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She also didn’t want to get into any in-depth conversations with him that might give her away.  She hadn’t seen her sister, or any of them, for five years; anything she said might reveal her deception.
                    He stared at her for a long moment, and she could see the rage boiling deep inside him. “Fine.” He turned and walked ahead, long legs slashing impatiently. 
                    Gwenneth reminded herself not to turn her back on him for an instant.

Chapter Five
                   
                    “Slow down. I’m not young and spry like you are.” Gwenneth was breathing hard, jogging to keep up with the fast-moving little girl and struggling to hold on to the cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms.
                    They were winding their way through the heart of the slums.  Homes there were lashed together out of sheets of plywood and corrugated tin, stacked on top of each other in seemingly haphazard fashion.  One strong monsoon would send this whole neighborhood crashing to the ground.  The stench of rotting garbage and sewage hung in the air, and goats and chickens and dogs wandered listlessly through the narrow pathways which served as streets.
                    “We’re almost there!” The girl dashed around a corner and Gwenneth followed her.  A group of children and teenagers sat on cinder blocks in front of a corrugated-tin shanty.  She counted eight of them. 
    The shanty was streaked with rust. A sheet of plastic served as a door, and several more sheets of plastic were draped over cut-out squares that served as makeshift windows.
                    The children were drinking out of plastic cups when she walked up, but they set down their food and ran over to hug her.
                    “Rhonny! You’re home!” they cried joyfully.
                    Gwenneth reminded herself again to smack her sister upside the head, really hard, when she found her.  What the hell had she been playing at with these kids?  They were like any kids – they wanted a mother, someone to take care of them. Why make them think they had one, and then run off?
    Gwenneth and Rhonwen had been abandoned by their alcoholic mother as cubs when she’d wandered off after one of her drinking binges and never come back, so Rhonwen knew what abandonment felt like. It was one reason Rhonwen had always avoided children like a contagious disease – her childhood had been so painful that she didn’t like to be around them because it gave her unpleasant flashbacks.
                    Gwenneth set down the bundle on the ground and unwrapped it. She’d bought them new sandals, shorts, shirts, and dresses in various sizes, as well as fresh, hot pastries.  She’d also bought cans of soup and boxes of granola bars.  She knew there would be no electricity or refrigeration here.
                    “It’s been so long!” she said to the children as they eagerly seized the wrapped pastries. “How long has it been, again? It feels like forever since I’ve seen you!”
                    “One year,” the girl who’d taken her there said promptly.  So. Her sister had been here a year ago.
                    “What a good memory you have.” The girl’s face beamed at the praise. Oh, let me take you home with me, Gwenneth thought. You don’t need to grow up like this. She felt anger and contempt for the local head of the Thieves’ Guild. She knew how this worked;  the children paid him a tribute out of the money they hustled, and in exchange he bribed law enforcement to stay out of the shanty town and probably had the garbage picked up occasionally. That was it. No school. No hope of a better life. Later in life, they’d end up as prostitutes or drug addicts, and then in jail. This was the side of the island the tourists never