The Monster's Daughter by Michelle Pretorius Read Free Book Online Page A

losing the battle by degrees. Anna couldn’t remember ever seeing Sarah smile before.
    Since giving birth, Anna had been locked in her room. Sarah brought her food and emptied the slop bucket and Leath came twice a day. He seemed tense these days, irritable, barely noting her presence in the room as he examined the child. Anna dreaded Leath touching the baby, but there was little she could do to prevent it. The thought that the child might lose its life on the whim of this madman scared her. She had thought of naming her daughter after her mother, but a name would make a loss unbearable, so she just called the child Baby.
    Sarah handed Anna a tin mug off the tray. “The doctor says you have to drink this before you eat.”
    â€œHe’s back?” Sarah nodded. Leath hadn’t been to Anna’s room intwo days, and she had heard him argue with Sarah outside her door the day before he’d left.
    â€œThe commanders, they …” Sarah pressed her lips together. “Finish all of that,” she said, folding her hands, waiting until Anna had swallowed the last of the thick white liquid. It tasted different than the nutrients she had had before Baby was born, like bitter almonds.
    Anna met Sarah’s eyes as she handed back the mug. “It’s true, then? About the inquiry? That they’ll—”
    â€œWhat do you know of that?”
    Anna felt a flicker of hope. She glanced at the crib. “If they come, maybe she’ll live.”
    â€œDo not concern yourself. Your baby is healthy.” Sarah turned to go.
    â€œWhy are you helping him?” An indignant hysteria welled in Anna’s chest. She was overwhelmed by her own powerlessness, her inability to protect her child. “Why did you turn against your people?”
    Sarah turned back from the door. “My people?” A perplexed frown crept over her brow.
    â€œThe
Boere
that once owned this farm. The family who fed you and gave you a place to sleep.”
    â€œMy people.” Sarah scoffed. “Let me tell you about how it was before,
Nooi
, before the doctor came here. About how the
baas
owns you, not just your labor, but your body too if you want to feed your family and keep a roof over your head. How he whipped me and my brother when we were only little children and forced himself on my mother at night. How sometimes he made us watch. How it became my turn when I was barely old enough to be thought of as a woman. How his wife and children thought it their birthright to humiliate us every opportunity they got.” A hardness had settled into Sarah’s face. “One white man is as good as another to me, even if the language they speak is different.
    â€œThe day the Khakis rode in here, they tied us to the back of the ox wagon the white family rode in. Old people and small children all had to keep up, there was no mercy. I know what happens in the black camps. Native people are treated worse than animals. At least when you’re white the Khakis think twice. The doctor said he’d keep me out of the camps as long as I work for him. I can do nothing about what he does here. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. Theywould be safe instead of me. My mother, my family, they’re all gone, but I am alive. That is good enough for me. Death is not beautiful or peaceful, that much I know from working for the doctor. Death is ugly, and terrifying, and empty, and it means nothing—”
    A scream of raw anguish interrupted Sarah. Her anger dissipated, her eyes suddenly wide and scared. “I have to go.”
    â€œIs it Hester? Her time is near.”
    Sarah nodded. “She is having trouble.” She rushed off, closing the door behind her.
    Anna didn’t hear the key turn in the lock. She shifted to the edge of the bed, still sore from the birth, her legs weak, the floorboards rough under her bare feet. The door opened without resistance, the hallway empty, Hester’s