“Twenty minutes, Amanda,” Papa said. “That ship—we’re on it. If there’s anything you can’t live without, you’d better fetch it now.” Callie figured the one thing that her mama was trying to fetch was her. She’d seen the ship her papa was talking about too. It had been anchored offshore all day. When her mama came back a few minutes later, she told her papa that she needed to talk to him, but Papa said it had to wait. Callie was starting to get a bad feeling all of her own because her mama had sounded so worried. So, while they rolled up maps and started tossing big leather books in another wooden chest, she snuck out of her papa’s study.

Callie hid in the hall behind the tall clock until she saw her mama come out. She called Callie’s name, looking up and down the hallway before she started walking outside toward the stables. Callie ran to catch up with her. She had just come through the gates when someone grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth so she couldn’t scream. That was when she saw her mama up ahead, slung over another man’s shoulder. Her papa was going to be furious. Especially when he realized they were being taken to the cliffs. He was going to roar.

Rain and lightning started just as the two men carrying Callie and her mama set them down and made them walk backward toward the opening of the tunnel that led right out to nothing. Callie knew it was a three-hundred-foot drop to the sea because her papa had told her so. She didn’t know how far three hundred feet was, but she knew it was too far. Callie hoped he was fibbing, but she knew better. Her papa never lied.

The big ugly man had a gun and the shorter one, the one who’d grabbed Callie, had a saber. Mama started crying, pleading with the men to let them go, or at least just Callie. She offered them anything they wanted, just so long as they let her daughter go. Callie started crying then too. She was so scared, but she knew her mama would do anything for her. The bad men didn’t care, though; they just laughed. That was when her mama took her chance. While they were laughing and not paying attention, her mama grabbed Callie’s hand and whispered that there was a ledge just beneath the opening and to hold on to her tight. Callie didn’t have time to wonder how her mama knew about the ledge, she just did as she was told. Her mama stepped over the cliff’s edge, and Callie went with her as they dropped down to the ledge that really was there, and not even that far down.