The Tragedy of Renya

6.2 Wanting to Enter

Someone had been in his basement, Hendri frowned. Nothing had moved, nothing had changed but it felt different. Someone had to have been there. He didn't know who, though. That was what annoyed him most of all.

He walked through his basement, looked through his books, but nothing had changed.

His search in the library had not given him anything either. Whatever it was that happened in the city, it was something he had no control over.

He felt something in the air and turned to the middle of the room.

As he looked two people materialized in the middle of the pentagram. The two people, a man and a woman, looked around, and as soon as they saw him the man shouted.

"Run!" the man grasped the woman's hand and pulled her along towards the exit of the room.

"Who are you!" Hendri asked, trying to act indignant though it mostly came out as confused. The two people had already left the room when he finished his sentence so he ran forwards and followed the two.

Nick pulled Erica behind the coffins. They remained quiet as they could be as the angry man ran past.

"Who was that?" Erica asked as soon as he was out of sight and hearing.

"The man who caused all this, probably." Nick whispered. He signaled her to follow and together they slowly entered the main mansion again.

Erica could not help but be amazed by how different yet similar the building was. She imagined the way it had looked, but the reality was different. People were walking through the walls, talking, having fun. Most of them wore the same clothes. They were all servants of the family, she guessed. When she said that out loud Nick agreed with her.

"We have to find Leandra." He said. Footsteps running back alerted them and they hid in a room.

"We can't keep this up," Nick said as they shut the door behind them, "we need to blend in more."

"How?" Erica asked.

They turned around to look at the room they were in. A large window let the light in. A king-sized bed was underneath the window, and a table with some glasses was near the wall. And a young woman was standing next to the bed, holding bedsheets, with wide eyes.

Erica recognized the red-brown hair and the face of the woman almost immediately.

"You're that woman from the basement!" She gasped.

Alice dropped the sheets she was holding and looked at the two people who had just entered.

"Who are you two?" she asked, and how did they know she'd been in the basement. Then she remembered the two ghosts. "No way!"

The man sighed, "Look we need two uniforms so we don't stand out. Can you get them?"

"Why?"

"We're here to break the curse," the woman said, "no matter how stupid that sounds."

Then the woman started explaining what was going on. How what had happened that one day was called the Tragedy of Renya, because everyone who lived in the city had disappeared. How time had passed, over a hundred years. Hearing that surprised Alice. She'd guessed it, she'd guessed that time had passed, but this much...

"My brother won't ever return home, will he?" Alice said, stopping the tears that were welling up.

"He won't. Now will you help us or not?" Said the man who called himself Nick.

Erica took Alice apart and consoled her. Nick, Erica said, was always like that. It wasn't his fault he was this detached. Probably.

Alice agreed and ten minutes later she returned with the outfits the two had requested. They both got dressed and then she led them through the many hallways to the library.