They Came to Buy My Sister, So I Went in Her Place as a Boy novel · Chapter 7 of 24
Chapter 7: Take Off the Cap
I took off the cap.
My hair was cut to the length of my thumb, black-brown and uneven where I had sawn it myself with the shearing knife.
It lay flat and damp against my head.
The cold air of the room touched my scalp, and I felt more naked than if he had taken my coat.
The Bear looked at me.
He did not say a word, and he did not look away.
I stood there for a long time in the firelight with the cap crushed in my fist, and I made myself look back.
"You knew," I said.
"I did not know."
"You knew.
"You looked at me in the yard and said I was very young.
"You buttoned my collar.
"You said I carried water like I'd done it all my life, and you looked at my hips."
"I said you carried it like someone who had carried it," said the Bear.
"I wondered.
"I did not know until the girl spoke."
"You wondered."
"On the first night, in the yard.
"A boy does not count a gate the way you did.
"A boy looks at the door.
"You looked at the wall and the river and the steps between, because you were doing sums to carry a smaller person than yourself across them."
His voice was very even.
"I thought, that is a shepherd's counting.
"And then I thought, that is an older sister's counting.
"I wanted to see what you would do with the walls."
I hit him.
I hadn't known I would until my hand came up.
I struck him across the face with the flat of it, as hard as I had ever hit anything, and the sound cracked in the stone room.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of They Came to Buy My Sister, So I Went in Her Place as a Boy are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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