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9 ANOTHER GOVERNESS 4 The baker had a daughter. The baker’s daughter worked in the bakery. She cut the gray cakes of yeast. She mixed yeast and water for the baker. Her fingers were wrinkled with moisture and they gave off a sour odor. The nails had come loose in the nail beds. The skin that seals the nails in the nail beds was too soft to hold the nails in place. One day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found a string of hair. The string of hair passed lengthwise through the bread from end to end. The baker cut the hairs from the daughter’s head. One day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found ten fingernails in the center of the loaf of bread. The baker cut the daughter’s fingers at the first knuckles. One day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found the key to the bakery. The man did not tell the baker. The man came in the night to the bakery where the baker’s daughter waited. The baker’s daughter showed the man the sack of coins the baker hid beneath the floorboard and the man lifted 10 JOANNA RUOCCO out the sack of coins. He lifted the skirt around the waist of the baker’s daughter and felt with his fingers beneath the skirt. His fingernails were ragged and the baker’s daughter cried out so that the man put his forearm across her mouth. The baker’s daughter did not cry out again. The baker was upstairs sleeping in his narrow bed. The man dropped one of the baker’s coins on the floor for the baker’s daughter. The next day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found a coin in the heel of the bread. The baker crushed his daughter’s skull with the whetting stone. He put her beneath the floorboard in a sack. ...

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