Читать книгу The Legacy of Eden - Nelle Davy, Nelle Davy - Страница 7

PROLOGUE

I WAS CALLING FOR HER.

I pointed the flashlight into the darkness, puncturing the purple haze of the evening with circles of white. The air was full of the smell of azaleas and the sound of crickets, and I began to think of how much I would miss my home. For a moment, I was truly scared of leaving the farm, and I was stricken with both the fear of the unknown, and my desire for it. I gave up a shudder.

And then I heard it.

The sharp snap of twigs being twisted into the earth. I swung around and moved off the path, down to the rose garden. I heard them before I saw them. His voice was low, half in a whisper, but in the stillness of the night, it carried.

“Say it,” he urged, and then more forcefully repeated, “Say it!”

And then another noise. At first, I didn’t even know it was her. It was a sound I had never heard from her before.

I have relived that night so many times. Once, I had dared to believe that I was different from my family, that I was the one who did not fit. But as my grandmother Lavinia, the catalyst for my family’s mottled history, once said, “Blood will out.”

Perhaps you would have made a different choice that night. If so, your heart would not be heavy with such deep regret. But knowing who I am, who my family was, how could anyone have expected anything else?