"Mother? Father? Anyone there?"

Her voice echoed on the empty walls. She appeared back at Featherhill, back in the ballroom, in the exact same place she vanished the first time. Six years. She couldn't believe her eyes when they adapted to the light coming from the broken windows. The once grandiose place, home of her family for over a century, had fallen into deep and utter ruin.

Gone were the paintings of the walls, not even the wallpaper kept in place, most of it peeled of stripped away. Gone were the luxurious pices of furnitue, except for some hidden unden white cloths. Gone were the fireplaces, with gaping holes on the place they used to be. And most important of all.

Gone were her parents.

She kept screaming while walking through the house, hoping someone heard her. Most of the rooms had locked doors, and those she could enter had the same dilapidated condition of the ballroom. No one had been in that place for years. Her bedroom, upstairs and to the left back corner of the house, was the only exception. For her, it had been around six years she was not in the room. For the room it was the same time, in a completely different way.

It was untouched. Even clean linens on the bed. Spotless. She recognized every corner, every toy, every picture on the walls, even her mirror. She looked at it, not expecting to go through it like some other time, but to see her own reflection in it. Wide blue eyes, soft blond hair, and a permanent expression of what her father called the "Athenida frown".  

Her father. 

Her mother. 

No one there. 

She became worried. Her father, the great and all-knowing Daedalus Athenida, had promised her they were there at her return. Maybe if she waited a couple minutes, and stayed put.

Her train of thought derailed when a screeching sound shriek through the house. She ran down the stairs, chipping the steps on her way to the main door. The door swung open with enough strenght as to bend the hinges, startling her. Her parents came through it, in a swirl of red hair and stiff Victorian clothing. She felt their arms embracing her in a desperate attempt to recover the lost years. 

"My darling, have you been waiting long?", her mother's voice cracked at the question, but still gave a cold look at her father. "We would've been here sooner, but your father delayed us."

"That bird came out of nowhere." Her father looked around. "My goodness, this place really went to hell without us, didn't it?"

"What did you expect? Celia said if you took the magic out of it, it would crumble in a decade." She kept hugging Alice, but Mr. Athenida had left, walked around the place, and muttered something incomprehensible.

He walked back to the door and went out. When he came back, he had a shiny silver cane with him.

"Honey, what are you planning to do with that?", Mrs. LeFay finally let go of Alice and stretched. "Hit the place into submission?"

"No, let's clean this place before we move in."

Mrs. LeFay looked around, her eyes fixated in the encrusted dirt and cobwebs.

"Good luck with that. I'll go back to the balloon, and see if our luggage isn't flying over Cardiff."

She left, and from the oustide they heard her grunting while fighting against something. Mr. Athenida left out an annoyed sight and looked at Alice.

"I imagine your time in the future has been productive." He smiled.

"How did you know?", she knew how her father in the future knew things, he lived through them, but the other way around was a mystery.

"I sent myself a note." He pulled a smalled wrinkled paper out of his breast pocket. 

"To Daedalus A. Athenida, Lord Foxnorth, Protector of the British Empire, Founding Member of the Imperial Club, Member of the Witches Council, etc., etc., Alice is fine and safe. She arrived at the ruins of Featherhill at 6.35 on the 28th of May of 2005. To prove to you I'm not lying and this is not a ruse, I know you are in the process of selling your shares of Imperial Ironworks to help with the Union. Don't do it. It's going to go bankrupt if you do and cause issues for the following years. Alice, as far as records go and my own memory, will arrive at 2.12 in the afternoon of the 1st of April of 1866. Try to be back in Wales by then. Reconstruction is something that the Americans have to try on their own and you've interfered enough (as you can tell, Morgan made me write that last part). Best wishes, Daedalus A. Athenida, OBE, Vice-President of the Witches Council, CEO of Athenida Industries."

He finished reading and looked at his daughter again.

"You've grown beyond what I imagined you would. I thought your time in the future was going to be the same as your other adventures." His lips tightened. "I was wrong. I hope your time there was a pleasant one. And though I would love to hear about it, I can't for reasons of time integrity. Was it fun?"

"It was, father. Have you missed me?"

"Every day", a flash of emotion overcame her father's eyes, but was quickly suppressed. "Now, we really need to put order in this place. Can you help me?"

"I don't know how."

"My dear, you are an Athenida. If you don't know, no one does." He smiled. "Look at me and repeat."

He lifted the cane, as if it was a giant wand. Immediately it began to glow with a silvery tint. The cobwebs, dust, and bugs vanished out of existence. The splinters of the steps of the staircase smothed and the carpet returned to it. A shine of cleanliness swept through every visible corner. Soon, the place around them was clean and neat again, though still empty of decorations and furniture.

"Good ol' fashioned spells. Never out of fashion." He began walking back to the ballroom. "Come, now is your turn."

The ballroom. Still in ruins. Her father made a chair appear and sat there, waiting. Alice lifted her hand, slowly glowing blue, but nothing happened around her.

"I told you, I don't know how.", blurted out in frustration.

"You are thinking of what it is. Try thinking on what it should be."

What should be. She began looking at small things first. The wallpaper peels which uncurled and stuck again against the wall. The patches of dirt and cobwebs which disappeared. Then larger things. Cloths flying through the air, liberating the furniture and sending it through the room back at their places. And then the largest. she looked at the holes on the wall, and began seeing the fireplaces backwhere they should go. It seemed blurred at first, as if she was trying to focus a picture on an old television set, but the image became clearer by the second. In a moment, she heard a 'pop', and the marble fireplaces returned to the room.

"There we go. Nice and neat." Mr. Athenida stood from the chair and gave her a reassuring pat on the back. "Let's finish with the rest of the house before your mother flies away."