Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Jilliane P. Hoffman 2015
Jilliane P. Hoffman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Cover photographs © Joanna Jankowska/Arcangel Images (forest, road);
Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel Images (girl); iStock.com (car)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2015 ISBN: 9780007311743
Source ISBN: 9780007311729
Version 2016-06-13
For Rich,
as always, for so many reasons.
And for Pamela Musso Costidis,
a courageous, great friend.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel, U.S. News and World Report, October 27, 1986
The rainy night air smelled toxic – burnt and bitter – like a house fire a day after being put out, its charred remains smoldering in puddles full of water and chemicals. The thick taste coated her throat. No matter if she spit or swallowed, there was no getting rid of it.
The girl stumbled through the maze of sugar cane stalks. With no moon, stars or light to guide her it was hard to make out even the hand in front of her face. She was barefoot and the muddy, gloppy soil was laden with chunks of limestone that, when stepped on, felt like she had walked on a hidden land mine because of the glass that was still stuck in her foot. The pain would explode and travel like a lightning rod through her whole body, setting even her teeth on fire. As soon as she could stop running she’d try to feel around and pick the pieces out. But that time wasn’t now. With outstretched hands, she staggered down the row of thick stalks that towered over her small frame, hoping they would brace her should she run into something.
Or someone.
The terrifying thought made her shake. That, and she’d never been so cold before. She’d grown up in Florida. It never got cold here, even when some front blew in from Canada and all the old people and news anchors started yelling it was freezing and that the orange trees were gonna die. But she was completely soaked and the crazy-assed wind from the crazy-assed storm ripped right through her. It raced through the cane stalks making them whistle so piercingly they sounded like they were screaming. She bit her tongue to stop her teeth from chattering.
It was hard not to yell out for help. There could be someone or something out there beyond all this fucking cane. Yards away, maybe. A home. A gas station. A road that led out of here, wherever here was. Somewhere nearby, cane fields had been torched and harvested. That’s what she was smelling and tasting in her throat – burnt sugar cane. Maybe there were people out here. Maybe farmers or migrant workers living in tents or shanties, waiting for the storm to pass and first light to come so they could torch these fields. Maybe someone could hear her, help her, take her in.