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When she’s growing up, people call Aisha a lot of things.
Pretty, smart, so much taller than the last time they saw her. They tell her that she looks so much like her mother when she was her age, but that she has the same laugh her father had when he was getting into mischief. They tell her that she is radiant, a gift from Allah himself, warm and kind and good for taking such wonderful care of her mother, who smiles down at her and tells her she is the best daughter she could have asked for.
Never do they call her brave, because brave is something Aisha never has to be .
Until suddenly, she does.
The specialist speaks only english, so Aisha’s mother does not understand him when he speaks. Aisha listens with solemn eyes and a heavy heart, so small at only seven years old, but she has to be so much bigger than she is. He tells her she is sick, tells her she is dying, and Aisha blinks, swallows his words, and then spits them back out to her mother in their native tongue, and watches as her mother cries, grips at her tightly, because the world has been cruel to take from her a husband and two children, and Aisha is all that remains, Aisha is all she has left.
Her sickness is called Wilms , and the word falls awkwardly off of Aisha’s tongue, still clumsy in her mouth. Her english needs practice, because someone in her family needs to know, needs to learn so that they can be better prepared for the future, and Aisha had decided, as soon as she was able, that it would be her.
Now, she doesn’t know if she has the time.
Her mother cries and clutches her tightly, praying for a miracle, and Aisha traces a shaky hand over paper, writing down words for her mother to remember her by. If she can’t be the one to learn, her mother must, and Aisha sets forth to teach her.
Aisha doesn’t cry, because she can’t, and her mother calls her brave .
Aisha doesn’t feel brave.
She feels small and sick and she hurts , clutching at her stomach and shivering, retching into whatever her mother has passed her way. She hurts and she hurts and she doesn’t want to hurt any longer.
There are nice people who find them, looking quite lost in Aisha’s home, voices heavy and accented and english , and Aisha watches them with wide, curious eyes. They kneel down so that they’re at her eye level, simplifying their words for her when she doesn’t quite need it―she’s very proficient in english, now, thank you very much―and echo the words of her mother, call her brave .
Brave little girl.
In her dreams, Aisha is weightless. She flies high above the clouds, soaring and free from pain, free from the aches, free from the weights and pressure of the world. Up there, she can hear her father’s mischievous laughter, if she listens hard enough, the soft, gurgling giggles of her baby brother, or the fond, gasping puffs of air her sister breathed out when she tried her hardest not to laugh.
In her dreams, Aisha does not have to be brave.
In her dreams, Aisha can fly, can laugh, can just be . She is seven years old and so, so small, but the weight of it all makes her feel so much bigger sometimes. Heavy. Older than her seven years.
In her dreams, Aisha can let herself live .
They take her, her and her mother, out of their home, to an island they tell Aisha is magical. She’s seven, much too old to believe in stories of magic fountains, but there is a desperate part of her that dares to hope that maybe she won’t have to be brave anymore. Because being brave is tiring, and she’s little, and nobody seems to remember that she’s little, because she’s supposed to be brave, now.
Aisha doesn’t want to be brave.
Her mother grips her hand tightly the entire way there, but Aisha sleeps through it, too busy dreaming, thinking about flying away, so far away, somewhere no sickness could ever catch her, and she could be free to laugh.
There’s a girl around her age at the island named Charlotte who is also sick, something wrong with her lungs, and she’s getting treatment, too. They’re fast friends, and Aisha watches her with wide eyes.
Charlotte is brave .
Not in the way that Aisha is, not because she has to be, but just because she is . When they go looking at the pig pens and find Daisy missing, Charlotte wastes no time in marching straight towards the forest―which is strictly forbidden to the children without an adult accompanying them―to look for her, because that’s what Charlotte does. She acts, bravely, without thinking about it.
Aisha follows her after a moment’s hesitation, because she can be brave, too. Not in the same way as Charlotte, not instinctually. Aisha feels the fear rising in her chest as sourly as bile, but she swallows it down, because being brave is easier when there is someone to be brave with , and Charlotte makes the decision simple.
They don’t find Daisy, but Aisha finds a little piece of herself, and somehow that makes up for it.
They eat together every day, and Aisha notes with care how Charlotte avoids the vitamins that everyone else on the island takes, how she regards them with a mild suspicion. Charlotte talks with her hands when she speaks, wide, sweeping motions that Aisha knows she must have picked up from her sister, Cosima, who Aisha has met a few times.
Aisha wonders what it’s like to have known a sister long enough to be like them, and Charlotte has many. She tells her stories of all of them, and sometimes Aisha can’t keep track of the names. It’s a very big family, and she wonders where their parents put them all.
Probably in a very big house, like the one the Founder lives in.
Charlotte tells her, in low, hushed tones, that another one of her sisters is in the Big House, too, a woman named Rachel who used to paint with her. Aisha thinks of her mother and their english lessons, together, how she shows her mother to trace the letters into words, string the words into sentences. Aisha wonders, if her sister was still alive, if her sister would teach her things. If her brother was alive, if she would teach him .
There are so many things that Aisha wants to learn.
There’s a man who whistles old show tunes while he feeds the pigs, and a kind woman who speaks to her softly in spanish when she and Charlotte bustle by, and a boy who knows how to juggle , grinning toothily as he throws rocks into the air for the other children to gawk at. She does not have the luxury of older sisters to teach her these things, but Charlotte promises her that she can borrow hers whenever she wants.
“I haven’t even met all of them,” Charlotte tells her matter-of-factly, “they’re all older, and some of them have moved away to different places. But they love kids. Especially Sarah and Helena and Alison.”
Aisha does not know Sarah or Helena or Alison but she immediately loves the idea of them, and Charlotte tells her stories she’s borrowed from Aisha, and she soaks them up like a sponge, eagerly, desperate to know. Charlotte is so, so brave , and Aisha wonders if it is because she has so many people to be brave for her, if she needs it.
There are days when Charlotte notices that Aisha is sad, and she pauses in her stories.
Aisha tells her about her sister, and about her brother, and Charlotte is quiet for a long moment. She’s only eight, and Aisha is only seven. Sometimes even they forget that they are small, weighed down by the sickness, the looming shadow of death, of loss.
Charlotte tells her about a sister named Beth, a sister named Mika, a sister named Katja, a sister named Jennifer.
“Did they die because they were sick?” Aisha asks, because she’s seen Cosima cough, wracking and painful, just like Charlotte. Charlotte blinks at her, sad and slow, and shakes her head.
“Some of them.”
Aisha wonders if they’ve found peace, wherever they are. Charlotte’s sisters, her father, her sister, her baby brother. She wonders if they have reached paradise, or if they are just waiting for judgement.
The boy who juggles, Aden, dies, his laughter with him, and Aisha does not cry. His mother wails, and Charlotte grips at her hand tightly, because he is not someone they can run into the woods to find, and Aisha lets Charlotte tether her. Pain twists in her stomach and she looks stubbornly ahead.
Her mother calls her brave.
Aisha never feels brave, not once, throughout all the tests, all the needles, all the poking. She feels small, and scared, and sick, though sometimes the sickness subsides, for a while, and she and Charlotte can pretend together.
At night she teaches her mother english and her mother sings her lullabies in a language that is still their own, and then Aisha can fly, far away from her troubles. Sometimes, in the sky, she can hear Charlotte’s laughter, too, loud and ringing and clear, and the sound of it makes Aisha smile.
Charlotte tells her more stories, and Aisha always listens, head resting in her palms, eyes wide. Charlotte only has one good leg and her sister Rachel only has one real eye― that one made Aisha startle―and Helena’s heart is on the wrong side of her chest. They’re a patchwork of a family, and Charlotte tells her that, when she’s better, when they leave, she can be, too.
Aisha smiles at her and nods, because Charlotte is brave , but Charlotte is also hopeful in a way that Aisha isn’t, because Charlotte has this, has her sisters, has something to hold onto, and Aisha has had everything snatched away.
At night, she teaches her mother english because soon she will have lost her translator, and her mother smooths her hair away from her face, and calls her brave. Aisha smiles up at her mother and tries her best not to break, because she loves her so much, and she knows that she will break her.
“Charlotte,” Aisha says, on a day where her stomach twists in on itself and she can tell that it will be a bad one, and Charlotte perks up at her voice, “when you leave the island, will you find my mother an english tutor?” She is a fast learner, but has no sense of urgency, and it takes Aisha longer and longer to land every night.
Charlotte blinks at her, but nods.
“Of course,” she confirms, “for both of you.” Aisha scowls, and Charlotte laughs, because her english is perfectly acceptable, and it’s nice.
Peaceful, almost.
When she dies, Aisha doesn’t feel brave.
She feels small, and she hurts, hurts so much that she can’t make a sound, but she can hear her mother singing in the background, the lullabies she so loved. Once, her father had been there to sing them, too, her sister humming along. Once, Aisha had sung them to her baby brother, watching his tiny face relax from where he rested in his bassinet, drifting into sleep.
Aisha is small, and sick, and hurting, and not once has she felt brave, even when people say she is, as though they think if they say it enough it might be true.
She closes her eyes to the sound of her mother singing and the sourness of her own fear, and when the opens them again it feels like she’s floating.
There is a girl waiting for her who looks a lot like Charlotte, like Cosima. Her hair is long and twisted and her smile kind, and she bends down to Aisha’s level and takes her hand in her own.
“Hello,” she greets, “I’m Jennifer.”
Jennifer does not tell Aisha that she’s been brave, she just smiles at her, warm and welcoming and very much like Charlotte, so much so that Aisha feels a pang of sadness for the friend she’s left behind. Charlotte is brave, though, Charlotte will make it. Aisha has a feeling.
“There are so many people waiting for you,” she tells her, and they start walking together. Aisha’s bare feet dig comfortably into the warmth of the sand, and when she looks around Aisha sees water, so much water, reaching as far as her eyes can see.
“I’ve always wanted to see the ocean,” she says, voice small. It’d been a childish hope of hers, but that’s what she is, a child. Jennifer smiles at her like she knows things she doesn’t.
“You’re in luck then. Want to go in?”
“I don’t know how to swim,” Aisha tells her, but Jennifer just holds her hand and smiles, reassuring.
“I can teach you.”