Chapter 1
In December 1983, my own father traded me to an aging, unmarried man from the next village for thirty pounds of grain, forcing me to become his wife.
Back then, I risked everything to run away, but my father dragged me back, broke my leg, and sent me right back to him.
I endured twenty long years trapped with that man and gave birth to a daughter. He saw the child as a useless burden and never even let her eat her fill.
When I was forty-one, that winter, I collapsed by the pig pen with a bucket of slop and never got up again.
I died all alone, with no one by my side.
My daughter was just twelve, with no one left to care for her.
I only learned what happened next after I passed away.
Yonathan Horatio, a disabled ex-soldier with a permanent limp whom no local family would ever let their daughters marry, paid for my funeral arrangements.
He took in my unwanted little girl and supported her through middle school until she graduated.
He never married for the rest of his life and passed away alone in an empty house at sixty-one.
On the table sat the only photo my daughter ever sent back.
This time around, on this exact day, I made no attempt to jump off the cart, tried no escape, and did not shed a single tear.
When the cart reached the junction on the edge of town, I stepped down and walked straight to the armed forces department to find Yonathan.
*****
Yonathan was squatting in the corner, smoking in silence. He'd just been rejected from the army physical.
There was a scar on his face, and his left leg was lame from an old injury, so he walked with a limp.
He was twenty-seven, yet no one ever tried to set him up.
I stood in front of him and said, "Yonathan, marry me. I'll help you heal your leg. In return, you help me sever my legal ties with my dad."
Yonathan looked up at me like I was crazy.
I couldn't really blame him for that.
In this town, if people were being polite, they'd call me "the Vance girl." If they weren't, I was just "that fat girl from the Vance family."
I weighed 165 pounds, with a broad face and big hands. There wasn't a hint of delicacy about me.
The only thing I was good for, at least according to my dad, was what he always said, "She can work, and you won't lose out."
That was exactly what he told the old man when he sold me off.
Thirty pounds of grain, and I was bartered away like livestock, no better than a slaughter hog.
"What did you just say?" Yonathan stubbed out his cigarette, his voice low.
I squatted down so we were eye to eye, and repeated myself, slow and steady.
"Marry me. I'll fix your leg. You help me sever my legal ties with my dad. Fair trade. We're square."
A few local garrison men were hanging around the armed forces department, shooting the breeze while waiting for their paperwork. Now they all froze, jaws dropped.
One of them muttered, "Did her dad drive her out of her mind or something?"
Yonathan's expression kept shifting, finally settling into a tense scowl.
He stood up, towering over me at six feet, like a wall.
His left leg had a slight limp, but he stood ramrod straight.
The old scar on his face, stretching from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone, gleamed white in the winter sunlight. It made him look pretty scary.
"Are you pitying me?" Yonathan's voice was rough, like he was forcing the words out from his chest.
I shook my head.
Then I said, "I wouldn't be making demands if I felt any pity for you.
"I just need you. Once your leg heals, you can work and earn a living. And if I marry you, I'll be able to sever my legal ties with my father and break free.
"We each get what we want. There's no pity in this at all."
He stared down at his messed-up leg, his Adam's apple moving, but he stayed silent.
Suddenly, shouting erupted outside the yard.
My dad, Benjamin Vance, had caught up.
The sentry stopped him at the iron gate, and he couldn't get in. He pointed at me through the bars, cursing.
"Chloe, you ungrateful brat! I raised you for eighteen years, and this is how you pay me back?
"Get in the cart, now! The Bates family is still waiting for you.
"If you dare not go, I'll break your leg!"
He said he wanted to break my leg. He wasn't bluffing.
That was what he did to me in my last life.
I tried to run, but my dad caught up to me at the edge of town. He swung a carrying pole at my left leg, and the bone snapped right then and there.
Then he dragged me back to that old unmarried man's place, like hauling a sack of grain.
I turned around and shot him a look.
He froze.
Perhaps it was the first time in his life that he had seen such a look in my eyes.
It wasn't fear or pleading.
It was a kind of calm that settled in when there was nothing left to lose.
I looked back at Yonathan.
"Just one question, are you in or not?" I asked.
He stared at me for a long time.