Chapter 38: Burn It Down
Summary: The Sibunas prepare for midterms and discover another artifact.
Evie's Notes: Happy Sunday! I hope you all are having a wonderful week ! As always, thank you so much your support of this story, it really and truly means the world to me 💜! I hope that you all enjoy the this new update 🌺.
The Sibuna Club was curled up in Jerome and Alfie's room studying for their midterms Wednesday afternoon. They had just over a week until the winter holidays began and were anxious to finally have some uninterrupted sleuthing time, not that they actually went to class all that often these days anyways.
This year, only Mara and Mick would be going home for the break. Mara would be leaving Thursday night, as she did not have any Friday exams and Mick would be leaving on a plane to Australia first thing Saturday morning. Mick was looking forward to seeing his parents and hanging out with his five year old brother and sister Logan and Lindsey. Mara was actually excited to be going home for once, even though she would be stuck going to all her parent's parties and paraded around like a prized pig. That was because this year her older brother, who had finished at university last year, would be bringing his new girlfriend to meet the family. That meant that on top of meeting the girl who made her beloved brother so happy, the focus would be primarily off her and instead locked on Jacob and Hannah.
"So have you had any more thoughts about the lodge's heights?" asked Jerome as he idly played with one of Lili's golden curls and half heartedly worked his way through the final canto of Dante's Inferno.
Liliana and Amber were sprawled across Jerome's bed, Lili with her head in the aforementioned boy's lap, going over Art History flashcards.
"No," grumbled Patricia as she sprinkled green glitter over her and Alfie's business studies midterm poster board.
"What about the place of rest?" asked Amber, she snapped a hairband at Alfie and then played dumb when the boy looked around questioningly. Her act did little good since like most of her stuff, the hair tie was monogrammed and only one resident had the initials ALM. Alfie simply slipped the hair tie on his wrist and stuck his tongue out at his girlfriend.
"No" replied Fabian, he and Nina were pouring over one of Sarah's old journals and steadfastly ignoring their midterm work.
"Wait a second!" gasped Nina, her head shooting up and her eyes flashing gold. "I think I've got it!"
As a whole, each Sibuna dropped what they were doing and turned their attention to their leader.
"Where is the ultimate place of rest?" asked Nina.
"Uhhh, my bed?" answered Alfie, looking longingly at the comfy mattress which was currently piled high with their school bags and blazers.
"No, place of rest, rest in peace" explained Nina.
"The crypt!" exclaimed Liliana.
"Ugh! Not again. I hate that place" moaned Alfie
"Suck it up A-Dog, Sibuna calls," teased Jerome.
"We can go down tomorrow night," suggested Patricia. "Victor and Vera will be having drinks with Mr. Sweet. Eddie, Joy and KT are going into town to see a movie, so they won't be around to catch us. Mara never cares what we get up to and Mick has been hanging out with that one Isis girl more and more so he won't be a problem".
"Perfect. Tomorrow night it is then!" declared Nina with a satisfied grin. Her eyes flashed gold, sparking her followers' eyes to glitter in response.
* Scent of Lavender * Scent of Lavender *
"Ugh, I am so not loving being back down here again" complained Liliana as the group crawled through the trap door into the Frobisher crypt.
"Hopefully we won't be here long," Nina assured the girl.
"In the place of rest you will succeed," muttered Fabian, scanning the room for any possible hiding places.
"Let's face it, the artifact could be anywhere" whined Jerome, eyeing a dirty pile of leaves which had built up over the years through a broken window suspiciously.
"We just need to look harder," snapped Patricia, opening up the side room which led to Louisa's resting place.
"Can I please burn this place to the ground" begged Jerome, "it's giving me the creeps"
"Being that most of this is built of stone, I don't think it's going to do much damage," Fabian reasoned, moving into what should have been Sarah's part of the crypt.
"But trying will make me feel much better!"
"Yeah, I hate this crypt. I don't want to be here" exclaimed Alfie. "Tunnels? Could be leading anywhere. Secret rooms? Kind of intriguing. Cellars and Attics? Dusty, but overall ok. Crypts are for DEAD PEOPLE! I'm making a stand alright? Alfie says no more!"
With that the boy slammed his hands angrily down on Robert Frobisher Smythe's coffin; which on top of not being the most respectful thing to do to a person's final resting place, also accidentally knocked part of the iron railing framing it loose.
"Alfie! You need to be more careful!" rebuked Amber.
Nina and Amber moved quickly to catch the metal rod before it crashed to the ground. As they went to set it back in place the girls paused when they noticed strange markings under the dust.
"Wait! Look at this" called Nina, motioning the others to come and join them. Jerome passed Nina his handkerchief to wipe the rest of the dust off the rod.
With the dust removed, several hieroglyphic carvings were now visible on the golden stick.
"Alfie you've done it!" cheered Liliana.
"This is our second artifact," grinned Patricia.
"Two down, two to go!" remarked Fabian. "Then we just have to find the vault with Robert's cache of stolen treasures in order to usher Amneris off to the afterlife"
"Progress is progress" encouraged Lili. "Where do we want to stash this one? I know we put the other artifact in Amber's wardrobe but this one is a lot bigger. Plus Julius Squeezer is already taking up all of the available space in Nina's".
"I can keep it under my bed" offered Jerome.
Nina hesitated for a minute, but agreed. As the group turned to leave, "Ok, that should be fine. Let's get goin-"
A sudden loud clang and shuffling in the hallway caused the Sibuna club to freeze in fear. The group held their breath for a few moments, but when
"What was that!?" Worried Amber
"I don't know, but we should be going, we have class in the morning" declared Patricia, ushering the group out of the crypt and back to the safety of their rooms.
* Scent of Lavender * Scent of Lavender *
"OWWW!" hissed KT quietly as she hopped up and down holding her leg. One of the loose rocks from the tunnel wall had fallen and landed loudly on her foot. Eddie had apparently bumped it while leaning against the wall to spy on the Sibuna club in the crypt.
The trio had planned to go into town to watch a movie at the theater, but when they got to town they found a power outage had caused the management to close the building early. Arriving back home they spotted Nina, Fabian and the others sneaking down into the cellar. Following a distance behind, they watched as the group navigated the tunnels and eventually reached the Frobisher crypt. K.T. was amazed by the engineering of her great grandfather as she took in the majesty of the catacombs. Joy and Eddie were far more focused on uncovering just what their troublemaking friends were getting up to down there.
Amber's shout of worry let the Second Hand Heroes know that they had had to hide… and fast! Rushing back down the winding hallways the trio frantically looked for a place to hide from their friends. Remembering the secret passage to the Frobisher Library, Eddie used his Osirian ring to open the door. The trio stepped inside just in time as a moment later the footsteps and chattering voices of the Sibuna club went rushing by their hiding spot. When the quiet returned Eddie, K.T. and Joy left their hiding spot and headed home too, their minds full of what they had seen and heard while their friends had been in the Frobisher Crypt. Just what were the Sibunas up to?
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 💗!
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🌺
