Hesitantly, they walked through the doorway and found themselves in a large entry hall. To the right was a wide staircase, to the left a closed set of doors,and directly in front of them a long dark hallway. "Whew!" Marty said. "Smells a little musty in here."
"Like a dungeon," Grace said. "Look." In the corner was a pile of duffel bags and backpacks. Off to the side was a roll of mosquito netting, coils of climbing rope and soiled clothing.
"Looks like Uncle Travis just got back," Marty said. Grace held up a waistcoat. The bottom of it almost touched the floor. "And he's a giant."
Marty picked up a huge cotton glove with holes in it. "Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman." "You're not funny."
"Come on." He walked down the hallway, which led to an enormous dining room with a table that was at least six metres long. "Looks like we're having newsprint for dinner," he said.
Stacked on top of the table were pile after pile of old, yellowed newspapers. Grace started going through them. "Most of these are trashy supermarket papers."
"I guess he likes to keep on top of current events," Marty said. Grace picked one up and read the headline: "Vampire Sucks Small Texas Town Dry.""
"See what I mean?"
"I'm getting scared, Marty."
Marty was feeling a little nervous himself, but he wasn't about to admit it. He led Grace into the next room. "Whoa!" he said. "Now this is what I call a kitchen." There was an ancient oven, an enormous grill, a walk-in freezer, a commercial refrigerator, a huge butcher block that looked like a thousand cows had been carved up on it, and dozens of iron pots and pans dangling from the ceiling. It was a far cry from the modern kitchen at school, but with a good cleaning and some organization a, Marty thought it would do nicely.
They walked through a swinging door and found themselves in a living room that ran the entire length of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows jutted out beyond the cliff edge. Grace looked out at the thick fog. "It feels as if you're floating above the ocean here," she said.
"Look, there's the kayak." Marty pointed to a red dot still some distance from shore. "And the helicopter!" It swooped in and hovered over the small boat. "That kayaker is lucky you saw him. He'd be shark bait by now."
They watched until a curtain of fog blocked their view. Marty wandered away from the window and started looking around the room. It was filled with mismatched but comfortable-looking chairs and sofas. The floor was covered with a threadbare Oriental carpet. Hanging on the walls were old oil paintings (which Marty found particularly interesting), assorted tribal masks, shields, spears, swords and several stone gargoyles taken from old buildings. Standing next to the fireplace was a full suit of armour that looked as though it had been pushed off a cliff.
"I guess Uncle Travis is an antique collector,"
Marty said. "Or he spends his weekends at garage sales."
"On an island?" Marty walked over to the plasma screen television on the far side of the room. The screen was covered with thick dust.
"Do you really think Mom and Dad intended for us to live on an island in the middle of nowhere with a man we've never met before?" Grace asked.
Marty wrote his name in the dust on the screen. "It's not that bad, Grace. It just needs a good cleaning."
"You missed my point."
"What else is new? Come on."
Grace followed him back to the entry hall. "Upstairs or through the double doors?"
"The doors." Marty pushed them open and they were hit with a blast of warm mildewed air. The warmth came from a blazing fireplace at the far end of an immense room. The mildew smell came from above. Circling the room was a balcony lined with books. A spiral stair case to the left of the door led up to it.
"I guess you didn't have to bring those books after all," Marty commented.