BANISHED
Coming from Delacorte Press in October 2010
Sixteen-year-old Hailey Tarbell can't wait for the day she'll leave Gypsum, Missouri, far behind, taking only four-year-old Chub, the developmentally-delayed little boy her cruel drug-dealing grandmother fosters for the state money. But when a freak accident in gym class leaves a girl in critical condition, Hailey feels drawn to lay her hands on the injured girl and an astonishing healing takes place...
...In the seconds it took for me to break away from the crowd of kids and rush back to Milla, there was not a single sound in the gym. No one spoke, or coughed, or called my name. No one tried to stop me. But when I picked up Milla's cool, limp hand with its ragged fingernails and rough calluses, I stopped hearing anything else anyway.
At least, I heard nothing in the gym. Inside my head a strange whispered chorus started up, a murmured chant that made no sense.
A second later my vision went. I don't think I closed my eyes, but everything else disappeared and it was as though I was looking into time going forward and backwards at once, like I'd jumped off a cliff and hovered somewhere in black empty space...
