I am learning the girl I once was. Her face, her hands, her voice appear in old photographs, in journals with ink bleeding like bruises. She startles me. Her mania hangs in the air like smoke; her suffering is sharp, unyielding. I read her pages and shiver at the clarity of her terror and courage.

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”