————

I'm washing the walls. Making sure they end up gleaming. I'm nine years old. I've been doing this for about two hours. Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing scrubbing scrubbingscrubbingscrubbingscrubbingscrubbing. I feel dead I feel like a ghost. I know, at nine years old I should be fine with this. I should be capable of this. I've been doing it for years after all. But I'm not fine. I'm not fine at all. 

But it doesn't matter whether I'm fine or not. Because I'm not a person. I'm just a swirling void of suffering and hurt and nothingness. 

My family would say that I'm good and important. But they're far away now. It doesn't matter what they'd say. 

And I have to keep scrubbing. 

I hate the time right before The Festival of the Fates. And I hate those two weeks too. It's always so much work so incredible much work. Exhausting. Dizzying. Overwhelming. Oppressive. And lonely. 

Loneliness cuts extra deep. 

And I keep scrubbing and soap and water and wall and wood combine to make a strange sort of screaming. 

"Nancee you come over here right now!" The harsh words cut into my mind like rocks breaking through a window. It's Vendi who's calling me. I have to respond to her no matter how much I want to run from her. 

"Yes m'aam." My voice comes out small and meek and oh-so-submissive. I hate the way it sounds. For a moment my thoughts burn. But I keep walking. 

I emerge into the ornate room where I see that Vendi, Niamus, and Niamus's aunt Idalia, are lounging on three of the plush gilded chaises. 

"What took you so long, girl?" Idalia barks with venom in her voice. 

I lower my head. 

"Anyways, Niamus, sweetheart," she is speaking to the other child in the room now, "I'm going to get you the finest, loveliest Fate Day suit anyone has ever seen. Decked in jewels that shine almost as bright as you, darling." 

I keep my head lowered. I hate Fate Day I hate the whole festival I hate the Fates I hate them so much. 

"Oh thank you Auntie," Niamus says. 

"Girl, I'm going to need you to get his measurements." Her voice has shifted back to her I'm-talking-to-the-dirt-under-my-shoe tone for this sentance. 

"Yes m'aam." 

I go to get the tape measure. 

I come back and kneel silently in front of Niamus who is now standing. I wrap it around the length of one of his ankles. 

"The Fates have been extra provident for our family this year, have They not?" Idalia smiles. 

"Oh the Fates are always provident to those They see fit and merciless to those They don't." There is a smirk in Vendi's voice. 

"Yes ever since They in all Their wisdom set up the Divine Hierarchy, They have favoured those deserving of Their blessings."

"Ten," I call out meekly and Idalia writes it down. I move on to the other ankle, kneeling low in front of the other child. 

"And, sweet sister, how wonderful it is to be in the company of a swiftly-rising family like yours. Gaining land and riches by the minute, are you not?" 

"If the Fates wish it, dear sister, if the Fates wish it." 

"Ten." I move on to his legs now, standing upright on my knees instead of sitting on them. 

"We are /Towerpeople/. Of course the Fates favour us. We are so highborn and we are in Their good graces." 

"Well of course but They seem to be turning extra favour onto you, sister." 

"Oh you do flatter too much. We'll be sure to give extra offerings to Them as a thank-you for Their kindness." 

The sinking sorrow inside me is so heavy, heavy, heavy it almost feels like I'm falling through the floor. 

"Any kindness They give is deserved. Just as any sorrow They bring is deserved." 

I hate the Fates so much. I know They are the rulers of the universe. But I can't help but to hate Them. 

Because They took me from my family. 

—————

The next year the family - the Towerpeople - move to a bigger house. Of course they take me along. I guess they weren't kidding when they said fortune was smiling on them. This house is three times bigger than the previous one. They go on a very lavish spending spree to furnish and decorate it. 

They also buy two other kids. Scared, sad kids like me. Kids who are seen as things to be used, like me. Kids that feel like ghosts, like me. Kids that only ever know fear, like me. Kids despised by the Fates. Like me. They'd been ripped from their homes as young children like I was. 

Anderei is eight and Lilith is nine. This was the second time Lilith was sold though and the third time Anderei was. 

They are kind. We are kind to each other. We become friends. We become family. I love them. They love me. 

But it doesn't make any of us less terrified or grief-stricken or lonely. It doesn't make us less miserable in any way. 

We have each other, that is a blessing. 

But we still don't have parents. 

We are young. Scared. Searching. And we have no-one who is older who can help us and guide us and support us. No-one to offer the wisdom and guidance and reassurance that only an adult, only a parent or someone who loves you as much, can. We don't have the safety and the confidence a parent, a family, could've provided us. Nobody to nurture and nourish us with the support of an adult. 

The only adults we do have are the Towerpeople. They are the only adults around. They are the adults we see day after day, whose roof we sleep under and they are the only adults around. 

We can't help but to look towards them for guidance and teaching. We can't help but to look to them for support. We can't help but see them as our parents. Because we are children. And they are the only adults around. 

And time and time again they put us down, all the while elevating their precious highborn children. It hurts more than one can imagine hurt could hurt. They get under our skin in such a way, into our very bones in such a way, that sometimes we lose all sense of self. 

And obviously the work is still hard, is still adult work that they make us do, is still shitty degrading work even for adults. Whatever. 

And it is rubbed in our faces, in our wounds time and time again how much less we are considered compared to them. 

And of course all of us still miss our parents dearly. 

————

Time went by. We got older. When I was twelve Katapa came to the house, thirteen at the time. She was thoughtful. She was broken. She was empathetic. She was exhausted. She was sneaky. She was kind. She was stubborn, dear universe she was stubborn. In the subtle way that slaves have to be. She was someone I felt like I'd been missing all my life. We fell in love instantly. In the way idiot children who don't really know how love works fall in love. And with time we fell in love the way adults who never want to leave each other fall in love. She ... she sparked something in me that I never knew I had. Defiance. 

She also didn't make my childhood or my adulthood stop being torture. 

But she did bring me joy, bring me hope. They all did. 

Lilith and Anderei got married. 

And then Andronicha was born. And we were terrified, we knew one day they'd take her away. But she grew and became. And though she was a flower growing in concrete, in winter, she was the prettiest flower I'd ever come across. The strongest and surest. 

And so were Pavlin and Levi. Our sweet summer children, little fireflies in the darkness. They subtly held their heads high in a way the Towerpeople couldn't see, even as toddlers. And I was proud. 

Andronicha was getting older. No-one has come to take her away. We thought maybe things would be different for our children. 

And then came Mafalia. Young eyes holding so much wisdom somehow. She saw wonder in the world somehow. Held secrets in the depths of her like the morning mist does. And she cried, like all our kids did. 

But at least they were our's. At least it looked like they wouldn't be dragged screaming into the same fate we were dragged into. 

Oh how wrong we were though. 

The Fates are merciless to the good. The Fates are monsters.

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