CHAPTER ONE HOUSE MAGIC RULES Some days, my sister and I could sense trouble coming.
Other days, like the weather, it caught us by surprise.
Today, from up the hill where the school bus dropped us off, our house looked trouble-free. Safe.
Momma had been busy.
The blue clapboard box with its wooden shutters anchored our cul-de-sac like it had been on Riverland Road forever, which it pretty much had. Mike’s small purple bicycle leaned on my larger blue one in the shade of the garage. Our lawn, smooth all the way to the shoreline and carefully cleared of leaves, wrapped the house like arms with hands clasped at the pale concrete driveway.
Everything seemed perfect.
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