1 The little silver car darted down the country roads like a minnow, cresting the hills and dipping low into the valleys, carrying three new souls into western Massachusetts. Evie Archer sat in the passenger seat, watching the first few rust- and honey-colored leaves begin to fall. Beyond, the sun was low on the horizon, setting the mountaintops ablaze with golden light. Evie knew she should have appreciated the sight of a sky unbroken by apartment buildings and skyscrapers, but all it did was make her feel small. She fingered the cream-colored lace of her favorite shirt--an old maroon cotton tee that she''d found thrifting and upcycled into something more fashionable. She''d cut off the sleeves and snipped the bottom into a wavy asymmetrical line, then sewed about a foot of vintage lace to the bottom to create a dramatic hem. A bit more lace around the neckline completed the look. She''d laid it out on her bed with a pair of comfortable jeans last night as her traveling outfit.
"So listen," her mother, Lynne, was saying as she took another tight turn. "You guys know that Hobbie House needs a lot of work, and I can''t afford to have the whole place professionally cleaned right now, so we should start by fixing up the rooms we''ll need right away." "Sure, Mom," Evie said, wondering what her friends back home in New York were doing right now. Were they thinking about her? She checked her phone for messages, but there were none. She reasoned that it was still a school day; they were probably just busy. She put the phone facedown on her lap and tried not to think about it. In the back seat, huddled among the duffel bags and suitcases, her younger brother, Stan, said nothing. Evie glanced back to see him hidden deep inside his black hoodie, playing some stupid game on his phone.
"Stan, honey, are you listening?" Mom said. Stan grunted, just loud enough to be audible by human ears. "Anyway," her mother continued as they approached another hairpin curve, "we''ll tackle the bedrooms first, then the kitchen--oh, probably a bathroom we can all share, and--" There was something in the road. Some lumbering, dark thing. Mom didn''t see it because she was too busy talking about the house, but Evie saw it. "Mom! Watch out!" Evie shouted. "What?" her mother gasped, wrenching the steering wheel and slamming on the brakes. The little silver car swerved wildly, skidding to the side of the road.
Evie shrieked as a rock was thrown up and hit the windshield like a bullet. The car came to a stop, and for a moment there was no sound inside except ragged breaths. "What''s wrong?" Mom exclaimed. Evie turned to look behind them, certain she would see a small, bloodied corpse. But there was nothing. "I saw an animal in the road," Evie said, suddenly uncertain. "Like a small dog, or a cat or something. I thought we were going to hit it.
" Mom eyed the tiny crack in the windshield where the rock had hit and sighed heavily. Evie noticed that despite the hours of packing, loading, traffic, and nearly crashing the car just now, her mother''s wavy, caramel-colored hair still looked perfect. "Evie, I was watching the road. I didn''t see any animal. You''re lucky we didn''t hit a tree or something. That wouldn''t be a great way to start our new life here, now, would it?" She put the car back into gear and started driving again without another word. "Sorry," Evie said after a moment. She ran her fingers through her hair.
It was a little greasy. "It''s fine," Mom replied, in a tone that clearly said it wasn''t. "Look! We''re almost there." She pointed to a green road sign that read Ravenglass, 2 miles. "Are you excited?" Evie nodded, pasting on a smile. In the back seat, Stan hadn''t moved. Incredible . she thought.
"Sometimes your eyes can play tricks on you, you know," Mom said, her voice softer now. "Sometimes we think we see things that aren''t really there. Like a mirage in the desert." "I guess so," Evie said, not wanting an argument. But I did see it , she thought. She had seen it walk, seen its fur, seen its flashing eyes as it looked up at the car speeding toward it. Didn''t I? Her mouth was dry, so she grabbed the Big Gulp of Coke that they''d picked up at a gas station and took a long drink. Something was stuck to the sweaty bottom of the plastic cup.
Evie peeled it off and peered at it. A small yellow sticky note with four words written in pen: KEYS, CELL PHONE, WALLET. It was her father''s handwriting. It must have been inside the cup holder when she''d set the Big Gulp down. He was always forgetting things--his lunch, his wallet, his children''s birthdays--so he''d often write them down to remind himself. Artists were forgetful like that, he''d always said. Like that made up for everything. Evie stared at the note for a moment before crumpling it up in her hand, opening the window, and throwing it out.
As they crested the next hill, an old wooden sign with gold letters came into view. WELCOME TO RAVENGLASS, MASSACHUSETTS EST. 1856 The local road they were on dropped them right at the center of Main Street, in the middle of a town that looked like the cover of an old Saturday Evening Post come to life--pure Americana, stars and stripes, and apple pie. A neat line of colonial-style buildings--cream and pale yellow with shutters painted in red and green--nestled under the far-reaching boughs of black oak trees, resplendent in their autumn colors. There were a few little shops and cafés, a redbrick church with a real bell in its belfry, an inn, a fancy restaurant, and a little place right at the edge of town called Birdie''s Diner. Evie sniffed the air, which smelled like a combination of fried chicken and something spicy. Her stomach growled. They hadn''t eaten since leaving the city.
"I''m hungry," she said. "Have a granola bar," her mother said. "We''ll pick something up after we get everything inside and settle in. Isn''t the town lovely? It''s just so ." Evie went ahead and supplied the correct word. "Quaint." She pulled a couple of bars from their snack bag and tossed one into the back seat, feeling a little bit satisfied when it bounced off Stan''s head. It must have momentarily roused him from his phone coma, because a moment later, she could hear him munching.
"We''re going to live here ?" Stan asked, pressing his face against the window. "In the Land That Time Forgot? If they don''t have WiFi, I''m hitching a ride back home. Seriously." "They have WiFi, Stan," Mom replied smoothly. "And you can''t hitchhike back home. This is our home now." Evie swallowed a lump of granola and chocolate as the full impact of those words hit her. Everything she knew--her entire loud, crowded, messy life back in New York--was gone.
Divorce had snuck up on her life last year and swallowed it whole, like a snake, leaving nothing behind but pain and memory. After the settlement, her mother realized that they had a big problem. Mom''s old job at the Hyatt didn''t pay anywhere near enough for their three-bedroom apartment, not even with the child support payments, and especially not after all the legal fees. She had about two months'' rent left in her savings, and then they were going to be living hand-to-mouth. Things looked grim until the night Evie overheard Mom call her sister, Martha Hobbie, and ask her a question that changed everything. "Martha, do you think we could move to Hobbie House?" Hobbie House. Those words had been spoken in hushed tones throughout Evie''s life, like a curse. The house, a place that had been in her mother''s family for about fifty years, was up in a small town in the Berkshires called Ravenglass.
Aunt Martha lived in an apartment in town there--and was the official caretaker for the house. Evie always wondered why her aunt didn''t just live at Hobbie House. After having spent her whole life in cramped apartments, Evie could hardly imagine what it would be like to have all that space . Why would anyone choose some tiny apartment over an entire house ? Then again, Aunt Martha was a superstitious sort of person, and Hobbie House did have a certain . reputation. Evie shivered, the breeze suddenly chilling her. She closed the window and pulled her dusky pink cardigan close around her shoulders. Regardless of the house''s history, her mother saw it as their salvation.
"A fresh start, a big bedroom for each of us, and best of all: It''s free !" Mom had announced this to Evie and Stan after hanging up with Aunt Martha. Stan had immediately made it clear how much he hated this idea by going on a hunger strike and slamming doors, but Evie had just nodded and smiled. "That''s great, Mom," she''d said. "Isn''t it?" Mom had replied. "Just what we needed. Some good news." That night was the first time Evie let herself cry. But now, surrounded by the stunning beauty and tranquility of Ravenglass, a tiny ray of hope pierced through her inner gloom.
Maybe life will be good here , she allowed herself to think. Maybe it will be okay. The GPS on her mother''s phone started to act funny once they left the town behind and went in search of Hobbie House. Because it was nearly two hundred years old, the house wasn''t on Main S.