Serena Joy opens the door to see her new handmaid. It is difficult to tell if she's in a good mood. It's always difficult to tell if she's in a good mood, nowadays.
"Come in and we'll get you settled."
Serena Joy opens the door to see her new handmaid. It is difficult to tell if she's in a good mood. It's always difficult to tell if she's in a good mood, nowadays.
"Come in and we'll get you settled."
Then destruction shall rain down around Aslan. Wolves have their throats torn out. Goblins scream in anguish, spending their final moments thinking of their wives and tiny goblin children, who they fear will grow up under an unopposed English colonial government. The living room is dead silent.
She can't actually oppose Aslan until he reaches the cluster where her flag is, unless he happens to run into a bomb. It's kind of thematically weird that Aslan can be killed by bombs and can't come back to life afterwards - weirder, if you think about the fact that the bombs in this game keep claiming to be magic - but that would probably mess with the game balance. Luckily, she doesn't have to stop him. Her threes rush out of Aslan's way, evacuating their own war-torn side of the board and heading over to Aslan's side, where they are in position for a precision strike on the flag. Peter will slay one, but Peter can be in but one place at a time. Another one dies on Lucy's knife. The third squeaks through, deactivates the bomb defending the flag, and touches its goal.
It ends as many games do, with one of the humble, ugly minoboars clutching a dirtied piece of cloth, moments before Aslan reaches his goal.
"Do you want to take a turn playing Fred?" she asks Nick. It's kind of fun to crush people but there's a point at which it gets sort of boring.
"Sure."
Now Nick is staring intently at a Stratego board, which is probably some kind of progress.
Well, uh, good for Nick.
She takes out her binder and reviews the Greek alphabet, occasionally looking up to see how the game progresses.
Well that's sort of weird.
She will practice her Greek alphabet and maybe stop looking up very much.
Serena had very carefully not commanded Fred to do anything, and yet he starts putting away the Narnia Stratego!
At some point she's going to figure out whether she's supposed to be thinking of herself as an adult or not. That'll be good, because if she is an adult then she'll know to be upset about being ordered around like a six-year-old, and if she's not an adult then she'll know to be extra upset about the deliberately getting her pregnant and making her carry a random person's child. Alternatively, she might be able to sort herself as a prisoner of some kind of ideological war, it's possible that prisoners of war have to put up with both of those sorts of things.
She's not gonna figure it out tonight.
"Yes, ma'am."
This doesn't really make it less creepy.
She brushes her teeth and puts her binder on her shelf and closes the door. She takes a few minutes to page through the KJV Bible on her shelf - a few to review the fruits of the spirit, and then a few to figure out what the book of Habakkuk even consists of.
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!
Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.
Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.
Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.
She shuts the Bible. She turns off the lights.
She prays that her sister and her sister's children are safe and well and together, and that they will be led to wherever God wills them to be. She prays that people who are confused about the nature of God will be led to the truth. She prays for Serena Joy, and for Fred, and for Nick, and for the people who brought her here, and for the refugees in Canada, and for people who are ill and dying and don't yet know the truth, and for people who are hungry, and for people who are despairing or suicidal, and for her parents, and for the government, and for the Church.
She prays that the Lord will work a work. She lets him know that she has no idea what that even means. Maybe it says in Habakkuk 1:6.
She sleeps.
She is awoken before dawn.
"I prefer to fast before breakfast, but that is my personal spiritual discipline. I have made you eggs on toast."
She's pretty sure the first meal of the day is breakfast regardless of when you have it, but you know what, all right.
"Thank you. Is there a time I should set an alarm for tomorrow?"
"Thank you, ma'am."
OK, clearly the first thing she needs to do is look at her daily chores, if there's a schedule then it's probably in that section, maybe?
It is!
There are, in fact, two daily chores lists, one for even days and one for odd days. It looks like Serena split the household chores in half and Keturah is alternating halves.
There is also a helpful note that Keturah should "feel free to ask for help anytime."
OK. She can work with this. Is there a schedule that says what she's supposed to be doing at different times of the day, she feels like she's gonna need to know that in order to budget energy and mentally prepare herself and stuff.