So I had to learn everything from scratch. And having the kind of circuits that I had, I learned quickly. Many things came to me automatically, like survival reflexes—knowing to step out of the way of a speeding car to avoid being crushed, for example. But I had to learn most things by being fed information, not unlike downloading data onto a computer.

My intuition, however, was much less advanced. My way of being in the world. The complexities of relationships and proper etiquette. Things like trusting and not trusting, believing and not believing, judging and not judging. In this way, they said I was like a young child. While I saw the world as full of wonder, most people had developed strange reactions to it. Anger, worry, and fear were strange things to me at first. Naturally, I eventually began to learn them, but slowly, like a naïve child.

Or so they said. Made sense.

One of the intuitive leanings I learned very quickly was a simple longing to know my real mother and father. For several months, I felt certain that being with them would somehow offer a kind of wholeness that I couldn’t otherwise find. But when it became clear that I never would meet them, much less know them, I began to set this idea aside and embrace the prospect of being perfectly happy with John and Louise Clark, the generous and loving foster parents who’d taken me in four months earlier.

So when I answered the door that night and stared up into the blue eyes of a strange man who claimed to be my father, my world suddenly felt flipped on its end. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to think.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Louise said.

I sat next to her on the sofa with my hands in my lap as the man’s words whispered through my mind like ghosts.

Your mother wants to see you. She wants you to come. She loves you. Your mother has been looking for you for thirteen years.

Louise put her hand on my knee. “It’s important that I know what happened. This world is full of predators and if there’s anything, anything at all, that might present a threat, I need to know. Please, Alice, you have to tell me. What did he say?”

Your real name is Eden.

My mind was still spinning. I didn’t want to open up a can of worms for Louise—she was a sensitive woman and had taken a great liking to me, as had John. What would it mean for her to learn that my real mother wanted me back, assuming that was true?

No one can know that I’m here.

Was I afraid? Yes and no. Yes, because I got the distinct impression that the man who claimed to be my father was afraid of being found out. Why was that? And he didn’t appear to be the put together father I had imagined. His blue shirt had a few smudges on it and his hair looked like it could use a wash. But his eyes were kind, weren’t they?

So, no, I wasn’t afraid. More like confused. What if the man really was my father? What if they really had been looking for me for thirteen years? What if I belonged with my real mother instead of with John and Louise?

“Sweetheart, you have to talk to me.”

A loud crash of glass from the back of the house cut my thoughts short. Louise twisted and stared at the hall, which ran to the kitchen. For a moment neither of us moved, me frozen by curiosity, she by fear—I could see it on her face.

The sound of the back door closing made me wonder if John had come in through the back, but that didn’t explain the shattering of glass.

Louise gasped and instinctively grabbed my arm.

The padding of heavy feet sounded down the hall.

Louise spun to me, frantic. “Get behind the couch!” she whispered. “Hurry! Hide.”

But it was too late to hide. He was there again. The man who claimed to be my father. Standing at the entrance to the living room, dressed in the same blue shirt tucked into light-brown slacks, this time wearing leather work gloves. He had a hammer in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other and he stared at us as if he was as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

For a few long seconds, none of us moved. I could feel Louise’s hand trembling as she gripped my arm, and her fear spread to me. The thought that my father had come to get me was chased away by the notion that he planned on doing it using a hammer and duct tape.

But then there was the way he looked at us, almost apologetically, and I couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t want to harm us.

The man half-lifted his right arm. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He saw that Louise was staring at the hammer, so he lowered it to the carpet and lifted an open, nonthreatening hand.

“I promise, I’m not here to hurt anyone. But I have to take her with me.”

Louise still didn’t seem able to speak.

“I have to take her and I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

Louise came off the couch like a spring. “Get out!” She shoved her finger at the door. “Get out of this house right now.”

“No, no, no . . . I can’t do that.” He stepped forward, hand still raised to calm us, face red, but not with anger. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m not going to hurt you but I have to take her. And I can’t let you call the cops yet.”

“You can’t do this!” Louise was panicking.

“Yes, I have to. I have to.”

My heart was crashing through my chest. I knew that I should be running for the door or something, but I couldn’t move. And a small part of me was wondering if this really was my father. He didn’t look like he had done this sort of thing before. In fact, he looked as uncomfortable as we were.

Why?

His eyes switched to me. “Stay on the couch, darling. Please don’t move. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have to do this. It’s the only way. Please don’t . . .”

Louise bolted toward the dining room then, but she only got three running steps before the large man leaped in front of her, grabbed her waist with one arm, and lifted her from her feet, screaming and pounding at his back.

“Sh, sh, sh . . . .” He tried to hush her, but she wasn’t listening. So he grunted in frustration, dropped her to her back like a sack of grain, and shoved a gloved hand over her mouth.

“Be quiet! I told you I don’t have a choice and I don’t want to hurt you. But you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep putting up a fight.”

His eyes lifted to meet mine. “I’m so sorry, darling. I didn’t want to do it this way. Stay on the couch okay? I’m not going to hurt you. Promise. Just stay right where you are.”

By now I was truly afraid, but I saw no reason to make a run for it. He would only tackle me. And there was still that small voice that told me he was a good man and maybe my father. So I pulled my legs up onto the couch, hugged my knees, and stayed.

The fall seemed to have knocked the wind out of Louise, because she’d gone silent.

“Roll over.”

When she hesitated, he pulled her over onto her stomach and held her down with a knee on her back.

Hands now free, he quickly pull off a long strip of tape, pulled her arms behind her, and strapped her wrists together tight.

“You can’t do this.” She was crying now. “Please . . . Please, she’s just a little girl.”

“I’m not going to hurt her, I already told you that!” He sounded as if he’d been insulted. “I would never hurt her. She’s a very special girl.”

“Please . . .”

But that was as far as she got before he twisted her head around and strapped tape to her mouth.

He jumped down to her ankles, gripped them together with a large hand and bound them so she couldn’t walk.

Then he stood and stared down at her for a second, breathing hard from exertion. He looked around at the room, at the front door, then at me.

“I can’t let her make a fuss after we’re gone. So I’m going to put her in the closet, but she won’t be hurt. Okay?”

He seemed to want my permission. I was still in too much shock to talk.