Constance didn't know what to expect.

It was a sort of very-important-person situation, whistling along in the back of an ambulance, cars pulling over to the side of the road to let them pass. She had never gotten somewhere so quickly before without her mother's cursing out of other drivers and swerving. There was a possibility her mother may never curse again. Constance didn't know what would happen next. She didn't know how they would treat her-she looked like a child, in her ruffled and stained pink skirt. Maybe they would treat her like fine china. But hadn't she crossed the threshold of porcelain? She saw it, in the newspapers, where there was a certain point that they tried you as an adult and didn't hide your name and stopped pretending like you were a little kid and put you in an adult prison. Where was the line, had she crossed it? Was she beyond porcelain and onto stone?

An hour or two later. The policeman had bought her a sticky blueberry muffin and some hot chocolate from the cafeteria. He stood with his hand on the side of her bed. It was the first time she'd been in a hospital, and it was scarier than she ever thought simply going to the hospital could be. They had gone through the emergency room, where ambulances go, and she had seen a nurse with her fingers around a man's neck and red, red blood squirting out from underneath her hand. Lots of shouting. Code words. Were there code words for you're going to prison? The policeman had been with her in the ambulance. The policeman had followed them into a room in the emergency center where they examined her, and poked her leg. A crispy smell filled the room, and the acrid stench of burnt hair. They told him to leave. He raised a hand to his lips and talked to one of the nurses in a low voice. They didn't ask him to leave again.

"Don't push it," said the night nurse, who was a portly woman with an accusing gaze. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes and that's all the time you've got for today."

Her arm was stinging a little from the needle in it. Constance rolled her head back and forth on the soft pillow. The policeman didn't say anything at first.

"Your father is on his way, Constance."

Her left leg was twice the size of the right one, with all of the gauze and bandages on it. The night nurse poked her head back in. "Call for you."

She closed her eyes for a minute and then he was back. "The maid on shift at your home said that your father is in the middle of something and can't make it for a few hours. She's offering to come instead. Would you like that?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel up to answering some questions for me?"

"Is my mother fine?"

Constance really asked because she knew she should. She was thinking about honey-soaked cornbread, and the color of the sun on Earth, blossoming orange and red like a sunset over the horizon.

"She's in the intensive care unit right now. I will keep you updated, all right?"

She closed her eyes and did not open them again.

Pressure, on her chest. Constance opened her eyes. There were fewer nurses in the hallway, and a head of hair rose to reveal shining eyes.

"Oh, Constance," Lauretta said softly. She reached below Constance's chin. "I promise, when you're out of here, I'll take you for a really nice haircut and ice cream."

Some of the burnt hair flaked off onto Lauretta's fingers.

"Haircut?"

"Your hair was burnt in the accident." Lauretta told her quietly. "And your leg."

Accident. Constance pondered the word.

"Don't worry about anything. You'll look so cute with shorter hair, and your leg will heal up fine, I'm sure. A plastic surgeon is coming to visit you today to look at your leg. Realistically, you might have some scars. But it's okay. It's fine. Don't worry. It could have been so much worse."

"My mother?"

"Catherine is still in the ICU."

"What happened?"

"To her? Oh, I'm not sure if I should be the one telling you this."

Constance thumped her hand a few times on the bed insistently.

"She...she was burnt, very badly, much worse than you. A lot of smoke and things got down her throat and lungs, so she can't talk very well right now. The bottom part of her face and her chest and arms are...not so good. I went to see her when you were sleeping, after I got here. Your father is with her. Don't worry. Constance, please, tell me what happened. The police are wanting to ask me questions, and I don't know what to tell them. You can talk to me."

The truth, she thought, was hotter than any fire.

"No."

Lauretta controlled her face.

"You'll have to talk to the police. Someone. If you talk to me, I can help you with what to say."

"You won't like me anymore."

"Constance. There are things that could make me not like you. But I love you. You're my friend. Love doesn't go away so easily. It sticks around after things like this. I wish I could talk to the police for you, but you must. Let me help you."

"Okay," Constance said, and swallowed.

It was dark, and she had been running through grass and fallen branches, tripping once or twice. Her breath was coming out of her chest like someone crushing an accordion.

"Constance!" her mother shrieked like a banshee from the road.

Her skirt was stained and ripped and she was clutching a plastic bottle of gasoline. Its smell was filling her nose, acrid and horrible and it was probably letting her mother follow her. But she didn't let go because every time her mother got a little too close Constance squirted it at her feet and her mother backed off. Gasoline on her mother's nice shoes would not come off.

She'd been given the gasoline by the old, toothless woman, who told her it was for the bonfire tonight. It was certainly night. She had awoken from her sleep like she'd been slapped, the sound of her mother's breath whistling between clenched teeth like icewater on her head.

There was the bonfire, in an alleyway sharply to her left. It was sun on Earth, blossoming yellow and orange and red, hot on her face as she got closer.

"CONSTANCE!"

Past the fire, the dark alley wall looming up in front of her out of the night barely ten feet from the old oil drum. No one was there. It was still early, the fire gathering strength. She whipped her head back and forth. Surrounded. Her mother's heels, coming up behind her. They stopped before the fire.

"You little bitch. Get back here, I can't believe you. I'm going to lock you in the attic for the rest of the summer-"

A horrible, sweltering rage was making her ears feel like they were stuffed with cotton. Her hands were working on their own and they squeezed the bottle. On autopilot, into the fire, the stream arcing over and at her mother's face, the fire leaping up to lick it and the whole thing a giant tongue of flame into her mouth. A terrible, bloodcurdling, raw screaming, and that sound was worse than anything she'd ever heard. Constance panicked. She bolted towards her mother and her shoe caught on a rock. Falling, falling, her shoulder slamming into the barrel. The whole thing tipping over, fire on the ground, fire catching on gasoline, and Constance could only think to jerk her head up and away from the fire. She was on her side, one leg on the ground, and before she blacked out she stared at the smoke coming from her mother's mouth.