I don't often cry, but I was crying that midsummer morning when the monsters came to town.

They may have been very nice, for all I know. I'm sure they didn't look like that meant any harm. But they frightened us all the same, coming in their fancy carriages, going from house to house, asking how many children lived there and if they were in need of money.

From time to time, an orphan with no better options would volunteer to go with them, and from time to time one would come back with them, looking happier and healthier. But as a rule, no one wanted to give them their children. The last time they came, we barred the door and lay still beneath the window, hardly daring to breathe until they moved along.

But we were poor. We were poor even before Papa had drunk away what little money we had and gotten himself killed, and it had been a very bad year, so when a lady came knocking on our door looking for a little girl to help her, Mama let her in and I let myself out.

I listened for a little while. The lady said she was getting old (I saw her gray hair) and needed some help around the house, just for a little while, a month at most, and she would see to my education. I didn't hear any more after that because I ran because I knew what Mama would say. She had always wanted to give me a proper education, even for only a month's time. It had broken her heart when I could no longer stay in school because she needed too much help about the house and in the garden and with the sewing. And I knew it would break her heart to see me unhappy so I washed my face and tried to smile, and when the lady asked me if I would go with her, I said I would.

The lady, who introduced herself simply as Holle, assured us that I would have everything I needed at her house, but Mama helped me pack a small bag for the trip, with an apple and an extra pair of socks and a few coins I knew she couldn't spare. Neither of us spoke much. After a few words and a last embrace, Holle helped me into the carriage and we set off.

For the first few miles, I looked out the window and watched the fields and woods rush past, but soon I found myself drifting off, and only awoke when we arrived at our destination. The house was not grand, sitting beside a small barn in a wide field with only a handful of scattered trees and not even the hint of a road. The windows were darkened, and inside, all the rooms were gaslit.

"Well," Holle began, "the first thing to be done is see you properly bathed and dressed decently, and then we can have our supper."

I had expected to have a great deal of work, but it seemed that she was sincere in her promise to educate me. Each day was devoted to a particular subject. The first day, I reviewed spelling, the second day, grammar, and the third, penmanship. Then there were two days on the Bible, one on world history, one on English history, one on recent history, then geography, mathematics, science, art, and literature, and then at the end of two weeks, she taught me to set the table and serve tea properly. I already knew how to sew a little, but there was a day for that and knitting and spinning wool. Then there were two days for the piano and two for the violin, which I thought had only the slightest success, and then Holle said I ought to learn a little of other languages.

"No one will expect you to speak anything fluently," she explained, "but you ought to know a few words and phrases, at least, and the basics of grammar."

So there was a day for French and a day for German, then Italian, Russian, and Spanish, and even Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

The days felt neither long nor short, which I thought was strange, for there were many books, and a great deal of reading and repeating and copying to be done, but somehow there was always enough time to finish each lesson, and I was never too tired to stay up a little after supper and tea and read a good book by the fire. Still, at the end of the lessons, I was very anxious to know when I would return home, for Holle had given no indication that our time together was coming to an end, though the month was nearly up.

Or so I thought.