Chapter 2: House Rehab

M:

I awoke to the sounds of pitter patter as raindrops fell outside. No going outside today. But that means a whole day to fix up the house. The entire house. But that would take too long. I needed someone who could accomplish tasks fast. Someone like Marmaduke.

Breakfast was a jolly affair. Loveday was disgruntled because we wouldn't get to stop for dresses. Everyone was trapped inside the house. However, that gave me an amazing idea.

"We can all fix this house together!"

Marmaduke and Digweed were already at the table with us. Everyone, including them, whipped their head around to face me.

"What?" Uncle asked. "This house is fine the way it is."

"Now, Benjamin. You know Maria is right. Her sacrifice may have fixed the foundations of the the manor and the cracks, but they certainly didn't fix the amount of furniture or the dust collecting here." Loveday stated.

Miss Heliotrope asked the question that was on my mind. "Where will we get the furniture from then?"

Uncle just smiled, and shook his head in wonder as to how someone could be so naive. Marmaduke, on the other hand, was more than happy to elaborate to the poor souls that hadn't lived in Moonacre all their lives. "Miss. Everyone here has their own magic, except you as you weren't born here or have any relation to anyone in Moonacre, a blood relation that is. Me, I have the magic to be able to well, pop up wherever I want and have the ability to replace a thousand cooks. Loveday's magic has to do with her dresses. Benjamin has his furniture. He enchanted the piano to play by itself. Digweed, he's in charge of gardening. And, Miss Maria. Well. She's the Moon Princess. For all we know, she could have all our powers, or maybe just ones that relate to the sky. She's extraordinary."

This aroused more questions, and I decided all these questions could only be answered by a book. "Uncle, are there any books on Moonacre around here?"

"Dear Maria. There's only the one that you brought back from London. There are no other books, simply because there cannot be any other books. That's why I was so upset when your father took it with him when he left. If he was going to cut all ties, he should have left behind the one thing that could've helped us. It could've answered so many questions."

"What do you mean, there simply cannot be other books? Somebody should've wrote something!" I exclaimed, thinking how could people not write anything?

"Here. Watch what happens when I write something about Moonacre. Digweed, can you please get me some paper and a quill?" I watched over Uncle's shoulder, interested, as he wrote his account of the day at the cliff. As soon as he started writing, the smell of smoke filled the air, and in less than a second, the paper Uncle had been writing on, burned itself out! Not even ashes were left! Woah! "There you go. That's what happens when you write anything relating to Moonacre. People have tried centuries to disguise facts in a riddle or a poem, but no, it all burns to crisp. The other books are all ones by other people in the outside world." Uncle sat back with a sigh. "I'll give you the book, okay. You should catch up on Moonacre history."

I smiled sheepishly. "I may have already found it., and now it has my story in it too."

Uncle just sighed again. I had a feeling that he knew exactly who had told me about the book. "If Uncle is in charge of the furniture, who is in charge of the paintings and the curtains and other things?" The words rushed out of me.

The next few hours of my life were magical. There was no blueprint, because it got burned up too. Uncle did a "splendid" job explaining the layout of the house, however.

House layout: There are 42 rooms in this house. Marmaduke's kitchen, the dining room where we are right now, 6 bathrooms, the ballroom, the classroom, the family room, the sewing room, my workshop, the living room, the gardening room, Wrolf's room, and the rest 36 are bedrooms. The four towers in the four corners, are all linked by a door, so Maria has claim to all of them. Her bedroom is currently the right back (from the front view) and she has her own bathroom. Everything else is scattered throughout, connected some way or another. Figure it out.

That was not the magical part of all this though. The real magic came after Uncle's description. Uncle wanted to do everything the efficient way and so made us all use magic. Here's how that went.

Uncle knew I had tremendous power, and wanted to start me off with "baby" steps. According to him, it's not like he was making me stop the rain. Yeah, supposedly I can do that. Anyways, he made us all sit in a circle, even Miss Heliotrope. He said that she could provide her strength and that would make it easier for us. He then made us close our eyes. We didn't need to do that either but he said it would help me. And then it was an explosion.

An explosion of colors before my eyes. The energies from everyone in the room, including mine. The colors looked like paint, forever mixing. It was surreal. And then in front of me appeared a layout of the manor. That was Uncle taking the lead. We then zoomed into one of the rooms and viewed it from an aerial perspective.

Then came the hard part. I had to channel everyone's thoughts and magic through me. Once I did that, all the paints mixed and a rainbow filled the room. When the rainbow disappeared, the room was pristine, clean, and newly decorated. No speck of dust in sight (because of Marmaduke), flowers that would never wilt (Digweed's magic) sat in corners, furniture (from Uncle) were appropriately placed, and fabrics and curtains (from Loveday) put the finishing touch. We had to do this individually for every room, but in the end, the manor was looking better than ever. And, I had three extra rooms because we had decorated the other towers too!

When we finished, it was late, and we were all tired. Thus, an early dinner was prepared, by all of us, seeing that even Marmaduke was tired, and then it was off to bed. Before going to sleep, I went to the library and carried Moonacre's only book to my room with me.