A Place for Outlaws

Julia understood the price that sometimes had to be paid for love. Julia’s mother, Vivian, had paid with her very life. Vivian had leakage of the heart. She had never been able to exert herself. Carrying Julia had taken all her strength. Vivian had her baby in her mother’s house, where she and her ne’er-do-well husband, George, had lived since they married. After Vivian gave birth, she never got out of bed. She could barely whisper, but she saved up enough strength to bequeath Julia to her younger sister, Annabelle, who was home from boarding school.

Before Annabelle had been sent away to school (to see if