AN/ HI, I know it's been a really long time since I updated...sorry... I've been away to Poland and also been busy doing a lot of other stuff... But things are looking better now (for my ...) since I will have much more time now:)

Again a big THANK YOU to all of you who support me. It really means a lot. This story would have never made it out of my head and onto paper if it weren't for you guys.

This chapter might not be the most thrilling one yet, but it holds a lot of important information. So to all of you who likes to do some detective work; read it very carefully or you might miss out on something...

DISCLAIMER: I do not own kickin'it.

Chapter 5

Secrets Revealed

I let out a small groan as I lay on the forest floor. My foot hurt a lot, having not had any other protection than the high heel sandal I was wearing when I'd crashed it into whatever the solid object was.

Slightly shaken from the fall I started to get up. The pretty dress that I wore had gotten all dirty and my knees were scratched. At the moment I didn't care though, the screams I'd just heard were still ringing loud in my ears. A shiver made it down my spine.

The fall had caught me off guard, reminding me of how vulnerable I actually was and I suddenly became very aware of the danger that might be lurking in the dark. I swallowed, anxiously looking around in every direction. The trees weren't growing so close to each other here, almost creating a clearing. It would have been quite easy for me to see through the woods in day light, but at the moment the only thing the lack of trees managed to do was to make me feel exposed.

Barely daring to move, I concentrated on my surroundings, waiting for a sound or a movement that I was sure would come.

A couple of minutes passed by without anything happening. Confused I looked around me. I was so certain I'd heard a woman scream. Actually I was positive I had.

Suddenly horrible images appeared in my head of what might had happened to her. What if the reason she'd gone silent was…?

I swallowed again, feeling my heart starting to pound hard against my chest. I really shouldn't be here. Letting my gaze fall to the ground for a brief moment to make sure that I wouldn't stumble on something again as I began to walk, I spotted the object that had been the reason to my abrupt and rather ungraceful stop.

The object was partly covered in dirt, making it hard to see exactly what it was in the darkness. All I could tell at first was that it must've been made by a human hand, because no such thing would appear in nature just like that. The fear I'd felt was quickly overpowered by the curiosity that had sprung to life inside of me and I quickly bent down to pick it up. The thing was stuck in the ground though and I had to dig some dirt away with my fingers to be able to pull it out. Once in my hands I could tell that it was some kind of a box, about five inches wide, eight inches long and three inches deep. It appeared to be made out of wood, probably handmade considering the large amount of carvings forming into shapes that covered most of it. Even though the moon brought some light to the night it was still too dark for me to see what the carvings really looked like. I could only guess by briefly running my fingers over the rough structure of them.

Not having the time to inspect them any further I made my way back to the path I'd been following, tightly gripping the wooden box in my hands. Realizing how late I probably was and the thought of that there still might be someone out there, potentially wanting to hurt me caused me to pick up my speed. The faster I went though the faster I wanted to go. Pretty soon I was running, practically for my life and I didn't stop until I'd reached the town.

Panting I walked along the road that I knew Claire would take. Thanks to all the running I'd made it in time through the forest, that is of course if Claire wouldn't for some reason have decided to drive earlier. But I doubted that.

After walking for just a few minutes I saw the headlights of a car coming in my direction. As if on instinct I quickly hid the box inside my jacket and folded my arms over it, keeping it pinned to my body while creating the illusion of me feeling cold.

The car got closer and I recognized it as ours. Claire who was behind the wheel soon spotted me standing under the dim light coming from one of the street lanterns and pulled over to a stop. I opened the door to the passenger seat and Claire immediately started to speak.

"What are you doing out here?" She asked worriedly.

"The party ended earlier than planned," I lied as I got inside the vehicle.

"Why didn't you call? I could've come and picked you up."

"My battery is dead…" I lied again, not daring to look at her in case the expression on my face would give me away.

"Hm…" She muttered and turned the car around. I don't know if she sensed that I was lying and felt hurt by it. But I couldn't just tell her that I didn't want anyone to see her because I was ashamed of her. That would definitely hurt her more.

"So what happened?" She asked after a moment of silence.

"Huh?" I said, worried that she somehow had figured out I had taken the route through the forest and found the box. It would seem like a small thing and that it wouldn't really matter if she knew about it or not. But I felt like that was my secret. My secret alone. And I wanted to keep it that way until I had found out what the small box really was or what it might contained. I didn't want to share it with anybody, especially not with Claire who obviously refused to let me in on anything about her secrets…

"Your clothes"; she clarified. "You look like a mess…"

"Oh…" I said, desperately trying to come up with an excuse. "I eh…I fell," I said realizing I wouldn't be able to make something up that would be completely taken out of the blue. She gave me a strange look as if she was deciding if she should believe me or not. "These shoes are really hard to walk in, especially when the ground is as uneven as Grace's backyard. You should have seen the look on her face as I went down." I rambled.

"Hm…" Claire nodded, not really paying attention to what I was saying. "Why did the party end?"

"Oh..um…There was another party down the street…" I said, inwardly scolding myself for the lame explanation I came up with. "Most of the people decided to leave for that one and Grace's party just died out." I crossed my fingers, hoping Claire would buy it. Luckily for me she did and she didn't ask any more questions that night.

We rode up our driveway in complete silence, which got even more intense when Claire stopped the car and turned the engine off. I yawned, suddenly very tired as I got out of the car. Without really paying attention to Claire I headed towards our house. Once I reached the door I stopped and waited for her since she had the keys. A brief moment passed before I realized that she wasn't with me. I looked back at the car.

Claire was standing next to it, looking up at the moon. I wouldn't have reflected much about her doing that if it hadn't been for those pictures of the moon cycle I'd seen in her notebook yesterday.

"What is it?" I wondered curiously. She turned and gave me a smile.

"Nothing…" She said. "It's a bit cloudy, don't you think? Looks like it's gonna be rain." She made her way over to the door as I followed her with my gaze, frustrated by the way she always talked herself out of everything…

~~~Wings of Love~~~

I yawned and forced my eyes opened. It was Saturday and normally I would have stayed in bed for at least a couple of hours longer, especially since I'd been up partying last night… But today was different and I couldn't afford to sleep away this morning. Today mum and Claire would go out, meeting up with a few old friends of theirs. It was kind of like a tradition for them to do that every time Claire came to visit.

Unfortunate for me they had decided to meet early this morning, leaving me no choice but to get up if I didn't want to miss out on this rare opportunity.

They would be gone for a few hours and I wouldn't see them until I'd return from practice…

Getting out of bed I could hear mum and Claire getting ready to leave downstairs. I thought about going down and say goodbye but decided against it. It would only make them suspicious. No it was much better if they assumed I was still asleep.

While waiting for them to leave I got dressed and packed my stuff for practice, careful not to make any noise. It didn't take too long until I heard the sound of the door opening and closing, telling me that they'd gone outside. I waited though, until I could hear the sound of our car starting and taking off down the street. Finally, I was alone.

I left my room and practically ran through the house. Even though I knew that I would be alone for a good two hours I couldn't help but to feel like I needed to hurry. Reaching the door that would lead me to the guestroom I stopped for a moment, hesitating. I wasn't allowed to do what I was about to, I was pretty sure of that and it made me feel like a criminal breaking and entering. My morals told me this was wrong, but at the same time I desperately wanted to know the answers that Claire was hiding from me. So with slightly shaking hands I finally opened the door.

Stepping inside the room I instantly began my search for the bag where Claire kept all of her stuff. If the bag was in here; it wouldn't be very hard to find. The room was small and the only furniture big enough to hide it would be the closet or the bed. I quickly sneaked over to the bed since that was the most logical place to keep it, being so close to the desk where Claire spent most of her time.

Kneeling down a smile covered my face as I spotted the big and lumpy bag stuffed into the small space between the mattress and the floor. I changed into a more comfortable position and pulled it out. My heart was pounding with excitement, knowing that I would soon unravel all the mysteries Claire had tried to keep from me.

Carefully I opened the bag and took a peek inside. It was as I'd assumed filled with papers holding notes and drawings Claire had made. There were also a few books, including a bird field guide, a moon calendar and a 'How to paint in oils' tutorial book. The black notebook was of course also there along with the spiral Claire had been writing in when I'd gotten home from school that afternoon a couple of days ago.

Since the notebook was the one thing that she'd been most keen to hide from me, naturally it was the one thing that I was the most curious about and it was the first thing I picked up.

I was being very careful, not wanting to damage the old and fragile bindings. By just opening it up to some random page I came upon something that seemed to be a cut-out from another document. It was glued to the page and the slightly ruff handwriting told me that Claire wasn't the one who'd been writing this. The whole thing was worn down and it looked if possible to be even older than the notebook itself.
As my eyes travelled over the words, an uneasy feeling filled me.

It is with deepest sorrow that I hereby confirm the deaths of the following;

George Colby age 18
Elisabeth Hallewell age 18
Fredric Kennedy age 17
Ulrika Jakobsdotter age 16
Annie MacKay age 16
Rachel Byers age 15
David Brewer age 15
Irene Norton age 14
Richard Dayton age 13

My heart goes out to their families who have been suffering an unimaginable loss and to the town of Seaford that has lost a generation.
To you I can only say that I am truthfully sorry for my failure. The dark forces were too strong for me. I couldn't stop them from consuming the innocents' lives. However through my selfless act of casting myself into the fight with nothing but a torch, its flame alone forcing the great powers back, I put an end to the horror that wouldn't have stopped tonight. Although it may be hard to see at this dark moment of time; there is hope.
We are all simple men, but with faith we can overpower the evil threatening to take away everything that we love. May the torch burn forever. May the fire never die.

ˆR. Kingsley September 16, 1788

I looked at the text confused. Why would Claire keep something like that in here? Going through the list of names I noticed the young age of everyone. They just couldn't have died from natural causes. To judge from the text written by this R. Kingsley something truly horrible must've happened. It all was so long ago though and I couldn't see why this would have so much importance for Claire that she kept it in here.

Turning the page a folded piece of paper fell out. I picked it up and unfolded it. It appeared to be a ripped-out page from a diary.

Dear diary I don't even know how to begin. This day has been the most tragic one in the history of Seaford. My sister lost her daughter today...
Rachel is gone and the grief we feel seems endless.
Never in my life would I have thought that such dark forces were resting in our little town. Never in my life would I have thought that we had a witch among us. If I had known…if we had known, our children would still be alive.
Nine, that's how many they were, four boys and five girls. She had planned to drag them down with her, feeding the demons with their souls, while she herself would feast upon their flesh. The atrocious way of her being disgusts me.
I can only pray that the Lord will have mercy upon the innocent souls that had to leave this world tonight.
Robert, God bless him, came stumbling upon her cottage, seeing with his own eyes the horror of her doing. He bravely fought her, unable to save the children but managing to put an end to her.
The cottage was set on fire along with her. It still burns as I write this. May her soul continue to do so until the end of time.

ˆColleen

Whoever this Colleen was, had just shared some light over the mystery of the teenagers' deaths. Although I didn't find her story fully believable. I mean such things as witches feeding on children don't exit. Colleen must've like so many others over that period of time been very superstitious. A more reasonable and probably a much more historical correct explanation to this story would be that the boys and girls had been trapped in the cottage that was set on fire. Maybe it was all just a horrible accident or maybe it was pure murder. Maybe Robert was the one who were guilty for ending their lives.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. This was clearly something that belonged in the history and nothing that I really had to care about, but I found the entire story fascinating and I wanted to find out more. Turning a few pages I got to the pictures of the moon cycle I'd seen before. After studying the calculations and doodles under the pictures for several minutes I gave up. It absolutely made no sense.

On the following pages were more pictures and calculations. Not being really interesting in them I skipped ahead until I got to that poem thing that had awakened my curiosity for Claire's stuff in the first place. The words still gave me the creeps.

The foolishness of you all
Has brought doom as I call
The shadows of the past
Will come to haunt you at last

You are all too blind to see
The time will come when
I'll return to be

No matter how much you try
My soul will awake with a cry
Through the blood running in your veins
The darkness power gains

Oh, Gabriella if only you knew
The one who love for you grew
He who's standing brave and tall
Will be truly thy fatal fall

As the ninth generation arise
I will claim my prize
Father against son they'll turn
For one of them must burn

Through this I'll be strong again
Then bow they will, women and men
To the mighty queen, back from the dead
And my powers will finally spread

Confused I reread the text over and over again. I couldn't make much sense of it. It looked more like a prophecy than a poem to be honest. Although I didn't believe in stuff like that, especially not something describing something as big and sinister as this, I couldn't help but feel affected by it. The darkness within the words made my curiosity grow stronger. Whoever wrote them down or came up with them in the first place seemed to have had an unquenchable thirst for power. I shivered slightly at the thought and turned the page.

The notebook held several more interesting things. All having something to do with the events taking place at that September night 1788. There was an old map over Seaford and a few articles from the 20th century. They were all about people gone missing and I quickly skipped passed them, as I didn't think they had anything to do with the rest of the things in the notebook. Strangely enough I didn't reflect on that there must've been a reason for Claire to keep the articles in here and therefore they would probably be important…

The card with the weapon of the Brotherhood of the Fireguard I'd seen earlier was tucked in the notebook as well. I took it out to take a closer look at it. On the backside of it were names and a lot that is, all written by hand. Going through them I recognized a few of them. Such as Gregory Kingsley, the one whose card I'd received from Jack's dad. Another name was Henry Crawford. That was the name of my grandfather and under it was the name Ben Crawford written, my grandfather's brother. The last name being added to the list, all cramped up to fit near the edge of the card was Christopher Brewer, Jack's dad.

It didn't take me long to figure out that the names did form a list over members. They were all written by Claire. Obviously she was registering all the members of the Brotherhood, for what reason I did not know.

I put the card back and closed the book. Putting it all back I made sure not to leave any traces after me. I'd gotten my answers, only problem was that now I had a bunch of new questions… Standing up I left the room and headed for the computer. I would've dismissed all this information and the story behind the deaths as a mere fairytale if it hadn't been for Claire trying so desperately to keep it hidden from me. Her behaviour told me that all this meant something and somehow it all had something to do with her, maybe even with me…

Somewhere in the back of my head Jack kept popping up. Why was Claire acting so weird around him? Had he something to do with this too? And Mr Brewer? He was part of the Brotherhood, I knew that already. Maybe that's why Claire…? I shook my head again. This was all so confusing but intriguing at the same time and there was no way I would give up on finding out the truth now.

I turned on the computer in the hopes of finding more information about this on the internet. A tragedy as great as nine teenagers being brutally murdered during one night couldn't have gone by unnoticed. There's gotta be something about it out there.

While waiting for the computer to start I went to the kitchen and made myself a sandwich and poured up a big glass of milk. Taking a glance at the watch, my eyes widened. It was already ten o'clock, meaning that I had only about half an hour left before I would have to leave for the dojo. I sprinted back to the computer, brining my breakfast with me. Might as well save some time by eating and researching at the same time…

Much to my disappointment the internet didn't hold much information about the deaths at all. Only confirmations that they had actually happened, but there was no explanation of exactly how. A few pages mentioned that the teenagers got trapped in a burning building. I sighed, slightly frustrated and typed in 'The Brotherhood of the Fireguard' in the search engine.

Again it was hard to find any information and I had to go through page after page before I found a short text, which much like the rest of the things I'd found left me with more questions than answers…

The Brotherhood of the Fireguard

The Brotherhood of the Fireguard was formed back in 1788 in Seaford. It was original created as a counter effect of the tragic incident in Willow Grove where nine people were killed in a fire. The first members were relatives to the victims and their philosophies have been passed on through the generations. Unlike other historians the Brotherhood believes the fire was a work of witchcraft.

Not much is know about how the society works today. Its members still believe that magic exists though and their main purpose is to fight it. However exactly what goes on behind their doors is currently unknown.

I read it once more, making sure I hadn't seen wrong. Witchcraft? The fraternity still believed in witchcraft? That would mean that Christian Brewer, a man who seemed sharper than most people and someone I highly respected believed in magic. That didn't make any sense. Only crazy people would believe in stuff like that. Unless… it truly did exist…

I shook my head. No, it doesn't exist. It can't. It just…can't.

The name Willow Grove caught my attention. I felt my stomach turn at the thought of last night when I'd been running through the woods. Had I been going right passed the place where the teenagers lost their lives?

I wondered if their screams had been as powerful and loud as the one I'd heard. They must have been… A small part of me reflected over the possibilities of hearing ghosts. What if the screams I'd heard belonged to someone already dead? Of course the logical part of my brain quickly told me that that couldn't be. There were no such things as ghosts and there were definitely no such things as witches.

Still having some time left I typed in 'moon calendar' since the moon clearly was something Claire was interested in and therefore I was interested in it. I clicked on the first site that came up and scrolled down until I came to the date of September 16th 1788. I had kind of played with the thought of the moon being full that night when the fire had erupted, but to get it confirmed that there really had been a full moon was actually kind of creepy. Somehow that made the entire 'witch theory' a tiny bit more realistic. Even though I knew witchcraft couldn't have played a role in the story I just couldn't ignore these questions; What if there really was a reason why Claire kept an eye on the moon? What if there was a reason why she kept a list of the members of The Brotherhood of the Fireguard in her bag? What if there was a reason she always comes to visit in September? What if there was a reason she was so weird…? I knew there was a reason and the more I thought about it the more it all made sense.

The reason she kept an eye on the moon was because it had magical powers. The reason why she kept that list of the members of the fraternity was because they fought witchcraft. The reason why she always comes in September is because that's the anniversary of the deaths. The reason why she's so weird is… Oh my god, she's a witch.

At the precise moment I made the connection someone ringed the doorbell making me jump at least three inches off the chair. I threw myself at the computer, closing all the sites down.

"Coming!" I yelled as I still was trying to digest the fact that my aunt was indeed a witch.

Ok that was it...hope you liked it.

Next chapter will be up on Wednesday the 15th. But if I get at least 10 reviews all update a lot sooner;P So review, review, review. And it would be really cool to hear your theories about the things Kim found in Claire's bag, btw.

See ya:)

/MJ