About this story
Peregrine Oakshott is not merely ugly, Anne; everyone knows he was exchanged in his cradle. You step into this one-chapter preview with Lucy Archfield at the center, where choices turn on the people, promises, and pressure already in the room. Your mother returns after supper; what you tell her may be Peregrine's only warning before the hunt begins. The chapter closes on a continuation question rather than resolving the novel's larger arc.
How it opens
You and Lucy Archfield walked home from your French school comparing a strange local boy to a misshapen prince in a fairy tale.
Peregrine Oakshott is not merely ugly, Anne; everyone knows he was exchanged in his cradle.
Fairy tales belonged inside books this morning, and now Lucy speaks as though one lives across the Close.
Nurse hurried both of you through the Cathedral graveyard while refusing to name the beings Lucy feared.
Choose
Ask who witnessed the exchange and whether that person could be mistaken.
Say that a cruel or unusual boy may still be only a boy.