The leaves on the trees along Bellevue Avenue began to turn red and gold and orange, and the tourists who clogged the streets all summer were gone, taking with them the traffic and crowds. For most children, October in Newport was idyllic. But not for Maisie and Felix Robbins. They wanted to be back in New York City, in their apartment at 10 Bethune Street, with their parents still married and their lives the way they had been before the divorce six months earlier had changed everything. That was why early on that beautiful October morning, when other children were down the road playing softball or out on the bay sailing or with their families buying apples and pumpkins in nearby Tiverton, Maisie and Felix sneaked down the stairs of the small third-floor apartment where they lived and into Elm Medona, the mansion their great-great-grandfather Phinneas Pickworth had built over a hundred years ago. Elm Medona technically belonged to the local preservation society now, but family members could still live in the apartment.
