Prologue #2
That was when Callie heard her papa roar from above.
She couldn’t see his face, but Callie had never heard him roar like that before.
She twisted around to see his hand clutched around her mama’s wrist and her mama’s hand clutched around his.
Over the whipping wind, Callie heard him tell Mama he was going to lift them out.
Callie could hear Uncle Stephen, too, and when she craned her neck, she saw he was lying on top of her papa’s legs so none of them would fall.
When her wrist started to slip through Mama’s hand because of the rain, Callie panicked and cried out.
Her mama told her papa and Callie heard something in her mama’s voice she’d never heard before—fear.
Papa yelled at Uncle Stephen to let him go so he could jump down and get them.
But Uncle Stephen wouldn’t get off Papa’s legs and her papa roared at her mama, “Don’t let go! ”
But Mama screamed, “She’s going to fall, Alexander!”
That was the first time Callie ever heard her papa beg. She would never forget it. More than how it felt to be dangling there, soaking wet and afraid, she’d remember her papa’s voice.
“Don’t let go, Amanda! Promise me! Don’t! Let! Go!”
Then her mama made the saddest sound she’d ever heard, and Callie remembered thinking that the last roar she’d heard from her papa sounded like he was being eaten by a pack of wild animals as her mama wrapped her body around her, and, together, they fell.
They kept falling and falling and Callie was sure they would crash soon, but they didn’t.
Instead, they landed in the water, and her mama swam them both to shore.
Callie remembered then what Grandpapa Montgomery used to tell her about stormy nights, the cliffs, and the tunnels: “Every once in a while, something fantastical happens on a stormy night and a horrible wrong is righted.”
Callie figured that’s what had happened to her papa and her new mama, that something fantastical had taken place on that stormy night.
Callie didn’t know what made the cliffs special, but her papa had once told her that whenever he was out on one of his ships, he could see a special pattern that ran down that whole side of the rock wall.
Callie told her mama about it when they were resting on the shore, what her pappy had said about fantastical things, and that that must be why they were okay.
And maybe also why it wasn’t storming anymore.
But then Callie saw her mama’s hand and wrist. It didn’t look so good.
Papa had been holding her tight. Callie looked at her own hand and wrist then—it was reddish and hurt, but not like her mama’s.
Her mama’s wrist was kind of purple and the top of her hand and one of her fingers was bleeding really bad.
When they made their way back to the house, her papa wasn’t there. The house wasn’t Papa’s anymore, Mama explained. It was just Mama’s. Her mama got really fierce then, just like Papa would when he wanted Callie to remember something very important.
Her mama said, “Callesandra, no matter what happens, you are my daughter.” She made Callie repeat it. Then she said, “No one will ever, ever, take you away from me. Do you understand me?” Callie didn’t, but she nodded anyway.
This was her mama, of course that was true—but she didn’t tell her that, wondering instead when her papa would come so everything could be okay. Her papa would fix her mama’s hand like he had before when it had to be stitched. He could fix everything.
But Papa didn’t come to fix her mama’s hand this time.
Instead, Mama called someone named Aunt Sam.
Callie had never met her before, but her mama had talked about her all the time.
When her mama brushed her hair at night, she would tell stories about how she and Aunt Sam became friends—best friends.
Now, as Callie looked around the house, she realized just how very, very different it looked than before.
All the furniture was new and funny-looking, nowhere near as lovely as the furniture she was used to.
The pictures on the walls were different, too, and the kitchen was filled with odd gadgets and shiny things that looked like nothing she had ever seen before.
Callie was about to ask her mama where they were, how they had gotten to this strange place that was their house but also…
wasn’t, when Mama grabbed something off of the kitchen counter and held it up to Callie.
It didn’t look like too much to her, but Mama explained that it was called a “phone” and that if she pressed in just the right spot, it would connect her to Aunt Sam, who had one too.
Callie was skeptical at first about her mama’s phone, which was just a little smooth and shiny rectangle that she had to be very careful with, but then she realized she really liked it.
A lot. Mama cried when she heard Aunt Sam’s voice coming out of the phone, loudly—something her mama called “speaker phone,” which meant Callie heard her too.
At first, hearing Aunt Sam’s voice magically blare into the room scared her, but then she realized it was okay because her mama was so happy about it.
“Jesus, Ammy—are you okay? Where have you been? Amanda—” Aunt Sam started crying then too.
“Sam,” Mama choked out. “I need help.”
That night, Callie met a man called Mr. Finch, who, according to her aunt Sam, was the person who would take care of everything.
Her mama told her that Mr. Finch was a friend, someone she used to know before Callie was born, and that he was a bodyguard, which meant he protected people.
And since Papa wasn’t here to protect them, Mr. Finch would.
Callie was okay with him because when he first came to the house, he knelt down right in front of her and smiled really big.
He spoke softly and told her, “It’s going to be okay, Cal.
” No one had ever called her Cal before, and she liked the way he said it.
And there really was something about Mr. Finch that made her feel safe.
They rode together in a big truck with Mr. Finch in the driver’s seat.
Callie was scared at first because she had never seen a truck before.
But her mama explained that it was quicker than a horse and it was how people traveled places in this new place they now lived.
Mr. Finch lifted her inside right onto her mama’s lap, then put what he called a “seatbelt” over them both.
Her mama rubbed Callie’s back and hummed pretty music while Callie looked out the windows.
They went super fast, reminding her of what it felt like when Gregor would spin her around. And even though the house and the land they drove by looked kind of the same as she remembered, it was also so very different.
It was dark by the time Mr. Finch stopped behind a building, where a man waiting outside told Mr. Finch that it was “clear” to go in.
That was when her mama told her that she had to have surgery. Callie didn’t really know what that was until the man who was waiting for them told her he was a doctor. He said that her mama probably needed to have part of her bone replaced because it had been crushed.
Callie felt her own wrist then, imagining it crushed instead of nice and whole.
The doctor told her mama he would fix her finger and the back of her hand, too, so there wouldn’t be scars, but Mama shook her head.
“They don’t have to be ugly,” she said, her voice firm, “but I want to be able to look at these scars forever.”
Right before they took her mama to the operating room, she turned to Callie and gave her a long, hard look. “We’re going to be okay, baby. I promise,” her mama said. “Mr. Finch is going to take care of you and Aunt Sam will be here tomorrow.”
Callie cried because she hadn’t been away from her mama for so long before.
But then Mr. Finch picked her up and hugged her tight, and it was just like one of Papa’s hugs.
And it wasn’t too much later before she and Mr. Finch were able to sit in the same room as her mama, waiting for her to wake up.
For the next few days after they were back in their new home, Callie kept waiting for Papa to come, and she knew Mama was waiting, too, even though this was her house now.
It took some time, but as the days passed, between her mama, Aunt Sam, and Mr. Finch, Callie got used to her new life.
She had pretty new clothes that she loved, like sundresses and blue jeans, and shorts and T-shirts and lots of shoes.
Her mama got her a new tea set similar to the one she’d had in her old room, and new dolls and stuffed animals too.
Callie learned about TVs and cell phones and computers, though she wasn’t allowed to spend a lot of time using them. Her mama liked to do puzzles and play games with her instead. And of course, there were her piano and dance lessons.
They only stayed in their home in Great Britain until Callie’s birthday passed.
She turned six on April 20 that year. Her mama made her repeat the date over and over again.
Not the April 20 part, the year part, which at first seemed very silly to Callie since it wasn’t even a real year.
She also had to memorize what Mama called her “birthdate”—the day, month, and year.
Mama and Aunt Sam and even Mr. Finch would ask her at odd times, “What’s your birthdate?
” She’d answered the question so many times, she didn’t even have to think about it anymore.
Then mama was packing all of her new belongings and they left Great Britain and moved to a place called New York.
Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch came with them, and they all got into a huge bird that had seats inside.
Her mama told Callie not to be scared, that the man who flew the plane in the sky—their pilot, Captain Morgan—would keep them safe.
“Just wait, baby,” she’d said. “That feeling you love, that you get right here”—her mama patted Callie’s stomach then—“this time will be even better.” Her mama was right too.
Callie remembered looking at her as the plane started rising into the sky and she laughed out loud when that feeling came.
She couldn’t help but think of Gregor then, and how much he would have loved it too.
Callie liked their house in New York; it was big like their other house and also on the water.
The first night they got there, her mama lit a candle and put it on a table by the big picture window.
Callie asked her what it was for and her mama picked her up and stood so they were both looking out at the ocean.
“Your papa was taking us to America, Callie. That night we were separated.” Mama rarely cried in front of her, and if she did, it was really quiet. Tears would run down her face but she’d pretend they weren’t there.
This time, when she was able to speak again, her mama said, “I lit it for your papa, Callie.” Then she placed her hand to the glass. “We made it, Alexander. We’re here.” Mama’s voice caught on a sob then and Aunt Sam took her from her mama’s arms.
They stayed in New York only for the summer before moving to a place called California, where Mama said she had lived when she was a little girl.
Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch came with them again.
Callie asked her mama if Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch would live with them always, and her mama smiled before telling her that even though Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch had their own lives, they had always been very good friends, and good friends helped each other in times of need.
So, they would be around a lot. Callie liked that.
In California, Mama’s belly grew big, and she told Callie she was going to have a brother.
Her mama used to cry before, a lot, but now she cried even more.
Not during the day, but at night when she thought Callie was asleep.
Callie didn’t like hearing her mama cry, but she knew it was because she loved her papa so much, and her mama didn’t think they were ever going to see him again.
But Callie had been watching a lot of movies and she knew her papa was better than all those superheroes put together.
He would be able to find them no matter what.
It was when they moved to California that Callie learned her mama was a famous songwriter and that people all over knew who she was.
In her new city, Callie went to a fancy school where she had to work really hard.
One day at school, the fourth graders put on a performance about something called the American Revolution.
Callie would never forget sitting there looking at the stage and all the scenery and decorations.
She hadn’t thought about her old life for a long time.
But she did then. There were pictures and posters of ships like her papa used to command.
A ship just like the one he’d been trying to get them on that night she and her mama were taken by those bad men.
And when the students came on the stage, she gasped at their costumes.
The girls were in dresses like the ones she and her mama used to wear, and the boys were in uniforms. One boy in particular was wearing a uniform that looked just like her papa’s.
Callie sat there stunned and confused, but hanging on every word the other kids said.
As she watched the play, Callie wondered if her papa worked with the man named George Washington. Maybe that was why he had been packing them up that night and taking them to America.
Callie thought about that book then. The one that had made her mama cry. They were still in their home in New York when she found it, and later, when she was alone, Callie had opened it to the very same page and gasped when she saw her papa’s name written there: “Alexander Montgomery.”
The book said her papa had been found guilty of reason and had to write a sentence about death.
It had taken her a long time to sound out all those words and she didn’t understand what they meant, but shortly after that Mama decided they should move—and somehow, Callie knew it was because of what she’d seen in the book.
Mama told Callie then that Papa wouldn’t be able to find them after all, though Callie didn’t believe her. Callie would never believe her papa couldn’t find them. Never.