Chapter 13

I rummaged through the kitchen cabinets during the night and found everything I needed to colour my hair brown. I thought it looked suspicious to continue wearing a cloth over my head. I found coffee beans, black tea, and walnut shells. I crushed everything down into a fine powder and took about two hours to boil it in water, making it lose approximately half its water content. The fire in the hearth had enough heat left for me to use it without arousing any suspicions in the household.

I returned with the watery goop into my chamber and covered all of my head and eyebrows, then waited until morning to rinse everything out. The black tea and walnut shells gave my hair a darker colour and even removed the usual shiny redness that the coffee sometimes left. Maybe it was because I had boiled it and made it into a thick liquid? I never had the chance to cook it for long before. I thought it worked much better this way.

After the colouration was done, I pulled my damp hair into a knot at