Chapter 13 His Body

• I was drowsy all day Saturday. We had gotten back reasonably early all things considered, but I was so accustomed to waking up before the crack of dawn in Dark Moon that I couldn't rid myself of the habit here. I suspected it would stay with me all my life. Some things just couldn't be fixed, the same way some scars remained engraved in flesh for life. I had my share of both.
• What must Elly and Maria be thinking now, I wondered as I looked out my window. I didn't miss them at all, but there was no doubt in my mind they missed my presence. For all the insults they had hurled at me all my life, they had been so dependent on my service that they couldn't get by on their own for even a single day.
• And yet I couldn't even be glad for it. I wished we'd never encountered each other, but if I couldn't have that, I wished I could magically forget everything I had ever unwillingly learned in Dark Moon. The punctuality and industriousness that marked my character had been beaten and punished into me mercilessly. Daring to wake up after dawn meant sobbing for hours as they grabbed a reed bundle to whip my calves and feet with, and jeering that if I weren't so lazy, I wouldn't have been beaten at all. My fault. My fault. My fault, they had said.