Amethyst Place

In the cul-de-sac at the end of Amethyst Place, there are six houses. These are the families who live there—you’re gonna love this, I swear.

First of all, there are the Larchman-Sheehans. They have seven children, three boys and four girls. The father, Steve Sheehan, is from out of town, but no one seems to know where—like, they can’t even all agree on a country, and his accent is unrecognizable. Both Steve Sheehan and Linda Larchman (his wife) are dwarves, as are all of their children—which is statistically really unlikely.

They are the most normal family in the Amethyst cul-de-sac.

Next, there are the Goodkinds. George and Mary Goodkind have seven daughters, including two sets of twins: Truth, Grace & Glory, Faith, Chastity & Charm and Joy. Told you you were going to love this. Hold on, it gets better: I’m pretty sure they’re all witches.

All right, I’m gonna do the Robbins family next, and then catch up to the Joneses. I’m actually not positive how many children Xander and Alicia Robbins have, everyone keeps giving me conflicting data, but if I had to guess, I’m thinking twenty-six. I say this because the ones I’ve met have names that go in alphabetical order and the youngest child is Zoë. But I can’t get an accurate count because some of the children, from what I can tell, never actually leave the house—which is huge, by the way, but doesn’t look to be anywhere near huge enough to hold twenty-six kids (though I am pretty sure some have left home already).

As for the Joneses, Kurt and Kayla Jones don’t seem to have had, or been able to have, any children of their own, but they have adopted and fostered about a dozen or so, from what I can tell, at least right now—but I understand that they might sort of cycle through some of them, they may come and go. As with the Robbinses, though, I suspect there are some of these Jones kids I’ve not seen yet.

Finally, there’s the Norman household. I haven’t been able to confirm this because the records are hard to get hold of, but it sounds like the Normans’ ancestors were slaves who killed their own masters and the end of the Civil War? And then moved into their house? That doesn’t really make any sense to me, I could go on and on, but that’s what I heard. There are three women living there, I think maybe early sixties? Sisters, and then one of them has a teenage daughter. At least, everybody says Pearl’s mother lives in the house, I don’t know, they can’t seem to agree, like everything else when it comes to that cul-de-sac.

One more thing, though: one of the houses is empty, the middle one, which is actually between the Joneses and Robbinses, almost abutting them both. It’s the house whose property directly leads into the mysterious forest that shouldn’t actually be there.

The other families that live on Amethyst Place are standard fare for this part of the world, more or less: a redneck trailmix of good ol’ boys’n’girls and decent folks, but however liberal they may admit to being around a city girl like me, every last one of them knows not to go into that cul-de-sac. I guess they might if they’re invited to the neighborhood cookouts they host (don’t wanna be rude, after all), but I can see where those could get awkward when guests come a-knocking.

Basically, they’re scared to death of those five families. Actually, I’m pretty sure the whole town is. I just can’t figure out why.