While Aunt Valeria made dinner – and Lana helped her just like she always helped Dad and Uncle Thomas -, Alex and Samantha investigated the building. The architecture and the overall furniture were old, but there was modern lighting everywhere and the three bathrooms they found were fairly recently renovated. Everywhere was clean too. With so big a house, they would have expected Aunt Valeria to leave at least a few rooms to collect dust.

There were a lot of framed photographs – and some older paintings – in the house too. Most of them only had brown-skinned people in them. There was frequently one Caucasian woman in the newer photos, though. Their mother.

Samantha and Alex had heard many times how their father's ancestors had migrated to the United States with a small community of family and friends from Central America. Although they were half-white, they resembled their father much more than their mother. Black hair, dark eyes, facial features that were part Hispanic and part whatever native peoples had been mixed in over the centuries. Lana, on the other hand, had their mother's pale brown hair and hazel eyes.

They found the little girl in question in the living room in the first floor, when the delicious aromas from the kitchen lured them back downstairs. There was a TV in one of the corners, but that was not what Lana was focused on. Instead, she was holding a photograph with Aunt Valeria, their father and their mother sitting on a couch and lots of other people surrounding them in it. The scenery was the same as in this room, and everyone was smiling. According to the date written in the lower right corner, it had been taken about a year before Samantha had been born.

"Oh, you're already here," Valeria said as she came out of the dining room, drying her hands with a small towel. "Could already smell the dinner, couldn't you? Well, it's done, so go ahead and dig in. Lana, would you-"

She stopped when she noticed what Lana was looking at with such a longing expression and gently petted her head. "I miss her too. Mary was a good person and a dear friend."

"Where are all these other people?" Lana asked. She'd never met any of them.

"Scattered all over the world, I imagine." Valeria heaved a little sigh. "Now it's only me in this huge house most of the time." Then she became more cheerful again, as was customary to her. She never liked to dwell on sad thoughts for long. "I'll show you all the postcards they've sent later. There are so many, and from places you've never even heard of!"

"Aunt Valeria, why was one of the rooms upstairs locked?" Alex interrupted, too curious to hold the question in. All the other doors had been unlocked. "Fluffy was really interested in it."

She looked sternly at the dog, and Fluffy quickly looked away and flattened his ears, like he knew he was about to get scolded.

"It hasn't been used for a long time," she finally stated. "Don't go there. There's nothing to see, and you could get hurt." Then she hastened to add, "There's an old telescope in the attic, you know. Perfect for stargazing here, far from the city lights. And the library room has Arthurian legends I loved as a child."

Her attempts to distract the children obviously weren't working. "Your father explicitly said that you can't go there. So that's it. Now, let's eat before the food gets cold."

~*~*~

Like it often was with adults and children, the order to stay out of that one room and that one room only resulted in Alex and Lana wanting even more to see what was hidden in there. Lana was a little hesitant, since she didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but fairly easily persuaded by Alex that there was no harm in taking a really quick peek. Besides, he had seen Valeria go there – twice! –, so she had been lying that it was no longer in use.

Valeria eventually had to leave the house to go grocery shopping – although she grew her own vegetables, there were things that could only be bought in the nearest town –, and Alex decided that this was the perfect time to scout out the mystery room. The door was firmly locked, but there was a huge tree growing close enough to the window.

Climbing it wasn't as easy as it always looked in TV, but after a little over half an hour of helping each other – and some squabbling after Lana stepped on a slippery spot, lost her footing and fell on top of Alex – they reached the window. They couldn't see anything, though, with heavy curtains blocking the view.

"Aww, man..." Alex groaned, disappointed.

Lana crawled a little closer on the wide branch they were on.

"Hey, careful!" Alex grabbed the hem of her dress. Shirt. Something. He was a boy, he wasn't even supposed to know what different girly clothes were called! In any case, the one Lana was wearing over her pants was kind of a shirt with an additional frilly hem covering her butt.

"I want to try to open it," Lana muttered in reply, her mouth twisted in a determined frown. She pressed her fingers firmly against the bottom rail and tried to push up, but her hands kept slipping on the smooth surface. The handle was in the inside. She couldn't see any locking mechanism.

Alex offered her his pocket knife, already snapped open. "Here. Try with this."

Both children inhaled sharply almost simultaneously as the window cracked open and a sudden gust of wind rustled the curtains. Then Lana opened it all the way and slipped inside first. Alex quickly followed, pushing the curtains aside to let daylight into the room.

It was at least as big as the living room, but instead of regular furniture, it was filled with sturdy bookshelves and tables. There was a fireplace made of red bricks at one wall and cauldrons of different sizes lined neatly in the rack next to it.

Alex zoomed in on a huge book lying open on one of the tables in the center of the room. It could have been directly from some sword and sorcery movie. Old and mysterious, written in a foreign language.

"You said we wouldn't touch anything," Lana reminded him.

"I'm just looking, so it's fine!" Alex quickly replied and reached out to turn the page.

Lana slammed her hand on the page to stop him. She could barely reach the book. "You promised!"

"Don't be such a spoilsport!" Alex pushed her aside. This was the first time something really interesting actually happened in real life. It was so much better than playing video games or going to pretend adventures in the woods.

The girl latched firmly to his arm. "You promised. Dad said never to break promises."

Something moved in front of the fireplace. At first, the children hoped it was just soot and ashes, disturbed by something falling down the chimney. But slowly the wispy apparition took a more solid shape. Alex bravely moved between the creature and Lana, but his legs were shaking.

It was as large as a small pony and somewhat canine in appearance. It had black skin and a few tufts of black fur lining the spine that protruded out of its back, each vertebra looking like it might pop through the skin at any moment. There was not a sound as red eyes like glowing coals examined the children.

"Remember, you can't show your fear," Alex whispered and took Lana's hand. It was just like with wild animals, right? "Let's just slowly back away..."

Lana nodded, swallowing nervously. She was a big girl. She could do this.

The beast didn't move as they inched back to the opposite wall. Now they just needed to get back to the window...

"Whooo iiis iiit?" a raspy voice suddenly reverberated through the room, its source somewhere behind them. The children hesitantly turned to look.

The wall rippled like water. Ever so slowly, something formed.

A face. It was a huge face, old and wrinkled.

"Shooouuuldn't beeee heeereee..." it intoned, each word drawn out. Then its mouth opened wide, and stale wind smelling of slightly rotting wood washed over them.

Lana couldn't take it anymore. She screamed and ran for the door. If that monster dog wasn't going to kill them first, that face would eat them for trespassing!

"The window, Lana!" Alex called after her. "The door is locked!"

But it certainly wasn't locked as the girl pushed the handle down and escaped to the hallway like a pack of hungry wolves was nipping at her heels. Seeing an easier way out and not stopping to think how that was possible, Alex also ran out of the room.

Samantha met them at the top of the stairs, having been alerted by the screams. Fluffy followed her closely.

"Sam! Help!" Alex yelled as he ran. Lana made a beeline for their older sister and only stopped once Samantha was between her and the scary room. Alex quickly joined her.

"Help with what?!" Samantha's heart was hammering in her chest, but she couldn't see anything that could have spooked the kids.

Lana carefully peered down the hallway. It was empty. "There were...There were monsters..."

Samantha still couldn't see anything out of ordinary. "Where?"

"In the room. The one Aunt Valeria said not to go to," Alex offered. There was nothing chasing them. But it had been real! He was certain it had been real.

A responsible adult would have scolded them for going to the room in the first place. But Samantha was curious too. And it was probably just their overactive imagination. "Let's go check it out together."

No monsters in the hallway. Nothing near the open door. Fluffy didn't growl or give any other signal that he'd sense danger either. Samantha flipped the lights switch and looked inside, the kids staying behind her back.

There weren't any monsters in sight. Her gaze roamed over the old tapestries littering the walls, the shelves full of jars, books and less common items, the tables and the white symbols etched on the floor. Aunt Valeria surely always talked about magic, but not even in her wildest dreams would Samantha have imagined that she was a real witch.

This was so cool.