“Moooom! Do we really have to go all the way out there for the whole summer?” Connor protested. His brother Sam nodded fervently in agreement. The last place either of them wanted to go was creepy Aunt Lillian’s place. The woman was just…..spooky. She was their mother’s much older sister, and to say she didn’t exactly possess much in the way of social skills would be putting it mildly. Connor had snuck into her library once, as a kid. The books he’d seen there had freaked him out. She was really into magic, like almost obsessively so. A lot of these books were practically ancient, and written in some language he didn’t understand, but he’d googled the titles and they were apparently grimoires, books of magic.
“You know, some people would be happy at the opportunity to go to California for a few months.” Sarah sighed. She really didn’t know Lillian all that well, even though they were family; her sister was fifteen years older than she was, and had always been fairly distant. Lillian had taken off for California only a few years after Sarah was born, and most of their conversations had been over the phone. Lillian was well respected in her field—she was some sort of university professor—when Sarah had asked if she could watch her nephews over the summer she’d readily agreed.
Sarah, for her part, was starting to have second thoughts about this whole thing. True, the trio was an opportunity of a lifetime. She’d be spending the next three months across Europe attending a string of high profile diplomatic conferences dealing with international crisis which had popped up over the past few years. The problem was that she couldn’t bring her kids along, and she didn’t trust them to stay at home by themselves; they’d throw so many parties it’d be a miracle if the place was still standing by the time she got back.
“Boys, you know why you have to go to your aunt’s for the summer. I can’t bring you along, and you can’t stay here on your own.” She said. “You’ll just have to accept that fact.” Connor and Sam grumbled, but they knew when their mom’s mind was made up there wasn’t much they could do to change it. They headed up to their room to pack their bags.
The plane ride from the east coast to California was long, and the time zone switches meant that both Connor and Sam were exhausted by the time they arrived at the mansion. And a mansion it really was. It had been so long since they’d been back there that they’d half thought their memories had exaggerated the sheer size of the place, but sure enough as soon as they arrived their jaws had dropped. The house almost looked like a castle more than anything than anything anyone actually lived in, frankly.
Aunt Lillian had been waiting for them outside of her mansion. She seemed pleased to see them…..at least, the boys thought so. Having a pair of teenagers show up at your doorstep, especially when you’d never had kids of your own, probably wasn’t real thrilling to Lillian either, Connor figured. On the other hand, it was hard to tell precisely what she was thinking exactly—even as she’d greeted them, there had been only the slightest hints of a smile on her face.
Lillian lead Connor and Sam through the mansion, showing them around the place they’d be staying for the next couple months. The hallways were filled with all sorts interesting items; paintings, medieval suits of armor, sculptures….they hardly knew where to look. Both boys had been aware that their aunt was rich—she’d helped them out with money from time to time—but neither had had any idea she was quite this rich.
About halfway through the tour, Lillian had paused, a frown on her face. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you two to start getting settled in. I have to go into town. Your rooms are up there.” She said, gesturing to the second floor. “You’ll know which ones they are because they are the only ones where I left the door unlocked. I will see you later.” She continued, hurrying off, leaving Connor and Sam standing around in confusion.
“Now what?” Sam asked. Connor shrugged. “I told you she was into magic and stuff….do you want to see if she still has all those books?