In the interminably stifling heat two sisters sat in the shelter that the ruin provided from the unrelenting sun. The younger girl with mousy brown hair in braids and a light green dress had propped herself up against the doorjamb with her limbs slowly melting towards the floor and her eyes closed tightly shut. The elder was sprawled across an old slightly charred table. She kept far from the burnt part of the furniture and some of her long golden hair had fallen and cascaded down the side of the table. Her wide cobalt eyes were open and looked up at the ceiling riddled with holes where sunlight seeped through and created designs across her blue dress.
“I really hope they’d stop,” the eldest spoke her voice clear and confident remarking on the shrill ceaseless calls of the cicadas that came from outside.
“I don’t think they can,” the younger replied.
“Of course they can, they just want to torture us,” the blonde complained.
“Isabella, I really don’t think they mean to bother you,” responded the younger sister, her cheeks flushing a deeper red.
Isabella huffed and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the table and jumping down.
“Linette, you know what? It is terrible spending so much time in this old burned down building, everything is useless in it, why can’t we go around to the other ruins here and see what we can find to add to this place,” Isabella suggested.
“In this heat?’ Linette’s eyes flashed open incredulously.
“Yes,” replied Isabella in the authoritative manner expression her dominion over the younger sister.
Linette grumpily stood up and appeared absurdly short in her eleven-year-old body compared to her elegantly tall sister.
They stood in the doorway for a moment, gazing upon their property. It was an old mansion, a tower branched off the top floor but the large staircase that took up much of the first room had fallen into disrepair and they dared not test it, so they had no idea of what existed on the higher floors.
Past the front room was what must’ve been a massive dining room but some of the fire which had caused the house to go into ruin had traveled into the room and burnt part of it and blackened the windows with soot. Nevertheless, it was a favorite haunt of theirs even over the almost untouched drawing room to the right. In that room was a grand piano though completely tuneless the girls had occasionally tried to tap out small unattractive tunes for their entertainment. The kitchen in the back was absolutely unrecognizable. They only supposed it to be the kitchen because their own was in the same spot and it was the logical place to put it.
Throughout the whole house the wall paper and windows were stained with dark smoke but despite that it held an undeniable beauty. Something drew them there. It was haunting, and the sight of it resonated a deep forgotten pit of longing and grief into the girls’ hearts. Something terrible must have happened there, something tragic. They could feel it as if there was a presence in the room crying out and trying to be heard. The mysteriousness of The Ruin intrigued them, it was something to find out and solve, a story to hear one day.
Linette’s reluctance to scour the surrounding ruins for furnishings and decorations to replace the ones in The Ruin was not completely founded on the weather. Something told her that The Ruin was not meant to be altered. That The Ruin must be what it was. That it was a sacred place not to be reconsidered or renovated, but as in all places the thoughts and opinions of those older took precedence over youthful musings no matter how clever they may be. Linette had no choice but to follow Isabel’s orders and to walk out into the blinding sun on a futile expedition to better The Ruin.
