18Merla is four years older than me. The only thing that kept me away from her was being summoned by Mendoza. How I envied her. My grandfather was so frightened of Aida that he didn’t dare give Merla any chores to do. Her personality also played a role in it, which added to the burden on me because I had to obey his constant requests.
Merla has a strong personality. She’s been clever and a natural leader ever since she was a child. Boys were frightened of her. She didn’t often use her tongue, as other girls did, but her hands went into action automatically if she was angry.
She was slim and relatively tall, with a pale, slightly pink complexion. Her hair was brown and wavy. Her eyes were blue, which made her a classic mestiza, though she hated the label. Her beauty reminded her of the un
