But it was gone all too quickly, as well as the sunlight, when we stepped through another door and I was bathed in a harsh orange light in the foyer and the acrid smell of incense and cigars.
Willa, in her average height and average frame, greeted us wearing a long gray dress that fell just above her ankles, and a pair of flat black shoes over thin white ankle socks. Her arms were covered by the sleeves of a white button-up top that she wore underneath the dress, the collar fixed neatly around her neck with a little four-leaf clover broach pinned to the left side. I liked Willa. She was the only person other than the boys who were imprisoned here like I was, who I didn’t want to see die a painful and horrific death.
Willa was young, but older than me by at least five years. A kind and beautiful girl of about fifteen or sixteen. She was taken by Eskill at a young age, the same as I was. But she would never be sold and was treated kindly by the other men for the most part. I never knew why.
But Willa, also like me, put on a very different face in front of the men.
And as always when I saw her, I went along with it.
“Vhy geev me the runt?” Willa snapped in a heavily broken accent, her pretty natural pink-colored lips curling with censure as she looked down at me through harsh, but beautiful green eyes. “Vhy must you always geev me ze hopeless ones?”
“Because you are the only one here, my dear Willa, who can make the hopeless ones at least appear worthy.” Olaf smiled. I wouldn’t dare look at his face, but I could tell there was a smile on it without having to see.
My body jerked forward and I nearly lost my footing as Willa’s hand yanked on my elbow. And then I saw stars when she slapped me hard across the face with her free hand, and finally my wobbly legs came out from underneath me. My bare knees scraped against the wood floor, but I kept myself from falling further, bracing my free hand against it to hold up my frail weight.
“Geet up!” Willa pulled me to my feet.
“Willa,” I heard Olaf say in a forewarning tone, “I’ve told you, not in the face. Now go. Get him cleaned up.”
“Yes, sir,” Willa said, curtsied and then turned on her heels with my elbow still clutched in her hand.
She walked me up the winding staircase to the second floor. Passing other servants in matching gray dresses, Willa grabbed me by the back of my dark, filthy hair and wound her fingers aggressively through it, pushing me along in front of her cruelly.
“I said valk straight, boy!” she growled behind me.
When the door to her quarters was opened, she gave me a hard shove and I fell through the doorway onto my hands and knees.
The lock on the door clicked behind me and then Willa was sitting on the floor next to me, pulling me into her lap and rocking me against her chest.
“I’m so sorry, Freedrik!” she cried into my hair. “You vill forgive me?”
Tears soaked my cheeks, streaking through a layer of dirt I could feel on my face. But I wasn’t crying because of the way she treated me. I was just glad to see her again.
“I’ll always forgive you, Willa.”
I felt her lips on the top of my head and it sent a rush of warmth through my body.
“Ve must get you ready quickly,” she said, helping me to my feet again. “I don’t want Olaf to have any reason to put you back in confinement.”
“I’m afraid, Willa.”
“I know, Freedrik. I know.”
She kissed me lightly on the cheek and wasted no time getting me into the bath. She was always so careful with me, just as she was with all of the boys who were placed in her care. And she never violated me. She cleaned every part of my body with a caring touch. I never wanted to leave her room whenever I was there, but I would always be whisked away soon after, to avoid suspicion and to make certain that Willa maintained her place as head servant.
After I was bathed and dressed in a clean white T-shirt and a pair of khaki pants, Willa hugged me goodbye as the kind and loving young girl, before taking me back out into the hall as the girl with the iron fist.
Minutes later, she was gone and I was back in the company of Olaf, who seemed to be waiting eagerly for me in his too-small suit and headache-inducing cologne.
“Before I take you to your new quarters,” Olaf said walking beside me with his hands resting folded on his backside, “there is something you need to see.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Already my legs felt shaky, my stomach queasy and tied up in knots. I inhaled a deep breath and remained silent with my eyes facing forward.
“Do you remember when I punished you long ago for forgetting to brush your teeth?” he asked.
I nod. “Yes, sir.”
How could I forget? He brushed them for me in such a violent manner that the toothbrush had been shoved into the back of my throat numerous times, and he scrubbed my gums so hard that they bled for three days afterwards.
We turned left at the end of the hall and came upon a door.
I heard screaming inside and my legs began to shake more noticeably.
Olaf placed his weathered hand on the lever-style handle and said, “This is what will happen to you if your teeth become damaged, or diseased, or grow in crookedly after the old ones have fallen out. You’ve been lucky so far to be blessed with good teeth. Let’s hope it stays that way. You will become a young man soon, in your prime, and how your body begins to take shape now will be with you forever. If any part of it isn’t satisfactory, you’ll face extensive cosmetic corrections, or, depending on how well you are fancied by myself or another Master, you could be disposed of.”
My heart sank and my knees began to buckle, but I straightened up quickly.
He pushed open the door and the screams escaped the room in a whirlwind as if they had been waiting on the other side of that door to be set free. I wanted to cover my ears with my hands, but I knew better than to try. I knew to remain standing with my back straight, my eyes lowered and my arms either down at my sides or placed on my backside like Olaf was standing. I opted for folding my hands together behind me so that I could at least dig my fingers into one another as a way to cope and distract from the screams. They echoed vociferously through the moderately-sized room with high vaulted ceilings. I could smell blood. Bitter and stout, as clearly as if my face had been shoved in a pool of it. I had always had an unfortunate strong sense of smell that I often thought of as a curse. Especially in times like these.
Olaf guided me into another room adjacent to the main room where a boy, older than me and probably Willa’s age, was strapped to a strange-looking chair that allowed his legs to stretch out in front of him elevated evenly with the rest of his body. His blond head was strapped against a headrest by a thick piece of leather, like his torso and his ankles and his arms, which were laying out straight against the chair arms and bound at the wrists.