that pill became as common as bathing. It took them years to realize what it was really doing.”
I raise my eyebrows at her, urging her to go on. This is all new to me. No one has ever actually explained to me what happened.
“It made your daughter’s chances of birthing a healthy girl the same as being struck by lightning. By the time they realized, it was already too late. The damage had been done.”
“I thought it was a virus,” I tell her. “I thought it could be caught just by going outside.”
“If you had a very rare thing and feared it running away, what would be the easiest way to ensure it never did?”
I smile at her. “You’re right.”
Celeste shrugs. “Usually am.”
“Baron said something similar… he just didn’t explain it as well as you did.”
She laughs at that. “He never does. There is always something hidden behind what he says. He rarely lies… that would be too easy for him. But he is a master at using words with such skill that he doesn’t need to lie. You must watch out for that.”
“I’m trying to.”
“I know.”
“You have always lived here with him?”
“No,” she says. “Not always.”
“He had a mother and a father?”
She smiles at me knowingly. “Everyone had a mother and a father. But that was not really your question, was it?”
I shake my head at her.
“We don’t speak of Baron’s parents. If you are wise, which I happen to think you are, you will not pry. Least of all with Baron.”
“They are dead?”
Celeste sighs. “In the old days—before the curse you speak of—people dressed in black as a sign of mourning. Sometimes, they’d wear it for years. I chose to wear only black not on the day my daughter died… but on the day she married his father.”
Her eyes are glassy, as if I’ve touched on something that is still raw for her. I won’t push her any further. She’s giving me answers, even if some of them are off-limits. And answers, after all, are the things I wanted most.
I take another sip of wine and try to think of the best way to say it.
“You’ve been so kind to me, and helpful,” I tell her. “I appreciate it more than you could know. But there is something that has been playing on my mind for a long time, and I thought you might have the answer.”
“Go on.”
“Is there truly nothing else out there? Is everywhere just as bad as here?”
“Truthfully, the only places I have been are worse.”
“Is that why you stay here? Is that why you can still bring yourself to love him?”
“You have heard the sounds of a woman being raped in that god-awful ring, correct? The screams. The tears.”
I close my eyes as I remember that very first night and nod.
“Do you know the only thing worse than hearing the screams? It’s hearing nothing at all. The women who have tried to survive on their own outside, the women who ran here from that carnival you are so convinced isn’t cruel, they never scream. The women who come from outside… they are already dead. When you understand that, it is hard not to love your own flesh and blood. Even if his ways can be cruel.”
I knock back the rest of my drink while I try to process what she is telling me.
There is nothing.
Nothing to run toward.
No light at the end of the long tunnel to reach for.
This is apparently the light.
And yet again, I find myself not even experiencing the worst of it. I’m one of the lucky ones. For reasons completely unknown to me, I’m special. At least, for now. I’m well aware that could change at any moment. Just one of Baron’s whims could see me in that ring… and he doesn’t even visit me anymore.
Perhaps his patience with me is wearing thin.
“How do I… how do I survive a man like him? Has anyone?”
Celeste puts her empty glass down on the table. “There have never been others,” she says. “Whether you want to be or not, you are special to him in some way. As for how you survive… why would you want merely to survive? To endure, that is your ultimate aim? I’m disheartened by that.”
“You’re suggesting I fight him?”
“No. That’d be rather foolish.”
“So what? I do everything he says? I be good?”
She laughs, a high-pitched tinkle that sounds like glass. “Of course not. Remember what I told you? There is good and there is great, and in