Trance-like from fatigue and exposure, Sariah walks where the firm hand of her mother led. The hands of the maid and cook came and went, sliding along with words of cloying sweetness. Words echo behind her mother’s hands as they pulled at the damp, muddy clothes.

Flexing her own tiny digits, she can only think of the small but strong hand of her knight. How kind he was. How calmly he had brought her home. How firm his grip.

Now the maid is inside as well, her sensible shoes clattering on the bathroom tiles. More hands join the effort to comfort her. They disrobe her. They pat her. They begin to wash her, luxurious soap on near silken washcloths.

They paw at her. The hands encroach and invade. They take away her frail security.

Sariah retreats from the hands in the only way she knows how. Her world is reduced to splashes of color and hints of sound. But still the hands are there, present on all sides. They will not go. More will come.

And Sariah misses the cold. The darkness. Being alone.