Elyon Brown's house had not been touched since the Browns had left for their 'holiday', and the hedges Mrs Brown had so often been commended for were now misshapen and grown out of proportion to what used to look like a magnificent house, though now it stood, almost looking sunken; depressing down into the mud and long grass that climbed now an inch from over-ruling the meager white fence that surrounded, though the fence itself now seemed greyish, with the paint already peeling away and chipping as though the would-be princess and her false family were the houses life force. If her stomach hadn't already felt heavy, Will was sure the sight would have created a pit as she walked over bent and contorted plates of stone that feebly claimed to have once been a path and with a glance at the blond, Will wondered if perhaps Cornelia had done this - whether aware or not, the blonde seemed to have the ability to make the mud dry and crack when she was provoked to anger, and Will had seen this in the corner of her eye a few times, never thinking much of it until the giant slab of earth Cornelia pulled from the ground revealed her power. Maybe Cornelia had been here, but Will doubted it only because of the thick cobwebs that seemed to have edged across every window and door. Cornelia might've come, but one look and her cleanly friend would have turned away to find elsewhere for her mourning. There was enough mourning here coming from the house itself, and Will walked into the house with closed eyes - the reasoning itself, she couldn't account for, but she only found herself opening after hearin a few clicks, and Hay Lin noting, "Power's down."
And so they'd fished out torches; it was Cornelia who knew where they were, in a drawer in the eery kitchen that stank of moisture that told her not to even bother looking in the fridge. Elyon had been gone all of three and a half weeks at the most and as her own torchlight scaled the room, Will paled at how the drying corpses of fruit and orange-skins she was sure would cave on touch looked like they were the result of someone being at least two months missing. The house truely did seem to be decaying faster than it should and Will saw it as a meaning of the magic police officers would soon look over as mystery. Elyon Brown's holiday could only last so long...
"Not under here." Will only said it to break the silence that had been looming since they'd reached Elyon's bedroom, and winced as her voice boomed into the silence.
"Nothing.." The pain in Cornelia's voice was evident and Will's eyes lingered on the back of a cashmere pink sweater, of a brand far too expensive and flashy for Will to ever consider shopping for, but then she remembered where she'd meant to be going when she'd ran into eyes of glass that peirced her and inserted a breeze directly through the inners of her veins. Prince Phobos was beautiful. Stunning. And that scared her more than anything. Cornelia turned around and Will felt the cold brush her face when the blonde smiled waterily, "Except for the shoes she borrowed last year."
"Well, she must've hidden it in some girly fit of paranoia." Will snorted at that, and felt a little better to see Caleb leaning against the wall; safety from the storm that lay in Phobos' eyes. Caleb wasn't afraid of anything.[0] Cornelia smiled for real too, and Will was glad that the rebel boy could cheer up her friend with such ease.
It was the smile and the roll of the eyes of Cornelia that turned a minute feeling of humor from Caleb into a smile of Will's own as Cornelia closed Elyon's closet, looking at Caleb through the blue-black darkness of the room. "Yeah, says you who stuck the dagger in his belt."
Was that where he'd got the knife, she'd desperatly sliced at his ropes with? She wondered if she should tell him that it was rubbish and she'd probably have got through his bindings fast with her teeth alone.. Will felt her cheeks heat, though and decided against the joke, glad when a phone's ringing interrupted her thoughts. "Ooh. We're supposed to be at the sleepover!"
[0] Will has already forgotten how he'd looked like he was about to pass out with angst and fear when she came to the rescue... Selective memory works for all of us though..
That's an extra for what I'd planned to write today... Lets just say I got WITCHed up on msn :L