Chapter 25
By the time we returned to the house, the shock from the clearing had settled into something quieter and harder to carry. The porch steps groaned beneath my weight as I sat down, and the ordinary warmth of the morning made everything feel stranger. Sunlight moved through the trees in soft patches, and somewhere beyond the clearing a bird called as if nothing important had changed. I rested my elbows on my knees and looked out at the grass, trying to make sense of a life that no longer fit the shape I had given it. For eighteen years, I had believed I was the mistake. I had believed it because every day seemed to prove it. I was the girl who never shifted, the daughter my father stopped defending, the burden my stepmother learned to use when she wanted more power for her own child. It had
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