The morning sun advanced slowly over the houses of Annabel Island, peering through every window, urging the inhabitants awake with its serenely glowing stare. In one particular house, a little girl named Madeline opened her eyes and blinked away the sleep before climbing out of bed. As she stretched her arms to the ceiling, she heard the cry of sea gulls just outside the house and felt her heart give a little shake of excitement.

Though she had been on the island for at least a week, she still couldn’t believe how wonderful it was — she had always been fascinated by the sea, thanks to the books her Poppy had read her, and now she lived right by it, and could visit it whenever she liked (as long as her new nanny accompanied her). She had even ridden on a ship now, which had been the grandest thing she’d ever done until the moment she had set foot on the island and felt its wild, surging promise of adventure.

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When anyone asked Marco Portela why he was moving to Annabel Island, he would say, “you can’t argue with those land prices” or “that Dunnavant man knows what he’s doing” or “I’m ready for an adventure”, but those weren’t the real reasons. The real reason why Marco boarded a ship bound for “Dunnavant’s Realm” was so he could forget about his wife.

She had left him one quiet night while he slept, stopping only to kiss their daughter and whisper “farewell”. When Marco rose the next morning to find his wife missing, he pulled on his boots and stalked out of the house, ready to search the entire city for her, but the voice of his daughter Elena stopped him.

“Mama’s gone,” she said soberly from where she was sitting on the front step. “Go back upstairs, Papa. I’ll fix you some breakfast.”

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Charles Dunnavant carried his wife into the foyer of their new home and looked at her expectantly.

“Well?” he asked, his eyes luminous.

Lily Dunnavant released a murmuring little laugh and slid gracefully to the floor. “Are you going to say that in every room?”

He ignored the question and simply watched her, not wanting to miss her reaction.

Lily glowed with pleasure as she looked about the entryway. Ornate staircases rose on either side, and through the second story windows above she could see the sky turning purple-orange.

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Dr. Charles Dunnavant stepped off the sailboat onto the crooked old dock and glanced up at the grandeur of Mt. Sabastian. After marveling at it a moment, he followed the rippling ridges of the mountain down to where the rest of the island spread out before it in a swell of green trees and pale sand, which caught the afternoon sun and cast it back against his eyes in a blinding shimmer.

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