Chapter 1
There’s a saying in my little town just outside Mystic Meadows, Georgia:Bad luck begets more bad luck. And if you’re Rowe Wadley, you won’t justattractbad luck—youarebad luck.
Nasty, right? I mean, it must be pretty terrible to be this Rowe Wadley person.
“Today is going to be great,” I announce with gusto, to no one.
Well, “no one” unless you count Buster the Cat.
Buster the Cat is a plump red tabby whose main form of morning exercise is sitting on the bathroom sink and batting at the sticky notes I read my morning affirmations from.
I pull my dark hair over one shoulder and braid it while repeating the sentence penned on the wrinkled paper that’s attached to the mirror. Months of shower steam have softened the note and eaten at the glue, causing it to peel away from the reflective surface. I rub the top back down and glance at the next affirmation, one sticky note down from the first.
“‘I got this!’” Chest up. Head high. My gaze falls to the final note and the uplifting words on it. “‘Greatness is within me!’”
I smile. Wide. Feeling the greatness. I’m feeling so much greatness that my chest is going to explode. Or maybe my bra’s too tight.
“You hear that, Buster? Greatness is within me.”
The cat meows like he doesn’t believe a word.
“Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.” I boop his nose with my finger. “We’ve got this. You’re going to be my right-hand cat when Mom leaves today. I’ll be counting on you to help feed the pigs and collect money from the tourists.”
All the tourists I’ll somehow pull out of my butt, that is, since we literally don’t get a single one. Not like we used to.
But hey! I got this! “It’s just gonna be you and me.”
Buster the Cat meows again.
I mock-gasp at his perfectly normal feline tone. “Don’t even pretend that you don’t love the pigs like I do. I see how you look at them when you think no one’s paying attention. You love their sweet little pink snouts and their tiny little hooves almost as much as you love Meow Mix with cream on top.”
The cat stares at me as if he does not, in fact, adore livestock.
Don’t let him fool you. He’s a big ole puddy tat around them. “Your secret’s safe with me. No one will ever suspect how you really feel—undying love and all.”
He stretches and jumps down from his perch, terminating our morning talk. And just when I was getting warmed up.
As the cat exits the room, tail swishing, my gaze drifts to the window. Outside, the faded-red barn sags like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The gray fence surrounding the place isn’t much better. It looks like it’s made of splintered toothpicks instead of thick planks that are constantly having to be propped back up thanks to the rotting wood.
I sigh. Six months. I’ve got six months to get this place fixed up so that when Mom returns, she’ll see a whole new farm—one brimming with life instead of one dying the agonizingly slow death of a Victorian-era courtesan succumbing to tuberculosis.
This is gonna be fun.
I head downstairs, grabbing hold of the banister my grandfather hand-carved, and whip around in a half circle, sliding into the kitchen in my socked feet.
The smell of fresh coffee fills the room, which is covered in wallpaper that features blue-feathered roosters. Matching porcelain cookie jars with removable rooster heads are sprinkled across the counter and built-in desk. Not only that, but rooster place mats sit on the table beneath plates stamped with, you guessed it, more roosters.
The entire room suffers from a fowl explosion.
“Good morning,” my mom says, sweeping in beside me, wavy, gray hair billowing behind her like a cloud. She’s wearing her bright-orange kaftan. A moonstone necklace dangles from her neck, and shining silver rings twinkle on her fingers.
“Morning,” I say as she pours a cup of coffee. “Today’s the big day. You excited?”
With her back to me, she finishes pouring and shoves the carafe into place. “I’m not going.”
I must be hearing things. I tug on my ear and laugh. “That’s funny. I thought you said you’re not going.”
Mom turns around and stares at me, hard. “I’m not.”
