chapter 40

Abbie Tyson sits next to Oliver near the pantry, the boys are playing with their mini dump trucks that they are running over cookies with while I help do the dishes with one of the other servants. Clarice bitched me out real good for being down here. Eventually, giving in, and I have been down here for a few hours helping prepare food for the guards and royals while also preparing the servants’ dinner. I also find something soothing about cleaning or cooking. It is a task that occupies the mind, one that has an end result that can be seen. It is better than the thoughts that usually occupy my mind or, more like haunt it. Ghost of fragmented and distorted memories, twisted and wicked as they force me to relive the past on a never ending loop. I suppose the other servants here look at me like I am a madwoman wanting to be a servant, but it is better than being me. Better than being Abbie. Nobody wants her, me, as Mrs. Daley would say. Yet here, being a servant is like being invisible. We