This is my first story, so please be kind. Reviews are welcome.
Disclaimer: I don't own W.I.T.C.H. they belongs Walt Disney Company Italia and I make no money on this.
This story is mainly based on the comics, and the girls have their new enchanted powers and set around three years later. But you can also read it if you only have seen the TV shows because it is mainly about Will and her family, then only thing you need to know is as follows; Yan Lin is the new Oracle, Dean and Susan are married and Will now have a little brother, William, who is three years old in this story.
Will Vandom was bored, and it was official. She, her mother Susan, her baby brother William and her stepfather Dean had been sitting in their car the entire day due to a letter Dean had received a couple days before. It was from a lawyer telling that his elderly aunt had died, and he was going to inherit some sort of huge building in the middle of nowhere. Of course, this meant they all had to come to have a look and see what they were going to do with it. Luckily, nothing had been heard from Kandrakar lately, so she didn't have to come up with some wild excuse for not coming with them this time. She had to make quite a few of them over the last years, and it could from one time to another put a strain on their mother-daughter relationship. Susan could clearly see through her excuses and knew that at least some of them were lies, but hopefully she thought it was a part of being a teenager and rebellious. But it was worse when something came up when Susan planned some family time together. She thought her daughter still hadn't accepted her new husband which also happened to be her (by now) former history teacher. The truth was that Will had grown fond of her new dad, but it seemed Susan didn't understand that yet. Therefor Will hadn't put up any argument when her mother had asked her to come with them, but after eight hours stuck in a car she had began to regret.
"Are we there soon" Will said to the two adults sitting in the front.
"Will! Can you please stop asking the same question over and over again; we will be there when we arrive and not a moment sooner," Susan said, clearly tired and irritated over the immature behavior of her daughter.
Luckily Dean understood from experience what would be coming next and hurried to break in between them. "Don't worry; we are almost there, just a couple of minutes left I think".
"Good" said Will and looked out the car window, "I was beginning to wonder if we would run out of roads soon".
Susan made a sound but didn't say anything. It was in the late autumn/early winter, the leaves had fallen of the trees, but the snow had yet to arrive, something that made the forest they were driving through kind of spooky. Will just looked out the window and thought of her friends and fellow guardians back in Heatherfield. "Oh I wish I could hear Irma crack a joke about Cornelia, Taranee telling about her pictures of rare mushrooms or listen to one of Hay Lin's words of wisdom, anything but being here, " Will thought while watching endless columns of twisted grey old trees passing them. She decided to try to start a civil conversation and turned to her rescuer. "What sort of house is this? You been here before Dean?"
"The letter said it was an old asylum of some kind; my aunt seemed to have been one of their employees there. It closed several years ago, but for some reason she was allowed to not only live there, but also buy it for almost nothing."
"I wonder why," said Susan and stared out of the window, tired of the long trip herself.
"If I should guess," Said the history teacher, "she must have been a good friend of the last owner who also happened to be the boss there. Neither of them were married or had children, so I assume it was more of a friendly gift to her. I have never been there and had almost forgotten I had an aunt altogether. She never showed up on family meetings, holydays or came for any visits, and we never visited her. I don't think I ever saw her, and I have only a few old photos of her."
Susan put a hand in front of her mouth to hide a yawn. "Strange then, you have an aunt you never have met that let you inherit a huge house in the middle of nowhere."
"Yeah, that and the other pack you got with a ridiculous looking good luck charm." Will commented from the back seat.
"Will" Susan said in a resigned voice.
Dean however, being a man interested in history, pulled his newly inherited charm out from his pocket and decided to enlighten his trapped audience; "It is an old arrow head in fact, made of iron and if I am not entirely wrong it is made by the natives here around the seventeenth century. As you probably know, before the colonists came, they were made of stone, but later…"
While Dean was speaking, they passed over a stone bridge with a tiny river running under it. The river came from the towering mountains close by, and suddenly they found themselves driving through a tiny village consisting of old shaky houses. They had started their trip early the same morning, but now it was going to be dark soon. The setting sun made the grim buildings and the few people who were out, casting long shadows. "
Perhaps we should stop and ask the locals how far we are from this institute" Susan asked Dean, "and perhaps they know if there is a place where we can eat dinner before we starve to death."
"Wise words my dear," said Dean happily agreeing with his wife.
The guardian of the infinite universes just sighted and looked at her little brother who luckily slept. A couple of hours earlier he had been crying and made the mood sore for everyone in the car. They had all understood the issues of traveling with a small child in a car before they left, but unfortunately, they did not find anyone who could look after the three year old toddler. Dean, Susan and Will looked around to see if there was any sign that could tell them where they were and if there was any restaurant close by. Susan was the first to spot anything. "Over there!" She said, "Ye Old Inn, I guess we could eat there."
"Alright then we pull over," Dean said. He had been the driver for the last four hours and was quite eager to have a break.
The inn lived up to it's name, Will could tell. The building was an old two stories stone house, perhaps from eighteen century. The roof was made of stone, and had a tall chimney at the top, missing so much of the stones that it had to be hazardous to lit a fire in the fireplace in case what was left would come falling down. Nevertheless, it made Will's mood increase, finally a break from the road and a chance for a good meal. Will woke her half-brother and lifted him out of his seat. William was still sleepy and didn't make much sound while she carried him while walking beside her parents towards the inn.
The inside wasn't all that cozy as Will had imagined, it was just a plain inn with a bar were food was ordered and some tables with a variable numbers of chairs scattered around. At the wall at the end of the room to the right side of her was the fireplace. No fire was lit, and it was quite likely many years since the last time. When they came inside, they were greeted with suspicious glares from the few locales who were there, but the people quickly went back to their own business.
"What do you want?" asked Susan her daughter.
"Just pick something you know I like, if they have it! I will take William and find a place to sit" Will said.
"Hamburger then" said Susan, and rolled with her eyes and went together with Dean to order.
Will found a table with four chairs close to the dead fireplace and with a window looking outwards to the forest and mountains at the distance. "Oh William, how I wish we could be home instead, watching TV and have a nice dinner there. Instead we are in an old rundown Inn, exactly in the middle of God knows where. This place isn't like The Silver Dragon." William stared at her for a couple of seconds before his attention went to his surroundings.
"Take it easy Will, we will only stay here for a couple of days while we look at the building, it isn't like we are going to move here" said Dean as he came and sat down beside her. At the bar she could see Susan take up a board with some drinks. "Perhaps we should try to ask some of the people here if they know about this place and if we are heading in the right direction," Dean suggested.
"It is an old asylum, I think they will know if we try," said Will.
Susan came with their drinks, coke for Will, water and coffee for herself and her husband. Susan and Dean chatted a little while Will played with her brother before their dinner arrived. It was a fat old man who came with it, and when he placed their food before them Dean sized the opportunity and asked. "Excuse me mister. Do you know if there is an old asylum close by the name of St. Georges Asylum, you see…"
More he didn't ask, because the waiters face suddenly froze and Will saw he started to look around himself. She instantly became aware that the other guests had suddenly halted with whatever they were doing and shot dark glares towards them. The waiter looked grimly back at her stepdad. Then he said with a low voice "Why do you ask?"
"Well, you see," the teacher continued, "I got this letter saying that my aunt had passed away and I was going to meet some lawyer regarding that old institution."
"If you know what is best for you and your little family, stay away from that place!" almost snarled the man before he turned his back and disappeared right into the kitchen behind the bar.
"Geez, what an attitude," huffed Susan and looked apologetic to Dean. Will on the other side had already some years of experience with people who wanted others to "mind their own business," and that usually meant something was lurking behind. Her mind quickly went into guardian mode, trying to come up with some possible explanation for his behavior. The dinner was consumed in silence after that, only disturbed by Williams occasionally attempt to say something meaningful or comment the surroundings with his still limited vocabulary. But the temperature had dropped significantly at the Inn.
Will had just closed the door to the Inn and began walking back to their car with her family when suddenly an elderly man out of nowhere came walking towards them. He was clad in an old green coat and had a blue cap on his head, his thin white hear stuck out like straws from under it in all directions. His face was weary and hunted as it had seen and experienced ages of despair, but when the man looked at them, Will felt his eyes pierce her like two sharp needles. He also had a shaggy beard that was three –to –four days old and was becoming more white than grey.
"What is this about," he sneered, "you aren't going to the old asylum, are you?"
"Yes we are" said Susan "Can you tell us anything about it?"
The old man looked at her mother with a scorn, and first Will thought he wouldn't answer, but then he decided to speak.
"Why?"
Susan, satisfied that somebody would say something went straight to the point, "You see, we are going to meet someone there and have a look at it."
"Ah, you must be Vandom," he said and suddenly his scorn disappeared and was replaced by an eerie grin that almost split his grim face.
"How did you know?" Susan said surprised.
"Small town you know," he said and continued, "The old lady passed away not long ago and it was rumored that someone would inherit the entire estate. As an old employee she knew the place well and kept it somewhat in order, perhaps to keep herself busy with something."
"But why is people here so reluctant to speak about it?" said Susan and crossed her arms.
"It was an old monastery, turned to an asylum for the mentally ill and disturbed right after the turn of the century. It was the biggest employer in this village and many people here had jobs, which in some way or another was linked to it. However, the asylum had to close in the nineteen eighties. It is said it was not because for the lack of patients, but because patients disappeared.
"They disappeared?" Will interrupted.
"They just disappeared, one by one. Some of the staff said they heard screams in the middle of the night, none can be sure, the people who lived there could suddenly start to shout and scream at any time for any reason. Anyway, people could go to sleep in their bed one night, the next morning they were gone. It wasn't regular, it was one every now and then. At first the staff thought it was an ordinary escape attempt, however, around here it is only this tiny village, and the rest of it is mountains and wilderness. None here ever saw anyone from the asylum who tried to escape, so it was concluded that the patients who went missing escaped up into the mountains or into the surrounding forest. But none was ever found. Then people started to look at some of the staff and the institute chief to see if they could be behind the disappearances and it was opened an investigation. However, it led to nothing, some tried to blame the chief of the asylum and said he was hiding something, but it was only rumors and lies, but some more patients vanished, and the relatives of the missing people demanded the asylum closed. And so it was. After that, the old building fell into decay and no one have hardly been there ever since except from your relative. The most likely explanation for all this is that the people who disappeared, managed to sneak out and get lost in these woods. Because, when you leave the asylum, there is nothing but dense forest and mountains for miles upon miles around here." Then he turned to Will and said with a low voice, "People say that if you go into the woods after dark, you can hear the voices of people who walked in, but never found the way out, calling for help that can never reach them."
When the story was finished, three different faces stared back at the weary old man. Will had listened to the story carefully, and had a suspicious glare. Dean Collins was had one of fear and uncertainty, Susan on the other hand looked disbelieving and was the first of them to raise her voice.
"You don't expect us to believe in that sort of nonsense, do you?" She said with a stern voice, and glared back at him. "There is no such thing as ghosts or other supernatural phenomena."
Will took a secret look at her mother and thought, "Oh if you only knew. But if you did, would you be scared of me or angry?" The last thought made the elemental guardian nervous. It made Will feel somewhat bad, of course her mother loved her, and she loved her back, and so did Dean. But the thought of her mother's reaction if she ever found out of her daughter being not so little supernatural herself was enough to make her shiver. Susan could be a frightening woman if she became angry. The less she knew about her double life, the better.
"Very well, you do as you please, like the place or leave it be. Most of the stories around it is just rumors anyway, but do you plan to reopen it," the man said.
"No," Dean answered, "We are only going to have a look, I inherited it from a rarely seen aunt, but I haven't accepted it as an inheritance yet. I will first see in what condition the building is before I decide. If it is decaying as you say, I would rather reject it and leave it to the state, I have no personal interests in it."
The white bearded man looked at them and turned back while he said "That's good. Have a look and leave it alone as fast as you can, it is probably the best you can do." And with that he disappeared behind a house corner, leaving the Vandoms to themselves. Dean swallowed nervously, but didn't say anything, his wife had clearly stated what she thought of old houses and superstitions and he wouldn't argue against her. He didn't believe in ghosts himself either, but even a grown man is allowed to be scared.
After they got inside the car, Dean opened a road map he bought and looked how far they were from their destination. "Ah look! We are almost there, we only have about fifteen minutes left after we are out of this village."
"Great" said Susan, "I can't wait to see it."
Will turned to Dean and asked, "Where are we going to stay for tonight, if this place have been abounded for the last twenty years, we can't possible sleep there, can we?"
"Don't worry Will, if the what the old geezer said is true and my and kept it in order, the place, or at least some of the rooms must be in a livable condition and if not, we look for a room down here in the village." For some unknown reason that didn't make Will feel any better.
"So you mean we are going to sleep where an old women recently have died?"
"WILL" shouted her mother and turned around, "I want to hear none of that stuff from you. It was Deans aunt, meaning a family and you will treat her like that too."
Once more Will sent her silent gratitude to her stepdad when he came to her rescue. "Oh no harm done, as I said, I have hardly ever seen her, if I met her in her old age, I would never have recognized her. I wasn't even invited to her funeral!"
"Perhaps she is still lying on her bed then" Will thought grimly to herself. After that it didn't take long before they were out of the village again, and just as Dean had said, fifteen minutes later they drove up a hill and got their first sight of the old monastery turned asylum; and what a sight!