Victor was pacing his office, only stopping to pet his raven.
"He's coming today, Corbierre," he mumbled. "Finally, the waiting shall be over soon…"
A short time later, the front door of the house opened, a young man walked through the door.
He was quite tall, slightly muscular. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt, silver basketball shorts, and a black cap worn backwards. Light brown spikes of his hair poked out through the space in the front of the cap. He was slightly tanned, with striking blue eyes.
Trudy heard the door shut, and left the kitchen to greet the new arrival.
"Oh hello there! I'm Trudy Rehman, the house mother. Welcome to Anubis House."
"Hi Trudy, I'm Dillan Riley, nice to meet you," he said politely, in an American accent.
"Let me give you a tour of the house, you'll be staying upstairs in the newly renovated attic with another boy who will be arriving today," she led him through the doors to the living room. "This is the living room where the students hang out together…over here is where I serve meals," Trudy gestured at the longer, wider table that had just come in a short while before Dillan.
She showed him the kitchen and laundry room before walking through the door to the hallway.
"Now the downstairs bedrooms are where the other boys of the house stay, upstairs the girls." She began ascending the stairs, Dillan followed close behind. "That's Victor's office, and completely off limits, he gets mad if anyone's caught in there," Trudy pointed at the windows of Victors office before going through the door leading to the corridor.
"These are the girls' rooms," she gestured at the doors. "The curtain down there and to the right is Victor's room, which is also off limits. And this is the girls' bathroom here." She turned toward the attic door.
"To the right here is my room, and through there is the attic. Come on; let's go see where you'll be staying."
Dillan was amazed at how old and huge this house was, certainly not like anything he's ever seen back home. They climbed the dark, dusty stairs, and opened the door that led into what was now Dillan's room. The walls were painted a cream color; the window's let in a lot of natural light, which made the room less eerie. There were two twin beds that have yet to be slept in. Overall, the room was quite bare, just waiting for it to be decorated by its new occupants.
"I'll leave you to unpack and get settled. Let me know if you need anything."
"Thank you, Trudy, I will," once he heard Trudy's footsteps decreasing, he pulled out his cellphone and dialed.
"I'm here," he said into the phone.
Trudy called the students down for supper; everyone had remained in their rooms while the new table was being brought in. Everyone was at the table, but Dillan. He was still unpacking his things.
"Lovelies, one of our new students has arrived. He's up in his room, putting away his things. He'll be down to join you all shortly."
The group smiled at Trudy until she left the room.
"So, we have to find this Isis Necklace, then?" Patricia asked.
"Yeah, before Victor does," Nina responded.
"This feels just like de ja vu, trying to get to something before Victor does," said Amber, sipping her soup.
"What are you guys talking about?" KT asked, she wasn't here when they had to make it through dangerous traps to the Mask of Anubis. Willow was intensely listening, as she had not yet started at Anubis House.
"We had to find the Mask of Anubis before Victor," Nina began.
"He wanted it for the Tears of Gold, so he could make his Elixir of Life," said Fabian.
"While we had this cursey spirit lady, Senkhara, threatening our lives if we didn't get it for her," Amber chipped in.
Patricia added, "So we had to go through this long set of tunnels that Frobisher created, to get the mask for her."
"While Victor was scheming to swoop in at the last moment and take it from us, letting us do all the dirty work," Alfie told them with added hand gestures.
"And one of the obstacles was a game of Senet, which Nina, and eventually pretty much the rest of Sibuna, ended up locked up in some underground room, and I had to help save them," Joy was pleased she was able to be included in this conversation.
"Then in order for the Mask to work, they needed the Frobisher Gem that I spent a great deal getting back from Jasper, Fabian's godfather, while trying to keep Rufus Zeno away from the Mask and Gem," Jerome said, just the memories of all of that made him shutter.
KT and Willow had heard about Rufus Zeno in passing.
"So then Senkhara made Nina put on the Mask so she could go to the Land of Rushes, or whatever it was, and I used my Osirian powers to save her, but not before Joy had been struck by some bolt of light, and had to be saved by a Tear of Gold from the Mask" explained Eddie.
"Wooow…." KT and Willow said simultaneously, blinking in wonder. "That sounds intense…" Willow said.
"Let's just hope this new tunnel from our vision is nothing like that," Eddie mumbled, without thinking.
"New vision?" some of Sibuna had yet to learn about this new development.
"...That's something else I've been meaning to talk to you guys about," Nina said, sheepishly. "Eddie and I had a vision, of the two of us in some creepy, unfamiliar tunnel. We didn't get more than a glimpse around though, and we don't know why we had it.…"
"I was thinking about that…." Everyone turned in Eddie's direction. "What if, the Isis Necklace we're looking for is somewhere in those tunnels."
"That's good! That could be…but where are they?"
"Summer House," Amber blurted out, spinning the spoon around in her soup. "That's where Nina was drawn to when we first got here."
"You never seize to amaze me," Fabian said, grinning at her. "I'm sure she's right."
"I know right, I'm just SO clever…" Amber shrugged her shoulders in satisfaction, and smiled. She loved being right.
Dillan walked into the room then, hesitantly standing under the door frame. Jerome and Joy looked over at him first, everyone followed their lead after a moment.
"Hey, I'm Dillan. One of the new guys," he took a couple of steps in the room before Eddie stood up. He held out his hand for Dillan to shake.
"I'm Eddie, nice to meet you. This is my girlfriend Patricia, KT, Fabian, Nina, Amber, Willow, Alfie, Jerome, and Joy," Eddie motioned toward each person as he said their name.
"Nice to meet you all," Dillan gave them all a quick wave.
"Here, come join us," Jerome offered, motioning toward one of the two empty chairs at the table. Dillan hadn't eaten anything good in nearly a day, so he was simply starving.
"Where are you from, Dillan?" Nina asked, grabbing the pitcher of milk from the table.
"Seattle," Dillan answered, serving himself some salad from the center of the table.
"Why'd you leave the States to come to school here?" KT asked, curious.
"Because I- Whoa, how many of you are American? I thought this was an English boarding school, or did I never leave Washington?" he exclaimed after hearing their accents.
"No, these three are the only American's here," said Patricia. Jerome guffawed.
"Ah, I see. Nice to know I'm not the only one, then. I was afraid I'd be the only one," Dillan said, nervously.
He had never been away from home before, much less out of the country.
"I think you'll like it here," Nina said, smiling a secret smile at him from across the table.
AN: Thank you so much to those of you who have commented, I really appreciate it. I'd love to hear what you guys think, so please keep them coming. And thank you to the person who is currently following this story. c: Sorry this chapter was more of an explaining chapter, as some of the characters needed to be filled in on information the audience already knows, but hey, they need to be caught up to speed! I'll be posting the next chapter really soon, probably in a few hours in case any of you read this before then.
