At least something good had come from being made to clean her room. No doubt Eek, Squeak, and Archie were finding plenty of food around the house, but with Morgana gone, Gosalyn figured they could use more just in case. Not to mention they probably needed a little company. Carrying a brown paper bag of various dead bugs she'd recovered from her windowsills, lamp base, and a few areas of the floor that hadn't been visible for weeks, she skated down the block to the tallest building in the neighborhood. Darkwing had made so many stops to this house on the way back from crime-foiling that she'd eventually memorized the way from there to the Mallards' house, and then vice versa. The kids on this street usually avoided it, whispering to their friends on the playground that it was haunted, and once you went in, you were never heard from again. Gos knew better - of course it was haunted, but it was the kind of haunted house that wasn't really a risk. You got all the cool spooky stuff with none of the actual dangers of possession or death from fright...that is, as long as you were careful enough to avoid summoning something really bad.
Stopping in front of the porch steps, she crouched down and untied her roller skates, leaving them in one of the overgrown hedges. The front door creaked open the way it always had, and for half a second, it almost felt like a regular visit. That feeling dissipated as soon as she saw how dark the place was. She struggled to remember where the light switches were. There had been a couple of nights, when her father's fights had become so serious that the grown-ups weren't sure it was safe for Gosalyn to even go home, that she had stayed the night in one of Morgana's spare rooms that could be cloaked from intruders by her magic. Late those nights, she had snuck around the hallways and staircases leading seemingly nowhere until being caught by her host, who, naturally, had still been up. Morgana was never quite as stern as Drake in those instances, though, and often took to explaining her home's odd architectural choices excitedly. Sometimes it would turn into conversations about Drake and whatever was going on in school or her field hockey team over chocolate milk for Gos and some kind of cool, mysterious witches' brew for Morgana. Despite Morg's leniency, however, Gosalyn always managed to wake up tucked into that guest bed in the morning. Awhile ago, she'd been familiar enough with the place to know where all the switches were, but slowly she'd forgotten. After fumbling around the walls on her tiptoes for a few moments, she felt a panel with a huge power switch on it. She jumped up to reach the top of it and pulled it down to turn on the lights in the foyer, shaking off the cobwebs as her feet returned to the floor. It was hard to tell if the house was just unkempt from months of abandonment, or if this was the way Morgana had always kept it.
"Helloooooooo?" she called out, and was almost immediately greeted by her three little friends gliding down the front stairs, giddy to finally see her again.
"Hey!" She smiled as Eek and Squeak nuzzled against her cheeks. "I've got some snacks for you guys!" She flipped the bag upside down and dumped its contents onto the floor for the boys to take their picks of. Archie nibbled on a few flies, then looked up at Gos, appearing both hopeful and just as worried as he'd been for however long they'd been alone here.
She sighed, "Still no sign of her. Sorry, guys. My dad's looking, though!" All three of the familiars became crestfallen again, and Gosalyn with them. "Yeah, we miss her, too. But she can handle whatever's being thrown at her; you know that." Eek, Squeak, and Archie all exchanged a look and nodded - hesitantly, but they still seemed to genuinely agree. Gosalyn looked around the front hall and started to feel nostalgic.
"Hey, do you guys mind if I look around? Just for a little bit? I've been kinda missing this place lately." Normally she wouldn't bother asking, but something was making her feel like she needed to respect this house more now. Archie motioned with one of his legs for her to go ahead. "Thanks."
First, she made her old rounds of stairwells and hallways that felt like they were stretching the farther she went, then she made her way to the sitting room where a good dozen late-night chats had taken place. From the sofa, she noticed a door that looked especially forgotten. She swatted the cobwebs away as best she could and turned the knob. It was rusted and took some extra muscle, but she managed to get it open, seeing around twenty candles on the walls light up by themselves as soon as she entered the room.