CHAPTER ONE:

DID YOU JUST SEE THAT?

Brooke sat on her neighbor's porch with her long brown and curly hair sprawled all across her shoulders as she attempted to get the knots from the pool combed out of it. Sadly, it was a lost cause so she just sighed hopelessly and glared at her neighbor, Faith, who was sitting next to her laughing.

"Are you done laughing at me, Faith," she glared. "Or are you just begging for me to start whacking you here with this wonderful laptop of yours? Your choice."

"Jeez B, violent are we much?" Faith replied still laughing. "And you should realize by now, no matter how much you try to comb it, your hair will just not untangle itself from the pool."

"Well it's not my fault that I have curly hair!" Brooke replied defensively.

"Yeah, and I thought that I was the blonde." Faith mumbled under her breath.

"Don't you even go there, Faith. You start with that and I'll go on about all the times you have --"

"NO! Fine, be that way." Faith sat back grumpily and began to mumble under her breathe once again about all of the ways she could dispose of Brooke without it looking like murder while Brooke just sat there laughing.

"Doesn't this seem familiar to you Faithie?"

"I'm warning you Brooke…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know you love me!"

"I was beginning to doubt that."

"Hey!"

"Anyways, when are you and your family leaving for the beach this year?" Brooke questioned while continuing to attack her hair.

"Oh that, we're not going this year."

"What? But you guys go every year…Hey, I'm not gonna get anything from the beach this year, missy!"

"Ha…ha…ha…not. No, we're saving up the money for a bigger vacation over Christmas." Faith sighed. "It's going to be amazing, but I'm gonna miss the beach though."

"Cheer up Fay, there's always next year too. Where are you going anyways? Cause I'm going to London…"

"So am I." Faith replied while smirking. "You're gonna have to put up with me for two whole weeks baby!" Silence came from Brooke as she just sat there, letting the news sink into her head. Seconds passed until…

"OH MY GOD, WE'RE GOING TO LONDON TOGETHER!"

Faith's parents were talking to Brooke's shaking their heads and laughing at their daughters who only now figured out the plans.

"Are we sure that this is going to be a good idea? This is going to get crazy, two teenager girls in London over Christmas. God help us now."

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Five months later, the two families were sitting at the airport waiting for their flight to arrive. Faith's two younger siblings, Helena and Jason, were playing some sort of game which involved flinging a pen across the rows between them and seeing which way it would land. Brooke's older sister, Mel, was shaking her head at the two younger kids while reading a book that suspiciously looked like one on British theatre. The parents were trying to keep Helena and Jason under control and at the same time review the plans that they had for the first couple of days once they landed in London. Then there was Faith and Brooke who were bent over a notebook as they wrote a list on what they wanted to do and see in London while sharing an ipod.

While in the middle of writing a place down on their list, Faith felt someone staring at her. So casually, she turned around to "check" the time on the clock behind her and there sitting three rows behind her, a man with long blonde hair which was slicked back, was sitting and staring at Faith. She shuddered involuntarily when she looked at his eyes; a hard and cold gray. Turning back around, she bent over and whispered to Brooke.

"Hey, B? There's this guy with really freaky eyes staring at us three rows straight behind us. He's creeping me out…check out his eyes too." So Brooke got up to "ask" her parents a question about when the plane was supposed to come and as she turned around to walk back to her seat, the man was still there staring. There was something about him that turned her insides cold and when she looked at his eyes, all she could see was the color of freezing, hard steel. Gulping, she walked quickly back to her seat and shook as she sat down.

"Are eyes supposed to be the color of hard, cold steel?"

"I don't think they are, Brooke."

For the rest of the time until the plane arrived, the two girls just sat there, feeling the intense stare from the guy sitting just three rows behind them. Finally, an announcement came over the intercom announcing the arrival of Flight 769, the one which would take them to London. The two girls looked at each other and for the first time since they saw the man, they broke out into identical smiles and whispered, "London, here we come." Gathering up the left of their baggage, the two families walked through the tunnel and entered the plane. Once their seats were pointed out, Brooke and Faith rushed over and grabbed the window seats.

Unknown to them, the pale haired man stood up and followed them to the terminal of Flight 769. As he was about to enter the plane, he was stopped by a flight attendant and held back.

"I'm sorry sir, but the plane has been overbooked and because you only just bought the ticket, I have to ask you to wait for the next flight to London which is due to arrive any minute now." The man just nodded and forced a smile. Walking to the window which showed the plane taxing to the runway, a sinister smile crept onto his face as he whispered, "See you in London…children" turned, and walked out of the building.

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"This is your flight attendant speaking. If you look out your windows, you will see the city of London right underneath us. We are preparing to land in just a few moments so please fasten your seatbelts and turn off any electrical device. Thank you and I hope that you have enjoyed your flight with us on Flight 769. Welcome to London."

We're here…we're here…we're here, Brooke sang in her head. I am a teenager in London for Christmas. Correction, I am an American teenager in London for Christmas. This has got to be the coolest thing in the world. Look out London cause Fay and I have entered your world.

Similar thoughts were running through Faith's head as she stepped off the plane into the terminal at the London airport. I've got three words for you London, BRING IT ON! The pair looked at each other and smiled. They had a feeling that this vacation would be like no other. Something magical was going to happen. But their thoughts were soon interrupted as Faith's dad, Jeff said, "Let's not keep the taxi waiting. Say hello to your home for the next two weeks guys. Let's go get our stuff and away we'll go!" No one had to be told twice.

For the first several days, the vacation was the best that anyone could have wanted. There were so many new sights and smells in London! Everything was so different from New York City. The buildings looked so old and friendly and the accents were incredible. Both Faith and Brooke thought that it would be fun to try and catch the accent quickly and talk to the native Londoners with their accents. Surprisingly, the accents came quite natural to the two girls. It was three days into their vacation when strange things began to happen and became noticed by the two girls. While walking around the streets and stores, certain words would find their way into the girls ears, words that they knew were not normal ones. They had a certain Latin ring to them almost and sounded somehow familiar. Without noticing it, these words became a part of their language earning strange looks from their families. Mel began to notice it as well, only from Brooke and Faith though.

"Hey guys, what type of game is this spilling out words like "Accio" and "impendienta"? What are they supposed to mean?" Mel questioned one night in a restaurant.

"To be honest, Mel," Brooke began, "I have absolutely no clue. It's just like they're programmed in our heads or something, like we're supposed to know what they mean and do. It just started once we came here. It's really weird, Mel. Don't you notice something odd with a lot of the people here, especially in this restaurant? I mean common, who wears a cloak anymore? And seriously plaid pants and a polka-dotted shirt doesn't match at all, no matter what the colors. What's wrong with these people? It's almost like they're living in a different world or something."

Once she stopped her rambling, the entire table the two families were sitting at just turned and stared at her. It was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. To make it worse, one of those people wearing a cloak began whispering to his friend.

"What's wrong with that muggle child talking to her elders like that? If only I could take my wand out and threaten to hex her until she apologized and spoke correctly to them. And what is wrong with the muggle parents? Can they not control and discipline their own child? George, I think I have just lost my appetite. Please, let us go." However unknown to them, Faith who was sitting closest to them managed to hear every word. Muggle? Wand? Hex? What is wrong with these people? What language are they speaking, she thought. As the two men stood up and began walking to the door while staring at the group of "muggles", Faith nudged Brooke and motioned for her to watch the two men as they left the restaurant. After the men went outside, they walked over behind a car which they thought had tinted windows and disappeared into thin air. All that was heard was a loud "pop" and in an instant, the two men had disappeared only to return a second later. The man who wanted to "hex" Brooke for speaking like she did was muttering something about having left something at his table that "muggles shouldn't get their hands on". He walked quietly back to his table and picked up something off of his seat and slipped it into his cloak. Gasping, Brooke and Faith looked at each other with shock written on their faces. Was that a wand that they just saw? Before they could say another word, the man disappeared again with that loud pop, leaving no trace.

Slowly, the two girls turned to look at each other, both having a look of surprise, awe, and something unidentifiable written on their faces. What just happened? Looking over at their parents, they noticed that no one else seemed to have noticed this extremely odd occurrence. Did they not just see two men disappear and then have one come back to pick up a wand only to disappear again? Shaking their heads hoping that they were just tired from some delayed jet-lag, the girls continued to eat their dinner in silence. There was something they had to talk about that night.

The next day turned out to be torture because neither girl had slept much the previous night. Brooke kept on seeing the man disappearing and reappearing over and over again without any means of assistance. Faith kept on replaying what the one man said at during Brooke's rambling tirade. What was a muggle? What were they talking about shooting a hex at Brooke? And a wand, isn't that part of a fairy tale and belongs to a fairy godmother? These thoughts continued to plague the girls as they continue with their vacation. Their families did not notice anything strange and just took it as the girls were finally calming down and acting like normal human beings. The day was continuing as it should do normally until around mid-afternoon. As the group was passing through the train station on a detour, the strangest thing yet happened. People, mainly children, were walking away from a pillar in the middle of the station pushing trolleys which were holding a single trunk and oddly, an owl cage with the owl sitting calmly inside and sometimes sleeping. These children continued to appear out of no where until Faith gasped. There was a boy in the middle of the pillar with his head and trolley sticking out along with half of his leg. The rest of his body was simply not there. It seemed like he was walking through the pillar!

"Brooke…are you seeing this?"

"What the- oh God, did he just walk out of the pillar with a trolley and an owl?

"I just believed he did."

"What is going on here?"

"Honey, I have no idea but we are going to figure this out. Tomorrow, be ready to stalk and creep until we figure out what the hell is going on with these people."

"I am right behind you."

"Good, cause you wouldn't have had a choice if you didn't want to come."

"That's just what I thought too."

"Good thinking, Fay."

"You know it!"