“Protect you against Rot, Daughter. Shudder with the thought of it, that worst thing. Rot like the gone-bad-on-the-inside of fruit, like biting into an apple without checking for holes and my mouth filling up with a rancid brown mush. Worse than a foul mouthful of Rot that comes from outside the fence. If that kind of Rot got into me or Myma then we would be the gone-bad apples. Us Rotters. Everything inside us eaten away. I wouldn’t be Mud any more. I wouldn’t be any name at all. I wou...
