Mary watched Kesha’s slender form melt into the silver mists that clouded the road. Carefully, she lifted a finger to smooth out the little folds she had begun to notice above her brow.

A heavy weight in her chest hurt every attempt to breathe. She sank to her knees.

“Lord God, I need you!” she whispered into the pale black air. “Why can I not hear you?”

Salt-water bathed the careworn eyes. The twinkling lights of the house danced through the glassy lens.

A golden beam of light fell across the mottled edge of the washtub. Dirty water lay stagnant within, milky bubbles dotting its murky glass.

“Have you done with the potatoes, Mary?”

Helna jabbed the younger girl with a padded elbow. Mary shrugged.

“Oh Helna, why do some people get all the goodness in life and others only soapsuds?” she asked the older slave woman. Helna’s thick hair bloomed in a wreath around her face, like a lion’s mane, as she ran a callused hand through it.

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Dawn.

It was beautiful. And painful.

It shouted life, thrilling every bone in Mary’s body. It flooded her with memories that sleep alone could escape.

What was joy when her world had fallen apart? Then again, what was pain in the pale, dew-stained morning of Athens?

“Why do you hate me?”

The words were spoken. He dared not back away now.

Her eyes flashed with anger.

“You stole me from my family!”

“I—”

“You stole my life, my freedom, everything that I was! How can I not hate you?”

Silence.

Then slowly, “You hate me—”

“Yes! why do you ask?”

Chares took a step back. He stared at the dirt, then flicked his eyes up to Mary’s face. “I…just wanted to know.”

“Now you know.”

He looked down again.