THIRTY-EIGHT
Justice stood in the door of the room she had shared with her mother, casting her eyes over the beds with rumpled sheets and the meagre possessions they had crammed onto the desk between them, tears blurring her vision. At first, she couldn’t bring herself to enter the room, to break the silence that enveloped it as memories flooded her. On a shuddering breath, she finally stepped over the threshold and moved to her bed, shaking dust off the covers as she smoothed them into place. She did the same with her mother’s bed. The monks had insisted their rooms remain tidy at all times, so nothing else was out of place.
With a shaky hand, she reached out and touched the spine of the book she and her mother had read on her last day here. The yellow was faded, the cover rough against
