Lights up.
The tea service is still on the table, most of the sweets remain. The tea, however, is mostly gone.
Hilda picks up a piece and gingerly toys with it.
HILDA: We were six years old when mama gave us the chessboard. She carved these faces herself. (speaking to the piece) she made you, you know.
Hilda looks at the whole board as though it were alive.
HILDA: She made all of you! Yet we are so different from each other. Like me and Ida for instance-- I was obviously the more important child--. but she was the favored one. Both from the same mother, and yet so opposite. It doesn’t really make any sense.
Hilda sits on the floor with the chess piece still in her hand, cradling it as if it were a child.
Lights down.
Found in Volume III (2004-2005)