~
Word count: 3624
Note: this arc takes place mid-way through the book, and approximately three weeks after chapter five
Question: seriously what do you think of Dawson I'm curious
~

Shaking out my still damp hands from washing clothes, I dragged myself up the stairs, exhaustion creasing my brow. The past few nights had been sleepless, caught up in words and and snippets of conversation, of racing thoughts that kept me awake long after all the other girls had slipped peacefully into rest. The creak of the door opened and I froze, the sight Melle lacing up her boots, her hair hanging loose about her shoulders, give me enough reason to pause. I stood in the doorway to our room, eyebrows furrowed as I looked at her. "So you're going again? I thought you were done."

She didn't even bother to look up at me, just kept on lacing her boots. "Of course. Tonight's our last chance, and they'll be shipping out tomorrow once the daylight comes in."

I came into the room and sat on the edge of my bed, my eyes glancing past the still open door, to the hallway outside. The other girls would linger downstairs for a while more, finishing their afternoon tasks. Their absence gave us a small moment of strenuous privacy, until someone else decided to come up here just as I had.

"And you really expect him to come by the house and sweep you away? That he'll actually dedicate enough to you to make your his wife?" I swirled my finger along the bedspread, listening to Melle move about the room.

"Course not." Her voice was terse as she replied. "But I might as well get another night out of him." There were no sounds following this statement. Melle had gone completely silent.

I looked up and saw her whole body shaking. Sliding off the bed I walked up to Melle and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close. "I guess," she hiccupped, digging her fingertips into my dress. "I guess I figured out he didn't mean any of his promises about a week ago. If he had actually wanted me, or loved me, he could have just came in and married me. We could been together at any time, because that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to become their doting, obedient little wives. And instead he decided it would be easier to pay almost triple just to have me for four nights."

I rubbed at her back, trying to instill what little comfort I could offer her. "I'm sorry," I whispered, struggling to find more words, something meaningful to give her. But what more could I say in this moment? What little knowledge did I have, in my lesser years, thar Melle wouldn't already possess. "I'm so sorry."

She hung there against me, sobbing, her whole body shaking from the weight of all her grief, and I held her.

When Melle had finally spent her tears, she leaned away from my hold, swiping at the wetness that still lingered on her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she murmured, eyes downcast. "That was unseemly."

I rubbed her shoulder, searching for something, anything to say. Finally, I reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm always here."

She looked up at me, eyes puffy and red but at least she was smiling. "I know," she sighed. "You'll always be here and I'll always be here and we will both always be here. Just… stuck here." Melle took a deep breath and straightened herself. "I'll be going now. Don't bother lying to the other girls about where I am tonight. I'll tell Mam Dorce when I come back, anyways."

And with that, she left me, standing alone in our room. The candle in the windowsill flickered lazily, shining in the glass of the window and throwing my reflection back at me. I turned away, heart in my throat as I sat on my bed.

Was she right? Would I always be stuck here, in this house, on this moon? Would I turn out like Kidget, with such a sad, regretful air about me? She had been here for years and years, and one did not become the Eldest through a mere passage of rank. She would have had to have been here for years, watching men pass her by only to choose the others in the room, every time.

And even now as the Eldest, it was still happening to her. With Presa, or any of the other girls who had been chosen since Kidget had attained that title.

Was I doomed to someday become like here? To waste away my younger life until I was no longer desirable, and then have to leave and simply work, without hope of anything in the way of love, of marriage, of a family?

Or perhaps worse, a man who bought me, who paid for me and swept me away only to beat me, to hurt me and treat me like nothing more than an object?

Which fate was to be deemed worse? Captivity in the world I knew, or the unknown prospect of an unknown man?

I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed, as if this action could ground my thoughts into this moment. It mattered not what I thought, or what any of this meant to me. The reality of it all was that I truly was nothing more than an object now. Mam Dorce, for all her kind words and care, owned me. She had purchased me from my father, and she would continue to own me until I was either sold to another, or deemed no longer useful.

I would not get any say in these matters.

Perhaps the husband was a better way to go. After all, there seemed plenty of other good, honest, kindly men out there. That man Presa had fallen for, Kipp, who seemed so genuine in all of his care for her, that spark of something warm and true in his eyes.

Sighing, I got off the bed and ventured back down the stairs. Maybe I could sit with the other girls, talk with them to get these things off my mind, to get away from the doubts and concerns that clung to my every movement.

The clock downstairs read five, and it took me a very long moment of studying to realize it meant three in the evening, and not that we were all sitting awake, having simply passed through the hours of night with little notice.

I lingered in the edge of the stairway, hovering on that last step as I stared at the clock, and my prolonged presence had caught Kidget's attention.

"Enori," she called, waving me over. "Come help me with dinner preparations. I sense it will ti you good to have busy hands at this moment?"

I nodded, pushing back my sleeves as I made my way across across small kitchen to stand by her side. "Of course, Kidget."

I always felt so small, so young and unlearned when in her presence, though she was nothing more than five years my senior. But she always seemed so much older, more mature, more weary of this life, this role.

She was fluttering through the upper cabinets, pulling out various ration packs, their silver wrappers crinkling as she grabbed them. "Why don't you get started with bowls for us all. I'll begin hydrating these in a moment, and then you can help with that as well."

"Yes Kidget." I moved to open the cabinet holding the dishes, then paused. "How many girls do we home, nowadays? I know the number has been growing."
<
"Fifty-three," she replied, almost without thought. "We got those two sisters last week,  remember? "

I nodded. "Of course." I started counting out the dishes, brow furrowed.

Of course I remembered. The scene had played out so intensely, it felt almost as if it had now been burned into my mind. The elder daughter was a struggling, screaming mess. She refused to leave her father, or her little brother, who was clinging to their father's leg and crying just as much as the younger sister. It had take too much time to finally extricate them away from the other half of their family, and when it had finally been done, Kidget had wrapped the teen up in her arms, held her tight and promised thst it would all be fine.

My heart had ached watching the entire scene unfold, and merely thinking of it now made it feel heavy in my chest.

I had been expected to talk to her as well, as the Youngest, to show her that things would all be well, that this life was one she could enjoy.

But having finally made it to this point, this point I had looked at with dread the years I had peanut growing up here, I couldn't bring myself to lie to her and tell her of the wonders of the Hents House.

Instead, I had told the girl, Lillith, the truth. That she would be cared for here, that she would be taught, be fed, be given a place to sleep. I also told her of the future that lay before her, of the Investors and how she would one say be a bride. Her tears had ebbed the longer I went on, maybe from sheer exhaustion, or perhaps finding some solace in the plainness of my words.

I didn't dare tell her that she would be parted from her little sister. I did not want to bear the weight of her hurt and dismay, that desperation to keep her family together had shone clearly in her forceful parting from her father, and it would show even clearer when she gained this knowledge. I would not be the one to pass this on.

Fifty-three. I set the stacks of bowls on the counter and turned my attention toward Kidget, who was pouring boiling water into the pot holding the main portion of the ration packs.

Though it was claimed there were different meals held inside the rations, I had never believed the labels written across them. No matter the type, they all inevitably turned into something generally brown in color, and almost lumpy, like the texture of porridge, with uneven bites of spices that clumped together.

Now, the dehydration proteins from inside the rations would soak in this water, until it became something almost edible.

Kidget passed me a knife and a small pile of stunted squash, one of the few plants that could brace the dry and suffocating dust of the moon. We stood in silence as we worked, each of us absorbed in our own tasks. Sounds of voices drifted through the open doorway to the living room, snippets of conversation and laughter.

"Is it always this lonely?" I asked, passing down a pile of chopped up squash. "It seems so quiet in here."

Kidget tossed the pile into the pot of protein. "Sometimes. Oftentimes we do more together, but with all of the newer girls present, we're all a bit busy."

I grabbed another squash from the pile, the knife making dull sounds as I chopped though it. "Is it strange to say that I feel as if I know you girls better, despite having grown up with the youngers my whole life?"

She shook her head. "Of course not. Remember, you grew up alongside us as well, but many of the girls that you left behind in the teen room were those that have only joined the house in recent years. Most times we know only those girls we grow together with, since our younger ages. It has only been recently that there was this influx of older girls."

Another squash. I kept my eyes pinned on the movements of the knife. "And why would you say this is so?"

Kidget stepped away to stir at the pot. "Simple. Word has spread, and so have people's curiosities. The longer these outer systems grow, the more cultivated we become, the more people we will draw into settling it. Word of the Nitztch Company must have also spread into the populace, of those living in the central planets, so they will know to seek us out when they pass through."

"And they know they can get paid for selling their daughters," I said, unable to help to the bitterness that creeped into my voice.

"It's not always for the money," Kidget said carefully. "Think of that one girl, Jordyn. Her father could barely feed himself, let alone take care of a little girl. It's no wonder he left her here, as long as she got fed. He refused to even take money for her, which is good, because those coins we kept have carried long enough to get more rations lately."

She didn't know. Of course she didn't know. Melle and I had been careful, between the two of us smuggling coins into the box or buying extra food whenever we went to the market. There was a reason the two of us had been so eager to volunteer for market runs, how we took every chance to distribute the money in the most discreet was possible.

It was a good thing tonight would be Melle's last night doing this. I didn't know if I could keep up the secrecy any longer, not with the terrible way it made me feel inside.

But this was coupled with the anxiety knowing what would come next. When the last of these extra coins were spent, what would we do next? How would we be expected to feed ourselves?

I splayed my hands out on the counter, staring down at them and trying to still the trembling that began to overtake me. This wasn't my role, this wasn't my job, to try and support this entire house on my own. But why was this eating at me so? Why did the weight of all these concerns and worry crush at my lungs, tie my insides into knots and leave me sleepless through the night. There were others here, olders one who had been through times such as these before.

Surely they knew times such as these before, and how to get through them. The only reason I knew of these troubles was because of those long nights where Reah and I would lie awake a night, sitting up on the back porch under the streetlamp, Reah with her arms curved around herself as she spoke in soft, trembling words, of stories she had heard before, of moments she saw unfold before her eyes.

Perhaps this was why I had come to this point of being of age with so many anxieties clouding my thoughts. I had heard too many tales of the concerns of being eligible, and now that I was finally here, instead of looking forward to it as other in my old room had been, I looked at it as as moment of dread.

Kidget glanced over at me. "You seem distracted lately." Her voice was soft, lilting as ever. "Is it because of that man?"

Her words jolted me out of my thoughts, my fingers curling up as I stepped away from the counter, turning away. "Man?" I moved towards the sink, as if the water could cleanse me of any lingering worries. "I don't… I'm not sure what—" I scrunched my face, trying to gather my words, to school my tongue into communicating properly. "There's no man."

Kidget made a small noise, as if amused by my answer. "Are you quite sure, Enori? There is only so many times a man can accidentally run into you at the market a week, and even fewer times he would offer to walk you home, if there was no semblance of interest, at least on his part."

I ducked my head, tucking my hair behind my ears. "He's just kind like that." A quick glance to the side revealed that Kidget was still looking at me, as if expecting more to the answer. I sighed. "He worries for me. That first night he walked me home, he said that we were being followed, and though we have not seen much of that smiling man since, I can… I can feel him near me. Dawson walks me home to keep me safe."

Kidget pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. "And yet you claim he is not interested in you?"

I shook my head, taking the chair beside her. "No, he is just… good. He cares for all, at least from what I have seen. Je is a noble man, who is always helping others."

"You're blushing."

I inhaled sharply, my hands flying up to my cheeks to feel them, or perhaps cover them? "No I'm not!"

Kidget shook her head, a patient look on her face. "If he was such a general gentleman, why does he not walk any of the other girls home from the market when they go at night? It is only ever you, Enori. I do hope you at least see that."

I put my hands down and steeples them on the table, my voice sounding strange to my ears as I spoke. "Dawson is a friend to me, and nothing more."

"I don't think you even believe yourseld." Kidget rested her chin on one hand. "It is OK to like him, Enori. There is no shame in desiring a man who wants you back."

"And if he doesn't want me back?"

All I could think was of Melle. Of that almost shy smile she had spoken with after that initial defensiveness had worn off. Of the perpetual belief that if she poured all of her care and feelings into this man he might love her back. The eventual hollowness, blank expression she had held today as I held her close.

I couldn't dare to want him. I couldn't let myself put some kind of hope, of trust in a person who would inevitably disappear from my life once more, leaving me all alone in this web of emotion I had strung up for myself.

Her hand reached out, resting atop my own. "Darling, I have seen men come in here all my life, long before you ever came into dwelling at this house, and I have never seen such infatuation in a man's eyes as I have seen in his."

I stared at her, at the kindness in her smile, the weary look to her eyes, that tinge of sadness always overshadowed by care for others.

"It's not fair," I whispered, gripping at her hand. "It's not fair that he might even consider someone as unremarkable as me when you've been here this entire time." My face started to crumple, tears forming in my eyes. "It isn't fair that you have to sit here and watch people pass you by, Kidget! You're the best, most loving, honest, truthful, and beautiful person I know, and you're still stuck here, just like the rest of us! You stand out so, like a… like a rose amongst wildflowers?"

I could see the slight glint of tears in her eyes, and Kidget's smile seemed to soften into something even more caring, if that was even a possibility. "But isn't that the beauty of love? That somone could look at a wildflower and choose them for themselves? That each one of us is valued in someone's eyes, and that we will all find that one who cares about us above all other choices?"

She was crying now, but still that gentle smile remained on her face as she reached out to cup my face. "Your worthiness of love is not to be found comparing yourself to others. You do not deserve love any less than any other person in this room or this house, or any moment you might find yourself in your life."

"But I don't—"my breathing hitched, the words stuck in my throat as shuddering sobs overtook my body. "But I don't deserve." I drew my arms up, cradling myself as the words poured out of me. "I don't get to deserve things, Kidget. I don't get to make choices or have my own hopes… I'm just a thing. An item to be bought or sold and told what to do. Or dumped like something worthless and not like… like a little girl!"

I was all but screaming now, the words raw in my throat, and Kidget inhaled sharply, watching me. "Oh, Enori." She stood and came to my chair, wrapping her arms about me, holding me close to her body.

"He left me!" I sobbed, clinging to her arm. "He left me like I didn't even mean anything to him! I had begged him not to go, I needed him, I needed my daddy to stay with me and he left me!"

The weight of the moment I had tried to jard to forget crushed against me, more than any regret or fear I had before, this was me. The core essence of every bundle of emotion and nerves and it was spilling out of me in tears and screams and shaking hands.

The world faded into nothing more than this swirling of emotion, and then it was gone. All my tears spent and wasted, leaving me staring blankly past Kidget as she murmured in my ear, whispering soft words that I did not hear.

"The food is burning," I murmured, my voice hoarse. "We need to take care of the pottage."

Kidget pulled back and held me at arm's length for a moment, her deep brown eyes studying me. Finally she sighed, and got up from her chair. "Ok. Help me plate everything then."

With a hollow feeling in my chest, I rose and did as she said.