I snip a bit more around Rafiq’s right ear to match his left.

I snip off too much, so now have to snip around his left.

“I wish all this never had to change,” says Rafiq, unexpectedly.

I’m pleased he’s content and sad that a kid so young knows that nothing lasts. “Change is sort of hardwired into the world.”

The boy asks, “What does ‘hardwired’ mean?”

“A computer phrase from the old days. I just mean … what’s real changes. If life didn’t change, it wouldn’t be life, it’d be a photograph.” I snip the hairs up his neck. “Even photos change, mind. They fade.”

We say nothing for a bit. I accidentally spike the bit between the tendons on Rafiq’s neck and he goes, “Ouch,” and I say, “Sorry,” and he says, “No bother,” like an Irishman. Crunchie, a semiwild tomcat I named after a long-ago chocolate bar, strolls across the kitchen windowsill. Zimbra notices, but can’t be bothered to make a fuss. Rafiq asks, “Holly, d’you think Cork University’ll be open again by the time I’m eighteen?”

I love him too much to puncture his dreams. “Possibly. Why?”

“ ’Cause I want to be an engineer when I grow up.”

“Good. Civilization needs more engineers.”

“Mr. Murnane said we need to fix stuff, build stuff, move stuff, like oil states do, but do it all without oil.”

And start forty years ago, I think. “He’s right.” I pull up a chair in front of Rafiq. “Lower your head, I’ll do your fringe.”

I lift up his fringe with a comb and snip off the hair that shows through its teeth, leaving a centimeter. I’m getting better at this. Then I see Rafiq’s got this strange intense look on his face; it makes me stop. I turn the radio down to a mumble. “What is it, Raf love?”

He looks like he’s trying to catch a far-off sound. Then he looks at the window. Crunchie’s gone. “I remember someone cutting my hair. A woman. I can’t see her face, but she’s talking Arabic.”

I lean back and lower the scissors. “One of your sisters, perhaps? Someone must’ve cut your hair before you were five.”

“Was my hair short when I got here?”

“I don’t remember it being long. You were half starved, half drowned, then you nearly died of hypothermia. The state of your hair didn’t register. But this woman, Raf—can you see her face?” Rafiq scrunches up his face. “It’s like, if I don’t look, I see her, but if I look at her, her face melts away. When I dream, I sometimes see her, but when I wake up, the faces’ve gone again, leaving just the name, like. One was Assia, I thinkshe’s my aunt … or maybe a sister. Maybe it’s her with the scissors. Hamza and Ismail, they were my brothers, on the boat.” I’ve heard this a few times, but I don’t interrupt Rafiq when he’s in the mood to study the surviving fragments of his life before Ireland. “Hamza was funny, and Ismail wasn’t. There were so many men on the boat—we were all jammed up with each other. There were no women, and only one other boy, but he was a Berber and I didn’t understand his Arabic very well. Most of the passengers were seasick, but I was okay. We all went to the toilet over the side. Ismail said we were going to Norway. I said, ‘What’s Norway?’ and Ismail said it’s a safe place where we could earn money, where they didn’t have Ebola and nobody tried to shoot you … That sounded good, but the days and nights on the boat were bad.” Rafiq’s frown deepens. “Then we saw lights across the water, down a long bay, it was night, and there was a big fight. Hamza was saying to the captain in Arabic, ‘It can’t be Norway,’ and the captain was saying, ‘Why would I lie to you?’ and Hamza had a sort of compass in his hand, saying, ‘Look, we’re not north enough,’ and the captain threw it over the side of the boat and Hamza told the others, ‘He’s lying to us to save fuel. Those lights aren’t Norway, it’s somewhere else!’ Then all the shouting began, and then the guns were going off, and …” Rafiq’s eyes and voice are hollow. “That’s where I am for most of my nightmares. We’re all jammed in too tight …”

I remember how the Horologists could redact bad memories, and wish I could grant Rafiq the same mercy. Or not, I dunno.

“… and most times it’s like it was, with Hamza throwing a ring into the water, telling me, ‘We’ll swim together,’ and he throws me into the water first, but then he never follows. And that’s all I have.” Rafiq dabs his eyes on the back of his hand. “I’ve forgotten everything else. My own family. Their faces.”

“Owain and Yvette Richie of Lifford, up in County Donegal,” says the radio guy, “announce the birth of their daughter Keziah—a dainty but perfect six pounds … Welcome aboard, Keziah.”

“You were five or six, Raf. When you washed up on the rocks below you were in shock, you had hypothermia, you’d seen slaughter at close quarters, you’d drifted for heaven only knows how long in the cold Atlantic, you were alone. You’re not a forgetter, you’re a survivor. I think it’s a miracle you remember anything at all.”

Rafiq takes a clipping of his own hair, fallen onto his thigh, and rubs it moodily between his finger and thumb. I think back to that spring night. It was calm and warm for April, which probably saved Rafiq’s life. Aoife and Цrvar had only died the autumn before, and Lorelei was a mess. So was I, but I had to pretend not to be, for Lorelei’s sake. I was speaking with my friend Gwyn on my tab in my chair when this face appeared at the door, staring in like a drowned ghost. I didn’t have Zimbra yet, so no dog scared him off. Once I’d recovered, I opened the door and got him inside. Where he puked up a liter of seawater. The boy was soaked and shivering and didn’t understand English, or seemed not to. We still had fuel for our boiler at that time, just about, but I understood enough about hypothermia to know a hot bath can trigger arrhythmia and possibly a cardiac arrest, so I got him out of his wet clothes and sat him by the fire wrapped in blankets. He was still shivering, which was another hopeful sign.

Lorelei had woken up by this point, and was making a cup of warm ginger drink for the boy from the sea. I threaded Dr. Kumar but she was busy at Bantry helping with an outbreak of Ratflu, so we were on our own for a couple more days. Our young visitor was feverish, malnourished, and suffered from terrible dreams, but after about a week we, with Mo’s and Branna O’Daly’s help, had nursed him back to relative health. We’d worked out his name was Rafiq by that stage, but where had he come from? Maps didn’t work so Mo Netsourced “Hello” in all the dialects a dark-skinned Asylumite might speak: Moroccan Arabic rang the bell. With Mo’s help, Lorelei studied the language from Net tutorials and became Rafiq’s first English teacher, pulling herself out of mourning for the first time. When an unsmiling Stability officer arrived with Martin, our mayor, to inspect the illegal immigrant about a month later, Rafiq was capable of stringing together basic English sentences.

“The law says he has to be deported,” stated the Stability officer.

Feeling sick, I asked where he’d be deported to, and how.

“Not your problem, Miss Sykes,” stated the Stability officer.

So I asked if Rafiq’d be driven outside the Cordon and dumped like an unwanted dog, ’cause that’s the impression I was getting.

“Not your problem, Miss Sykes,” said the Stability officer.

I asked how Rafiq could legally stay on Sheep’s Head.

“Formal adoption by an Irish citizen,” stated the Stability officer.

Thanking my younger self for acquiring Irish citizenship, I heard myself say that I hereby wished to adopt Rafiq.

“It’s another ration box for your village to fill,” stated the Stability officer. “You’ll need permission from your local mayor.”

Martin read my face and said, “Aye, she has it.”

“ Andyou’d need authorization from a Stability officer of levelfive status or above. Like me, for example.” He ran his tongue along between his front teeth and his closed lips. We all looked at Rafiq, who somehow sensed that his future—his life—was hanging in the balance. All I could think of to say to the Stability officer was “Please.”