Chapter three
After his talk with Kaz Jesper thought he would give her a heads up about her training. Maya was bent over her chair, the shirt that was usually tucked into her pants was halfway up her back. He let out a gasp, Maya nearly banged her head onto the desk quickly trying to hide her back, but Jesper has already seen the scars. Jesper was near the door trying to comprehend what he had just seen. Scars riddled her back.
She looked at Jesper tears in her eyes as they both looked at each other. "Who did that to you?" It popped out of his mouth; she shook her head slowly putting her hands on her head. He always wondered why she had tucked her shirts in, thought it was a western thing but now he strode towards her as the tears threatened to spill over and she deliberately looked at the ceiling trying to stop them. "Can I see again?" He had to know he hadn't imagined it.
She lifted her shirt up allowing him to see the shame she held onto. With the gentlest of touches, he let his fingers simply touch the cuts. He pulled his hand away, sitting on the bed a stunned expression on his face. "Who did it?" He asked again. "You weren't ever punished?" She asked. "Nothing that left marks like that." Jesper said gently than realization hit him. "Your parents." "Stepfather." She corrected. "I always tended too after so that it wouldn't get infected not like…" She went quiet.
"It must of hurt." Jesper pointed out the obvious. "I think that was point, he only wanted to toughen me up." He really wanted to shut her up. "It worked though, didn't it? I got across the sea on nothing more than a small boat." Maya's defenses were up. She was always careful around Wylan less so around Jesper, but she hardly talked about her home life. "Maya, talk to me please." Jesper said gently. "Did he ever hurt your mom?" Maya shook her head no. "Then who else? Did you have siblings?" Again, she shook her head. "Then who?" Maya felt like shutting down she couldn't tell him what the south was like. That she thought he was a servant in his own home because of the color of his skin.
What she thought of black or brown people as before Jesper opened her eyes that they weren't to be bought and sold like cattle how everyone spoke the n word like it people like him. He would hate her, throw her out in the street and make her…." The tears that previously threatened to spill over did so in waves. "Please don't hate me or throw me out into the streets I didn't know it was wrong." She choked out as Jesper tried to make sense of this. "Why would I do that? I like you Maya we're friends." She held a cloth to her face as Jesper looked on helplessly.
"You would hate me if you knew…" She had trouble getting the words how. "Don't speak just breath with me." Jesper was close to panicking she wasn't breathing correctly. "Breath in and out." He said instructing her as if she had forgotten how to breath and she did forget. She followed his breathing techniques until she was able to do it on her own and even than Jesper sat and watched her until he was sure she was okay. "Will you talk to me? Why you think I will hate you?" Tears were still pouring down her face. "We owned slaves." She finally admitted. "You owned people?"
Jesper asked trying to understand. "We owned blacks." She couldn't look him in the eye. "The more you owned it showed how prosperous you are, because if you go belly up the first thing you do is auction them off. The men worked the fields woman too mostly but if you were pretty, you had the chance of living in the house, out of the heat. My stepdad fooled around with them spawned children, he got my mom pregnant many times, but she lost them all. The black ones were sent in the fields to work the ones that can pass as white were sent to boarding school." She couldn't stop crying she wanted to forget.
"Maya, you didn't have any control over that." Jesper said trying to calm her down. "I thought it was right." She cried. "I don't deserve you as a friend. If I was sold to some whorehouse perhaps that's my just deserts." Jesper didn't like that kind of talk. "Now stop that." Jesper spoke in an authoritative tone that made Maya pause. "Never believe you deserve bad things to happen to you because of what your family and your community had you believing was normal. You had no formal education on the matter, and you were taught wrong. When you came into my house you treated me with nothing but respect and that's what you deserve. "What were their names?" Jesper asked. "Dill and Ethan." Maya reminded him. "Yeah them they might of thought you deserved it but I don't think so and anybody in their mind would agree with me."
"I poured wine over your head when we first met, and you had to get a new couch cause it stained the couch cushions." Jesper laughed to Maya's surprise. "I was drunk and was being goofy. You had every right to do that, and it was fun I'm just glad it didn't get in my eyes." Maya smiled through her tears. "I wish I would've had this talk with you sooner." Maya admitted. Jesper sobered remembering why it started.
"You didn't deserve to be whipped neither. You were a child and no matter what bad they thought you done their was no reason." Maya shrugged. "It was one more reason for me leave besides being married off. It did make me tougher." Maya reiterated. Jesper had nothing to say for that. "I actually came here because Kaz stopped by." He just handed Maya the address that Kaz left for him "Kaz wants to know how you fight, says he's got two guys to train you." Jesper said. Maya's face lit up. Her uncle taught her to fight, she was hoping that it would help her with whatever was coming next.
Jesper contemplated telling Maya she was being used for a spy. He didn't like the idea of what was going on that Kaz couldn't get answers on but trusted Kaz enough to have her prepared for whatever she was going to encounter. He wondered if he should tell her more about his time in the gang and what he was still being asked to do. He could see Wylan's worry whenever he went off for a new job for Kaz, but he had a right to worry seeing Maya go down the same path he did brought the kind of worry that Wylan complained about. Not knowing if he was going to come back in one piece. He enjoyed his talk with Maya he decided as he left her room and she continued on the piece of clothing she was working on.