Forsaken: The Chosen Trilogy - Book One

Chapter Five: Part Two

KRYSSA

572A.F.

Time stood still in the small, unnamed village a mile from our home. Our mother had laughingly named it Desperation, saying that anyone who lived there certainly had to be, and little had changed since my parents had fled there from Fallor. Even now I would wager that it is still the same: a pathetic huddle of houses centered around a single general goods store, cowering beneath the fringes of the Siriun Forest, as if trying to shrink away from the giant northern evergreens which rose for miles up into the sky.

Less than fifty people lived within the village, and it was not long before several heard the rumors that I cleaned for the Crone and came to seek out my services. I began a routine of cleaning for one of them per day: sweeping floors, washing walls, and scrubbing fireplaces, performing backbreaking labor for only a few copper coins. The money offset what we lost on the harvests, so I did not complain, though it exhausted me.

The women of the village tolerated me; though they did not know me, I was Adelie's daughter, and most remembered her with a mixture of jealousy and fondness. It is the curse of beautiful women to outshine those around them, and, for all her charms, my mother had been very beautiful. Thankfully, I did not resemble her, and my boyish clothing made me appear both younger than I was and unappealing in their eyes, and so I was dealt with more fairly than I otherwise might have been.

On Moonsday, I cleaned the house of Goodwife Therese, who watched me like a hawk, certain I would steal her precious things if left unattended, though they were little more than painted glass and useless to me. She paid me an extra copper to weed her gardens, a chore I quickly learned she detested, and, when I was finished, she would dole out the coins with her thin lips pursed, her eyes alight in her florid face as she watched me leave with them, thinking she had gotten the best of me.

On Airsday, I went to the house of Emmis Lonisdaughter. She was married to Tellis, who owned the general goods store, and her status as wife of the wealthiest man in the village gave her airs. She gossiped in condescending tones about her opinions of the other village women as I scrubbed her floors and fireplace, and I clenched my jaw until it ached, my head throbbing from holding back the words I wished to speak against her spitefulness. But she paid more than any of the other houses I cleaned- proof, she said, that hers was the most generous house in the village- and so I held my tongue.

Watersday was a joy, for that was the day I cleaned the home of Widow Ellisa. She was elderly, unable to attend to much of the heavy cleaning herself anymore, but her eyes and wit were as sharp as a girl of twenty. Her home always smelled of baking things, and she forced food upon me along with my pay- a loaf of bread, an apple pie, a pot of stew- to take back to the farm to feed us "unfortunate children."

Earthsday saw me at the house of Goodman Malik, who acted as carpenter and man-of-all-work for the village; a renowned bachelor, he had been the first to seek me out when it had become known that my services were for hire. His house was filthy, covered with years of accumulated sawdust and grime, and I worked harder there than on any other day. But Malik left me alone while I cleaned, and it was there, for a few hours at least, where I finally learned a little of peace.

Firesday I worked at the house of Allis and Demson Stroud. Allis viewed me with open hostility at first, and would bark her demands of the day at me with a glower upon her unpretty face. Though I never asked, I assumed she was jealous of my mother, and she seemed to delight in finding the most humiliating tasks for me to perform, as if daring me to protest so she could put me in my place. But I did them without complaint, and her enjoyment melted into resentment, until at last she left me alone, content enough with the knowledge that I was forced to work for her for pennies.