Yes, an upload frenzy, simply because I want all I've got up so I don't have to sit and wait for people to say it's good before adding more. I've already been informed that it's a good story and that more is being demanded. So I'll upload all this and go disappear in my room to get you more (this is directed at you peeps from LJ, whoot!)

Note: about the previous chapter. I'd just like to take the time here to say that not all Wiccans are vegetarians...in fact, hardly any of them are. You'll understand why Melissa and Roxas are later, promise.

Alrighty, I've been told that the detail I got into in this story is intense, so hang on to your butts! (if you get the reference, you gets cookies and a dedication in a future chapter!)

Read on and hopefully you'll enjoy...btw, it's okay if you're confused about some stuffs...I'll explain it as the story goes.

Warning: When I wrote a certain scene in this part, I was fighting with my mother and feeling particularly...vicious I believe was the word I used on LJ. You'll know what part it is when you get to it...heh.

I gaped at the new house, falling against the car door to shut it. "Mom? Did you even look at this place before agreeing to buy it?"

Melissa hopped out of the cab of the moving van we'd rented. The breeze made her blue and white Indian cotton dress flutter around her legs, which were encased in midnight blue leggings with a silver moon and star pattern. To top off the outfit, she wasn't wearing any shoes, showing off her platinum toe-rings and she had more bracelets on both arms than Madonna.

She. Looked. Like. She. Was. Five.

Or insane.

"Well…no," she answered, looking as stunned as I felt. "My, but it's BIG!"

That was an understatement. The house not only was located in the country, with wide fields as backyards and at least half a mile between homes, but it was three stories with windows larger than the front door, which was big in its own right.

"This is much too big for just the two of us, love." Melissa mumbled as we walked up the curving walkway to the three stone steps that passed under an archway to the large, twin oak doors.

I scoffed. "Just a little…" what? A little sarcasm never hurt anybody.

"Holy fucking shit!" she squealed after we opened the front doors and stepped inside. The ceilings were high and vaulted, the floor a glistening marble the color of the ocean in the entryway, transitioning to gleaming hardwood. Two sweeping staircases curved from opposite walls up to the second floor, converging into a single staircase as it continued on to the third.

Though I couldn't agree more, I tried to reign in my mother a bit. "Mom…come on, that's bad karma to swear."

She whirled around in a sweeping circle, her arms wide. "Fuck karma, this place is amazing!" she laughed and hopped up into my arms, which I answered with a grunt as I stumbled a bit. It wasn't that mom was heavy…and she wasn't even really that big (I must have inherited her height) but I wasn't expecting her to make a lover's leap at that moment. Although I should have…

She jumped down after pressing a sloppy, wet kiss on my cheek before dancing away to gaze around the house in dumbfounded amazement.

"Mmm…" I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, looking around as well. The sunlight from outside shone through the large bay windows and from a doorway that led to somewhere beneath the grand stairs. I blankly headed that way, finding a wide, empty room. It was the first I had seen with a carpet, and how fitting that it was sky blue. Mom's favorite color and the zodiacal color of Aquarius, a wind symbol…

What caught my attention most was how the entire back wall was made of glass. You could see the broad meadow that stretched almost endlessly and the small pond behind the house from every angle. It was a nice view since it was a nice day, but what about when it got cooler out? How were we going to keep this monster of a house warm in the winter? Why was I the only one concerned about any of this?

I glanced behind to see Melissa skip, yes, SKIP, across the foyer with a box, laughing and singing some random, tuneless song I was almost certain she'd just made up as she hopped back and forth. She didn't even ask for help.

Which was a good thing, because I didn't intend to lend a hand.

Deciding to explore a bit more, I found a parlor, kitchen, two bathrooms and a den-type room, all on the first floor. I kicked my shoes off and yanked my socks off too. It was habit. If you'd been raised by Melissa, self-proclaimed Moon Mistress, you'd understand…

I grabbed my duffle and a box full of my stuff, aptly labeled "Rox's Crap" before ascending the staircase against the left wall. Why the left? I don't know…it was closer, I guess.

The thick carpet sucked in my feet, but it was kind of cool. Like wading through warm, fuzzy water, if that makes any sense. On the second floor landing were two hallways that branched off on either side. Doors lined both sides that were spaced oddly in an almost random pattern on the left side. On the right was an open study or library type of room at the end. With all those shelves and the fire place, it just looked like one of those kinds of rooms.

There was more to the second floor, I was sure, but I wasn't too interested at the moment. No, now I was eyeing the second set of stairs that led to the third and highest floor. What was up there?

Not wanting to keep myself in suspense (yawn, can you taste the sarcasm?), I climbed the stairs, these a bit narrower than the ones before. I looked around. A cramped sitting room of sorts and a door on either side. What was it with this place? Either the person who'd designed it had no imagination or had a strange obsession with twos…

And the color blue, I said to myself as I looked around. Now that I thought back on it, every room had some sort of blue colored wallpaper with some kind of sky or flower design, and the few rooms I'd found with carpet sported the same color, the tile in the bathroom and kitchen were…wait for it…BLUE! HA!

I shook my head a bit, blinking to bring the room back into focus. "Whoa…that was weird…I should stop eating mom's yellow squash cookies…" seriously, those things were like some kind of drug. Like LSD or something. Or acid. I swear, one of those cookies and you're seeing stars and tracers like you wouldn't believe! I'm not kidding. Why would I make this up?!

"ROXY!" I jumped as my mom called my name, the word echoing around the house in a creepy, horror film kind of way.

"Uh…yeah?" I leaned over the railing to see the small figure of my mother on the ground floor. Wow, this was high…and I'm afraid of heights. I backed away from the edge and decided to just scream. "WHAT?!"

"I'M GOING TO FINISH GETTING THE BOXES IN HERE AND THEN I WANT YOUR HELP IN GETTING THE FURNITURE!"

"OKAY!"

"WHAT WAS THAT?!"

"I SAID OKAY!!"

"I'M SORRY, WHAT?!"

I sighed in aggravation.

"OKAY, MOON MISTRESS!!"

"THANK YOU, SWEETIE!!"

Now, you're probably thinking at this point, 'what the hell?'. I wish I could explain it to you, but to be perfectly honest, my mother and I have never made sense. Ever. Not even to each other. We don't try to understand. We don't care. We just go through life the way we do and ignore everyone else…well, I do. Mom tries to involve everyone, which is the direct opposite of what I do. Which is keep people away. I don't do it on purpose, people just avoid me because of my 'crazy-ass mother' which always earns them a punch, or because they get a look at my homemade lunch I've brought to school with me everyday since I was in kindergarten.

Dad hadn't been like us. He'd been the normal one. The sensible, down-to-earth, let's try to be sane for dinner tonight, kind of guy. I shook my head again at the image tingling in the back of my mind. I kept wanting to draw up a mental image of him or…what little was left of him, after the accident. Why? I don't know, maybe I'm morbid like that. Maybe there's some higher reason, like my avoided past with my father was going to come back and bite me in the ass. How the fuck did I know?

I pushed open the door on the left (what is it with me and left lately?) and my mouth literally fell open at what I saw.

The room was wide and spacious, the walls a tranquil blue-green, like the ocean. The bed sitting in there (yes, there was still furniture in the house) was a large four-poster with a moss green canopy and a fluffy mattress. The carpet was think and lush, like all the other carpets in the house, and the color of the evening sky, such a deep and mysterious blue…shit, I was doing it again. Thinking in Zen. There was no hope left.

There were two windows on the wall to my right, both double paned with gauzy, bright blue curtains that fluttered as someone had left both windows open. Probably to get rid of the stale air or something.

"And an adjoining bathroom?" I breathed in disbelief as I spotted the cracked open door on the left side of the bed, set against the far wall. I leaned into the room a bit and spotted another small door that I assumed to be the closet. Knowing what the rest of the house was like, the closet was probably the size of my room back at the old house.

I would've taken that room…I should have taken that room, but I wanted to check out the other room up here first. So I closed the door quietly, hearing the faint sound of my mother singing. She actually had a good voice and still sang me to sleep when I was ill. What? Don't go thinking I'm a mama's boy…she has a really good voice and it makes me feel loved when she sings my lullaby!

Okay, and my mother had two miscarriages before, and three after, having me, so she babied me a little.

The second room was smaller, though it wasn't any less grand. It was more modest, I guess was a better word to describe it than 'small'. There was a single window that reached from floor to ceiling and upon closer inspection turned out to be a glass door that led out onto a small balcony. There wasn't a set bed in this room, just the wide expanse of thick, black carpet. The walls were bare and white, the only room that didn't have any color. There were two more doors against the far wall and I walked into the room, sighing absently at the feel of the carpet squishing between my toes, to see what was beyond them.

The first door turned out to open up to a bathroom, considerably smaller than the others, but still fairly large, with black and white checkered tiles, a single black stripe of marble tiles going around the room at about chest level, cutting harshly through the white tiles. There was a glass shower stall, a sink housed by a black marble counter that had white cupboard doors and a toilet. Duh, of course there was a toilet. It IS a bathroom after all…

"Huh," for some reason, this strange room was beginning to grow on me. I kind of liked how it was different than the rest of the house. Like a nonconformist in the form of a bedroom. Even though the colors clashed and the room was more the type of dwelling for someone who was colorblind, I had to admit, it was…cool.

I went over to the next door, knowing it had to be a closet. And, of course, I was right. It was a walk in closet, not very big, but large enough that I could probably lay down in it without feeling too cramped. There was a high shelf that I wouldn't be able to reach in my wildest dreams and some stray hangers swinging silently.

About to step out and close the door, I paused when something caught my eye. A small flash of light, and then it was gone. I leaned in, peering at the back wall of the closet closely, when I saw it again. A flash, then gone. What was that? I pressed my hands against the wall and jumped back with a squeak (what?) when the wall gave under the slight push, sliding back an inch or so. "What the hell?"

I pushed harder and the wall kept going until it finally stopped after moving three feet or so. I straightened and spotted a small opening on my left (again with the left, argh!). Wait…a secret passageway? FUCKING SWEET!

Ahem, I mean…yeah…

I entered the pitch black hole, only to slam my bare toe against the edge of a stair.

"MOTHERFUCKINGWHOREBAGCOCKSUCKINGBITCH!" I screamed as I fell back, only to find that the wall had slid back into place, trapping me in the dark. "HOLYSHITMOTHERGODDESS!" I frantically patted my hands across the wall, finding no mechanism to open it again. I tried pushing it, only to be left grunting and out of breath and feeling like an idiot for trying.

Well, there were stairs right? I mean, my toe was broken because of them. Maybe they led to an exit. That was the point of secret passageways right? They led to some sort of exit so you could escape through them.

I felt around cautiously with my hands, sliding along on my knees until I found the stairs again. What? I didn't hurt to be careful. Especially since it hurt now that I hadn't. (Hehe, good one, huh?).

It's harder than you would think to climb stairs you couldn't see and weren't familiar with. And it was made even harder for me by the fact that this staircase wound around and around. I kept bumping into the wall and cursing from always managing to either stub my still aching toe or scrape my nose against the cold stone. Where the fuck was I going? The tower dungeon? Pfft, this was like some kind of lame fantasy novel…but I still liked it. Oh come on, who wouldn't? This was the coolest discovery since tofu!

…I did not just say that…

At one point, I thought I was just going to keep going. Though I was walking up stairs, they were almost flat, so I knew I couldn't be getting very high, and I hadn't seen a tower outside, so that meant I was probably about attic level. Just when I'd been convinced that it wasn't ever going to end, I slammed face first into a wall.

"DAMNITSHITDICKLICKER!" I groped at my face with one hand to make sure it was all still there and felt around in front of me with the other. Turns out, I didn't run into a wall, it was a door, I could feel the handle.

I pushed the door opened and blinked, hissing in pain at the sudden light of the sun from outside after being in the pitch black for a good twenty minutes. Once I'd regained my ability to see without spots, I got a good look around and felt my eyes go wide. Wow…all the injuries were worth it!

It was a small turret room, the walls cornered and angled so the overall shape was a pentagon. I know, I counted the sides. There were windows on every wall, filling the entire room with bright, warm sunshine. The floors were a bit dusty, but overall shone in the light, the hardwood gleaming with brilliance beyond its apparent age. The ceiling was even slightly vaulted so it looked like a tower turret.

I jogged over to one of the windows and looked down on the yard. There were trees around here? Huh, no wonder I hadn't seen them before, they were so far away…I could even see the few houses sporadically spread out across the open meadow and a lake set sort of off center between us all. Too cool!

I spun in a circle in the middle of the room, seeing the images from outside the windows flashing past and blurring together. It was all rather heady and I started laughing for no real reason other than I was happy and proud of my discovery.

My high was soon broken when I realized that I still had no way out of here.

Frowning at the only door in the room, I tried to think of what I could do. I could go back down the stairs and try again to find a way through the wall…or just pound and scream and cry until mommy came and rescued me…

Two problems with that. One: Mom most likely wouldn't hear me, so that would be pointless and a waste of time and two: I AM NOT A MAMA'S BOY!

Ahem, right…moving along then…

I sat in the middle of the room, legs crossed yoga style as I tried to think. I was a pretty bright kid, despite being constantly removed from school, and I knew there had to be some way out of here. Who would build a room up here and make a way to get in, but no way to get out? It was pointless.

Unless the builder just got lazy…

"Think Roxas, think," I knocked my fist against the side of my head gently to try and prod the largely unused organ into action. While I was sitting there, literally beating myself over the head, I saw that one of the panels on the wall near the floor was slightly off pattern with the rest of them.

"Oh, no way…no freaking way…" I crawled up to the panel and slid two fingers into the small crevice I could see along the side, sticking my tongue out a little. "No…fucking…WAY!" I nearly squealed as the panel opened up and I saw, what could only be described as, a slide. That's right. A SLIDE!

I immediately dove onto it, head first, which was probably a stupid idea since I didn't know where it led, but come on…I'm fifteen! I'm supposed to act like a kid and make irrational, spur of the moment decisions!

The slide wound its way around and around, just like the stairs, but it didn't last nearly as long. The fun ride down lasted about a fraction of the time it took to get up. I cursed again as I saw that I was headed straight for a dead end. Shit! I'm going to break my neck! Just perfect!

I braced for impact, knowing that I wasn't going to be reincarnated as a human for all the cursing and few rules I'd broken during my short life…maybe I'd be a dung beetle…

Just as I was about to hit, I reached my arms out in front of me and felt the wall spin open, allowing me to fly out with a squawk as I somersaulted down about five feet into the damp grass below.

"OWMOTHERFUCKINGFUCKERSHITEATER!" I sat up and rubbed at my neck, still feeling the sting down my spine from falling. Not the mention my ass had had better days. Poor thing had taken the brunt of my fall after all…

"THERE YOU ARE, MY BABY!" all of a sudden I was wrapped in something warm and soft that smelled like vanilla and lemon (odd combination, I know, but it works).

"Mom! Air is essential to life!" I flailed my arms, trying to get free. But she just held me tighter and showered me in kisses. "AH! STOP! IT BURNS!"

"Roxas Gerald Augustus Hikari, you are in big trouble young man!" she admonished as she finally pulled away, shaking a finger under my nose. "You had me worried sick! And what's worse, I had to move in most of the furniture myself!"

Yeah…my mom has fucked up priorities…

"Sorry…" I mumbled, deciding not to tell her about the secret passageway. That was why it was called a secret passageway, not a public passageway. Wait…wouldn't that be, like, a road or a tunnel? Hm…food for thought!

She sighed and pulled me to my feet. "Oh, it's alright." She smiled and pinched my cheek, which I absolutely hated, and I even tried to bite her. But she was a smart woman, and quick, and she snatched those fingers away quicker than you could say half the things I'd been screaming earlier. "Besides, I can't stay mad at my baby." She cooed and kissed my hair, mussing it up more.

"Ugh…" I followed her back to the moving van and helped her move the last of the furniture into the house. We didn't have nearly enough belongings to fill the massive space of our new house, so things were going to look awkward, however, Melissa breezily harped on how good the Feng Shui of the place was. "Right," I agreed when she turned expectant eyes to me. She beamed and gave me her back again.

"And Roxy, did you see this amazing room?" she indicated the one under the stairs that I'd walked into before, the one that had started my amazing journey that had ended with an epic assplant in the backyard. "You know, since this place is way too big for us, and we don't have nearly enough things to fill it…plus the fact that the money from my book, which is now on the top ten must read list!" she interrupted herself to squeal, and I smiled at her. I was glad she was happy…and that she was finally getting recognized. Though her book was about living life according to Zen philosophies, yoga and had the many recipes she'd invented (and experimented on me with), it seemed that it was turning into quite a hit.

"That's great mom…now, what were you saying?" I tried to get her back on topic.

"I was saying something?" she blinked over at me blankly. Sometimes, I forgot that she was only a few inches taller than me. "Oh right!" she clapped her hands together, causing the many bracelets to clink and clatter against one another. "I was thinking that, since the money I'm making off the book won't last forever, and I'll probably never write another one, I figured we'd invest most of the money that didn't go into this house, and I could maybe teach a yoga class in this room!" she spread her hands out to indicate the open room with the glass wall. "Wouldn't that be perfect?! It's so relaxing and open in here, you can breathe! It would be the perfect escape from the city life!"

I nodded along, not really paying that much attention to what she was droning on and on about. Her idea of a yoga class here was actually a good one and would probably come to fruition. One problem…mom didn't like to take money from people when she did things for them. And that included teaching a class. Which meant one thing…I was going to have to handle the finances.

It didn't bother me too much. I'd been handling what little money we had back in our old place after dad died. Like I said, I'm a bright kid.

"Oh, and maybe I can set up a tea shop or something…you know, sell my special brews…oh! An apothecary shop!" she clapped her hands, clinking the bracelets again, as she bounced happily. "That would be wonderful! Great karma too!"

"Mom, I think you're getting a little carried away…"

"No, honey! This is a great idea! I'm not saying we do it right away! We have to get to know the people around here first and spread the idea through town…oooo, maybe I can mention it during that interview I have on Saturday!"

I gaped at her. "You have an interview on Saturday?! For what?!"

"Why, my book of course! This talk show wants me to come on as a special guest and discuss my book!"

"Mom! Why didn't you say anything earlier?!"

Melissa actually had the grace to look sheepish. She patted me on the head and said very quietly. "Because I didn't want to upset you, honey."

"Why would this upset me?" uh-oh, she had that guilty look in her eyes…this couldn't be good…I really didn't want to hear her reason anymore. But before I could protest, she was speaking again.

"Because it's five-hundred miles away…" she hugged me, "But I'll only be gone for three days, it won't be so bad. And you don't have to go to school until you feel like it, so you can stay home."

"YOU'RE LEAVING ME HERE BY MYSELF?!" I didn't know anybody here, I didn't know the neighbors, what if they were soul sucking demons? What if they were mass murderers? What if the Manson family had been reincarnated and they were living just down the road?

"Roxy, sweetie, it'll be okay." She began to rock me gently, and though I'd like to say that it bothered me, it didn't. It felt good to know she loved me and cared about me...even if she was going to abandon me in a strange neighborhood for three long days. She was so warm, so soft…she smelled so good…I closed my eyes and held her tight, burying my face in her shoulder.

Alright…I admit it…I'm a mama's boy…there, are you happy now?

Naaawwwsss...Roxy loves his mommy...ahem, anyways, there's chappie two for you, not much else to say. Guess you'll be hearing more from me in the very near future!

Luffles,

-Ramen