Chapter 46: Koa begins to find a way
Even if it means living outside for a while...
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Chapter 46: Koa’s bedroom had soft blue walls with a window seat overlooking the back yard and the mountain beyond. Artistically arranged shelves held books and small treasures suited to a young girl: a plastic horse. A doll. A jewelry box. A large bed with four tall posts wore a crisp white duvet. Strings of fairy lights draped the posts and meandered through filmy curtains hanging at the window. A guitar leaned in one corner.
"We updated it every few years," Dominique Miller said, touching a framed photo of a young woman with a vague resemblance to Koa. “An age-progression specialist created this picture. We were trying to imagine..."
Her mother’s grief at the loss of her daughter, someone Koa wasn’t and never had been, echoed in Koa’s body as if her mother were pummeling her. Koa could not give Dominique back what she’d lost.
The walls seemed to press in. The air felt too still, filtered, artificial. The bed seemed to hold the ghost of a child Koa had never known. This room was where that ghost lived.
Koa's chest tightened. “Mama—the woman who took me—said I was chosen by the Valley. That I belonged there. I don’t know if that’s true, but I don’t belong here.”
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