Mio is not surprised. She puts the broom down and looks at her own scarred wrist for a while.

MioSixty-one. This is the sixty-second. I stopped counting at thirteen and started again to have a number to be angry at.

She says the village is not cursed. She says a person decided this, and the person is on the island, and the island has a house on it.

MioShe calls it a game. She keeps the board. Every year she takes one of us and puts it back like a card in a deck.

You ask why you are always the one who dies.

MioBecause you keep choosing to. I've watched you do it sixty-one times and never once understood it.