Emil Simon hasn't had the best year. First he suffered the loss of his mother, and then his brother. Alone now with his father, at a school he's not really comfortable at, Ethan spends most of his time imaging what's become of Ethan. He milks his teachers' sympathy as much as he can in terms of makeup tests and extensions. Still his grades are suffering.

When his father has to take off for a week for business, Emil couldn't be happier. He sees this as his big chance, this week of freedom, and he has plans. Plans involving trying out the master key to Caramoor, once in Ethan's possession, now in his. Strictly speaking, if the tradition still stood, he'd never have had it. But he does. And he feels compelled.

For a week, Emil has the run of the grounds. He checks out the library, reads up on the local ghost lore, spends a few nights in the archives. HE also stumbles upon his art teacher's daughter, who comes in after hours to make pottery. Getting off on the wrong foot entirely, he introduces himself as someone else and continues to fill his story with further lies. It doesn't take long before his nightly meetings with Jade become Emil's favorite part of the day, even if she doesn't know who he really is or what he really does.

His friendship with his best friend Soma take a roller coaster ride over this same period, but after a couple of days of silence, Soma breaks, and they manage to put things to rights. Just in time for Soma's mother to catch Emil not at home, call his father, and pretty much ruin everything again.

When his dad arrives home, Emil has things he wants to say too. In major trouble or not. But he didn't expect to learn the hard truths he did. That his mother's death was even bleaker than he thought. That Ethan's disappearance wasn't really. As much as he's lied of late, people have been lying to him. Important people. About really big things.

Being on the end of such a huge revelation, Emil knows he has to come clean with Jade, and does. Together, they break some more rules, as they head off to find his brother and confront him.

This was a very different book from Corrigan's poetry-based novels, but I really enjoyed it. It was a little hard to get into, since the story jumps right in and I seemed to have a hard time keeping up with it, but it was well worth the read.

Emil's plight is heavy and at times downright horrible, yet the reading of it is a lot of times light and humorous. And really, who wouldn't delight in getting to be in the shoes of someone who has the run of his school at night? Even if he never does something as dastardly as he seems to feel he should.