"Miley." He said, his voice deep and husky.
"Miley? Who's that?" Lilly asked.
"Ha. Ha. Lukas, that is not funny at all." Oliver told him while Lukas opened his bag and pulled out some candles, a mirrow and a pendulum.
"What the fuck? Man, are you nuts? What are you doing?"
Lilly just watched the whole scene.
"Oliver," Lukas started "if you don't like it then leave. But I told Lilly that I'll show her something today. Do you really believe it is right to leave her in the unknown? Do you? After all she lives in that house and has no clue what happened."
Lukas observed Oliver's every reaction.
"Come on, Lilly, let's go home." He offered the puzzled girl.
"No, Lukas got me really curious here, if you don't like it, go by yourself. I'll stay."
That made Lukas grin devilishly.
"Fine. I'll stay, too." Oliver couldn't leave Lilly alone with this crazed up guy.
"Good, we need to sit in a circle."
"Lukas, what is this, an evocation?" Lilly asked, not sure what she should think of this, but still full of emotions of excitement.
"Something like this." He lit the candles put the mirror in the middle of their circle and dropped some wax on it. Then he took the pendulum, held it in the air and waited. Nothing. Waited some more. Still Nothing.
"Damn. It doesn't work. Well, Oliver, you're good in thinking of nothing right?" The blond boy asked smirking.
"Eh, what did you say?" Oliver, who hadn't even catched Lukas' insult, asked.
"Thanks man, hold this and think about nothing."
"Why me?" Oliver cried as if he was a little girl.
"Just do it." The shaggy haired boy did as he was told and...nothing happened. Just nothing.
"Oh well, great. Lilly, you're our last chance. Think you'll handle it?"
"Yes, sir!" Lilly saluted and grinned, she took the pendulum, held it up. It didn't move, a light breeze of air flew by. It still didn't move, not even one millimeter.
"Okay, great. It works. Lilly just sit there and hold it. And repeat everything I say."
"You're messing with me, right?"
"No, and now hush."
Lukas started uttering his evocation. And Lilly repeated every word.
"Miley Stewart, daughter of Robbie Ray and Susan Stewart, sister of Jackson Stewart, I'm calling you. Please answer my whispers. You died 6 years ago, are the rumours true? Miley Stewart, tell us what occurred 6 years ago. Miley, answer us through the pendulum. Are you there?"
All three of them eagerly watched the pendulum, hoping it would move.
"Miley? Please, if you are here give us a sign."
The pendulum started to move.
"Yes..." Lukas said excited.
"Miley, did you get murdered?"
The pendulum moved again.
"Miley, we want to know if you will haunt the people now living in your house. Will you?"
And again the pendulum moved. At the same time Lilly started to giggle which slowly changed into her roaring with laughter.
Both guys just looked at the blonde girl.
"Oh man, you should have seen your faces. Priceless." Lilly said while rolling on the ground.
After that Oliver started to laugh as well, only Lukas didn't.
"You pranked us?" He asked shocked.
"Lukas, really? You really think this would have worked, come on."
During Lilly's little speech it started to thunder, and shortly after big drops of rain fell down.
All three of them looked at each other as if they were in the wrong movie.
"Oh shit." Oliver said.
And with that all of them ran home, screaming or laughing, one couldn't distinguish, the thunder was too loud.
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The same night Lilly lay in bed. She had to think about what Lukas had said. Lilly was sure that the guy wasn't lying. He was sure of everything he said this night. And Oliver was acting kind of strange as well. So, there was a girl named Miley. And this girl has been living here 6 years ago and died. So what?
People die. That's how it is, Lilly's father and brother died as well. That's what people do, they die. But why did the guys make such a big fuss out of it?
'Wait, mom was looking through the stuff in the attic today. Maybe I find something there.'
As Lilly made her way towards the attic she felt a creepy-crawly feeling right inside her stomach. Just as she was about to open the door leading towards the attic she heard a sound.
'Not this again.'
She leaned her ear against the door and listened. Someone was humming a song.
It sounded beautiful.
And absolutely sad.
She wanted to know what was going on, she then started to push the handle down but the humming got louder and Lilly stepped back.
'Shit. Oh no, it's coming. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.'
Lilly's back was pressed against the wall behind her, her eyes were locked on the door, her ears listened to the ever louder growing humming. She was in a state of shock, she couldn't move, couldn't run away.
Finally, when the humming started to feel like someone screaming in her ears, it stopped.
Everything was back to silence. Lilly took a breath. And another one.
"What the..."
She sat down on the floor. Her back leaning against the wall behind her.
Her eyes only closed with the break of dawn.
"Lilly,..." A figure was leaning above her, watching her. It was smiling and it's arm was stretching towards Lilly.
"Lilly."
A hand touched her face, stroked it.
"Lilly! What the hell are you doing here?"
Lilly's eyes fluttered open. Her mother was bending down, watching her.
"Mom..?" She asked with a yawn.
"This would be me, young lady, care to tell me why you're sitting right infront of the attic door?"
Now Lilly was fully awake, she looked to her right, to her left and then back to her mother.
"I'm not quite sure. What time is it?"
"Seven thirty."
"Fuck! I'm late."
"Language."
"Sorry."
After the blonde skater found something to wear and eat she rushed out of the house and made her way towards school.
"Yo Lil'. What's up, man?" Max asked while walking up to Lilly, handshaking her, Oliver was trudging behind him, looking kind of tired.
"Nothing much, kind of tired." With that the bell rang.
During first period Lilly thought about telling Ollie or Luke what happened the night before, but decided against it, because she thought they wouldn't believe her after she pranked them.
The skater was sure, that she wanted to find out about the mystery called her attic. When you come to think of it, her mother went up there as well, and nothing bad happened to her.
"Hey Lilly, want to hang out after school?" Oliver asked.
"Oh, you see, I'm not quite in the mood to hang at the skatepark today." Lilly declined.
"No, no. I wasn't thinking about the skate park. How about the beach?" Oliver offered.
"Sounds good, but I need to finish some things at home first. How about tomorrow?"
"Yeah, sure, tomorrow is fine."
Back at home Lilly prepared herself for her little attic-journey.
She was equipped with camouflage, a flashlight and her old baseball bat, crawling over the floor she made her way towards the attic door. She crawled up the stairs until she reached the door which would reveal her destination. Her whole body tingled, thrills went down her spine while she opened the door and proverbially rolled into the attic.
Nothing.
No dead people.
Just stuff. Old musty stuff.
Good. She started to rummage through the things like her mother did before. Therby she found some old furniture, a tattered teddy bear and...ah! A picture.
The picture held a boy and a somewhat younger girl. Could it be? Lilly thought that this could be Miley and the boy could be the brother Lukas was talking about.
The blondes eyes travelled over the girls face. She was beyond beautiful. Curly brown hair, green eyes, a button nose and a lovely smile. Lilly thought that this girl really was gorgeous, after looking at the picture for some more seconds she put it aside and started to work herself through a cardboard box.
Nothing much was in there, mostly paper snippets. Just when Lilly was about to put the box aside she felt something. She pulled it out and looked at an old, half-torn newspaper article.
It read: Sixteen year old found dead in attic
The article reported about the young girl Miley Stewart who was found dead in her attic, she has been died of thirst. It said that the father was on a business trip and her brother was staying at a friends house while the father was gone. Miley was home alone and locked herself up in the attic, no information about how, nor anything else. Just that, when the two men came back home it was too late, Miley was already dead.
Lilly couldn't believe what she just read. Died of thirst and all alone, this poor girl.
Again she took the picture of the siblings and observed Mileys face. She felt such sympathy for the girl. Lilly was so concentrated on her thoughts that she didn't notice one single tear rolling down her face.
Only when it dripped on the picture, she noticed.
'I'm crying. I'm crying over a girl I don't know...'
When her mother called for dinner she went downstairs with the picture still in her hands.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
While Lilly went to bed she put the picture under her pillow. She wasn't quite sure why she did this, but she somehow felt devoted to the dead girl.
This night Lilly fell asleep immediately.
"Lilly." A nice voice said while humming a sad song with a lovely voice.
"Lilly..." The voice said again and Lilly opened her blue eyes to meet a pair of green ones staring right into hers. Lilly smiled. The figure smiled as well, stretched it's hand towards Lilly and caressed her cheek.
While being touched the blonde felt warm all around.
"I've been watching you. You cried because of me."
Now Lilly tried to observe the figure, which was kind of blurred. It started to get features.
"Miley..?"
"Yes..."
Everything went back to darkness.
The blonde shot up in a sitting position.
"Whoa.."
Even though she woke up, Lilly still had this feeling of warms all around her.
"Was this a dream? Or.."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Mom? Mom, you up already?" Lilly shouted while examining the contents in the fridge.
"Morning Honey." Heather's sleepy voice filled the kitchen. After a short while, Heather realized what was wrong in this picture.
"Lilly?" she asked startled. "Why are you up already? To experience you waking up before me firsthand, how come?" Not that Heather was being exaggerating, but this really was too good to be true.
"Oh, I just couldn't sleep. By the way mom, have you been feeling weird since we've been living here? Or did you have any odd dreams?" Lilly asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
Heather sat down at the table with a re-warmed cup of coffee, waiting a moment to overthink her daughter's question.
"No, no. I haven't felt this good for a long time." She told Lilly, voice kind of monotone, which earned her a suspicious look from the younger blonde.
"Something the matter, dear? Is it those skater guys? Are they trying to make you do drugs?"
"No, mom." Lilly sighed. "It's just, you know, some kids at school asked me about things." A short moment of hestitation. "About the house and it's former owners." Lilly glanced over to her mother to see any kind of reaction but got nothing.
"You know something about it?" She finally asked.
Heather shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Lilly, please don't be.." She tried.
"Moom! You knew. Why didn't you tell me? Why did you have to buy this house, that's creepy!"
The younger blonde couldn't believe her mother's actions.
"Darling, why, why, why. Have you any idea how keen this offer was? We could have never afforded such a nice place in Malibu, Lilly. Never. So what, a girl died in the attic. That was six years ago, why does it even matter?" Heather's mood got more bad with every word shooting out of her mouth and in the end she was near to screaming.
"Sorry, I didn't.." Heather started.
"No, it's okay. You know, she's visiting."
"What? Who? What are you talking about?" Heather asked getting confused.
"Miley. In my dreams." And with that Lilly grabbed her school stuff and left as fast as possible.
She was confused herself, she couldn't find one healthy reason why she told her mother that she dreamed about the girl that died in their attic six years ago.
What the hell was wrong with her?
A/N: Uh, what do you think? A cone of choc-ice for your thoughts :P