Porcupine Ridge your darkness is shining

Anathema realized only belatedly that it would be her to speak for them. Distantly she remembered that their mother had always done that. Her mother who had left her, and then who she had left, and she supposed this was the fate of girls who wandered the world without their mothers. Speak for yourself; speak for your sister; make it look good, Ana, or the woman will see what a broken little thing you are.

Sometimes, She said after a moment, setting her pack reluctantly at her feet, because she'd never been much good at dressing anything up. The woman would want names. Anathema glanced to her sister, wishing for perhaps the first and only time that her darkling sibling had the words to speak her own mind. Was she called Ava or Accipitra in her dreams, in her innermost thoughts? Would she hate Anathema for whatever she chose?

Anathema thought again of their mother, the life they'd left behind.

My sister is Accipitra, The words fell from her of their own accord. Her lips burned. I'm Anathema.

I can hunt, They were going to stay, weren't they? Wasn't that what Ava — Accipitra wanted? She would try. She would try. And if - if you let us stay - Hurriedly she unraveled the pelt, letting the bones and split halves of the stone fall free. I'll tell you what they say. They tell secrets.

Her gaze settled again on Muskrat, who seemed almost familiar to her now. Hadn't they met once before? Or had that only been a dream, or a telling of the bones? Maybe it didn't matter.