Chapter One

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(A farm in Pennsylvania)

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(A farm in Pennsylvania)


"Are you trying to burn this place down?" Lizzy asked. She was watching Sadessa attempting to roast a marshmallow over the wood stove, lid open. It was night and the kitchen was dark except for a few candles.

Sadessa flinched, looking startled.

"Lizzy?!" she talk-whispered, "I thought you were a ghost, what with that nightgown and all. How do you keep it from smoking so much?"

"You're gonna have to shut the damper down some," Lizzy responded, also whisper-talking. She showed Sadessa how to close the damper. Lizzy had awoken to the distinct smell of smoke.

"I had this craving for a midnight snack, and I saw you had marshmallows and graham crackers, and I thought of s'mores. Remember s'mores with Wonka bars?"

"They were great before they started killing people."

"I wonder if they'll start to make them again. Now that the war is over," Sadessa said, smooshing her marshmallow between two graham crackers.

"I'll never look at one the same again. They killed so many people, those bars."

"But they didn't know what they were doing, did they? The Oompa Loompas made them poisonous."

"So we should try to forgive them? Like Christ said, 'For they know not what they do?'"
"Yes, and help them forgive themselves, too. They're really having a hard time."

Lizzy squinted at Sadessa. "We're not talking about chocolate anymore, are we?"

"I don't know," Sadessa said, moving closer, her flickering distorted shadow shifting as she did, "What were you talking about?" She took a big bite of her almost s'more and moved past Lizzy.

Lizzy blinked, wondering if Sadessa was all there. She got along pretty well with only one hand and foggy vision. But her mental health was still an issue. She has a point though. In her own weird way, Sadessa is right. Miles, he is broken inside.

I hardly remember that day in the factory, when he was shot. Dr Kordata had operated on my scalp again that morning. I woke to find my head wrapped in bandages. I was still pretty out of it when Kordata requested Calvin for experimentation. Thank the Lord that brave Gerald was there to take his place. I remember the explosion, running with Calvin in my arms. I was there when Miles was talking to Wonka about using more discretion when killing the Oompa Loompas. Suddenly he was shot so bad we thought he was dead and we would be too if we didn't keep moving. But as it turns out, he wasn't.

When the group arrived here earlier today, after introductions and small talk, May took me aside and told me how Dr. Kordata had found him still alive. Repaired him, healed him. But with Kordata, there was always a down side. He brainwashed him, turning him against his own friends.

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