The Swallowtail Legacy 1: Wreck at Ada's Reef

The Swallowtail Legacy 1: Wreck at Ada's Reef — page 9
MICHAEL D. BEIL I grunt and move into my assigned place Sometimes it is easier just to do what Thomas wants and get it over with The woman in yellow says Smile and I do my best to provide something that at least resembles one My teeth are clearly visible so that counts right With that little bit of torture out of the way the other five of us leave Blake not quite fourteen in charge of our bags and the cage holding my budgie Bedlam and trudge toward town to get our bearings and to find a ride to the house that has been in our family since the 1920s and where Mom spent her summers as a kid The last time I was here was the summer summer I turned ten the same summer that Mom first got sick After that it was like someone hit PAUSE on our lives For the next two years the only traveling we did was on I 95 between Connecticut and Lenox Hill Hospital in New York It was a lawyer who pressed PLAY calling us into his office the week after Mom died to tell Pip and me that the house on Swallowtail Island now belonged to the two of us As we amble along Main Street strangers in a strange and strangely quiet land a light ground hugging fog filters out the town's imperfections the peeling paint the cracked and frost heaved sidewalks the shuttered storefronts making it appear 4