The Girl in the White Cape

A Novel

Barbara Sapienza

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647425043
• Year: 2023

Fifteen-year-old Elena lives in a church attic in San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood, where she is cared for by her guardian, a kind Russian priest named Father Al. Six days a week, Father Al sends her out of Our Lady, across the meadows and ponds of Golden Gate Park, and all the way to Baba Vera’s house on Taraval Street for Baba’s version of school.

Unlike regular school, however, Elena’s learning is unnerving. Baba Vera’s preposterous demands, dizzying antics, and house—which is full of skeletons, brooms, strange implements, and guinea pigs, among other oddities—seem straight out of a Russian fairy tale Father Al used to read to Elena . . . not life in 2020. If not for her beloved doll, Kukla—bequeathed to her by the mother she never got to know, but of whom she often dreams—Elena would be overwhelmed. Yet she works hard at every task given her, understanding intuitively that there is a purpose to every one of her grandmother’s strange assignments.

Frank, a young taxi driver, enters Elena’s world on the day he delivers a strange, witch-like woman named Anya to Our Lady. Upon meeting Anya and Elena, a dream-world begins to spin for him—and he feels a deep, protective pull toward Elena. In the days that follow, Frank devotes himself to saving her from the harm he is sure Anya intends toward her. What he comes to understand, as he enters more deeply into Elena’s story, is that she has magic of her own. He thought he was supposed to save her—but in the end, the two of them may just save each other.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: The Doll
• Chapter 2: Fee Fi, Fo, Fum
• Chapter 3: The Cab Driver
• Chapter 4: Dusk
• Chapter 5: Anya, Is That You?
• Chapter 6: Wild Duck
• Chapter 7: Team Elena
• Chapter 8: Elena’s Blood Ritual
• Chapter 9: Frank as Witness
• Chapter 10: The Heart of the Duck
• Chapter 11: The Moleskin Pouch
• Chapter 12: Ode to a Salamander
• Chapter 13: Acorns
• Chapter 14: The Bistro
• Chapter 15: Pack Taurus
• Chapter 16: Oak Glen
• Chapter 17: A Deer in Headlights
• Chapter 18: Left with Tools
• Chapter 19: The Red One Brings Up the Sun
• Chapter 20: Parade of Fools
• Chapter 21: The Warmth of the Ancestors
• Chapter 22: Fresh New Eyes
• Chapter 23: Cold Storage
• Chapter 24: Thanksgiving Day
• Chapter 25: The Fulfillment of Dreams
• Epilogue: Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Selected Titles from She Writes Press