Rainbow Royalty
Summary: House of Rainbows
Evie's Notes: Happy Saturday! I hope you all are having a wonderful week . I am sorry for the delay and going silent for a while... things have been hard lately to say the least, but I finally managed to finish this chapter. Thank you so much your support of this story, it truly means the world to me 💜! I hope that you all enjoy this new update 🌺.
Fabian glared petulantly at his laptop screen. Once again his research skills were failing him. It was as if these hieroglyphics didn't exist. How on earth was he to put them in the correct order and open the combination lock for Nina if he didn't even know what they meant?
"Hey buddy" greeted Alfie, flopping down beside Fabian on the drama room couch. "Whatcha working on?"
"Just trying to put these blasted symbols in order. Nina theorizes that once we have each piece in its correct alignment the capsule will open" explained Fabain.
"Huh… Well, isn't it a bit early to try and order the symbols if you don't know what they mean?" wondered the boy. "I mean if the symbols are 'apple, dog, fetch and lizard' there is a huge difference in meaning depending on the order. Like 'Have the dog fetch the apple for the lizard' is different from 'the apple fetches the lizard dog".
"True, but I'm hoping that by taking this approach I can reverse engineer the meanings of the symbols. Since there are seven symbols I suspect that they represent something in a group of seven".
"Oh, like the days of the week, wonders of the world or colors of the rainbow or Willow's cats"
"Exactly" agreed Fabian, before freezing as a distant memory unlocked. "Colors of the rainbow!" Fabian shouted, excitedly gathering up his materials. There was no time to waste, he had to get to the library as soon as possible!
* Scent of Lavender * Scent of Lavender *
Alfie was sitting with Lili and Jerome in the drama room eating lunch when Fabian and Nina came flying into the room like they were being chased.
"Alfie! Listen to this" exclaimed Fabian
"Alright shoot, mate" agreed Alfie, exchanging befuddled looks with Lili and Jerome over Fabian's manic behavior.
"I remembered reading this somewhere and I just found an article that backs up my claim. It says here that Frobisher was a synesthete" waving the printed Paper in Alfie's general direction.
"What's an astena… ast… aya… a whatever?" asked Amber, taking the open seat by Lili as she joined the group.
"A synesthete is someone who mixes up their senses" explained Fabian. "So they can see sounds or taste words. This article states that Frobisher occasionally saw letters as symbols and colors".
"Yeah, but how do you know which of our mystery symbols are each color?" wondered Alfie.
"Well, synesthesia is hereditary" revealed Fabian to the group with a smug grin.
"So?" drawled Jerome
"So, we have Frobisher's lovely descendent right here" chuckled Fabian, gesturing proudly towards his girlfriend.
"Awww, thanks Fabian. And yeah, there's a few mentions of Sarah also experiencing mild synesthesia recorded in her journals. We figure that since I'm Frobisher's granddaughter I should also have the gift" added Nina.
"Well, it's certainly worth a shot," shrugged Jerome.
* Scent of Lavender * Scent of Lavender *
"Do you see anything?" asked Fabian. "Any colors at all?"
Unfortunately as hard as Nina stared at the hieroglyphics on the screen she couldn't make colors appear.
"I'm sorry Fabian, but no. Maybe I'm not the one with the gift, maybe it's K.T.? Or maybe it just skipped our generation, not everything is hereditary" theorized Nina.
"No, I'm sure that the gift is just buried in you at the moment. Possibly if we heightened your senses it would emerge".
"What do you mean?"
"Well your senses become heightened when the other ones are blocked off. So if we blocked your ears, blocked your nose, blocking your nose would also block your taste".
"What about feeling?" wondered Nina.
"Float in a bath?" suggested Fabian.
Nina went to argue, but was interrupted by Mara's excited shriek.
"She died! The old lady died!" celebrated Mara, dancing excitedly in place.
Joy pointedly cleared her throat, pulling Mara's attention to the bewildered expressions of the room's occupants.
"Oh, she died, poor woman" mourned Mara briefly.
"Who died dear?" asked Vera, through the kitchen window where she and Jerome were polishing silver.
"The last person sitting between me and the entire estate of a Lord" squealed Mara excitedly. "I'm going to be rich!"
"So you're a… a… a…" stuttered Jerome in shock.
"Oh Jerome, spit it out," teased Joy. "You're standing in front of a lady".
"So that would mean you have a castle somewhere?" guessed the boy desperately, exiting the kitchen to join the girls at the dining room table. "A stately home, Disposable Income!"
"At least" chuckled Mara in shock. She couldn't believe her good luck.
* Scent of Lavender * Scent of Lavender *
Fabian paced the bathroom floor worriedly as he waited for Nina to make a breakthrough.
"Anything" asked desperately
"How can I block my hearing if you keep talking?" demanded Nina, cracking open one eye crankily.
"I- sorry" apologized Fabian, taking a seat on the bath mat to wait.
"I'll be done soon enough" she assured him, closing her eyes and laying back down into the bath again.
It took about another 5 minutes, but to Fabian it felt like an eternity. Eventually though Nina shot up excitedly exclaiming "I did it! I think I saw the colors"
Fabian offered her a hand out of the tub and the pair quickly hurried down the stairs to Fabian's room, grabbing Patricia, Lili and Jerome as they went.
"All you need to do is match the symbols in order of the rainbow" directed Fabian as he passed the gold cylinder to his girlfriend.
"Great! What's the order?" asked Nina.
"You don't know the order?" scoffed Lili, but she was drowned out by Jerome and Patricia's garbled suggestions.
Nina fixed Lili with an unimpressed look "You clearly overestimate the American Public School System, of course I don't know the order of the rainbow".
"No, no, no" cut off Fabian. "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet"
Nina carefully twisted each section to display the correct hieroglyphs. Once the last piece was locked into place the cylinder began to glow brilliantly illuminating each piece in the colored glow of the hieroglyph. Nina ripped off the top of the cylinder with a satisfied grin.
"Yes!" cheered Fabian excitedly. "What did I tell you?"
Nina passed the tube over to Lili for assistance in removing whatever was stuck inside. The blonde used her manicured nails to pry a document out of its hiding place. The group gathered around the bed as she spread out the paper.
"It looks like a map of the house" commented Jerome, studying the map intently.
"Guys look! There's something else!" announced Patricia, holding up a second sheet of paper the group had initially missed.
Unraveling it, Nina read "When darkness comes and you need the light, do not give into your fright. The secret room is what you will seek, the time has come for you to dig deep".
"Huh, okay. A lot more straightforward than usual" commented Jerome.
"Probably because it's a message from your ancestors rather than mad Robert" hypothesized Liliana.
"I think I found it!" remarked Fabian to the group of five, pointing to the tiny "x" drawn on the map.
"Dig deep… are they talking about the cellar?" wondered Nina, squinting at the blueprint.
"Probably, but what's in the 'secret room'? Is it the vault?" asked Patricia
"I doubt it," disagreed Lili. "If I've learned anything about the Frobisher-Smythes it's that they were paranoid! If they truly have a vault of valuable artifacts then it likely isn't hidden in an easily accessible location. You remember how insane the tunnels were? It's likely whatever this secret room is it's just the next in a long line of steps to finding the vault".
The creak of the door had Fabian throwing his body on top of the bed and map. The other four scrambled to take up similar "casual" poses around the room.
"Hey Sibunas!" chirped Alfie happily entering the room with Amber. "What did we miss?"
"Alfie! We have a rule about knocking" hissed Nina.
"Sorry! Sorry!" apologized the boy.
"How was your date?" asked Jerome.
"It was awesome!" replied Amber. "What have you guys gotten up to?"
"Nina was able to crack open the cylinder" announced Patricia proudly. "We found a riddle and a map inside".
"Of course it's another riddle" sighed Amber with a dramatic eye roll.
"The map at least marks the secret room we are looking for with an 'x'. We think that whatever is in the secret room will lead us to the next clue for the Frobisher Vault" continued the punk girl.
"Wow, how long were we gone?" chuckled Alfie. "Go team!"
The Sibuna Club decided to call it quits for the time being as they wouldn't be able to access the cellar until later that night or early tomorrow morning.
Evie's Notes 2: Thank you all so much for reading 💕! I hope you enjoyed this update, let me know your favorite part of in the comments! I hope to see you all next week 💗!
Next Update: Nothing Good Happens at 3 A.M.
I love hearing from y'all! Let me know what you think of the chapter and the story as a whole in the comments or my Tumblr House-of-Secrets! Have a great week and stay safe! - Xo Evie🌺
