This novel was blessed with a great many guardian angels to whom I am endlessly grateful. They are Calvert Morgan, who read this first as a diamond in the rough and made it shine; PJ Mark, whose belief, passion, and sincerity are boundless; my grandparents Anne and Seymour, who left New York for a tiny town called Florala at the end of the Great Depression, and lived a life draped in kudzu and Rachmaninoff; Ethel, who lovingly bore witness to Anne at the end; my great-aunt Rhoda, who lit the spark; my mother and father, whose past gave me my future; my brilliant friends (Elena, Danny, Laina, more), who read and commented on this manuscript when it was a scrappy young thing; Autumn, who introduced me to her ocean fairies; Paris, the home of my heart; Cumberland Island, that dream of wild horses, violet sea, haunted trees; New York City, the one and only; and finally, my true treasures—Jake, my once in ten thousand years, and Aurelia, my gem-eyed girl.