I had told Hyaj I’d stay with Uncle Arl until the end of the rainy season, but I sort of broke my word. Packing everything away to be moved, finding a buyer—it wasn’t quite as easy as he’d thought. A little bit easier with someone to shepherd Sisi around.

“Hello, Sisi.”

Sisi hid behind me as if terrified by Hyraj’s gentle smile. “I think she forgot she met you,” I said lightly, covering my mouth.

“I did?” Sisi mumbled.

Crouching down, I half-turned and looped an arm around her. “Mm, this is Miss Hyraj, my good friend.”

“Miss Hyraj,” Sisi whispered, frowning in thought, then the wrinkles melted away and she hugged me. “Oh yeah, your friend.”

From upstairs, Uncle Arl shouted, “Is that Miss Hyraj?”

“It is!” I replied.

“Go on, then, have fun—and my thanks again.”

I giggled, using my arm around Sisi to scoop her up. Over her squeals, I shouted up to him, “She shall sleep well tonight!”

Spending evenings and weekends with Hyraj, her manner of speaking had sort of rubbed off onto me again.

“What happening?” Sisi asked.

“We are going out to play!” I said, picking up her warm coat. “Hyraj?”

At my “request”, Hyraj stepped forward and took the coat, assisting me with putting it on the squirming girl. After that, her shoes too. Sisi laughed the whole time—if only because, whenever I had the chance, I gave her a tickle.

Just as I put her down, Neffie came out of the kitchen, carrying the lunch box for us. “Watch out, it’s a bit hot. Wanted it to keep warm for yo—them,” she said, her gaze catching Hyraj at the last moment. “Ah, I am Miss Frinnef. Oh, wait, we already met when Louise first visited? I thought we hadn’t, then I saw them and recognised them, and now I’m rambling.” She ended in a laugh, covering her mouth.

“My thanks, Neffie,” I said, taking the box by the knot of the cloth wrapped around it. The sort of thing I’d seen on TV and wasn’t sure why, but boxes here didn’t exactly have lids that clipped on, not to mention the metal did get hotter than plastic would.

“My pleasure to meet them again,” Hyraj said.

“My pleasure too,” Neffie said, her smile still coloured with embarrassment.

I barely made it a step before Hyraj took the box from me. Maybe for a second, I thought about fighting her for it, but there wasn’t a point. One of the things I was working on—we both were.

Sisi still half-clinging to me, I patted her back, then took her hand. “Well, Sisi? Should we go play?”

She looked up at Hyraj, her expression a bit complicated, but soon nodded with her other hand.

So out we went into the morning’s chill. After so long, it was kinda weird going out when it wasn’t either muddy or raining, the ground firm and sky clear. Nice, though. Just because you were used to something didn’t mean change was bad.

Well, Sisi needed a little longer to learn that, staying on the opposite side to Hyraj.

Rather than into town, we walked out towards the outskirts. I could feel Sisi’s curiosity; she often lagged behind, my hand pulled back, followed by her scurries as she caught up. It wasn’t like she’d never seen this stuff, but it had been months.

Not to mention, it was quite interesting right now, the flooded fields growing the rice-like ousickle and some other things? I wasn’t too sure myself. People planting, people harvesting, floating baskets like little boats, fun just watching them shift around in the waves made as people moved. Plenty of duck-like birds around, their feathers pretty, all kinds of tropical colours, making for beautiful reflections on the water.

So I sometimes slowed down too, Sisi and I just watching. Still, at those times, I felt Hyraj at my side, close enough for our hands to bump. Maybe that wasn’t by accident, maybe that was the real reason she’d taken the box from me.

Wasn’t it wonderful when being selfish was kind?

Not in any particular rush, we eventually wandered just beyond the river. With the water level so high, we couldn’t get too close, but there were a few places like the one Hyraj and I had found that first time, places we’d found since then.

We quite liked it here and thought Sisi might too. Uncle Arl, good as he was, didn’t seem like much of a rambler, so it would be a nice experience for her. Besides, now the weather was, uh, nicer? I didn’t want to keep her inside. Kids were better off out where they could run and shout and breathe fresh air.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But mostly because we liked it here. Hyraj had finished working too, so I thought, if she wanted to hang out while I worked, somewhere she liked would be nice. It wasn’t like we were going to kiss in front of Sisi, but there wasn’t the same kind of pressure out here as in Uncle Arl’s house. Not that he seemed like it bothered him when he had thought we were “hesale”.

It wasn’t easy to stop overthinking everything, especially with no therapist.

Sisi hardly talked as we walked, but I asked her questions, pointed things out, trying to warm her up. That worked pretty well, sounding more like herself when we reached a foresty bit with hardly any mud. Something to do with the types of trees there?

Whatever the reason, there was a place to play here. Just that, well, I grew up in a city, the orphanage’s garden tiny, and it wasn’t like I was allowed to take the little ones anywhere but school and back. So I had no clue how to play here.

That was fine, though.

“Come on, Sisi!” I said, tugging her along.

We ran and looked at every interesting plant we could find, then I just chased her around, threatening her with tickles. Her laughter sounded like a broken speaker at times, laughing with all her breath. No need to calm her down. We could be as loud as we wanted out here, no neighbours, no grumpy teenagers, no overworked adults.

Just us.

So we ran and fell and, well, she picked herself up every time, leaving me to wonder what the right distance was. But I knew when, after picking herself up, I heard a sniffle, already crouching down in front of her and cupping her cheek, soaking up the tear into my sleeve.

“Does it sore?” I whispered; maybe thinking of that word as ache made more sense how it fit into sentences.

She took in a shaky breath, her hand squeezing mine.

“If it aches, you can tell me,” I said, moving my hand from her cheek to the back of her head, gently stroking. “Or papa. We’re here to help you, right?”

She gave me a little smile.

Scooping her up, I squeezed her tight, spinning left and right as fast as I could without losing my balance. Not as fast as Uncle Arl, but not too slow either. Then I lowered us down to the floor, settling her on my lap. Grazes weren’t anything new to me, but, out here, I expected it was just a bump, maybe a stone or twig digging in when she’d fallen over. So I checked, but it didn’t look like anything sharp had cut into her trousers.

“Should I give your knees a little rub?” I whispered.

She nodded with her hand.

I went to do it, only to come up with a better idea. “Or how about a magic spell?”

Her eyes widened, looking up at me with a wide-open mouth.

“Well?”

Both her hands nodded, as if the pain had already been forgotten.

“Okay, here I go,” I said, making a ring with both my hands.

I wasn’t the little girl with no one any more, the teenager whose only worth to the world was looking after the little ones who had no one else. I was me. I was a goddess’s daughter. I wanted to be someone who could stand proudly at Hyraj’s side.

Of course, being able to do magic wasn’t what made me proud. What made me proud was thinking of all the nice things I could do with magic when she was out or busy. Warming up wherever we lived, being able to cook if we didn’t have a proper stove, lighting the way, getting fresh water.

Lying to children.

I slowly felt the magic strands trapped by my fingers, felt them push against me as I closed the ring, tighter and tighter, and then I coaxed them into making light. Coming from my world, I knew there had to be some actual thing going on. Some crazy physics. Maybe quantum stuff, maybe something that my world (universe?) didn’t have.

But, to me, it felt like coaxing, sometimes accidentally whispering kind words to the magic to encourage it. Thankfully, I didn’t embarrass myself in front of Hyraj today.

That said, magic deserved a bit of flair, right?

“Alnaya, thank you for everything,” I said—in English. Strange words that meant nothing to either of them, yet I was sure someone else was listening and understood.

As I spoke, I brought out a gentle glow, mostly white, a tinge of orange. Not exactly perfect at it all just yet. I held it tight, making it bright—but not so bright it would hurt her eyes—then released it, the light spreading out, pooling over her legs as they faded.

Looking at her, well, her eyes were still so wide, mouth open, not a hint of pain left. Smiling, I watched her reach out to touch the fading light, how she giggled when she could sort of push it.

Proud of myself because I could make a child happy. Really, what better reason was there to learn something than that?

“Does it feel better?” I asked.

Her brow scrunched up as she looked at me, apparently having forgotten why we were doing this in the first place, but she eventually remembered. “Uh, yesh! All better,” she said, giving one leg a wiggle.

“I’m not very good, so I can only heal bumps, okay? If it’s bigger than a bump, we have to find a doctor,” I said, knowing the limits of my lie.

Her hand nodded while she wiggled her other leg.

So the day carried on, just running about the woods, Hyraj sitting with our lunch on a blanket, reading—except that it felt like our eyes met whenever I looked over. Well, to each their own.

Neffie’s lunch was delicious. Uncle Arl too busy getting everything ready, he didn’t have the time to tell her off for spending too much time cooking. So we had a bunch of sauces to dip something like vegetable spring rolls in, one sauce sweet another savoury, one sauce light another rich. Hyraj seemed to like them too. Hard to tell since she always ate at such a measured pace, but she scooped up quite a lot of sauce onto her spring rolls.

I hoped I could remember to ask Neffie for the recipe.

After eating, we relaxed, Sisi cuddled up to me while I told stories, fairy tales from my world. I had a decent grasp of what “storytelling” was like here, at least according to Sisi’s book, so I changed them up a bit, suiting her better. She listened as long as she could, my gentle voice mixing with the stream’s gurgling, distant birdsong, insects chirping, and, eventually, the sound of her sleeping breaths.

With a smile, I used my jumper as a pillow, loosely wrapping her up in the picnic blanket. She was in warm clothes, so no need for too much more.

Just me and Hyraj, we sat beside each other, ours hands entwined, watching the river in silence. Well, until she asked, “What happens next?”

I giggled, no need to cover my mouth or hide my voice. Leaning against her, I felt so warm, and I whispered the rest of the story, words blending with the sounds around us, yet never doubting that she could hear me perfectly clear.