dripping glass water behind it.
Below, a lidded black pot hung from a rotating spit just outside the flames’ reach. The best smell she had ever smelled was coming from inside. A potpie, if she didn’t miss her guess, filled with bubbling dough and chunks of moist chicken meat.
“Before I give you food,” the monster woman said, “you must tell me something.”
Saliva filled her mouth. “What?”
“What village are you from? Where are your parents?”
The girl knew better than to tell the monster woman anything, but there was a potpie. “Mamá is dead,” she said.
The words dislodged something inside her, something that roiled around in her belly for a moment and then came exploding out of her body in a wracking sob. Mamá is dead. Mamá is dead.
“There, there, sweet thing, I’m so sorry to hear. And your village?”
The village she and Mamá had lived outside of had a name, but she couldn’t remember it. And she didn’t care to. No one there wanted her anyway. She said, through gulping tears, “No village. I’m from nowhere.”
“Oh, good,” the woman muttered. “That’s good.”
The girl didn’t understand what was good about that, but she could hardly think beyond the potpie scent. It had actual salt in it, she was certain. And oregano.
“You’re a pretty thing,” the monster woman said. Her soft hand came up to caress the girl’s cheek. The girl couldn’t help herself; she leaned into this feeling of kindness as tears continued to pour down her cheeks. The woman said, her voice as satiny and exquisite as butterfly wings, “You’re not really an Invierno, are you? I couldn’t tell at first; you’re so pale and skinny. But I see it now. You’re a half-breed. A mula.”
The girl didn’t know what a mula was, but it sounded nice, and she was hungry, so she nodded. Yes, she would be a mula.
The monster woman’s smile changed, and the girl thought of beautiful, bright summer clouds right before they burst with deadly hail.
“We must tattoo your feet,” the monster-woman said.
The little girl, whose name was now Mula, had done nothing but sleep and eat for three days. But now the monster woman wanted her to start contributing.
“What’s a tattoo?” Mula asked.
“A special mark,” the woman said. “It’s very pretty. Bright blue like the sky.”
Mula liked the color blue. It was her second-favorite color, after red. “Like jewelry?” Mula asked.
“Yes, like jewelry. For your feet. You won’t be able to walk for a few days while the color sets, but you can’t walk on that ankle anyway. I’ll find simple tasks for you at first. Can you peel turnips? Mend? Scrub dishes?”
Mula nodded. She was a big girl, and big girls knew how to do all those things.
“Good. That’s good.”
Mula beamed. She was happy to please the monster woman.
“If you turn out to have clever fingers, I’ll teach you about glassmaking. That’s what I do, you see. Blow glass and sell it. Mobiles, figurines, ornaments, wind chimes. Do you want to learn how to make glass, Mula?”
“Yes.”
“You must address me as ‘my lady.’ Say ‘Yes, my lady.’”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Good girl.”
The next day, a man came to the hut. The girl called Mula noticed his hands—calloused and cracked, with fingers stained bright blue. He carried a leather satchel, and inside were packets of things, all wrapped in parchment or dried leaves, along with several long pointy tools that looked like writing quills, except so, so much sharper.
The monster woman helped Mula hobble to the table and sit, while the blue-fingered man poured some dark berries from a packet into a gray stone mortar and used a pestle to crush them, adding a bit of liquid that smelled like mead gone sour.
The monster woman instructed Mula to sit with her feet up on the table. It was awkward, and it hurt her healing ankle, but she knew better than to complain.
The mixture in the mortar turned bright blue like the sky. “Azure berries,” the man explained cheerfully. “Very rare, very expensive. That’s why not everyone can afford to have slaves. The tattoos cost too much.”
Mula gave the monster woman a puzzled look. What did he mean by “slaves”?
The man dipped one of the sharp quills into the bright ink.
“Now hold still,” the monster woman ordered. “No matter what.”
“Heels are very hard to tattoo,” the man said. “The skin is so thick. They will need a deep application.”
“I understand,” the monster woman said. “Whatever it takes.”
Mula was still puzzling their words when the man brought the quill tip to