ELEVEN

ELEVEN

Aboard the Sultana

THE GHOSTS AND PAPA NIGHTMARE left her alone.

With no one to see her, judge her, mock her, Jeannine could remove the mental armor she always wore.

She began trembling—whether it was due to the cold or fear, she didn’t know. Next came the tears. At first, she tried to hold it all back. But like the levees the day she was reborn, the mental barriers didn’t last long.

Rebirth. Something she hadn’t thought about in a very long time.

J

She remembered the aluminum boat her “rescuers” had sat her in. The smell of wet dog surrounded her as soon as the men sat her down between them. But there was no dog in the little motorboat.

Water sloshed at her feet—but that hadn’t mattered one bit. She was soaked from hours of enduring the storm.

The feeling of elation at being plucked off the roof by those rough-looking men. Unshaven, smelling of body odor and tobacco, they both had wide grins showing stained teeth and gaps where other teeth had been.

The fingerna