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Kiki hadn't meant to overhear anything, none of the frightened whispers, none of the barking commands and the hasty laughter limping weakly afterwards. She hadn't meant to stand up and catch a glimpse of her mother wringing her hands, staring blankly at her father, shaking before three men, faces dark and blurred. She stumbled and found her way to the door, holding her breath until it swung open and she dashed outside.
She knew everything already. She knew what they owed because her grandmother no longer took any coins to the hillside church, and after a few days of snapping through curtains at the women hissing by, she kept to herself inside her room. She did not want to know how much they owed after the day her uncle grabbed her arm and told her father, frantic and blanching, to sell her off and her father almost did lead her out of the door before he burst into tears at her petrified quiet.
She glanced back, hands kneading her dress, teeth gnawing her lip. She watched the men mount their horses and then leaned back against the lone tree in their vegetable patch. She could hear the baby mewing and her aunts crying and a dull thumping in the hollow of her chest.
The king will take care of it, this is no longer our battle, her father had whispered last night. Kiki turned towards the west where a turret gleamed in the distance. She saw no white horse approaching.