"Where have you been living?" Lucy asked. Sky's fingers tightened around the folder. "Foster homes first. Different ones.
Then the group home near Briar County." She hesitated before saying the name of the facility, a residential program housed in a converted office building behind a church. The place had rules taped to every door and a staff roster that changed so often Sky stopped learning people's names. She described the rules without embellishment: lights out at a fixed hour, belongings inspected without warning, visits approved or canceled according to staff discretion, and punishments that could include loss of drawing materials for infractions no one had explained clearly.
Lucy did not assume that every rule was abusive. She knew youth residences needed structure, and she also knew that rules could be administered fairly or used to make children feel powerless. She asked Sky for examples, and the girl answered slowly. A staff member once took her sketchbook after she missed a chore assignment she had never been told about. Another had laughed when she asked about continuing an art class, saying a girl who could not follow household rules had no business dreaming about a career. A supervisor had taken a small chain carrying Luther's old metal tag and locked it in an office drawer, calling it a privilege rather than a keepsake.
"Did you get the tag back?" Lucy asked. Sky shook her head. "What happened to the drawings?" "I found some of them in a dumpster.
Most of the pages were wet. I could save the notebook, but not all the pictures." Lucy watched Sky smooth an old crease in the plastic folder. The girl was speaking calmly, but her hands betrayed how carefully she was holding the memories together.
The worst part, Sky said, had been that asking for help always seemed to make life harder. She had written to her assigned caseworker about the belongings, then asked again when the first note went unanswered. A supervisor told her she was making trouble and instructed her to stop repeating old complaints. She heard an argument in an office hallway about whether she should be transferred to another facility. That night she found her backpack outside her room, packed without her permission, and a printed note saying her placement would be reviewed. She did not know whether the transfer was real or intended to frighten her, but she believed she was about to lose the little she had managed to preserve.