Haniyah Malak Bahar is scared. She knows she’s not supposed to be – Azat and Sabah and Talib and Aishah and Maryam and Safiya and Alexios hadn’t been scared – but of course they hadn’t known when they went in. They’d all known, of course, in the abstract, that most kids didn’t come back, but they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes. Sabah and Azat had been whisked away, smiling, then all the rest year after year until last year, right after Alexios left, Sabah – just Sabah – had come back with the enchanted knife Mother had given her clutched in her one remaining good hand. Mother had swept her up in her arms and kissed her hair and cried tears of joy and then rushed Sabah off to see if her hand could be saved. Haniyah and the littles had cried tears of grief for Azat and of confusion at Mother’s behavior. (Haniyah understood, now, and so did Nadira and Ekene. Mother could love them, but only once they had survived school. In her eyes her first child had just been born – a singleton, not a twin. Her only child, so far.) But she couldn’t cry now, because now she wasn’t just sad, she was scared. And if she showed it, maybe the littles would catch on and then they would be scared instead of brave like all the others. 

The day of, she wakes up early, even though she’s supposed to be sleeping late, compared to the sun, and groggily takes the breakfast that has been left on her bedside table - one laxitive, and two ounces of water to swallow it with, all that she’s been permitted to drink since the morning before. She prays for courage and strength, but God does not see fit to grant them yet, and she has to rush at the end so she can run off to the bathroom.

Mother and Sabah and Nadira pack for her, as Haniyah is really in no condition to help. As the morning comes to a close, she’s called over for a final weighing and Sabah moves some small jars from the ‘maybe’ pile to the ‘yes’ ones with a satisfied smile. They do a last inventory together so Haniyah knows what she has, even though they’ve been through it all many times before. Pigments and needles for Maryam, who Sabah reported had found an affinity for tattoos of all things. Wafers and bandages and assorted stimulants in thin glass vials – half for herself, half to be split among her older siblings, and she could expect some medical supplies from Nadira and Ekene in turn – No need for antitoxins this year because Safiya managed to brew up a large batch that should last the family years as long as they exercised normal caution about the food et cetera. A tiny roll of microfilm - most of the collected mail of the MENA enclaves, sent in the hopes that the Damascus kids’ reader hadn’t broken or gone feral in the last year. Two rats, one male and one female, to stop the family collection from getting too inbred. Nothing just for her but Sabah’s knife and the languages in her head. Sabah had reported that Aishah had been eaten by a mimic, and Miriam was supposedly holding her clothes and crystals and shield belt and prayer mat for Haniyah.

In the small hidden seaside cave, Haniyah watches the enclave kids being fussed over by parents with the confidence or stupidity to love them in their early years. Mostly the latter. God doesn’t protect enclave children more than any others, their graduation rates aren’t that good. Mother does not fuss; she probably only came in to be there for Talib if he returns. The enclavers glance at her family with a mix of scorn and confusion, and Haniyah does her best to project contempt back at them. She doesn’t need (and isn’t supposed to want) a spot in the Istanbul enclave, and showing contempt is a good way to hide fear. 

Talib is actually the first one back, before the Istanbul enclavers in his year. Haniyah can see the moment of panic in some of the Enclave parents eyes at seeing some indie kid making it out before their darlings, but it doesn’t last very long for most of them. Another couple of graduates arrive and the panic drains out of most of the enclavers and directly into a single man. Minutes pass and he’s still tugging at his beard and his clothes and pacing like he’s still not sure of what they all know. The Istanbul survivors are embracing their younger siblings for the first time in and for four years, speaking in low voices to the older adults, catching them up on the survival rate of their other children. Mother and Sabah are weeping over Talib. The middle children are screaming with delight, the youngest are confused about who exactly this brother they never knew is. Nadira and Ekene are looking at Haniyah. She tries to smile to reassure them but it doesn’t look like it worked. The younger Istanbul kids start vanishing one by one; the one anxious father’s face finally crumples in despair; Haniyah keeps the smile plastered to her face even though her siblings can see right through it because if she relaxes her face she knows she’s going to start crying, she’s scared and she doesn’t want to go. A prayer dances across her mind, God if you love me, let it fail, do not take me from – and there is a jolt in her midsection and then everything is spinning and then it’s all black.