———

It's night time. The floor is hard under me. The air is faintly smoky. Everything is coated in darkness and all the hard edges and sharp instruments of the kitchen form only black outlines in the dark. I know there are bugs and stuff here. Beetles and ants and spiders and caterpillars and centipedes scurrying around. They actually leave me alone though. And they're almost like friends. I try to relax. I have to rest. Because I'll be so busy tomorrow. I need all the rest I can get. 

But I'm so scared. The night time is filled with shadows and darkness and I hate it. It presses into me, holding me still, squeezing my heart and freezing my lungs. I don't know what's out there, waiting in the eerie dark corners. Watching. Waiting. They could be monsters. Demonic. They could be ready and waiting to eat me up or sink their claws into me or give me an immortality curse. I'm so small. I'm small and scrawny and weak and defenceless. A little girl against ghosts and demons that have magic powers. That can bend and twist and eat the earth and fire and space itself. 

I mean, I mean they're probably not real. I'm probably just imagining things. But still, that doesn't stop the fact that my mind won't shut up. My thoughts race and race and race away from me as I'm frozen in place. My mind won't stop telling me about what's lurking beyond the shadows. About how much danger I'm in. 

I know I'm being childish, I know I'm being immature. I know that despite being nine years old, I don't have the right to be childish or immature. I have to be tough and strong and no-one else will be strong for me. I can't be a child. I can't cower at shadows like a child. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm scared. It doesn't change the fact that I'm abjectly terrified. I can't stop myself. 

Why can't someone else be strong for me, ever? I want someone to hold me, to rock me, to soothe me. I want someone to be lying beside me. Someone who can wrap their arm around me and calm me and tell me that the monsters aren't real, and even if they were real they could fight them off. I want someone who's big and responsible and can protect me from the monsters and actually cares enough to try. I want an adult who is willing to love me. I want a parent who is willing to hold me. 

I want my mom and dad. I want my uncles and aunts and titis from back when I worked the fields. I hated working the fields I fucking hated it. But I could fall askeep beside them. And while I was still often scared before I fell asleep, I had a sense of peace too. I didn't have to worry about monsters or ghosts or shadows because I'd know my people would be there to protect me. If I ever got scared I just remembered that they were there for me, I just felt their warm presence around me. And it was enough. 

Now I'm trapped and I'm scared and I'm a trapped sort of scared. It's a merciless sort of fear. There's nowhere and no-one around who can hold my hand through this fear. 

I hug my knees closer to myself. Curl up into as small of a form as possible and try to get as much pretend contact as possible. My mind is panicking and it's hard to breathe. The night is blacker than black. Like the precious ink Niamus poured over me once. It's not the darkness that I don't like. It's the vastness, the strangeness, how everything seems so terrifyingly foreign but everything also seems so devastatingly familiar. 

I wish I could go home. I hated it there, the work was hard and the food was never enough and it was crowded. But I had family there. I had people who wanted me as a person. People who would give me bits of their own meagre rations when I was feeling under the weather. I had people who would hold my hand. People who would talk to me. I had people who were concerned about my well-being, who saw me as their child. I had people who did what they could to protect me. I had people who truly wanted me, who I belonged with. 

I have no-one here. Not really. Just ghosts and monsters and shadows and shades and monsters who take human form in order to torment me better. 

No-one and no hope. No hope for things to get better. 

I am beyond tears. I have had to teach myself not to cry. And I really wish, right now, that I could. It would make everything hurt less. 

———

The house is filled with chatter, with laughter, with bright sparkly dresses and suave silken ties and crinkling smiles and children playing. It's Niamus's birthday. He gets a big fancy party every year. I remember parties back with my birth family. They were always muted affairs. We never had days off to celebrate. But they were warm, and brokenly strong, and full of family both born and found. They were nice. Nicer than this. 

Though I don't really know how nice this would be from the inside. I'm hiding in the kitchen. Getting all the food ready. All by myself. Nobody wants to see the skinny, plain slave girl. Nobody wants to talk to her. Not when they have their pretty, glittery, shiny Towerpeople to talk to. They don't care what I have to say. 

I'm drowning. But I don't have time to process the fact that I'm drowning. I have to cook. I have to work. 

Work work work work work. I always have to work. It's too much work. Way, way, way too much. Incredibly, exceedingly, agonizingly way way too much. I hate working. I want to play and learn and be cuddled. 

Pastries and pizza and dip and salad and chips and hot dogs. Niamus wanted a chocolate cake for his birthday and I have no idea what that tastes like but I do know how to make it. 

With how much he begs for it you would think that it tastes great. I know it's sweet. It has a lot of sugar in it. I stole a little bit of sugar once. It was rebellious. It was intense. It was amazing. They say that dirtpeople can't taste sweet things but that isn't true. We just never get a chance to. 

I have to ice the cake as well. It has to be a professional job. It was really tricky getting everything right. Especially since I was emotionally exhausted. Party days like this always leave me incredibly exhausted. Extra exhausted. Because on the days before the party it's always a mad dash to clean everything. On the day of the party, there's so much cooking. The Towerpeople of course are so excited during the whole process. Planning and arranging and talking and dancing and eating and listening to music and being all-around nuisances. 

It's a pattern really. The happier they are the sadder I am. And they don't even do it on purpose. And that's worse. Hurting me on purpose would require thinking about me, paying attention to me, having some form of care about my person. But they just don't think of me as person at all. They don't think of me at all. And they remain completely apathetic and oblivious to me until they want something from my hands and sweat and blood. 

Like this cake for example. Niamus wanted it to be purple. He wanted the sides to have blue sprinkles. It's so very difficult putting sprinkles on the sides of a cake. He wanted the top and the bottom edges to be lined with yellow frosting. It took such a steady hand and so much knife-sharp concentration to make a perfect border, with alternating thicker and thinner piping. I'm nine years old and my mind is burning steel wool. I use stencils to write whatever words are supposed to go on a birthday cake. I can't read.

And then it's time to get the table ready for desert. I carefully walk, ghost-silent, with plates of sweets. I place them on the large table at the centre of the dining groom. Then more trays. Then more. Then finally I bring in the cake. 

"Are you done, girl?" I turn to see Niamus. His voice is haughty, smug, and devoid of any respect. He already speaks imperiously and cruelly. It makes him sound so much older than he is. He learns from his parents. All children do, unless the parents hurt their children. And he'll grow up to be cold and hard and exactly what they were. 

"Yes, Master." 

"Alright. Well that's enough of you then. Scram back into the kitchen where you came from." 

"Alright, Master." 

I have nothing to do. I suppose I should take this time to stew in my misery seeing as to how that's all I ever get to do in my downtime. But I'm curious. So I peek my head out of the doorway separating the kitchen from the dining room. Just a little bit. People are crowded around the table. Jovial. Joyous. Their backs are turned to me. I hear many comments praising Niamus on what a bright and sweet young boy he is growing up to be. 

There is is the ringing sound of silverware on a glass and a silence falls over the crowd. 

"Here, here," Altouloius exclaims in a bright, warm, booming voice. "Today is the year where my dear sweet son Niamus is entering a new chapter of his life. Today is the day he is turning ten years old. And what a charming ten-year-old he is!" The crowd cheers. 

"He is bright and intelligent, a mind fit for the forefront of Tower society! But not only that! His personality has grown charming and sweet! He is friendly and congenial, a charm to know and a blessing to his family and friends." Everyone cheers. 

I turn away. I don't want to hear more of whatever this is.