The Heiress They Locked Away

Hazel stepped through the iron gate and did not look back."Sign first," the guard called after her. She went back and signed. Her hand still shook when she wrote in front of people—three years of being watched while she did simple things had done that to her. The pen was a real pen, not the stub of pencil they handed out on exam days, and it felt strange between her fingers."Your bag." Director Hollis stood in the office doorway and held it out at arm's length, as if Hazel might be catching. "Check it now. Do not come back later and say something is missing."Hazel opened it on the spot. A gray sweater. A pair of jeans. A hair tie. She held the jeans against her legs and the hems stopped well above her ankles. She had been sixteen when she handed them over, and she had kept growing since. At the bottom lay a photo of her grandmother in a frame with a crack across one corner. Grandma Mae stood in front of the vegetable garden, squinting at the sun with one hand on her hip. Hazel pr

Hazel followed Rosa along the side of the house without a word.Behind them, the glass doors opened on a wall of light and laughter, and then closed again. Her mother had already gone in. Hazel did not turn to check. They passed the garage and the bins, and a window where she could see a corner of the dining room. A woman in a sparkling dress was laughing with her head thrown back. A man held up a glass. Hazel kept her eyes on the ground and counted steps. It was a habit from the dorm. Counting kept her from thinking, and she did not want to think yet.The back door was old and green, with a scratch near the handle that had been there since before she was taken. It was the same scratch. She almost reached out to touch it. Rosa pushed the door open with her hip and pulled her inside.The kitchen was hot and loud. Two cooks she did not know were arranging tiny pastries on silver trays, and a boy in a vest kept dropping glasses. Everyone was moving and no one looked up. Hazel stood just