The Turning Read Online Free PDF Page A

Let’s go.”
    I wondered what it meant, or if it meant anything at all, that Linda used the world unusual so often. Maybe she was nervous about how I’d react to the house and the kids, and she was trying to prepare me. But I couldn’t give it much thought, because I was too busy loading my arms with boxes to carry into the kitchen.
    I heard Linda say, “Oh, look, here’s Miles and Flora.”
    I turned and saw the children watching me from the doorway …
    I’ll write again tonight, I promise. I think I need a whole letter to tell you what they were like.
    Until then, stay strong. Stay chill. Write to me now!
    Love, Jack

CRACKSTONE’S LANDING
    JUNE 2
    DEAR DAD ,
    Just a note to say I got here okay, and everything’s fine. The kids are cool, and the cook is named Linda. You’d like her a lot. The summer’s going to be easy and fun. I’ll be home in no time. I’ll write more when I get a chance.
    Love you,
    Jack

THE DARK HOUSE
    JUNE 2
    DEAR SOPHIE,
    There’s a lot I could say about Miles and Flora. Number one, they’re very quiet. Reserved, as if they’re watching to see who you are—who I am—before they reveal the slightest thing about themselves. And they’re polite, like miniature grown-ups. Miniature, polite grown-ups. Now I know why Linda looked at me strangely when I joked that the kids might tear the house apart when she was gone. If these kids track mud on the floor, they run to clean it up.
    But the first thing I noticed, the first thing anyone would notice, was that they looked like little fashion models—like little fashion models from another planet. Like angels or creatures from a parallel universe where everyone is perfect. They both have enormous black eyes, bright and round and startled, like the eyes of the nocturnal creatures that sometimes appeared on the road, frozen in the beams of my dad’s headlights.
    Miles has bright red hair (of course I thought of that unhappy woman on the ferry), and Flora has long black curls all the way down her back. For some reason I’d expected them to look pale, as if they spent all their time indoors, but they actually looked healthy, like they went out a lot. They certainly don’t look like regular American kids. You kind of get the feeling they’ve just landed from somewhere else and haven’t yet completely decided if they want to stay. I remembered their mom was from India. Maybe that explained it.
    Linda said, “Miles and Flora, this is Jack.”
    Just because I don’t have siblings doesn’t mean I’ve never been around kids. I know kids usually ignore you, either because they’re shy or because adults or older kids don’t interest them all that much. Usually kids stand there staring at the ground, basically just waiting for you to lose interest and go away. But Miles and Flora looked me straight in the eye, then stepped forward and shook my hand (first Miles, then Flora).
    “Hey, kids,” I said. “What’s up?”
    “We’re very well, thank you,” said Flora. “And you?”
    What was it Linda said about them? From another era. They weren’t even dressed for this century. Flora wore a long white gown, edged with lace. And Miles wore pants, a blazer jacket with a crest on the pocket, and—you’re not going to believe this—a tie. I assumed he’d put on his boarding-school uniform. Had they dressed up especially to meet me? Or did they dress like that every day? There was starting to be a long list of things I wanted to ask Linda. Unusual was the word, all right.
    I could see that I had my work cut out for me. Not that the kids would be any trouble. Discipline would not be an issue. But whatever Jim Crackstone had hired me to do, it occurred to me that my real job would be to spend the summer teaching them to be normal kids. I was a little surprised, because Linda was so relaxed and warm, and the kids she’d taken care of practically since birth were so formal and chilly. But she’d said they’d had other teachers. I wondered who