The Swan and the Jackal by J. A. Redmerski

cologne and this frightened me. He was also dressed in a suit, although his pants were an inch too short and he wasn’t wearing anything as distinguished as a tie. But the suit was a stark difference from the navy pants and wool sweaters he often wore. Olaf only wore suits and cologne for special occasions. And his special occasions almost always entailed teaching me the greatest of lessons, which I was always the most afraid to learn.
    I dared not speak unless spoken to as he guided me down the long, dusty hallway and outside the building. I walked alongside him obediently toward the old, yet more immaculate building I had lived in with Olaf before I attempted escape. The sun was shining brightly overhead as my bare feet went over the prickly grass. The warmth on my skin was a godsend. The clean air filling my lungs. The sweet smell of the white flowers with bell-shaped petals that grew alongside the building.
    But it was gone all too quickly, as well as the sunlight, when we stepped through another door and I was bathed in a harsh orange light in the foyer and the acrid smell of incense and cigars.
    Willa, in her average height and average frame, greeted us wearing a long gray dress that fell just above her ankles, and a pair of flat black shoes over thin white ankle socks. Her arms were covered by the sleeves of a white button-up top that she wore underneath the dress, the collar fixed neatly around her neck with a little four-leaf clover broach pinned to the left side. I liked Willa. She was the only person other than the boys who were imprisoned here like I was, who I didn’t want to see die a painful and horrific death.
    Willa was young, but older than me by at least five years. A kind and beautiful girl of about fifteen or sixteen. She was taken by Eskill at a young age, the same as I was. But she would never be sold and was treated kindly by the other men for the most part. I never knew why.
    But Willa, also like me, put on a very different face in front of the men.
    And as always when I saw her, I went along with it.
    “Vhy geev me the runt?” Willa snapped in a heavily broken accent, her pretty natural pink-colored lips curling with censure as she looked down at me through harsh, but beautiful green eyes. “Vhy must you always geev me ze hopeless ones?”
    “Because you are the only one here, my dear Willa, who can make the hopeless ones at least appear worthy.” Olaf smiled. I wouldn’t dare look at his face, but I could tell there was a smile on it without having to see.
    My body jerked forward and I nearly lost my footing as Willa’s hand yanked on my elbow. And then I saw stars when she slapped me hard across the face with her free hand, and finally my wobbly legs came out from underneath me. My bare knees scraped against the wood floor, but I kept myself from falling further, bracing my free hand against it to hold up my frail weight.
    “Geet up!” Willa pulled me to my feet.
    “Willa,” I heard Olaf say in a forewarning tone, “I’ve told you, not in the face. Now go. Get him cleaned up.”
    “Yes, sir,” Willa said, curtsied and then turned on her heels with my elbow still clutched in her hand.
    She walked me up the winding staircase to the second floor. Passing other servants in matching gray dresses, Willa grabbed me by the back of my dark, filthy hair and wound her fingers aggressively through it, pushing me along in front of her cruelly.
    “I said valk straight, boy!” she growled behind me.
    When the door to her quarters was opened, she gave me a hard shove and I fell through the doorway onto my hands and knees.
    The lock on the door clicked behind me and then Willa was sitting on the floor next to me, pulling me into her lap and rocking me against her chest.
    “I’m so sorry, Freedrik!” she cried into my hair. “You vill forgive me?”
    Tears soaked my cheeks, streaking through a layer of dirt I could feel on my face. But I wasn’t crying because of the way she treated me. I was