The Forsaken

in that cycle for eternity, as punishment for offending the gods. I told my dad I thought it was a pretty discouraging myth, and that I felt sad for Sisyphus.
    “Ah, but the key is to imagine Sisyphus happy, ” he earnestly explained to my six-year-old self. “If Sisyphus is happy, then the story isn’t sad. Maybe he finds a lot of meaning in rolling that boulder up the mountain, even if he seems doomed to us. If Sisyphus ever lost his boulder—or succeeded in getting it over the top—he’d probably lose his entire purpose in life!”
    I keep that story close to my heart as I trail Gadya past all the kids rebuilding their shacks. To imagine Sisyphus happy. Is that really possible?
    Some of the kids start noticing me, and they stop what they’re doing. All of them are grubby and tousle-haired, smeared with dirt like they’ve been playing in the woods. But I know that none of them have been playing. Their eyes burn with concentration and fear.
    “Where’d you find this one?” a redheaded boy calls out to Gadya.
    “Yeah, what’s her name?” yells a frowning girl, sounding worried. “Is she safe?”
    “My name’s Alenna,” I say, before Gadya can speak for me. I want to stand up for myself. If I have only two more years to live, then I don’t want to spend them living in the shadows.
    “She passed Veidman’s test,” Gadya tells them. I notice shirtless boys lurking nearby with wooden spears. Many of them have dark tans, but their skin tones vary. It looks like a mix of kids and ethnicities from all over the UNA. Again, I seek out the blue-eyed boy, but he’s not among them. Maybe he’s from a different village, and was just passing through this area.
    A lot of the kids hang back. Others shoot me hostile, challenging glares. An Asian boy with long black hair finally breaks away from the pack and strolls over.
    “Hey, new fish,” he says. He’s wiry with a gleam in his eyes. Cocky, but at least he looks lively and intelligent, which is different from a lot of the kids back in New Providence. The boy sticks out his hand, and I shake it firmly.
    “My name’s Assassin Elite,” he says with a straight face.
    I take my hand back quickly. “That’s a pretty messed-up name.”
    Gadya rolls her eyes. “A lot of kids make up new names here. Island names. Especially the boys.”
    “Yeah, we’re not all born with awesome names like Ga-dee-ya,” he drawls sarcastically. “And we don’t all dye our hair blue with berries.”
    “Shut up, or I’ll tell her your real name—so she can make fun of you like everyone else does,” Gadya snaps. Other kids laugh in the background as the boy glowers. To me, Gadya adds, “He’s showing off. Probably means he likes you.”
    A few other kids step out and introduce themselves, including a heavyset blonde. “I’m Edie,” she says with a distinctive Canadian lilt. “How long have you been on the wheel, eh?”
    “Long enough to know that it sucks.”
    “A day? A week?” She sounds suspicious.
    “More like hours,” I reply.
    I want to ask these kids some questions, but Gadya keeps moving, like she’s enjoying her role as tour guide. She swans past the group with me in tow, saying, “See you at chow time, guys.”
    We walk down a narrow trail nearly overrun by brambles. I notice we’re moving farther from the central clearing and the shacks.
    Along the way, we meet a few other boys and girls. All of them wear the same guarded look in their eyes. I can tell they’re curious about me, but they’re not about to open up to a complete stranger. I wonder how frequently they get a new arrival here. It can’t be too often, or they wouldn’t be interested in me.
    Gadya gestures to some horizontal slats of wood, just off the trail, with circular holes cut into them. “Our toilets. We use dried leaves for paper.”
    “And I thought the orphanage was bad,” I mutter.
    Gadya laughs. “A lot of kids here are orphans.”
    So much for Claudette’s theory . “Are you an orphan?”
    She shakes her head. “I wish. Both my parents are really conservative pro–UNA types. Or at least they were before I got sent here. Who knows if that changed their minds.”
    As Gadya and I keep walking, she points out other sections of the village—an area of flattened tree branches where food is being prepared, an enclave of woven hammocks where people rest between trees, and a shallow tributary from which the villagers draw their drinking water.
    It’s only near the end