"You can't?" Effy replies, finding herself surprised somehow, ignoring the offer to switch— not yet, she thinks, not while she still has strength in her arms and the will to push him higher, higher, to force him to release his burdens in a way that she isn't sure that she can herself— in favor of focusing on the differences that separate the two of them. Some of the brightest memories that Effy has, after all, are from that age, earlier even than when she finally began learning the meaning of words, earlier than she knew how to walk on her own, seeing all of the faces around her and feeling every single time their reached out to her, picking her up, raising her above the glances of all of her peers.

She remembers being a child better than she remembers being an adult, even if the latter's been the case for far longer than it's had a right to.

"How far back do you remember, then? You didn't pop out of your father's brow or something like that, yeah?"

A ridiculous question, she thinks, but on an island like this, not necessarily an impossible one.