(First of all, I would like to dedicate this chapter to my wonderful friend and "lil' sis", InkMonster12 for all her encouragement and support!)

Things changed in the household after Hunter left, and especially when he never returned.

His mother was nervous and seldom smiled anymore. She almost seemed afraid. As if something terrible were going to happen. Like a fear of a horrific tragedy awaiting around the next turn, an unnatural fear.

His mother had always been somewhat of the nervous type. But in an entirely different way. Before, she was like a flittery little bird. Jumping into one project after another. Only about five feet tall, maybe 115 pounds, she was in constant motion. Previously though, it was with a smile, chatter, affectionate touches for them all. Prematurely grey hair, (actually a glistening silver) cut into a bob, she reminded Rune of a little pixie. Small nose, with a spattering of light freckles, high cheekbones and eyebrows that gave her an amused or even surprised look above her dancing chocolate colored eyes. Small eyes, yet turned up at the corners and seeming to speak their own language, so very expressive. Rune had been lost in that gaze so many times as a youngster, while sleepily watching her as she read him a bedtime story.

Rune's father would joke that he was the luckiest man alive, because if he weren't the only boy to show up at the school dance, no way would she ever given him the time of day! It wasn't the truth, of course, but it always made Anne laugh. He would tell of how she was so little he could pick her up and swing her perfectly during the dancing contests popular when they were in High School in the small West Virginia school they had attended. Jasper (Mac) McNeil said she was the "pertiest" gal in at least five counties, with her golden colored hair and those flirty eyes. He said she was even tinier then, looking like a fawn or little foal, buying much of her clothing in the children's section of the town's only department type store. Most families were mining employed, their fathers both employed by the same mine, Hucksby's Coal. Most clothing was home stitched, except right before school or a special occasion.

Whenever Mac would tease Anne about her weight, she would pretend to be annoyed and tell him it was giving him bairns that gave her the bigger hips and bottom, and he alone that turned her hair silver with his nonsense! Then he would say how much he loved the changes, while chasing her, both laughing, around the room. Her snapping the proverbial kitchen towel that seemed to be an extension of the little woman.

As little as his mother was, the opposite his father was. A good 6 foot, 5 inches, and broad across the shoulders, with muscular arms, he could of been a helluva laborer in the little town they were raised in. He was mainly of Irish descent, but he was the black haired Irishman, with skin that burned, then tanned with tiny freckles barely visible beneath the dark burnt copper tan. A large, slightly crooked nose sat beneath grey eyes that changed colors with mood and clothing colors. Sometimes cloudlike, with a bluish tint, others like cold hard steel, and at others a strange sea color, with sparkles of emerald and sapphire. He claimed that was Ireland calling through his eyes. Thick brows, he would've looked like a hard man if not for the bow shaped lips that so easily split into an infectious grin. And the gap between his two front teeth only lent an even more friendly smile. Mac was just a likable guy.

Anne and Mac caught a break right towards the end of high school. Figuring Mac would end up in the mines, Anne either a housewife or maybe a store clerk or bookkeeper somewhere if luck would have it. Most women couldn't find a job even when needed. Strongsville simply didn't have the economy. But lo and behold, one seemingly ordinary day, Mac and Anne's fathers both came home, faces black with cole dust as usual, only smiling for a change.

Apparently, down a vein newly mined, some miners, including Mac and Anne's fathers, hit what they at first thought a huge root or something. Instead it was a very strange type of door. Into the chamber they ventured, finding all type of strange and wonderful things! There were unusual symbols carved into stone and wood, as well as odd types of handcarved statues and metal works and other things of unknown origin. But they also found an unimaginable amount of treasure. Gold, so damn much gold! Jewels! Jewels of all kinds, but of enormous sizes! Some bigger than a man's head! And the original room they discovered was just the beginning. Four more chambers branched out in a crescent shape around the first. All full of extraordinary things. Hucksby's paid the handful of men that discovered the chamber a sizable amount of money to zip their lips. The company moved it's workers to another area and only allowed the original seven men that located the trove to continue in that special area, along with some archeological experts and scientific research teams. No one else was allowed to enter. But it provided the young couple the opportunity to leave the little township to attend college in Savannah, Georgia, where the Hucksby family had ties to the alumni.

If only they would have been aware of the horrible consequences they were to later face...