Prologue

I snuggle into my favorite chair on this autumn evening, a moonless sky outside my window, and open the latest issue of Newsweek. Relaxed and contented, slowly leafing through pages, I pause to read an article, when sudden tension surges into my body and flows into my right hand. I stare as my fingers transform into a claw, as rigid as the garden cultivator I use to wrench deep weeds from my garden.

My breathing becomes ragged. My exhalations transform into whimpers. I gasp as the now-frantic energy coursing through my body forces me to jump up and begin pacing back and forth, seemingly endlessly, until, much later, calm gradually returns to me.

As I drop into my chair and stare at my softening fingers through still-flowing tears, I silently wail, What . . . just . . . happened?

The universe remains quiet.

I am forty-nine years old and about to uncover a long, tightly tangled thread that will tug me, one knot after another, back to my childhood.