The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L.P. Hartley
The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it. Wendell Berry
~X~
Chapter Two: Abnormality
Matilda Tewt was sent to the Grey house when she was 8 years old. She knows what she did, but thinks they're stupid to shut her away for being able to read and write and for calling the church an Outmoded Institute of a Corrupt Regime. Her Papa taught her that and she knows one day he'll come back from the war and take her home. She loves her Papa more than anything and wishes he hadn't gone away.
She hates her aunt, she hates the stupid priest and she hates the square women who held her down and cut her hair. Her Papa loves her hair and he will be so angry when he hears they shaved it all off. She yelled and swore at them but they didn't listen.
They put her in a horrible dress and the rough cotton itches at the back of her legs. She wants her clothes back, she wants the womanto let go of her arm and right now she wants her Papa something fierce. The tendrils of fear are beginning to tangle round her stomach but she bites her lip to force the tears back and holds her head high as the womanpushes open the large door to the refectory. Noise and smell rush out in a mighty surge.
In the sudden silence all eyes turn to her. Without conscious decision her chin juts out that inch further as she draws herself to full height. It's that dignified movement that draws Magda's eye. She doesn't usually pay any attention to the goings on in the Grey House; girls come and go all the time. But there is something about this small kid trying so hard to stare down the entire room that can't be ignored.
~X~
(If this were a story such as those told by well meaning folk in the world outside these walls, the new girl would be surely placed next to her at the table. Without any doubt they would immediately become best friends followed by a series of jolly adventures of a thrilling, but never life threatening, nature. But the cold finger of reality is inserted where fate pleases to alter the make up of the pie. This is the Grey House and there are darker forces than narrativium at work here.)