It was this expression that had popped into her mind, ten months ago, from her beautiful newfound safety in Montmartre. That had made her ask her lawyer to inquire after it, had inspired the book idea, had brought her across an ocean.…

Every summer, Thomas and Edna Rensselaer rented a house in the Hudson Valley, a habit not at all affected by their mutual distaste of the countryside. (The important thing, after all, was not whether you enjoyed doing something. It was whether somebody even wealthier and more powerful than you saw you doing it.) Alva didn’t look forward to these summers—it was harder to stay indoors and be quiet and good when there were acres of green lawns inviting her to run over them, and servant children who looked at her curiously when they passed her in the hall, like they’d be willing to talk to her if she gave them a nod.

But she never did. And she never ran over the lawn. She stayed inside and learned her lessons and embroidered in her room after an early dinner, just like she did in the city.

But one afternoon when she was eleven, her parents had gone back to Manhattan for a night. And by luck, her governess had come down with a sudden, severe cold shortly after they’d left—in hindsight Alva supposed the governess hadn’t thought it very lucky. And some of the staff had gone to the village to see their families for the day, given that Alva’s parents were going to be gone, and in the end, the only person who could be found to watch Alva was a housemaid who couldn’t have been more than five years older than she was. And so, for the first time in eleven years, Alva found herself with an opportunity.

The plan had appeared in her mind with perfect clarity, every detail already arranged. The housemaid wouldn’t rat her out if she disappeared for an hour—she’d be let go or at least severely reprimanded if the housekeeper knew she’d let the daughter of the house go missing. She left the girl a note, telling her she’d only be gone an hour, to spare her unnecessary worry—and then she’d simply slipped out the French windows in the library into the side garden and, from there, into the woods beyond.