Sonetimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself.

She raised her head and saw a squadron of fighter planes. She stretched her hand high as if she could grab hold and climb away from what she had done, from who she was.

Long ago she'd clamped an iron shell around her heart and nothing and no one could pry it lose, but deep inside the tender flesh still beat.

Brick walls towered over her. Decrepit staircases crowded about her. Nothing had changed. The line there, the lessons there, the rape there. Shouldn't the place be crimson with blood and black with shame?

Ruth wiped her eyes. Successful at a price? Forgiven but damaged? She wished so much more for her baby sister.

(The golden goose has died, my prince turned into a frog, the Kingdom is lost, everyone has turned into stone and I am locked in the tower)