She has one memory before the parade. Hands of a warm giant hold her. He presses her to the roots of his neck. They pump like a foamy river. She slides into the river and floats into his heart. The giant roars and flings her into the sun. She spreads her arms like a gull, and flies high above his head, up to the glimmering ball. All the while his strong hand holds her belly.

"Magda," he says. "It is time to hide in the pillows with Rosa." He plucks the sun from the sky and puts it into his pocket.

In darkness the parade begins. The giant is gone. Mothers and daughters are told to march like horses. Eyes all around her fade into hollows. Whispers are silenced but grow into howls. And mouths hang, hang open like hungry jaws. She stays hidden beneath the Rosa's shawl, except for her own two hollows. Folded into her mother's chest, she listens to the sounds of the parade and the stories of the past that seep from the shawl.

"Mama," Rosa says quickly. "Mama!" She shakes her gently. Her body is like a carcass dried by the sun. Strings pull her thirsty palms into the air. Rosa pushes them back down. "No Mama," she says. She steps away and locks the wooden shutters. "I am locking them out Mama!" she cries. "They can't come in if the windows are shut." As soon as she returns, her mother's palms are in the air again.

"They're already here little Rosa," she murmurs. "Can't you see them child?"

"One is pearly...one is sapphire..." She laughs in quiet echoes, as if she were already within a coffin.

"They say your first daughter will have a heart of sapphire instead of gold. You must watch her closely." She sinks like a raft between waves.

"They say I will be of opal. And that I will shine, shine like fields of wheat at the moment of dawn."

She opens her eyes like an owl.

"Sweet Rosa," she says. "Take the shawl from my wasted dying body and wrap it around your own."

There is a sudden flash of teeth. The Her sister's claws make holes of her skin as they rip away the shawl. She tumbles to the ground and bounces like a small rubber moon. It is cold, cold now. She thinks of the giant who put the sun into his pocket. There are giants up ahead, huddled to a tree. She hops toward them, lopsided like a clown. The pitter and patter is all that she hears. All that she hopes is to find the warm man who hides the sun.

The hand of a man finally swoops down. He takes her by the hair and swings her along. All of the world moves, and three great lions roar. He flings her into the black air. She spreads her arms like a gull. She flies high above his head, up into the hissing metal fence.

*Magda is based on the character Magda from Cynthia Ozick's short story, The Shawl. This account occurs simultaneous to Ozick's story through the eyes of Magda.