You think there is only one world, and you think you know your place in it.
You think your name is Judy Hatch, and that you’re a normal middle-school girl — quiet, a bit big for your age, not particularly athletic. You live with your family in a boring suburb. You like to read about science, you take piano lessons, you bicker with your brother. You’re smart; you suspect you may be a genius. You notice things that others don’t, and occasionally it gets you into trouble. But mostly you do not think of yourself as anything but ordinary.
Occasionally you daydream — as children do — that your parents are not your parents, and that you have a destiny Somewhere Else. Not that you are a princess, or anything (don’t be stupid, that stuff is for babies), but that you are in some way extraordinary, and that one day your real parents will take you away from the drab sameness of your little town and off to a new world of magic and danger and excitement, where you will be understood and appreciated, and where you will never, ever be bored.
You know that this is only a daydream, though. Until the day that it isn’t.
It’s summer — just before your eleventh birthday — and you’re camping with your family at the dumb state park, like always. It’s not like you’ve been fighting with them, really; but the weather is lousy and you’ve been cooped up in the tent with your brother, who is annoying as only a 14-year old boy can be. And it’s not like you’re running away when you leave camp and hide in one of the caves that dot the hillside just off the trail. You just want some time to yourself. And to let your family realize how much they’d miss you, if you were gone.
But of course your parents freak. You’re barely settled before they’re running around, calling your name, like it’s a rescue mission. Then your dad’s outside the cave, and it’s so unfair. You’re not ready to be found. Not just yet.
But when he looks into the cave, his eyes just … look past you...
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