Untying the Knot

chapter 2 part 2 of 6

Ruby grudgingly got up and walked towards Regina, keeping her eyes on the floor to avoid Regina’s winning smile. Regina grabbed her injured hand and quickly pulled off the splint. Then, she pulled a clothespin out of her pocket and sticks it onto the finger. Ruby cried out from pain, and tried to take it off, but Regina slapped it away. “This is your new splint. Trust me; it will help your finger heal a lot better.”  Then, she put a lot of tape around it, and then smiled sweetly. “Now if you want it to heal, don’t you dare try to take it off, okay darling?”

Devlin smiled and said, “Why, you are so caring sweetie! Good idea! It will help a lot of people feel happy.  Now let us go work on important things, while we leave it to do its job.”

“Okay darling. I’ll be there in a second. Listen you ungrateful idiot, you will go around the house and collect every SINGLE piece of clothing in the house and take it to the bathroom, where you will hand wash EVERY SINGLE article. And I want to see it all washed, dried, ironed, and hung within the next two hours you hear me? You have ten minutes to gather everything, and you know what will happen if you don’t appear by then. Now go!”

Ruby, still crying, ran to finish. She did not want to face any more consequences. Her finger was aching, yet she knew she couldn’t complain. After she gathered everything, she went to the designated bathroom. After she entered, she heard the lock click and an evil laugh. Ruby sighed; she knew she was trapped.

After exactly two hours have passed, Regina opened the door. She found Ruby all done, sitting on the floor, her hands folded in her lap. Regina frowned and then said, “Well you managed to finish so quickly? But don’t worry. You still have a lot of more work we have planned for you. And your finger is looking a lot better, I must say.”

Regina put Ruby to work doing various jobs that kept her up till morning. When Regina and Devlin woke up, they found a half asleep Ruby in the kitchen with their breakfast sitting on the table.

“What a surprise. Breakfast is actually ready,” Regina remarked. After taking a bite, she said, “And it actually tastes like food. Well that doesn’t save you from your next duty. Devlin, would you like to do the honors?”

“Of course,” Devlin said with a smile he motioned for Ruby to follow him and she did so without a single complaint, because of her lack of sleep. Devlin led her to the cabin, where he locked the door after her and said, “You see that bag on the floor? Well it’s filled with beautiful stuff. Your job is to organize everything in it into piles of the same thing. Have fun!”

Ruby opened the garbage bag and peeked in. inside, she found millions of tiny objects, such as sand grains, tiny buttons, tiny beads, nuts, and much more trash. Suddenly, Ruby let out a small shriek. She looked down to her foot and found a mouse trap had snapped onto her foot. Then, she realized it would be impossible to move without setting another one. She was trapped.

Ruby stood still for a minute. She thought she was finally free, though now she had other problems. Trying to hold back the pain she felt in her finger and her hand, Ruby took a giant leap and fortunately, she landed right where she wanted, on her bed. There, she crawled into a ball and was quick to fall asleep. The last thought she had before she slept was, ‘today is October 8.’ This date filled her dreams.

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