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that.
    I told myself, You just got here. It’s too early to tell the kid to talk nicer to his sister.
    Anyhow, I was starting to understand that the children had secrets. Their quick, silent glances were like a private language invented to keep strangers—like me—from finding out what they didn’t want me to know. Already I sensed that the secrets they shared were part of why they seemed so strange, and were about something more serious than whether the architects who’d built their house had been fired or quit. The big, dark house was their world, and they were letting me in. But only so far.
    We passed a dusty living room, where I could tell that no one ever sat on the dusty velvet couches and no one ever built a fire in the huge stone fireplace. At least not for a very long time. Finally we came to a large room in which a row of chairs ringed the mirrored walls. In the middle of the floor was a gigantic pool table. I was practically ecstatic.
    I said, “You guys play pool?”
    A giant cobweb covered half the table, and as the pale light from doorway trickled in, I thought I saw something disgusting scurry through the furry webbing. But that was easily fixable. Hadn’t Linda just bought a brand-new vacuum cleaner? Flip the switch and the tarantula nest would be toast in thirty seconds.
    This time Miles and Flora looked up at me as if I’d asked if they liked to eat the spiders that lived on the pool table.
    Miles said, “I guess somebody must have played, once. But we don’t …”
    I said, “Would you like to learn?”
    “I’m not very good at sports,” said Flora.
    “I bet we could find a pool cue your size.”
    Miles and Flora exchanged a whole new set of solemn, secretive looks.
    I wanted to say, Come on, kids. You can trust me. I promise. But I told myself, Shut up. If I said too much too soon, I would only alarm them. And if I scared them now, I could give up on the rest of the summer.
    Relax, I told myself. You’ve been here fifteen minutes. You weren’t going to be best friends right away.... Of course the kids are a little shy—orphaned when they were tiny, growing up in a creepy old mansion on a deserted island. That was enough to make anyone “unusual,” especially children whose only living relative is paying good money so he won’t have to see them or hear one word about them. And whatever Miles learned in school about the outside world, he seemed to have forgotten it all when he returned to the island.
    We backed out of the billiards room and headed down another hall, then up another flight of stairs so steep and narrow it reminded me of the staircase on the ferry, though it was a lot easier to get up the stairs when the floor wasn’t being rocked and pitched around by the ocean.
    “Where are your rooms?” I said.
    Miles said, “Oh, pretty far away. On the other side of the house.”
    I’m afraid this is going to sound crazy.
    But when the kids said that, I had this insane thought that the children were little vampires, and that every night they went back to their tombs somewhere in the basement. Remember we saw that vampire film that everyone loved, and we kind of enjoyed it but agreed it was silly? I know they’re just lonely little kids who have no friends and never learned from other kids what normal kids are supposed to act like. I wish that you were here with me, Sophie. You’d know how to talk to them; you’re the oldest in your family. You had all that practice with your two sisters, your little brother, and then the twins.
    I said, “Tell me something, kids. Am I going to be able to find my way around here? Or am I constantly going to get lost without you two leading me around?”
    Miles said, “Maybe you’ll get lost once or twice. But you’ll figure it out. They always do.”
    “They?” I said.
    “Visitors,” Flora said quickly.
    “I didn’t know you kids got all that many visitors,” I said, instantly sorry. I didn’t want them to think I was saying they