Silk and Gunpowder

Prologue

Theodosia's POV

Most people in New York know my father before they know me.

Sometimes they recognize him from television interviews. Sometimes from the books. Sometimes from the documentaries that still seem obsessed with things that happened hundreds of years ago. Teachers straighten their backs when he walks into conferences. Adults suddenly remember stories they've heard. Strangers ask for pictures.

Aaron Burr.

The name follows me everywhere.

At Beacon High, people usually figure it out during attendance.

"Burr?"

Then they look at me.

I always know what comes next.

"Wait. As in Aaron Burr?"

As if there could possibly be another one.

My father says history is simply people making mistakes loudly enough that everyone remembers them. He says it with a smile, though his eyes never quite agree.

He is famous, depending on who you ask.

Brilliant, according to some.

Complicated, according to others.

A villain to a few.

A survivor to many.

To me, he's just Dad.

The man who makes coffee too strong. The man who checks the locks twice every night. The man who waits up until I get home even when I tell him not to.

People think being the daughter of someone important must be exciting.

It isn't.

It mostly means living in apartments that feel too quiet.

It means reporters occasionally appearing outside events.

It means hearing stories about your family that everyone else seems to know better than you do.

And it means carrying ghosts.

I was not supposed to be the only Burr child.

There were four of us once.

At least, that's what the photographs say.

Four names. Four stories.

Now there is only me.

My father never talks about them for very long. The pictures stay in frames. The names stay in old boxes. Sometimes, when he thinks I'm asleep, I hear him walking through the apartment late at night.

I have never asked what he says to them.

I think some grief belongs to the person carrying it.

People tell me I am lucky.

Only child.

Quiet apartment.

Plenty of attention.

They don't understand that silence can become another person living with you.

The loudest absence, though, belongs to my mother.

No one talks about her.

There are photographs hidden in drawers and one picture in my father's office turned face down against the desk. When I was younger, I asked where she was.

Dad said she had left.

I asked if she would come back.

He didn't answer.