Haralda’s world made it hard for Kari to be Kari.

First, the teacher showed her a tiled cupboard with a toilet and a glass box that had some kind of faucet connected to a handle. Carefully ordered jars of a viscous fluorescent liquid sat next to the drain. Towels were folded and stacked on a counter.

"Take as long as you need to get clean, my dear," said Haralda, smiling as she shut the door.

A PUZZLE, whispered the Djinn. SHE IS TESTING US.

But that was just a reflex. Kari whispering to herself. She laid the knife on the toilet and wriggled out of her sack. The next twenty minutes were agony — no matter what she tried, pulling this way and that on the handle, the water came out ice cold, and with no soap to scrub herself down with, the only way she could get the dirt off was friction. When she stepped out, shuddering into the towel, her skin had turned red and raw, and she was still caked in grime, her hair matted.

Kari missed her bucket and her bar of soap. She reached for the knife as she stepped out of the bathroom, towel knotted around her, ready for things to get ugly.

Haralda sat on the counter top of her kitchenette, scratching notes onto the clipboard shield. The noise made her look up.

Her face fell. "What have you been doing in there? Look at you, you’re still filthy! Didn’t you use any shampoo?"

Kari scurried away and backed under a table, flicking the Djinn back and forth. She’d done something wrong. She was in trouble. She had to protect herself.

But Haralda walked past her into the bathroom and said, "It’s freezing in here! The shower’s not even on!"

More admonishments. Kari knew what would come after. She grabbed the table’s legs and lifted it up to check the weight. It was far too light, but if Haralda approached, she could burst out, go for the jugular…

Suddenly, they were both standing back on the bed next to the elevator. Kari shrieked, vulnerable in the open. Haralda was holding the remote, and managed to lift her shield just in time to parry the knife sent her way.

"I’m sorry," said Haralda.

Kari grabbed the centre of the shield and tried to twist it away, but the woman twice her size held it firm, and then her ears kicked in and she realised what Haralda had said.

"What?" said Kari. It was hard to get used to hearing a little girl’s voice come out, rather than a demonic well of power.

Haralda lowered the shield. "You must be livid that I didn’t explain how the shower works, so allow me to apologise. It’s supposed to come out warm. I have some lovely scented soaps as well, mostly citrus fruits, that you’d be very welcome to use."

"Shower?" asked Kari, puzzled. She checked the window, and it wasn’t raining. There were strange metal wagons rolling along the street, but no slaves were pushing them.

"Well, yes," said Haralda, leading her back to the torture chamber. The teacher pulled a string that hung from the ceiling, and it clicked, and then she turned the handle on the faucet to make hot water flow out. The glass box began to steam up. Kari held a hand under the stream, finding it to be pleasantly warm.

The next wonder: Haralda picked up the jar containing a thick green liquid, popped the cap off with a fingernail, and held it up to Kari’s nose to smell. She pictured herself lying under a lime tree in the orchards.

"Perfume," said Kari. She’d never been allowed to wear perfume, and half of her was repulsed. The lady of the manor had smelled like that when she was administering lashings with the whip. It stank of power.

"Not quite perfume," said Haralda, and she actually smiled encouragingly as she explained. "It’s soap. You squeeze the bottle — like this — and rub it around your hands, and then you can lather it over your body to get out the dirt. This one here is shampoo, and you put it in your hair after you’ve rinsed it. Just make sure to rinse it off afterwards."

Kari smelled the shampoo, and grinned at the milky aroma. She tried to read the bottle, and it took her quite a while, but eventually she said, "Coconut."

"Any questions?" asked Haralda. Kari got the vague sense that, in the same way she’d draped herself with the Djinn, Haralda was wearing some kind of teacherly persona to make herself more approachable.

"If I use these products, will they make me a noble?" Kari asked.

"Am I a noble?" said Haralda, and Kari caught the scent of the lime on her.

She was safe, then. If Haralda could use it and not become a noble, then there was no risk to her, either.

Once alone, she dropped the towel and leapt into the warm water, letting it run over her like royalty. Then she squeezed a great big dollop of the soap into her hands and giggled at all the bubbles springing out. Unlike before, it was easy to get clean, the right sort of clean — not an impure curse that bleached the history of scars off her skin — but even though she was done, she didn’t want to get out. She watched in amazement as her fingers wrinkled up. Eventually, the hot water ran out, and she leapt to turn it off before it got icy cold.

She wiped the condensation off the mirror and stared at her now clean face. The only trace of Djinn left on it lay behind her eyes, but she was okay with that. It would be there for when she needed it.

Haralda brought her a school uniform and brushed her hair gently after Kari changed into it — if she couldn’t pull herself away from the mirror before, now she was glued to it. There she was, in a white polo and trousers, looking like a normal girl save for, well, the scars and the knife hanging out of her pocket.

She pointed at herself and said, "That’s me?"

She ran fingers through her hair, and it felt so weirdly smooth, and it smelled heavenly.

"A pretty young lady, ready for her first day of school," declared Haralda, then looked at the clock and pressed rewind on the remote again.

"What is school?" asked Kari, blushing. “Is it like work?” After that shower, she didn’t want to go and dust old cabinets. In fact, she didn’t want to step near any kind of dirt ever again.

"It’s a place where you learn about the world with other children," said Haralda. "There’s nothing more important to do as a child than learn about the world."

Needless to say, Kari was awestruck. Was this even a world she could fit into?

They had breakfast, but Kari couldn’t stomach the rich milky-honey-oat mix that Haralda heated up in a strange humming appliance, and chose instead to subsist on a couple of plain slices of seeded bread. Seeds — what a treat!

After they’d finished, Haralda rewinded again,to "save on washing up", and they walked down a set of metal stairs to the street level, where those wagons were flying past.

Kari craned her neck to look up at the buildings. There were so many windows, and Haralda had told her that behind each one lived a different person. She was probably lying.

The teacher walked up to a blue wagon and twisted a key into it, making it click. She put her clipboard shield in a compartment at the back, then swung open one of the doors for Kari to get in.

Heart thumping in her chest, Kari sat inside, slipping around on the leather seat as the woman drew some sort of harness across her shoulder and clicked it into place.

"This is my car," said Haralda, slotting the key into a special hole below the wheel. 

The car shuddered into life, making Kari jump.

"Djinn," said Kari, gripping the door. "Animated by an evil spirit."

"Not quite." Haralda turned the wheel and pressed down on her foot.

Kari leaned back in her seat, pressing herself against the headrest, unbelieving as the world behind the glass slid around and reoriented itself. The car roared like an untamed beast, and Kari watched Haralda’s hands fearfully, scared that she’d lose her grip on it and the car would stampede off through the streets. She began to feel queasy.

To keep her occupied, Haralda tried to explain the basics of a combustion engine, but it was too technical, and Kari instead began to notice a growing number of children on the side of the road. Soon, they stopped outside a compound of buildings, and Kari was awestruck by how many young people streamed in, laughing and talking among themselves, all carrying a satchel or rucksack.

"This is Barden City School," said Haralda. "And I’ve got to find out how I killed someone here. We’ll fit you into a class and hopefully you’ll be able to make a lot of new friends. Doesn’t that sound nice, young lady?"

There were so many of them, smiling like that, and some of them were jostling each other around, just like Eduard and Gerson and Joe did…

She saw fists being raised, anger on faces, heard shouting, even some girls screaming…

NO, yelled Kari, as the Djinn. She tore Haralda’s hand away from the door and pressed the knife to her throat.

I’M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL.

Voting will close at 9:00 UTC on the 25th April