———
The mansion is big. It needs to be kept spotless. Well it doesn't need to be. They want it to be. The Towerpeople, that is. But that's simply how it is. There's no point in thinking of how it could be because that's not something that's real.

Work is manic. Panicked. Frenzied. As it always is. It hurts. I find myself wondering when the day is going to end after the day has just barely begun. I always do. After every eternity though there are the infinitely precious moments I get with my family.

I stalk around, like a ghost. I am generally not allowed to work in the same place as the kids, or even the other adults. The Towerpeople say that the work will be more efficient if we spread out. But still, I can see my kids every once in a while and I make sure that I make those moments count.

Right now I am sweeping the floor. I have to go at a dizzyingly fast pace, as I always do, making sure that I don't knock anything over or anything. The job has to be thorough. Perfectly thorough. It's maddeningly repetitive yet requires every single drop of attention I have. The only reason I am even able to do it is that I am terrified. Of what they will do to my family if I don't.

I enter into a large room that has red and white walls and porcelain all over.

"Hi Aunt Nan!" Oh it's Mafalia. And she's cleaning the vases. It's work that's too delicate for her, she's so small. But it's work that she has to make herself do nonetheless. Her eyes are glazed over with a horrible sort of concentration and her mouth is dead tight in fear.

"Mafalia! Baby! How are you?" My exhaustion does a good job at keeping my voice low but I pay close attention to the volume control nonetheless.

"I miss you. I wanna hug. And play."

"I wish I could play with you. Would just a hug be okay?"

"Okay." There is something slightly defeated in her little voice.

I kneel down to take her into my arms. I can feel her tiny body tremble as she hugs me tight. She buries her head into my neck and I feel the soft wetness of teardrops.

"Oh baby. Are you crying?" I turn us around so that we are forehead to forehead. With one thumb I gently dry her tears. At this she cries harder and clutches me tighter. I'm so scared for her.

"Baby I wish you could cry. I really do. But you can't let them see you cry. At night, yeah? At night when we're all together."

"Can we throw the pinecone?" Her voice has a bit of hope in it. She loves throwing around the pinecone. She is four. Just four. She should be throwing around the pinecone all day, not polishing vases and stuff. But alas. If we try to escape we'll die. And as much as death might be a better fate than this, maybe, I do not have the courage.

"Yes, we can."

"Yes, we can throw the pinecone?" There are the smallest hints of brightness in her voice. But that's just like her. Able to find the smallest bits of brightness in even the most desperate of situations. Though that doesn't make the desperation less sharp.

"Can we cuddle?" Mafalia asks.

"Yeah."

"Yeah!" Her voice is a bit louder than it should be and there's some mirth in it.

"Do you want help with your work?"

"Yeah."

"Okay baby. I can only help you for a few minutes though. Aunt Nan has to do her own work." I hug her close and kiss her forehead and she gives me a small, broken smile. She's far too young to be so broken.

———

I have been grinding herbs into fine powder for a while now. The Towerpeople always need so many spices in their food. And they give us plain food to eat, with barely enough nutrients if even that. But the masters do make the slaves grow and pick and transport and dry and powder and cook and serve all the ostentatiously fanciful food that they don't even need.

I hear soft, quick padded footsteps coming through the door. It can't be one of the masters, their steps are never this hurried and when they are they're loud.

I see Levi walking quickly through the doors. His face is a careful mask of blankness but under that you can see the sheer terror and the deadened misery. The Towerpeople have probably sent him to get something for them. And they don't ever ask nicely. They say it in the most cruel way possible. Of course he's miserable. Of course he's scared. I wish I could say something to him but time is of the essence. If he takes even a moment too long they will yell at him. Or simply rebuke him in their hard, cruel, grinding, smug voice which is literally worse than getting yelled at.

I watch as the little, young boy with big eyes, lanky limbs, and a head too large for his small body solemnly and seriously pulls a pitcher with lemonade, digs around the cellar until he finds the ice and puts a few large chunks in. He gets some spices from the pantry, having to stand on a box and then on his tippy toes to reach. And then he mixes it all together and his thin, lanky arms lifts the heavy pitcher and he carefully hurries out.

I desperately wish I could say something to him but I know that the masters are waiting for him to return and time is of the essence. I can't delay him. I do however send a prayer his way. I do not pray to the Fates. I don't know who I pray to.

A few minutes later Levi stalks into the room, his whole face clouded over by thunderstorms. I set my work aside and catch him as he collapses into my arms. I hold him close to my chest and stroke his soft hair as he silently sobs, his overly-large eyes overflowing with tears. He's so small. So small. I kiss his temple and sing to him.

"Aunt Nan?"

"What?"

"I hate them."

"As you should."

"I don't want to go to them."

"I wish you didn't have to, baby."

"They act like I'm always /bad./" And it's at these words that he starts crying harder.

"You're not bad Levi. You're really really really good. They're wrong. They're wrong and they're stupid and they're mean."

I'm not able to hold him for too long. He has work to do and so do I. I do however hold him. And that's something.

————-

Andronicha and I are washing windows together. It's great that we're together. I know that the simple aspect of being beside someone, being beside someone who loves you, can be so incredibly soothing in and of itself. I'm glad that I'm beside her. I also make sure to somehow work even harder than the inhumanly, inhumanely hard I normally work so that Andronicha doesn't have to work as hard. She's a baby. A little eight-year-old baby. I need to and will make life just a little better for her if I can. Because I usually can't. I usually can't at all. I always feel so powerless and helpless and I hate it.

My mind is in the strange place of crushing and screaming frantic misery that it usually is in when I'm doing my day's work.

"Aunt Nancee?" Her small, soft, words echo through my head like a breeze in the night.

"What sweetie?"

"Has anyone ever gotten free?" I pause to think.

"Yeah, child," I say, "they have." I don't know this the way I know that dark clouds bring rain, that is to say from personal experience. I don't know it the way I know how to make tea for fevers, that is to say from being taught. I know this from knowledge stored in secret deep within my heart, that has always been there and always will be.

"Ya think we could escape?" There's longing in her voice. And hope. Desperate, irrational, life-giving hope. I know the answer she's grasping for. And I know I shouldn't get her hopes up when said hopes are built on nothing. But I can't bring myself to answer truthfully.

"Maybe."

"Imagine if we escaped. The look on their faces. They'd be so mad." She laughs. Andronicha thinks it's funny when they're mad sometimes. And that's good. It's a form of protection. But after everything she is still a child. She still cowers and internally weeps and puts on a fake submissive face and feels her spirit cracking every single time she has to stand in front of their casual, constant wrath.

"It would be funny. Siessia would have such a tantrum."

"She's nine years old and she acts like she's two." There are threads of authoritativeness in Andronicha's voice. Siessia is always so bossy. It's nice to hear my child speak this way about her.

"No every two-year-old I've ever known has had better manners than her. She's just a brat."

"She's a bratty bratty meanie katty." I hold back laughter at Andronicha's words.

"Yes. Now go back to your work."

"Aunt Nan. I don't want to."

"Neither do I but I want you to have food."

She sighs in frustration, and while part of it is a little bit playful, most of it is despondent and frustrated. But she does go back to the task at hand.

I can't protect her. I can't protect any of them. I feel so helpless.

————

It's a strange moment where we're between tasks. Waiting for the Towerpeople to give us new orders. Pavlin looks out the large window, leaning over on their elbows. They can't fall because there are bars. They also can't escape because there are bars. I stand alert, looking for any signs of the Towerpeople. I'm exhausted. Overwhelmingly, terribly exhausted. But Pavlin is here and that's really good. I have my baby.

"Pavlin I love you."

"I love you too." Their words are airy and whistful and not entirely in this dimension. I glance at them. They are staring deeply out of the window.

"Aunt Nan?"

"Yeah baby?" I glance at them for a moment. They're gazing at something far away. They're really cute. They simultaneously look so much younger and so much older than they are. Like time stopped existing and the entirety of it coalesced into this tiny, lanky, large-eyed baby boy-and-girl.

"Why ya think they hate us so so so much?" Their voice is dark. Soft. Secretive. Questioning. Intelligent. This is an incredibly dangerous question so of course it's the type of question Pavlin would have. It's good though. As absolutely terrifying as it is, it's good that they ask terrifying questions. Because there's hope in that. I don't know how but there's hope in that. Because I know that there's something hopeful to be found in the answers to the dangerous questions. I don't know how but there is. And Pavlin is smart enough to hide all of it. To hide it in submission and meekness and agreement until they are sure they are safe.

"Because they think we're not people."

"I know, I know. But that isn't the point. Why?"

"I don't quite know."

"It's because they want to hurt us. They want to make us into workers so we can do do do stuff for them and they don't want to feel bad about it." Dear something, this child is a genius. Wow. Like, they're absolutely right. But it's not something you can say out loud. Not to the Towerpeople. Not ever.

"You're right. You're very very smart. Do not ever let the Towerpeople know how smart you are."

"They would say I'm not even if I tried." And they're right about that too.

"I know. But they'd be angry. You know they'd be angry."

"I know."

A Towerperson is coming. Vendi, the older woman who is the lady of the household. She is terrifying and I remember how terrified I was - and still am of her. I want to keep Pavlin safe.