“Sold!”

“Sold!”

“Sold!”

Three sisters.

Each sold off to her new husband.

A man none of them knew.

Marie didn’t want this.

Maria was scared.

And Mary was too young for any of this.

There used to be four.

Margaret jumped so she didn’t have to deal with this life.

All the sisters didn’t want to be here anymore.

They wanted to follow the oldest down.

Especially not when their brothers got to walk around and have friends and go to school.

Today was the third day of August. Marie knew what it meant. She knew that August was auction month. She wasn’t even supposed to know what the different months were. She wasn’t even supposed to know how to read, none of the girls in her family were supposed to do anything other than cook, clean and raise the babies. But she knew that the third day was for the sisters. They were supposed to be sent to their new husbands on the fourth day, but that was before Margaret had jumped. Now instead of four, there were three. The oldest at eighteen, the next at fifteen, and the youngest was ten.

But there once was a time when things were happy. 

The time when Marie was sixteen.

She had just turned sixteen when a new family moved in next door. It was rare for new people to show up in her town. The day after she turned sixteen, Marie and Mary were out at the market picking out vegetables for dinner, they ran into the new boy next door, Soren. Soren was the type of boy who would rather help his grandmother than throw parties. He was eighteen, only two years older than Marie. Marie didn’t understand why this boy was being kind to her, the girl who didn’t say a word to him. 

That day at the store, Marie had made her first friend ever. Soren and Marie would sneak out to the lake together. They would watch the sunset and then count the stars as they appeared. The girl and the boy were best friends. 

They were, as Soren liked to call them: soulmates. 

The day Marie turned seventeen was the best day of her life. Soren kissed her for the first time, Mary made a mud pie for her, even Maria went out of her way to save an apple for her sister.

It was the best day of her life, but it was also the last day that Marie ever smiled.

The year went by quickly, growing up and growing apart from Soren. The boy turned nineteen, then twenty, and left her behind. She missed him. She missed the boy that taught her to read, the boy who loved her for who she was. Maybe she’d see him again one day. Maybe she’d be able to call him hers if she ever escaped this hell of a life.

But now, she was 18 and about to be sold off. She sits still on the stage, her body flaunted in a tight dress meant for the night club and not a family gathering. Even her younger sisters both wore the same tight dress. It was humiliating to be on that stage in front of a crowd of people she knew and people she didn’t know.

The auctioneer moves up to the podium, ready to read off the names of who would be sold next.

They were next. The sisters.

Their mother smiles from the front row, proud of her daughters. The older woman was sold off just like they were now. She was broken down into a woman who believed only a man could dictate what a woman did with her life.

Their father, a grizzled old man with crooked teeth, counts his money from beside their mother, knowing he’s about to get a lot more from the men who buy the girls.

With a tap to the microphone, the auctioneer begins. “Three sisters. Marie Suster is eighteen, Maria Suster is fifteen, and Mary Suster is ten. Bidding for Mary starts at $2,000.”

The crowd studies the young girl as she’s pulled to the front of the stage, the poor thing shaking in her small dress. The auctioneer starts the numbers, counting up and up until the final number is reached, “Sold to number sixty-seven for $700,500!”

The crowd claps as Mary is led back to her seat beside Marie. Next was Maria, who was led to the front of the stage. Her dress is even smaller than Mary’s. The auctioneer clears his throat before letting the numbers climb up and up.

“Sold to number one hundred and seven for $950,000!”

Maria was led back to her seat before Marie was brought to the front. The stage lights highlighted the makeup on her face, making her look older than eighteen. She stands tall, scanning the crowd for the man who would buy her. The auctioneer starts her bidding, letting the numbers climb higher and higher.

“Sold to number twenty for two million!”

Marie’s eyes found number twenty before she was dragged back to her seat. The three sisters sit there like prizes that were just won while the men pay their money to the woman collecting the cash. 

Mary’s taken first, each girl dead silent, knowing they would be killed if they cried.

Maria’s gone before Marie could even say goodbye.

And then her man comes. He grabs her arm roughly, pulling her off the stage without a further word. 

The next few weeks were the worst of Marie’s young life.

She found out what she was going to be doing for her new husband and immediately tried to run. He caught her in 15 minutes.

They’d gone down to the courthouse and got officially married the day after she tried to run, forcing her to stay at his side at all times.

She never learned his name, only knowing him as ‘sir’ or ‘master’.

Within a year, Marie had a child.

Within two, two children. Her first child barely a year old with another on the way.

Within her third, she’d miscarried. Her husband blamed her for the loss. Her children, one and two, don’t understand what loss is yet.

In her fourth year, Marie turned 22 with her two children, Melody who is three and Margaret who is two. Something changed this year. She got better. She was happy for a change, both her children learning to read and write and talk without repercussions. Even Marie was allowed to speak with her husband freely now.

It had taken time, but Marie felt truly free.

Until she didn’t.

She didn’t know what to make of the sight at her front door when she opened it that fateful day. She didn’t even know why she opened the door with Margaret balanced on her left hip and Melody clinging to her skirt. She expected to see a salesman or even a friend of her husbands, not the face she saw,

It was Soren.

The boy who she’d loved when she was sixteen.

Her husband stands behind Soren, a smile on his lips as he says, “Sweetie. I brought you your first love. You don’t have to be with me anymore.”

Marie just stands there, looking quite shocked at the sudden entrance. She hated to admit it, but she had ended up falling for her husband after she’d had his two kids. Now he wanted to divorce her so she could live happily ever after with Soren? It made no sense. Something was wrong. She just didn’t know what.

Soren moves into the house, kissing Marie’s forehead with a soft smile, “It’s so good to see you, my dear.”

His voice sounded forced, almost robotic, nothing like the soft, melodic voice she knew from before. Marie stares at the men, her daughters still clinging to her tightly. She just stays silent, her voice stuck in her throat.

The first love grabs her hand, slipping a beautiful black crystal ring onto her finger. Her husband never bought her a ring like this. She wondered what this was all about.

“Come, my love,” Soren mumbles, grabbing her hand, “Your sisters are waiting for you at home.”

“Maria? Mary?” Nova asks in a whisper, clearly shocked. She hasn’t seen her sisters in four years.

What went wrong? What changed? Why must she leave her husband – now ex-husband.

They went home. For years and years, Marie was happy. She and her sisters, plus all three husbands helped to raise the two little girls she had had.

Melody and Margaret had grown into beautiful girls, the first the brains and the second the brawn. 

Marie had let the girls be themselves, taught them that no man should control their lives. She’d spent years coming to terms with that fact herself, and instead of continuing the cycle, she’s trying to break the cycle for her own daughters.

Men had failed her once. 

She wouldn’t let them fail her again.

When her daughters came of age, everything changed. Melody was 18 and Margaret was 17 when Soren broke. 

He became just like her father, forcing her and the daughters back into silence.

August 2nd, the day before the anniversary of Marie’s actuation rolls around and something happens she can never fix.

Soren injects her with something, whispering sweet nothings in her ear as she freezes. 

He drags her to the auction hall, her daughters forced up on the stage.

Marie is forced to sit in the front row, Soren beside her. She couldn’t move. Her husband had injected her with Curare, allowing her to still see and hear the auction, but not move to stop it. The tears fall down her frozen face at the sight of her two daughters standing on the stage in the little tight dresses. 

She had failed. 

The cycle repeated itself.

And then the auctioneer brings the gavel down with a bang, the two simple words haunting Marie from that day forward.

“Sold!”

“Sold!”

…Sold.