The escape of the spider earned Lily her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out again, the summer holidays had started.

Lily was glad school was over.

When September came she would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Sarah. Sarah had been accepted at an old private school.

One day in July, Marie took Sarah to London to buy new clothes for her fancy new private school, leaving Lily with the crazy cat lady. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Lily watch television and gave her a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.

That evening, Sarah paraded around the living room for the family in her brand-new uniform. It was a horrible vibrant pink and some weird mesh thing was supposed to go over the face. Lily thought she looked much like an oversized strawberry. Only the mushy strawberry that tasted horrendous as you bit into it.

***

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.

"What's this?" She asked Marie. Her lips tightened as they always did if she dared to ask a question.

"Your new school uniform," she said.

Lily looked in the bowl again.

Oh," she said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Marie. "I'm dyeing some of Sarah's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."

Lily seriously doubted this but thought it best not to argue. She sat down at the table and tried not to think about how she was going to look on her first day like she was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.

George came in with a wrinkled nose because of the smell of the new uniform.

They heard the click of the mail slot and the flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Sarah," George said.

"Make Lily get it."

"Get the mail, Lily."

"Make Sarah get it."

George gave her a look that quite plainly said "Get the mail before I feed you to the neighbor's cats".

Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from George's Aunt Grace, who was vacationing in Hawaii, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and—a letter for Lily.

She picked it up and stared at it, her heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. Who would? She had no friends, no other relatives—she didn't belong to the library, so she never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Lily Matthews

The Attic

417 Maple Street

the envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Lily saw a blue wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a wand, a spellbook, a crescent moon, and a shield surrounding a large letter E.

"Hurry up," shouted Uncle George from the kitchen.

She went back to the kitchen, still staring at the letter. She handed George the bill and the postcard, sat down, and began to open the yellow envelope.

Lily's hand was trembling with anticipation as she held the letter, her fingers barely touching the heavy parchment. But before she could even begin to unfold it, her Uncle George snatched it out of her hand.

"Hey, that's mine!" Lily protested, reaching out to grab it back.

Her uncle sneered at her. "Who in the world would be writing to you?" he asked, opening the letter with one hand and quickly scanning its contents.

But as he read on, his face began to change color rapidly, from red to green to a sickly gray-white. His hands began to shake, and Lily watched in confusion as he sank down onto a nearby chair.

Sarah tried to grab the letter to read it, but George held it high out of her reach. Marie took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"George! Oh my goodness—George!"

George looked up at her, his face pale and drawn. "It's bad news," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Very bad news."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle George, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Lily didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" she shouted.

"OUT!" George roared. Lily pressed herself flat against the cold linoleum and tried to listen from the crack under the door. 

"George," Marie was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address—how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching—spying—might be following us," he muttered.

"But what should we do? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want—"

Lily could see their feet pacing back and forth under the small crack of the door.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything..."

"But—"

"I'm not having one in the house! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

Upon his return from work that evening, George did something unprecedented - he climbed the stairs to Lily's attic room.

"Where's my letter?" Lily demanded as soon as he had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one," George replied dismissively. "It was addressed to you by mistake, and I've burned it."

Lily's anger flared. "It was not a mistake," she retorted.

"SILENCE!" George shouted, his face turning red. He took a few deep breaths, visibly struggling to regain his composure. Finally, he forced a strained smile, which looked more like a grimace.

The Havenwoods' residence boasted four bedrooms: one for George and Marie, one for guests, one for Sarah, and one used by Sarah to store all her belongings. With just one trip upstairs, Lily transferred everything from the attic to her new room. She settled down on the bed, taking in her surroundings. The bookshelves were lined with volumes, appearing as though they had never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Sarah bawling, "I need that room... make her get out..."

Lily lay down on the bed, letting out a deep sigh. Yesterday, she would have given anything to have a proper room, but now she longed to be back in the cramped attic with the mysterious letter. The thought of the letter made her heart ache with curiosity.

The next morning at breakfast, everyone was unusually quiet. Lily sat there, lost in her thoughts, bitterly regretting not opening the letter when she had the chance.

When the mail arrived, George, who seemed to be trying to make amends, asked Sarah to fetch it. He shouted, "There's another one! 'Lily, The Smallest Bedroom, 417 Maple Street—'"

George's face turned red as he shouted the address out loud.

George sprang up from his chair and dashed down the hallway, with Lily in hot pursuit. They all ended up in a chaotic tussle, each one fighting to reach the letter first. Limbs flailed and voices raised as they grappled with each other. Eventually, George emerged victorious, clutching the letter tightly in his hand and panting for breath.

"Go to your room," he gasped, glaring at Lily.

Someone knew she had moved rooms and they seemed to know she hadn't received the first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she would make sure they didn't fail. 

Lily sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn, her mind consumed by thoughts of the mysterious letter. She got dressed quickly, taking care not to make a sound that could wake the others. The idea of waiting for the postman to intercept any letters intended for her consumed her thoughts.

She was going to wait for the postman and get the letters first. Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door—

"AAAAARRRGH!"

Lily leapt into the air; she had walked on something.

Lights clicked on upstairs, and to Lily's horror, she realized that the something she had stepped on was her uncle. He had been lying at the foot of the front door, blocking her way and making sure she didn't do exactly what she had been planning to do. She shuffled miserably off into the kitchen, and by the time she returned, the mail had arrived and landed right in his lap.

"I want to see those letters," Lily said, reaching out to grab them.

But her uncle sneered and began tearing them into pieces before her very eyes, crushing her hopes with every rip.

Lily watched helplessly as the letters were destroyed. She knew that they were hers, and the thought of them being destroyed filled her with dread.

As her uncle stormed out of the room, Lily quickly tried to gather up the scraps of paper. She hoped that she could somehow piece them back together to read what they had said.

But it was no use. The letters were shredded beyond recognition. Lily felt tears prick in her eyes as she realized that she may never know what they had said.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. 

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed through the living room window. Aunt Marie shredded the letters in her food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Sarah asked in amazement.

***

This morning, Uncle George sported an unusual grin that caught Lily's attention. She deduced that it must have been due to it being a Sunday, a day on which no mail was usually delivered. However, their breakfast was suddenly interrupted as something swiftly descended down the kitchen chimney and hit Uncle George on the back of his head. Within seconds, a deluge of thirty to forty letters rained down on them from the fireplace, pummeling the room like bullets. Despite Lily's attempt to grab one, she was shoved away by an agitated Uncle George.

"Get out! Get out!" he bellowed.

"That does it," he said, trying to speak calmly. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway.

As they drove, Uncle George didn't say a word, but his knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. The rest of the family sat in stunned silence, unsure of what to say or do.

They drove. And they drove. Even Marie didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then he would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day.

George stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Sarah and Lily shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets.

They ate stale cornflakes and tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"'Excuse me, but is one of you, Lily Matthews? Only I got about a hundred of these at the front desk."

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Lily Matthews

Room 17

She made a grab for the letter but George knocked her hand out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," he said, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.

***

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home?" Marie suggested timidly, hours later, George didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car.

George was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Marie when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

The biting cold outside the car hit them hard as George led them up to a ramshackle shack that looked like it could crumble under the slightest wave impact. The small structure was perched on a rocky outcrop, devoid of any trees or grass, with only a turbulent sea raging around it. The stormy hands of the sky above moved the waves about, thunder and lightning illuminating the area behind the shack. The dark, vast void of miles of the sea was a scary image that Lily couldn't even imagine. George had brought them to the middle of nowhere, and there was no sign of safety in sight.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously, he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Lily on the other hand wasn't quite sure about that. The letters seemed to find her no matter where she went. 

She was hopeful one of them would slip through the rotting wood and land in her hands.

As night fell, the storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Lily couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger. 

She heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did.

Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? What was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and she sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.