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“You should come outside,” says Vanna, unaware of my thoughts. “You’re always hiding in here.”

“I have chores to do, unlike you. You requested cakes, remember?”

“Can I have a taste?” She tries to dip her finger into the batter, but I give her hand a light smack with my spoon.

“Not so fast. I still have to add pandan and coconut milk and—”

“White sesame,” we say at the same time.

Mama’s mystery ingredient. It took me years to figure out what it was, and it’s a secret only Vanna and I share.

“Will the cakes be finished soon?” Vanna asks. “Mother’s waiting to braid my hair, and you know how she doesn’t like me eating too many sweets.”

My smile vanishes, and I set down the mixing bowl with a thud. “You’re old enough to eat whatever you want. And Lintang’s not our mother. She’s our stepmother.”

“She’s the only mother I know.” Vanna’s arms fall with a tinkle, gold and silver bangles pinging on her wrists. “I wish you didn’t hate her so much.”

“I don’t hate Lintang. She just…isn’t our mother.” I raise the bowl of batter. “This is our mother.”

Vanna arches both eyebrows. “The cakes?”

“The smell.” I inhale deeply. “Mama’s hands smelled like coconut.”

Vanna leans forward, greedy for any morsel of information about our mother, and I wish I had more to share with her than a few cakes. I wish I had more than a Demon Witch and her curse. But alas.

“Vanna,” I begin, “do you remember the story I used to tell you when we were little?”

My sister knows exactly where this is going. She lets out a sigh and crumples onto a stool. “About Angma and the snake that cursed your face?”

“Angma cursed my face,” I say, correcting her. “Listen to me: your birthday is three days away. Angma promised to come and—”

“She isn’t going to kill me,” Vanna interrupts. “You were two years old.”

“Closer to three.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible you imagined all this? I know you believe you can talk to snakes, and you think your face is some horrible curse, but—”

“But what?” I say, deathly quiet.

I can hear the words she was about to say: but maybe you were born this way.

I wasn’t born this way.

My sister realizes she’s gone too far. She bites down on her lip, then says, “I want you to be happy.”

My jaw tightens. I turn my back to her, sprinkling too much pandan juice into the batter. “I am happy.”

“You can’t be happy while you nurture this obsession with Angma. I thought you’d forgotten about it in all the preparation for the selection ceremony, but then I saw you go out this morning. You were in the jungle hunting tigers again, weren’t you?”

I reach for the paring knife that’s behind the coconuts. How did she make this conversation be about me? I’m supposed to be warning her about Angma.

“Look outside, Channi. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. Don’t you think, with my birthday so near, there would be some sign of the Demon Witch? A swarm of termites or bats? A storm, at least. When was the last time anyone saw her? She’s only a legend—even Adah says so.”

I hide a grimace. Adah will say anything to set his conscience at ease.

But it’s true. Angma hasn’t appeared in years. Maybe she isn’t a threat anymore and I’ve become obsessed with hunting a ghost. Maybe. But I’m not willing to take the chance.

With my back to Vanna, I slip the knife into my pocket.