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Prologue
Adalee
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
“You’re going to live with Uncle Frank,” Mama whispers. She touches my hair, pushing it back behind my ears. Then she reaches for my face and just...looks at me.
Even at five-and-a-half, I know this isn’t something I want, and I know that it’s something that’s going to be bad for me.
And why do I get the feeling that Mama knows it, too?
I don’t have an Uncle Frank, and I don’t want to go live with that guy, anyway. I’m not interested in being around someone like that, someone like him.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“It’s going to be okay,” Mama says, but I shake my head again.
“No!” This time I say the word more loudly, as though that’s going to matter, as though that’s going to be enough to stop the movements that have already been set in place. Something in my world is about to change, and I have a feeling it’s going to be bigger than I could possibly imagine.
“Baby girl,” Mama says, and she reaches for me. She pulls me into her arms and hugs me. “It’s going to be okay,” she says again, and this time, I’m aware of the fact that Mama is lying to me. I know because she’s crying. Tears are pouring down her cheeks, and they’re covering me. I’m wet now from her tears, and this scares me. My heart beats faster, faster, and I shake my head.
“No.”
“It’s time,” Mama says.
She reaches for a suitcase I didn’t see before. It’s mine. It’s the purple
one with the teddy bear sticker on the side. Everything I own could fit inside that suitcase. Why do I have a feeling it’s already in there?
“No,” I say again.
I feel like a broken record.
I feel like I’m completely on repeat.
I don’t want to go with Uncle Frank. I don’t want to leave my mother. She’s the only one I have, and leaving? That doesn’t sound like a good idea. That sounds...horrible.
“Mama,” I whisper.
“It’s time,” she says.
Mama stands up and brushes off her skirt. She seems to steel herself, as though that’s going to change the way this thing is playing out. What did Mama do? Why is she sending me away? Why isn’t she coming with me?
Even though she hasn’t expressly said it, I can tell from her tears and the way she’s hesitating that this is something that’s going to change my whole world.
She’s not coming with me.
Am I ever going to see her again?
A man steps out from the shadows behind her, and I realize that this is the man. This is the man she’s giving me to.
“Hello, Adalee,” he says in a flat, uninterested tone. “It’s time to go.”
Chapter One
Adalee
