The Dreaming Jewels Audiobook (Free)

Eight-year-old Horty Bluett has never known love. His adoptive parents are violent; his classmates are cruel. So he runs away from home and joins a carnival. Performing alongside the fireaters, snakemen and “little people,” Horty is usually accepted.

But he’s not safe. For when he loses three fingers within an accident and they grow back, it becomes clear that Horty is not like other children. And this “difference” is a thing that some people might want to use.

Now Horty has learned that his difference is a risk not only to his own existence, but towards the lives of the outcasts who have, for so many years, provided for him a place to call home.

Theodore Sturgeon renders the multiple wounds of loneliness, dread, and persecution with uncanny accuracy with this vividly drawn, expertly plotted masterpiece.