“I’ve never felt anything so soft,” I said, stroking it gently.

“Perhaps the back of a stingray.”

“Yes, but that wouldn’t make nearly as nice of a cloak.”

Zadie’s smile was strained. “No, I suppose not.”

“What is it?” I asked. “I mean, I know what it is, but is there something in particular that’s bothering you? Something I could possibly help with?”

She sighed. “I know it’s foolish, but I keep thinking some kind of miracle will happen, that we’ll come up with a way to change all of this. It’s impossible, I know that. But I can’t help dreaming of it.”

“The only way they’d let you stay would be if you stopped being beautiful all of a sudden, and we both know that’s never going to happen.” If anything, Zadie had become even more beautiful these past few days.

Sorrow is good for the soul, Father had said after the incident, when I had recovered from the pain and sickness but had still not grown used to the feel of the torn flesh on my otherwise flawless skin. Those who have never known pain or adversity are as shallow as the waves lapping on the shore.

And what is wrong with being shallow? I’d asked him.

What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It’s only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.

I had frowned and nestled closer to him, unconvinced. I’d never seen shallow waters, but I did know one thing about them: you could walk through them to the shore. And there could be no greater mystery or surprise than land. At least not to me.

Zadie folded the cloak and returned it to the trunk. “I just can’t help feeling that the gods switched our fates somehow. That I was the one destined to stay...”

“And I was destined to go,” I finished. I released my breath through my nose. “Well, we are identical twins. Even Father used to confuse us when we were babies. Maybe I’m really Zadie, and you’re really Nor,” I said with a laugh.

Before the incident, people often confused us, calling me Zadie so frequently that even now, I still responded to her name as readily as my own. There were times when I felt so close to my sister that I truly believed I was one half of a person, and she was the other. I couldn’t live without her any more than a person could live with half a heart.

Zadie smiled, but when we lay down to sleep that night, she again presented her back to me, the way she had before. One of the greatest comforts in my life had been knowing that even if I couldn’t make sense of my mother’s actions, or predict what the future might hold, I at least knew Zadie’s mind, maybe better than my own. She was predictable, reliable, honest, and good. She was responsible and even-tempered. She never surprised you by doing the unexpected. She was as straight as the horizon and as dependable as the sunrise. We had known this day was coming for as long as I could remember, and I’d always assumed Zadie had been preparing for it, just like I had.

I woke some time in the middle of the night to find Zadie missing. My concern only lasted a moment, until it occurred to me that she was probably off kissing Sami again. I told myself I wasn’t jealous, but what if I was terrible at kissing? How did Zadie even know what she was doing?

For the past seventeen years, she had been as close to me as my own flesh. Now I was starting to wonder if I’d ever really known her at all.

She was beside me again when I woke in the morning. I looked down at her heart-shaped face, slack with sleep, and wondered if Sami would still have loved her if she’d been the one with the scar. I’d seen the way my mother’s love for me changed after the incident. Even my father, whose love I’d never questioned, didn’t treat me the same. He couldn’t look at me without a touch of sadness or regret, as if he was seeing two versions of me: the one I’d been before the incident, and the one I was now.

I didn’t mention Zadie’s absence when she woke up, and neither did she. Father had left early with some of the other men to fish, and Mother was still asleep.

“What should we do?” Zadie asked as we readied ourselves for the day.

“I suppose we should look for oysters.”

“We’ll be leaving Mother without a boat. She would have to borrow a neighbor’s. Or swim.”

I grinned. “Even better.”

We stayed out all morning, and for those fleeting hours, things felt the way they had been before the ceremony. We raced each other to the few oysters we saw, and I let Zadie beat me one time, like I often did. We even found an octopus hiding in the rocks and pried it free. At least there would be something other than stew for dinner.

When we returned to the house, Mother was home, as we’d known she would be. She was lying on her bed, fanning herself, but she sat upright when we came up through the trapdoor.

“Where have you two been?” she moaned. “I’ve been stuck here all morning with no boat.”

“We just wanted to spend some time together,” Zadie said. “We only have two days left.”

She frowned. “I know that. I thought perhaps the three of us could spend some time together for a change.” She pulled us down onto the mattress next to her, tucking each one of us under an arm. “I can’t believe in just a few short weeks, it will just be your father and me alone in this house.”

I squirmed out from under her arm. “What do you mean?”

“The wedding. Elidi and I think we should do it on the night of the solstice. It’s an auspicious time for beginning a new life together, and a family.”

Zadie and I shared a horrified glance. A family? I wasn’t even eighteen yet. I wasn’t ready to marry, and I certainly wasn’t ready to be a mother. “I don’t understand the rush,” I said. “Zadie will have just left. Can’t we wait a bit?”

“We are lucky that Sami has agreed to marry you at all, Nor. I do not think it’s wise to wait. Besides, with your sister gone, we will have one less person in the family working. Once you marry Sami, we will be provided for, you most of all. Don’t you want your family to be secure?”

So this was about money, not me. I couldn’t deny that we were struggling, but so was every other family in Varenia. At least we weren’t eight or ten mouths to feed, like some. Our parents may not have been fortunate enough to have sons, who would have provided better over the years than Zadie and I could, but Mother had certainly managed to make the most of her daughters.

“Yes, Mother,” I said. “I want my family to be secure.”

“Good. We will make the official announcement of your engagement at Zadie’s party in two nights. Then everyone in Varenia will know just how blessed our family is.”