ADELE'S FAMILY

Adele's immediate family is made up of her mother and father (Lalaf and Samifi), her older brother Shoen (age 22, at the start of the story), her older sister Noaleen (age 20), her younger brother Falah (age 9), and her baby sister Lafee (age 4). Her parents had already had two children and all of a sudden they had an unusual situation on their hands: They'd become the parents of a prophet. They gave her the name Ashnai (which means "red girl" in Shioan, an unimaginative but appropriate name) and raised her at a bit of a distance, knowing she'd been identified early on as a good candidate to be spirited off to the human world.

Because Adele/Ashnai was so often at her teacher Tabitha's, she developed a very limited relationship with her siblings, though the youngest sibling Lafee really enjoyed having her sister come home. Her relationship with her parents was a strained one at best, because neither the parents nor the child knew what balance to find between having a good relationship and suffering unnecessarily when they inevitably parted.

Adele disliked being forced to interact with her parents in the presence of her siblings because it was so obvious to her that she was not a part of their lives. They were not a part of hers either, but everyone involved wonders what kind of a person Adele would have become had she not known since day one that her destiny was elsewhere.

Her family does love her, but they don't know her so it was hard for all but the youngest to show it. And though she was not expected to remember any of her immediate family once she'd crossed through the pool, they will always remember her and wonder how she's doing once in a while.

My favorite pictures of Adele's family (click on the small pictures to see large, good quality scans):