YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Jesus," Adam whispered through almost closed lips once we were inside the pyramid house. It was the first time I had ever walked through the front door, and I was surprised to find we were in an enormous two-story atrium, complete with twenty-foot tall trees and ivy dripping from the balconies.

"I told you," Jenny smiled.

"It's fucking sick," Sage agreed. "You should check out the upstairs."

But Adam didn't need the invitation. He was already roaming through the entryway and poking his head into one of the rooms. We were on the opposite side of the house from the window we usually crawled through, and I was dying to see the transformation.

"Come on," Jenny offered, while Sage headed for what I could only assume was a laundry room, emerging a second later with a tray of cleaning supplies.

"I'll give you the grand tour," Jenny continued, tugging at my sleeve in a welcoming way.

We headed down the hall to the only room I'd ever seen before, the one Kieren and Brady used to have meetings in. I didn't recognize it at first, as it had been wallpapered to look like an eighteenth-century sitting room. Every surface was covered with something lush and soft, from the tapestries on the wall to the silken bobbles placed delicately on the antique tables. It was tastefully done, despite being so ornate I found myself looking around for Marie Antoinette's head.

"Who lives here?"

"Some colonel," Jenny answered, and I turned to realize she wasn't looking at the room but at me. "Where do you go to school?"

"Um, it's called Saint Joe's. It's private."

"Yeah, I know it."

I smiled, peeking my head into a small door I had always assumed was a closet, but which I now saw was a powder room complete with a gold-handled sink. "That's not real gold, is it?"

"I don't know, maybe."

Jenny was still staring at me, thoughts that may have been doubts apparently whirling through her head. It occurred to me that they were awfully trusting to let us come with them to this house. Unless, of course, they had something in mind that I hadn't discovered yet.

"Is that guy really your teacher?"

"Yeah. Mm-hmm."

"You're lucky. My teachers all look like trolls."

Now she picked up some little box from one of the tables and opened it, spinning a little key at the bottom. It was a music box with a mermaid diving in and out of a white-capped wave. A little tinny version of a song from the Nutcracker came echoing out of it, until Jenny snapped it shut a moment later.

"And you just wanted to talk to Sage's mom?"

"Yeah. For a paper I'm writing."

There was something suspicious in her tone, and I busied myself flipping open the top cover of a coffee table book on wild horses.

"Cherie's like a second mom to me," Jenny offered. "But she'd believe the sky was purple if a friendly face was the one saying it."

I only smiled in response. "What's upstairs?"

Jenny's face shifted, a smile replacing the questioning look that had been there a moment before. "Come on."

Not surprisingly, the house got narrower as it went up, but the staircase had been strategically placed right in the middle, so it climbed all the way to the attic. The second story was all bedrooms, one more magnificent than the other, with two exquisitely appointed children's rooms on one side.