It takes Saira six hours by train to get to her village. Her father is still at the bar so she creeps into the house and falls asleep. Her hair does not spread out on the pillow. It is too short for that, a fact her father hates. Saira can’t remember the last time her father loved anything. She sleeps, eyelids trembling as if beneath them, flit a terror they do not want to witness.

That green skin will be your ruin, her ma said before her death. By that time, she was gibbering with pain and barely lucid. A voice from far away, as if part of the dream. Wake up—but she is still in the dream, walking in the forest now with someone breathing harsh and quick. She runs, thrashing through the twigs and branches, her face becoming bruised and scratched, and still the breathing continues. There is no sound of footsteps. As if the person is floating on forest floor.

Saira opens her eyes to her father’s face. “Wake up, you’ll be late,” he says, laying clothes out: a delicate white maxi dress, a hat. She will swap these out later. She moves her fingers in sunlight, flexing in an ancient rhythm to make a few quick plants, set them in jars of water on the window sill. Nothing good happens to show-offy little girls. Keep your head down, keep your voice low. The world will eat you alive if you attract its attention. Ma’s voice again. She gets dressed, eats eggs in relative silence. Only the crackle of the newspaper as her father turns pages. Only the lone magpie outside. Only the cricket on the curtain rubbing its legs.

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Later, Saira climbs a sequoia tree in the nearby forest. Relaxing on a high branch, she calls out and a loon answers. An eagle soars close. The village stretches around them, its deep green forests laid out like blocks. In between them, log cabins. The wooden walls remind her of dead trees. She grasps a bunch of rough, pointed leaves and chews idly. Monstrous, her father calls it; this ability to eat raw leaves from any plant. Why can’t you be more civilized? Like your mother.

Eyes up to the sun, she stretches with the pleasure of her defiance. Her shorts are orange today, the shade of sequoia bark.