Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
“Julian was holding most of them.”
He winked at her. “I always knew you were keeping an eye on him.”
“What do you remember next?”
He stared at the ceiling, his brow slightly furrowed. “I remember shipping out. Standing on the train platform.”
“Then what?”
He took his time answering. “The library. Telling you we had to split up . . . for Peyton . . . all my drinking after I came home from the war . . .” A cloud fell over his face. “Are we divorced, Hoppy?”
“No. I can’t believe we even talked about it.”
“It was bad, though . . . my drinking, I mean . . . I remember it was bad.”
“Nothing’s bad enough to separate us. We were crazy to even think about it.”
He was smiling again, but she could tell he was getting tired. “I don’t remember anything about the accident. Nothing after I saddled Bootlegger . . . until today when I woke up . . . and Peyton was sitting next to me.”
She laid her hand against his face. “You’ve remembered enough for one day. Probably too much. You need to rest.”
“Wait—how is Peyton? How is he handling this?”
“Oh, Marshall, you’d be so proud of him. He has not left my side—and never complains. He’s gotten real sweet on that pretty Lisa Wallace at school. But he’s spending all his time in hospitals with us, and then he found out Lisa’s gone to Miami to be with family. His summer’s a real bust, I’m afraid.”
“We could . . . maybe fix that.”
“How?”
He smiled up at her. “Aunt Gert.”
“What?”
He closed his eyes and nodded, still smiling. “Let’s send him to her.”
She bent down and kissed him. “I’ll take care of it.”
ten
The sun was barely piercing the early morning darkness when Peyton said goodbye to his parents and made his way to the Atlanta Greyhound terminal. Now he was looking out the window at the Georgia countryside as the bus rolled through fields of red clay and small towns with little more than a water tower to claim their place on the map. He hadn’t realized how much he needed some time away from fluorescent lights and waiting rooms and the colorless monotony of a hospital. His parents were sending him to visit a great-aunt he couldn’t remember. Peyton hadn’t seen Aunt Gert since he was a toddler and could only hope she wasn’t a holy terror.
“Next stop, Milledgeville!” the driver called.
His heart beat faster at the name of this place. The sprawling grounds of the Milledgeville asylum were rumored to hold many graves—final resting places of all the unfortunate souls who were sent there never to return. Milledgeville was made all the more horrifying by its mystery. Most people had no idea what actually happened within its walls, and what they imagined was a collage of every bad dream they’d ever had and every horror movie they’d ever seen.