Marked For Life. Emelie Schepp

from the round lamp was weak and there were dead flies inside the glass globe. How would they punish her now? She wasn’t meant to touch her neck. That’s what they had said. The wound had to heal completely. If you touched it, it would look much worse. Ugly.

      She slid down to the floor with her back against the wall. The break was soon over; she couldn’t stay much longer in the toilet. How long had she been on the island? A month? Perhaps several months. The trees had at any rate lost all their leaves. She had thought that the golden-brown leaves were so lovely. At home she had never seen a tree that changed color like that. Every time she stood to attention in the yard, she wished she could cast herself into the piles of golden leaves. But she never could. She was only allowed to fight. All the time. Against the wiry boy Minos. And even against Danilo. He was bigger and stronger than she, so she hadn’t been any match for him. He tried not to hit her too hard, but eventually he had to. If you didn’t fight, you got beaten, beaten a lot, so Danilo hit her. At first he tried to be careful, a light thump and a slap. But then the man with the ugly scar had lifted him up so violently by his hair that he pulled some clumps out.