The boys slithered under their hands, delighted, impatient, eyes darting sideways. They nearly groaned with momentary pleasure. The four were going to the beach, so their bodies had to be sealed against the sun. The boys had never been there. The girl had, just once. She could barely remember. The girl’s name was Pella Marsh. The family was moving to a distant place, an impossible place. Distance itself haunted them, the distance they had yet to go. It had infected them, invaded the space of their family. So the trip to the beach was a blind, a small expedition to cover talk of the larger one. “They don’t build arches, or anything, anymore,” said Caitlin Marsh, speaking of the faraway place, the frontier. “Pella, help David find his shoes.” “Why are they called Archbuilders, then?” said Raymond, the older of the two boys. He sat beside his brother on the bed. He already wore his shoes. The boy’s question was breathless, his imagination straining to reach the place the family would go.
