Somewhere

Chapter 1

Maine was colder than Texas. Marie was accustomed to the dry heat of Abilene, and she was truly not looking forward to living under the comparatively lifeless sun of Davenport. Wading through the bright white snow with her luggage had already drained her of any warmth her body could muster.

She couldn't remember the last time she had seen snow, and she found herself feeling nostalgic as she gazed mindlessly out the window of her room. It made everything so quiet— it was as if someone had muted the dull hum of everyday life. She missed the rumble of old trucks driving on poorly paved roads, the soft chirps that the birds in Abilene would make on a quiet morning, and sometimes even the subtle, dry sound of wind as it rushed by her bedroom window.

Here, there was nothing.

She tried to convince herself that it wouldn't be so bad. It was simple and peaceful, much like the life she often found herself craving whenever she and her mother moved from one city to the next. Maybe she would like it here, and perhaps she could even settle in Davenport for good one day to watch the snow fall from a house in the countryside instead of from the small house she now lived in with her mother.

"Cecelia, have you started unpacking yet?" Her mother opened the door to her room, almost as if she had sensed her wandering thoughts.

"Yeah," she looked back out the window, "I just need to sort through a few more things."

Her mother looked around the room as if she didn't quite believe that.

"Okay, well, come downstairs when you're done," she closed the door.

Her real name wasn't Cecelia.

It was actually Marie, but she had never really gone by that name. She was more familiar with the names Greta and Mallory, both of which she had used at various points in her life. Cecelia was new to her, but she knew it would feel normal with time. Even the name Evangeline felt familiar, she thought with a twinge in her chest. But Evangeline was not her name to keep, and neither were the others.

They were aliases, for lack of a better word, which she had used alongside her mother for nearly seventeen years while they had been on the run from her father. Her mother, whose real name she didn't know, had told her that before Marie was born, her husband had abused her so terribly that she had constantly been on the brink of death. He was evidently involved with a lot of crime, although her mother wouldn't say what kind, and when she found out that she was pregnant, she made the decision to leave that life behind her. Her mother said that she bided her time and waited until her father had left on some sort of work-related trip so that she could bribe a man from the city to smuggle them out of their small town. From there, she boarded a flight, moved to Seattle, and gave birth to her in the city, which was where Marie lived, as Greta, for most of her childhood.

She would be eternally grateful to her mother for everything she had done to keep her safe, but after seventeen years of running, Marie was tired. Sometimes she got her aliases jumbled up in the back of her head, and she had never been entirely sure what to call herself when she was alone. She tried to call herself Marie in private, but sometimes she unwittingly switched to another one of her names in her head. She had been Greta for ten years, Evangeline for less than one, and Mallory until last month, so those identities understandably comprised a large portion of her personality. She saw herself as a blend of those lives, and despite her reluctance, she was about to add another to the mix.

Cecelia Moreau.

Her mother had picked out the name for her. It sounded dreary, but at least she could pick from a multitude of nicknames to go by. Her mother had chosen the name Lilith for herself, which Marie thought was absolutely dreadful, but she wasn't going to say anything about it. The last time she had picked out her own name, things went south rather quickly, so if her mother wanted to pick their names out, Marie was all for it.