I knocked softly and a few moments later Sandy let me in. She'd gotten rid of her party clothes as well, answering the door in a plain robe. She looke... tired. I guessed that she'd been waiting up for me."Erica?" I asked softly."Asleep," she confirmed, taking one of the bags from me.Quietly we headed to her front room and started spreading out the gifts. On each one, I removed the existing tag and she put a new sticker 'from Santa' on it. She asked me what was in each, but I couldn't remember. He screamed and rolled around on the floor in agony asthe collar administered electric shocks to his neck. The rest of usshuddered in sympathy at what he was going through. The Superintendentturned to us and said, "That is what the rest of you will face if youdisobey, or worse. Nobody on the outside knows you are here, no humanrights lawyers, no relatives, nobody. This place is a secret littlebubble. Remember that."The first few days were not that bad. We could still wear our ownclothes at that. ‘You may call me *Aoife,’ the voice replied, as if in doing so it gave up a very sacred part of itself. ‘Thank you Aoife for everything you have done for me,’ Michael thought in the most heartfelt way he knew how. Aoife was stunned by the power of his feelings when he said thank you to her. Rarely in her long life had she found humans to be capable of great depth of feeling, nothing akin to her own kind, for the first time since the great parting she felt that depth of feeling now. That great. It wasn’t so bad; the food was excellent, the tipswere good, and we got one free meal a day. Connie, the owner,mother-henned the four of us, watching out for me and the other younggirl, and cutting the two single mothers a lot of slack so their kidswouldn’t be neglected. Sometimes we’d go out together, but mostly mylife consisted of split shifts and TV dinners at home alone. Someadventure!I met J at the diner. He was a regular who would always sit in mysection, and since he.