Some moments don’t announce themselves as life-altering when they arrive. They slip quietly into existence, disguised as ordinary scenes, until one small detail fractures reality so completely that nothing before it makes sense anymore.
For Nathaniel Cross, that moment came on a gray winter afternoon.
His driver slowed at a red light in downtown Boston, and Nathaniel glanced out the tinted window, expecting nothing more than the usual blur of traffic and concrete. Instead, his chest tightened so violently that for one terrifying second, he thought he was having a heart attack.
On the sidewalk, half-hidden between a boarded-up bookstore and a steaming sewer grate, sat a boy no older than eleven. He was barefoot despite the cold, knees pulled tightly to his chest, arms wrapped around a thin plastic bag that held everything he owned.
And around his neck—resting against a filthy sweatshirt—hung a necklace Nathaniel recognized instantly.
A gold eight-pointed star.
A tiny emerald set at its center.
His vision tunneled.