Margy's perfect life, is disrupted one winter night. Her sister arrives and then her brother comes, and with him, a small girl, Rose. She is their only niece.
No doubt the girl's mother is drinking again, and that is what Margy thinks. She will just let her stay until that is over. Rose sleeps in the alcove bed in the living room and Margy and her sister sleep in the double bed in the bedroom. A windy storm hits the house and Margy wakes up to find herself on the floor and Rose crying from the other room.
Margy will have to get up and stop that. Rose, aware that her time may be short, and needing distraction, refuses to just go to sleep. She says there must be a story.
That is how the story of the last chieftess begins.
