A Struggle for Hope by Carol Matas

Author:Carol Matas [Matas, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443133449
Publisher: Scholastic Canada Ltd
Published: 2021-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Ten

“A young girl was trapped in an evil place.”

I begin to tell my story.

“A place that was cold and cruel and didn’t care about her at all. But she was still herself and that was something. Until one night when all of that changed. That night, the young girl sat by a small fire with three other girls. It was the end of a day where they had worked digging up rocks and moving them from one pile to another, for no apparent reason. If one of the girls fell or slowed down she was beaten by the guard in charge. The guard had teeth like a crocodile and eyes like a panther. Instead of hands he had talons like a hawk, and he could rip the girls to pieces any which way using teeth or talons. That night as the girl lay by the fire, she heard a voice, and the voice said, ‘What would you give to conquer that beast?’ And the young girl said, ‘Anything.’ And that was it. Nothing happened, or so she thought. But as she was sleeping a shadow came and the shadow entered her body and the next morning when she awoke she felt strange and different. And she went to work with the others as usual, but one of her friends fell and the guard ripped the girl’s legs with his claws and she bled and cried but had to keep working or she would die. And that was when the girl felt something change inside her. She could feel herself growing and growing, and she got larger and larger until she towered over the guard. And he cried and begged her to go away because she scared him. And she said she would spare him if he could be kind and if he would stop hurting the girls. And he wept and agreed. And then, suddenly, she was herself. And when the guard saw her as she usually was he screamed at her, saying that she had put a spell on him and that she was an evil witch and a Jew and that he would not spare her or her friends. And he laughed. He said, ‘You spared me, why? Why were you so stupid? Did you not understand that I am a beast who will never be tamed?’

“And she said, ‘I understand it, but perhaps you did not. But now you do. You just said it yourself. There is no redemption for you.’

“And with that she took the rock that was in her hand and threw it at his head. And he died. But as he died the other beasts could feel that he had been injured, and they raced to the place where he lay and saw what they saw and began to rip the girls from head to toe. And that was when the girl had to decide whether to become a beast herself or to die. And she became a beast and grew and grew and killed them all and saved her friends.

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