“We all have to wear it.”
I took my sister from her and held her as Nicah stripped and bathed. Asia decided that my lips and nose were great things to try to yank free of my face, which made me laugh softly. I leaned in and kissed her chubby cheeks a couple of times, and it made her smile.
“Beautiful girl,” I cooed to her. “The most beautiful little one in the Universe.”
When Nicah was bathed, dried, and had her hair done and her clothing on, Asia got her first washing experience on Terra, and she hated every single second of it. She screamed until fat tears rolled down her chubby cheeks. When she was bundled up in a tiny body cloth, we left the washroom and headed upstairs to the living quarters.
All twenty-three of the women housed in the bunkhouse looked my way. Smiles graced their faces, and they offered me small waves, but none of them made a move to come and hug me in greeting, and I knew why. We all cared for one another, but every slave, except Nicah, had always kept me at a distance because of my blood connection to Master, and I didn’t blame them. I looked around at the women, and I noted who was there and who was not.
My heart hurt for the women who were not for I knew it meant that they were dead.
“Nicah says you’re a princess on Ealra, Levi,” Meeno, a round-faced woman, chirped, beaming my way. “Is that true?”
I nodded. “It is.”
“Wow! That’s so cool. Before you came from the main house, Nicah gave us a rundown and taught us things about the Maji. Moon cycle. Term. Intervals,” Meeno said in wonder. “So many different ways of saying things. Ealra and the Maji sound wonderful.”
“They are,” Nicah said sadly. “Living with them was a dream … one Master has woken us from.”
Meeno did not pick up on Nicah’s hurt over our situation.
“What are the names of the days and months?” she pressed on. “Are they something strange?”
“Actually”—I chuckled at her enthusiasm—“the months, days, and weeks just have numbers to identify them. It’s easy.” I moved farther into the room. “Day one. Moon cycle one. Term one. Understand?”
“Ah, sticks. I was hoping they’d be something funny.”
Meeno was twenty-one, the same age as me, but she had always been such a sweet soul who looked for the good in every single thing. Master bought her from her father when she was fifteen and had kept her ever since. Her skin was as white as Nuni’s, but her hair was golden blonde, and her eyes were as blue as Terra’s sky.
“Let them settle in, Mee,” Nell said from the viewing pane sill she was perched upon. She brushed her light brown hair out of her grey eyes. “You can ask them questions later.”
Nell, like Nicah, did not have ancestors who came from the continent of Europe. Hers came from South America. She was in her late twenties and had always been the most distant of my sister slaves, and when she looked at me, I remembered why. Half of her face had been badly marred by Master when I was a child. I once took one of Master’s oranges from his garden, and when he confronted Nell about it being missing, I never spoke up and told him it was me. He dragged her to his house when she told him she didn’t know where the orange went, and if I thought about it hard enough, I could still hear her screams.
She stumbled from the house the next day with a blood-soaked cloth held against her face. Master had taken his carving knife to her and sliced one side of her pretty face into a bloody mess. He called her a two-faced liar and decided to make her two-faced. It took weeks for the wounds to heal, and when they did, the dark purple, lumpy scars that marred one side face were a constant reminder that she looked that way because of me, and she knew it too. She knew I was the one who ate the orange, yet she never told on me.
We had never spoken of it, but I knew we both thought of it whenever we looked at one another.
“Hi, Nell.”
“Levi.”
She looked from me to the fields that surrounded the property outside before I could say another word. She didn’t want to talk to me, and I didn’t blame her, but I was so happy to see her alive and well. I was happy to see all of them. I expressed that with words to the rest of the women, and they all returned my happiness. Most of the women came forward to coo and fawn over Asia, who was looking around at all the new faces with wide eyes.