There were ten women crammed into the pantry. Granted, it was a large pantry, but eleven bodies and five flat, rancid cots made for a tight fit, all the same. An oil lamp belched smoke on one of the empty shelves. I was relieved to see that none of them were younger than me. Then I was horrified. Snail was not there.
They regarded me with a mixture of curiosity and hollow-eyed despair, some obviously wondering what I was doing there. I wondered the same thing. Fields had not been among those who seized me, and I did not know whether they recognised me as the girl who had put out his eye, or even whether they had recognised me as a girl at all. I knew that they would not kill me immediately. They had to find out how much I knew about them, and who else knew it, who else was coming. But per
