Katya and Luba at the orphanage.

Chapter 5

The Ones

Pink and red splotches of flesh were melted together where the scar started at shoulder level on each side of the child’s neck. The inverted pyramid followed the line of a cardigan sweater, inward and downward to the bottom of her ribcage. A bleached, sickly whitewash pigment surrounded the third degree burn scar for another one to three inches outward in all directions. I shuddered at the picture.