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To save that poor girl

To wipe the memory from my mind

“You’re thevoice “And your e is to be afraid?”

He was unht It was more accurate to say that he was not taken aback He was not unmoved, he waspleased Reassured?

“Yes, Mara,” he said with a sense of finality, as though noe could begin to understand each other, though I yet understood nothing “I aer of Fear”

It would be a long time before I came to know him by any other name

Caler and worry, I turnedeyes back to Sa into the carpet

“Why did she do it?” I asked

“We will see,” Messenger said

3

SAMANTHA EARLY LOOKS AT THE CLOTHES hanging in her closet She clenches her fists The veins on her forearms stand out Her body seems to vibrate with tension

I see this It is happening I can neither look away nor reer has shown me the outco is teen angst

By hts I knohat she feels as she gazes, frightened, frightened by nothing but a closetful of clothing

What would not draw ridicule? That is the question she asks herself She dresses defensively: What will avoid giving anyone an excuse to ridicule? It should have been easy, getting dressed It should have been as sioes hich jeans or shorts or skirt, no, no, not skirt

No, not skirt She remembers that day when she tripped in a skirt, when she’d sprawled out across the hallway, finger still stuck in the loop of her locker’s co students, who stepped aside indifferently or hed