Free The Village by the Sea by Paula Fox

crumbly, and the ghostly amber shells of crabs. Some of these things reminded Emma of old musical instruments her father had showed her in a music encyclopedia.
    The third morning the two girls met on the beach, Emma handed Bertie what appeared to be a tiny pine tree around three inches tall. It was the tip of a branch she had found near the house. Bertie stuck it in sand beside their collection, which they kept at the foot of the cliff, away from the highest tide line. Emma turned a bottle upside down and stood it near the tree.
    â€œAn aquarium,” she said.
    Bertie picked up the rusty belt buckle. “We’ll be able to use this,” she said. With a handful of twigs and seaweed, Emma made a cottage. She anchored the belt buckle in the sand against the cottage. “The door,” she said. She made two fingers into legs and ran them toward the door. “This is a girl running to the cottage. She’s just put her horse in the stable. We can build one of stone.”
    â€œWe can build a city!” cried Bertie.
    â€œA village,” said Emma. “We won’t have time for a city.”
    The idea had come out of the darkness.
    Emma went to bed, eager for the night to pass, thinking of the day ahead. Usually, Aunt Bea didn’t come downstairs for breakfast. But she might. Emma began to get up so early, Uncle Crispin was still asleep. She left him a note that third morning, saying from now on she’d get her own breakfast.
    She had liked Uncle Crispin very much when they’d driven out from New York City. She still liked him but he wasn’t the same with her as he had been in the car. In Aunt Bea’s presence, he looked worried, his brow furrowed, trying to make her laugh, trying not to be angry when she was mean.
    Emma couldn’t look at the Monet poster. Aunt Bea kept on talking about the painter as if she owned him, like a piece of land she had inherited. Even when she wasn’t there at the dining table, Emma would glimpse the teapot as she went out the door to the porch and feel a kind of coldness steal through her as though the air had grown chill. Aunt Bea’s remarks about people were like being punched in the same spot over and over again. You got a kind of ache just listening to her, and the ache didn’t go away.
    Lunch was hard. “What does cold-blooded mean?” Aunt Bea shouted imperiously at Uncle Crispin who was fixing himself coffee in the kitchen. “Just what it says, Bea,” he replied mildly. There were times when he didn’t answer her questions, when his mouth remained tightly closed.
    Something was always going on between them, Emma reflected. They never left each alone unless Uncle Crispin was playing his violin or Aunt Bea was glued to the television set.
    Emma had peeked into all the rooms except their bedroom. Uncle Crispin used one for his practicing. There were shelves holding music there, and a music stand, but the other rooms were empty except for the smallest, where a large old-fashioned trunk stood in the middle of the floor.
    â€œWhy is a senator more important than a representative?” Aunt Bea called from the living room.
    â€œFor mercy’s sake, Bea—” replied Uncle Crispin in an exasperated voice. “You grew up in this country. A senator has a larger constituency, serves a longer term and has more power. There are only two senators for each state—”
    Aunt Bea must have kicked a teacup on the floor. Emma, snatching a cracker and an apple in the kitchen, heard it shatter.
    â€œI don’t fill my head with unimportant details,” Aunt Bea cried. “Now look what you made me do!”
    Emma fled to the beach.
    It wasn’t so easy when Uncle Crispin was out giving a violin lesson at the time when Emma came up from the beach to grab a bite.
    Aunt Bea, drinking tea, the table covered with wool and writing paper, said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Don’t just run in and out.