The month we are goats, we sleep huddled together. We thrash bushes with our heads. Curl our upper lips, sniffing each other. We nibble on our mothers’ floral skirts and fingers until they giggle-shriek, “Daughters, stop!” We butt heads to determine who is herd queen: dreamy Beatrice or pragmatic Geraldine. The mothers ask the fathers for wood to build us ramps and platforms for playtime. We jump and bounce, run and climb. At night we stand on top of the fence, staring at the guard towers.

The month we are flowers, we give each other new names. Geraldine is Gardenia; Hazel, Hyacinth. Then there’s Magnolia, Peony, Lavender, and Azalea. And of course, Belladonna (Beatrice, our herd queen.) Our mothers ask the fathers for trowels, shovels, and spades to work the soil which is rich with compost. The mothers gift the fathers sweet-scented bouquets: scarlet blooms, lacy whites, violet larkspur. The month we are flowers the fathers visit. How lovely, they say, watching us dance and sway in the garden, light as hydrogen. The mothers play harps and lutes. We sing gentle, do not speak.

The month we are badgers, our mothers dig with us. Our two-inch claws are quicker, more precise than their trowels, shovels, and spades. We close our eyes, digging through topsoil, clay, sand, and gravel— scent and sound our map. We’re three feet down, four feet, six feet when our mothers say it is time for horizontal digging, for installing wood beams for support. We yawn, wanting only to finish laying out grass and leaves for our bedding. No time for sleep, our mothers hiss. Some of us sleep anyway, curled into each other. Some of us follow Mellivora, (née Beatrice, Belladonna). The only one turned honey badger, fiercest of all badgers, taking down jackals, cobras, buffalo.

Mellivora digs ferociously, kicking dirt out with her hind feet faster than the mothers can empty the buckets, faster than the mothers can speak their fears and what ifs. (They do not know that badgers keep secrets better than anyone.) Hours, days, weeks. Mellivora will not stop. We will not stop until the tunnel is ready.

And then. We crawl out into the night, its cold black air, search lights behind us. No longer badgers, flowers, goats. Just daughters and mothers, clutching each other’s hands. Let the night nuzzle us. Let it breathe suns into each of our souls.