Her mother took another step toward her, eyeing her narrowly. “You have a wickedness inside you. You have fire in your soul. We have to purge you of the evil, my child, so you can go to God pure.”

Purging at her mother’s hands meant pain.

Sarafina noted her mother was moving closer to the bed, leaving the door open. Her gaze darted toward escape as she gripped her doll tight.

“Just like me, Sarafina. Just like your grandmother. Like your father, too. We are all cursed with the hellfire of the devil.”

Her mother lunged for her, but Sarafina dove off the side of the bed, leaving her beloved doll behind, and darted past her, feeling displaced air at the nape of her neck where her mother almost grabbed hold of her.

“Sarafina!” her mother raged as Sarafina ran full bore through the living room and out the front door. “Come back here!”

Sarafina ran across the front lawn and down the street, feeling the heat of her mother as she drew closer. Glancing back, she saw the glint of something long and sharp in the morning sunlight. Her mother had a weapon.

Neighbors, out in their yards on such a fine day, stared. Too stunned, too complacent. Whatever the reason, no one did anything to help Sarafina as she ran screaming down the street.

She darted between houses and ran through backyards, her short eight-year-old legs pumping as fast as she could make them.

It wasn’t fast enough.

She was no match for the long, adult legs chasing her and every step she took felt like a step backward. The farther she ran, the closer her mother got—her heat and the flash of that pointy thing she held bearing down on Sarafina.

Sarafina’s sandal caught the edge of a sandbox in her friend’s backyard and she went sprawling face-first into it. She scrambled forward, sending sand flying, and turned over just in time to see her mother looming over her.

Sarafina threw her hands up, as if her tiny arms would be enough to ward off the weapon coming toward her and the wild glint in her mother’s eye.

“I’m trying to save you, child,” her mother yelled. “Don’t you see?”

“Momma, no!”

Light erupted in a brilliant display. Her mother cried out.

Sarafina scrambled back away from flame, stared for a moment at the sight before her.

Then she screamed.

“Shhh . . . it’s all right. Sarafina, wake up. Wake up.”

Sarafina roused with a gasp to a warm, hard body against hers. “Alex?” But it couldn’t be Alex, she thought groggily. Alex was out of her life now.

“No,” came a low, rumbling voice. “It’s not Alex. You were screaming in your sleep, Sarafina.”