"Irene, you can be angry at Mom, but hurting yourself just to play the victim? Really?"

"Sending you here broke Mom's heart too, you know."

"She's missed you all these years. Why won't you appreciate that?"

At her words, Mom's face hardened too.

"Irene, everything I did back then was for your own good, you—"

"Stop it! Just stop!"

The mention of that time tore the scream out of me before I could think.

The wild greens I'd been clutching scattered across the ground, and my breath came in ragged gasps, my face gone bloodless.

"Don't bring that up again. I'm begging you."

Mom froze, startled by how hard I'd snapped.

But Myrtle, as if on purpose, fixed her eyes on mine. "So a couple of punks almost roughed you up. It's been three years. You still can't get over it?"

My breath locked in my chest, and no matter how I fought it down, the memory came rushing back like a tide.

Three years ago, I'd represented my school at a speech contest.

On the way home, a few thugs cornered me in an alley.

Everyone knew I was the daughter of Harborview's richest woman.

They wanted money.

They searched every inch of me and didn't turn up a single dollar.

The one in charge got angry and told me to call home and ask for it.

I was crying too hard to talk, and I told them I didn't have a phone.

They thought I was lying, and that made them furious, so they beat me.

When that wasn't enough, they stripped my clothes off and took pictures.

They were going to use them to threaten my mother.

I'd always had fair skin, and the moment they saw me stripped bare their faces changed and they all rushed me at once—I struggled with everything I had, screaming until my throat tore, and only because the noise pulled a passerby in did anyone drag me out of it.

When I got home that day, I walked in on my mother throwing a birthday party for Myrtle.

A five-hundred-thousand-dollar necklace, handed over without a second thought.

That was when I finally broke.

My whole childhood, Mom raised me on austerity.

My clothes came from discount sites, and jewelry or handbags weren't even worth dreaming about.

Even buying a single book meant applying to her two months in advance.

She'd check with my teachers and classmates.

Only once she'd confirmed the book was actually useful for my studies would she give me the money.

But for Myrtle, on top of tuition, the living allowance alone never dropped below a million a year.

I smashed the birthday cake and screamed at my mother, everything inside me breaking loose at once.

"Do you have any idea what happened to me? Why couldn't you even buy me a phone?"

"We have all this money. Was it really too much to ask?"

Myrtle ducked behind my mother, cowering like I was some kind of monster.

My mother looked at the ruined cake, her face going cold.

"You're still in school. What do you need a phone for? It would only rot your mind."

"You're jealous of Myrtle, aren't you? Do you have any idea what kind of childhood she had?"

She grabbed my arm and, without another word, forced me into the car.

She brought me to Fox Hollow.

"Myrtle grew up here. You've had it easy and you still aren't satisfied, so go live the life she lived."

Panicked, I clung to her hand, past caring about my own hurt now, just sobbing that I was sorry.

"Mom, are you really going to pull me out of school just to punish me?"

"A few thugs almost assaulted me, do you understand? They took pictures of me!"

"I was wrong. I'll never do it again. Just take me home..."

My mother went still for a moment, then said flatly, "School means nothing. Your future is mine to decide, with or without it."

With that, she shook off my hand and got in the car.

I ran after her, ten miles, until the skin of my feet wore raw.

She never looked back.

In the end they dragged me back and locked me in a room.

I begged the man to let me go. Just send me home, I told him, and I would repay him however he wanted.

He only sneered.

"What are you thinking? Myrtle gave her orders. You're supposed to suffer, and suffer well."

"You still don't know what I am to Myrtle, do you?"

He watched the shock and despair drain into my eyes, and came toward me one slow step at a time.

"My name's Noah."

"I'm Myrtle Fox's cousin."

And just like that, I belonged to Noah.

Afterward I fought it. I ran.

But Fox Hollow was full of Myrtle's people, and there was nowhere to run.

Every time they caught me and brought me back, the price went up.

Noah beat me. He broke two sticks across my body.

The worst time, he'd been drinking, and he cut off one of my arms.

Blood spread across the floor, and he didn't dare call for an ambulance.

He found a couple of rags, wrapped it up, and called it done.

After that I finally learned to be obedient. I never dared run again.

A year and more has passed now, and my arm has healed.

But the wound my own mother drove through my heart only hurts worse.

And there she stood in front of me, voice cold as ever.

"After I sent you here that year, I went back and found those punks."

"Not one photo of you ever got out. They were all destroyed, and those boys are behind bars now."

"I pulled every string I had to avenge you. Can't you show me a little understanding?"

I didn't want to bring it up.

I never wanted to bring that up again!

Why wouldn't she let me go.

Did she have to watch me lose my mind!

I clawed at my own hair and broke down sobbing.

"Stop talking about it! Say one more word and I'll throw myself off this mountain!!"

She saw that something was wrong with me, that I wasn't faking it.

At last she took out her phone and called someone, I didn't know who.

"I invested three million in your Fox Hollow so you'd look after my daughter for three years."

"Why is she in this state? What happened to her?"

"And her hand—what happened to her hand? You'd better explain, or I'll see you in court!"

There was a beat of silence, and then the mayor's voice came on.

"Mrs. Gilbert, we've taken good care of your daughter Irene the whole time."

"But she's jealous of Myrtle. She wouldn't listen to a word we said."

"She broke her own arm two years ago. We wanted to call you then, and she wouldn't let us."

"This really has nothing to do with us..."

My mother hung up.

A businesswoman's caution kept her from believing the mayor outright.

She made a few more calls, and the answer came back the same every time.

The villagers were united. Every one of them said I'd broken my own arm.

That I'd always been arrogant, that I looked down on everyone.

When the last call ended, my mother was past containing her fury and swung her hand at my face.

The slap cracked across my cheek, knocked my head sideways, and left me standing there with hollow eyes.

Her chest heaved.

"It seems you still haven't suffered enough."

"If it weren't time for you to take over the company, I'd leave you here another ten years!"

Then she told the driver waiting nearby to push me into the car.

My ears were ringing, my cheek burning in waves.

I sat in the car, silent, heart gone to ash, the same as every other beating these three years.

It didn't matter where I was.

It was a beating either way.

The only thing that changed was that Noah had been swapped out for my mother.

To me, there was no difference.

Three hours later, I came home to the house I hadn't seen in three years.

The moment I stepped through the door, I saw that my mother had prepared a homecoming for me.

Balloons drifted across the living room.

At the center, ringed by more flowers than I could count, sat the newest phone and a dozen-odd limited-edition handbags.

Diamond necklaces covered the coffee table. A row of black cards lined up beside them, each one good for a fortune.

These were everything I used to dream of.

But three years had passed, and now they only struck me as a cruel joke.

The housekeeper held a confetti popper, ready to twist it open.

Then she caught the cold set of my mother's face and hesitated, leaving it untouched.

After a long while, I walked forward slowly and took only the phone.

My mother spoke, her voice cold.

"Still sulking, are you?"

"Then give all of this to Myrtle Fox. Let's see how long you can keep it up."

I lasted far longer than she ever imagined.

Two months went by. Every day I locked myself in my room.

The only time I came out was to eat.

When I was small, eating had been pure torture.

Because whether I was hungry or not, every dish the housekeeper made had to be finished.

Even a grain of rice that fell to the floor had to be picked up and eaten on the spot.

The rule held even when I was so full my stomach ached.

Back then I cried and threw fits. Once I simply couldn't swallow another bite.

I even talked back to my mother and slammed my bowl down right in front of her.

She took me straight to the country and put me to farm labor for half a year.

"Go see how farmers break their backs to grow their food. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Until you live it, you'll never understand."

My mother watched me, filthy and dripping with sweat, hauling a hoe, and her eyes were hard.

It hurt her to see it, but she waited for me to admit I was wrong.

I held out the full half year instead. Day after day of hardship, and I never bowed my head.

I was too young, in the end, for her to bear it, and she brought me home.

Now she thought I would dig in the same way.

But I ate carefully at every meal, finished everything on my plate, refused to waste a single grain.

In Fox Hollow, when others ate rice, I was given wild greens.

It wasn't that I had come around to my mother's thinking.

It was that I hadn't eaten a full meal in so very long.

She believed I had changed, and her manner toward me slowly warmed.

On the holiday, over the family dinner, I was carefully scraping up the last crumbs clinging to my plate.

My mother watched me with something close to pain.

"Irene, leave those. Look how thin you are. Eat more of the real food."

Myrtle's voice turned at once, all sour mockery.

"I think you're doing it on purpose, to make her feel sorry for you."

"You're playing the victim. Mom won't care."

I froze. In my ears I heard Noah's voice from the times he beat me.

"Two hits with the stick and you can't get up? Playing the victim?"

"Let me tell you, even if your mother knew she wouldn't care. She sent you here to suffer."

Myrtle's voice and Noah's seemed to fold into one.

The fear soaked into my bones came roaring up, prickling across my scalp, and something behind my eyes simply gave way, my whole body going cold and loose at once.

I dropped to my knees and began slamming my forehead to the floor in front of Myrtle, again and again.

The same words pouring out of me.

"Don't hit me, don't hit me. I won't ever do it again."

Myrtle jumped. My mother's face changed too, and she rushed to pull me up.

"Myrtle, call your private doctor. Find out whether something is really wrong with Irene's mind."

Myrtle took out her phone and went into the bedroom to make the call.

I shook and shook, curled into my mother's arms, my clothes soaked through with cold sweat.

She held me tight, the rims of her eyes gone red.

Half an hour later, Dr. Lawrence arrived.