Despite being assigned ‘light’ work, I’m exhausted before we even get a few hours into it. Brynna notices I’m leaning against one of the chess, no, wait Caissa tables, my palms sweating and my stomach lurching. Brynna regards me curiously and walks to the other side of the table.
“You should sit,” She tells me. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

I shake my head. “I don’t need to.”

“Do as you’re told,” She snatches the feather duster from me and pulls out one of the high-backed leather chairs, practically pushing me into it. The moment I make contact with the seat, I breathe an immese sigh of relief as the pressure on my muscles subsides. I didn’t realize just how much it hurt to stand. “You can’t sit for long,” She informs me. “You’ll just get stiff, and then what good are you to anyone?”
I look at her blankly, trying to comprehend her tone. She’s being a bit harsh and perhaps condescending, but I can sense no cruelty in her tone. It’s a stark contrast to what I’ve experienced so far, and I’m still unsure of what’s happening. I nod to her and she looks to me, unsmiling and tells me to finish dusting the chairs. I manage to stand up and dust a few of the chairs from top to bottom before a wave of nausea takes me, and I stumble towards the center of the room. She notices from her own spot on the other side of the room and manages to catch me.

“I’ll speak to Lauren,” She tells me. “Perhaps you ought lay down a few more days.”

“No,” I shake my head. “I’m sick of that room, I’m-”

“Don’t get worked up,” She cuts me off; I look up at her. “If you can’t work, you can’t work. I’m not going to make you.”

“You might not,” I mutter. She shoots me an annoyed look.

“Look,” She says, sitting in one of the seats near me. “You broke the law and-”

“And I’m being punished, yeah, I get that,” I snap; she looks taken aback. “It’s not fair, I don’t even know what I did. I didn’t know where I was and I…I don’t know how things work here. I just show up here and this is what I get?”

“You’re not in a bad place,” Brynna says bluntly. “You know it could be worse.”

“Yeah, I know!” I suddenly find myself shouting, though the shout comes out as more of a squeak, and partial sob. “Do you know what they did to me?!”

“Yes!” Brynna shouts over me, her voice cutting through mine and filling the Caissa hall. I freeze, watching her, my hands gripping the armrests of the chair I’m sitting in. “Yes, I know what happened to you!” She continues, her voice more of an angry hiss now. “But you’re here now, and you have a sentence to serve. If you weren’t here you’d be serving it somewhere else. Are you getting it? If you’re going to whine and complain then you’re not going to get any sympathy from me or anyone else around here! Yes, you’re a slave, yes, you were purchased, and yes, it’s terrible for you, I know that, but the people here are not going to treat you badly. Do your time, serve your sentence, and the Lady won’t leave you out in the cold.”

“I am out in the cold!” I shriek, finding my voice for the first time since…well, I couldn’t remember since when. “I don’t know anyone here! No one cares about me, they just care if I can work, so excuse me if I’m acting a little pissy!”

“What is happening in here?” Lauren’s standing at the entrance to the room, just at the top of the short steps that pass through the rows of seats. She’s standing there, staring daggers at me; I try to stand up but fail miserably. “Why are you shouting?”

“She’s still too weak to work,” Brynna tells her, the shrug evident in her voice.

“That doesn’t explain why she’s shouting,” Lauren snaps, taking a few steps down the stairs and moving toward us. I gulp. “Are we going to have a problem, Mayet?”

I shake my head nervously, my eyes wide as she moves closer, glaring.

“Answer me!” She screams at the top of her lungs; I recoil in the chair.

“N…no,” I stammer, my previous courage and voice lost to me.

“Mayet,” She says, her voice a stark warning as she stares at me.

“No Ma’am,” I say quietly. She looks at me for a moment more, and then crosses her arms, walking the rest of the way down the stairs and stepping directly in front of me. She unfolds her arms and presses her palms against the railing that separates the audience seating from the play area. The overhead lighting gives her golden hair a shimmer that fades as she leans in toward me.

“You told us you were a girl,” She says slowly, evenly. “Girls do not shout. Girls do not throw tantrums. Girls are refined, they are elegant, they are proper. Do you understand me?”

I nod again.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!” She screams loud enough for her voice to echo throughout the hall, my mouth drops and my heart races against my chest. I can feel my body quivering and my hands grip the hardwood armrests even harder. The fear I’m feeling is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced; there’s a hardness to her expression that spells out her intentions; she’s not going to hear me out.
“Yes Ma’am,” I whimper, turning my head quickly to avoid her gaze.

“Your circumstances do not give you the right to upend the order and tranquility of this house,” Lauren continues. “Mayet, look at me!” I turn my head toward her, trying and failing to avoid eye contact. “Are you listening? Are you comprehending me?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“We know what happened to you at the market, and we have a pretty good idea of what happened before that and we know what’ll happen to you if you’re shipped off somewhere else, so you won’t be sent away but mark my words Mayet, I will see you disciplined if you can’t keep yourself in line. Understand?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

Lauren pushes herself away from the railing, drumming the fingers of her left hand against its hard wooden surface as she watches me. After what seems like an eternity she turns her attention to Brynna, whose been standing idly by for the entire incident.

“How do you find this room?” Lauren asks her. Brynna responds without hestitation, as if Lauren hasn’t just scared the living shit out of me.

“The upkeep is good,” She says. “The girls have been keeping on top of it. I did notice that the valve for the fireplace is stuck. I haven’t been able to turn it on.”

“I’ll inform Mister Cyrene,” She says. “Anything else? The guests are arriving tomorrow and this room will be in use the day after. I don’t want to deal with any embarrassment.”

“And you won’t,” Brynna reassures her. “Have I ever let you down?”

Lauren smiles and lets out a short ‘chuff’ before visibly relaxing. “You know you haven’t.” She then looks to me, her face taking on a stern expression that rattles me to my core. “Mayet, if you can’t work then you’ll shadow. Follow Brynna around, get her whatever she needs. The same for any of the other staff that you’re with. Understood?”

“Yes Ma’am,” I say, completely defeated.

“Being a girl, or a woman is more than just pretty dresses and shoes,” She continues. “You have to act the part and if you can’t do that, then we’re going to teach you, and you won’t like that. You’ve chosen this life, to be a girl, and there’s no option to go back. I will make you understand.”

Lauren leaves; Brynna instructs me to follow her, having me hand her things as she cleans. I’m afraid to talk, barely able to keep up with her, but I’m at least able to let my mind wander to thoughts of home – the home I’d unintentionally left behind. I’d lived with my parents, kind of pathetic at nineteen, but what can you do?

“I’m going to help you,” Brynna says, turning away from a light fixture she’s been polishing. I come back to reality with a start, staring at her like I’ve seen a ghost. “I’ll get your hair sorted, and we’ll work something out for a skin routine. You’ll be a girl, and you’ll look the part.”

“W…why would you do that for me?” I frown, nearly breathless.

“We don’t leave each other behind,” She says, not taking her eyes off of me. “leave that behavior for the men-folk.”

The rest of the day is pretty rough; I meet a few of the other girls, two of which work in the kitchen, or something. There’s a man named Borettis who runs the stables, and a woman named Belinda who is in charge of accounting. Following Brynna, I try to get a lay of the land, to learn as much as I can about this ‘house’ that I’ve been brought into. It’s not huge as far as I can tell, but definitely bigger than mine. We pass through corridors on the outer edge of the house; I peer through the windows, trying to gauge the distance between the yard and freedom but the property is surrounded by an iron fence and beyond that I can make out the peaks and spires of buildings. Are we near a city? Are we in a city? It’s hard for me to tell and I find myself disoriented from even trying.

Byrnna explains to me that while all of the girls have specialties, they’re always willing to pitch in and help eachother where it matters. I’m having trouble with the entire thing but I do my best to listen and convince myself that ‘this is the best place for me’. As we walk, she shows me areas that need to be maintained throughout the house, and we rarely run into another person, save for servants attending to their duties. This is oft thanks to the narrow servant passages that run behind the walls, some along the outer edge of the house, and some winding deeper in to ensure that we aren’t seen by ‘normal folk’, as Brynna explained to me.

Finally, past the windows, the sun is setting and Brynna announces that it’s dinner time. My stomach growls, signaling a fact to me that I hadn’t realize: I’m hungry.

“Come along then,” Brynna signals me to follow her through one of the narrow servant passages, eventually reaching a steep staircase that nearly descends vertically from the third floor down to the first, forcing us to take several ninety degree turns until we near the landing at the bottom. Three steps from the bottom I lose my footing as a sharp pain grips my lower leg and I temporarily lose motor control. The world spins and my stomach lurches; I’m hurtling toward Brynna who somehow manages to spin and shove her arms under mine. My body slams into hers and she takes a step back to avoid collapsing. Wincing, I lay against her and try to regain my footing. Once I manage it, Brynna leans me against a nearby wall and tells me to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I…didn’t mean to do that.”

“I know,” She says stiffly. “Stay there.”

She walks away, and her footsteps fade as she disappears around a corner; I immediately slide down the wall, dropping into a heap on the floor. It’s not long before Brynna comes back with Lauren in tow. Lauren looks down at me, studying me for a moment.

“You’ll stay in bed tomorrow,” She tells me. “You’re no good to anyone like this.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. Lauren shakes her head.

“I won’t be mad at you,” She says, glancing at Brynna and then back at me. “I’ll be mad at the people who did this to you.”

“I’m just a slave,” I say, bringing the harsh reality of my situation crashing down on me. “Who cares?”

“Don’t,” Lauren snaps. I look at her questioningly. “Don’t you dare tell me how to feel. I don’t like what I’m seeing here and we’re going to do something about it. But, for now, let’s get you to the dining room.”

The dining room is a narrow space with a long wooden table. There are a few others seated already, and Brynna deposits me somewhere in the middle where I nearly collapse from pain once again. Fortunately, as I sit there, the pain begins to subside and is reduced to a dull throb.
“This is the slave, then?” A dark haired girl in a uniform similar to mine says. “Don’t look like much.”

“Well she’s a slave, Cora,” A man in a tuxedo says. “What were you expecting?”

“Well they made such a big fuss about it,” Cora says, nearly mumbling. “I was expecting…I don’t know what I was expecting.”
Lauren takes a seat at the head of the table opposite Rynd who sits at the other end. I avoid looking at him and instead direct my attention to Lauren who patiently waits for the rest of the staff to take their seats. As we do, two other girls appear and begin to deposit food on the table. A plate of bread is placed in the center along with a pot of stew and what look like mashed potatoes. Brynna plates it for me; the ‘mashed potatoes’, or whatever they were, stacked onto my ceramic plate and the stew poured over it. I don’t feel hungry at first, especially after my fall, but I find myself nibbling, and then outright devouring the meal.

“This house hasn’t had a slave in a while,” A male servant says, looking directly at me.

“Never since I’ve been here,” Says Cora as she takes a bite of her dinner. “Lauren, want to fill us in a little more?”

Lauren chews on her bread and gives Rynd a look of warning, to which he smirks and shakes his head. She seems less than satisfied but continues anyway.

“As we know,” Lauren says, setting down her fork and making eye contact with each of the servants at the table. “The Lady Helena does not like to keep slaves. For reason of expense, of course, and because they can be unpredictable. Given the history and her disposition, I think we can all agree that this is a sound decision and with that being said, the girl is to be treated with respect.”

“Girl!” Rynd scoffs; some of the servants snicker along with him. Lauren levels an angry glare at him and yet he continues. “That thing is no girl! It’s barely even a man! You cannot possibly trust it with your girls!”

“My girls can take care of themselves,” Lauren says evenly. “And the girls will take their turns acclimating her to this environment.”
“Why are you humoring this?” Rynd demands, holding back his laughter and shooting her a scowl. “He lives in a fantasy land, where his deepest wishes become reality and you are perpetuating!”

“Mind you hold your tongue,” Lauren snaps. “and do not disrepsect me in front of my staff.”

The two argue a bit longer, I notice that Brynn is watching me intently, gauging my reaction and probably determining if she needs to step in. I meet her eyes and mouth that I want to leave; she shakes her head and looks to Lauren who continues the argument. I take matters into my own hands, pushing away from the table, and avoiding any admonishment from Lauren who fails to notice. Brynn, on the other hand, grabs my chair and shoves it back into place.

“Let me up!” I shriek at her, flailing my arms and nearly knocking my plate from the table. Lauren breaks from the argument to glare at me.
“Mayet, do not forget yourself!” Lauren hisses. I give her an incredulous look, and I’m on the verge of lashing out when the dining room door bursts open and in steps an older man, perhaps in his late fifties who wears a deep black tuxedo with the hem embroidered in gold. The moment he crosses the threshold, the room falls silent, even Rynd closes his mouth and folds his hands; he looks as if he’s just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“What in god’s name is going on here?” The man demands; his voice shakes the row of windows along the wall. “You are employees of the Lady Helena and yet here you are acting like a bunch of fools! Explain yourselves immediately!”

“I apologize, Mister Cyrene,” Rynd says – the arrogance still drips from his tone; Mister Cyrene raises an eyebrow. “We were…discussing the finer point of the Lady’s decision to bring on this…well this thing.”

“Explain to me, who you are to question the Lady’s decisions?” Mister Cyrene demanded. “Were you elevated to some higher station without my knowledge?”

“Well, no sir,” Rynd begins to stammer, pursing his lips and looking around the table for assistance, of which he recieves none. “It’s just…I wonder how we know that it can be trusted to room with the girls. After all, would a man be allowed to do so?”

Mister Cyrene pauses and looks to Lauren, who shakes her head and says: “No concerns, Mister Cyrene.”

“I suggest you all finish up here,” Mister Cyrene snaps, his voice carries an authority that far surpasses Rynd’s. “The guests will be arriving tomorrow and this house will be ready. Am I understood?”

“Yes sir,” Acknowledgements all around.

“Who was that?” I frown to Brynna as soon as Mister Cyrene is gone and the room begins to empty.

“Mister Cyrene,” She says to me. “The head arbiter.”

The servant’s dormitory is a far cry from the room they’d kept me in when I’d first got here, when I needed to recover. I’m still recovering of course, but Lauren tells me that it’s better I stay with the other girls, and part of me wants to tell her to send me back to that dark hole of a room. I know that I’m a girl, and most of the time I feel like I’m a girl, but sharing a room with three others terrifies me for some reason. Still, there’s little choice; Lauren heads off to her private room, god-knows-where, and Brynna takes me to shower, and then to the dormitory which sits in a room off of the basement. We have to walk past a pair of wine casks and storage shelves, then down a brief hallway and into the dormitory which isn’t large but not cramped either. There’s a stark difference between this and the bedrooms that I’ve seen upstairs; ornate paneling has been traded for vertical wood slats painted white and glorious master beds are swapped for bunks with gray blankets. There’s a short dresser near the bunk that Brynna leads me to; inside there are the extra dresses that Lauren told me about, there’s sleepwear, and other essentials.
Brynna sits me on the bed and walks me through a skincare routine using lotions in thick glass bottles capped with brown cork. I try to listen to her, try to follow what she says, but the whole scene is reminiscent of the years before I’d come out to my parents, when my sister was showing me ‘the ropes’ of being a girl. Maria. What happened to her? Will I find her? These thoughts and more race through my mind as I stare into Brynna’s pale blue eyes as they study me intently, gauging my reactions to both information and her touch against my skin.

“Are you okay?” Brynna asks me. I look to her questioningly without giving a response. “You’re crying.” She reaches to wipe a tear from my cheek, and in that moment I lose control, bursting into tears and falling against Brynna’s chest. Even as she wraps her arms around me I shake and wail. I don’t want to be here, I need to leave, but I can’t see how. How do I tell these people that I’m not from here? How do I tell them that my sister, Maria is out there somewhere and she needs my help? This is a place of law and order, there seems to be no room for feelings or compassion, save for Brynna, and Lauren to some extent.

“Come on,” She comforts me, patting my back as I bury my face in her chest, but another sob bursts from my lips and my body convulses. “Don’t worry yourself, everything will be fine?”

“Is it over what happened at dinner?” One of the other two girls asks. I think her name is Shiri. I can feel Brynna shrug.

“The poor thing,” The other girl, Alexa says. “She’s overwhelmed.”

Overwhelmed. That’s a way to put it, isn’t it? I managed to calm myself a little and slowly pull away from Brynna’s chest, though the occasional whimper still escapes my lips. The pain from my body, the mental strain, my inability to leave this place, it’s all coming down on me like a ton of bricks and the only thing on my mind is home.

“I want to go home,” I whisper, looking up at Brynna who takes my hand in hers and then covers the the top of mine with her other one.

“I know,” she tells me, her voice nearly a whisper. “I’m sorry this happened to you, I’m sorry for all of it, but as long as you’re with us, we’ll take care of you, understand?”

I nod, my head bobbing up and down as I sniff and swallow. I don’t want them to take care of me, I want to leave, I want to look for Maria, I want to find my way back home. But, there is no way back, is there? Some mistakes are permanent, after all.

In Brynna’s arms I drift off to sleep feeling embarrassed and ashamed. I’m an adult, I got myself into this situation, so I should be able to handle it, right? I should suck it up and deal, but I can’t. The events of the last few months run through my head like a runaway train; the border crossing, the brief scuffle with that soldier, my time at the market. All of it runs together in my mind as I slowly work on accepting that my life is no longer my own, my destinations no longer chosen by me. Autonomy is a strange and fragile thing and you can have it until someone snatches it away.
“Listen to me,” Brynna says, pushing me back slightly so that she can look into my eyes. “Tomorrow is a big day. We aren’t going to keep you tucked away in bed all day like we planned, but you’ll be following me, watching and learning, understand?”

I look over at Alex and Shiri for a moment; they’re both busy, deep in their own nighttime routines and Shiri has already climbed into bed. They seem to be paying little mind to what Brynna and I are doing, which relieves me in some way. I look back at Brynna; she pats the top of my hand and then rubs my cheek, giving me a warm smile before lifting herself from the bed and moving to her own. I immediately press my knees together and wrap my arms around my upper body, hunching over as Brynna steps away. Without her beside me I feel cold, alone, like an island in the midst of a roiling sea. Alexa instructs me to lay down and I do so slowly, reluctantly, my body still trembling and tense. I’m in the fetal position, still shaking when Brynna walks over and instructs me to move aside so that she can cover me with the blanket. Once the lights are off, I lay there, listening to the breathing of the other three girls and then listen to my own ragged breath as I squeeze shut my eyes and try to imagine that I’m somewhere far away. I want to dream of home, but instead I dream of that cage at the slave market. I’m back there, my face pressed against the bars, screaming for help that will never come. Twice I wake up screaming and sobbing, twice Brynna comforts me but I cal tell her patience is wearing thin. I wonder how much longer before I acclimate to this environment, and how much longer I’ll have to endure it.