24,068 / 20,982

This character was barely formed when I started typing this, but she turned out to be interesting! At least to write. Her point of view is different from anything I've done before.

Chapter 8: Wilia

Wilia pushed her thick hair back from her temple. "Do you see it?"

Her cellmate sneered. "I don't see nothin'. There's nothin' there, you crazy old bat."

"There is something there," she insisted. "I can feel it. Oh, I wish I had a mirror!"

The other woman snorted rudely. "They won't give you that in here."

Wilia sat back on her own bunk, which was nothing but a slab of wood on legs, more like a rough table than a bed. She arranged her skirt primly around her ankles. She really hated jail. It was always so dirty and uncomfortable, and the company was never good. She hated the lack of privacy almost as much as the fleas and the rats. Worse than any of those, she hated the boredom. She yearned for her bag of knitting. But they would no more give her that than they would a mirror, for the same reason. Shards of glass made a good weapon, and she supposed that, if one were murderously inclined, knitting needles would be good for stabbing, and a knitted strand strong enough for strangling someone.

But she was not murderous. She wasn't violent at all, and never had been. No one had ever been more peace-loving and harmless than she. Jail was not for women like her.

Her nature had, so far, kept her from ever serving long terms in jail. She knew how to play to the magistrates' sympathies, reminding them subtly of their mothers, allowing an occasional tear if distress to roll down her rounded cheek. After all, it wasn't as if anyone had lost what she had stolen. She always gave it back when she was caught.

She didn't mean to steal, not really. She wasn't a thief! Not exactly. She just couldn't resist pretty things. When her eye saw the glitter of a gem or of precious metal, she simply had to pick the object up and cherish its beauty. When her hand came in contact with a rich fabric or the softness of a luxuriant fur, she couldn't help it that her fingers closed and carried the item away with her. If she took care never to be caught at it, and if she avoided towns and cities where the penalty for theft was more severe than time in jail, that didn't argue that her nature was larcenous. She was just being sensible.

She tried to keep her hands quietly in her lap, but she couldn't stop herself from reaching up and feeling the thing, whatever it was, that was wrong with her head. Her fingers touched a coolness, in a definite pattern, over her ear and down her neck. The hair was untouched by it, and the skin around it was as warm as normal.

"Stop that," snarled her cell mate. "You're creepy. There's nothing there!"

Wilia smiled placidly at her, putting her hand back in her lap. The other woman, really just a girl, was not a peaceable person, and Wilia was a little afraid of her. She wanted to prove to the girl that she was wrong, that something was there, but she would not have one of those filthy hands touching her. Satisfied, the girl began to pace again.

Wilia said tentatively, "Why are you in here, my dear?"

"I'm not your dear. Brawling."

Well, that seemed right.

The girl stopped pacing, at least. "What about you?"

"Oh, just a misunderstanding. No, don't laugh, it's true." The girl had a rude laugh, and Wilia didn't like it. But she kept the smile on her face. "I borrowed some things, and my employer believed I intended to keep them."

"You're a thief, then."

"No, I am not!"