Lina sat in the corner of her shared bedroom, knees hunched up to her chest, hands atop her knees. She was still dressed for work. She hadn't even taken off her boots.

She looked up as her father entered the room.

She looked back at her hands.

"I think I killed him," she said, nothing like emotion in her voice.

"Now, nobody's saying that," said her father.

"Don't lie."

Lina's father looked at her helplessly.

"Your mother and I, we were talking—"

"Are they going to burn me?" Lina said. "That's what they do to witches in Pyre."

"Now listen here, daughter. You're not a witch."

"Then what am I? Cursed? Or maybe demon-touched, or maybe I AM a demon—"

"Don't start saying that kind of thing."

"I'm something bad, anyway," Lina said. "Maybe this is punishment for wanting to be something other than ordinary." But I never asked for that, she thought, I never even wanted it, I was HAPPY being ordinary—

"Now," her father said, and he stopped and swallowed before going on. "Now none of us know what's going on here, not really, no one's heard of anything like this before—you can believe I've asked around. So like I said, your mother and me were talking, and we reckon it might be best if you ... if you went on a little trip."

"Mm."

"Maybe head out tonight, even."

"Why not right now?"

Lina stood, but found her legs were shaking, wouldn't take her weight, she would've fallen if her father hadn't stepped forward to catch her, his strong arms around her, hugging her close to him as Lina began crying, sobbing into his chest.

"I don't wanna go!" she wailed. "Don't make me go!"

"Come on now, sweet child, don't be scared," her father said, as he awkwardly patted her on the back. "You're a big, strong, sensible girl, and the road from here to Unity's a good one, we've got a little put away that you can take with you, and we'll send one of your brothers with you for part of the way—"

"Which one?" Lina sobbed. "Little Terry? He's the only one out of the lot who isn't terrified of me now!"

"Dad."

Lina pushed away from her father as Julia came into the room.

"Go away!" she screamed, furiously wiping at her face.

"Lina—"

"GO AWAY!"

"NO I WON'T!"

The two sisters glared at each other, then Julia broke it off to send their father fleeing with a glance.

"Sit down!" Julia commanded, looking back at Lina. When Lina didn't move, Julia slapped her hard and pushed her down by her shoulders, or tried to at least. After a moment of resistance Lina let her sister win, sitting heavily on the floor, on her sleeping mat, sniffing noisily as Julia sat next to her.

"You're far too strong," Julia said. "Is that part of it too?"

"Part of what," Lina muttered. "Being a demon?"

"Or a witch, or whatever it is. I think that's it, though. You're a witch."

"Shut up," Lina growled. "Shut up and just leave me alone if you're going to—"

"I think it's amazing."

Lina raised her hand to strike Julia, but the look of affectionate pride on her sister's face stayed her hand.

"Shut up," Lina said, again.

"I'm not lying and I'm not trying to make you feel better. The truth is I'm horribly jealous. You're amazing, Lina."

"I'm not. I'm cursed."

"Oh, maybe. But if being cursed means you can take away people's pain and heal your little sister's scraped knee without a mark—yes, I talked to Terry—then I wish I was cursed, too."

Julia's tone was wistful. Lina stared at her.

"You really do," she whispered. Julia smiled at her. Lina launched herself at her sister, slamming her to the floor. "TAKE IT THEN!"

There was an enormous horrible pressure deep inside, swelling and bloating and then exploding, and Julia was screaming, screaming like Lina had never heard anyone scream before, not even when Adam had been lying with his stomach cut open had he screamed like this, and Lina was trying to grab hold of her sister, to take the pain out of her, but she didn't know how, she couldn't feel it, and then there were hands on her, a lot of hands dragging her, and she was kicking and striking out and the hands weren't on her any more, and she struck out again and there were more cries of pain and then she was running, just running, out of the house and across the road and across the fields and away, just away, she couldn't be around people, that was all she knew, because she was a witch, because she was a demon, because she was cursed to hurt or kill everyone around her.

Lina ran until she was too exhausted to run any more, and then she walked, and then she staggered, and then she collapsed, and when she woke she walked, and then she ran, and this time she kept running, she'd never really run before, not like this, but her legs were thick and strong from long days of hard chores, at first her dress was a nuisance but it had soon torn enough that she could really get her legs moving, pounding away at the ground beneath, and she ran over fields and through forests and over hills and through swamplands, leaping over boggy ditches, her work boots taking her over whatever lay ahead, there was night and there was day and she slept a little and then she ran again, and she ignored hunger, told her body that it didn't need food and somehow that was enough, she didn't know where she was going, only that it was away from her village and her family, far enough away that she'd never cause them trouble again, and it got dark and became light and got dark again as she ran, but she hardly noticed this, just as long as she had enough light to see the path ahead, and she ran and she ran and she ran until there was nowhere left to run.

Lina blinked.

She was standing on a sandy beach, looking out at the waves of the ocean. It was dark—night, actually, the stars above shining bright, the moon almost full, the waves large and angry.

The ocean, she thought. I'm looking at the ocean. I never thought I'd see it. How beautiful.

Lina blinked again and shook her head and turned away from the ocean and picked a direction and started moving before she could remember or regret, so once more there was nothing but running and running and running, when she was running she didn't have to think about anything, didn't have to be anything, I'm just an ordinary girl, she told herself, as she ran over hills and through fields and then along a road, passing shadows that might once have been human, I'm just an ordinary girl who's running, and what could be more ordinary than running? One foot in front of the other, over and over and over, there couldn't be anything more ordinary than that.

Eventually Lina was forced once more to stop. This time it wasn't running out of land that did it. It was a wall.

Lina looked around, at the wall stretching out to the left and right and high above her, and for a moment she had the wild, crazy thought of simply running right up and over it, but no, she told herself, that would not be ordinary. If this is a wall then this is a city. It would be ordinary to go in through the gate. That is what I will do.

As Lina ran beside the wall she felt a twinge from her legs, but she told them that it wasn't ordinary to twinge and so they stopped, and she felt a twinge from her stomach and she told it that ... well, that being hungry was quite ordinary but that right now wasn't a good time, and her stomach seemed to accept that, and then from all over her body Lina felt a sudden unbearable pressure, and an intense, aching weariness erupted inside her, she could feel it like a spiky little growth within her body, inside her veins and her bones, spreading everywhere like some awful uncontrollable disease, and she wasn't running any more; she was walking; she was staggering; she was falling; she was dying.