She let out a squeal and carried on to the next room: a canopy king-size bed, vaulted ceiling, and writing desk. Another squeal and Murphy was off, continuing her mission. She was going to drink in this whole house, lighting its rooms as she went.
She made quick work of it, too. Within a minute Murphy had poked her head into every room on the floor. There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and one office. Office. Who the heck had enough rooms in their house for an office? Murphy was vaguely aware of Claire calling her name from downstairs, but something more exciting had caught her attention: the spiral staircase at the end of the hall. Murphy sprinted toward it, then stopped to gawk up at its spindling, metal form. The staircase completed three full spirals before it led into a hidden place.
Murphy charged the stairs. There was no door blocking her way at the top. The landing led straight to a small, round room with a domed ceiling. A large window at the room’s center overlooked the front yard and, beyond it, the sea. But the very best part were the shelves hewn into the walls, crammed with books.
“Magic,” Murphy whispered—and she didn’t use that word lightly.
She approached the window, surveying the darkened bluffs and the Pacific Ocean—wide and restless on the horizon. She breathed in deep as she spun a circle and took in the room’s treasures: hardcovers of all sizes and colors stacked in the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
“Yeah, Uncle Pat!” she yelled, punching the air. “Way to share the wealth.”
“Murphy?”
Claire’s voice came from the bottom of the stairs. Murphy leaned over the banister, looking down.
“Oh, hey,” she said to Claire’s supremely annoyed face.
“The entire town’s going to know we’re here,” Claire chided. “It’s like a lighthouse up there.”
Murphy gasped. “It is a lighthouse. Come see!”
Murphy could see that, despite her annoyance, Claire was intrigued too. She stomped up each step, trying to look stern, but once she reached Murphy, her face turned traitor.
“Whoa,” she said.
“Right?” Murphy agreed. She pulled a book from the shelf—The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas—and raised it over her head like a sacred tome, spinning more giddy circles. “A secret library! A castle turret!”
Then, feeling serious, she turned to Claire. “Do you think Uncle Patrick lived in this place by himself? I would get creeped out. Too many places for intruders to hide.”
“Guess I’m not the only paranoid one,” Claire muttered, pulling a book from the shelf and opening it. “Wow,” she said, splaying a hand on a page. “First edition. This could be worth a lot.”
“Hey!” came a shout from downstairs. Eileen.
“Up heeere!” Murphy sang. She felt ecstatic, or maybe delirious; she had stayed up all night. She couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that something magical was going on. She was in a grand house, with her sisters. They were sharing this moment together, making a memory. Eileen and Claire were paying attention to her. It was their first sister road trip, and the best one yet.
Eileen appeared, black-lined eyes popping the way Claire’s had.
“It’s ours,” Murphy whispered. “All ours.”
“It won’t be yours for another four years,” Claire said helpfully.
“Yeah, but Eileen will share, won’t you, Leenie? We can fake our death, blow up the Caravan, and come live here. No one will have to know.”
“Sure,” Eileen said distantly. “We’ll fake our deaths.”
“What’s that?” Claire asked Eileen, who was holding something to her chest.
“I, uh, found it one of the bedrooms.” Eileen turned the object for them to see.
It was a picture frame, containing a color photograph. In it, three boys faced the camera, a fierce swath of sun on their faces. Two had fair hair—one blond, one tinged red. Freckles clustered on their noses, and their blue eyes seemed to shine. The third had dark eyes and darker hair. He wasn’t smiling like his brothers. Because they had to be brothers, Murphy decided.
“It’s us,” Murphy said reverently, tapping the centermost brother—the one who looked the youngest.
“It’s Dad,” Claire said. “Can’t you see? And Uncle Patrick, I guess. And … I don’t know who the other one is.”
Murphy was in the midst of a revelation: If Mom had lied about Uncle Patrick, what else could she have kept hidden?
“We could have ten uncles,” she whispered. “Or fifty aunts. Maybe Mom wasn’t even a foster kid. She could have a secret family too!”
“Don’t be silly, Murph,” said Claire, though she sounded less certain when she asked, “Could Dad really have two brothers?”