When I examined it closer, I saw my name had been erased and rewritten because there was a small smear, barely noticeable, at the end of my first name. As I tried to decipher what had been written underneath, something else caught my eye.

A crescent moon had been drawn to the left of James’s name. A quick check of the other names confirmed my suspicion. No other name on the page had any such mark or tag beside it. I fanned the pages. The crescent-shaped mark appeared once every thirty pages or so.

I recognized Calla’s soft footsteps in the hall, heard her hand on the doorknob. After hurriedly tucking the Bound Book back into its pillowcase costume, I returned it to the bottom of my chest, shutting the lid a few seconds before Calla opened the door.

“You’re up, Penny,” Calla said. She sat at her dressing table, unwrapping the towel from around her head. Her golden locks spilled out, kept dry in the shower by the towel. Calla began styling her hair, sweeping it up in her tortoise-shell clip.

“Be right back,” I said. I gathered my things and headed to the showers, still thinking about what I’d found in the Bound Book.

What was that crescent-moon shape beside James’s name? The crescent had been blacked out, which made me think it represented a moon phase. But which one? Thinking back to my Earth Science class, I remembered. Waxing gibbous. The phase just before the full moon. Was that the phase James had left Judaculla? Or was it when he’d returned? Why didn’t any of the other names have a mark beside them?

Well, not on that page, I reminded myself. But there were others scattered throughout the book.

The fact the book was only half-filled caused me to shiver. How many boys had traveled to my world? How many more decades would the boys of Judaculla come to my world to trap their mates? All of this was perfectly acceptable behavior in this town, as if no one had any problem with what amounted to nothing less than kidnapping.

But that wasn’t exactly true. James wasn’t cool with it. And neither was Tobias. I’d learned that when I eavesdropped on a conversation between the two of them at Judaculla Rock. James had told Tobias he couldn’t go through with the plan to bring me to Judaculla. Tobias encouraged him to stay in Woodvine with me. He told James he’d felt the same way about James’s mother. Tobias explained he’d sent her away because he couldn’t bear for her to live the oppressive life of a Judaculla woman. Tobias would not have been surprised by James’s decision to leave me behind. I wondered how many other men felt the same way Tobias did about his wife.