The girl slowly turned her head, her eyes falling on Eby. They were dark eyes, like her hair, beautiful and soulful, and tears dripped from them, staining the front of her nightgown. She had to be freezing on this autumn night, with the scent of wood smoke settling low in the air. The girl’s mouth moved, forming words, but no sound came out. She impatiently waved at Eby and George to move on.

“S’il vous plaît,” Eby said.

“Joie de vivre!” George suddenly said loudly, the only French he knew, which he’d learned in a bar their first night here. It was just like him to say that at a time like this. He was a hearty, gregarious man. He was rich, but newly rich, and so very sincere about it. He lacked the natural languidity that came with old money, the kind that made others feel like they were only walking through the dreams of the wealthy, barely there at all. People couldn’t help but like George. His laugh was like a barrel of whiskey. His cheeks were almost as red as his hair. Just looking at him, you could see that his capacity to love was as wide as the world. He wasn’t going to stand a chance against Eby’s family when the couple returned.

The girl’s eyes flicked to George, nimbly assessing him, and she smiled, just slightly. Her eyes then went to Eby’s outstretched hand, to the wedding ring there.

She nodded at them, an unspoken acknowledgment, and Eby felt a rush of relief.

But then the girl calmly turned back to the water.

And jumped.

Part 1

PART 1

Chapter 1

1

Atlanta, Georgia
Present day

“Wake up, Kate!”

And, exactly one year to the day that she fell asleep, Kate finally did.

She opened her eyes slowly and saw that a pale lavender moth had come to a rest on the back of her hand. She watched it from her pillow, wondering if it was real. It reminded her of her husband Matt’s favorite T-shirt, which she’d hidden in a bag of sewing, unable to throw it away. It had a large faded moth on the front, the logo of a cover band out of Athens called the Mothballs.

That T-shirt, that moth, always brought back a strange memory of when she was a child. She used to draw tattoos of butterflies on her arms with Magic Markers. She would give them names, talk to them, carefully fill in their colors when they started to fade. When the time came that they wanted to be set free, she would blow on them and they would come to life, peeling away from her skin and flying away.