“We came from water, and to the water we will go.”

That winter was so cold that blinking felt like sliding eyelids over frozen marbles.

Her parents worried about her: she didn’t play with other children and she ate nothing but snow. When she went outside, they couldn’t distinguish her from the rest of the winter landscape – she became one with it.

“Something is coming,” the villagers would say, looking at each other through the holes in their cups.

“You work and work, obsessed with your houses, and never think about my needs,” her soul shouted at her.

Mauro was different from everybody. The elders said his soul was cracked like an old clay vessel, so it could hold no peace.

No one explained to him where his dad had gone. Adults just hugged him. Neighbors looked down. Mom cried and cooked dishes that he never ate because he was too busy hiding.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“I think I am eternity,” the fish said.

In the desert, where even the dunes complained about the heat, a man was walking alone.

Sari was thirteen. She had turned thirteen a lifetime ago.

“If you can’t fit in with the crowd, fit in with the trees,” the Eldest sister said.

Now they carried sacks with their books through the jungle, guided by the dragonflies. They pretended their tears were sweat.

Once upon a time, there was a brother and a sister who could never meet.

Wherever the Gray Coats appeared, people would disappear.

One of the geologists brought his son along. He couldn’t leave the boy at home. No relative wanted to watch him because the child sleepwalked.

Last summer, even other children grew used to Lilith suddenly freezing in the middle of a game and ordering someone invisible to leave.

Thaleia was a witch with a lopsided crystal ball, and a heavy heart. Nothing could change the ball – the dragon who was making it sneezed during the condensing process, solidifying the current shape. Yet something had to be done about her heart.

Ino saved a mouse from his mother’s mousetrap. He had to crouch all night in the shed where the trap had been set. His palms sweated against the surface of the jar. When the mouse appeared he darted after it.

During the day the cliffs were dry like chalk but at night people could hear a waterfall.

People said no other tribe possessed the force to harm them. And it was true. The only force that could harm them lay deep within each member of that tribe.