Lost in the Moment and Found


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Author’s Note
 Epigraph
 Part I: Sometimes Things Get Lost
 
 1. Falling Between the Cracks
 2. Everything Changes
 3. Everything Falls Apart
 Part II: Where the Lost Things Go
 
 4. Sometimes Things Misplace Themselves
 5. How to Get Lost
 6. After the Market
 Part III: Staying Lost
 
 7. One’s for Sorrow, Two’s for Joy
 8. What We Lose Along the Way
 Part IV: How to Get Found
 
 9. Revenge of the Lost Things
 10. In a Time of Mists and Moths
 11. A Conversation and a Conclusion
 12. Not Everything Can be Found
 13. Back to School
 By the Same Author
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Author’s Note
 Part I: Sometimes Things Get Lost
 1. Falling Between the Cracks
 Contents
 Copyright
 Start Content
 
 
 
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 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 FOR THE CHILD I WAS.
 I WILL SPEND MY ENTIRE LIFETRYING TO MAKE UP FOR THEFACT THAT WHEN I WAS YOU, I DIDN’T RUN SOON ENOUGH.
 I’M SORRY.
 
 
 
 AUTHOR’S NOTE
 
 While all the Wayward Children books have dealt with heavy themes and childhood traumas, this one addresses an all-too-familiar monster: the one that lives in your own home. Themes of grooming and adult gaslighting are present in the early text. As a survivor of something very similar, I would not want to be surprised by these elements where I didn’t expect them.
 I just want to offer you this reassurance: Antsy runs. Before anything can actually happen, Antsy runs.
 
 
 Street penny sacrament; what are you looking for?
 Lost in the moment and found,
 I am the God of Lost Things, and I will take care of you.
 Foundling and fallen, not where it ought to be,
 Mislaid and moved around.
 I am the God of Lost Things, and I will take care of you.
 I will take care of you.
 —“The God of Lost Things,” Talis Kimberley
 
 
 
 
 PART I
 SOMETIMES THINGS GET LOST
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1
 FALLING BETWEEN THE CRACKS
 
 
 THE FIRST THING ANTOINETTE Ricci ever lost was her father, but she was so young when it happened that she never really felt like she could be held responsible. She was only five years old, made of wiggles and giggles and still enough smaller than her name that no one ever called her anything other than “Antsy,” not even her parents. She had never been hungry for longer than it took to tell an adult, never been hurt worse than a skinned knee or banged elbow, never truly been afraid.
 It was a daddy-daughter day, something Antsy still viewed as a special treat, even though she knew that it was really to give her mother a few hours of peace after a long week of raising her hyperactive child. Mommy was going to go back to work as soon as Antsy started first grade, but until then, it was just the two of them all day while Daddy was at work, and that meant Saturdays were for Daddy and Antsy, Antsy and Daddy, just the two of them out in the world.
 That was normal. That was right. That was the way things were supposed to be. And one minute he was there, watching indulgently from the end of the aisle as she ran wild and gleeful past ranks of Disney princesses and their jewel-toned plastic accessories, and then he wasn’t there anymore. Antsy stopped running right in the middle of the aisle, too confused to move. Her parents never left her alone when they were at Target. That was one of their first and firmest rules; she could be allowed to free-range through the toys as long as she could see them, but she couldn’t let them slip out of sight, not ever, because the world was full of people who wanted to snatch up pretty little girls and walk away with them.
 But her father—her tall,