Free Revel by Maurissa Guibord Page A

be,” I murmured.
    There was also a foldout map of Trespass. The shape of the island was sort of square, with chunks bitten out of two sides. It looked vaguely like a jigsaw-puzzle piece. In the middle the book opened to a section of photos. Most of them seemed to be pictures of the island from the author’s boyhood days. A small gray schoolhouse with a line of boys and girls arranged by height.
    Why did nobody ever smile in old pictures? The kids looked like they were posing for a mug shot.
    The next picture was a color photo of a painting in an ornate gilt frame. It was a portrait of a couple. The man wore a white wig and was dressed in a military coat with a sash.Next to him sat a woman on a cushioned chair. She held a small book in one hand.
    Portrait of British naval officer Benjamin Deare and his wife, Isabel
.
Deare was captain of the ill-fated
Dover,
wrecked off the coast of Trespass on March 17, 1776
.
    This must have been Ben Deare’s great-great-grandfather. Actually, I wasn’t sure how many
great
s it would take to go back that far. I couldn’t see any resemblance between the stocky, red-cheeked man in the painting and the old man I’d met.
    “Knock knock,” said a voice at the screen door. Before I could answer it, the dark-haired girl named Zuzu drifted in, graceful and unhurried. She wore a tie-dyed sundress that looked like it would have been more in fashion about thirty years ago. The scent of coconut suntan lotion trailed behind her.
    “Morning.” She looked around with her wide-set, dramatically green eyes. “Is Maisie here?”
    “Um, no. She’s gone out.”
    Zuzu nodded. “She must be down at the gardens. There are lots of preparations to do with the solstice coming. I think the strawberries are nearly ripe, and she makes this unbelievable strawberry rhubarb compote thing with—”
    “Sorry.” I held up my hands to interrupt. “Do you always just walk into people’s houses like this?”
    Zuzu swept back a length of her dark hair, making a small braid decorated with tiny blue shells and silver beads jingle with the movement. “Didn’t you hear me knock?”
    “You said, ‘Knock knock.’ It’s not exactly the same.”
    “Huh,” said Zuzu, considering this; then she shrugged. “Well, we’re not formal around here.”
    “One big happy family, huh?”
    “That’s right,” she said with a smile, displaying gleaming white teeth that contrasted with her tan to perfection, and I found myself smiling back at her. Zuzu tilted her head, closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “Did Maisie make any blueberry cake this morning? I’m crazy about that stuff.”
    “No,” I answered. Then, realizing I wasn’t being exactly hospitable, I added, “There are muffins.”
    Zuzu glided into the kitchen. “So I guess you’ll be staying,” she said as I followed. She perched herself on the counter and helped herself to a muffin.
    “For now,” I answered slowly. “It seems like I’ve got no choice.”
    “You chose to come here.
That
was a choice.” Zuzu broke off a piece of muffin delicately and popped it into her mouth.
    “Right,” I said. “That was before I knew about the whole one-way-ticket thing.”
    “You’re lucky. The First Ones want you to stay.” She tilted her head to regard me. “I wonder why.”
    “Must be the stylish way I nearly drowned,” I remarked. “So. Have you always lived here?”
    “Of course. I’ve never been off the island.”
    “And you’ve never wanted to leave?”
    Zuzu smiled dismissively and examined the muffin. “No one can leave.”
    “My mother did.”
    At this she frowned and looked uneasy. “You say that like it was a good thing, some big accomplishment,” she said quietly. “But it’s not. People here say your mother was a traitor.”
    “A traitor? To what?”
    Zuzu stared at me with a pained expression. As if she couldn’t believe she had to explain something so obvious. “To
us
,” she declared, sweeping a hand. “To this.