I killed my mother. Twice, if I am to be completely honest — though she only died the one time. And since honesty was one of the things I promised her as she lay on her deathbed, I reckon honest I must be.

I made a lot of promises.

I promised I would study diligently so as not to grow "dull and stupid in this savage place." I promised that I would read — though the only books I have are her worn Bible and a copy of Mr. Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And, since I am being truthful here, I must confess that the Twain book isn't even mine. I found it in Old Joe Smiley's stable when I was hiding from Leslie Granger and the passel of girls who follow her around complimenting her hair ribbons and treating her like some sort of queen. I also promised that I wouldn't hide in the stable anymore. That I would say please and thank you and ma'am and sir religiously, that I would brush my hair without complaint and take a bath every Saturday — whether I needed it or not.

I promised all of it. And I really did mean to abide by it. I would have promised her anything, even marriage to Old Joe Smiley himself, if I thought it would make a difference.

But my promises didn't matter one lick. Promises to the dying never do.

I only hope that redemption does.

Redemption brings me to the corner of Main Street and Ramsey Avenue on the day of my mother's funeral (April 3, 1905 — a date I am sure will be seared into my memory), wearing a sign that reads Mother Killer. On my left, a bewhiskered man tied to a post slumps drunkenly, a hastily scribbled paper bearing the words Wife Beeter pinned to his chest. On my right, an urchin of a boy dozes, swaying against the rope binding him to the post, his stomach growling loud enough to wake the dead. The moniker Theef is written in newsprint on the paper he holds. Neither bothers to acknowledge me with so much as a grunt of greeting when I show up just after dawn, despite my best attempts at establishing some sense of camaraderie among my fellow wicked-doers. Even my "Howdy," is met with a blank stare and, in the boy's case, a snore.

Cretins.

Perhaps the simple fact that I made my sign myself and spelled all the words correctly has something to do with their standoffishness. Or maybe guilty folks don't take kindly to people who sentence themselves to public punishment. Still, you'd think a murderer — and a matricidal one at that — would raise an eyebrow.

In Goldfield, Nevada, I just blend in with the crowd.

Still, I am determined. There must be a way to show the world the role I played in Mother's death. Something that will tell everyone that it wasn't just bad luck or God's plan that took Mother from the earth. An action that will expose the guilt that squeezes my heart and seizes my breath when the cabin is quiet and I am alone with my thoughts and my shame.

Public humiliation seems like a good place to start.

In less than an hour, the heft of the board I painted my sign on and the roughness of the rope I used to secure it to my person have rubbed a raw and bloody spot on my neck. By the second hour, the blood seeps into the ends of my braids, making them stick to my face whenever I shake my head to displace an overly exuberant fly or dislodge the pomegranate seeds being spit at me by Evan Granger and Stewie Hines, two impossible boys from school who possess neither good manners nor good looks — but have more than enough money between them to buy not one, not two, but three pomegranates, and more than enough time to spend the morning spitting the seeds at me. And, as I am still being honest, I use a goodly portion of that hour praying they get the trots from their indulgence. God forgive me.

I spend the third hour of my punishment imagining how Jesus must have felt on the cross. The staring eyes of passersby. The nettle-like sting of raw skin. And I feel nearly holy until I remember that I am not Jesus, all brown-eyed innocence and forgiveness. I am me — Kit Donovan — green-eyed Responsibility Shirker and Mother Killer. Oh, and Book Thief. I can't forget that, though it does pale in comparison to my other deeds.

Not that I killed Mother on purpose. Even I am not that wicked. But I did kill her. First, by bringing the influenza into the cabin. Then, by failing to bring the doctor.

The influenza wasn't entirely my fault. Some of the blame lies with Miss Sheldon, who insists on weekly spelling bees and encourages the likes of Jenny DeMillo to come to school even though she is riddled with lice and vermin and what all from living in the horrid tent hotel with her father and the scores of miners who pass through Goldfield determined to strike it rich. I suppose some of the blame rests with the miners themselves, though most belongs to the town — a place that promised "riches beyond imagining" and has delivered nothing but cold and want, and in Mother's case, a cruel and ugly death.

Of course, none of that would have mattered if I had not crawled out of bed with a stuffed-up nose, then whined and complained until Mother relented and let me stay home from school to drink hot ginger tea and loll around on my cot for an entire day. Oh, and as a bonus, miss the dreaded spelling bee. The next day, my nose was clear, and I was spelling bee–free for at least a week. So off to school I went.

But Mother fell ill while I was away — and not the "recline on your cot and play hooky" kind of ill. Real ill. Fever and chills and not recognizing the people you love ill. The day after that, she died, carried away on the wings of a sickness even the old Shoshone women had no remedy for, while I stood outside the Northern Saloon, too mesmerized by dancing girls' laughter and gunfighters' curses to find the doctor I was sent there to fetch.

I am four hours into my punishment when Papa finds me. As much as I wish he would yell or curse or even cry, he doesn't. He simply picks me up — board and all — and carries me the half mile to the cemetery where the preacher is nearly finished with his "mysterious ways" blather.

I focus all my attention on the undertaker, a sweaty old man with greasy hair, clearly itching to cover Mother in dirt so he can get back to the whiskey bottle he keeps patting in his pocket. He should hide his transgressions better, if you ask me. Anyone with eyes can see the cap of the bottle peeking out of his shabby suit. As if his bulbous red nose wasn't proof enough of his weakness.

Mother hated drunkenness.

She hated it almost as much as she hated bad singing. Which is what comes next — courtesy of the Ladies' Aid Society.

Sometime during the singing, Papa must realize that I am twelve years old — much too old and too heavy for even a strong man like him to tote around. He sets me down when the first shovelful of dirt flumps onto the coffin. As soon as my bare feet hit the ground, I run, but it's all for naught, really. I will never get that sound out of my head.

The thing Mother hated most of all was dirt.

I race toward the center of town, cutting through vacant lots and skirting chicken coops, horse droppings, and workers loafing on their lunch break. The men lean against the storefronts they are building, blocking the makeshift sidewalks with legs and arms and shirtless torsos. I jump over their booted legs and skip around discarded...