For the next 2 weeks we ended up at a beach house on the coast. It was a little tourist-y for our tastes but we all agreed that a change of scenery might be in order. The town attached to the beach was cute with a few different shops and restaurants. A city wasn't too far away either where we were promised a tour of the chocolate factory. This definitely wasn't the kind of place we'd normally take a vacation, but I'll admit I felt a bit better away from everything.

"Come on Annie, we better get a move on." I heard my mom call out. I was still unpacking my stuff. It felt really empty in this house and I didn't like it.

"Coming." I turned around to find Caleb in my doorway.

"How are you feeling?"

"Anxious, I think. I'm still kind of freaked out about everything. About the forest, about you, about what might happen. I want to play on the beach but I don't want to have to look around me all the time to see if something might attack us again. It's happened twice now and all I can do is hit it with a stick. Would that be enough next time?"

He nodded at me.

"You can respond now." I said.

He walked towards me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Remember what I said back at my house Annie? That nothing will happen to us."

I pulled his hand off my shoulder. "I know, I know. Either one of our dads could take a whole army without a scratch on them. You could pull it off too now I think." I pointed at him and he smiled a little. "And Mom, well" I tried to laugh which probably sounded more like a cough. "I guess I feel sorry for anything or anyone who tries to hurt us."

He covered his smile and cleared his throat. I smiled a little. I remembered back when I was little and I thought there was something under my bed mom would come and sit with me with her hammer and sing me to sleep. I kind of miss that. Maybe I should ask her to sing to me later.

I looked at Caleb and he looked at me funny. "Thanks Caleb. I think this will be fun." I nodded and smiled. Genuinely this time.

He looked at me confused.

"You can respond now."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I think so. I still feel off but…" I wasn't sure what happened. But you know, I feel so safe with my mom even if the monsters were all in my head. Mom and Dad were both there but Dad… I don't know what happened.

"Wow…"

"Huh?"

"Oh sorry for interrupting. Please continue."

"Wait, what did I say?" My voice got horse by the end of my sentence.

"You said you were really safe with your mom. Was I not allowed to hear… that…?"

"It's not that. I just didn't know I was still talking." I half laughed I think. I took a deep breath told him, "It's okay. It's all right. I um, I need to get out of this house." I shrugged. I wasn't sure what just happened but I knew that Mom wanted us outside so we better head out.

"Of course." Caleb responded in his usual way ad gestured towards the door.

We were in the hallway for three seconds when…

"Whoa!" Caleb took my hand and pulled me towards him. I was confused, until I saw that my brother had smacked himself against the wall.

"Easy Bro." I told him as I lifted him off the floor.

"I didn't see it." He said as he rubbed his head.

"Flash, are you sure you're doing what I told you?" Dad asked him as he walked up to us.

"Yes Daddy, it's still blurry."

"That's like the fifth time you ran into a wall." I said remembering a few times when he either knocked me over or ran into something else. "Mom's right. You need to get your eyes checked."

"No." He ran to Dad. "I don't want to go."

"It doesn't hurt Flash and Dr. Brunswick is really nice."

He curled further into Dad and murmured something I didn't understand.

I sighed.

"It's okay Flash Sh… How about we go out for a run, huh?"

"Uh-huh." I hear my brother murmur.

My cousins and I went to work on some sandcastles while Caleb and my Dad took Flash to tire him out. I asked Caleb to go because I had a feeling my dad would need a hand with Flash since we're in a whole new place. Caleb wasn't really into the idea but he went along because I asked him to.

"What do you think, a little more water?"

Ben looked at me and said, "Yes, but only half the bucket."

"You got it." I got up and grabbed my purple bucket to get some water.

Aunt Cream was playing with Lily, the youngest member of our family, while my mom and Ms. Maria were out in the water. Lily was a bunny like Aunt Cream who was the faintest yellow you could think of. She was 4 and we all found it surprising she doesn't like to make things like her siblings. She was happy to smack a ball with a stick over and over again instead.

"Can we use this shell?" I heard Whits say to her brother.

I looked at them still hoping someday Flash and I will be able to bond as well as they do. He's not a baby anymore but he's so impatient I can't get him to do anything with me. Anyway, I walked up to the castle which was looking pretty good. Wits had the idea to add some flying buttresses to make tall arches for windows. It was almost as tall as me and we still hadn't finished the first tower. Ben was working on it about to add the cone shape to it.

Ben looked at the shell, "Hmm…"

"I think it would be nice right above the door." I pointed.

"Oh, may I?" She looked at her brother and he nodded while he handed her the shell. "Thank you." She knelt down and leaned over to place the pink shell on the castle.

"I like it." I said.

"Me too."

"I think you'll really like our stones." We looked over and saw Roxy and Brick with buckets in their hands and Aunt Rouge and Uncle Knuckles right behind them. They looked kind of messy. Roxy and Brick were my six year-old twin cousins

Aunt Cream asked, "How did the treasure hunt go?"

"There was a lot more here than I thought." Aunt Rouge answered and the adults kind of just did their adult talk while my cousins and I looked through the stones to see which ones would go well with the castle. They had stones of all kinds of colors and shapes.

"These two are my favorite." Roxy pulled out ones that almost looked like stars. One was pink and one was red.

"It's us." She put her arm around her brother. She was right. Roxy and Brick were both bats like Aunt Rouge but Roxy was a dark pink while Rocky was a really dark red. They both had this star birth mark on their chests in white. Roxy grew long hair curly hair that matched her brother.

"Can I have the red one now?" Brick asked her.

"Sure." She handed them to him. Brick placed his in his khaki shorts while Roxy put hers in her pocket.

We spent the rest of the afternoon perfecting our sandcastle adding stones and shells as decoration. Before we knew it, we made a fantastic palace by the sea complete with moat, arches and a draw bridge Ben and Wits crafted out of driftwood and seaweed.

"Okay kids smile, picture time." Mrs. Maria called out to us holding a camera.

I heard some of my cousins groan and I said, "The sooner we do this, the sooner it ends." We got into position behind the castle and let Mrs. Maria take the picture. The moms marveled at us, the pictures and the castle for a few minutes.

I broke away to grab a water bottle from the basket my mom packed. I heard a shriek and when I turned around, I was relieved to just see my mom hugging someone. Okay, okay. No robots here. We're okay. I took a deep breath and walked closer to my mom noticing the boy next to the lady my mom was hugging. Conner. Oh yeah, Conner. He's one of my classmates who is a mouse. He and his mom would visit the bakery every day after school. Sometimes our moms would go out together but we never really hung out much. I think he came to a birthday party once or twice but he keeps himself busy.

I heard our moms start to catch up while I walked closer. He looked at me with a nervous smile and waved at me. I waved back and asked him if he had any requests.

"For sand sculptures?" He asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Maybe after lunch." Mom interrupted.

"I've seen sand sculptures but I've never seen anything like this before."

"Thanks, it took most of the day, but it went by pretty fast after everyone started to pitch in." I responded.

He walked closer to the castle and kneeled down, getting a good look at it. "Can someone walk me through the drawbridge."

"That would be up to Ben and Wits." I said.

"Of course." Wits said and smiled. She grabbed her brother and a stick. Ben didn't really respond, just kind of went with it. I found it kind of funny.

"Ah!" I turned and saw Roxy holding her head with one hand.

"Brain freeze?" Brick asked.

She nodded slowly. "Take it please." She held out her smoothie and he took it from her while she rubbed her head.

"Roxy, Roxy!?" Aunt Rouge came up from behind her and kneeled down in front of Roxy. The rest of our moms followed her. "Are you okay? You want to lie down."

Roxy shook her head no. "No Mommy, I'm okay. It's going away."

The rest of the day went by fast and without anyone else getting a brain freeze.

Conner made a suggestion for a sand sculpture: chess pieces. I never really liked chess, but we could make the pieces our own and Roxy didn't mind adding her sense of style and flare to decorating them. We really only had stones and shells but Roxy really made it work. Conner mostly worked with Wits and Ben figuring out proper water to sand ratios for the sizes we were making. The pieces were about as big as I was so Conner helped me build the tops.

"Have you built a lot of sand sculptures." I asked Conner.

"No actually, this is my first time."

"Well you're doing great." I told him.

"Thank you. Do you always build sandcastles and sand sculptures when you guys visit the beach?"

Roxy and Brick responded in unison, "Only with Ben and Wits."

He giggled a little. "I see."

"It's nice to have another big kid with us." Roxy said.

"So Annie doesn't have to do the tops by herself?" Brick asked.

"That too, but I like even numbers. It feels less empty now."

"I'm… glad I could fill void…" Conner responded.

"What's going to happen when Caleb comes back?" Brick asked.

"I don't want to think about it." We had a small laugh. It wasn't Roxy, it was just the way she said it.

The adults did their own thing and watched Lily. I didn't realize the sun setting until Conner started to point out the colors. He walked towards the water I guess to get a better look so I followed him. "Huh, you're right, it is really pretty."

"And they're constantly changing, it's amazing." He sat down near the water and I sat down with him.

"Yeah, hey this is my first sunset at a beach."

"Really?" He looked at me a little surprised.

"Well, I guess I technically, I saw one at the lake but we had to leave really quickly because my little brother is terrified of the dark."

"I think I enjoyed the purples the most."

"I really like that one that almost looks blue."

I heard him chuckle. For a while, we didn't say anything and just looked at the sunset. It was kind of slow but it was kind neat to see how the colors changed.

"Have you always liked sunsets Conner?"

"Yeah… my dad actually painted the sunset that happened the day I was born."

"Really?" I looked at him funny. "In the hospital?"

"No, he took a picture and then painted it later."

"That makes more sense. Where is your dad anyway?" Now that I think about, I never remembered meeting his dad. Never really asked either but that's because we were coordinated through party games or something whenever Conner was around. Nevery really talked-talked with him.

"Um… well, he passed away when I was little."

"Oh… I'm sorry. I-I didn't realize-"

"It's okay." He said looking at me with these eyes that were sad. I wasn't sure what to do or what to say.

Mom called out us, "Hey Annie, Conner, it's to clean up. We're having dinner soon."

We looked at each other and I said, "I guess I'll see you at dinner."

"See ya then."

As I walked towards our spot, I saw that Caleb, my dad and Flash made it back and Mom was holding Flash in her arms. Caleb waved to me and I waved back.

"How was the run?" I asked him.

He tried to smile while he thought about his answer. "It was… interesting."

"I bet." I said knowing Flash just kept them running and picking him up after running into trees, tripping over rocks and whatever else. Mrs. Maria called out to us to come to the house to shower.

We started to walk towards the house when he asked me, "So how was the day?"

"It was really fun actually. Conner taught us about the shells we used on the castle, a little bit of history of castles and told us about fun stuff to do in town."

"Like what?"

"There's a miniature golf course in town with an arcade right next to it. Oh, and we're going to the pier tomorrow. I want to ride the Ferris wheel."

He smiled at me. "Of course."