<h3><b>“Run! Run!” she whispered.</b></h3><p>“Hide in the woods before Daddy gets home!”</p><p>I sprinted across the field and down into a gully and along a path by rock-faces where Croft Run brings cool sweet water, even in summer. After a time, I found my way to the family cemetery and the safety of the hillock where I could see anyone approaching from any direction, even at night.</p><p>Exhausted, I stopped at the mossy log, got on my knees, folded my hands, and prayed to have the wickedness taken out of me.</p><p>And then I heard the coughing and sputtering of Daddy’s pick-up truck coming down the wash-board road. Even this far away, the early evening otherwise calm, I could hear my mother shouting angrily as my father drove up. I did not hear the words, but by their tone I knew what she must have told him.</p><p><b>A tale of awakening and self-discovery.</b></p><h4><b>Virginia Hall’s heartwarming novella captures the hope and determination of a child in rural Appalachia on an arduous journey of gender and identity.</b></h4>