For two years after her parents' went missing, Cora often felt uneasy about her detached attitude towards their disappearance. The guilt weighed on her conscience whenever she thought of them. From the day they vanished, she cried, she missed them, but never did she find herself crumbling to the point of despair. In all honesty, they simply hadn't been around enough to make the loss feel truly excruciating.

Cora's early childhood was a blur of rotating nursemaids and nannies and governesses. She spent all of her days in the Butters' classic Georgian-style manor house, Haywood Park. The estate boasted sprawling gardens and intricate hedge mazes that wrapped all around the grounds. In truth, the property was much too big for one little girl. Her parents were rarely at home. She remembered her father, Teddy, to be quite charming, and her mother, Lianna, as a beautiful woman, but, beyond that, they flitted in and out of her life in such a way that even her admiration had to be observed from afar.

Cora had been content living with her two spinster aunts. Certainly, Aunt Mathilde and Aunt Amelia erred on the eccentric side, and they were nowhere near as affectionate as her parents had been, but the pair of them had also given her more attention and education than most girls in her station could ever dream up.

Graying frizzy-haired Aunt Amelia was as short and buxom and jolly as Aunt Mathilde was tall and spindly and stern. The latter was also going bald. Only a few wisps of snowy white hair remained on her head. Amelia and Mathilde looked nothing like their charismatic younger brother, Teddy. Nor did they resemble each other in temperament or form. Cora sometimes wondered how it was possible for the three of them to be related.

From the day she moved in, Cora's aunts filled her life with an exorbitant routine of lessons and activities. She started every morning with Aunt Mathilde, conjugating Greek and Latin verbs until her head hurt. Then, she would practice two hours at the piano with Aunt Amelia until her hands ached. After lunch, the three of them would tend to their chores together—sewing, cleaning, or gardening—for about an hour before resuming with more lessons until suppertime. Depending on the day of the week, Cora's afternoon lessons typically alternated between mathematics, history, literature, theology, and science.

In moments when Cora felt sluggish about her studies, she couldn't help questioning her aunts' reasons for raising her in such an unconventional manner.

"Why do you wish for me to study as boys do?" Cora once asked. "Schools don't even exist for girls my age. How will any of this knowledge help me find a good husband?"

"The fruits of our labor will be revealed in good time, my dear," Aunt Amelia reassured her with a smile.

Aunt Mathilde trilled right after her sister, "Don't you know, child? Knowledge is power! Be grateful for the opportunities we provide you. When we were your age, we weren't even allowed to open a book!"

Cora lamented and sighed dramatically, "But what if I do not wish to be knowledgeable or powerful? I want to be normal."

Aunt Mathilde's eyes flashed sharply as she responded, "Out of the question! You were born to be extraordinary."

Aunt Amelia nodded fervently in agreement. "We're raising you to be a goddess among women, Cora. I hope you understand what a marvelous gift it is to be the exception to the rule!"

Cora had always suspected there was more to her aunts' answers than they were willing to reveal. There had to be more to their story.

After all, why else would two ailing, ancient women work themselves to the bone day after day over such pointless yet difficult tasks?