Girl from Nowhere

by Tiffany Rosenhan

  To my four daughters:

  You each inspired the best in Sophia, may she always inspire the best in you

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Acknowledgments

  Sont en sommeil

  Pearl of the sky, long stays high

  Persephone, sunken earth

  Seeds lie fallow in her realm,

  Awaiting amber, arise

  CHAPTER 1

  Another knock at the door—I seal my grip tighter around the pistol.

  I haven’t slept all night, haven’t closed my eyes. Through the window I’ve watched darkness fade into a cold gray morning. I’ve listened to the quiet stillness surrounding me and felt the softness of the sheets beneath me, constantly repeating to myself it’s over. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.

  Because I am here now, finally. I am safe.

  Safe.

  The word echoes inside my skull, ringing until I shake my head to make it stop. I remove the gun’s magazine, check the rounds, and then snap it back in.

  There is another knock, two sequential taps, then the knob turns and she steps inside. I sit with my legs off the bed and wipe damp hair from my face.

  My head is pounding. Lack of sleep and many hours of flying make it feel like a hammer is banging inside my forehead. It takes all my concentration to look at her, pretending I’ve just woken.

  Walking toward me, she frowns. I wish she would stop staring at me this way, like I am a fragile glass object about to break at any moment. Because I’m not. Anything weaker than me would have already shattered.

  It’s the same apprehensive way that colonel looked at me when he arrived fifty-two minutes after it happened, surrounded by four marines carrying M16s—locked, loaded, and aimed at me.

  She sits down. “I see you’re not quite ready.” My mother starts to straighten the blanket, then, deciding otherwise, leaves it in a heap at the foot of the bed. “Your father will take you.”

  I look down at the gun in my hand, acutely aware of the cold metal against my clammy skin. I know I’m no longer supposed to need it, yet my hand is clamped so tightly around the pistol grip my knuckles are white.

  For the fifth time, I check to make sure a round is chambered and the magazine is full.

  When I finish, my mother rests her warm hand on the back of mine.

  Gently, she takes the pistol from me, checks the safety, and places it back under my pillow. “Leave it, Sophia.” She brushes my hair behind my shoulder. “You won’t need it here.”

  CHAPTER 2

  My mother cooks pancakes and bacon. “It’s what everyone eats for breakfast here,” she explains.

  I’m not hungry; I can barely swallow the orange juice she sets in front of me. After shoving a piece of bacon in my mouth to satisfy her, I gather my things and follow my father out the front door.

  A shiny SUV is in the driveway.

  “From Andrews,” the man told us at the West Glacier Airport last night when he gave my father the keys.

  I’ve never met Andrews. I only know he’s important—important enough to send my father all over the world. And to give us a silver all-terrain Denali.

  Dropping my Swedish backpack at my feet in the passenger seat, I force my breathing to steady. Four minutes. Four minutes until this feels real, right?

  I look out over the high-altitude valley. Perched deep in the mountains against a backdrop of wilderness and cedar-hemlock forest, this new town is quaint, charming even. Apart from the pickup trucks in every driveway, Waterford looks more like a Tyrolean village than how I’d imagined an American town in Montana would look.

  My parents described it on the Black Hawk last night. You can enjoy your new life now, Sophia, they said, promising that Waterford would finally be home.

  But as they said this, the soldiers on board watched me—stealing glances with their heads leaned back against the fuselage wall, their Kevlar helmets lodged between their boots. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t speak to us, couldn’t strike up a conversation to ease the boredom of the eleven-hour trip. We were cargo.

  Now, I watch my father’s face while he drives—the soft lines around his hooded eyes, his permanently crooked nose, sun-damaged to a burnt-orange color. I lower my eyes to the Heckler & Koch holstered at his waist, to his left ankle where he straps a spare magazine, and then to his right ankle, where he keeps the Kabar he taught me to use when I was ten.

  His eyes dart from the road to the mountainside to me and back again. He isn’t nervous, it’s simply how he drives—constantly assessing the vicinity as if we might need an escape route at any moment.

  After two decades in the navy, his diplomatic duties have taken us around the world too many times to count. Of the last six weeks alone, we’ve spent two in Tashkent, one in Doha, two in Sarajevo, and then the past seven days in Tunis.

  Shivering, I let go of my necklace, a delicate gold chain with a pendant that rests at my collarbone, and fold my arms across my chest.

  Tunis.

  I glance down at my shins. I’m wearing a pleated wool skirt and black opaque tights, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing it—the way my bare skin looked with his blood spattered all over. Like someone dipped a brush into a can of crimson paint and flicked it at me.

  It wasn’t until we arrived in Waterford last night that I scrubbed it off completely. I used a toothbrush, scouring the pores of my skin until the bristles went limp.

  The drive is short. Moments later, we enter a circular driveway in front of a symmetrical brick building, two stories high. Stone-engraved words arch over the front entrance amid neatly trimmed iv
y: Waterford High School, est. 1954.

  My father stops at the curb. “Bearings?” he asks.

  I wave my hand flat in the direction of the sharp granite peaks. “North,” I answer. We both stare ahead at the majestic range.

  “Mountains make it too easy.” He smiles. “Now, go straight through the main doors.” He hands me a schedule with a map stapled behind it. “We’ll see you this afternoon. Unless …”

  “I don’t want to wait until Monday,” I insist.

  “Sophia, a few more days won’t make a difference. Who starts school on a Friday?”

  I open my door. “I do.” Slinging my backpack onto my shoulder, I get out of the car.

  “We’re good?” my father asks.

  I study the map and pass it back to him. “We’re good,” I say.

  As soon as I close the door, he drives away. This is his way of encouraging me. Expressing confidence in me.

  It doesn’t work.

  As he turns the corner, my thoughts spiral.

  It’s all happening too fast. It’s been eighteen months since I last attended school. Now I’m supposed to step beneath an ivy-covered plaque and be a student again—an American one—just another teenager in high school.

  But how do I pretend that forty-two hours ago I wasn’t alone inside that sweltering safe house? Pretend I hadn’t heard his footsteps? Hadn’t wondered why they left me alone if they knew he would come?

  Listening to the empty street, I stand in front of this enormous brick building and check that my ironed, white-collared shirt is tucked in.

  A crisp autumn wind whistles past my ear and chills the backs of my legs.

  This is just school. School.

  I’ve done this dozens of times. There is no reason to be nervous. No reason to be afraid.

  Except there is.

  Because this new American life I’m expected to live? It terrifies me. Now, I’m expected to belong. To fit in. To accept that for the first time in my life, we plan to stay.

  I can’t do this.

  CHAPTER 3

  I can do this—all I have to do is blend in.

  Class has started by the time I check in at the office and reach my second-period classroom. I pause at the doorway. The students look like the American kids at my international school in Brussels—except rather than Chanel and cashmere, they are wearing Patagonia and denim.

  “… just the questions on the board,” the teacher says from his perch on an oak desk in the front. He is dressed as casually as his students—a frumpy shirt tucked into tan trousers.

  In the front row, a petite girl stands. “Bonjour. Je m’appelle Lydia …”

  When she finishes, the teacher looks over at me. “May I help you?” he asks politely.

  I straighten my blazer and step inside. He glances at his clipboard. “You’re new?” he asks, squinting at me through his eyeglasses.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He corrects me. “Oui, monsieur.”

  “Oui, monsieur,” I repeat.

  “Welcome.” He inclines his head, switching back to English. “I’m Monsieur Steen. Why don’t you sit over there?” He motions to an empty seat in the corner. “I assume you took the requisite courses at your last school?”

  “I believe so, sir.” I walk across the classroom, sit down, and put my backpack beneath my desk.

  The girl beside me is wearing skinny jeans, a cream sweater, and red sneakers. I can’t help feeling self-conscious in my pleated skirt and tights. Doesn’t my mother know how casual they dress here?

  “We’re practicing introductions. You can listen and then have a turn,” Monsieur Steen tells me.

  A brawny boy named Cole Richards stands next. He was born in Waterford, has two brothers, and wants to be a cake farmer—or so he says in French.

  Sighing, Monsieur Steen removes his eyeglasses and cleans them with the hem of his shirt. Putting his glasses back on, he nods to me. “Time for our newest student to introduce herself.”

  Wiping my palms on my skirt, I stand. Everyone murmurs, craning their necks to see me. I keep my eyes on Monsieur Steen.

  “Shoot,” he says pleasantly, tapping his kneecap with a pencil.

  I eye him, confused, before interpreting that shoot means start. Glancing at the questions on the chalkboard, I answer rapidly in French:

  “My name is Sophia Hepworth. I was born in Finland. My parents are diplomats. No siblings. I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up; I don’t think about it anymore I suppose. But when I was little, I dreamed I would grow up to become a ballerina.”

  The murmurs hush. I’ve done something wrong.

  “We haven’t gotten to those yet,” Monsieur Steen says in French.

  “To what, sir?” I respond.

  “Past subjunctive, future conditional. You’re French?”

  “Not exactly, monsieur,” I answer.

  Monsieur Steen turns up his palm and sighs, “Let me see your schedule.”

  I take the white sheet of paper from my binder. It is folded neatly in half, and I attempt to press out the crease before stepping forward to hand it to Monsieur Steen.

  “If you’re a native speaker, why did they place you in this class?” he asks.

  “They said a language is required to—”

  “Yes, but it won’t count. You must transfer into a beginning foreign language course. We also offer Spanish, German, and even first-year Mandarin. I’ll give you a hall pass and you can leave.”

  Monsieur Steen reaches across his desk. “Here,” he says in English, handing me a fluorescent slip of paper. “Go to the main office, and a counselor will put you in the proper class. Would you like someone to walk you?”

  Shaking my head, I take the note. It crinkles between my fingers. “I am in the proper class, sir.”

  Monsieur Steen opens his mouth to object, but I intercept him. “They won’t allow enrollment in a beginner course in a language you already speak. Since I’m required to take a language, I chose French.” I shrug. “I like it best.”

  He slides onto his feet. “You’re fluent in Spanish, German, and Mandarin?”

  Hearing the hushed whispers erupt around me, I nod. My ears go warm.

  Monsieur Steen shakes his head. “I suppose I’m stuck with you.”

  I can’t tell if he’s upset.

  He continues, “Very well. For credit, you can write essays on French history and literature, okay?”

  “Oui, monsieur,” I whisper. “Merci.”

  “And Sophia?” he says in French, barely looking up at me, “don’t tell Principal Thatcher how bad my accent is.”

  “Never,” I answer, smiling almost imperceptibly.

  I turn around to see the entire class watching me.

  So much for blending in.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Sophia!”

  The girl wearing the red sneakers from French class saunters toward me. “Steen asked me to give you this,” she says, reaching me. She pushes a sheet of paper into my hands. “But I was late to gym, and then Cole stopped by my locker and, anyway, here. I’m Charlotte by the way.”

  Charlotte says all this very fast. She’s graceful, with a silky mane of chestnut hair, radiant dark skin, and her knit cream sweater shows her stomach when she switches her books from her left arm to her right.

  “Thank you.” I unfold the paper: Write a three-page essay on a seventeenth-century French poem. Your choice.

  I slip the paper into my French composition book.

  “Do you know where the cafeteria is?” Charlotte asks.

  “At the end of the hall, take a left. It’s twenty meters ahead on your right.”

  “I know where it is!” Charlotte laughs, “I was making sure you know! Come on”—she gestures down the hall—“I’ll walk with you.”

  “You must be the new girl.” A Caucasian boy with sandy shoulder-length hair and vivid white teeth steps up beside us. “Charlotte said you’re from China—”

  “I did not, Mason!”
Charlotte hits his right tricep. “I said she speaks Mandarin!”

  “—but she is obviously wrong because you’re blond.”

  Charlotte rolls her eyes as I glance down at Mason’s bag—on it is a patch of the US Ski Team.

  Although I’m not exactly hungry, I walk with Charlotte and Mason into the noisy cafeteria. Rows of tables and chairs clutter the room, the floors are sticky with dried soda, and it smells of fried food and greasy pizza—this is what I’ve been missing.

  While Charlotte grabs a sandwich from the line, Mason walks me to a rowdy table beside a bank of windows that resemble a hand-painted mural; in the distance are the jagged granite peaks, dotted with emerald spruce and golden aspens.

  “Take a seat.” Mason points to an empty chair tucked in to a two-meter-long table crowded with students.

  “Where are you from?” an athletic girl with plump pink cheeks and long auburn hair asks. “Abigail said Sweden, and Lydia said France—”

  “Let her sit, Emma,” Mason says, catching an empty soda can before it hits him in the chest. He sits down among a rambunctious group of boys—Liam, Henry, Ryan, and others I recognize from my morning classes. I stare between Emma and Mason: same sapphire eye color, same shape to their ears.

  “You’re siblings?” I ask.

  “Twins.” The girl with the auburn hair nods. “I’m Emma,” she continues. “So where are you really from? Idaho?”

  “Oh no, I’ve never been there.”

  “You haven’t been to Idaho?” Charlotte sits down beside Emma.

  I shake my head.

  Emma dips a carrot stick into hummus. “Where did you move from?”

  It’s been so long since I’ve talked like this—carried on a conversation with girls my own age—that my voice clogs in my throat, making it hard to say anything at all. “I came here from North Africa,” I finally say.

  “Africa!” Charlotte and Emma say in unison.

  “Did you go on a safari?” asks Charlotte, leaning toward me.

  “No. I mean yes. I mean, I’ve been on safaris of course, but those are in southern and eastern Africa. I came from the north.”

  “Where? Egypt?”

  “Did you see the pyramids?”

  “Actually, I wasn’t in—”

  “Did you climb to the top? What’s it like inside? I’ve always wanted to walk through them!”