The Mirror Keeper

Chapter 1

Ivy looked suspiciously down the hallway through sleep blurred eyes. She hadn't seen Alex yet, no, hadn't gotten startled out of her wits by the dork yet, and the sun was already casting its late morning shadows. He's getting lazy. She lightly stepped out of the doorway and paused to listen. There was no noise apart from the wind brushing the top of the apartment and the muffled talking of the cafe patrons next door.
Huh. It's never this quiet with Alex around.
She quietly walked down into the living room, on the alert for anything out of the ordinary, but nothing was amiss. The walls were still white, the greek sea still shone outside beyond the balcony just outside the glass doors, the tables were where they always had been, the breeze blew softly against the wispy light curtains.
She sighed, letting all the tension that she had built up let go and relaxed.
"GAAAAHH!" A brown and black and white demon fell from the top of the doorway and landed on her back. Ivy screamed and clawed, flipping the laughing boy onto the ground in front of her, annoyed and glad at him simultaneously.
"I got you so good! And I'm ahead now, 14-13. Your face was priceless, your eyes had gotten all calm and then they shot to dinner plates!" He was reduced to a state of hilarity, Ivy sat on him and began to tickle him. "Noooooooo, stop! Ivy! Ivy don't! I'm so-" More laughter. She would not relent.
This was Alex. He was a 10 year old native here in Greece who Ivy had unofficially adopted as a little brother, or at least playmate. He had merry brown eyes, black hair, and a lovely tan skin that Ivy was slightly jealous of, as she was a very pale tone. They had had a lot of fun together since Ivy had come to Greece with her parents 8 months ago, and the current fun thing to do was to try to scare the other person most.
"Are you ready to be done now? Huh?" He kept giggling and nodded, so she stood. As annoying as he could be, she liked this little weirdo. He finally sighed and looked up at her.
"where are your parents? Did they go out this morning?"
She shook her head. "Kind of. It's their anniversary the day after tomorrow so they're going to Italy for a few weeks."
"So you're here by yourself for that whole time?" His eyes lit up in anticipation.
"No" she sighed, "I'm staying with mrs. Piana." Her voice was flat and she wrinkled her nose. Alex groaned in sympathy. "Yeah. She's not that bad, I mean, I guess I can find things to do and-"
Alex interrupted. "Not bad?! She's only the most boring, nosy, old lady in Greece!"
Ivy sighed and stood, brushing out her shirt before pulling Alex up.