Stupid, stupid

I am getting better at feeling when I will wake and leave the Hands. Last week I could feel it - a swimming sort of feeling, as if I was rising through water - so I did not try to finish my thought. Perhaps I will be able to avoid broken sentences in the future.

Hieram is a menace. He follows me about, lurking in doorways, trying to catch me unawares. He thinks, because he is a young man of the Blood and I am not, that he can force his will upon me; yet he does not quite have the courage to do so, because I am the Curator’s daughter, someday to be Curator myself. This puts me in a category of which he is not entirely certain, so he alternately watches me threateningly and tries to woo me, in the knowledge that any young woman not of the Blood is bound to be lacking in morals - or perhaps simply stupid.

After the shoeing, therefore, when I went looking for Ennis, all I found was Hieram. He followed me, despite my entreaties and my testy remarks. When I found Ennis, Hieram was in midstream, telling me how my eyes were like two pools, etc.

Ennis of course only raised his eyebrow at me, and I rolled my eyes back at him, but it was embarrassing anyhow, and I left, with Hieram in tow. I was nearly able to talk to him, and Hieram has spoilt it. Hieram will never get lucky with me. Why can’t he see it? Stupid, stupid.