Ellie, eight years old and the youngest of the O'Connor family, had just recently discovered the word "delicious" and she took every opportunity to craft sentences that included it. She stood by the counter in the kitchen with the oversized box tucked under her undersized arm, plucking pieces of cereal out between two fingers, examining them closely, and placing them on her tongue before crunching.

 

"Nobody cares about your cereal, squirt," Peter grumbled sleepily. Peter, fourteen and oldest, his eyes puffy from new hormonal sleep, sat on the counter drumming his heels against the cabinet and sipping a glass of orange juice.

 

"Each piece is crunchous and cinnamony scrumptuous," Ellie said.

 

Ellie had bright blue eyes and her cheeks and forehead had browned in the sun. She had memorized many advertisements and judged their quality by how difficult they were to memorize. Cinnamon Crunch cereal was too easy to memorize and therefore sub-standard, but it was providing her the perfect vehicle to irritate Peter. All things served their purpose in Ellie's world.

 

"Dad's cinnamon toast is soggy," Chris said.

 

Chris O'Connor was ten, tow-headed, and his sole purpose, it seemed, was to let it be known that he had more authority than Ellie. The method he used to assert this authority was to contradict her statements as often as possible. Chris never remembered being as smart as Ellie was at her age and it was already getting harder and harder to contradict her statements.

 

"Chris," Peter said. "Where's Jake?"

 

Chris shrugged sleepily and before realizing he had received an order. He snapped to attention like a soldier, had time for one thought, and ran out the kitchen door into the summer morning to find his second oldest brother. Jake, twelve years old, was most often absent.

 

Summer was beginning to drag for the O'Connor kids. There had been the ecstasy of being free of school. And then the excitement of coming to their grandpa's "farm" and being rid of their parents' rules. But now they missed their parents, their house, and even its rules, and their three-week trip to the beach was still three weeks away. Only Jake seemed totally content with the situation, a fact that irritated Peter. Peter wished he'd been allowed to go to lacrosse camp, but his parents said family was more important and that his brothers and sisters needed him. He wished, at least, that Jake would play lacrosse with him more. Jake had taken to waking up early in the mornings, skipping his shower, and going walking in the woods. Peter liked the idea of walking in the woods but each morning when he woke up he decided it was better to stay in bed, a decision he always regretted when he was sitting on the kitchen counter.

Ambassador Burke's "farm" house was an old colonial manor located on a fertile plot of land atop a bluff that overlooked the Potomac River about an forty minutes west of Washington D.C. It had originally sat on 400 acres, but most of that land had been sold off for development over the years. The Ambassador had retained 80 invaluable acres of field and forest, which to Jake, was enough to explore forever. There were old barns and tobacco sheds, and decrepit little structures that had housed tenant farmers in the past and slaves at some point before that. There was Leroy's house at the edge of the woods. There were the fields of corn and soy, still planted for the tax break. There were the old oaks that lined the drive. There was the great ravine that stretched down to the river. And, best of all, there was the river itself, with its islands, eddies, and rapids, in addition to the secret flotsam debris of hundreds of miles of country to the West.

 

In the mornings Jake walked down to the river and climbed onto a high promontory rock that jutted out into the river. Chris found him there, but he was too scared to call up to him. Jake had his eyes closed and his arms and legs crossed like a swami. Chris was scared of Jake, because Jake never made him do anything and never got angry with him like Peter did. Chris wished Jake would be a little more clear about what he wanted, but at the same time he wished Jake would teach him what he saw when he closed his eyes like that and sat for an hour on a high rock.

 

The O'Connor kids ran a color spectrum of personalities. Chris was the bright blonde with fair skin and freckles and light eyelashes so light they made his eyes look sewed on. He was most likely to do what he was told, but somehow no matter what he did, it wasn't good enough for anyone. Peter had sandy blonde hair and cool blue eyes. As the oldest he imitated and exaggerated an adult sense of gravity and calm, but he was actually very anxious most of the time that things would not go according to his plans. Ellie had dark hair and pale skin that browned nicely and gave her a mask of freckles across her nose and across her cheeks. She liked to talk, read, and sing, and to throw tantrums when they were least expected. She was already very good at manipulating the affection of adults. Jake had dark hair and dark eyes and dark skin. He was dreamy and independent and very sure about what was right and wrong. All of the other kids loved him unequivocally, even Peter who pretended not to care when Jake went missing. The fair skin and the need for acceptance came from their father, Mike O'Connor, and the dark stubborn independence from their mother Ellen Burke. The color spectrum was a fairly accurate map of the O'Connors' personalities, but, like all kids, each had their own mystery ingredients. Ambassador Burke was their mother's father. He had been the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. it its early years and had written many books on how countries should talk to one another, but he himself was a man of very few words.