Chapter 2 — The Assignment Guidelines
The school project had been handed out three weeks prior.
It was meant to be a simple genealogy exercise for the third-grade class.
Students were instructed to map out their parents, grandparents, and siblings.
Leo had approached the assignment with unusual seriousness.
He spent extra hours at the back desk with his colored pencils.
Claire had walked past his desk several times without looking too closely.
She assumed it would be a standard nuclear family layout.
She was entirely unprepared for the complexity woven into the branches.