Raji, Book One: Octavia Pompeii by Charley Brindley

Rajiani Devaki (Raji) is a girl of thirteen from India. On a cold December morning in 1925, Vincent Fusilier (Fuse) finds Raji sleeping in his parents’ barn. He thinks she’s a vagrant and tells her she has to go. She doesn’t understand English and doesn’t know where she is, having recently escaped from a house in Queens New York where she had been held for the past nine years as an indentured servant. After Vincent leaves for school, Raji slips into his house to find something to eat. She peeks into the front room and is startled to see a man sitting in a wheelchair. He stares at her but apparently cannot move or speak.