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Sera

Sera wasn’t supposed to leave the house when herStay in the back room, keep quiet, don’t ever be seen Those were the rules and seven-year-old Sera knew better than to break them Three times a week, maybe four, the visitor would coht be food for the table and wine for her h these days there was more wine and less food Her mother was sick and the as like medicine, and her sweet, soft-spoken

Sera’s sto roorand house and put her ear to it If she got to the bakery before closing tiive it to her for half price, and a sweet bun to go with it The bread wasn’t always fresh but the sweet treat was always free and once there’d even been eggs The baker always said, ‘And wish your ood day from me’ Her mother always smiled and said the baker was a Good Man

Her ether as children, long before hermore

Sera didn’t knohat her mother s left in their house to sell and her h anyat all Whatever her mother had once been: a dancer, a lady, soo away at the touch of her handshe wasn’t that same person any more

Every kid in the neighbourhood knehat she was now, including Sera

Her mother was a whore

There was no noise cohter, noother Surely the visitor would be gone by now? The light was fading outside The baker would close his shop soon and there would be no chance of bread at all

She heard a thud, as if someone had bulass Her lasses before and it was Sera’s job to pick up the pieces and try tosticky bloody footprints on the old wooden floor, and all the tiirl

Some of those footprints were still there Stuck in the ith no rugs to cover them

The rugs had all been sold

No sound at all as Sera inched the door open and put her eye to the crack, and her lass, and most importantly she was alone Sera pushed the door open and was halfway across the roo in front of the stone-cold fireplace She stopped, frozen Not the man but still a visitor: a woman dressed in fine clothes and it was hard to look away from her She reminded Sera of what her mother had once been: all smooth and beautiful lines, with clear eyes and a smile that made her feel warm

Sera looked towards her mother for direction now that the rule had been broken, not daring to speak, not daring to lass on the floor that her mother had missed

‘We don’t need you,’ heraway ‘Go home’

Home where?

‘My neighbour’s girl,’ her mother told the visitor ‘She cleans here’

‘Then you’d best let her do it’

‘I can do it’ Herback to Sera ‘Go Come back tomorrow’

‘Wait,’ said the visitor, and Sera stood, torn, while the visitor caentle hand to Sera’s face and turned it towards the light ‘She’s yours’

‘No, I—’

‘Don’t lie She’s yours’

Her

‘You broke the rules,’ the older woman said

Sera whispered, ‘I’m sorry’

At the same time her mother said, ‘I fell in love’

And then her hed harshly and it turned into a sob, and the older wohtened and turned towards the sound