The dirt is part of me. The hot water in the corner washbasin runs over my hands, turning them red, making me think of Ky. My hands look a little like his now.

Of course, almost everything makes me think of Ky.

With a piece of soap the color of this month, of November, I scrub my fingers one last time. In some ways I like the dirt. It works into every crease of my skin, makes a map on the back of my hands. Once, when I felt very tired, I looked down at the cartography of my skin and imagined it could tell me how to get to Ky.

Ky is gone.

All of this — faraway province, work camp, dirty hands, tired body, aching mind — is because Ky is gone and because I want to find him. And it is strange that absence can feel like presence. A missing so complete that if it were to go away, I would turn around, stunned, to see that the room is empty after all, when before it at least had something, if not him.

I turn away from the sink and glance about our cabin. The small windows along the top of the room are dark with evening. It’s the last night before a transfer; this next work assignment will be my final one. After this, I’ve been informed, I will go on to Central, the biggest City of the Society, for my final work position in one of the sorting centers there. A real work position, not this digging in the dirt, this hard labor. My three months’ work detail has taken me to several camps, but so far all of them have been in Tana Province. I had hoped to find my way to the Outer Provinces somehow, but I am no closer to Ky than I was when I began.