‘I don’t want to,’ Mare said. ‘Lizzie doesn’t want to vote, either, do you, Lizzie?’

Lizzie looked up. ‘What?’

‘It’s time to vote,’ Dee said gently.

‘All right,’ Lizzie said, her focus drifting again.

‘Lizzie!’ Mare shrieked, betrayed.

Lizzie jerked back, startled, and Mare saw her fright and said, ‘Lizzie, it’s okay, it’s okay,’ but it was too late. Lizzie was waving her hands, fingers trembling, as she warded off Mare’s anger, purple tendrils of apology wafting over the table.

‘Oh, hell’ Mare said as lavender smoke rose around them.

Lizzie let the purple cloud engulf her. It was so quiet in there. Two more bunnies had popped up, depleting the knife count on the table and drawing Py closer. She blinked rapidly as the cloud grew thicker; it felt as if coppery dust had gotten into her eyes. For a moment she’d drifted away from her contentious sisters and their tiny living room in Salem’s Fork, and she was floating, distant, in a castle in Spain, lying on her back, and someone was leaning over her, and it was…

‘Lizzie, honey, take a breath,’ Dee said, as the smoke cleared.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lizzie said to Mare, pulling herself together. ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘It’s okay.’ Mare floated a muffin over to her, dispersing more smoke with blue sparks. ‘Dee’s trying to get us to vote and I don’t want to because I don’t want to move again.’

Lizzie picked the muffin out of the air and sighed the rest of the purple away. Violet smoke, drifting around a castle in Spain, moody and romantic. Stop it. ‘I’m not sure I want to, either.’

‘We’re voting,’ Dee said sharply.

She startled the bunny and made it quiver, and Lizzie picked it up and petted it, trying not to quiver herself. They were fighting again. She hated the days when they voted. Three more bunnies had popped up on the table during the argument, and Lizzie wondered whether she could take them and sneak back into her room while Mare and Dee glared at each other.