But privately she thought of it this way: for years, dawn had been the enemy.

Dawn was when she woke drugged and hollow, robbed of a night she could not account for, ashamed and frightened and certain something was wrong with her.

Dawn had been the hour of her helplessness.

Now it would be the name of the room where sisters were cared for in the open, in the light, by someone chosen and trusted, with the door propped wide.

She was taking the very hour that had been used to mark her weakness and turning it into the sign of the house’s healing — the same way she had asked for the plaque to be forged from the locks that had imprisoned them, the same way she had insisted the truth be kept in writing so no one could ever smooth it away.