My eccentric and wild Uncle Itch loved to tease me on his journeys from the South to New York.

       

“You're just a little damn Yankee girl. Where you ever gonna belong, chile?” He laughed as he swung me up in the air, and even though I giggled, I was perplexed about what he meant; I just knew it wasn’t good. I stored the question somewhere in my head.

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Excerpted from The Magnolia Code