Kristina
.o oOo oOo 7 oOo oOo o.

Young boys. In my prior life, I had become aware of them as the months unrolled under the direction of my new Master and the old woman who instructed me. There were more than a few. Yet they were like the mice: once spotted, they scattered. They'd appear along the edges of opened windows or squirting along the boundaries of the courtyard below. I never met them but was aware of them. Never by day and always at night.

I was best aware of them by their reek; it was if they had been allowed to wrestle in the most unmentionable wastes. That smell, drifting in an opened window would alert me that I was being watched. Yet even a slight turn of my head to get a glimpse would send their smudged faces and all too thin arms back into the night air.

When I asked about them I was redirected to something else. In my then simple ways and nature, simple distractions worked.
Mostly I was paraded about. I never thought about myself in this way during that time, but now I do. The merchants who stopped by the manor saw me regularly. The farmers who were bound to my Master saw me. And the few men that the Master kept at the tower; they too saw me. My role, unbeknownst to me, was to be seen; this I have come to believe. The Master had no other interest in me. I was a plaything that was shown off, almost like a distraction. He was never with me, but he would arrange that I would be in attendance at the right time on good afternoon. I was to be seen strolling or made to be present to make a greeting. Ohhh…

Also I heard things. And I heard of things. I asked and as before, I was redirected. I should have considered and reflected, but all was so new to me and the life that I had being shepherded into was like a spell building upon my foolish self-interests. Whereas my life in the country with the family I had lost was ordinary and regular, this new life defined a new ordinary and regular. At the same time that I was climbing into it, I was wrapped with the struggle and pleasure. So the warning signs came and went while I was delighted by fabrics, letters, glass windows, feasts, trappings and candles. And it was my doom.

Several years into my new life, on a different autumn day, my life changed anew for a second time. I heard shouting from the courtyard, men in hurry and then the dashing of horses. An unsettled air crept into my chambers during the quiet the followed. I stirred myself from a small piano that I had been introduced to and went to the window. Below, the courtyard stood empty. Worse, it gave the impression of deserted. As the remaining afternoon faded, the men did not return. Instead, men from Norrköping arrived. They streamed in, carried by four or five horse-drawn wagons. They filled the area and soon the house

By this time I realized I was alone. The men were gone; the servants were gone; the old woman and the Master – neither answered their door – were gone. So I hid behind the headboard in my bed chamber. As I listened, the men burst from room to room yelling oaths of vengeance, although from what I did not know. Things were taken away; things were broken; things were smashed. By chance they did not find me. I trembled as I overheard their plans. I had to get out.

When I had a chance I took it and used the secret panel that had been once shown to me. I secured the latch behind me and in my fine clothing and slippers I made my way down. The way was dark and steep. Down, I made my way into the basement room that I had been told would be there. Step by step I descended. As I went, a stench overcame me, a horrific reek that almost drove me to cease my efforts and climb up and out. But eventually a step of mine landed on dirt and I was at the bottom. But thereafter I was lost. Another step and my left foot sloshed into something awful. The foulness slapped up over my ankles and then subsided down into my slipper, settling around my foot and toes. There was no light and I had no way to find the way out. I worried what would happen if the men were to find me. I stood there like a trapped mouse: one foot in a muck that I didn't want to learn too much more about, my two hands over my mouth and nose, my fears rising while I tried not to breathe in the rancid air.

But then, then, I swear that although my eyes were blind in the dark, the very walls about me started to move and I found I was far from alone.