Libby Clarke was sweet.

That was really all anyone knew, and it was all they were interested in knowing.

She was a good girl, she liked Church, she said her prayers, she never gossiped or spoke ill, she didn’t speak unless spoken to, she was never lazy.

She was sweet.

Sweet

Ironically, that left Libby with a rotten taste in her mouth. She didn’t want to be sweet.

Sweet wouldn’t satisfy her, sweet was hollow and meaningless and foolhardy, but everybody only cared that she was sweet.

But Libby felt so incredibly rotten, how could she ever be sweet?

She had no taste for the company of men, no, she had they eye for gentle womanly flesh, not that Thérèse Crina Moore and her Romanian Uncles was any sort of gentle.

At least not the sort of gentle that Libby was taught she must be.

Terry was gentle in the literal sense, she wouldn’t hurt a person or animal, but her opinions were loud and harsh, her wit sharp and daring, not meek and submissive.

She lived on the farm next to Libby’s with her two incredibly odd, European, Watchmaker uncles.

She had told Libby once, when the were walking the paths of the park, that she had been orphaned at three.

Libby had put a hand over her mouth in horror.

She couldn’t imagine life without her younger sister, Elise and her mother and father.

But Terry had wrapped an arm about her waist and told her not to fret, for she was perfectly happy.