Hello again, new chapter up and things are silently happening in the shadows, what will the new morning bring? As usual, reviews are welcome.

Disclaimer: I don't own W.I.T.C.H.

The next day was the day for exploration. After a breakfast made up of already prepared sandwiches and some special food for William, they all sat down and discussed what they should look at first.

"I suggest we start at the top first, and then we will look through it downwards, one floor at the time," Susan said.

"Sounds fine to me," Dean answered back, "And I think we all should have a look together, by doing that we can comment the state of the rooms to each other so that we don't risk missing anything. Then we can also have a talk about what we are going to do with this place, perhaps someone get a good idea," he hopefully continued.

Susan looked at him, and then at Will, "Would that be alright for you, or do you prefer to have a look on your own?"

"It's ok mom, I will come with you, but if I see something interesting I keep the right to have a look at my own."

"That's fine," Susan said, "Just don't touch or destroy anything, remember we don't really own this place. That would only be if Dean decide to accept the testament."

"Something I am not quite sure of right now" thought the history teacher silently for himself while thinking back to last night.

"When will the lawyer come?" asked Will.

Dean picked up his letter from a pocked and red through it, "He wrote that he would arrive around four of clock," he said. "When I spoke to him over the phone, it sounded like he lived quite far away from here too so we have to be patient."

"Everywhere is far away from here" said Will, "And I do not mean that in relative terms, but four o'clock? It took us eight hours to drive all the way here. Even if we have the answer ready when he comes, we will not be home before midnight and only if we drive nonstop. It will be bad enough for us, but what about poor William?"

Dean had already foreseen that little problem so he said, "I thought we could stop and spend a night at a hotel along the road. It would be nice having a warm dinner, breakfast and a soft bed, that way we could take our time on our trip back home the next day. Perhaps we can have a few more stops along the road so William don't make it "The Road to Hell" for us again," and merry referred to the song The Road to Hell that ironically had showed up on the radio at a time when his biological child had started to cry.

"So you didn't think the bed we slept in tonight was good enough?" Susan said with a sly smile to her husband.

Will just wanted to stick her fingers deep in her ears and pretend as if she didn't hear that, but now it was too late. Susan snickered at her daughter's expression and wondered if she should continue and embarrass her further, but decided she did not want to take the risk. "Alright then," said Susan, "Shall we go? Will can you take William with you?"

"Yes mom," said Will and lifted her brother up such that his main part of his body rested against her chest while his head looked over her shoulder. "That way you can watch my back," Will thought to William, but even if the guardian had used her telepathic ability to speak to him, he probably wouldn't have cared much for it, he was too young.

They went back into the entrance hall where the reception and the stairs was. On the outside, a layer of clouds had replaced the bright sunny weather from yesterday, promising either snow or rain. There was still some wind blowing, but not as much as during the night, but on the inside, this didn't matter. They walked up the stairs to the third floor; the wall along the stairs were decorated with paintings of old monks and some black and white photos of the village further down. Will thought she could recognize most of the houses she had seen on their drive through there yesterday. When they reached the top of the stairs, they had to walk around the gallery to reach the part were the corridor to the left and right wing began. Unlike the first floor, up here the windows from the corridor pointed out towards the garden on the backside of the building while the rooms faced the road and parking lot.

The first room they came to was the unmistakable office belonging to the head of the institute. When Dean opened the door the first thing they saw was a huge and beautiful office desk made of dark mahogany. It had elaborate carvings and decorations on the front creating a symbol that must have belonged to the old monastery. Behind it was a big mahogany chair with dark green cushions. The walls to the left and right were covered in books, magazines and papers from the ceiling to the floor. On each side of the room behind the desk was two big windows from where Will could see their car, and in the middle between those windows was a big portrait. It was a grim man in white doctor clothes and a stern look on his face. It was also painted in a way that made his eyes follow you wherever you stood, just like the painting at the reception and Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," but unlike her, this was a person you would prefer not to be seen by.

"That must be Mr. Henderson," mumbled Will, Susan looked first at Will as if she heard what she said, then she walked to the painting and read the tiny inscription under it.

"Doctor Fritz A. Henderson," she said.

"Must be the old boss here," commented Dean beside Will, both of them still standing in the doorway.

Susan stared at the painting for a little while before she took a glance out the window. The ground was littered with dead leafs and a twigs. "Shall we proceed?"

"Ok" said Dean.

"Can I stay here for a little while and have a better look? I promise to catch up with you in a moment," Will asked.

Susan eyed the redhead suspiciously for a moment, but eventually gave away. "Alright Will, but not too long, and don't destroy anything."

"Don't worry, I promise I won't" Will said and smiled back at her, "William will stay here with me and make sure I behave. If not, I am sure he will blab about it."

Susan and Dean walked out the door to have a look at the other rooms. As they passed her, Dean said to Will "I am sure if you should find a book or anything you think is interesting here, you can take it with you and read it. There are so many books here, and I doubt anyone would miss one or two."

"Thanks" Will said back, and was happy that her stepfather unaware had provided her with a legal excuse to take something with her if she found something suspicious.

Will followed her parents to the door and watched them disappear into another room, then she hurried to close the door after her. "Alright Will," she said loudly to herself, "Now you are alone in his office where only your brother and a creepy looking man on a painting can see you. Time to get some work done!"

She sat William down on the floor and went straight to the mahogany desk. On top of it lay several papers that Will after a quick look understood was electricity and food bills. The very recently date on each of them told Will that the old woman must have used this office as her own until she died. None of the bills were interesting so she proceeded further down to the drawers. She pulled them out and took out everything she could find inside and looked through it in a hurry. Medical journals, old bills, some magazines, pencils, tape, glue etc. nothing of interest. There were two lockers on each side under the desk, she opened them and pulled out a mountain of papers.

Suddenly something among the papers caught her interests. Some old clips from a local newspaper contained writings about the missing patients. There was a clip telling about the disappearance of a patient, which apparently had happened in 1974 according to the date of the newspaper. It was thought to believe the patient had escaped to the forest or the nearby mountains, some of the staff and the local police had gone looking, but found nothing.

The next paper showed the same thing happened with two patients within a span of one week two years later, and so it went on. Each time it happened, no one was found, no clue or sign of why, and in a clip dated to the summer of 1985 (the last one before the asylum closed) the journalist found it strange that all the escaped patients had been so successful to get away without getting spotted or leave a single trace. In the finale newspaper it was written about the closing of the asylum and the investigation that was opened against Mr. Henderson, there was some speculation about illegal organ trafficking, but no final conclusion. Will went to one of the huge bookcases at the wall and started fumbling through it, she took out books and papers, red the titles, threw it away and continued to the next one. After doing this brutal elimination, she came to some thick old books. The guardian took them out with more care than she had done with the other books and looked through them. They dated from the foundation of the monastery in 1865 to the closing in 1915 and were written in an annalistic way. Will opened the oldest one and started to read.

1 Aug. 1865

The Monastery of St. George is open for all those seeking to devote their life to prayer and devotion to God our Lord and Jesus Christ Our Savior. We have built our sacred foundation on old heathen ground in order to seek to strengthen our cause to spread light to where darkness laid, hope to where hopelessness was and knowledge where ignorance once prevailed. Our greatest thanks and prayers goes to Judge Justin Credible who granted us this land, Billy O' Near, Ben Dover and the Honorable Bea Goode who are our most generous benefactors.
The building of our Monastery have proceeded well, the front and west wing is complete. There we will have our kitchen, diner hall, library and studies together with room for novices when that time comes. The right wing will when finished, house most of our brothers, but for the time being we will all stay in the west wing. So far, 168 devoted souls have told they want to reside here and devote their life to God. However, when everything is ready there will be room for 200 so we can welcome 32 more.
The ground of which The Monastery of St. Georges is built upon is old Indian land, but since the spread of civilization to this continent, these have been driven away and their old practice have been stopped. Some old Dutch hunters I met the previous day told me the natives of old, the Thom-ha-Hawk Indians once believe a terrible creature used to lurk in this mountains. In their legends, it had been killed by their hero and buried somewhere around here, later they made annual animal sacrifices to ease this supposedly evil spirit. However, soon will old superstition make way for the light of Jesus Christ and the new age of man. The Brothers in the Monastery of St. Georges will be at our Lord's service doing so.
The size of our land stretch from the Nopa River a little further down and up to…

Will stopped there and red the last part again. "An evil creature! Spirit! Buried!" Will thought. For most human beings, belief in such things didn't make sense in the modern age, but Will had seen too much to brush it of as just an overactive imagination. Not to mention when she encountered those herself, did she count as human while she was a guardian, with wings and powers at her disposal far beyond the reach of most other creatures. She hurried to read further, but neither the monster nor the old tribe or legend was mentioned again. The scribe only mention a little bit of everything regarding the newly opened monastery, and thereby the opening section was by far the longest passage. August went into September, which made way for October and November. The year passed and no mention of anything special or unusual, just the slow progress of the work related to the house. The years went on, and Will hurried through the pages, once and every then someone were punished for sleeping during mass, but nothing that caught her interest. It was a luck that whoever wrote this had such a nice handwriting that made it possible to see immediately what had been written. She finished the first book and went on with the next one.

Finally, in the autumn of 1869, a year after entire building had been completed there seemed to be something more.

15 Oct. 1869

One of our monks have gone missing, brother John Addams. He disappeared yesterday without telling anyone, we thought he might have gone for a walk in the forest because all of his personal belongings were still in his room. However, he was not back when night came. His roommate and two of his friends went into the forest to look for him after morning mass today, but they hadn't found him by the time they came back to evening mass. If he is not back until tomorrow, we will have to ask some of the huntsmen around here for help looking. The other monks believe he might have gone to the forest and perhaps wandered too far away and got lost there or in the mountains.
Brother McKinley fell asleep during morning mass again!

16 Oct. 1869

Today we contacted two huntsmen, a Mr. van Vaahl and Mr. Leoven. Five brothers have volunteered to go with them and learn more about the area around here. Thank our Lord for the beautiful weather he has given us lately, it will help those who are out looking and poor brother Addams if he is there.
Brother McKinley was found asleep after mass today.

The next days did only list up the daily cores and doings, including McKinley who was found to be asleep quite often, but it seemed to be tolerated to a certain degree because he was by far the oldest of them. Will continued, after two weeks both the monks and the hunters had come back with no results. He was later declared dead in absentia because no dead body ever was found, nor had he been observed on nearby farms or towns that were more distant. She was just to pick out another book when she begun hear the voices of Susan and Dean coming from the corridor. Will turned around and found the room was a mess. She had thrown books, papers and magazines all around herself, and in the middle of the room sat her little brother and played some loose photos in black and white.

With a quick move, she was in front of the office door, opened it and looked outside. Dean and Susan was walking towards her, speaking to each other, they must have looked through all the rooms in that part already. If Susan should happened to see the mess she had made she would be grounded for sure, and that before she even came home! Will closed the door fast behind her and looked with horror at the room. She would never be able to pick up the papers and put the books back in the bookshelves in time, how could she never learn! Thank God she knew exactly what to do in a situation like this. With her back pushing against the door in case her parents should try to open it, she lifted her hands and let her magic do the work. Her own levitation power on objects didn't came close to Cornelia's mighty telekinetic powers, or Hay Lin's ability to manipulate the air, but sure she could clean up a room with a wave with her hand. Papers, pencils, books thick and thin, scissors and everything astray flew right back to its original position. Her brother watched everything in utter fascination and commented it colorfully. The entire séance took three seconds and Will was happy with herself. Now she could hear Susan speak, and she was almost outside the room so Will went to William in two long steps and picked him up. He was still happily toying with the old photographs so Will gently took them from him and lifted him up in her arms. The doorknob turned and the door opened, reviling the face of her mother. Will managed to hide the photographs behind her back just in time.

"No drama in the office I presume?" Susan said with a hint of humor in her voice to her daughter.

"Ah, nothing to be afraid of yet mom, I don't think life in office suite me well. I cannot for the life of it understand how you can sit in a dusty office the entire day on job. Although, it could be tempting if I had a desk and chair like this. That would be king!" said Will and looked at the great mahogany desk.

Her mother replied, "Don't be too sure yet miss, maybe one day you will find the peaceful life behind a desk to be the best thing in the world."

"There are days," Will said back to her mother, "When you come home late in the evening complaining how stressful it is, and that you sometimes wish you had an even more peaceful job, are you sure?"

Susan smiled and said, "Not every day can be perfect, but I really do like my job. Whatever your choice will be in time, I hope you find one that you will come to enjoy, even if it feels hard sometimes."

"I will try looking for one," Will said.

Susan went back to the corridor, "Are you coming?"

"Yes," said Will, "I will just grab a book I want to look through." She stuffed the pictures in her pocket and went to the bookshelf and picked out the three remaining annals she hadn't read yet and were about to put them under her arm when an unknown force made her stop. Will slowly put her hand back into her pocket and took out the three pictures William had found and looked at them, and what she saw made her very soul freeze.