Chapter One

Mindy Ashenbach sat in the middle of her quilt-covered bed, yanking red yarn from her Raggedy Ann's head. "Bastard," she muttered with each pull, feeling bittersweet satisfaction in using a swear word that would have made her grandfather mad. She tugged another clump, then squeezed her eyes shut. "Rotten bastard."

She sat quiet a moment, half-holding her breath, half-waiting for punishment. But the room was silent—the whole house was silent, the same way it was after school every day when she came home from helping at Menemsha House. What made her think today would be different?

What made her think that even if anyone knew what had happened, they would have cared?

She flung the now hairless doll across the small room. It bounced off the windowsill and landed with a thud beneath the slant-roof dormer. It wasn't as if she needed the dumb doll anymore. She was ten, after all. Too old to believe that I-love-you-heart crap.

She sucked in her lower lip and folded her arms. Then somewhere inside her a tremble began, like the rumblings of a volcano she'd seen on TV. It started in her belly, the place where it ached sometimes when she was scared. It started in her belly and stuttered its way up her chest to her throat. Then she opened her mouth, and out it came: one big wailing cry.

"Bastard!" she cried out. "Bastard! bastard!" She wondered if this was what it felt like when you died, if your insides ended up coming out, if all of your hurt ended up on the floor, facedown and alone like Raggedy Ann.

Suddenly, the door opened.

"Mindy? What the hell are you doing?" It was her grandfather.

She clutched her aching bell