"So, Cissy, what do you think?" Amelia Brewster-Thorburn asked her step-daughter.

"It's a big ass house," The dark-skinned girl replied, looking up at the mansion.

"Well, yeah. Got it for a steal, though. They say a family was murdered in here, under strange circumstances. Maybe it's another mystery you could solve," The spunky twenty something woman picked up the lighter of her stepdaughter's bags.

Cecilia sighed, hefting her duffel bag up by the handles. She could see her half-sister's faced pressed up against the window next to the door, watching her intently, trying to decide if she was really there or not. Cissy smiled and trudged up to the doorway, barely sliding through with her bag.

"THITHY!" Brook lisped at the top of her three-year old lungs.

"Hey, Beebee," Cecilia greeted, heading towards the stairs, "Which room's mine?"

"The one right nextht to mine," The bubbling toddler shouted.

Laughing, Cecilia turned the brass knob with her free hand and pushed open the door, walking into a spacious room furnished with two mattress stacked on each other and a dresser. A large window let light in, making a four-paneled pattern on the wooden floors. She set her bag down and walked down the stairs, listening to her sister chatter on and on about the cartoons she had watched that morning. Leave it to Dad to have the TV up three days after moving in.

"Your dad was thinking that you could turn the attic into a mini-ballet studio so you can practice whenever you want, the ladder's already down and everything. It's totally empty, 'cept for a cobweb or two. Anyway, it's time for little miss Brook to have a nap," Amelia finally finished.

Cecilia knew exactly where Beebee got her mouth from. Sighing, she turned away from the mother and daughter and trekked back up the stairs, walking down the hallway to a rickety looking ladder leading to a dark attic. She pushed her bag ahead of her, listening to the rustling of its contents. She finally worked her way into the pitch black attic; she tugged on a chain she felt tap her head. A pitiful lone light bulb managed to illuminate the entire room. It must have been at least thirty by twenty. Amelia must have missed something, because there was a box filled with old film reels and a camera in front of a sheet that might have been white once. Curious, Cissy tiptoed over to the box, kneeling down to get a closer look. The reels were all labeled like home movies. Cissy pulled one out. It read 'Pool Party '66'.

She turned the reel over in her hands. It seemed really old, but still in good condition. One weird thing about the reels was that the time frames were so far apart. Maybe it was some sort of tradition, each owner of the house left a video to show its history. Curiosity overcame Cecilia, and she pulled out the projector and aimed it at the screen. After a second of technical difficulties, she managed to get it to play. A video of a family happily playing and eating around a pool popped up on the sheet. Cissy smiled. They looked so happy, but they were definitely not at the mansion.

Suddenly, the tape cut. It was night, and the bodies of what appeared to be the family from earlier were laying on pool chairs. The camera panned over a vase with neon green liquid. A rope tied to the chairs was pulled, and one by one, they all fell into the water. She watched as their feet kicked and they struggled, before the footage stopped on an image of a man standing under the water. Cecilia stood from her criss-cross position and walked toward the screen. On closer inspection, she noticed that he seemed to be unaffected by the physics of the water. His eyes were heavily shadowed, no, they were non-existant. A triangular patch of black were all that marked his orbitals, contrasting sharply with his pale gray skin. The only defined features he had were a nose and brow ridge; his mouth was marked by black splotches lighter than his 'eyes'.

"Cissy! Dinner!" Amelia shouted from the hallway. Cecilia jumped. She turned her head to look back at the trap door. As she told her stepmother that she'd be right there, the figure on the screen looked at her, then looked away just as she turned her gaze back to him.

"Coulda sworn you moved," Cecilia mumbled more to herself than to the strange man. She walked back to the projector and turned it off, leaving it in the middle of the room.


(Late Night)

Cecilia laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling. A dark blue comforter was draped over her waist, leaving most of her torso bare. Restlessly, the teen grabbed her journal from under her pillow. She fished opened it and grabbed the pen that held her place. She began to write.

July 2013

Just moved into a big ass house. Someone was murdered her. Amelia's a try hard.

There was a box and projector in the attic. I watched one of the movies and it seemed like some sort of art film. Except I don't know what sort of crazy CGI they used to get the creepy guy's image to be affected by the surface of the water, but not his hair or coat. (I'd be lying if I said he wasn't creepy in a kind of sort of a little bit hot way. This is why I need a therapist)

Anyway, here's a crappy little drawing of what he looked like

DRAWING

-Cecilia

Cecilia left her journal open next to her, in case she might think of something else to write. She didn't, and fell asleep.


Bughuul stared silently down at the girl in her bed. Her family posed a new challenge. The youngest child wasn't old enough to carry out his will. But the older girl, she still had a childlike soul. It would do, but he had to be careful. The last time he had crossed paths with someone like her, he ended up sealed away for a decade. On impulse he reached out to touch her light brown skin. It felt like hot coals against his icy skin, yet it did not bother him much. He cupped her cheek, wondering what her soul would taste like.


Cecilia dreamt that she was watching herself sleep from the foot of her bed. Out of the shadows, the figure from the video stepped to her side and stared down at her, watching her sleep. He reached his hand out to touch her cheek. As it made contact, she felt a calmness spread over her, even as her cheek felt like it was frostbitten.