Despite your worries, there's no time to think, and you continue to work yourself to the bone for Mrs. Tynon's meager wages. It is after dark when you finally get to rush to the market, then home to your siblings.
Garn seems better, albeit eternally frail, thanks to the lack of a full diet and warm clothing. You can't help but frown to yourself that Elisa is stuck taking care of all the housework, such as drawing water from the well and cooking all the meals in the small fireplace. At her age, you wish you could afford to send her to school. Truthfully, considering your family's situation, in a year or two a girl like her would normally be found a position as a cleaning girl for a manor house or business, but even that seems out of reach due to the fact that it would leave the unhealthy Garn alone all day. However, without the additional income, there was no chance Garn would get completely better. It was a vicious cycle.
The dim firelight and oil lamp served to hide your unhealthy pallor from your siblings, although you feel strangely lively despite the late hour. Again, your appetite is minimal, although you seem to be yearning for some different sustenance. You just cannot put your finger on what it is. Your siblings finally asleep, you sigh and head over to the mirror to examine your face, removing the head kerchief you wear to keep your hair out of your way at work.
Seeing your reflection, you are again struck dumb. Although your skin does indeed look pale, and your fangs remain, it is not that which shocks you. Befuddled, you look down to ensure what you are seeing is not merely a trick of the light.
Where once your hair was a hue of brown that approached black, it now seemed as though someone had leeched all of the color from it, making it almost the color of ash. Combined with your strangely now untanned skin, it gives you an otherworldly look. You are not how long you can keep this hidden, but more importantly, you are not certain where these changes are headed. It is still unclear what you are becoming, but it seems that you are rapidly running out of time to decide on a future course of action.
You manage to make it through the next day at work despite your unease, hiding all signs of your changes except your unnaturally pale skin. By now even Mrs. Tynon is giving you strange looks from time to time, but as you are completing your work, and for the moment Lyres is keeping his troublesome self away, she does not bother herself with you.
At dinner, you can barely bring yourself to look at the food, even though you feel oddly empty inside. You put the children to sleep, but the gnawing at your insides becomes stronger.