I should have been grateful to be moving to a new town before the start of the school year instead of during it.

 

Starting school again with everyone else would make it better somehow.

 

It didn’t.

 

As we boarded the ferry that would take us across the water to our new home, I stayed silent, my hands full with the cat carriers traveling with us. Peppermint resided in one and Hunk and Squirt, the fat cat’s brother, in the other. Normally, all of the cats would have their own space, but Dad now had another kid to worry about and the trip wouldn’t last much longer. We’d be at our new house soon enough.

 

So I stayed quiet and handled Peppermint’s protests while Dad chased Taehyung around the boat.

 

The kid was having the time of his life, even though it was now late and well past his bedtime. The smell of saltwater and boat exhaust was exciting and not nauseating to him like it was for me.

 

The whole moving thing in general was fun for him.

 

I was dreading it.

 

It wasn’t the idea of moving to a beach town, but an island. It wasn’t worrying about new classes or teachers, but the students. It wasn’t the new place, but the prospect of being the new kid.

 

The new kid at a school on an island where everyone had grown up knowing one another and had established cliques from childhood.

 

It could be great or a disaster.

 

I was feeling pessimistic.

 

It was going to be a disaster.

 

“Exode!” the man who’d collected our fares hollered. I grimaced and moved to join my family. “The next stop for this ferry will be Exode!”

 

“What kind of a name is Exode?” I grumbled as I came up behind Dad.

 

He gave me a distracted smile as he hefted Taehyung into his arms. The kid grinned at me.

 

“It’s French.” Dad explained as he grabbed Taehyung’s backpack off the floor. “The settlers who founded the town there were descendents of trappers from further north.”

 

I smirked cheekily. “Someone’s been doing their research.”

 

“Considering we’re about to live here.” Dad shot back, his tone matching mine. “It wouldn’t hurt you to pick up a local brochure and read a little.”

 

“And look even more like a tourist?” I snorted at the idea.

 

Taehyung tapped my head impatiently, tired of being ignored. “Jinnie! Did you see the waves? Like on the lake!”

 

A grin finally crossed my face. Taetae was the cutest. “Waves on the lake are nothing compared to this, bug. Let’s learn how to surf - then we’ll see some waves.”

 

Dad snorted. “Good luck with that. This is the East Coast, kids. And it’s fall. Waves here are less like waves and more like… splashes.”

 

Taehyung and I let out identical groans of disappointment and booed Dad as we followed him off the boat.

---

 

“Y’know, for a French-founded island, this place looks an awful lot like a trip to Grandma’s.” I snorted as I sat the cat carriers down inside our new foyer. I’d seen more Asian people out during our ride through town than I did anyone else.

 

A look over the high ceilings and the sparkling light fixture made me more appreciative of our new home. Against the far wall, past the plush rug and between a pair of large, doorless frames that hinted at other grand rooms, was a wide staircase made of dark, shining wood. A lush green runner came down the stairs like a great snake covered in jungle vines. It matched the rug in the entryway.

 

“Huh?” Taehyung’s face scrunched up with confusion at my remark, but quickly opened again with amazement as he too spotted the light fixture. “Oooh.”

 

Dad snorted. “At least no one here will question you two being siblings if you keep acting like that.”

 

I shared a grin with Taehyung and Dad looked pleased with the concept.

 

Taehyung and I weren’t biological siblings, a fact that the kid had struggled with once some of the crueler kids in his class found out. Taetae wasn’t bothered by much, and once bullies finally found something to pick at, they did so with gusto.

 

Little brats.

 

It wasn’t as if he didn’t look like us either. He looked so much like Dad and I that no one would question it. Dad and I leaned to a more delicate make in features and had the same signature pout, but Taehyung had the prettiest baby-face and an abundance of moles, including one of his left cheek - just like his new father and sister.

 

It was easy to see how much he loved us, too. And how much we loved him.

 

Our family started off in a very untraditional way. Or the tried and true traditional way if you looked at it differently. And by that, I mean the one where a guy has a few flings and gets a girl pregnant without being the wiser, leaving her to carry the kid and go through the birth alone. That wasn’t anything new. I didn’t end up in Dad’s custody until I was nearly a year old, my mother’s fate unknown and me left in a church with just a note pinned to the baby carrier. One DNA test later and suddenly there was a pre-med student with a baby. And being an adoptee himself, there was no way Dad was going to let me go. So one of my aunts moved to the U.S. to stay with us so Dad didn’t have to give up on all his hard work and dream of being a doctor.

 

Then, three years ago, Dad somehow gained custody of a little boy named Taehyung. The details are fuzzy to me, but there was a medical issue and then an attachment issue. Meaning Dad got attached to the toddler and so did I - once I got over my new teenage angst.

 

It had been weird at first to suddenly have a kid brother. My world was suddenly expanded and I wasn’t so sure I liked it at first. I didn’t want things to be easy. Dad got to hand pick a kid after getting stuck with me. I felt like maybe there was something wrong with me and that I was getting replaced by some newer model. Like a dog or a car.

 

But Taehyung had something magical about him in the way only little kids could. He was a right terror sometimes, but he was also full of wonder and joy and curiosity and unconditional love. Being in his presence was like the earth to the sun. Warm and gravitational. An unbreakable pull.

 

Now, being called Taehyung’s sister made my heart swell.

 

Literally, my chest felt fit to burst.

 

I swept Taehyung out of Dad’s arms and smushed his face against mine, peppering him with kisses and blowing playful raspberries against his cheek to make him shriek with laughter. I dipped him upside down and pretended that I would drop him.

 

Dad chuckled fondly as he shut the front door and took Taehyung back before the kid’s face could get too red. He nodded at the cat carriers.

 

“Better let them out before they go stir-crazy. Or Squirt eats Hunk. The lady from the Board had the movers leave everything except the big bits in the hallway upstairs - we’ll just have to sort through it all when you decide on your rooms.”

 

The hospital that Dad was moving to had arranged the move for us. The house came furnished, all shiny wood surfaces with clawed feet on the chairs and tables like they were ready to walk off at a moment’s notice. Coupled with the high ceilings, polished wood floors and picturesque windows, it was very much a stereotypical doctor’s house - very different from the little house in the woods we’d come from. This one still backed into the woods, but was fenced in with tall, white painted slats with trellises of vines creeping over them.

 

It seemed very East Coast privilege to me.

 

Taehyung and I peered at each other suspiciously.

 

“I’ll make it upstairs before you.” I declared heading for the staircase.

 

Taehyung shrieked a protest and launched himself from Dad’s arms like one of our cats would, intent on beating me there.

 

“Don’t run in the house! And you still didn’t let the cats out!” Dad’s yell followed after us as we pounded up the staircase.

 

I faltered for a moment at the reminder, but the squeaky sound of the carrier door being opened kept me going. Dad was letting them out and letting us be carried along in the excitement of exploration.

 

It had to be an old house. New ones were more open. Less private. Harder to cause trouble in. Had less wallpaper.

 

This one was more closed off and had precisely three bedrooms upstairs and a small staircase to the attic tucked away at the end of the hall. I quickly moved to shut the door to it before Taehyung decided to explore up there before me or Dad could have a look at it.

 

I took the chance to peer into the master bedroom and was instantly jealous of it. Dad was lucky the lady from the hospital Board already had his things placed in there or it would have been mine.

 

I didn’t dare look at it’s bathroom. It was sure to be something to fight my dad over.

 

Taehyung made a noise of delight as he found the room closest to the bottom staircase.

 

I poked my head in and grinned when I realized why he was in love with it already. It was a sweet little thing with dark paneled wainscoting and baby blue wallpaper on top with soothing swirls patterned in a pale shade of purple. The large window had a pretty border of stained glass in shades of blue, green and purple.

 

There would be no fighting over this room with him.

 

If I didn’t like the last room, I was moving into the attic.

 

Or at least the parlour.

 

But there was nothing to worry about. This last bedroom - this was perfect.

 

It had a large window overlooking the backyard and a good bit of the woods as well. Beyond that, I could just barely make out the coastline and a sliver of the waves under the moonlight.

 

Like Taehyung’s new bedroom, this one had wainscoting too, but the wood was painted a rich navy color that complimented the gold and white wallpaper above, the patterns similar to Taehyung’s.

 

And there was a window bench.

 

It may sound stupid, but I was crazy for those things.

 

It was probably all the HGTV I watched.

 

I think it’d be cool to design houses. Like this one - gorgeous.

 

I grinned to myself and pulled the sunglasses I had been wearing like a headband off to set them on my dresser. They looked at home there.

 

I felt at home here.

 

It was a little weird. Before making it onto the island, I’d been so nervous. If there’d been a way to take my family and run the other way back to what I knew and had an easy familiarity with, I’d have taken it just an hour ago.

 

Now, inspecting my new room and gushing about how pretty and comfortable it was, I found that I didn’t really want to be anywhere else.

 

It was like coming home after a long trip away.

 

I settled on my new window bench and looked over the yard, pleasantly surprised to find a tree right outside the window like something out of a teen movie where the main girl sneaks out to a date or a party.

 

I snorted at the idea.

 

No boy or party would get me to climb out of my window.

 

Still, it was pretty and beginning to golden a bit in the cool air. Georgia had been hot and humid. New England was surprisingly cooler to me, even at the start of August. Another comfort, the weather being just right.

 

At least I wouldn’t be a sweaty mess my first day of school, and I still had a few days left to prepare myself for it.

 

I moved away from the window to go search for my stuff in the hallway.

 

Tomorrow, while Dad checked in at the hospital, I’d take Taehyung and we’d explore the island.

 

Maybe we’ll even make some friends, I thought hopefully.

 

What I didn’t realize though, was that the friends I would make wouldn’t be the ones I expected. And these friends would save my life that fall from things we’d never even dreamt of.

 

They would be the start of my new life here. And the end of my life altogether.