THIEVERY.
It was a burdensome word when the conscience decided to take it up and hold it before a guilty soul like a mirror reflecting shame.
Soopsie the maid had several sleepless nights thinking upon what she had done. She had a need, she kept telling herself, to quiet the restlessness. It was a worthy need. A need for money.
Ever since she had heard about her father's accident that need had crystallised into desperation. Had not the man suffered enough?
Yet it was all in vain. He had lain like a broken thing on the verge of death and she was powerless to save him. Not all the money in Frangea could have helped. Now it did not matter. She had money but she no longer had that desperate need which assuaged her conscience. Once the grieving had subsided a little the demon of guilt could flourish unhindered in her troubled soul, shaping itself into the likeness of a thief.
Her actions had not been that of a selfish being she told the mirror of guilt repeatedly. She did not do it for herself. She had done it for another. To save a life. A life that could not be saved.
'Why are you feeding that stupid dog your snack?' a young voice cut sharply through the maid's dark thoughts as she sat upon a bench in Orangey Park.
'He seemed to enjoy the bit I dropped accidentally,' another voice said, a calm voice, pleased with itself or so it seemed to Soopsie. She looked around and caught sight of a couple of the Elites sauntering in idle comfort on a sunny afternoon in a public park.
Two young girls, dressed in recognisable colours. Two privileged pupils from that exclusive seminary high up in the fresh air upon the slopes of Mount Syzywyg. From where Soopsie sat the mountain was visible as a huge blue foggy thing towering above the settlements of the Flats and the Heights that clustered at its shadowed feet.
One of the Elites, a small blonde thing, was squat before a mangy mongrel that had never seen the inside of a poodle parlour in all its unsavoury existence. She was feeding it bits of a sandwich. The other girl, tall, with long dark hair, stood in a kind of suppressed outrage, hands on hips, glowering at all around, embarrassed by association with the dog feeder, yet reluctant to abandon her companion. A curious friendship which made Soopsie get to her feet and wander a little closer. This comical pair might help take her mind off the gloom that was enshrouding her and blotting out both light and warmth all at the same time.
'That thing will trail you right to the gates of the school,' the tall girl warned. 'Then the gardener will have to shoot it. That's what it'll get from your act of foolhardiness.'
'Generosity,' the smaller girl replied, untouched by this harsh appraisal of her actions, 'is one of the five wellsprings of joy.' Her hands were now empty and she showed them to the dog, which licked its lips and whined. It looked at the other girl, who still had some food left.
'Oh no, I'm no friend of yours, you ravening beast,' she said and turned her back on the mongrel.
'Friendship is one of the five wellsprings of joy,' the blonde girl said oddly and Soopsie laughed. She was by this time so close to the girls as she walked past they turned at the sound of her laugh. The dog looked also, and it was as if there was something about the maid which made it droop a wiry tail, back off a little, and then race away to seek other generous folk elsewhere in the park, far away from its previous happy location.
'Oh,' the smaller girl said, watching the dog race off, and then looking with big blue eyes at the maid, who stopped laughing and suddenly felt very serious.