Tallow Read Online Free Page B

the main traffic. They were the most exciting scenes I'd ever witnessed.
    It was only after we'd turned around and were heading back towards our own quiet backwater that I found my treasure. It was floating on the murky surface, not far from the Butchers Quartiere, when I plucked it out. Covered in strange marks, it had a picture in the middle. I tucked it under my cap and later, when I'd retreated to my attic, I flattened and dried it. I often looked at it. It was very pretty, even though it had been damaged by the water. Sandy in colour, it had crimson whorls in the margins and tiny remnants of gold scattered across the centre. Parts of it were blue and others jade. As I couldn't read then, it was years later that I discovered it was a poster and the marks were writing. I took other pleasures from its secrets, determined that one day I would uncover them.
    The parchment was my most precious item. Not even Pillar knew I had it. I kept it under the loose bit of wood at the base of the chest over which sat my spare apron and my other shirt and a pair of leggings.
    Next to the chest was my bed – an old mattress left in a nearby calle. Pillar had retrieved it and stuffed it with a bit more straw and even a little down he'd found on a roadside on one of those rare trips to Jinoa. I had a couple of old blankets as well, but even with them over me, I was often cold.
    The attic was damp and draughty, but I was used to it. In the corner opposite my bed were a few boxes and barrels. Once they had stored flour, grain and salt. Now they were empty, except for the skinny rats that I knew sometimes hid in there. I didn't mind them so much. They weren't afraid to look at me.
    Once, when I heard them scurrying around inside, I had lit my rush light. It took them a while to come out again and, when they saw me, they darted away. But they returned. They always did – two of them. Perched on the edge of the barrel, they stared at me with their little red eyes. I slept well when the rats visited me.
    Tonight, I knew, I would not sleep well. After Quinn had lost her temper over the ruined candles, I came to the attic. I knew to stay here until my wounds from the beating healed – until Quinn decided I could join her and Pillar again. I wondered how long it would be this time.
    Quinn hadn't always been like this. When I was younger, she would often talk to me. Mostly it was because she was lonely, but I would listen. She told me things about her husband, Santo. Her voice would grow shrill, tight. But under her sharp words, I could hear the confusion that kept him in her thoughts and fanned her passion. I often wondered about that, how a woman could both love and loathe the same person simultaneously. Everything Quinn did now, in the present, was based on what Santo had said and done in the past.
    I found myself reflecting upon the power of men who, even in their absence, could wield such control. While I did not really understand how it could happen, not when Quinn appeared so strong, I was curious to discover if it was something I would ever experience. I fervently hoped not. I feared what it signified – what it could do. I felt sorry for Quinn. Not at first; that came later, when she started hitting me.
    Then, just over a year ago, everything changed. It wasn't only that Quinn's occasional slaps and pinches became frequent beatings or that Pillar's anxiety grew and he retreated within himself. It was something inside me.
    I know Quinn thought I could control it; that whatever was happening lay within my power. It didn't. Whenever I closed myself off from my surroundings and started to search within for something to sustain me – anything to block out the pain of failure, or even remember a small triumph – whatever I was touching began to alter. I could feel it, taste it sometimes, too. Elements of the wax or wick, or even the broach, mingled with parts of me. It was as if bits and pieces of them started to bleed into me, became part of