All Faculty Excerpts

Where Lost Girls Go

The following is an excerpt from the prologue of Kody Keplinger's novel, Where Lost Girls Go.

The new girl, with her too- large, too- round, too- green eyes, looks right at me. And maybe it’s just a draft of cold air wafting through the poorly insulated cabin, but a shiver runs through me, raising goose bumps on my arms and causing me to stammer a little.

“I-I’m Iris,” I say, reaching up to pull my hair over my shoulder so I can nervously twist my fingers in the ends.

“Iris,” she repeats, that raspy voice scratching lightly over the name. She tilts her head, red lips pursing, thick black eyebrows rising. “Iris, Poppy, Zinnia . . . and Lily.” I hear the question in her words, though she doesn’t ask it directly, and none of us answer.

“There’s one we’re missing,” Lily tells her before turning to us. “Y’all know where Violet is?”

“Sol asked her to go clean up the shed,” Poppy answers.

“She’ll be in here soon enough, then,” Lily says. “I promise, everyone here is real nice.”

The new girl gives a small smile and nods before saying, “It’s nice to meet everybody. My name is—”

Before she can finish, the back door of the cabin swings open, and footsteps too heavy to belong to Violet thud across the wooden floor.

We move as one—Zinnia, Poppy, Lily, and me—without a word, with barely a thought, we move together into the hall, ready to see him, to greet him. The new girl follows behind, asking no questions, though I’m sure she has many.

He stands by the back door, unwrapping the moth-eaten scarf from around the lower half of his face and neck. Two pale blue eyes look our way from beneath blond, bushy brows, and a smile forms amid the thick mustache and beard. “Girls,” he says in greeting. “I see you’ve made a new friend?”

Lily beams at him. She radiates adoration, bathing in his light. “Sol,” she says, “I met her when I was in town. She needs a place to stay. I told her she’d be welcome here.”

“Of course she’s welcome here,” Sol says. He takes a step forward, and we separate like the sea parting for Moses, making a path for him to move straight toward the new girl. “I’m glad you found us, sweetheart,” he says.

She stands there, staring at him. She looks tense, her shoulders up near her cheeks. But the second Sol smiles down at her, she seems to relax.

Just like we all did.

“We take care of one another here,” he tells the girl. “You can call this place your home as long as you need to. We’ve got a few rules, of course, but I’m sure the girls will fill you in.”

She nods. “Thank you. You’re Sol, right?”

“I sure am,” he says, throwing an appreciative nod to Lily. “I suppose Lily’s told you a bit about me. About all of us.”

“A little.”

“Excellent,” he says. “And you . . .” He stares down at her for a

long moment, taking her in. She doesn’t flinch. She stands there like I did once, and like Zinnia and Poppy after me. Eager, anxious, hopeful.

Grateful.

“You,” Sol says, placing a gentle hand on her cheek, “seem like a Rose to me.”