Rosemarie Hathaway was a very happy little girl. She had a daddy who played with her all the time, and read her a story and sang her lullaby everynight, and a mommy who she saw lots, even though mommy had lots and lots of work to do, very important work. Well, that was what daddy said, and daddy knew everything. Daddy also said that both her mommy and her daddy loved her very, very much, and that mommy would be home more often if she could. She believed him, because at three years old, little girls believed their daddies. At three years old, Rose had everything she could ever want.
But there were some things that she didn't understand. Like why daddy sometimes came home during breakfast with read stuff on his shirt, and his hands all red too. Like why sometimes daddy would get upset by letters he read in the morning, and look at Rose all funny, and then make his guardians watch her extra careful all day. She also didn't understand why mommy and daddy were so upset when Rose and her nanny, Tulay, got a ride home from the park one day with some men who said that they were daddy's friends. Although, Tulay didn't really seem to want to get in the car with them, and was really, really happy when they got home.
Rose had no idea why mommy kept yelling at daddy, telling him that Rose had to go somewhere, an ah-ka-duh-mee, somwhere that she would be safe. Rose didn't care why they were yelling, she just wanted them to stop, and daddy to come and sing the lullaby to her. She wanted to stay here, with daddy, she didn't want to go to that place that mommy wanted her to go, and she didn't want mommy to back to work either. She knew mommy's work was important, that Rose would do the same work someday, but she wanted her to stay here, with Rose and daddy. But Rose didn't get what she wanted.
One day daddy took her and mommy to the big place, with all the planes. One of them took Rose and her mommy to some strange place where Rose didn't understand what the people were saying, or what her mommy was saying to them. She didn't know who this Guardian Petrov woman was, or what she was saying, or why mommy was saying that she had to go away now, and Rose had to stay, and wouldn't see daddy again. Rose didn't believe her, didn't believe that she would be left in this weird place, with people who spoke the weird words, without daddy to sing her a lullaby. But when she woke up, mommy was gone.
Rose cried, and she screamed for her mommy and daddy, and yelled that she wanted to go home. Eventually she stopped screaming, but she didn't know what these people were saying, and they didn't understand her. All she did was sing the lullaby under her breath, all day long, hoping that daddy would come and get her, and take her home. Eventually she stopped hoping that she'd see daddy again. She forgot what mommy and daddy looked like. She learned to speak the language of these strange people, forgetting her own. Rose made friends, and found herself a new family. She learned to love these people, and forgot the fear of her first few months, believing that St. Vladimr's Academy was her one and only home, never remembering her first home, with her daddy. But she never forgot that lullaby.