The Twins from the Sea

Chapter III

"How was school, dears?" said the girls' Uncle Lawrence.

"It was good," Ophelia replied. "And after we went down to the beach and got chips at Jamie's." Lawrence nodded absentmindedly and their aunt Kelly looked up from her meal.

"What did you do, girls?" Kelly asked, looking up from her dinner, with a blank expression on her face. Lana sighed, and muttered something among the lines of "nothing, never mind."

Ophelia picked at her shepherd's pie. She thought about how long she's been here with Aunt Kelly and Uncle Lawrence. It wasn't that they didn't love her and her sister, but they just weren't the same as Mum and Dad. They've been off doing business in America for almost a whole year now. Ophelia missed them terribly. She fingered the small, shell-shaped locket around her neck. Inside there were two pictures, one of Mum and Dad and one of their whole family, the photo they had taken at Christmas two years ago. Christmas last year had been painful without them.

After dinner had ended, Lana and Ophelia went upstairs to their large bedroom. The spacious room was bright thanks to the enormous bay window, overlooking the harbor. It offered an unbeatable view of the setting sun. Each girl had her own twin bed with matching turquoise comforters and shams. Two handmade wooden desks were on the wall opposite the window and a white wardrobe sat between them. Ophelia's black and white cat, Apollo (named for his burning amber eyes that reminded her of little suns) jumps up upon the girls' entrance from his position on Ophelia's bed. She flopped down on her bed, and Apollo jumped up onto her stomach, and tried to take Ophelia's necklace off with his teeth.

"Hey! That's mine," she said, prying it from his jaws. Then she removed it from her neck and opened it.

"Do you miss mum and dad, too, bud?" she said, showing him the pictures. Apollo purred and curled up next to her.

"O, do you think that they'll be back by summer?" Lana asked.

"Honestly, Lana? No," Ophelia said bluntly. "We'll be lucky if they're back by Christmas. We've had this conversation a million times. I don't want to think about it right now."

Lana was slightly taken aback by her sister's harsh comment. She decided to keep her mouth shut and not provoke her, because there was no stopping Ophelia Day Murray when she was angry. Lana left the room silently as Ophelia pulled out her homework. Lana went down the hall to the bathroom, and she ran a brush through her shoulder length dirty blonde hair. Moana loved when it was wavy and blew around her face when it was windy. She put it in a bun, quickly showered, and walked into the hallway in her plush white dressing gown.

Thud.

Lana jumped at the sudden noise in the otherwise quiet house. The noise had came from downstairs. She quietly padded down the sturdy wooden stairs and checked her uncle's study, the living room, and the kitchen for anything that could have caused it, but she found nothing.

"Lana, what on earth are you doing? Walking around the house in just your dressing gown! You're going to catch a cold!"

Lana spun around. There was Aunt Kelly, in her favorite yellow striped pajamas. With her keen hearing, Lana was surprised she wasn't down here to investigate the noise, too.

"Oh, sorry, Auntie. I'll be up in a minute," Lana replied. Kelly gave a slightly suspicious nod and went back upstairs to her bedroom. Moana waited until she was gone, and turned back around. The only other room downstairs was the entrance to the basement. She thought about back when she and Ophelia would have "camping adventures" in Kelly and Lawrence's 'famous' basement with their mum and dad when they were around six. The old-fashioned candles in holders on the walls were the only source of light in the room, and they would play for hours, and even though the family would set up sleeping bags and lanterns, and take torches with them, never did they actually survive a full night in the spooky basement. Lana wondered whether something could have fallen in there, and caused the noise. Maybe one of the rusty candle holders had came off the walls. She tried to pull herself away, telling herself that it was nothing, but her curious nature kept pulling her toward it. She took a breath, shook her head, and pulled open the basement door.