Look out for the <>! Enjoy!

The next day went by in a blur to Sophia by the time she knew it, she somehow found herself in a four-poster bed with gray-brown stone walls enclosing the room.

Waking up from her deep sleep, she stretched and sat upright, looking around the familiar room. She got out of bed as memories of this room in her Gran's castle flew back into her mind. This was her room whenever she stayed at her Gran's castle.

She embraced a pleasant memory of her Gran reading to her in this very bed as her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She reached to check the notification as panic flooded her, realizing that she slept until two in the afternoon on Sunday.

As she took slow steady steps down the hall, passing old Anglo-Saxon paintings and a Roman marble bust of an old man with a funny long beard, she couldn't help but admit that it had been too long since she's walked these halls. When she was a child, her family would come every summer, but since she entered high school, things got busy with camps and other part of life. She tried to remember the last time she spent a full summer here and realized that it had been at least two years.

When she got to the giant staircase, she frowned as she looked down it. She had walked down these stairs many times over when she was younger. Back then she always felt like a princess, but now that feeling was gone, just like her grandmother, never to return.

Her grandmother was the one that would fill Sophia's imagination with tales of princesses and princes and evil rulers. But without her there, the thought about those stories just brought tears to Sophia's eyes, convinced that this castle would never bring the same joy in her life again.

As her feet touched the cold wooden floor of the ground level, she stopped in place as she looked around, unsure where she was going next. She quickly decided that her parents were the best people to find however, she knew it would be impossible to find them in this massive place with no signs of clues.

Abraham saw the young girl walk down the stairs quietly. He hadn't seen her in years and almost didn't recognize her as she passed. He gave a small smile as he remembered the last time he saw her; she had to have been five maybe six, playing outside in a field of flowers. She insisted on putting flowers in his hair until her gran came back from a trip. "Sophia, good, you're awake. We've been waiting for you," Abraham said as he came up to her, not willing to wait any longer to speak to her.

Sophia raised her eyebrow in confusion as she looked at his outfit. He looked about 30, dressed in a white button-down shirt with black pants that stopped right below his knees with knee-high socks. He had an old-time looking outfit, and she wondered why he dressed so differently. She also wanted to know who he was and how he knew her name since she had never met him. Quickly discarding that question, convinced that he must have seen her from the photos that her Gran had around, she nodded. "Yeah, do you know where my family is?"

"In the parlor, down the hall, first door on the left. Oh, and I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself. My name's Abraham," he said, and gave a small bow. He wished he could tell her they already knew each other, but he knew that her grandmother would have not wanted that, not this soon. Her request was to stay quiet until the time was right.

"Pleased to meet you, Abraham, do you work here?"

He shrugged, going along with her guess. "You can say that," he said and smiled at her as he walked up the stairs.

Sophia, not caring about his response, nodded, then walked away, motivated by trying to find her family. She walked down the hall filled with more paintings hung up on red painted plastered walls and on the first door on her left she found the door was open with her mum and dad sitting in chairs, talking. They looked up at her as they heard a floorboard creek when she entered the room.

"Sophia, we were going to wake you, but you looked so peaceful. How did you know we were here?" Lucy said kindly to her daughter.

"This man named Abraham said you were here."

Marco ran that name over in his head to see if he had met him yet, but the name did not sound familiar. "Hum, never heard of him, but this place is big I haven't met everyone that worked here for Gran," Marco said

Sophia frowned as she remembered not running into any other helpers on her mission to find her parents. If she remembered right, there used to be many maids to help clean this place. "Where is everyone then?" Sophia asked

"I gave them the day off, well most of them," Lucy said, getting up from her seat. As much as she wanted to talk to her daughter, she really just wanted to talk to Marco alone. She wanted Sophia to go off with her other siblings, maybe then they could have some peace and quiet to talk to each other about serious matters. "Alessandro, Bryce, and Eloise are playing outside if you want to join them. And dinner will be in a couple hours, I'll call you in when it's close."

She nodded at her mum then walked out into the cloudy day. As she looked around, she was reminded of how green the grass was here. The front yard was gorgeous with nicely shaped bushes and a large verity of flowers lining the walkway and bushes. She just couldn't help but go to the garden and take a closer look.

As gorgeous as the castle was, it just didn't seem right without Sophia's Gran. She remembered when she was here last, she spent the whole summer here as gran taught her how to cook the English way, play games and explore the castle for hidden treasures.

Sophia shook her head at the memories of how her Gran used to fill her mind with the craziest stories about witches, princesses and evil men. Gran made Sophia believe in the wonder of childhood and without her here, the rest of her childhood seemed too dismal.

With a frown, she looked down at the ground again to stop herself from tearing up. She kicked at the dirt with force feeling selfish, wishing that her Gran was here with her.

Quickly her mind was pulled away from missing her grandmother when she looked down and saw a gold ring buried in the dirt. It glittered in the light even though it wasn't sunny. Something in the back of her mind told her not to get it but it was just so pretty, she couldn't help herself.

Without thinking about it further, she reached down and picked up the ring, then brushed the dirt off. The three small ruby ring had an old design yet looked as if it was never warn.

Sophia looked around, trying to see if someone around here dropped it because it didn't look cheap. Knowing that no one lived close to this castle, she wondered what she should do with the find but then shrugged it off when nothing came to her mind.

Alessandro saw his sister from a distance, he smiled, excited to finally see her up, maybe now he would have someone worth playing cricket with. "Hey Sophia! You're up!" Alessandro said and ran up to her.

Sophia turned to face him with a smile as she quickly shoved the ring into her pocket for safe keeping. "Hey, are you having fun?" Sophia asked him looking at the mud smeared on his tan cheeks.

"YES! You have to see the flowers in the backyard then you can play cricket with me."

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She smiled with a nod. "Sure. I guess I should see it shouldn't I?"

"Yay," he cheered as he took off running to the back to get to the maze before his sister.

Sophia ran after him and when she made it to the back of the yard, she saw that the backyard was larger and more beautiful then she remembered with large flower gardens of roses. Overcome with amazement, she stopped in mid run to take in the beauty of it.

"Sophia! Come on!" Alessandro called out to her, seeing that she was distracted.

She looked to see her brother running to a gravel path that led to a small path of rose bushes.

"Coming!" she called out to him then ran over to him.

"Smell these flowers, they are amazing," he said as he sniffed a red rose.

Sophia laughed as she sniffed the flower but stopped when her eyes fell upon a large oak a little bit away from her. She looked up at it, feeling drawn to it as if she knew this tree. Somehow she knew this was important but she couldn't remember why. A breeze whipped through its leaves, causing it to creek, beckoning her to come closer.

And that is exactly what she did, she took steps closer to it, closing the gap between her and the tree until Alessandro shouted for her attention again.

"Sophia! Please play with me," Alessandro begged behind her.

Sophia spun around to face him. "Sure. You wanted to play cricket?"

Alessandro chuckled as he looked at the tree in front of them and thought of all the cool tree houses that could be made in it. He was really loving it here in England so far. "Great tree hu?"

Sophia looked back at it and felt a pull towards it once again, wanting her to come to it as if it would whisper some secrets to her. She took another step closer to it. "Yeah, it's beautiful."

Breaking her from the moment was when she heard their mum's voice from the window calling, "Sophia, Alessandro! Dinner!"

"Last one there is the rotten egg," Sophia said to her brother then ran to the castle before her brother had time to react.

Once they made it inside and sat around the table, Sophia couldn't help but think about the ring she found in the front. She thought about telling her family about her find but decided not to when she realized that maybe they would make her return the ring which she didn't want to do. She didn't remember finding such beautiful things here last time and she wondered if it was because she was too young not to notice.

"Sophia, you are being quiet. How was your time outside? Did you like the backyard?" her mother asked as they ate dinner, realizing that Sophia had not said a single word since they started eating.

"Yeah, it's really beautiful back there," she said as her mind quickly switched from the ring to the tree. She had never felt so strongly about a tree before but as she looked at it, she knew it was something special.

"Yeah, the back was your Gran's favorite place to be," Lucy said as she then continued to talk to the rest of the kids, knowing that they had more to say then Sophia.

After dinner was eaten and cleaned up, Sophia walked around the house, wandering up and down the halls, trying to cling onto any memories that she had here with her Gran. She remembered high and go seek but as she wondered the halls she remembered times when her Gran was no where to be found, as if she just vanished.

Once she got to the ballroom, she stopped and opened her mouth in awe, taking in the beauty of it. She closed her eyes and did a little waltz on the polished dark wood floors, trying to imagine a time when this was used for what it was made for. She stopped when she heard a whisper, causing her to drop her arms as if she wasn't dancing. Quickly she looked around the room and saw that no one was in the room with her.

"There you are," Lucy said with a friendly smile as she walked into the room a second later.

"Did you just see that?" Sophia said hoping that she didn't just see her dance with no one.

"See what?" she asked in a confused tone. She saw nothing, after all, she just walked into the room.

"Nothing," Sophia said and blushed glancing her reflection in the floor to hide her rosy cheeks.

Lucy looked around at the room and remembered so many happy memories in this place. Those moments seem so long ago to her now. After all, she hadn't had a ball in over 20 years. "You like this room?"

"I love it. I could live just in this room."

"You're my girl. You know this used to be my favorite room in the house. We would have balls twice a year, after family tradition. Those where my two favorite times of the year. They were even better then Christmas," Lucy said and looked around as if she was saw people in the room. In reality, she was just thinking about the people she used to see here at these parties. Lucy's mum would throw these huge Gala's and Lucy was always excited to dress up for the night. The only downside to those nights was that her mum was always busy with other guests to pay attention to her. "This house has so many good memories."

Sophia tried hard to imagine what Lucy was thinking about. She pictured the room lit up, the smell of food coming from the kitchen, people laughing, talking, lively events happing right before. Her mother looked so happy here, not only in this room but here in England. "I'm sure...Mum?"

"Yes, dear?"

"If you loved being here so much, why did you leave?"

She frowned at the memory. She didn't want to leave; she loved it here. But the more time she lived here with Marco, the more she felt like she was being watched, like the house was haunted and that she didn't belong. She knew that her time was up in this house as soon as she moved in with Marco and she couldn't explain much more then that.

"Well first of all, I left because of the weather. If you haven't noticed already, it's kind of crappy."

Sophia nodded with a chuckle. She agreed with her mum on that.

"Additionally, I know this sounds weird but, this place, the more I lived here with your father, the more I didn't feel welcome. It's hard to explain but I told Gran about it and she understood. That was when Marco got a job in the states so we moved there." She paused and looked around at the room again. "It's weird but sometimes I think this place has a mind of its own. I'm going to miss it when we go back."

"I know what you mean by that, the house, it's filled with so much history it's like...."

"You can almost see the people that lived here a hundred years ago." Lucy said, finishing Sophia comment. Lucy always got that feeling, it was nice to know that Sophia could feel it as well, heaven knows Marco couldn't see it.

Sophia smiled at her mother. One reason she loved her mother so much was because Sophia felt like her mum really understood her. "Exactly."

It was then when Lucy remembered what her mother would tell her growing up, "Well you just have to remember one thing Sophia, history always repeats itself. Sometimes it comes back to life and you can see it with your own eyes." As soon as Lucy said that the floor creaked and both of them looked around to see who it was only to find nothing. "It's just an old castle, it's nothing. Come on, it's late, you should be getting to bed anyhow."

"Yeah, alright," Sophia said as she walked out of the room, upstairs to her room.

Excitement swirled her mind, finding this place amazing. Sophia just wished she would have seen it in its prime with all the stories that her Gran did share. Knowing that was impossible, she sighed. Before long she would be in the states with all of her friends, probably not to return to this castle again for a while.

By the time she was in bed, it was about one in the morning. Sophia knew that she needed to sleep but she couldn't close her eyes, dreading tomorrow since it was the funeral. She didn't want the day to come knowing that it would just cement the idea that her Gran was never coming back.