Helpless

Chapter One - Mrs Maggie

I'm staring at the letter my mother wrote, trying to decipher what it means. Well first, no one calls me Kallista anymore, I'm just Kali. I still don't understand why I had to be sent to live here with my mothers friend's aunt. She makes me call her Mrs Maggie for gods sake. I've been asking Mrs Maggie for years know if we can go to Immunda, but she bluntly refuses and claims it's "too dangerous". Honestly how could a city be so dangerous I couldn't go there, especially since my mum lives there.

I can hear Mrs Maggie call me to go down to the well to fetch more water. I walk out of the house, if you can call it that. We are lucky because it is a brick house, but it is tiny with only three rooms, a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. We have no electricity so we use candles and light from the windows. The windows had the glass smashed in long ago and we don't have the money to replace the glass. It gets very cold in winter without any glass on the windows.

I reach the well and put the bucket down. The rope securing the bucket goes taught. I pull the bucket up and to my dismay it's only half full. I run with the bucket all the way back to the house and call for Mrs Maggie. I explain to her the well is almost empty and it only fills half a bucket. She looks at me desperately and says someone will have to go into Immunda to buy some water for us to use. I am excited and ask if we can go and also visit my mother. She snaps at me for suggesting such an idea and states,"It's only safe for men in Immunda." The way she said it worried me but she continued to talk. "I shall have to call my husband home and so he can go to Immunda. I will have to send him a letter. You can go back to your room now Kali."

I walked into the room that we share and sit on my pathetic excuse for a bed. It was an extremely thin foam mattress with a scratchy woollen blanket and a patchwork quilt I made myself and stuffed with feathers off our chickens. There isn't that many feathers in it though.

When I was younger, when I wasn't doing work, Mrs Maggie would let me play along the dirt street with the other children that live nearby. After I turned fourteen she said I was too old to do that kind of thing and patrols might take me away. So now I have to stay inside where there is pretty much nothing to do.

I can't believe Mrs Maggie is going to tell her husband to come home and to go to Immunda. I have only seen him about five times even though I have lived here since I was a baby. He's really nice and let's me call him John. He said he didn't want any "Mr John" nonsense. He's a bit older than Mrs Maggie, I think he's around 45. He is tall and is starting to get grey hair. He's very strong, I don't know how else to describe him. I like him much more than Mrs Maggie. He is never home because he works really far out in the country. He works in a coal mine and lives there too. He sends us almost all the money he makes, but it means he can't come home very often.

Mrs Maggie came into the room holding a letter. She told me to go post the letter in express post at the post office. I grabbed the letter and ran out of the house. I walked quickly down the dirt road to the makeshift town square. Where we lived didn't have a name. It proved how unimportant we all are. The town square was literally a square with lots of little stalls around it. The main one was the post office but there was also a place that sold candles and matches. My favourite stall was a little "everything store". It sold books, jewellery and littles lollies that were bought in Immunda and brought up to our town to sell. I always carried something worth trading if in case I found something I wanted to get. I hurried to the post office and ran back to the everything store. I said hello to the owners and walked through the store. I spotted a necklace with a beautiful amethyst stone. The necklace cord was black leather. I took it up to the owners and asked if I could trade three tea light candles for it. They said yes and I slipped it around my neck and tightened the strap. I walked slowly home enjoying the sunshine. As I approached my home I tucked the necklace under my shirt because Mrs Maggie didn't like me wearing any kind of jewellery.

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When I arrived home Mrs Maggie had an early dinner ready. It consisted of half a carrot each the last bit of the chicken we killed two days ago. I finished quickly and asked for more. Mrs Maggie gave me a lecture about I have much more to eat that most people in this town. Once she finished the lecture she told me to go feed the chickens.

I walked out to the chicken pen with the few scraps we had and some stale bread. The pen is pretty small so the chickens don't have much room to walk around. The pen is behind our house so people can't see it because chickens are worth lots and people steal them. I push the gate open and spread the food around, giving some to each chicken. We own seven in total. We collect the eggs from them and also kill them for meat to eat. Our neighbour has a rooster so in spring we pay them a little money so the rooster can fertilise our eggs so we have more chickens.

I walked back to the house and shut the wooden door. I locked it using a lock I made when I was thirteen. I pulled a curtain across each of the three windows and lit a candle in each room. I told Mrs Maggie that I was going to bed and she said to be up at dawn.

I climbed into my bed and pulled the covers up over my head because I could feel a cold wind coming through the window, only partly being blocked by the thin curtain.