I had a lot of getting adjusted to do, and same getting acquainted too. It was the first time I'd ever been cast among strangers, you might say, but still, it felt like something I could handle. Really, I don't think there's very much I can't handle, if I put my mind to it. I'm eighteen, but I seem to have the makings of a survivor. Anyway, there was the kick of fresh surroundings, being in the country, with all that fresh air and green grass and a wooded mountain lifting behind the house. I had an aunt and an uncle I didn't know at all but might as well get to know, since I'd be staying with them for the next nine or ten months. I'm a city girl, not from Slumsville by any means, but already I could feel the tug of nature in my bones. It wouldn't be bad, I told myself. As long as my hosts didn't try to put me in some kind of harness.

Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Bill. They didn't seem old enough to be called "aunt" and "uncle". I hoped they wouldn't mind if I dispensed with the formalities once we got better acquainted. Anyway, they were darlings to take me in while Daddy was in Saudi Arabia. Sure, I wanted to go with him, but he pointed out the obvious things – it wasn't the place for a man to take his daughter, not in these days of instant wars and terrorist kidnappings and PLOs and Israeli commandos and all that shit. I guess he was right, but I was going to miss him every day he was gone, no matter how nice Uncle Bill and Aunt Cheryl treated me.

And they'd been pretty nice so far. Well, they seemed pretty mellow. Uncle Bill is Daddy's younger brother, about twelve years younger, in fact. Daddy's forty and Uncle Bill is only twenty-eight. I hardly knew Uncle Bill. The last time I'd seen him was at my mother's funeral four years ago, and the last time before that at my grandmother's funeral a year or so earlier.