A/N: I'm so glad you guys enjoyed that chapter! Reviews make me happy. :) I made a slight mistake: I'm going away on Sunday, June 8. So you may get another chapter out of me before I leave. :) Also, in case anyone was wondering:
The wizard who ordered Anne Boleyn's execution is from "The Magician's House Quartet" by William Baker. The passage to Narnia and Cair Paravel are from "The Chronicles of Narnia" by CS Lewis. Emily, Sara Crewe's doll, is from "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgeson Burnett. Dorothy's ruby slippers are from "The Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. And, finally, the clever cat named Zachariah, the Moon Maiden's pearls, and Miss Heliotrope's book of essays are from "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge. :) Oh, by the way, if you read chapter 10 a few days ago and can't remember what happened, I suggest you read chapters 10 and 11 together.
Chapter 11
Grandma Judy's Attic
THE ALTERNATE EARTH
Samantha gasped as the wooden panel gave way under her hand, swinging aside and landing with an impressive THUMP on the floor. The two remaining concrete stairs were now visible, and from what she could see, the once exciting steps now lead into dark oblivion. A cool draft blew onto her face, and the air smelled musty. For a moment she almost ran down the steps to go ask Grandma Judy to come with her into the dark hole in the ceiling. After all, monsters never ate grownups.
Magic never shows itself for grownups either. She thought. Or, Grandma might not want me up there, and that will be the end of finding anything utterly fantastic. And where's my courage, anyway? Sara and Becky never complained about the garret and look what happened to them. Now THAT was utterly fantastic!
And so, summing up the rest of her courage, she took a deep breath and climbed the final steps into the hole.
The room above the steps was dark, cold, and musty smelling. As she went to step farther in, she tripped over a cardboard box and fell, sneezing wildly on the dust that covered the wooden flooring. Sitting herself up and dusting off her T-shirt, she poked the box with her foot. Its contents rattled.
"I wish I knew where the light switch was." She said aloud.
And, almost like magic, Samantha noticed the small round window she had seen from the front walk. The fading evening light provided just enough vision that she could see the light switch on the far wall. Smiling to herself, she rose and made her way carefully through the maze of boxes to the switch.
Now that the light filled the room, she could see. The attic had not been used for some time, as it was dusty and dirty and damp. Cardboard boxes and trunks of various sizes filled every nook and cranny. The floor was cherry hardwood, as it was downstairs, but the paint on the walls was basic white, and pealing away.
Samantha shivered with excitement. She had found it! She had found the fantastic place that everyone finds when they go someplace new. A beautiful, untouched, place filled with old memories.
The old memories and history she had been longing for.
Hungrily, she looked around, wondering which box or trunk to open first. But something pulled her back to the box that had tripped her when she first entered the attic. Maybe it was fate, she reasoned. Maybe she, Samantha Lydia Aarons, was supposed to open this box.
Maybe it was her father's family.
Sitting down cross-legged on the dusty floor, she pulled the box into her lap and opened it.
On the top of the box there was an old blue photo album. Samantha selected it and opened the faded cover.
For the first few pages, there were photos of Bill and Judy's wedding. Though they weren't terribly exciting, she enjoyed looking at them. They were comforting. She especially liked the wedding certificate.
THIS SIGNIFIES THE MARRIAGE OF
William Earnest Burke
TO
Judith Anna Parkington
ON
August 8th, 1987
That was it for the wedding photos. Next came Leslie's baby pictures, as well as her birth announcement. Samantha smiled. The birth announcement was so unlike her mother: Lace covered, frilly and pink. The picture, however, was a great likeness. The infant Leslie was lying on her back, blue-green eyes wide, arms up, trying to grab the camera. And though her teeth hadn't started to grow, there was a big smile on the baby girl's face. She read the writing on the birth announcement.
HELP US CELEBRATE THE BIRTH OF OUR ANGEL!
We Welcome Into the World:
LESLIE SOPHIA BURKE
Born December 3rd, 1994, at 3:16 AM
20 INCHES LONG, 5 LBS, 4 OUNCES
Still smiling, she extracted the birth announcement from the book, lying on the floor beside her leg. Grandma Judy never came up here. She wouldn't notice the birth announcement missing, right? And besides, Samantha could return it to the scrapbook before her parents picked her up in two days.
After a few more pages of Leslie's baby and toddler pictures, the time changed yet again. Instead of being in front of the blue house in Arlington, she was in the country, sitting in front of a beautiful, old, white farmhouse. She looked to be about ten or eleven years old. Then she was posing with the same black and white mutt Samantha had seen in the family photo downstairs. She pulled it out of the book, curious to see if Judy had written anything on the back. She had.
Leslie and Prince Terrian, (P.T.) October 2007
So, the dog's name was Prince Terrian. That was the same name Leslie had given the giant troll hunter in the bedtime stories about Terabithia. Samantha placed it back in the album. After a few more pages, she found a photo of Leslie and P.T. with a very familiar looking boy and a six year old girl that was probably the boy's little sister. Taking the picture out, she hoped there would be a caption on the back. There was.
Leslie, with Jess and Maybelle Aarons. (Neighbors. Jess is Leslie's best friend) March 2008
Maybelle Aarons.
That was Samantha's aunt at age six, with her mother and father.
Putting the picture away, she disregarded the scrapbook and began going through the rest of the box. There was only one more thing in the box, she realized. A red spiral notebook. Curious, she picked it up, opening the cover.
On the inside cover was an amazing colored pencil drawing of a castle. The first page read:
THE HISTORY OF TERABITHIA
Written By:
Leslie Burke
Illustrated By:
Jess Aarons
Samantha gasped. Terabithia! Maybe there were more stories in the notebook that her mother hadn't told her yet.
All of a sudden, Judy's voice rang through the house, even reaching the attic.
"SA-MAN-THA! DINN-ER!" She yelled, pronouncing the syllables clear and loud.
"Uh, coming Grandma Judy!" Samantha shouted, stuffing the notebook under her shirt. Before she left, she stopped to grab the photo of Leslie, Jess, and Maybelle as kids.
It was comforting.
A/N: Hmm…don't know if that was one of my better chapters. Please review and tell me what you thought. This will PROBABLY be my last chapter posted before leaving on the 8th, but I'll try to write as much as I can. ;)
