The Abducted Girl

My name is Georgia Collins, and I spent twenty years in the Lee Family's mud-brick house. Twenty years—enough time for the old locust tree at the village entrance to add twenty rings to its trunk, enough for the swallows under the eaves to migrate forty times, yet not enough to erase the scar on my wrist left by the hemp rope. That scar, like a dark red worm, itches on rainy days, reminding me of a past I can never forget. That early morning, just as smoke began to curl from the kitchen chimney, Ben Lee burst in clutching the glowing fire tongs. The sharp red of the iron tongs gleamed like it had been quenched in blood, making the malice in his eyes all the more grotesque. The iron pot on the stove still steamed, the corn mush from last night crusted into a yellow scab at the bottom—his excuse to lash out. "Old b*stard," he sneered, yellow teeth still smeared with last night's corn mush, "you didn't clean the bowl properly yesterday." I was squatting by the stove, adding firewood, when I heard the voice and froze; the firewood in my hands dropped to the floor with a sharp clatter. Sparks from the fire splattered onto my pant leg, but I couldn't even think about brushing them off—Ben Lee's fire tongs were only half a step from my face. The heat radiating from the iron tongs singed my eyelashes, reminding me of when I was first trafficked, crammed into that suffocation truck, sealed tight and unbearably hot. My back instinctively pressed against the cold earthen wall, the dampness seeping through the cracks soaking into my thin jacket. "Ben, I'm going to scrub now, right now." My voice trembled like dead leaves in the autumn wind; even I couldn't make out what I was saying. For twenty years, the first thing I learned was to beg for mercy, even though I knew it was mostly useless. The fire tongs brought a scorching wave of heat close, making the hairs on my skin curl up from the burn. "Only now you decide to obey? Too late!" Ben Lee's laughter scraped like nails on glass, and the next second, the red-hot iron tongs pressed hard against my arm. "Sizzle—" The smell of burning flesh instantly filled the air, mingling with the smoky stench of the kitchen, sickening enough to make you want to vomit. The sharp pain was like countless needles drilling into my arm, burrowing into the bone, then exploding out from the cracks within. Pain wracked my entire body in convulsions; my throat felt clogged with scorching cotton. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. Tears fell like beads from a broken string, smashing onto the dirt-stained ground and spreading a small patch of dark stains. "Scream! Why aren't you screaming anymore?" Ben Lee raised the fire tongs, my flesh still hanging from the iron pincers. "Wasn't your voice pretty loud yesterday when you stole some steamed cornbread?" His father, John Lee, came in from the main room, his rough cloth shoes thudding as he kicked me in the lower back. I fell like a broken sack, crashing hard onto the ground, my forehead striking the corner of the stove, and a burst of golden stars exploded before my eyes. The water ladle on the stove was knocked over, cold water splashing down my neck, sending a shiver through me, but it couldn't dull the burning pain in my arm. "Play dead?" John Lee's voice rumbled like distant thunder, "Get up and cook! Ben is still waiting to go to school!" The words "go to school" from his mouth felt like needles, stabbing painfully at my chest — I remembered the year I was trafficked, just after I had been admitted to the county's top elementary school. Luna Carter, that wretched woman, carried a basin of last night's foot-washing water and poked her head out from behind the door curtain. Before I could even get up, that basin of sour-smelling dirty water was dumped all over me. "Doom Person," the icy water ran down my hair into my neck, chilling me to the bone. Luna Carter's curses struck my face like shards of ice. "You can't even have children and still dare to slack off. If it weren't for the fact you still have some strength to work, I'd have thrown you to the Back Mountain wolves long ago!" I lay on the ground, my whole body aching as if it had fallen apart. The burn on my arm flared with searing pain, the kick to my lower back left me gasping for air, and the wound on my forehead bled, blurring my eyes. Through the blurred veil of blood, I saw Ben Lee poking at the drops on the ground with a twig, as if playing some cruel, twisted game. Twenty years. I remembered the day I was first trafficked—just such a cold, biting morning. I was carrying my schoolbag to buy soy sauce, the little rabbit my mother had embroidered still pinned to it. A man wearing a straw hat said he'd take me to see performing monkeys, then covered my mouth and threw me into a tricycle cart. The truck bed was piled with moldy straw, pressing against my bones until they ached. When I woke up, I was inside this mud-brick house. Back then, my name was Layla, not Georgia Collins. At that time, my father would braid my hair into ram horn braids, and my mother's braised pork could fill the whole street with its aroma. But now, I am the Lee Family's "old thing," their "Doom Person," the beast they bought for eight hundred yuan. How long will this kind of life ever end?