One week had passed since her escape and already Celi was thinner, gaunter, and dirtier than she had ever been. Her mousy hair was forming a matted net on her head, her eyes no longer gleamed with life, and her skin had tanned under the hot sun, burning and bringing out dark freckles across her cheeks and arms.

   She hadn't eaten since she left. The little bit of water she had was when she stepped out into the rain and opened her mouth. She looked forward to when it rained and was calmed by the feeling of it against her dry skin. Most of the time she took refuge in the shadows the sun cast against tall buildings, wishing for it to become night and begging for scraps or money, which she never got, as she was not yet as poorly off as other beggars in the slums of Paris.

   Luckily, Celi had common sense, it was this that would help her during her first two weeks of living on the street.

   She begged at shops and restaurants and received scraps. She found an old bottle and set it outside when it rained, though seldom was it ever full when she needed it. She soaked her dress once a week in the river Seine, at night to clean it, and it usually was dried by the next afternoon.

  Her large hazel eyes looked bigger, and possessed a hungry, frightened look in them. Her cheekbones stood out on her face. Her hands were slender and bony things, not the plump, soft hands of a child. She had transformed into a street urchin.

  Her days consisted of wandering in a Paris that was not as nice as she'd once thought. People generally threw things at her - inedible things for that matter - or yelled at her. A few went so far as to chase her. Others turned up their noses and pretended the filthy, half starved little girl in front if them didn't exist. She was invisible to them. Still, others offered her crackers or crumbs, and things that no one else would eat. Usually she would be given a burnt piece of moldy bread, an old piece of meat, or a bit of rotten fruit. The scraps were enough to sustain her life, but as she grew, they would not be enough to live on. Celi became malnourished and slowly started to waste away.

   She was able to go on like this for a month. Her humanity, nearly forgotten. What was her name? How old was she? Had she ever really had a mother who loved her? She couldn't remember how to answer the simplest of questions. Warm, protecting arms grazed her dreams as memories that were just out of reach, like cozy fires and food in her stomach.

   As Celi's body grew weak, so did her faith in everything. Only her hope remained strong. Nothing could last forever, this would end eventually.

  She did not know how right she was.

    Tonight was very cold, she curled up into the fabric of her threadbare dress, wishing for morning to come. Her light hair was a tangled mass behind her shoulders.

  Celi tried to distance herself from the cold. She thought back to the life she had had, struggling to remember what a warm fire felt like. Catherine's tall figure bent over the stove. She imagined she was back in that time. For a moment she was. She remembered the ballad... what it had felt like to sing it. She sang it to herself softly and slowly at first, then louder, faster, becoming surer of the sound.

"My heart aches, my soul quakes,

Missing your smile,

The sun hasn't been shining for me, in a long while.

Wilting flowers sit on my window,

The memories of lost summers, where did they go?"

  She continued on to the last note which was when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. A moving shadow. A tall cloaked apparition was coming around the corner, their shadow falling across the cobblestone road, silhouetted, courtesy of the bright full moon. Celi held her breath, watching and listening.

  The person turned and left, hurrying off. She had no idea how much pain the man was in. She was oblivious to the thoughts and emotions that were tearing him apart. He would not cause her harm, though, and she breathed more easily as he left.

  But he was not the only visitor listening to her that night.

  Nor was he the only one to disturb Celi. A plump little man, stocky and short walked through her alley the next day.

  "Little girl, little girl!" He called. "La petite fille!"

  Celi peered at him from the shadows, and he saw her.

  "Enfant," he said smiling crookedly. "Come, would you like some food?"

  He took a bag out of one of his pockets and put it on the ground. "A peace offering. I will not harm you." Yet.

  She noted his French accent was not actually French. He was a foreigner.

  The stranger abruptly turned on his heel and left. Celi bolted for the paper bag, unable to resist the delicious smell drifting to her from it in an unseen cloud. When one is starving, and in the sight of food, nothing else matters.

  The bag contained a sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of milk. Celi devoured everything in a matter of minutes.

  Surely anyone who would feed her such a meal would not harm her? Hunger was impairing her judgement and making her past experiences with men fade into the distance.

  The man came again the next night. This time he handed her the bag and waited for her to finish eating. He talked to her, carefree and nonchalant about her abhorrent table manners.

  He came again the night after and spoke with her again after she ate.

  "I have seen you for many days, you know, weaving in and out of crowds. 'Tis a slippery thing that you are. What is your name?"

  "Celi."

  "Well then Celi - you won't be getting away from me tonight."

  She was going to ask what he meant by that, but before she could, a canvas bag was pulled over her head. She kicked and screamed and fought, but it was of no use. She was still weak. She was still small and skinny and sickly. He was a strong grown man. Against him she was tiny and powerless.

  Celi stopped fighting, saving her energy, and allowed herself to be carried away. Celi didn't know where they were, nor how long it took them to get there. She was dumped on a cold, hard floor when the bag was finally removed.

  She found herself to be in a dimly lit room made of bricks with wallpaper crudely pasted over them, revealing the red blocks in ripped areas. There were not any windows. Two lanterns were all there was to illuminate the darkness. Two doors led to who knows what. Freedom? The room was bare of furnishings, all except for an old chair.

  Her captor stood next to another man. This new man was tall and openly frightening. His eyes were so cold, dim, and cruel, she could not pinpoint their direct color, and for the rest of her life, would never be able to when they flashed in and haunted her mind.

  He moved away from his companion and began circling her, looking her over. She was being appraised, she thought bitterly, like meat for sale.

  "More haggard and thinner than I imagined. But pretty. What's your name, street mouse?"

  "Celine Christoux." She gave a fake name. She didn't know her real one anyway.

  "Not anymore, now it is Celine Antoinette. And you are the daughter of a dancer, not a whore, who can sing and - what's your age?"

  "I will be six in..." she thought hard. "Three months?"

  "Liar. You can't be more than five at all. More like ten months. Anyway, seven year olds sell the best." What did that mean?

  "I am not seven and I am almost not five."

  "Better watch I don't put eight. Many prefer eight year olds. I should put eight just to teach you a lesson. But no one would believe that."

  Celi remained silent.

  "My name is Red," he said to her. Then he gestured to the other man. "This is Hen." He turned to Hen. "Take her to room onze. Where Marthe used to stay."

  Her captor came forward and roughly grabbed her arm, leering at her.

  "Do not mind Hen. He is naturally mean. You'll like your room, Celine Antoinette. No one else shares it with you. I can't risk you dying before I can sell you, after all. You'd get ill with another person.

  "And Hen, don't bruise her up too much. Don't lay a hand on her in fact. I'll do that. I want her unharmed and untouched. Perfect..." Red paused, "and if my orders aren't obeyed... I'll skin you alive. I know she's tempting."

  Hen dragged her down a very long, vile smelling corridor to rooms that resembled the dungeons at the bottom of castles her mother told her about in stories.

  The walls were long and thick, the doors barred, the sound of creaking chains and heavy, labored breathing filled the air. Faint cries and drunken laughter seemed to be part of the deadly, nearly inaudible silence. Every few feet or so a torch provided light. But there was something ominous about the light, how it was never quite strong enough to fight off the darkness.

  Then they began to pass the "rooms." Children were half naked, if not completely, shackled to the walls, and half dead. The rooms were open squares with bars for doors and windows that never let in any light. The children stared at her with dark, dim eyes, as if they didn't really see her. They just accepted that another was joining their disgusting ranks.

  Hen threw her into a large cell away from all the others and slammed the door. "Goodnight, little pretty."

  From the moment she stepped inside that building, Celi was no longer a child but an animal. She and the rest of the unfortunate children were treated like vermin. It was like being with the ladies and the Monsieur. The children were the ladies, just younger girls. Red and Hen and the guards were more evil replicas of the Monsieur. Red and Hen taught the children things no decent human being should teach children. They beat them into obedience. The children had bowel movements in their cells. Many were sick. A few died. They ate one meal a day. It was usually a single piece of bread and a carrot, or a rotten apple and black potato. Forget the sandwiches from the nights Hen was trying to catch Celi.

 Hen liked to play with them before they ate. If they so much as touched the food without a his permission, they would have their meal taken away and receive a beating for supper. Sometimes he made them wait for hours. The Monsieur  would merely send a lady to bed without one of the three meals she had a day.

  All of the kids had given up hope of seeing sunlight again. If they had family, they never spoke of them.

  Celi wanted to try to make friends, but she wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. She tried to hold her head up. Many of the children hated her for it or those who had the strength to hate did. She was not beaten as hard nor as badly as they, though she acted out much more than they did.

  She was wild from her days on the street, from her time with people who loved her. She knew and remembered when the other children did not, what a soft caress was. Even if she admitted to herself every day that the memory was fading. But she refused to give up hope.

 Red repeatedly told Hen not to hurt her too much though he did when she called him names, struck him back, screamed bloody murder, or lashed out in any way. Sometimes she refused to eat. She fought any way she could.

 Hen started to call her Belle Diable. Beautiful devil, because despite her fits, the guilt she tried to throw on those who hurt her, and her actions, her tempers, and bruises, she was still a pretty child. Small and delicately pretty.

  In Red's hands she learned what evil and true horror really was. She understood what her mother and the ladies had been. She learned things she shouldn't learn. But that wasn't all. Because of Red and Hen, Celi gained an iron will and learned how to value herself. She discovered the definitions of strength, pride, will, and stubbornness, not to surrender and give way.

  One day, Hen ran his finger down her body and she bit him, then threw her plate of food in his face. She was severely punished because he went straight to Red, knowing he'd want to handle this one himself.

  Red whipped her for the first time, and left bruises on her shoulders, stomach, and back, places no one could see. He carved her skin with a knife until she screamed and writhed. He left her in a puddle of dirty water, excrement, and blood. She did not plan on rebelling any time soon. But Celi still was not broken.

  Her mother had done what she had to in order to survive. Celi would do the same. Except, unlike her mother, she would get even.

French Lesson!!!!

Enfant: Child\children.

Onze: eleven.