Sachi lifted her chin. ‘I’m painting exits. We aren’t allowed onstage.’

Julian’s expression changed for the first time. ‘Sachi, return to your station.’

‘Why?’ Harper asked. ‘Because she told me the truth?’

Julian waited until the child walked away, then spoke very softly. ‘You chose to end your involvement. Brightline inherited a difficult situation and salvaged what could be salvaged. Please don’t come here and make children feel another adult has abandoned them.’

It was a cruel remark because it was partly deserved. Harper looked past him. On the screen, the city appeared to nod as the lights shifted. It was beautiful in the impersonal way expensive things could be beautiful.

‘Where’s the bird?’ she asked.

Julian hesitated. ‘What bird?’

‘The one the story is about.’

‘Our version has a different ending.’

Harper knew then that Odessa had not destroyed her pool merely to protest discarded scenery. The older woman had wanted her to see what happened when a story about learning to listen became a show in which the original storytellers had no voice at all.

CHAPTER THREE: A TABLE FULL OF CHILDREN

At four-thirty Harper left the icehouse and went straight to Odessa’s porch. The older woman was sitting beside a table covered in uneven stacks of paper plates, lengths of ribbon, and three cardboard birds. Nell occupied the front steps, drawing purple feet onto a creature that looked like a teapot with wings.

‘You came,’ Odessa said without pleasure.

Harper stopped below the steps. ‘I saw the show.’

‘And?’

‘They’re using the sets.’

‘Yes.’

‘They have a legal right to use the materials I left behind.’

Odessa’s gaze sharpened. ‘Did I ask about rights?’

‘No. But I need to know what I can actually do.’

Nell pushed herself up. She was twelve and usually fearless, but now she held her brush like a shield. ‘You could start by telling us why you left.’

Harper sat on the bottom step rather than approaching. ‘I was overwhelmed. Some grown-ups fought about the show. I didn’t know how to make them stop. I was afraid the project would turn into a place where children got hurt because adults wanted to win.’

‘You could have asked us,’ Nell said.

‘I should have.’

‘We already solved the fight.’

‘How?’

‘We changed the ending. Everybody in the city was trying to be the mayor, so we decided nobody gets to be mayor. Everybody has to take turns listening.’

Harper stared at her. ‘When did you decide that?’

‘The morning after you closed the hall. We met at the basketball court.’