Open Road Media Teen & Tween

ROLOGUE

1865

I was nine years old when my mother decided it was time I took part in the family business. I was pretty enough now, she said, that I might be of use. I’d grown into my ears and my long neck and might be clever enough to handle myself. Besides which, she claimed, she had no other option.

So that December, full of Christmas cheer and mulled wine, she’d changed her mind. It wasn’t until later that I realized it wasn’t Christmas cheer that had prompted her but desperation.

Still, she’d promised me a visit to an actual bookshop, where I might even be able to purchase my very own book if I did well. Until then I had read only discarded magazines or books tossed out into the alleys behind the shops and fine houses because of unsightly stains of damp or smoke damage.

I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, only that it was vitally important.

Even Colin, who was just two years older than me but fancied himself more mature, now looked grim. He’d come with his mother from Ireland and had been orphaned and survived as a crossing boy, sweeping the street clean for the gentry, when my mother found him. She brought him home a month earlier to live with us, also contingent on how well we did that night. Crossing boys who were growing tall enough and strong enough to muscle the fine folk of Mayfair didn’t get many tips. Not to mention that he was a fair hand at pickpocketing and had to change corners every day so he wouldn’t get caught.

The snow was gathering slowly in the muddy streets as we left Cheapside. It turned the gray stones and dirty gutters into a landscape made of gingerbread and buttercream frosting. It made me hungry just to see it. My stomach growled loudly. Mother sent me a disapproving glance.

“Violet, a lady does not betray bodily needs.”

I nodded, looking down at my feet.

“A lady gets to eat, don’t she?” Colin murmured, but not so loud that she could hear him.

“A lady gets to eat, don’t she?” Colin murmured, but not so loud that sh

raining, Annie.
Liza—Eliza Winthrop—stared in surprise at the words she’d just written; it was as if they had appeared without her bidding on the page before her. “Frank Lloyd Wright’s house at Bear Run, Pennsylvania,” she had meant to write, “is one of the earliest and finest examples of an architect’s use of natural materials and surroundings to …”
But the gray November rain splashed insistently against the window of her small dormitory room, its huge drops shattering against the glass as the wind blew.
Liza turned to a fresh page in her notebook and wrote:
Dear Annie,
It’s raining, raining the way it did when I met you last November, drops so big they run together in ribbons, remember?
Annie, are you all right?
Are you happy, did you find what you wanted to find in California? Are you singing? You must be, but you haven’t said so in your letters. Do other people get goosebumps when you sing, the way I used to?
Annie, the other day I saw a woman who reminded me of your grandmother, and I thought of you, and your room, and the cats, and your father telling stories in his cab when we went for that drive on Thanksgiving. Then your last letter came, saying you’re not going to write any more till you hear from me.
It’s true I haven’t written since the second week you were in music camp this summer. The

cause she interpreted the charter differently from most

3
Mrs. Poindexter didn’t look up when I went into her office. She was a stubby gray-haired woman who wore rimless glasses on a chain and always looked as if she had a pain somewhere. Maybe she always did, because often when she was thinking up one of her sardonically icy things to say she’d flip her glasses down onto her bumpy bosom and pinch her nose as if her sinuses hurt her. But I always had the feeling that what she was trying to convey was that the student she was disciplining was what really gave her the pain. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble by following the school charter: “The Administration of Foster Academy shall guide the students, but the students shall govern themselves.” But I guess she was what Mr. Jorrocks, our American history teacher, would call a “loose constructionist,” because she interpreted the charter differently from most people.
“Sit down, Eliza,” Mrs. Poindexter said, still not looking up. Her voice sounded tired and muffled—as if her mouth were full of gravel.
I sat down. It was always hard not to

So I’m going to start with the rainy Sunday last November when I met Annie Kenyon.

the best way to begin a story is to start with the first important or exciting incident and then fill in the background.

I was surprised to find that I didn’t; I usually like to be by myself in museums, especially when I’m working on something.

I said “Liza Winthrop” before I realized that wasn’t what she’d asked.

Annie, are you all right?
Are you happy, did you find what you wanted to find in California? Are you singing? You must be, but you haven’t said so in your letters. Do other people get goosebumps when you sing, the way I used to?