The Forgotten

Chapter Three

The first room I encountered was the only proper bathroom in the house. It had cream coloured tiles on the walls and off blue tiles on the floor. It was pretty basic but I could deal with it. Next came the two spare rooms, both were patterned with the same ugly floral wall paper and had soft carpet. The rooms would be used for when my Grandparents or Aunties and Uncles stay over. Then was the Master Bedroom, I have to say it was pretty grand, it was the only room with an un suite. I then walked down the stairs and into the living room. My Father was lent over the TV trying to connect the tables, My Mother was stretched out on the sofa with a cup of tea in one hand and a magazine in the other.

"God Declan, is this TV going to work or not?" She huffed.

"I'm trying Mary but it doesn't seem to want to connect." He replied.

The living room seemed as if it had been re-decorated recently as the walls were a fresh white colour instead of floral or a creamy colour. The carpet was also new and felt soft under my feet. Next to living room was the kitchen/dinning room. It was the oldest kitchen I had ever seen. The walls looked damp and the tiled floor was filled with cracks. The old stove looked as if the Victorians themselves cooked bread in it. The shelves were barely stable and the cabinets were falling apart at the hinges. I couldn't quite believe that this was my new house, what was my Mother thinking? I did however love the dining table, it was similar to a park bench and had a pretty red patch-work table top cover. My mother had already ruined it by placing one of her ridiculously over sized vase full of a mixture of flowers.

I slid past the table and up to the fridge. I carefully opened as I was scared that the door might fall off in my hand. The fridge was there when we bought the house along with the rest of the kitchen which was good I suppose as it meant we didn't have to bring our old things or buy new. Well that's what my Mother said, I still thought we needed to buy a new kitchen and a different house altogether if it was my choice. Inside was a carton of milk, which smelt like cheese. After closer inspection I realised that it was basically cheese as it was about three years out of date. Behind the carton was a peculiar lunch box. It was made from a bright red plastic and had a small navy bow attached to the lid. I carefully pulled the box out of the fridge and realised that there was a name tag stuck to one side, it read 'Halli's Lunch'. I assumed that Halli had previously lived in the house and left her box behind. I am quite a nosey person and so I decided to look inside the box, to my surprise I found a small key attached to some silver ribbon inside. The key looked ancient and was made from beautiful oak wood. Also attached to the sparkling silver ribbon was a small piece of card which had two words written on it. The handwriting was very swirly and a tad faded which made it hard to read. I tried my best to figure out what it said and eventually I came to the conclusion that it indeed read 'Domus Arbor'.

I placed the unusual key into my pocket and placed the box back into the fridge. I closed the door and returned to the living room.

Then I walked towards my Father who had by now managed to fix the TV and was sitting on the other sofa opposite my Mother. He had his head in a newspaper but I still proceeded to talk to him,

"What's this mean?" I asked handing him the key.

He placed his paper down on the small brown coffee table and picked up his reading glasses. After examining the key he scratched his head and replied,

"I don't know kiddo, ask your Mother."

With that my Mother turned her head away from the TV and projected all her attention onto me. I gave her the key and after close inspection she replied,

"Well it's simple isn't it?"

My Father and I both shook our heads and I asked,

"What's simple?"

She laughed and added,

"It's in a different language."

I shook my head, sighed and grabbed the key away from her hands and put it back in my pocket,

"Don't worry." I sighed as I left the room to return to my room.

As I reached the top of the first flight of stairs I heard something quite peculiar. At first I thought my ears were deceiving me but as I got closer to my room I realised that in fact what I was hearing was real.

My CD player was roaring at full blast. I hurried up the next flight of stairs and fell into my room, I darted to my IPod and turned off the music. I knew that I had turned it off before I went downstairs so how was it possible that it was now back on and blasting at full volume?

As I turned the music off I noticed that my new book that I had left on the window seat was nowhere to be seen. I span around and noticed that the book was laid wide open on my desk. I cautiously walked over to analyse the book, after arriving at the front of the desk I realised that there was a page torn out of the book. As this was my new book I felt infuriated with anger, I was determined to find whoever caused such destruction and question them as to why it was done. I suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of fear when I realised what number was circled at the bottom of the page. The number '42' which was also the number of the new house. I picked up the page and noticed that there were three words also circled within the four paragraphs on the page. The words read,

Forbidden, Danger and Hope.

I felt confused and fearful, what could it mean? I placed the page into my pocket next to the key and darted back down the stairs. I hurried into the living room and murmured,

"I'm going out."

"Hang on Alex, I'll get you some money so you can get some food whilst you're out." My Mother replied.

She got up and headed towards the hooks next to the door, she reached into her long green coat's pocket and pulled out five pound coins.

"Be back before dark and be careful." She sighed handing me the money.

"Thanks." I said as I grabbed my leather jacket from the hook.

"Your Mother and I are probably going to get a take-away tonight Al' so if you don't get anything whilst your out then there'll be some chips saved for when you get back." My Father called as I darted out the door.

By now it was around 4pm and thankfully it was still dry outside and surprisingly the sun was just about beaming through the clouds. I knew I didn't have long before dusk so I dashed towards the woods. I didn't know where to go or what to expect all I knew was I needed to explore and soon. I needed to find more clues because obviously this key was used for something and I wanted to know what.