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Chapter One

Ten Years to the Day…

Ranga woke up and immediately sank back into her blanket. She wished she hadn't woken up. She had dreamed that her father had come back, and taken them off to a grand palace. She had dreamed that he loved her and actually cared about what happened to her and her family.

On any other day, she would have already been in the village gossiping with her best friend, Yarye. But not today.

Ten years to the day…

This was a special day to Ranga and Arng. For them, it was a day of sadness, of mourning. For Aida, their older sister who had taken care of Ranga since she was seven, and Arng was four, it was no different from any other day in Ringory.

Exactly ten years before, Ranga's father had abandoned her family because of financial problems. And then, just three yeas later, as Ranga's family was struggling to get by, the Dictator came to power. When the Dictator had come to power, he had raised taxes. A lot. That only made things worse.

Aida decided to lease a room out to a tenant, a man she had met in the village. He had seemed trustworthy at first, but while Ranga and Arng were playing, they entered the man's room. Once there, they found piles and piles of their missing possessions. The man had been caught stealing.

After they had kicked the man out, Aida had stormed through the house, gathering up their unnecessary possessions as she went and she had sold them in the village, against Ranga and Arng's wishes. They needed the extra money, she had said.

That year, they had not starved, but just barely. They'd had almost no meat. They could not afford to pay the butcher's prices. They slaughtered their bull for food. They ate some meat immediately. The rest, they had to preserve, causing the meat to get tought and rubbery.

When spring came, they spent almost all of their money on seeds in the village. Many of the farms around theirs had eventually given up and decided to sell the land cheap. Using the rest of their money, they had bought more land.

For a year, Ranga was miserable. She was getting very pale and sickly looking. Ranga spent more time than ever outdoors, but she continued to look deathly pale. Her energy was running out. When spring came again, Ranga could hardly go five minutes without taking a break.

By the fall, there was only one other, smaller, farm in Ringory, and when Ranga's family sold their crops at the market, they were happy to find a sizeable profit in the year's money.

The next few months were the best of Ranga's life. The family could afford to buy the best cuts form the butcher and they made even more money by selling the leftovers of the horrid, preserved meat from the winter.

For the first time in Ranga's life, she actually enjoyed the winter, and received gifts on her birthday.

Ranga's life had completely turned around. It had, in no way, been easy and, when autumn came, Ranga still loathed the chore of separating the seed from the crop, but now they could afford to hire farm workers, so they didn't have to do it all themselves.

Often, Ranga heard Aida muttering in her sleep. She often heard her saying that she would never take father back. They alone had made a better life during the ten years of the Dictator's reign. They alone had taken advantage where others could not. Why should he deserve a second chance?

No Ranga would think. Everybody deserves a second chance. Including father. Nevertheless, Ranga knew deep down that she would never get a chance to beg Aida to take father in. And father would never live with them again.

No matter how much she wished, no matter how much she dreamed, it was not true, Ranga could not get over that one fact. Father was not coming back.