Musa will never, ever forget this feeling. There is a card hanging from a string around her neck that reaches all the way down to her new sneakers. Her dad stops tuning his saxophone to read to her from the little plastic card. The words 'Nebulonics Music Festival' get stuck somewhere in her mouth and come out all jumbled.
Her mom is the prettiest person in the world, twirling in bright silks that look like the colour of dreams. Or happiness. Or love!
"When I'm big and tall," she announces, "I'm going to live in a purple house, and drive a purple car, and eat purple food—"
"And have a purple husband, too?" her mom asks, gathering Musa up in her arms.
"And a purple husband, too!" she squeals. "With purple eyes and purple hair!"
Musa's mom spins her, round and round and round.
Riven doesn't remember much from the night his mom leaves. The voices coming from the kitchen are big and sharp like the toy sword he got for his birthday. He turns up the old radio, as he has learned to do. When he gets close enough to the mirror his breath fogs up the icy glass.
This is what he remembers: looking at the face that looks back, knowing it is not his. No, he's not Riven, but pieces of his mom and dad: the same face as his dad, his same hair, with his mom's eyes.
The colours in the mirror look like the sour taste of raspberry jam, like the flowers in the front yard when they wither in the cold, like his least favourite crayon in the whole box.
Purple.