Why that? Why here? Why now?

Sannah couldn't understand any of it, even why it was significant, but it hurled her way off kilter. Maybe she wouldn't have even recognised it, would have heard it without a second thought, if she hadn't been forced to recollect it all so recently, dredged it up in her conversation with Faro.

Sometimes she sang us this hymn, to get to sleep. I could never understand it, but it had the word God in it, for sure.

And there it was, for the first time in years. Never before and never since, the exact same song her mum sang to Sannah, cuddled up and warm as a baby, no evil in the world, no worries. But this time, it was coming through a dirty bolted door in a battered criminal chang-den.

It was her. She's in that room. Sannah knew her mum couldn't be here, that it made no sense, but she had to fight believing it with every fibre of her being nevertheless. It was her it was her it was her she's here. My mother is here.

And it felt so wrong but yet so right that her mother would catch her here, such a vile place, see her infant daughter's downfall. Just as Sannah had seen hers, and not forgiven. It was so wrong, and yet so wretchedly, wretchedly right that Sannah could do nothing but cry. This is what I deserve. Fate. Cruel fate. The cruelty I deserve. The cruelty I meted.

Nothing made sense, yet it all meant so much. Sannah was confused and terrified and angry and lost and she just wanted to not be, wipe out everything about her existence. She put her hand to her head, her face contorted into a howl, but no noise came out.

She was falling apart, her skin breaking away from her bones, her muscles unknotting into mush. Nothing was left but fear of what was right in front of her, some beast that she couldn't identify.

The door opened, but she couldn't react. She was just laying on the floor, all the world in pieces around her. She didn't look up, but the feet beside her belonged to Saint.

"Sannah!" His voice was alarmed. "He scooped her up, moved her gently on to the bed. "What's happened? What's wrong with you?"

She shook her head, her mouth still bent open in a painful grimace. "I can't... I can't say. I don't know. I just... I just want to die."

"Is it your sister? Did Brock say something?"

"No." She stared at the wall, eyes glassy. "I don't know... I don't want to talk about it." Tears began to drop, pooling in the dip at the side of her eye, snaking across her nose, beading on the lashes of her other eye, into her hair, onto the bed. She moaned, and it sounded like an animal.

"Ssh, it's okay." He lay down beside her, held her tighter than she's ever been held, unable to see, barely able to breathe. "It's okay. You're okay."

She didn't know how long they lay like that, him holding her, on that dank musty sheet in that filthy single bed, in that dark, wretched drug-den. Long enough for the sun to rise. Long enough for her mind to coalesce into something usable, if not at peace. Long enough to feel human again, even if that human was the worst, most unhappy person on the planet.

Sannah lifted her hand to her face, rubbing her eyes, forehead and cheeks, and sat up. Her headache was blinding and she desperately needed water, but couldn't bear going in that corridor.

"You okay?" Saint released her from his vice-like grip, sat up, stared at her. He looked spooked, pale and drawn.

Sannah closed her eyes, opened them again. "I'm just really thirsty."

"There's a glass on the windowsill," Saint said. "I'll fill it for you." He stood up, retrieved an empty pint glass from behind the curtain. The glass was white-rimmed and cloudy, had a dead fly and beige scum in the bottom. He pulled a face at it as he walked toward the door.

He'd done his best to clean it when he brought it back, and it was full almost to the brim with water. Sannah nodded thanks and sipped it, rubbing her face again. For some reason she kept seeing another face, one Faro pulled one time. Some uncle. For some reason she kept seeing Bayim. For some reason it made her angry at Saint, like this was his fault.

"So you got the stuff?" She sat on the side of the bed, head drooped, staring into the glass.

"Yeah." He sat down beside her, hands on his thighs, eyes on the wall.

"You off then?" Her voice was hostile. She couldn't help it.

He turned to look at her. "I don't have to. I can stay. Do you want me to stay?"

She didn't turn to look at him. She kept her eyes on the glass, his shape in her peripheral vision. "No. It's fine. You should just go."

Silence, so long, and for some reason it ripped her heart out, but her heart was a dagging fool and this is what it deserved. That force was there again, pulling her towards him, making her want to collapse into his arms, hold him, kiss his eyes, but she fought it and she fought it hard and she won.

I won, you hear me, I won. I won this space in between us. I won my pride. I won my broken heart, and I have no mercy for my slaughtered enemies. I slash and I burn.

"Sannah–"

It was the door. A scratchy knock, interrupting whatever he was about to say, what he now never said.

"Come in," Sannah's voice was calm and clear.

The door arced with a creak and Tooley stuck his head in. "We just came to see if youse is off, then?" He sidled in, Reeta following, like they were bound with elastic.

"I am." Saint was cold and authoritative again. He stood up, his hands doing their usual rounds of his pockets as he looked at the door. "She's staying up Caledia for a while. Got some business to do."

"Like you was talking to Brock about?" Reeta leaned in eagerly, her hands roly-polying over one another like a toy Sannah had seen once, a furry weasel on a mechanised ball. "With the forest? You can stay ere if you like. It's only five digits a night for dis room."

"I'll stay till tonight," Sannah said, not looking up at them. "Thanks. Then I'm gone."

Reeta leaned in gleefully, palm outstretched to take the money. They all four stood in silence, looking at one another, no-one moving.

"Sannah?" Saint said eventually, shooting a look of barely-disguised disgust at Reeta and Tooley, "come with me to the car?"

"It's okay." She didn't look at him. Burn down the battlefield. "I'll stay here. You get off. I'll just see you later, or whatever."

A leaden lightning charge of emotion—anger, frustration, anguish, despair—flashed tangibly between them without Sannah even having to raise her eyes. But none of it was on show.

Saint just said, "Fine." Shrugged his shoulders, and left. That was the end.

***

"It's just because you're not used to it," Brock crouched over Sannah as she clutched the side of the boat, throwing up bile and acid from her empty stomach once more. "Try lying down. Getting flat usually helps."

Sannah nodded weakly, wiping vomit from her face with shaking hands, and leaned back into the boat, dropped onto her back on the cold wooden deck. It did feel better, marginally. She wasn't going to be sick anymore, at least. She'd never been on a boat before, didn't know it was like this. The sickening sea, the nausea, the relentless movement.

All she could think about was her mum coming to Albia on that migrant boat, all those years ago. Was that like this? Was this how it felt? Horrific. The song, behind the door, haunted her ears once again. She closed her eyes, prayed for it to leave her head.

"Look, we're here now," Brock said encouragingly, moving quickly between the steering wheel and the side of the boat, stepping over Sannah's legs. "It'll feel better now. Look!"

Large cliffs were looming over them to the right of the boat, blacker in the blackness. The waves seemed to have doubled in frequency with the splash-back from the rocks, the boat's movements faster and more pronounced. Sannah did her best to quell a groan.

Brock stepped over her again, picked up a rope and threw it. He waved, Sannah didn't know to whom. The boat pulled sideways, the force of movement different than it had been before.

"Just wait here a sec, ok?" Brock stepped nimbly onto the rim of the boat, then was gone. There was no splash, and Sannah pulled herself up to see they were alongside a high, flat rock, the side of the boat bobbing and scraping against it.

She could see Brock at the far end of the rock, by the cliffs. He seemed to be embracing someone, or something, amorphous and pale, looking like a ghost in the darkness. It was an eerie sight. Sannah shuddered and thought of Saint, feeling the tears prick behind her eyelids again. She swallowed her foolish mourning.

It was the best thing to do.

Brock came back, took two large steps, from the stone to the side of the rocking boat, to the deck. He was smiling.

"How you feeling?"

"Okay now. Thanks."

"You'll get used to it." He sat beside her on the wooden slatted bench that ran around the perimeter of the vessel. It reminded Sannah of the bench in the Metropol changing rooms. "First time I came out, I was sick as a hound, licit."

"You've done this a lot? On a boat?" Sannah asked. It seemed weird, someone their age knowing how to work a boat.

"My grandad showed me. Forced me, to be fair. Hated it when I was little—the sickness and that. It's an important part of our heritage, though, so it meant a lot to him. And I'm glad of it now. This was his boat." He tapped the bench affectionately.

"Heritage?" Sannah asked, rubbing the wood of the bench lats gently with her palms.

"I'm Native," he explained. "Not Native enough," he then added under his breath, for some reason. He looked at her, frowning, his brow furrowed. She'd caught him looking at her a few times like that on their trip, and she didn't know why. It made her feel uncomfortable.

"Look!" He broke the tension, jumping up, springing to the side of the boat. "They're here!"

The pale ghostly figure was there again, moving carefully over the black rocks. No, there were two this time, slowly coming into focus amid the shadows. They were wearing long, flowing dresses, looking unreal, like something from a fantasy movie about elves or princesses.

Sannah stood up, bit her lip, her hands gripping the hem of her coat hard, her knees bending gently as the boat rocked underneath her. There was no mistaking it now, now they were close, despite the crank clothes, despite the off-kilter setting.

Her hair was tied up, but back to normal again, just like it was in Sannah's mind, just like it was when she imagined it, just like it was when she saw her sister in her dreams. The blue had gone. It was her beautiful, beautiful curls.

It was real. She'd done it. It was Judit.