Praise for Perfected:
“Compelling, imaginative, and unique. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!”
— Mary Lindsey, author of Shattered Souls
Available from:
Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Kobo Books
EXCERPT:
I sat in my room on the couch near the
window staring out at the last bit of gold staining the sky. I couldn’t place
the feeling growing inside me. It was as if the flavor of Ruby’s butterscotch
and Penn’s music still lingered on my tongue, a taste that was both bittersweet
and totally divine.
This place was more beautiful than I
ever could have imagined, but it was more confusing, too. It felt as if a
conversation was going on around me, but I could only hear bits and pieces of
it, and now I was trying desperately to string those bits together to make a
sentence that I could actually understand.
The room was growing dark, but I
didn’t feel like turning on the bright light of the chandelier that hung at the
end of my bed. In the shadows, I almost became a part of the room.
Miss Gellner had always admonished us
to go to bed by nine o’clock each night. “Sleep feeds beauty,” she always used
to say. But I wasn’t at all tired.
Just as I was about to get up from the
couch to crawl into bed, there was a small tap at the door. Before I had a
chance to respond, the door cracked open, letting the yellow light from the
hallway spill into the room. The Congressman’s large body stood silhouetted in
the doorframe.
“Ella?” he called, poking his head
into the room.
I sat up straighter on the couch and
arranged a content expression on my face.
“Please, come in,” I said, pressing
down the tremble in my voice.
The Congressman strode into the room and
sat beside me on the couch. The light was nearly gone from the sky and the only
bit of illumination in the room was the yellow rectangle of light in the
doorway. Sitting in the dark next to him felt too intimate, and I wished I had
at least turned on a lamp.
“How was your first full day in your
new house?” the Congressman asked.
“It was lovely.” My face flushed at
the lie, thinking of all the things that had happened during the day that I
knew I shouldn’t mention. Had he heard about that woman, Rhonda, and her crazy
rant? Or about my swim in the pool? Or the forbidden piece of candy Ruby had
given to me? I feared all of my secrets were written on my face as clearly as
the words in Ruby’s book of fairytales, but the easy look on his face suggested
he couldn’t see them.
“I brought you a little something,”
the Congressman said.
I hadn’t noticed the small box he held
until he placed it in my hands. The box was flat and rectangular, covered in
soft, white satin.
“Go on, open it,” he said.
I cracked the lid and stared down at
the gold chain that glittered ever so softly in the dim light. On the end of it
was a round pendant. I lifted it up and held it towards the light so that I
could see that the gold pendant was encircled with a ring of shining diamonds.
Inside something was engraved in loopy script.
“It’s your name,” he said, reaching
out to run his finger over the lettering. “And on the other side it has our
address and phone number.” He cupped the side of my face in his hand. “Let me
put it on you.”
My hands shook and I turned away from
him, lifting the hair from off my back. The scooped back of my nightgown left
me feeling bare, and without my hair to cover me a chill brought goose bumps to
my skin.
The Congressman reached his large arms
around my body so the cold metal of the pendant rested across my collarbone.
“Now you’ll never forget where you
belong,” he whispered next to my ear.
I reached down and touched the front
of the pendant. “It’s beautiful,” I said, “Thank you for thinking of me.”
“You’re easy to think about, Ella.”
My name sounded peculiar on his lips.
His hand still rested against the bare
skin of my shoulder, but he didn’t attempt to move it. Leaning forward, he
brushed his lips lightly against my cheek.
When I raised my eyes, the Congressman’s wife was
standing in the doorway. In one fluid motion the Congressman removed his hand
from my shoulder and scooted away from me.
“Elise, what wonderful timing,” he
said, standing. “I just gave Ella her new tag.”
He stood and flipped on the light to
the chandelier, casting the room with such bright, yellow light that I had to
shield my eyes. Even so, I didn’t miss the strange look that passed across the
Congressman’s wife’s face.
“Wonderful,” she said, walking across the room to where
I sat. “Let’s have a look.”
She only gave the pendant a passing
glance before turning to her husband.
“It’s late. Don’t you think we should
let Ella get to sleep?”
The Congressman nodded, smiling at his
wife. “Goodnight, Love,” he called behind him. A moment later the two of them
closed the door, leaving me alone under the bright lights of the chandelier.
