Five Friends and A Mansion

Part 4

Abbey and Willow wandered in the hallway. They were looking into each individual's separate rooms. After a few hours, they had no luck. Until...

"Willow, Willow, Willow..." whispered an anonymous voice.

"What was that" exclaimed Willow while turning around.

"What was what? I don't see or hear anything" said Abbey.

The voice continued ceaselessly. Instead of ignoring, she followed the voice. The voice seemed to come from a room, three steps in front of her. She touched the knob, the cold, rusty metal surprised her, she flinched. Then, she turned. The room was unlike the others. It wasn't overwhelming, it was simple. A nice kind of simple. Below the ceiling were yellow lights that resembled fireflies. They floated in midair like leaves in the wind. It resembled a library and a laboratory at the same time. There were rows of shelves. Tall wooden, dusty, shelves. The wood was in great condition, no holes or termites. Which was odd. The floor was carpeted in scarlet red. The walls were painted laurel green with seaweed-colored leaves embedded on it.

"Well, I guess we could start looking for the book here. Maybe we might find it" said Abbey, still mesmerized by the view.

Willow just nodded, her mouth still gaping open. Instead of finding the book, she tried to find the source of the mysterious voice. Abbey started digging into the shelves, briefly glancing at the pages. She guessed Abbey expects something magical to happen or something.

Instead of heading into the shelves, she examined the desks. There were two desks in the rooms, each filled with multiple test tubes and jars of dried herbs and yucky-looking liquids. On the left desk was a dusty, thick book. It's three times the size of her palm. The cover was a woodsy brown with no title or writing on it. It was more of a journal than a book.

She ran over the thick leather bonds.

"Hey, look at this!" exclaimed Willow, catching Abbey's attention.

Abbey stopped searching and went to the desk.

"OK, at least you've found a book. But is it the book?" said Abbey.

She swiped the book off the table and flipped through it. Not bothered to look through all the pages but glancing at some.

"How do we differentiate the book with the others?" asked Abbey.

"I don't know, but I guess we just go with our guts," said Willow.

"It's a great thing we didn't bring Joan. Her guts are twisted!"

They both giggled, swearing not to tell Joan that they said that. Abbey gave Willow the book and went back searching. The cold leather made it feel like holding a giant block of ice-cube, just a couple degrees warmer.

"This feels never-ending" murmured Abbey while glancing through the pages of a big black book.

Willow chuckled to herself. She wanted to help but her focus right now was to find the source of the whispers. They didn't stop. She opened the book, curious to see what's inside. Then, it stopped. The sudden silence surprised, making her flinch and her fingers slid off the pages. The whispers started again. Then, she has an odd theory. Could this be possible? She touched the pages again, the voices stopped. She lets go, the whispers started once more.

"Oh my god" whispered Willow, a tiny bit too loud.

"What? Did you find the book?" asked Abbey.

"I'm not sure..." mumbled Willow while flipping through the pages, a little faster.