'My father sold me when I was eight.'

An indigent farmer sells his 8-year-old son to a rich woman in the city.

Unusually for a slave, the boy is well fed and housed, not beaten, starved or sexually abused. The woman buys him for a specific purpose, to cut with a scissors a large patch of lawn in her substantial walled garden. Twice a month at new moon and full moon the woman and her guests, her disciples, perform certain intimate rituals on the clipped lawn. At full moon there is a dark side to what takes place.

The woman's gardener is the boy's instructor regarding what's to be done and how to do it. At first, the gardener is strict but the boy doesn't fear him, and over the eight years of imprisonment he and the gardener reach a certain level of trust and mutual liking. This liking is key to the boy's survival.

The boy is smart and calm and has a strong imagination. His love of the natural world he observes around him helps him endure years of monotonous, humiliating work.

After his escape from the rich woman's contro, l the boy, now sixteen, makes his way slowly in the world. Eventually, he lands a job with an organization fighting slavery and child trafficking.

He finds happiness with a colleague, and they marry and have two sons.