White Hope

Chapter One

The Grace Family

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I want you to imagine a circus.  

Imagine the vivid lights, the sweet smells, and the deafening noise.  

Imagine the clowns stalking through the crowds on their stilts.  

Imagine their over-the-top, smiling faces staring at you from every side, their calls and laughter reaching every corner of the fairground. 

Imagine that exciting, happy feeling you get while you are there.  

I was six the first time I went to the circus.  It was a traveling group from somewhere in Europe called something like “The Animal Circus”, but in something like German or Latin.  They were the best of the best.  People traveled for days just to be able to see the trapeze-flyers perform and the animal tamer work his magic.  The Freak Show was world renowned and the horror house was supposed to make even the most fearless man pee his pants.  All around me I saw people crying and jumping with fright, but I just stood there.  What was supposed to be the scariest show in Oregon didn’t faze me at all.  To tell you the truth, I felt like I was home with my brothers.

I love the circus.  I love the feeling that nothing changes.  I love the fact that, when I'm at the circus, I feel like I'm home.  Seriously.  I feel like I'm back at my family's beach house in Oregon where the lights are always on, something is always baking, and my brothers are always shouting.  

Our family was crazy, but we truly loved each other.  My parents, James Grace and Susan Willis, had always been childhood sweethearts, best friends.  In their youth, they were rarely seen apart from eachother.  Nobody had really been surprised that, when they were old enough, the two decided to get married; the shock didn’t come until they hurriedly moved from their homes in suburban New York City to small town Wheeler in Oregon; all of their family was in NYC and no one understood why they would want to leave everything behind they had ever known.  But they moved anyway. 

Eventually, life went on and, although it was always difficult to raise eight children, my family was never just a family; we were best friends.

***

Growing up with seven brothers was not easy for Charlotte; and the constant shouting, wrestling, and broken bones would have been too much for her if it weren’t for the fact that the boys really did love their little sister.  Yes, it is true that they would fight and argue with-and against- her, but, no matter how much they all hurt each other, no matter how offensive they would be, no grudges were ever kept for long. 

All of the children were incredibly close and protective of one another.  Luke and Jared, the two eldest, acted as the sort of protection, or bodyguard for the others.  They were the ones to rescue the triplets, Aaron, James Jr. (or JJ), and Michael, when one of their practical jokes went awry; they were the ones to pacify Ryan and William – the twins – when they got into another fight at school; and they were even the ones to protect their little Charlotte from the grabby boys that tended to surround her.  But, even for the others’ annoying habits, no one would ever refute the fact that Greys really did love eachother.

Charlotte was always the baby of the family, the little sister that warmed everybody's hearts.   Well, at least until she was fourteen.  That was when baby Eric was born and, a year later, little Joshua.  The birthsonly brought the family closer together as the older brothers came to love and care for the newborns.  

The Grace family was grateful for the blessed life they had been given.  Everyone was happy and life was good.

But that wouldn't last for long. 

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A/N I just want to warn you guys that there will be POV changes.  Personally, I hate them, but this story would be impossible to write without them.  You'll see ;)