Prologue
On the evening of September eleventh, a change rippled through the perpetually dark streets of Verendetta. It passed harmlessly through most. Only three people noticed it.
A dark haired teenager sat bolt upright in bed, sensing the difference. Her face, framed by dark brown hair became a mask of confusion and her mind tumbled with dark thoughts of revenge. Her deep set eyes hardened as she contemplated what her next move would be.
A princess dressed in sparkling silver jumped with the electricity of the change, slicing her finger on the knife she was sharpening. Her crystal blue eyes went up to the dark, clear, moonlit sky with some trepidation, wondering how everything would change.
A raven haired elven girl sensed the change resignedly, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it.
However, in Lance Creek, Colorado, a family would also remember that evening. In both places it was caused by the same thing. Twins Seamus and Mariah Snow were born. Their lives were already destined to be as tumultuous as the storm around them.
In Lance Creek, it wasn’t an unusual storm. The wind whispered its hello to the newest members of the Lance Creek community, its wispy fingers caressing the leaves and branches of trees, tossing the hair of a few passersby as they scurried to find shelter from the rain, the same rain that pattered out its welcome on the window panes of everyone’s homes as anxious faces peered out, wondering if their possessions were safe. The thunder rumbled menacingly, daring anyone to argue that these children were special.
Lightning lit up the sky. People looked up nervously, hoping that it wouldn’t be their home that was struck by the ominous jolt of electricity flying through the sky like an arrow, its next target unidentifiable.
As for the Snows, had they known in the hospital what would happen to their twins, perhaps they never would have let them leave the house after dark.
If Mrs. Snow knew what was to happen to her, maybe she would have told her husband her secrets.
Perhaps Mr. Snow would never have let Mariah bring home any sort of sparkly item, or never would have brought Seamus out to fix a hole in the chicken coop.
Either way, that’s not the way it happened.


Chapter One
A little over fifteen years later…
The moon was bright. Not quite full, it shone its silvery glow down on the fog misted yard, making each little bump in the uneven landscape a hill, each little blade of grass stand out on its own like a marble pillar. It distorted everyday objects and gave an eerie light to the small farm.
A slammed screen door below broke the mystical silence like a gunshot. Two mist blurred figures emerged from the old farmhouse, one walking at a faster pace than the other. The moonlight reflected off of the girl’s hair. At first, the two figures whispered together, and then the girl said something a little louder, and then ran gracefully, at least until she stumbled and nearly fell flat on the ground. She quickly rebalanced herself, and continued running, pushing the ghostly fog away from her as she did so.
The boy seemed to say something, and then ran after the girl. After a few moments, the girl shrieked and the boy went running over to where the sound came from, calling her name. As he approached the large pine tree, towards the edge of their property, he called her name again, a little quieter, almost cautiously. He heard something moving on the other side of the tree.
Mariah was there, sprawled face first on the ground. Seamus figured she must have tripped on a hole in the ground. Not that it was much of a surprise; she had quite the habit of falling down, despite all of the dance classes she took.
“Not one word!” she hissed, apparently unhurt, then sprang to her feet and ran over to a short but sprawling bush.
“Mariah!” Seamus called after her into the dark. “I told you I was sorry. I told you I wouldn’t do it again. What else am I supposed to say?” He was trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, but he knew that it wasn’t working. He had already apologized several times and his patience was running thin.
“How often have you listened in on my phone conversations? A lot?” she yelled back, almost hysteric with anger from the bush fifty feet away. Seamus shuffled his feet, uncomfortable.
“Well,” he said, drawing out the one syllable of ‘well‘ into as many as possible. “How would you define ‘a lot’, precisely?”
Mariah yelled back a stream of insults, coming too fast for anyone to pick out individual words, besides ‘jerk’, ‘idiot’, ‘stuck-up’, and a few other words that Seamus wasn’t quite comfortable saying out loud.
“I think I can hear Tera,” he eventually said, when it seemed that Mariah had run out of horrible things to say about him, although he suspected that she had just paused for breath. “I don’t think that Mom and Dad would pay us as much if they knew that we let our sister scream her head off for us.”
Mariah must have agreed, but Seamus knew that there was no way on earth that she would admit it, especially to him. Mariah was fairly easy to read, and he could tell that she was analyzing the situation quickly. Sure enough, she turned, flicking her hair, and stalked inside. Seamus shook his head and followed her, not even bothering to try to talk to her. He was only grateful that she was smart enough to go outside instead of having a shouting match inside, which would quickly cause all of the Snow kids to wake up, which would just invite mass chaos into the home.
Luckily for them, the house was completely silent, besides their seven-year-old sister, Tera, calling them. She was the only other Snow sibling awake, and Seamus knew that if needed, or even not needed, Tera would happily wake everyone else up, and that would only start an uproar that Seamus didn’t want to deal with.
Mariah hurried up the stairs two at a time. Seamus began to follow, but she stopped him in his tracks with a withering glare.
The twins didn’t fight very often, and when they did, it was over something minor and was resolved fairly quickly. Usually it didn’t get this far, but Seamus figured that Mariah must have thought that he overheard something important. Which, of course, made him wonder what it was, and if it was worse than what he already heard. It always amazed him when he found new evidence of how petty high school girls could be.
It wasn’t exactly that he had been eavesdropping, they had simply both answered the phone at the same time…and he hadn’t gotten off. But he had heard something that her friend Nineé had said about drugs and after that decided to listen in more often. That was eavesdropping, he supposed, but it was for her own good…wasn’t it?
She only found out when he needed to sneeze and pressed the wrong button to turn it the phone off. She called him overly protective, but she couldn’t explain away what Nineé had said.
He heard Mariah upstairs talking to Tera.
“So will you get me something to eat?” Tera asked.
He pictured her in her yellow room on the upper bunk of the two younger Snow’s bunk bed. Her blankets were all wrapped around her just so and she was sitting there like a princess demanding food at all hours of the night. Seamus wondered where his parents went wrong with her.
“It’s nearly eleven at night!” Mariah exclaimed. “Go back to sleep and when you wake up it will be time for breakfast.” Tera replied something; Seamus couldn’t make out what it was, but it made Mariah laugh. “It won’t be that long. Besides, would Mom want you to eat something this late? No. And since I’m in charge, I say no, too. The kitchen is already closed,” she said. “Good night.” Seamus decided not to point out that he was in charge too, he didn’t want to start another argument.
Mariah didn’t come back downstairs; she must have gone into her room, because Seamus heard a door close. It was nights like this that made him wish that his parents didn’t leave every other Thursday night for dinner parties. But it was necessary for their dad’s job, so they couldn’t complain.
He went upstairs to get ready for bed. After all, he was regretting listening in on her conversations now, but it was important information.
There were those few things he had picked up about Nineé, like how her parents didn’t know where she went at night or how they couldn’t explain how their straight A student had gotten an D on the last math test.
He walked slowly up the stairs, passing the other four Snow siblings’ rooms.
He thought he could hear Mariah on the phone in her room. He could picture her, she would be laying on her back on the bed, her strawberry blonde hair around her, talking to one of her friends from school, telling them how mean and horrible her brother was. Seamus sighed. Not that he really cared what her friends thought of him, but he hated to be accused of something, even if it was something that he did.
Mariah had quite the temper, but she normally would calm down after a few minutes, and, luckily, she didn’t hold grudges.
But sometimes she didn’t calm down. Like tonight.
He, on the other hand, nearly always kept a control of himself and rarely shouted. His biggest fear was getting too angry and saying something that would later embarrass him. He ran a hand through his sandy blonde hair and stared into the bright green eyes of his reflection.
He quietly went to get ready for bed, and this time he could hear Mariah’s conversation without the other phone, but he chose to ignore it and went into the bathroom.

Seamus woke up the next morning, wondering what level of awkwardness it would be in the kitchen.
However, he was the only one up when he came down for breakfast, besides his mom.
“Morning, Seamus,” she said as he was getting some cereal.
“Morning, Mom.” He ate in silence for a little while.
“How was it last night? Were you all okay?”
“Yeah, it was fine. Tera was demanding food…again.”
“It wasn’t a problem, though, was it? You didn’t give it to her, did you?”
“No, we didn’t give it to her. How was your party?”
“Boring, as usual. Filled with a bunch of stuffy old people.” She laughed. “I guess I’d better not say that, I’ll be as old as them, soon. I wish that your dad didn’t have to go to those, but I would rather go than have your dad lose his job. Are you heading out to do chores?”
“Yeah, will you tell Mariah to hurry up when she comes down?”
“Will do.”
He hurriedly washed his bowl and went outside to do his farm chores. He had already finished doing the chickens and was heading off to milk the cows when Mariah hurried up to him, decked out in her chore clothes, which included a cowboy hat, leather chaps, and her ‘lucky’ ballerina necklace. Seamus immediately felt guilty; there was no way that she had eaten breakfast that quickly, she must have skipped it to go out with him.
“Good morning,” Mariah said rather breathlessly. After he replied, they walked in silence for a moment before Mariah suddenly said, “You know that novel I was reading? It was awful! She totally picked the wrong guy!” She seemed so completely certain that Seamus would care about that fantasy book just as much as much as she did.
“That’s nice. I care why?”
She frowned at him. “Why can’t you just read one?” she pleaded. “I know that you’d like them!”
“I do not want to read one of your fantasy novels. I don’t like them and I never will. The closest I’ve ever gotten to liking fantasy was that play that we were in that year. Please don’t ask me again, or I will have to hire someone to hurt you and then I’d probably be grounded. So just don’t ask again.”
She sighed in fake depression, which was slightly ruined as she half skipped off in a different direction to do her own chores.
All of the children had their own horse, which they were responsible for, including the littlest, who had his pony.
After Seamus finished feeding, watering, milking the cows, he headed in the direction of the stables where he found Mariah crooning quietly to Cary, her blue roan mustang. He walked over to his horse, Jupiter’s, stall and began to brush him.
The horses loved the mild weather. They ran around outside without getting their feet cold and their owners rode them a lot more.
As he brushed Jupiter, one of his other sisters, Cassandra, walked in. Her brown hair was perfectly brushed and braided and her clothes all matched and they were all without a wrinkle. Typical Andra.
“Morning,” she said brightly.
“Morning, Andra,” replied Seamus before going back to his work.
He was interrupted yet again when Missy walked in behind Andra. The two girls could not have been more different. While Andra always looked neat and tidy, Missy’s dirty blonde hair was mussed and her clothes were wrinkled. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, which, Seamus figured, she probably had.
Seamus raised his hand in greeting. Missy mumbled something that might have passed for a hello in a different country, but that was just Missy. She was naturally more grumpy than her younger sister Andra, and it was far worse in the morning.
“Good morning to you too, grumpy,” said Seamus, irritated. Missy turned and snarled something about shutting up or else, and stormed off into her own stall, while Seamus rolled his eyes, realizing that his parents wouldn’t punish her as severely as he thought she deserved.
A few minutes later, another form skipped through the doorway, that is, until she tripped on something (her own toe, perhaps?) and fell flat on her face. There was no need to wonder who that was. Tera was a devil and she had extreme balance issues, falling down more than she walked. It seemed to run in the family, as Mariah had a similar ‘issue’. There was no doubt that she was playing some sort of trick when she looked so happy. Seamus could only hope that the prank wasn’t on him.
Running footsteps signaled the youngest Snow sibling, and the only other boy, was coming through the barn door as well. The two younger siblings were rarely separated. Vector practically worshipped the ground that his sister walked on, (or, more accurately, tripped on) and Tera often needed a partner in crime to commit some of her more complicated tricks and thefts. If something went missing in the Snow household, the first place they would look was the two younger children’s room.
Seamus was drawn back to reality when Jupiter swatted him with his tail as if to say, “Well come on, what are you waiting for?” Grinning, he jumped up on Jupiter’s back without a saddle and went riding after Mariah.
She was already a good ways ahead of him, but Jupiter was faster. He slowed Jupiter down when he caught up to her.
“Oh, just you wait,” she said sullenly, though he could detect a slight trace of disguised humor in her voice. “Cary can jump so much better.” Seamus just laughed.
Mariah’s mare was a cross-country jumper, and was very good at it, too. She also loved doing rodeos in their area. Seamus liked western, too, but Jupiter was fast, so he raced him a lot.
“I guess we’ll see in a few weeks,” he said. Mariah laughed.
“You’re on!”
The state competition was in a few weeks and both twins, plus Missy and Andra, were competing. Mariah had come in tenth place last year, which was really good for a minor, and Seamus had come in one place after her, which, of course, she wouldn’t let him forget. Ever.
After a little while, Missy and Andra joined them, leaving Tera and Vector in the barn to plan without fear of interruption, which, in Seamus’ mind, was not such a great idea.
“This year, I’m so going to beat you!” said Missy, laughing, to Seamus her morning grumpiness gone.
“Yeah, right!”
“At least you guys know that you’re going to get in,” said Andra worriedly, “what if I don’t even get in?”
“Don’t worry about it, Andra,” said Mariah, “it’s not that hard to get in, if Seamus can do it, you can.”
“I think Seamus bribed his way in!” cried Missy, nearly hysterical with laughter. “How else did he get in?”
“Ha, ha. You guys are so funny. You’re so funny, I forgot to laugh.” The three girls doubled over in their saddles from laughing. Even Seamus had to conceal a smile. They all got along fairly well together, with some minor insults, but even those weren’t too nasty.
“Okay, stop making me laugh, I’m going to practice vaulting. No one say a word or you’re dead!” Mariah inched her way up from sitting bareback, to kneeling, to standing. As she was about to do a complicated handstand, another burst of laughter hit her and her foot slipped, sending her slamming into her horse’s back and then slipping off onto the ground.
“Ouch!” cried Mariah.
“Mariah!” Three voices exclaimed in unison as three riders leapt, slid, or scrambled off of their horses. As Seamus ran over to her, he could only hope that it wasn’t very serious. Please, please, please don’t let her be seriously hurt.
Mariah was on the ground, the breath knocked out of her, but otherwise not seriously injured. She seemed to be holding something in her hand.
“Are you okay?” squealed Missy.
“Did you get hurt?” asked Andra.
Mariah grinned, though Seamus noticed a slight wince in her expression as she got up. “Yeah, and be put out of the competition? Nope, no way, not a chance, not me! It would take more than that to take me out.”
Seamus scowled, half embarrassed that he had jumped off his horse to go over to her. Mariah then turned to him.
“But look what I found!” she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. “It’s like a tiny diamond!” She held up a small, roughly half-inch wide top rhinestone with a tinge of blue in it. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
Seamus managed not to roll his eyes with some amount of difficulty. Mariah was always collecting sparkly things for her projects.
“Mariah,” Seamus said in a carefully controlled voice. “You just fell off of a fourteen point two hand horse, and all you’re concerned about is a sparkly thing?”
Mariah got up and dusted off her chaps, glaring at him.
“I’m perfectly fine, Mother,” she said angrily as she stuffed the little diamond in her pocket. “Your problem is that you’re too protective! I’m not a baby and I can handle things on my own!”
Seamus opened his mouth to say something, but turned and stalked off towards Jupiter instead. He knew that she was too independent to admit that she needed anyone, which was both good and bad. She never asked him to do anything for her, but she often understated any injuries, such as the time she refused to go into the hospital for a broken arm because she claimed it wasn’t that serious. When their parents forced her to go, it turned out that if she had let it go any longer, she would have needed surgery.
Mariah arranged her cowboy hat on her head, readjusted her belt, and then vaulted onto Cary.
“Show off,” muttered Seamus, shaking his head. He raced Jupiter over to the fence and back again. He was about to do it again, when a shout from the house made him stop.
“Kids! Come in, and do your homework!” called Seamus’ mom.
Seamus raced back to the barn and took off Jupiter’s tack before letting him out to graze. Mariah came in just as he was opening the door.
“I suppose your endless pockets have another item, do they?” he asked. Mariah stuck her tongue out at him.
“What does it matter to you? I like sparkly things for my projects; I don’t just keep them around the house. And it’s in my hand, not my pocket.” She held it up to Seamus in defiance and set in on the edge of the stall. He rolled his eyes and started inside for lunch, probably macaroni and cheese, Tera’s favorite.
As he turned around to say something to Mariah, something caught his eye. Mariah was taking off Cary’s tack and temporarily abandoned the diamond on the stall. It was glowing an eerie bright blue.

Chapter Two
Seamus groaned as he woke up. He just heard a chicken squawking in the yard. Ever since he was eight, it had been his job to go out and check the coop and fix any damage when something like this happened. A few years later, their parents made Mariah go out too, but she always dragged her feet whenever possible.
“Shut up, it’s nearly midnight!” shouted Mariah, loud enough that she woke the rest of the family.
“Mariah, just because you can hear it doesn’t mean that you have to wake up the rest of us!” called Seamus from the other room, even though he was already awake.
“Mariah Alexia Snow!” said Mrs. Snow from the other room, “how many times to I have to tell you to use your inside voice? And that goes for you, too, Seamus Daniel!”
“Shut up, it’s nearly midnight!” Mariah whispered, loud enough only for Seamus to hear from the next room over.
Mrs. Anita Snow was not the twins birth mother. Their birth mother, Mrs. Caroline Snow, had died in a fatal car accident when the twins were only six months old. She herself was old compared to other children’s mothers, but she was still too young to die.
It was only four years later that Bryan Snow had married the twins step-mother, Anita (who, in fact, was not evil at all and was actually Caroline Snow’s sister) who had their other four children.
Most people that the children told the story to thought that it was just wrong to marry your deceased wife’s sister and considered the whole Snow family in general, freaks. Even Mariah’s best friend, Nineé, was in this category. But, then again, Nineé was one to agree with whatever everyone else thought.
Seamus rolled over in bed and sat up. He could hear the chickens in the backyard making sure that everyone knew that there was something in there that wasn’t supposed to be there. He hated that sound.
Seamus wearily got up and turned on his light to grab a lightweight jacket. He walked down the hall to Mariah’s room. While his room was already perfectly neat, he could barely find a path through all of the clothes, shoes, papers, and whatever else that was unknown (and that he really didn’t want to know) on Mariah’s floor.
Mariah groaned and put the pillow over her head.
“Get up.” he said prodding her.
“I’m not asleep, I’m resting my eyes.” He threw the covers off the bed.
“Come on, if we hurry, maybe we can catch whatever it is.” Mariah groaned in response and got up to get her shoes. She grabbed her tiny diamond that she had found the day before. Seamus rolled his eyes.
“What?” Mariah asked defensively. “I feel like I need it.” Seamus responded by walking out the door. Mariah hurried to catch up. He hadn’t told her about the diamond glowing, he himself didn’t exactly believe it, and Mariah would just think he was being ridiculous.
Even though they ran out of the door, they were too late. The full moon shone down on a bloody scene: a raccoon was running off into the night, carrying one of the family’s hens off with it. The rest of the chickens were sending it off with sufficient squawking to wake the rest of the county.
Mariah instantly ran towards the raccoon, trying to make it drop the chicken. They couldn’t afford a raccoon getting the taste of chicken. Seamus went to the coop to close up any place that the coon might get back in. A few minutes later, Mariah came back with the chicken in her hand. He was only relieved that she got it before the raccoon ate it.
“Dead,” she said sadly. “I thought maybe I could get to it before it died, but no. I should have grabbed my air rifle.”
“With that amount of lost blood, I think that it would just about be a miracle if it was still alive and stayed alive,” he replied.
Seamus went back to his work. A dead chicken wasn’t that much of a concern, they had plenty more. What was more of a concern was the fact that there was a coon who liked chicken and knew how to get it. Maybe we should keep Jake out here after all. Seamus thought. A dog surely would help.
Mariah seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
“I keep telling Mom and Dad that we need a guard dog. Not Jake, a proper guard dog like a Golden Retriever or something like that.”
“What’s wrong with Jake?” Seamus asked, insulted.
“Hmm, let’s think,” Mariah said sarcastically. “He’s as deaf as a…as a something that’s deaf for one thing. He can hardly see for another, and he’s so old he can barely walk. Is that enough reasons for you?”
“Being old isn’t his fault.”
“Did I say it was?” Mariah answered coolly. She didn’t wait for an answer and walked away. Seamus shook his head and turned back to his work. He knew Mariah was just frustrated with the whole situation, but it bugged him that she had to take it out on everyone else. It wasn’t even ten minutes later when Mariah came running up.
“I thought you were supposed to be shooting that raccoon,” said Seamus.
Mariah ignored him.
“There’s something wrong here.”
“Did it cross your mind that it might be the fact that a chicken was just killed?” he asked. “Or maybe is it that there’s a mass-murderer hiding in the bushes?”
Mariah shook her head, Seamus’ sarcasm was clearly wasted on her.
“I think we should go inside.” She took out her little diamond.
Seamus stood up and eyed the diamond with disdain.
“Well I’m not going in now,” he said firmly, “I haven’t finished inspecting yet, and I won’t go in till I’m done. You know how much trouble we’ll be in if this isn’t fixed.” Mariah held up the little diamond to look at it when there was an odd, ruby red light in the sky. Mariah’s eyes grew wide. What was going on?
“I told you so,” she said.
Seamus looked uneasily around wondering if maybe they should go inside.
Suddenly, as Seamus watched, the light grew brighter and brighter, dazzling his eyes and nearly making him go blind. It was nearly the size of a small sun, and all of a sudden, the light grew so bright that he couldn’t see a thing. He couldn’t remember if he had closed his eyes or if the light had blinded him for a moment, but all he could see was a blood red light. Although he wasn’t superstitious, he was almost positive that this couldn’t be good at all.
Mariah said something, but the light seemed to make Seamus deaf as well as blind. It was as if he could hear the ocean rushing in his ears, so loud that it was painful. It felt as if his ears were bleeding. He tried to cover his ears but his hands seemed glued to his sides.
He fought against the force holding him, whatever it was. His mind had gone blank with panic and fear so he couldn’t think.
And then, suddenly, it stopped. Seamus stumbled after the force suddenly vanished. The light dimmed and then vanished, causing red spots of light to appear in Seamus’ vision for many moments after it had left.
The moon was the only light.

“I think that the word ‘peculiar’ would be a good term for last night,” said Mariah.
“How about ‘freakishly strange, abnormal, and scary’?”
“Too long. It needs to be shorter.”
“I think that ‘freakishly strange, abnormal, and scary’ is the perfect length.”
“Well, I disagree. It doesn’t really matter, anyway,” Mariah replied rather haughtily.
They were sitting alone at the kitchen table peeling carrots for lunch later. Their mom was out in the garden, Andra and Missy were playing with their rabbits, and Tera and Vector were undoubtedly planning their next attack. One could never be too careful in the Snow home.
“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?” asked Seamus.
“No, did you?”
“No, and I don’t think that we should. Everyone would just think that we’re insane. Who knows, they may ship us off to some insane asylum.”
“And I’m still hoping that it was all a dream,” said Mariah darkly.
Seamus just opened his mouth to say something when a crash echoed through the house. Seamus’ heart pounded quickly in his chest as he jumped up out of his chair. Wasn’t last night enough excitement? He had been through enough weird stuff to last him a lifetime.
Mariah did the same. They looked at each other and then simultaneously raced upstairs to see what had happened. They checked in every room, not finding anything unusual, until they reached Seamus’ bedroom.
“Oh my gosh,” said Mariah, which just about summed it up for Seamus. Drywall and plaster was everywhere, along with shards of glass and quite a few of Seamus’ possessions, shattered or dented on the floor.
Seamus himself had gone numb. How was all of this supposed to be repaired? Some of the things in his room were priceless to him, things that couldn’t be replaced.
A large tree branch had come through the wall and part of the window of Seamus’ bedroom, breaking through the wall and wrecking havoc on the room. There wasn’t even a tree close enough to his window to do all of this damage! There weren’t even many trees in the entire yard!
“What happened?” asked Seamus in a hushed voice as he looked out of the shattered window. The skies were blue, so a storm theory could be ruled out.
“I have no earthly idea.” said Mariah. “But the key word in this sentence is earthly. This isn’t something normal, Seamus, this is something weird. As in, fantasy book weird. We should get out of here. Seamus, are you listening to me?”
Seamus was not listening to her for, at that very moment, another crash sounded, this time from the lower floor. Without a word, the twins hurried downstairs.
The living room was in devastation. Seamus was frozen in shock. What was happening? As he thought this, they heard the back door open with the familiar slam of an old screen door, accompanied by the unmistakable scent of freshly picked basil, probably in a large quantity.
“Mom,” breathed Mariah. “We have to warn her!” She rushed out of the room towards the door, Seamus in hot pursuit.
“Mom! The strangest thing just happened! We were just sitting here and¾” Mariah cut off unexpectedly as Mrs. Snow turned her back on them as if she couldn’t hear or see them. Mariah walked up to her and poked her. Nothing happened.
“What is going on?” asked Mariah. “I mean, sometimes I’ve really wanted to poke her, but this is just scary.” Seamus shook his head. He had no idea what was going on either. They walked slowly into the kitchen.
Suddenly, Mariah screamed. Seamus looked over just in time to yank Mariah down to the ground as a tree branch shot through the window where Mariah had been standing only moments before.
That was when Seamus started to panic. Looking around wildly, he ran across the room to take a quick look out of the window. Just as he reached it, he heard Mariah scream his name. As he turned, he saw out of the corner of his eye a flash of brown, and then a sickening pain in his head accompanied by a bright light popping. Then nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Chapter Three
Seamus opened his eyes slowly and began to take in his surroundings. It was dark out, and the moon was full. He sat up and gingerly touched his head. It was then that he realized that he was sitting on grass. The more he thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. Those tree branches had crashed through wall and glass. How had he survived? Forget that, how was he outside and how was it already dark?
Mariah was his next thought. He got up as fast as a person could after being knocked out for a while and went to find her. His entire body felt like he had been beat up. It was near agony to just walk. He quickly checked himself and realized that he was completely covered in bruises. He touched his face and found it scratched and dirty. It was obvious where his injuries had come from, the question was, where did the tree brances come from?
It took him a few minutes to find Mariah as he was quite dizzy and had to walk in a strange combination of a limp and a stagger. He fell down three times before actually making it to where Mariah was, near the pine tree. The more he walked, the easier it was. It was almost as if his wounds were healing as he went…but that simply wasn’t possible.
Once he got to Mariah, he noticed that she seemed to be having, because she was walking in circles trying to go in a straight line when he found her.
“What happened?” he asked, as he got closer. “Are you okay?”
“Earthquake, magic, huge typhoon, or possibly avalanche or hurricane, dangerous winds…a combination of all of them put together.”
“Mariah, stop!” he said. He had a horrible feeling that perhaps Mariah had gone slightly insane while he was knocked out. “It can’t have been magic, please talk like you have a brain! We don’t live near the ocean, we aren’t in a mountainous region, we’re not near a fault line, and dangerous winds are the only thing that makes sense of what you said. And there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. A tree probably just fell down.”
“Then how do you explain us being outside?” she asked.
“Er….”
“Exactly,” said Mariah, fiddling her necklace. “It has to be magic.”
“You stopped believing in Santa Claus in fifth grade.”
“That isn’t the only kind of magic,” said Mariah in scorn. “That’s little kid magic. Besides, how do you explain how Mom acted? She doesn’t just ignore us.”
“Either way ,magic isn’t real. I can’t explain Mom’s behavior, but there has to be another explanation. ”
“In this world it isn’t.”
Seamus looked at her, his fears confirmed. “So, what? There’s magic on Mars?”
Mariah didn’t answer, but continued pacing in circles.
“You didn’t believe in magic before.” Seamus persisted. “What makes you think it’s real now?”
“I didn’t say I believed in it,” she said. “It’s just the only thing that makes sense. Just trust me, Seamus, I just have a feeling.”
“Come on, let’s go inside. I don’t know what happened, and I’m not sure that I want to know. And please, please, please, please stop fiddling with that necklace and pacing. You’re driving me insane!”
He turned toward the coop to be surprised; it was considerably larger than it had been before. Confused, he thought that it must just be the fact that he was still awfully dizzy. He looked toward the barn. Another wave of shock hit him when he realized that the barn had doubled in size and it was now made of stone instead of barn siding. Plus, there was a corral with a roof leading from the house to the barn. Shaking his head to hopefully clear himself of these insane delusions, he started to walk back to their house.
Once he got closer, it became frighteningly clear that, though it seemed to be their house, as it was roughly the same size at the bottom and everything in the yard was the same, besides the buildings. Instead of white siding that was usually there, it was made of light grey stone and the doors were larger, wooden, and looked as if they belonged in a medieval castle. Somehow, as Seamus looked up, it seemed to have around ten floors instead of the two that Seamus was used to. Not to mention that the house didn’t appear damaged at all.
He must have hit his head harder than he had originally thought.
The bright full moon made the place look haunted and eerie. Mariah shivered next to him, and Seamus knew that it wasn’t from cold.
In the distance, they heard the howl of a wolf. He glanced at Mariah nervously. She must have known just as well as he did that there weren’t any wolves around their area; the closest thing was coyotes, and this was like no coyote that Seamus had ever heard. The sound was somehow deeper, not as yippy, and it held a trace of malevolence in it that made his hair stand on end.
“Let’s go in, hurry,” he said. Mariah nodded in agreement.
Nervously, Seamus reached to open the door, only to have it opened by two redheaded girls, who, quite obviously, were not his sisters. Even if they looked remotely like them, he knew that his sisters would almost rather die than wear what these girls were dressed in. Their dresses were chocolate brown with full skirts. Their hair was pulled back with matching chocolate colored headbands.
“Welcome to Walking Inn Circles,” said the first girl with longer hair.
“Would you like a room?” asked the second one.
Mariah and Seamus looked at each other, bewildered. “Umm, what do you mean?” asked Mariah.
“Walking Inn Circles. I-n-n. You know, as in ‘I’m going to stay at an inn tonight’ or ‘do you like the inn…’”
“Alright, Tatiana, they get it,” said the girl with longer hair, a little impatiently, then turned to Seamus and Mariah. “Walking Inn Circles is one of the most popular inns in the country, you must have heard of it before.”
“Umm, do you own this place?” asked Mariah.
“No, our sister does though. Her name is Lily,” said the longer haired girl.
“Okay, where exactly are we?”
Taylor looked at them strangely. “Why don’t you ask Lily?”
“Okay, can we talk to her soon, then?” Seamus was now really confused. Was this some sort of cruel joke?
“Do you have an appointment?” asked the shorter haired girl, called Tatiana.
“No, we don’t. Do we need one? Is she available now?” asked Seamus.
“Sorry, next time she’s available would be… three months,” said Tatiana with a slight grimace.
“Ooo, bad luck. Usually it’s about a month.” said the longhaired girl, in an almost comically serious voice.
“But we have to talk to her now!” said Mariah, whose tone was getting higher and higher the more panicked she got. The girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes at the same time.
“That’s what they all say,” said the longhaired girl with an overdramatic sigh. “But while we’re all still here and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, my name is Taylor and this is my twin, Tatiana.” Tatiana smiled slightly in greeting. She seemed much more serious than her sister.
“Are you sure you don’t want a room?” asked Tatiana.
“How much is it?”
“Three shillings. No less, we don’t bargain.” Taylor answered, very firmly.
Once again, Mariah and Seamus looked at each other, they had heard of shillings in medieval Europe, but what were they talking about right now?
“Erm… How much is a shilling?” asked Seamus. The twins looked at him as if he was from Mars. Although, he thought, to them, I probably am.
“He means,” Mariah said quickly. “What can we trade for it? Our farm isn’t doing as well and we don’t have much money, but we do have a few things to trade.”
Seamus flashed a quick, grateful smile at Mariah. He was pretty sure that she didn’t have anything to trade in her jeans, t-shirt, and zip-up sweatshirt, but they had to find out one way or another, and he didn’t like the sound of sleeping outside.
“Well, I suppose it depends on what you have. If it’s food, you’ll have to talk to cook. If it’s anything else, you’ll have to talk to Lily,” said Taylor. She looked them over more closely. “Mind if I ask what you’re wearing?”
Seamus self-consciously glanced down. In his opinion, he looked perfectly normal, but these girls clearly weren’t, so his jeans and sports sweatshirt probably looked freakish to them. And Mariah’s jeans and t-shirt were more than likely considered
“Oh, well look at that!” exclaimed Tatiana happily. “Here she is now!” Seamus looked up in time to see a stunningly gorgeous petite girl with voluminous raven black hair that Seamus thought was so thick, someone could get lost in it, and hazel eyes, dressed in a black silk gown with full sleeves and a bright purple silk sash, sweep down the stairs as if she were floating.
Despite her stature, she presented herself with a confidence that Seamus doubted even the popular girls in his high school class could have imitated.
“Close the door,” she instructed rather airily. “Have you forgotten what moon it is?” Taylor and Tatiana muttered something and the girl rolled her eyes.
“This is our sister Lily. She owns the inn.” explained Taylor, before turning to Lily, “Lily, they want an appointment and may have things to trade for a room.”
Lily laughed; it was a strange laugh, beautiful and mystical yet also frightening and eerie.
“As it happens, the last person who had an appointment had the nerve to die on me!” she exclaimed a little angrily. “Can you believe it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “So, coincidentally, I do have an opening in an hour. Taylor and Tatiana will escort you there. I will see you in an hour. Do not be late. I hate it when people are late, it really annoys me. And you don’t want to annoy me. And, girls,” she turned to Taylor and Tatiana. “Don’t leave the door open again. My guests like to at least imagine that they’re safe here.”
She swept off down a different set of stairs, which used to lead into the basement, but Seamus had no idea where they led now. Seamus looked around to see that other guests had come into the hall and they were all staring after Lily in wonder.
“How old is she?” asked Mariah.
“Fourteen. She’ll be fifteen in a few months time,” said Tatiana. Seamus whistled, surprised. After all, she was nearly a whole year younger than he was!
Tatiana looked at him with pity. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you,” she advised. “She’s been running this inn since she was eleven and ever since she started it people have been trying to take advantage of her, to kidnap her, to force her to marry them, someone even tried to kill her once. It didn’t matter. The ones that tried to kidnap her and stuff like that ended up mysteriously dead a few weeks later. Of course, everyone knew who did it, but honestly, did it matter? No one wants to shut down this inn and they couldn’t prove anything, true or not.”
Seamus’ eyes widened in shock, at both the younger girl’s matter-of-fact tone and the story that she told. He looked at Mariah and found that she, at least, was just as shocked as he was. He figured that he must look about the same.
For a while, there was silence until Taylor asked if they were hungry and Mariah had answered with, “He’s a boy, he’s always hungry.”
So they went down the hall a ways and walked into what used to be the living room and kitchen and was now a huge kitchen with people bustling here and there and large wooden tables that were already set with wooden bowls and spoons.
“Find a place at the table and a cook will find you and give you some food,” Tatiana directed before leaving.
Taylor called, “We’ll be back in an hour to fetch you for your appointment.”
A large, friendly looking man who Seamus assumed was a cook that Lily and the twins were talking about came over and filled up their bowls with soup.
“Thanks,” said Seamus. “What is it?”
The cook smiled in a friendly sort of way and said, “It’s today’s specialty. Yikan soup with some beans and noodles.” He left; apparently unaware of the confusion in which he had left his guests.
“Do you have any idea what a yikan is?” asked Mariah.
“No, but I’m going to find out if it’s good.” He took a bite and shrugged. “Tastes like chicken.”
Mariah sighed and tasted hers. She, too, shrugged, as if it were neither good nor bad. There was a thick, rotten smelling brown drink that looked like something Seamus might shovel out of the barn. For dessert, there was a pie with a very odd fruit that tasted a bit like a pineapple.
“So,” said Mariah when they had finished eating. She looked around to make sure that no one could hear them. “What do you say we do? I don’t think that we really want everyone to know that we aren’t from here; it would make us seem an easy target. Where is here, anyway?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Lily that. Discreetly, though. I think that we’re in a different world or country or something. And I think you’re right,” said Seamus, “I think that for now at least, we should just play along. I don’t think that it would hurt to say that we weren’t from around here, but to say that we come from like a different world would probably be a huge mistake. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but I don’t want to ask that. I just have a bad feeling that wouldn’t be good. ”
Mariah nodded absentmindedly.
When Taylor and Tatiana came, Mariah and Seamus were full, but very confused.
“This way.” said Taylor, leading them up a flight of stairs. It really was a beautiful castle; the courtyards were lovely even in the dark and the light in the lanterns shone on some things to make them sparkle with light.
Soon they reached an old looking door that was made of gold. It was not solid, but instead seemed to be carved out of thin air. Tatiana knocked. There wasn’t much that Seamus could see through the door, only the shape of someone coming close. Lily opened the door with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
“Come in.” she instructed and then closed the door behind them.
Seamus felt as if he was going to the principal’s office.
The room was dark, colored in deep purples that matched her sash. There wasn’t much furniture in the room, only two beds; one smaller than the other, a desk draped in purple cloth, a chest, and a few seats, all with purple cushions.
Lily gestured for them to sit in the chairs while she took the larger chair. Seamus sat down, more out of politeness than discomfort, for he would have rather stood. Mariah took the seat next to him. Lily pointed at a candle on the desk and muttered something. The candle lit itself.
“Whoa, magic!” exclaimed Mariah, impressed. Seamus didn’t miss the sidelong glance that she sent him. Even though Mariah was right, he didn’t particularly care if she gloated. They had far more pressing matters, like getting home.
Lily glanced at her. “Anyone who wants to survive knows how to do magic,” she replied coolly, though Seamus didn’t know what they had done to offend her. Mariah looked impressed, but Seamus was unnerved.
“So, what did you want an appointment for?” asked Lily. Seamus couldn’t help but notice that she was eyeing them in interest.
“Where are we?” said Seamus. It wasn’t what he had wanted to say, but it was the most pressing question. Lily looked at him.
“Walking Inn Circles. The greatest inn in the area!”
“What state?”
“State? What’s a state?”
“Country? Empire? Nation? King? Queen? President? Governor? Emperor?”
“Well, we have a ruler, but no one really knows who he or she is. His or her empire is called Verendetta and, currently, we’re in Veranda, in Giant’s Valley, near the Venda Sea. Don’t worry,” she added after seeing the looks on their faces, “the giants aren’t here anymore, and they left over a century ago. I’m guessing that you’re not from the area?” Her look said that she was more than guessing.
“No. Are we on earth?” asked Mariah.
“What is earth? I have never heard of it before.” Although her eyes lit up with interest.
Just then, Tatiana and Taylor brought up cider and some small candy like things. Lily nodded to them and then said, “well, drink up.” And Seamus didn’t hesitate to do as he was told; there was something in her tone that said if he didn’t, he would be sorry. He took a quick, small sip; it was sweet, yet bitter at the same time. It was comforting, however.
He tried one of the candies. It made him feel very calm. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to do, thought Seamus in a slightly desperate panic. She can do magic, after all, maybe she’s some sort witch.
He could tell she was watching them, and that made him even more nervous. He decided to just act like normal, so after a bit of thought, he asked, “Why did you tell your sister to close the door?”
“Don’t you know?” She looked at them oddly. “Because it’s full moon. If you stay out there, the elves, werewolves, vampires, witches, mermaids, centaurs, were-tigers, and or cat women will get you before you can call for help. I’ve lost more customers to that than I’d care to say. That’s why we built the tunnel, we can go out to the barn without going outside.”
Seamus was frozen to his seat. He had heard of most of these creatures in novels Mariah had read and told him about, but even that didn’t prepare him for hearing Lily just say their names as if there were nothing to it.
“You aren’t from here, are you?” asked Lily, taking Seamus out of his mental reverie.
“No, actually, we just moved into the area.” said Mariah.
“Oh. Well, is that all? I am extremely busy. Would you like a room?”
Seamus thought for a moment. If it was true that they weren’t even on earth, then they would need somewhere to stay until they could figure out how to get back. On top of that, there was the whole full moon thing, which meant that it would be impossible right now to not take a room.
“Alright, we’ll take one. But we don’t have any money, how will we pay you?” Seamus’ mind was still whirling with multitudes of unanswered questions and suspicions, but he would rather not make Lily more curious than she already was.
“Oh yes, I forgot about that. Taylor and Tatiana did say that, didn’t they? Well, what do you have?” Seamus shifted in his seat, wondering what on earth they could possibly pay Lily with.
“Oooh, I know what we have!” cried Mariah unexpectedly. She reached into her vast coat pockets and pulled out an assortment of things; marbles, beads, rhinestones, and some broken jewelry.
“Will this buy anything?” she asked. Lily examined the goods. She selected a marble, several rhinestones, and an old necklace that Seamus suspected was rather valuable. He watched, praying that she would find the items good enough for a room.
“This should be enough for a room, and a little extra, you’ll need it if you’ll be staying here for any amount of time.”
Mariah smiled. “Something like that got us here, you know.” she said. “It was a tiny diamond. We came from this place called earth, and there aren’t any witches or vampires there. Everyone is just human and-”
“We’ll take that room now,” said Seamus, interrupting Mariah. He didn’t much like the thoughtful expression that was on Lily’s face. “Just one thing, though. Who are the neighbors next to our room?” He, personally, didn’t want to sleep anywhere near any vampires or were-tigers, whatever those were.
“Don’t worry about them; those are just some humans from a nearby village. They might know some magic, but just about everyone does.” With that, she led them to their room.

The room had a comfortable feel to it, even though it looked like it was taken out of a museum, but it was nice nonetheless. There were two beds, a trunk, and a dresser, all in a pleasant cream color. Lily told them when breakfast was and how to get to the kitchen from their room. She then left. Seamus flopped down on the bed, exhausted. Mariah sat down next to him.
“I wonder if this is all just a very odd dream,” said Mariah. “Vampires. I never would have believed it. And as for were-tigers and cat-women, I’ve never even heard of them in books I’ve read! And I’ve read a heck of a lot of fantasy books!” Seamus silently agreed with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk. It was as if he felt that if he talked, the dream would become real, or he would be stuck in it forever.
“So, I suppose we’d better just play along, right?” asked Seamus as he recalled Mariah’s carelessness with Lily. “What about not telling anyone that we were from earth?”
Mariah blinked. “Oh, come on. She already figured out that we weren’t from around here, what I said made absolutely no difference at all. You need to calm down a little. This is probably some weird Wicca community or something. We’ll be home in no time.”
Shaking his head in disgust, he thought about what had happened that night. Eventually, he recognized the fact that he was tired, so, without bothering to change, he lay down in a better position and slept.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.04.2010

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