“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Oh, please don’t leave-” Her heart thudded hard in her chest because he wasn’t gone; he’d almost died but she’d brought him back, she’d said the words.
He was back.
She was bending to kiss him, to throw her arms around him, when his eyes blinked again and stayed open-
And there was nothing there.
“Vincent,” she breathed, her heart going cold. “Vincent, please, please, Vincent, please-”
But he said nothing. His eyes were empty and his lips were still, and the forest around them was dark and silent as a stone.
CHAPTER 1
NOWWHEN I WAS EIGHT, the social workers finally made Gram send me to school. Until then, she told the authorities she was homeschooling me, but after years of her never turning in her paperwork or showing up for the mandatory meetings, they finally got fed up and told her I had to go to regular school. Gram gave in; she knew when she was beat.
The first thing I noticed about the other kids was that they all looked like they could be on TV. I called them Cleans. Their clothes were new and ironed smooth. Their hair was shiny and combed. Their nails were trimmed and free of the black grime that I’d had under mine as long as I could remember. No one had to tell me that, compared with these other kids, I was dirty.
That didn’t stop the kids on the bus from reminding me. By the end of my first humiliating ride to school, I’d been called a bunch of names and accused of having cooties and lice and a witch for a grandmother. It was the same thing on the ride home, even though Mr. Francheski pulled the bus over, stood up and hollered, “Was all you kids raised in barns? Where’s your manners? Be nice to this new girl.”