As I was waiting on my bed for dinner to be ready, I noticed the handle of my bedroom door began to move. Out of curiosity, I got off my bed and cautiously walked over to the door.

I reached my hand out, my finger tips brushing against the cold metal handle. As I was going to grap the handle, the door swung open very violently, causing me to jump back with fright. In the process of jumping back, I had covered my eyes, not knowing what was on the other side of the door. But when I looked, the hallway was vacant; no one could be seen.

I was about to turn around and sit back on my bed, when I heard the sound of a door creak. I inspected the hallway, but could see no-one. Out of nowhere, the girl with the long chestnut brown hair, opened Molly's bedroom door. She turned around and reached her pale arm towards me, begging me to follow her. I was a bit hesitant at first, but I ended up giving in and following her. We proceeded to walk into Molly's bedroom.

Molly's bedroom had a strong smell of must. The pink and mahogany red floral patterned wallpaper was fading, from years of neglect. Her wooden bed was curtained-off with stained silk curtains, containing small holes, which were probably caused by moths. In the far right hand corner of the room was a mahogany chest of drawers. The grey carpet felt dank against my socks. The room felt dark and eerie. There was an array of strange artefacts, including wooden masks and wooden dolls.

The mysterious girl walked over to one of the bare corners of the room and started to point to the carpet. On closer inspection, the carpet appeared to be a little uneven. I bent down and was about to lift the damp carpet up, when I heard Molly on the other side of the door. I began to panic. I ran to the side of the bed that wasn't facing the door, and hid behind the curtain. Molly had opened the door and stepped into the room. My heart was racing! As I looked over to where I last saw the ghost, she was gone! Molly had been just standing by the door, looking around the room. After a minute, she turned round and closed the door.

I waited a couple of seconds until I heard her footsteps fade. I came out of my hiding place and ran over to the uneven carpet. I lifted the corner of the carpet with the tips of my fingers, not wanting to touch the dank carpet. As I lifted the carpet, I was met with a silver key, similar to the one Molly used to open the mysterious door. I heard someone come up the stairs, so I grabbed the key and ran out of Molly's room, across the hall and into my room.

A couple of seconds past and my heart was still rapidly beating.
"Brook!" I heard my brother call, followed by a knock.

"Come in!" I answered back, as my brother walked in, closing the flush door behind him.

"Were you just in Molly's room?" my brother asked me, with curiosity in his eyes.

"Yes, I found this". I pulled the key out to show him.

"What's it for?"

" I think it might be for the room Molly doesn't allow us into"

"When will we try?" Alex asked, taking the key from my hand, inspecting it.

"Tonight, or whenever we get a chance", my brother nodded, handing me back the key.

"Guys, food is ready!" my father shouted with a booming voice.

"Coming!" Alex shouted back.

My brother and I made our way to the kitchen where Molly and our parents were seated, waiting for us. As we were eating, no one seemed to talk. An awkward silence began to permeate the room. Until my father broke the silence.

"Brook, Alex", my father said, putting a spoonful of Cajun chicken into his mouth.

"Yes?" we said in sync.

"After dinner, you're going to go help Molly look for her cat, Cleo, who has gone missing".

"O-oh, OK".

"But, the last time I saw Cleo, she was dead in Molly's hands. So how can she go missing?" I thought to myself as I finished the last of my Cajun chicken. Once I was finished, I excused myself from the table and put my dirty cutlery into the sink; my brother did the same.

"OK, we're going to start looking", my brother said to our father. My father just nodded, ushering us to the front door.

As we shut the door behind us, I turned to my brother.
"How can we look for Cleo if we know where she is?"

"Well, let's look for the missing cat", my brother said, using hand quotations as an act so Molly wouldn't get suspicious.

I had to agree with him: "we'll have to be careful".

My brother and I were planning to stick together, but Molly ended up following us, so we decided to go our separate ways, so as not to raise suspicion.
~~~
I was walking for fifteen minutes when I came across a graveyard. I decided to go and pay some respects for the deceased.

I pushed open the black\brown steel gates. The graveyard was vast. I walked down the stone path. The only sound I could hear was that of my shoes colliding with the path, along with crying. I looked around for the source of crying. My eyes landed on a man. He was dressed in black; he also had brown leather shoes and a dark blue jacket, which were placed on the ground beside him. I didn't want to stare too long as I felt it would be disrespectful.

It wasn't long after that that the man got up, placed his jacket on and left the graveyard, making eye contact for a second. I checked the time on my watch and decided it was time to go back home. But, the name on the gravestone that the man was grieving at was so familiar, so I decided to get a better look. My heart stopped. On the gravestone, in a traditional black font, was the name "ELISE HUGHES.
This was the same girl from my dream. "It can't be a coincidence", I thought to myself.

I began to think of the previous events.
The girl who went missing.
The mysterious ghost girl.
The girl in my dreams.
They had to be the same person, they had to be...
My hands began to shake, "My dreams...they must be connected to something".

I turned around and ran out of the graveyard, stumbling over loose debris.
Once I got back, I saw my brother about to open the door.
"Alexander Garcia!" I shouted, taking him by suprise. I usually never used his full name, usually just his nick name.

"Is something wrong?'

"WellyouseeI-Iwas"

"Calm down", my brother said, placing both hands on my shoulders.

"I can't hear you, take it slow".

I took a deep breath and told him everything about the girl, the grave and my theories.
I could tell my brother was lost for words. "You still have the key, right?"

I nodded and pulled the key from my black socks.

"Why did you keep it there of all places?", my brother said, his eyebrows scrunched up.

"Well, just in case. I caught Molly in my room and I didn't want to risk it".

We walked inside the house and told our father that there was no sign of Cleo; he just nodded his head in disappointment. We walked up the stairs. There was no sign of Molly, so we decided to try the key in the door. We walked down the hall. We came face to face with the door. My hand started to shake with anticipation. I reached out my hand, put the key into the key lock and turned it. Nothing happened; it was the wrong key.

"Damnit!", my brother said, punching his fist against the wall.

"What's it for, if it's not for the room?!"

That's when I had an idea. "What about the cubby hole in my bedroom?" I suggested.

"Let's try it".

We walked into my room and went over to the chest of drawers. Alex started to push them, causing the sound of wood scraping against wood to fill the room. Once they were out of the way, I bent down. Once I was bent down, I placed the key into the lock, and spun it clockwise. We heard the sound of a click and the lock fell to the ground with a thud that filled the silence of the room.

"I can't believe it was the right key", I said, covering my mouth.

As I opened the small wooden door, the rusty hinges made a creaking sound, as the abnormally small wooden door had finally been moved after what seemed like years.
The smell of must hit my nostrils, causing my face to scrunch up. I asked my brother to hand me his phone and turn the flash light on, so that I would be able to see into the darkness of the cubby hole. I reached my hand into the hole and felt a box, and a bag. As I grabbed the box and pulled it out, my hands got covered in clumps of dust and fragments of what appeared to be peeling paint.

When I was dusting myself off, Alex opened the box.
"Brook!", my brother said, rather alarmingly, handing me a book and a newspaper clipping.

The book had a black leather casing, its pages were discoloured and had a hue of brown yellow to them. As I opened the first page of the book, there was writing, which was a bit faded but was still illegible. "Occult"

My face paled. I began to think back to Cleo. "Alex, do you think Molly killed Cleo for sacrificial reasons?"

"And, by the way she acts, yes, I think your right".

I looked back down and flicked through the book once more. As I was flicking through the pages, I got to the end of the book. At the bottom corner, there were the letters A.D.C.

"That must be the initials, of the previous owner".
I grabbed the newspaper clipping and started to read. I came to realise that this was about the woman whom Violet had told us about. As I continued reading the newspaper clipping, I came across the name of the the woman and the boyfriend.

Elise Hughes and Aden

The girl from my dream...

End of chapter 12