"Your mom just fell, she'll be ok," Yan insisted to the three concerned little boys who'd paused from play in her front yard when they'd come back. Yan supported Greta on her shoulder and led her to a chair.

The boys shrugged, and proceeded to run back toward Yan's boys.

"What should I do, what should I do?" Greta was asking.

Yan breathed out heavily. "Not what I expected."

"God, is she a demon?" Greta whined, crossing herself again. "Fangs!"

"A cross between a demon and an angel, maybe," Yan murmured. "Or she's just another poor deformed child."

Greta shook her head. "What should I do, Yan?"

"Well, I'd sleep on it first. She's got a chance at life, where she is; don't want to be hasty. What else is there for a poor creature like that? The girl's useful to you, and you know she didn't much have the eyes of a touched child, really, she could probably learn to do other chores." She stood and retrieved some ratty clothing from the front closet. "Here's some of my boys' things, they don't need them. Give the girl something to wear, for me?"

Greta stared down at the stained, patched clothing on the table before her. She had no reply, and sat stoic, staring, until Yan came out with fresh tea and changed the subject back to the week's gossip.

OXO

The animals hadn't been fed, watered, or exercised since the morning before, so when Greta awoke at first sunrise and the situation flooded back into memory, she was filled with dread. Dawdling all she could with breakfast and prepping her family for the day, second sunrise come and gone, she could put it off no longer.

Warily, she glanced about to see the girl curled on her usual pile of straw, and slowly she began to arrange the feed. She did not sing or hum or chat as she had before.

Soft, wet sniffling sounds came from the bundled, huddled form of the girl.

The floors were clean, remarkably so.

Coming closer to her, to slop the pigs, Greta noticed blood dried onto the hoof file hung on the wall. She frowned, picturing the child rubbing it against her teeth until her hands bled.

The girl shuffled a few steps toward Greta, keeping her distance, hood back just to see her eyes and nose. Those gorgeous blue-green eyes gazed up at Greta.

If the girl was not a danger, if she was helping, trying, and it really seemed she was, Greta couldn't throw her out.

Thinking about the old clothes Yan had insisted she take, Greta wondered what to do? She'd be drawing the family's weekly bath tomorrow evening. The girl could use the water when they were through; it was going to be thrown out then anyway. "I want you to nod your head, like this, when you understand what I tell you. Do you understand?"

The girl nodded, eyes glued to the women towering over her.

"Right now, I'm letting you eat the feed and stay in the barn because you do things for me, with the poop."

She nodded again.

"Well, I'll do more for you if you do more for me. Like, I'm going to give you clothes to wear and let you take the last bath. And for that, you need to do more for me. You need to do what I tell you to do."

The girl waited, then nodded.

"I'm going to teach you how to use the pump and water the animals," Greta explained, opening the barn door.

Turning from the harsh light, the girl nodded and followed.

"Shank you."

Greta stopped in her tracks, startled by the quiet, hissing words. "Oh my God, you can talk."

The girl squinted up at her as she stood barefoot in the sand. "Shank you," she repeated, hiding her smiling mouth behind her hands as the words awkwardly formed. "Shank you."

"You're welcome," Greta replied hurriedly, "and you only have to say it once. Now come along, girl."

OXO

"Holy shit!" Jon whispered to his two older brothers as they peeked round the edge of their house to see their mother and the odd figure they often saw helping their mother, and he couldn't believe it, but their mother was apparently about to bathe the figure like she bathed her own sons! And they were going to get to see the stranger naked!

"Is that a girl?" Marcus, the youngest, asked as he peered out, watching as the figure took off its rags.

"It's a girl because it doesn't have a willy!" Sean chimed in, proud. The Gordon boys had taught them how to spy on ladies bathing, as they'd also taught them to cuss, so they were MEN now.

"Holy shit!" Jon repeated, "she looks like a buzzard!"

The figure was rubbing grime off its nude self with the rags, pale, pale skin aglow in the sun. The boys could clearly make out a big bump of skin or something on her back, and she hunched over just like a buzzard does.

"She's got a hunchback just like old man Jones! Mom said you only get those when you're old!"

"Sean, she's not old," Marcus corrected haughtily. "She's my age."

"Yeah, looks like it," Jon agreed. "No tits yet."

Their mother had a disgusted look on her face as she helped the girl into the wash basin, probably because she smelled so bad. The girl sort of cried out when Greta dunked her head under.

The boys chuckled quietly. They each disliked getting dunked, too, but as men, they were supposed to act like it didn't bother them.

"You boys are getting a whoopin'!" came the booming, frightening voice of their mother. They ran off as quickly as they could.

Greta sighed aloud, and returned to scrubbing at the frail thing. "Keep still, this is supposed to hurt some," she insisted, referring to the way the washcloth was reddening the girl's skin. "Now listen, there are things you're supposed to know. One is, you should never let boys see you without your clothes on, because it'll make them want to mess with you."

People saw her without her clothes on every day at the plant room place before, and some of those people could have been boys. That must've been why they wanted to see her insides, because that was certainly a kind of 'messing with her.' The girl stared off in the direction the boys had been, before Greta scared them off. She winced as she was scrubbed, waiting patiently for the washing to be through.

Moments later, Greta sighed. "Now, that's the only one I'm doing. You can do it yourself the next time. There are some clothes, finish up," she instructed, handing the girl a towel to dry with as she prepared to dump the basin. Eyeing the girl from the corner of her eye, she saw that the girl was learning to clothe herself for the first time. "You need to keep clean or people can't stand the stink of you. Don't get yourself dirty and don't let the poop touch you."

The girl finished pulling on the pants and tried to button the shirt, but needed Greta's instruction to finish. It was tight against her hump, but big enough to fit alright. She hid her smile with her hands. "Shank you."

"I'm not your mother, girl," Greta announced, "You are going to take care of yourself from now on. Don't trust nobody. And learn to talk. You're supposed to talk to people or they'll think you're stupid and you don't need anybody to think you're stupid – stupid people get hurt and stolen from."

"Talk. I shoo talk," the girl mumbled with a slight hiss. "I'm not shtupish."

"Here's a present, ok? This is for you because you did a good job. You shouldn't use a file big as a hoof file, so here's a smaller one. It's yours, so you keep working on those teeth, maybe you'll get to talking like normal someday."

The girl kept one hand over her mouth and grabbed the file tight in the other. "Shank you. Shish is good."

"Don't show people your teeth and keep this tied over your ears," Greta insisted, showing her to knot a cloth round her ears like a headband. It kept her long, soft, straight blonde hair out of her face and the girl didn't mind. "Getting late, girl. Go on to the barn, I'm bound to lock up."

The girl obeyed, shuffling off to her straw. Her mind was abuzz and happy, and she wondered how she'd keep her feet clean from the sand and the dirt, and how she could eat the slop without getting it on her hands or her face.