“What…” The eldest started, “Is… This?” She sounded surprisingly calm. Everyone fell silent as she looked around the room.

“Owen… How long have you been hiding this?” She looked at me, I felt the intensity of her gaze, I wanted to squirm in my seat.

“A while…” I winced.

“You know something that I don’t… about Sophie disappearing?” She was trying to piece everything together.

“I… Well, yes. But I promise it’s not much.” She looked unconvinced, and angry. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to frighten you. All I know is that I’ve seen the blue mist ball thing and it’s not malicious, according to these journals.” I waved one around. Hoping she would understand. She sent me a final glare, then sat on the floor beside Lacey.

“I want you to explain everything to me,” then she turned to the rest of the room, “Then I want all of you to tell me what you’ve found.” She growled. Everyone rushed to fulfill her demands, no one ever seeing her quite so worked up.

We made even more progress with Paisley helping, but eventually we all decided that digging through the library wasn’t getting us anywhere. Paisley gave us instructions to go look in groups.

“Lacey, Duncan. You two explore the basement.” She turned and pointed at me, and Liam. She hesitated for a moment then kept on. “You guys are looking in the secret passageway.”

The two of us nodded. Then I went and found some walkie-talkies that us three siblings would play with in the past. I gave one to Duncan, and one to Paisley. That way we’d all hopefully be able to communicate instead of using the battery on our phones. Everyone went around, hurrying to explore every hallway. There was so much string everywhere, crossing over each other this way and that. In some parts like crossroads they criss-crossed everywhere like spiderwebs by the time midnight rolled around. I could feel myself wanting to collapse but I kept going. I always made sure to stay ahead of Liam, afraid that if he saw my face he’d realize how tired I was. Every now and then Paisley would radio us to check in, right now we were double checking a hallway we already tried, this time looking closely for hints of secret passages. Liam was talking to Paisley on the radio, she was talking about something she kept seeing in some of the journals.

“It’s hard to make out, his handwriting is bad in this one, but he’s talking to someone in this.” She said from the other side.

“Can you make out anything other than that?” Liam asked.

“It’s Fiii? Full? I can’t make it out, it’s all smudged, and the ink bled together.”

“I know it!” Duncan’s voice cut in. “It’s fool, at first I assumed he was talking to himself but I’m pretty sure he was definitely talking to someone, he keeps calling them a fool.”

“Okay, what do you know about this fool?” Paisley inquired.

“He feels obligated to tell them something, but he never gets around to it. I think he’s implying he has another journal somewhere for whoever this ‘fool’ is. Do you want me to come back and take a look?” He offered.

“Actually, yes please. Everyone come back for a quick meeting. We all need a bit of a break and to get something to eat.” She seemed much less angry now. “Meet me in the kitchen.”

“Come on Owen.” Liam said quietly, trying to pull my attention away from another hallway. I thought I saw something down there. When I didn’t respond he reached forward and grabbed my hand, and gently started pulling me back.

“Wait.” I set the spool of string I was carrying on the ground by the hall I was watching, out of the corner of my eye I saw more movement. My head snapped in that direction, but there was nothing there. I’m really going crazy now, I thought I saw Sophie, smiling down the hall. I was too tired to start crying again, so I straightened and let Liam drag me away. Watching the halls over my shoulder as we went.

When we left the dark hallway, Liam looked back. Pity filled his expression at the sight of me. I looked away. He rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb in reassurance, and didn’t let go of it until we finally reached the kitchen, which I was silently thankful for. It was comforting, and didn’t help with my feelings for him.

“You look like a wreck.” Lacey said when I walked in.

“You’re a wreck.” I said in a mocking tone. Tired, and angry, and sad. I wasn’t in the mood.

“Ouch.” She said, unimpressed with my ‘clever’ comeback. She sat in a stool at the island next to Duncan. Liam left my side to help Paisley figure out something to eat for everyone. I watched him move around and help her make omelettes, everyone was tired of eating sandwiches all day. My attention was drawn by Duncan, telling me about some of his findings.

“...And so, whoever this fool is, they like… Read the words from the text but, never fully understand the gravity of the situation, that’s what JOwner’s been saying like, this whole time. Fool is supposed to be like codename for a messenger I think.” He finished.

“That would make sense, but who is the message supposed to be for?” I asked.

“Everyone.” Lacey said. I tilted my head.

“‘For when you pass this on to The World, is when your fates become set in stone.’ This fool was supposed to share his message with the world. I don’t think he ever did though, if I had to guess” Duncan elaborated. I nodded. Something about all of this seems weird, like it’s more personal. Then again, the house seemingly just kidnapped my little sister, so that kind of makes it pretty personal.

“Anything else about the blue dust?” I asked finally.

“No, it all just loops back around to something to do with the fool again, in this journal at least.” He answered.

“Maybe they are more closely related than we think?” Lacey commented.

“Even if they are that doesn’t help unless we find something significant for one of them.” Duncan said. I let them discuss this, when I turned back to Paisley and Liam. Liam was trying hard to be gentle and reassuring towards us the whole time, he looked tired. Paisley, however, looked almost as tired as I did, she still had a sour expression on her face. I don’t think she was mad at me anymore, but more just mad at the situation. She spent so much time feeling sad, like it was her fault, that now all that was left was rage and determination. All of us ate, then started walking back to the library to go over a few more things. It was a quiet moment, I was by the door, I thought I heard something coming from the hallway. Thinking it was the dog moving around, I brushed it off.

It was sometime in the morning then, I heard someone say, when I heard it again. I almost thought it was the dog again, until I remembered she was right there, curled up against Lacey’s side. My eyes widened. Things everywhere were surreal, everything seemed out of place, and my tongue felt heavy. Liam saw me looking around. I must’ve had some wild expression on my exhausted face.

“Owen… You need to sleep.” He said, warningly. Everyone else was looking at me too now. I almost agreed, I must’ve been hallucinating or something, then I heard it again. My head snapped to the door.

“Owen. Lay down on the loveseat and sleep or something.” Paisley demanded. I vigorously shook my head. Liam got up like he was going to come closer, I quickly realized he was going to force me to lay down. Right then I saw a faint light coming from the hall, and I bolted up and out of the door faster than anyone had probably ever seen me go.

“Owen!” Someone shouted for me, I could hear everyone dropping everything and scrambling to chase me.

“I saw it!” I yelled, as I rounded a corner. I could see it turning another corner. “Stop!” I cried. My body felt like it was made of rock but I had to keep going, I still heard everyone calling for me, trying to catch up but I drowned them out. Every time I’d get around a corner I’d see it turning the next.

“Where is she!?” I screamed at the light. I had tears forming in my eyes but I didn’t care. After turning corner after corner I saw the light phase directly into a wall. I stopped just in front of it and pressed my face to the cool texture, I banged with my hand. It’s another false panel. I looked around for where a switch could be but gave up when I heard everyone getting closer. I needed to get through before they dragged me back. I pressed my back flat against the wall across from it and brought myself forward as hard as I could into the panel. I heard it clatter, but it didn’t break. I tried again, and again, I heard the wall creaking against me and I could tell I was almost there. Everyone else turned the corner though, someone grabbed my arm and started dragging me back, I struggled as much as I could and just before someone else grabbed me I broke free and ran straight into the panel. It was a little awkward because I was running at an angle instead of head on, and my entire body was begging me to stop and my head was aching and I felt ready to drop at any given second. I managed it though. I hit it with everything I had and stumbled straight through the wall, and fell onto the ground once I did. I looked up from where I was laying on the floor, surrounded by the wall’s debris. The blue dust was hovering in the center of the circular room, there were stairs going down, made of wood wedged into stone walls. I quickly deduced that we were under the tower. The others were standing by the broken doorway, shocked. I slowly forced myself to stand. I looked right into the dust, hoping it could feel the intensity of my gaze. 

“Where. Is. She?” I said, much quieter than my earlier screams than before. I held the shoulder that I used to ram the wall down, it hurt really bad. The ball flickered a few times, which I’d never seen it do, then quickly floated around in a circle, before smoothly floating down the stairs. I followed, as did everyone else, who was silent with shock I assumed. These stairs were much sturdier than the ones in the tower above, I firmly stumbled my way down after the orb. It was so dark for a bit, before it started getting lighter, with a white-blue glow. We all came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, the room down here was much bigger. The ceiling was high, and the walls were painted, and the floor tile swirled around a circular pedestal in the center of the room. The room itself wasn’t what we paid any attention to, though. The room was full of several white-blue dust ball things. There were seven, actually. The one we followed down was close, it drifted closer for a moment, then backed away. It came to a stop above the pedestal. I took a few steps towards it, then asked aloud.

“Where is she?” I was much calmer now, my voice echoed around the room, and made my voice appear louder than it was. All of the orbs began to flicker, and the one above the pedestal moved in a circle again. Taking the hint, I stepped forward to the pedestal. On it was a piece of paper, and six keys. All with a symbol on the end of the key. I recognised them immediately, and pulled the library key out from my pocket and held it up to the other keys. All the orbs began to flicker again. I looked back and gestured for everyone to get closer, I set the key down and grabbed the paper. Soon enough everyone was surrounding this pedestal, and all the orbs in the room hovered behind us, except for two. One stayed above the pedestal, and the other floated in an empty space between Paisley and I. I couldn’t help but feel like that spot was for Sophie, I looked at the orb. It pulsated, almost sadly. I unfolded the paper, it was the same handwriting as before, I passed the paper to Duncan, unable to read it. He took a shuddering breath, then began to read.