Margy lives alone. One night just before Christmas 1946 there is a knock on the door.

Margy opens it to find her only brother standing there holding a child. What do you want, she says.

Here is Rose, says her brother John. Rachel is sick again.

You mean drunk, says Margy.

Just let me in. John pushes past her. Inside the disheveled kitchen sits their other sister Inith.

My husband has been living with another woman Inith says.

All three sit while the sleeping girl Rose lies on a bed by the window. They start to dance and soon John has left and the women have gone to bed.

Early in the morning before sunrise Margy awakens to screaming. She rolls off the bed, splunk.  Someone is still screaming. It is Rose in a dark room and no one she knows. 

Margy reluctantly walks in. Rose is mollified but just a bit. Tell me a story she says.

So it begins the tale of Aru, the Last Chieftess.