Chapter One

You are now entering Wyttham Ridge, Rhode Island.

As they passed the sturdy looking sign, its green letters welcoming resident and visitor alike, Kit Harris stole a look at her twin sister. Hermione was sat up front next to their mother, looking benignly out of the window, apparently unfazed by their wildly unfamiliar surroundings.

The seeping dread that had been slowly permeating Kit's body all day suddenly felt like it had burst and filled her veins to the brim. She chewed her lip furiously, craving a cigarette for the first time in almost a year, and stared hard out of the window until her eyes watered. The road was narrowing by the second. Kit wasn't used to this; she was used to the highways and wide streets of Milwaukee, the lack of open space, the inability to see the vast expanse of sky that was now threatening to envelope the car. She knew now, as her mother began to mutter under her breath and re-familiarise herself with the streets she had once grown up on, that they were nearing their destination. Kit didn't want to imagine any of these neat white houses were going to be theirs, that any of the few people they passed were going to be their new neighbours or friends.

"Here we are." Phoebe Harris swung the car into the driveway of a small two storey house painted white with faded green edges and a shingled roof. On the front step stood Phoebe's sister, Kit and Hermione's Aunt Stephanie, a veritable mirror image of their mother, with the capacity, Kit was sure, to disapprove just as much. Phoebe turned around and looked at Kit with a weary look on her face. "Remember, this is just temporary," she intoned tiredly. "For now, let's just be grateful to Stephanie for letting us stay." The words had an all too familiar ring to them, as did Hermione's pious expression as she slipped out of the car and trotted to the trunk, ready to start unloading. Phoebe's eyes lingered on Kit a moment longer, as though deciding on the best course of action with her troublesome younger daughter. Kit nodded mutely, her eyes not quite meeting her mother's, and shuffled out of the car before anything else could be said.

Hermione gave her an encouraging smile as she handed over Kit's smaller of two bags. "We'll be fine," she said in a low, confiding voice that made Kit want to run far, far away. "I doubt we'll be here long at all."

Kit tried to smile, wondering if she succeeded at all when Hermione's expression registered slight concern before brightening on the appearance of Stephanie. As Hermione suffered the inevitable trauma of being held at arm's length by their aunt and being proclaimed "a lovely young woman", Kit pondered her sister's words. Staying with Stephanie just seemed a recipe for tension and a double dose of well-meaning matriarchal concern. Yet leaving Stephanie meant finding somewhere of their own, and that implied a much greater degree of permanence that made Kit feel like she'd inadvertently found the end of the world.

Kit shook herself from this thought just in time to be accosted by Stephanie. "And you, Aikaterine." Kit winced at the use of her full name. "You've grown so much. You're getting to look just like your mother." Stephanie glanced at Phoebe, who smiled weakly. Kit looked nothing like her mother, a blatant fact made much more obvious by Stephanie's misguided attempt to link Kit tightly to Phoebe. Phoebe, like Hermione, was tall and perfectly proportioned with straight blond hair, the only concession to their Greek heritage being their dark eyes, whereas Kit was short and skinny, with messy dark hair and the green eyes which only served to remind Phoebe that in fact, she looked exactly like her father.

Kit bit her lip to stop herself from disagreeing with Stephanie and instead nodded and swallowed hard. "I guess," she offered, scooping up a second bag and nodding vaguely towards the house that Stephanie had emerged from. "I should go and help Hermione," she mumbled, scooting off before she could see her mother's warning look or Stephanie's mild bemusement. Reaching the front door, Kit dared to look up at the house and took a deep breath.

She could always hope for a miracle.