Unlike spring, summer was eventful with Jon and Julie's birthdays one after the other to look forward to. And near the end of the season, there was beach time- swimming and eating watermelon on the shores. There was a one-week vacation to England too, one they were all excited to go to. But before any of those, there was still the month of June.

   “So, by this time next year, after we’re all separated, let’s meet again.”

   Jeanne placed a calendar down on the table where they sat in their particular go-to cafe.

   “Sounds good to me,” laughed Julianne.

   Juniper eagerly nodded in agreement.

   Jonathan grinned as he said, “And at least one of us be successful.”

   To that, his sisters laughed loudly.

   “Money makes our world go round!” Juniper half-joked.

   “Oh please,” Jeanne tried to talk between laughs, “you two better pay for your own stuff by then.”

   They were all adults now, all in their twenties or getting there by the start of summer vacation. Suddenly, Juniper felt the reality of the end of their everyday routine. 

   This was their last summer together.

   Before she knew it, they'd flown to England for their last hurrah and were walking down an unfamiliar cobbled street trying to locate a certain bookstore.

   "We're lost, aren't we?" Jon ruffled his hair and leaned in on a random rail before complaining. "Can we please look at a map?"

   He had a gruff expression plastered on his features.

   "We have been looking at a map," Juniper clarified.

   Julianne sighed but kept walking without her siblings, turning a corner to check.

   "I found it!" A bright and clear shout emanated where she'd just turned.

   Quickly, her siblings followed suit, trailing closely behind her.

   "It's a lot smaller than I thought," June commented soon as they stood beside her.

   "This must have been a real getaway for Mom and Dad back in the old days."

   They all laughed at Julie's additional observation.

   "Mom would be surprised if she saw us now- all big and older," Jeanne whispered while looking wistfully at the building.

   "It'd just be great to have her around again," Julie added with a smile.

   She remembered the beautiful Carina Alden that sang the four of them lullabies. No three. Julie pursed her lips, maybe it had been all four of them. The more she thought about it, the more she became confused with her own childhood memory.

   "Did mom use to sing us all lullabies?"

   Jon shrugged, not as if a one-year-old could remember such a memory. As far as Carina Alden was to Jon, she was simply the woman who gave birth to him. His childhood was secured by their single father and his sisters.

   For June, it was just a little different. She'd heard stories of their mother growing up and saw glimpses of pictures before they disappeared. She had hand-me-down memories that she could pull and imagine from.

   That side of the family where her sickly mother had been born was well-to-do. Carina's future had been secured as far as they understood.

   At 16, she met their father, Colt Knight. A little after, their love gave birth to Jeanne. Julianne followed thereafter. By the time Carina had become pregnant with June, her health had already been declining.

   Juniper had always felt quite proud of her name, her name that had been attributed to her mother's wish of living a peaceful life with her family.

   And when Carina was pregnant with Jon, she drew on the last of her strength to give birth to her last child.

   The task of naming Jonathan was left to Colt. As a tribute to his wife, he named their only son after her father.

   This grandfather they'd never met, he was somewhere behind the dingy green door with a bell for a ringer.

   "Let's go in?" June gestured towards the small store.

   The bookshop had a few signs up, one to welcome any guest, another for 'Help Wanted', and the last for a book that had been on sale since the year before.

   From outside, a stack of books fenced the wall left of the door. On the other side was a bench with a few books sprawled, a little damp.

   "It looks creepy," Jeanne observed as she peered through the window, "and stuffy."

   She sniffed away a phantom allergic reaction to the dust she'd yet to get in contact with. When she squinted her eyes to further examine the entire store, a pair of eyes stared back at her.

   Jumping back, bumping into one of her siblings, she pointed at the window without looking away from the pair.

   The person from the other side of the door called for her, "Jeanne?"

   "It knows my name," she whispered to whoever had caught her.

   "Grandfather?" Julie attempted to wave before looking back at her siblings.

   "Maybe waving isn't a good idea," June murmured as she helped Jeanne back safely to her own two feet.

   "What if that's not gramps?"

   "Who else would he be?"

   "Well," Jon ruffled through Juniper's backpack for an envelope, "it did say we'd be meeting a woman, right? A grandma Lynx?"

   The old man poked his head through the gap he'd opened with brows constricted.

   "Lynx?" His eyes cleared a little as he said the name. "How do you know Lynx?"

   "Grand...pa?" Julie stumbled over the words.

   Again, Juniper felt that shouldn't have been the response.

   The old man stared for a moment, and as if he'd realized who they were, his face relaxed, and his shoulders slackened.

   "Come in, come in," said the old man as he cracked the door wider while jutting his head out to look side to side. 

   He seemed to be looking for something or possibly hoping they were with no one else.

   June couldn't help but grow suspicious of the old individual. This could be one of two very polar scenarios. It could either be a safe one where, yes, he's certainly their grandfather. On the downside, it could be a no, this is actually the witch (in disguise) of the cookie house making sure she can eat the siblings to her heart's content, Hansel and Gretel-esque. In which case, she too looked around hoping to find some passerby.

   No one.

   "Come in."

   The four hesitated at first. Maybe they were all on the same train of thought as June.

   Julie wondered if there was another door, another exit they could take if need be.

   Jon had taken to the windows. He'd throw a few hardbounds first to shatter them, of course.

   Jeanne entertained the idea of tripping one of the other three to give herself a running start but thought that wouldn't help. Surely, one of them would trip her up before she could even make a move.

   But maybe not.

   Then again, June turned to her sister and grinned, "Witches always want the fat one first."

   Jon chortled and headed in, still laughing hard.

   "Excuse me!" Jeanne called after Julie and June, who entered without her.

   "Don't worry, they'll capture June too. I'll avenge you," Julie joked.

   They were laughing hard as they entered one by one. Jon stumbled back when the old man popped out from behind another door with a tea set.

   "Touch everything but the gold trinkets," he instructed.

   "I don't tea," Jon scuffled away in between shelves.

   "I don't either," June murmured but took a cup with a smile. "But thank you, anyway."

   "Excuse the cracks. I've not had a visitor since your father, 3 years ago."

   Jeanne minded. She definitely minded as she grimaced in the direction of Julie.

   "The tea is actually good," June whispered when the old man disappeared again.

   "I can't believe you just drank that."

   "It could be poisoned."

   "Well, one of us had to. He wasn't gonna walk away if I hadn't!"

   They were whispering at rapid speed when Jon popped out with a gold snitch in his hands.

   "Hey look, it's a snitch."

   "Pretty sure he said not to touch that."

   "A snitch is hardly a trinket. I mean, what, is that a collector's item or something?"

   "Or something," the old man gently took back the snitch from Jon, "please have some tea."

   Jon gritted his teeth into a smile. He really would rather not.

   "What have you kids come here for? Today." He added the last part abruptly.

   They all turned to one another before Jon relinquished the piece of letter that had been their reason for flying to England in the first place.

   "We were asked to come."

   The old man brought the paper up in the air to get a better look. He quietly read it to himself.

   A gold glitter flashed in Julie's eyes. Behind the piece of paper were strings of golden letters.

   "You see that?"

   Jeanne turned to the back of the paper. Sure, she could see whatever the glitter was. It had been there from the start.

   "Yeah," she took out her phone and scrolled through a bunch of notes. "I could only make out some of it."

   "Peccantem me quotidie, et non poenitentem," began Julie.

   "Timor mortis conturbat me. Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio," continued Jeanne.

   "Miserere mei, Deus, et salva me. Propago Aevum." They completed triumphantly together.

   "What was that?" The old man slapped the paper to his lap.

   Jon repeated the golden words with perfect pronunciation.

   June repeated the words in her head, over and over again as she got up. It sounded a little like a prayer she'd heard before.

   "Propago Aevum." She tapped her fingers on a glass case where she watched an earring glow for a second.

   "No. Don't repeat that." The old man shot to his feet. "Do not repeat those words."

   June laughed a little, "it's alright. I think it's just a prayer."

   "A prayer for forgiveness," clarified Jeanne as she directed them through some of the words she understood. "When I sin daily, and not repent, the fear of death troubles me."

   "What is Propago Aevum for then?" Jon asked.

   "Propago Aevum!" Julie repeated, smiling a little. "Feels like a spell," she then joked.

   Her hand reached out for the Snitch as if it was calling her. It fluttered open at her touch. And she felt like repeating the words.

   "Propago Aevum!"

   "Please, don't-"

   The snitch open up into a half-sphere watch and started to glow.

   Jon was mesmerized and touched it too while saying the last two words of the prayer. More glow from the Snitch and from the earring.

   A pitch black of nothing pulled them into its abyss.