This Little Chapel

'Did I ever hit you?' she whispered. Tilda's hair pillowed out over the mattress in the dim growing morning light. They only had a few minutes left.

She'd hit so many people. So many girls. When she thought back to the deserter, she felt less and less guilt, but what had happened before in the House now knotted her belly tight, made her throat constrict. She felt she would be sick soon, as sick as Tilda now was every morning. Her hand clenched into a fist over the swell of Tilda's belly.

'No,' Tilda whispered back. 'You never noticed me,' she added after a while.

'I'm so sorry I ever did that,' Magda managed, blinking back tears she wasn't expecting, and hadn't shed for as long as she could remember.

Tilda touched her lips with her own, saying nothing more.