
prologue
Eight-year-old Justin Timberlake awoke to a muffed wail in the dark of night. He was breathing hard; perspiration dampened his entire body. He glanced around the pitch-black bedroom, realizing he was home, in his own room for the first time since he’d gotten home from two weeks of summer camp. He let out a shaky sigh as he leaned back into his pillow and pulled his soft comforter up to his chin. Then he heard it again, that unmistakable whimpering for attention from the bedroom across the hall. He rolled onto his side and stared at his closed bedroom door. He smiled when there was a light tapping on it and his mother walked in with his weeping baby sister, Aurora shaking her fists with every howl as she widened her mouth for each and every scream. Tears rolled down her beat-red face as Justin’s mother knelt down beside Justin’s bed.
“She was like this the entire time you were away at camp, every night,” Justin’s mother said with a slight smile. “She loves you so much, Justin.”
Justin could only smile. He missed rocking his one-year-old sister to sleep every evening he spent at summer camp. It never failed, as the sun set. The feeling always came; the longing to just sit there and watch the hours of night go by as he gingerly cradled his beloved sibling in his arms. She wouldn’t sleep at night unless Justin settled down in the mahogany rocking chair in his sister’s nursery and slowly rocked. Back and forth; back and forth, over and over until Aurora drifted off into her very own little dream world.
Justin tenderly took Aurora from his mother’s arms and she immediately silenced her hollering. He crept into the nursery and gently fell into the seat of the old mahogany rocker. He couldn’t believe that he was still having nightmares of something horrible happening to his innocent sister. He had had dreams like that since his first night at camp two weeks before, and wasn’t expecting to have a dream like that again, especially when he was right across the hall from the toddler.
Justin dried Aurora’s rosy cheeks with the tip of his fingers, brushing them through the pale fluff on her head that his mother insisted was her hair, no matter how much Justin argued in a joking manner.
Aurora stared up at Justin for a brief moment before her own tiny eyelids became too heavy for her and slowly closed. Justin smiled at Aurora’s diminutive features. He couldn’t believe that he survived camp with the terrifying nightmares of something awful happening to his adored little sister.
Justin gently rocked back and forth for nearly half an hour before his mother poked her head into the room.
“Justin, sweetheart,” she whispered. “I think it’s time that you get back to bed. You’ll be needing your rest after two weeks of staying up and partying at camp!”
Justin smothered a chuckle that was coming on, so that he wouldn’t wake the tired, resting child in his arms. He slowly rose from his seat and carried his sister to her crib, where he laid her down to dream the remainder of the night away. He silently left the nursery to go to his bedroom.
“It’s wonderful to have you back home again, Justin.” His mother ruffled Justin’s curls as he walked by her.
“It’s good to be home,” Justin told her with a smile. “See you in the morning, Mom.”
“G’night.”
With that, Justin retreated to his bedroom and lay down on his bed. He closed his eyes and surrendered his thoughts to sleep.