Six left.
Five.
The younger girls went quick. Men stepped forward, hands out, voices low and urgent, like they were afraid another man might steal the bargain.
Soon, there were three women. Then two.
And then, like a joke the devil told and everyone else decided to laugh at, there was only Clara.
The spaces around her yawned wide, accusing. The crowd’s attention slid over her like oil over water, never settling with kindness. The whispers started soft, but in a crowd, cruelty travels the way fire does: it finds dry grass.
“That one’s been back before,” somebody muttered, not quite under his breath.
“Returned merchandise,” another voice said, and I heard a few men chuckle.
“Something wrong with her, has to be.”
Clara didn’t flinch. She stared past them at the horizon where the railroad tracks disappeared into heat shimmer, as if she could step into that distance and dissolve.
