was hungry, so started with the fruit. Still, I only took a small bite of one kind and waited to see if I’d swell up or feel sick. Nothing happened, though, so I ate a few of those fruits.

Did I forget to say it tasted amazing? A kind of creamy sweetness, the fruit falling apart as I chewed, kind of like banana how it spread on my tongue, paired with a taste as sweet as strawberries, but a cleaner sweetness like syrup. Sort of like if ice-cream was a fruit. Well, maybe it only tasted so sweet because I was so hungry.

Oh I wanted to eat even more, but I knew what happened from eating too much fruit and I really didn’t want to deal with the runs, so I put the rest of those and the other fruit I’d scavenged to the side for now.

However, my expectations were certainly set for the carrot-y vegetable.

On the thinner side, I didn’t leave them to cook long and pulled them out with a stick. They kept hissing for a while, or at least the leaves did; I spent that time sharpening a stick and then sterilised it over the fire. A little charred, but that’d surely just add to the flavour. Unwrapping the vegetable was tricky with only a stick and the vegetable had softened, not too happy about getting skewered, so it took a while to have my first bite.

Again, I only had a bite. Although it wasn’t as sweet as the fruit, it had some, sort of like sweet potato.

Leaning back, I looked up. Smoke trailed into the sky, dispersed by an unfelt wind high above, sparse clouds caught in an invisible river, stars twinkling beyond. So many stars. I had spent my life in the city, the only night skies I’d seen in books or on the computer.

“Beautiful,” I muttered.

The cold dug into my back while my front prickled from the fire’s heat. The goddess—after thinking about it, I couldn’t call her anything else—had been kind enough to send me to this world in sturdy clothes. Woollen trousers, a vest and shirt and jumper, comfortable boots. For now, I took off the jumper and wore it like a cloak, shuffling closer to the fire.

It couldn’t last, I knew. If only because my clothes would eventually fall apart, I would have to find a village, have to go back to pleasing people.

The fire crackled and spluttered, at times even scaring me, popping right by my feet. My stomach unfazed by the vegetable, I ate the rest of them. How long had it been since I’d last eaten without sharing my food? Since I’d last eaten until I was full? Since I’d eaten in silence?

Had I ever?

Smiling, I looked up again.

No need to keep the fire going, I let it burn out, then buried it with dirt. I would have used water, but the charcoal remains would help with starting the next fire. No reason to stay up when it was only getting colder, I retired to the rocky outcrop, fixing the leaf-and-branch wall over the front of the crevice I settled into. Although I’d stuffed it with leaves, they didn’t really cushion anything.

That was okay, though, I was used to sleeping while sitting up on the floor next to beds. Never knew when a little one would have a nightmare.

Such loud silence, full of whistling wind and chirping insects, so different to the steady breaths of sleeping children.

After a while, I couldn’t help but cry, silently sobbing, shoulders shaking. I hoped they could sleep tonight. After what they’d seen, I hoped they could sleep soundly, could forget about it, forget me.

Once all those silent tears were spilled, I curled up even tighter.

“Goodnight,” I said, knowing no one would hear it.