Fable (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 3)

“You will have to live in it and take care of it. I can recommend a great handyman to help fix up the place, and soon it will be as good as new.” Terry’s head bobbed in excitement. “Don’t get me wrong, I love having you two live with me, but it’s about time for you to start anew. Especially since Mina has to go back to school in a few days—”

Terry continued to relay her news to a shocked Sara and unlocked the front door and walked them into a spacious entrance hall. What the hey? A spiral staircase? The house looked like it had come out of a movie, all right…a horror movie.

Off the entrance hall was a sitting room with a library with a very dusty grand piano, while to the right was a formal dining room. In every room there were obvious blank spots on the wall where pictures had been hung and looked like they had been recently removed, because of a slight, barely noticeable discoloration of the wall. They were all prime locations: above the fireplace, in the library above a desk. Each newly discovered bare spot made Mina irritated. Were these priceless portraits removed because the owners thought they would steal them?

There were multiple wings of rooms to be explored at a later date. They kept going and walked into the largest kitchen she had ever seen. It was a chef’s dream, with multiple islands and granite countertops, but things Mina didn’t really care about. What she zoned in on first was, of course, the dishwasher.

“It’s all very nice, Terry, but I don’t know how comfortable I am with this commitment. I’ve never even met the owners. How do I know that they want us as tenants?”

“Pish-posh.” Terry frowned at Sara. Mina had to hold back a grin; she didn’t think people spoke like that anymore. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m telling you, I pulled a huge favor out of my hat, and I can tell you there’s not going to be another offer out there like this. I did this for you because I think of you like my own daughter. And you deserve this.”

Just then a weird buzzing sound came from a square box in the kitchen. Terry ran forward and pushed a button. “Yes, who’s there?”

“It’s meee. We bring Sara’s car like you asked. Now push button and let us in.” It was Mrs. Wong. Terry rolled her eyes before she pushed the button. Mina assumed the big iron gates at the end of the drive were opening. A few minutes later the Wongs entered through the front door, carrying boxes from the Happy Maids van.

“Eh, nice big house you get, Terry. What ex-husband did you get this from? Maybe you can give him my number.” Mrs. Wong’s broken English made her attempts at being funny sound awkward.

Mei’s husband placed his hand over his heart with dramatic flair. “Oh, Mei, you wound me. Now stop yammering, and let’s help them settle in.”

With only a few more failed attempts to talk themselves out of the house, Sara finally gave in and helped haul the last cardboard boxes into the foyer. The Wongs and Terry tried to keep some light chitchat going, but it was obvious from the rings under Sara’s eyes that it was time for them to go. Once everyone was gone, the house was eerily empty.

Sara stared at one of the blank walls covered in striped wallpaper in puzzlement. “This house. There’s something about this house.” She reached out a hand to touch the wall and then shook her head as if to clear the troubled thought from her mind. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m exhausted. Let’s find a room and unpack and talk tomorrow. It’s been—” she started to sniffle but held it back, “—a long day.”

Mina agreed. Was the funeral only a few hours ago? The rain was still coming down outside, and the occasional lightning illuminated the night sky. The second floor was filled with more turns, wings, and darkened rooms. Sara found a room to her liking and settled in by immediately crawling onto the bed and not moving. Not wanting to leave her mother alone, especially tonight, Mina crawled onto the large king-size bed and lay next to her mom.

Sara’s eyes were shut, and Mina could see the barest glimmer of tears sliding out of the corners. Her mother’s long hair had fallen out of its bun, and a hint of gray could be seen mixed in with the brown. Had this tragedy aged her mother years in only a few days? Mina took a deep breath and quivered with pain and sadness. She slid her hand into Sara’s hand and squeezed gently, comforting her mother without words. Sara’s breathing evened out, and she squeezed her daughter’s hand back. A few minutes later, they were both asleep.

Chapter 5

A thudding noise woke Mina in the middle of the night. She sat straight up in bed and looked around the darkened room in fear. Nothing stirred, and nothing moved. The rain still poured outside, and the night sky lit up, followed by the delayed sound of thunder. The brief flash of light proved that nothing was in their room.

She turned to look at her mom, who was still curled up in a fetal position and was sleeping very deeply. She knew that Sara had been worrying about their lack of housing situation, and now she looked like she could sleep for days. Mina lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling, then the walls. She rolled over and tried to sleep on her stomach, but it was no use; she was wide awake. Her mind kept trying to catalog all the possibilities of what could have made the noise, and her paranoid teenage brain wasn’t going to let her go back to sleep until she found out what it was. She was still fully dressed, so she tiptoed out of the room and closed the door with a soft click.

The hallway had never looked more foreboding than it did in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm. Mina didn’t care who owned the place or what the utilities would cost; she was going to bring light to the darkened mansion. She felt along the walls until she found a light switch and clicked it on. The electric candelabras on the wall flickered on, and nothing jumped out at her.

Phew, she thought, one down, only a hundred more to go.

She turned the corner in the wing and was once again greeted with another darkened hallway. She repeated the process and almost panicked when she couldn’t find the switch, because it was hidden behind the drapes. When the hallway was illuminated, she didn’t move on to the rest of the house. Instead, she decided to tackle every room. How could she sleep if she didn’t know what lurked behind each of those ominous doors?

The first door she flung open wildly and jumped back into the hallway, expecting something or someone to jump out, like a bat. It was another empty bedroom. The next door revealed another empty bedroom. The next door—a bathroom. The next door—a game room, complete with foosball and a pool table. She was becoming braver with each door and stopped turning on the lights after the lights in the hallway illuminated the empty rooms.

The second-to-last door was a storage room, filled with extra chairs, tables, fake plants, vases. One section of the room had less clutter, as if all of the offending junk had been pushed away from the central object. It was an easel, and on the easel was a painting covered with a sheet. Leaning against the wall were stacks of what looked like more paintings. Were these the paintings that had been removed from each of the rooms? If so, and they were removed because of fear of theft, then it was stupid for the owners to place all these priceless paintings here in one room. Or maybe they had forgotten to lock the door. Nevertheless, this was what she’d been looking for…answers.

Maybe it was a Monet? Or a Picasso? How cool would it be to actually see one in person? Or what if they were moved into this room so the owners could say that Mina and her mother had stolen the paintings after they’d moved in? She was flooded with a host of different reasons why the owners might have moved the paintings here…and all of them ended up with Mina and her mom in jail.

She had no choice; she was going to have to look at the paintings, and she would start with the one covered on the easel. Just when she was about to remove the sheet, she had the intense feeling that she was being watched. She dropped her hand to stare around the room, and the barest reflection of movement in the glass drew her attention to the large framed window. It was still raining and dark, but she thought she saw something on the lawn when the lighting flashed.

Being careful to not be seen, she crept to the side of the big window and curtain, and took up a lookout. She held her breath in anticipation and waited until the next burst of lightning. There it was, a quick flash! And sure enough, there was someone in the middle of the yard, staring at the house. It went dark again, and she began to panic. What was that? Who was that? She lay in wait for the next minute until the storm illuminated the yard again.

Boom! The crash was simultaneous with the thunder, and he was there! Right there! Thirty feet from the window, and he was looking right at her. It was the man from the cemetery! He had stopped right outside what looked like a ring of white rocks, and he was beckoning to her.

Mina screamed and crashed backward into the paintings behind her, her fear causing her to subconsciously call for Jared.

An instant later Jared was by her side, steadying her and trying to keep the picture from falling over. “Clumsy, as always. I think you could use another lesson from me.”

“There’s someone…outside!” she choked out. Her fear paralyzed her, making it hard for her to speak. She pushed him toward the window to look for himself, but he didn’t need to.