Chapter 2

My nails cut into my palm, but the pain in my hand was nothing next to the pain in my chest.

I stared at her and said each word slowly.

"The coming-of-age celebration was the task Father gave to my brother. He arranged all of it himself. I wasn't even allowed into the kitchen."

"If he hadn't done it to get back at me on Cora's behalf, he never would have caused a disaster like this."

Mother choked, then snapped at once, "So you're blaming Cora? If not for her, who knows what corner you, you little jinx, would be rotting in right now!"

"And don't forget, if we hadn't found you and brought you back, you'd still be crawling in the mud, breaking your back for other people! I should have known better than to bring you home!"

The cold, merciless words went in like a knife opening my flesh, straight into my heart.

So it turned out the ones closest to you cut the deepest, because they knew your weak spots, and they knew exactly how much you cared about them.

Before I was five, I had a happy home too.

Parents who doted on me, a brother who took my side, everything whole and good.

Until the year I turned five, when the nanny slipped me out of the house.

Small as I was, they drugged me, and I slumped half-conscious against her.

A loud bullet train, a crowded bus that swayed and lurched, muddy country roads. I was carried from place to place until I reached a remote little village.

After that came an endless hell.

That nanny could never have children of her own, and she had always wanted one, but once we got to the countryside, people only sneered that all she'd managed to bring back was a money-losing girl, not even a son.

The more they laughed, the more she loathed me. Day in and day out she beat me or cursed me, and all the household chores fell to me.

Small as I was, not even as tall as the stove, I already stood on a stool to cook.

The firewood was soaked through, and the smoke stung my eyes until they burned with tears.

The village's iron pot was heavier than I was, but if they came in from the fields and the meal wasn't ready, a savage beating was what waited for me.

In the dead of winter my fingers were red and raw with cold, and the nanny only gave me a flat glance.

"Money-losing girl. Can't even wash the clothes without dragging your feet."

That winter was bitter. The room had a warm brick bed, but I was only allowed to sleep on the floor in the corner.

I curled into a ball and held myself tight, hoping for a little warmth, but it was too cold, and by the late hours of the night I nearly passed out from it.

That day I was feverish and dazed, and for the first time I didn't get up to make breakfast.

A red-hot rod came down hard on my body, and through the haze I caught the sound of flesh scorching.

Strangely, this time I felt no pain at all.

My head swam, my mind grew fainter and fainter.

At six, I understood for the first time that I was about to die.

When I woke again, I was lying in the village's little clinic.

The nanny watched me coldly. "I wasn't going to bother with you. Didn't think a girl could still be worth something."

Later I learned that the old widower on the west side of the village had put down two thousand in bride price to reserve me early, arranging that once I was a little older I'd be married off to his simpleton son.

The year I turned ten, I set fire to that ruined shack, and while they ran to fight the flames I fled into the mountains.

I didn't dare take the small paths and even less the main roads, so I only pushed through grass that stood as tall as a person.

I ate mud and drank rainwater, and the day I finally came out of the mountains my legs were rubbed raw and bleeding, and I was almost spent.

By the time the Simmonses found me, I was twelve.

I'd been taken in by a kind family and was helping out in the back kitchen.

A woman in expensive clothes rushed in, heedless of the filth in the alley, and held me tight.

"Stephanie, my Stephanie, I finally found you."

She called me Stephanie, not that cheap girl, not money-losing girl or jinx.

Her arms were warm, her tears fell hot on my shoulder, and I thought I had a home.

But once we got home, I found another girl living in what had been my room.

That was when I learned that after I went missing, Mother had nightmares night after night and nearly lost her mind.

Until Father suggested adopting a child to ease her longing for her daughter.

"No!" my brother had objected almost without thinking. "Why bring in another one! I have a sister. She's only lost. One day I'll find her!"

"But your mother is suffering. She may not last until we find Stephanie."

Father's words moved my brother, and so they chose Cora.

The day Mother brought me home, Cora was sitting in the living room in her nightdress, barefoot, crying.

She wailed for her mommy, begging her mommy not to give her up.

Without a moment's hesitation, Mother set me down and went to hold her.

"There now, sweet girl, don't cry…"

She soothed Cora in a gentle voice, every movement so tender, so full of a mother's love.

I stood off to the side, alone, tilting my head up, watching carefully, unable to stop myself from wondering, is this what a mother is? Could I have a mother's love too?

But the next second I saw Cora turn a smug smile on me, her eyes full of malice.

After that, Cora would play the poor victim in front of Father and my brother, saying I had it in for her, and no matter how I explained, my parents and brother were always the first to blame me.

Cora had spent ten years with them.

Live alongside someone that long and feelings form. That's only natural.

What I couldn't understand was why, when I tried so hard to fit into this family, tried so hard to tell them I wasn't shutting Cora out, even when I brought them proof, they never once looked at it and only decided it was my jealousy eating at me, hurting Cora.

Did the debt of raising always outweigh the debt of blood?

On countless nights I lay in my little room imagining the day my parents and brother would learn the truth, cry, apologize to me, and then give me all their love.

But after being let down again and again, I stopped dreaming and stopped hoping for things that would never be.

Those family members who didn't love me, I didn't want them anymore either.