Pigeon Island - Manor

The first day of the summer holidays has just started. I've slept in today thanks to this occasion. Two months out of school. I still found it weird and strange that the holidays are set barely three months after the school year starts. I went into the kitchen and saw my moms were sitting and drinking coffee on the sofa in the living room. They asked me if I wanted breakfast, and I nodded. Mama put on some music on the TV and turned the volume up. They both went into the kitchen and prepared some sunny-side-up eggs and toast with bacon. They made 3 dishes, which means they haven't eaten their breakfast yet. So they waited for me to wake up? Aww, that's so nice. We all sat at the kitchen's eat-in table, and Mama asked me, "Do you have any plans for today?" She smiled as I replied that I'm meeting up with Alban and Dagmar at 11:00. "How about we do something tomorrow all together? Just you and your moms? We could have a big Harry Potter marathon?" I nodded once again with a big smile this time. They remembered I love those movies! I finished my breakfast and drank the last 2 sips of my tea. I hugged mommy and mama and ran to my room to change out of my pajamas. I checked the time and seeing it's already 10:15 I hurried to grab some of my pocket money and took my bike out of the garage. I wanted to go buy some soda and be at the fort first. Whenever we say we're going to meet at any full hour all three of us show up earlier, maybe that's just how this place works on us. Makes us want to be on time so it forces us to get there early, you never know if something won't stop you in one place for too long. Like a dinosaur blocking your path.

I got on the bike and rode it to the small grocery store. I bought a big bottle of the sweetened version of a new and popular soda and put it in the little holster on my bike. I reached the fort dug in the ground at the outskirts of the forest soon after. As I expected, both of the teenagers were already waiting there. Talking to each other, presumably about the last 3 months. Maybe even about Alban's life here before Dagmar and I moved to Pigeon Island. I waved to them and got off my bike; I didn't have a kickstand, so I just laid it down on the ground carefully. I ran up to them excited. "Hi, we almost thought you wouldn't show up," Alban chuckled. Dagmar ruffled my hair playfully, and I slapped away her hands, "Leave it alone, do you know how much time it took to straighten it?!" My tone was more annoyed than angry, but she still stopped and raised her hands in a placating gesture. "Sorry, sorry, alright," she laughed softly.

"We got another problem" Alban said, interrupting our banter.

"Yeah, we saw another strange occurrence on our way here." Dagmar finished for him. "You remember those empty fields behind Ms. Wegna's house?"

"Obviously, we passed it every day on our way to and from school. What's up with them?" I asked, confused.

"They're... not empty anymore" Alban answered in a shushed tone.

"Some kind of house just... appeared. All we know is it wasn't there yesterday!" I couldn't tell if Dagmar was frustrated or happy with the prospect of "solving" another mystery.

"So we will check it out?" I asked, unsure.

"Obviously. Let's go!" she grinned, from ear to ear.

So I picked up my bike and followed them as they got on theirs. I could see that they adjusted their tempo so I could keep up with them. But they were riding fast either way; I was forcing myself to pedal faster than I usually do when I ride alone. But eventually we reached the no more empty fields, and I was dumbfounded. They spoke the truth. A huge manor, a mansion of some kind, stood in the place where just yesterday was nothing. It was built in a Gothic villa style and, to be honest, resembled a castle. We crept around to look through the windows; I couldn't even reach the ground floor ones, so I crouched and tried to see into the basement. But it was so dark I wasn't able to see anything. Only at first, mere moments of straining my eyes, and I saw thousands of little white, glowing eyes open. I moved away as if burnt. I only saw them for a fraction of a second, but I felt as if they were looking straight at me. The eyes were glowing, so it's safe to assume whatever it is down there in such quantity can probably see in the dark.

"There's something in the basement!" I whispered to Alban and Dagmar, but as I turned to them, I saw them looking at something behind me. I looked in the direction they were looking at and saw a small figure, green-skinned, even shorter than me, probably about a meter tall. Her ears were very pointy, and she folded her arms over her chest. She was dressed in rags and eyed us judgingly. "Why are you outside?! Get back to work right now!" she shouted at us in a hushed tone, pulling our arms, forcing us to follow her. She was unnaturally strong for someone so small. We didn't dare to whisper to each other, lest she'd hear us.

She dragged us inside the building and started counting out what needs to be done: "floor needs to washed, books dusted, windows washed, toilets cleaned! Get to work; what are you waiting for?!" We scattered away in the same direction.

“What the fuck is going on?” Dagmar whispered.

“Language!” Alban hit her arm none too gently while looking at me. Really cute how they care about not cussing in front of a child while being fine with taking me to dangerous places.

“Ow, sorry, sorry. But what even is going on?!” She looked around the corridor we were walking through.

“Let’s make it quick; we find out what this place is, who we have to kill, kill them, and go home, preferably in one piece.” Alban muttered.

We kept together, not splitting up. It's not "Scooby Doo". We snooped around the endless corridors, trying to pretend we're actually working here. So far all we noticed was that this manor had long and tight hallways; the stairs often ended without any floor connected to them. Kind of like... Hogwarts. This whole building felt like a labyrinth. We found a library, presumably only one of, seeing as we saw those... goblins carrying books everywhere in the house.

We searched the desks, the chests, and the books until we saw something that seemed to beckon us closely. Definitely not the greatest and safest decision considering... pretty much everything about Waypoint. This thing was a leatherbound book, a grimoire or book of shadows of some sort, as Dagmar said.

"A sorcerer..." Alban whispered, seemingly in shock, as he read the word "Ezanil".

"That's bad?" I asked.

"Terrible, awful, we're going to die," he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. "We have to leave right now!" We took the grimoire with us, hid it in Dagmar's backpack, and in a normal walking tempo, we moved to leave. On our way, we ended up in another dead end. Dagmar shielded me as we saw a big figure of a man, covered in blood devouring one of those goblins, barely any bones left on the floor, the rags ripped and dirty. He stood up, we turned to run but one flick of his wrist had us magically stopped. Goblins moved in to grab us away and locked us in a dungeon cell.

"We're dead..." Alban muttered barely audibly as the goblins left the dungeon.

"Nope, no way, we don't give up, we survived the dancing plague, we're not dying here. I got chased by a T. rex last week; I said I'm not dying here. What do we know of sorcerers? C'mon, think, what do we have? Any way of beating them?" Dagmar argued.

"Magic, and we don't have any." Alban grunted as the chain dug into his skin.

"There must be a way to survive; there always is. This place lets us off easy every time to feed on the fear, you said so yourself!" she screamed at him. I was scared, afraid to die, like always, but I thought about her words. We survived things that killed so many people: werewolves, vampire. She's right, last week dinosaurs roamed the streets of Pigeon Island! I forced myself to remain calm and thought.

"Sorcerers can be brought down by magic, but in all the stories it's usually their own magic turned against them! We don't need our own! We can use his!"

"How do you propose this?" Alban didn't seem entirely convinced. A moment of silence before Dagmar spoke up, "His name, it was in the grimoire; when you read it you said it's a sorcerer! You heard about him before, haven't you?"

"Yeah... I mean, only a bit while our research into the magical things when we decided we were going to fight Waypoint's paranormal shit." Nobody shushed him as he cursed. No time for that; we're in too big of a danger right now.

A long moment of uncomfortable silence passed, and finally Dagmar spoke, "Liz- Liza- Lin? Line?"

"What are you trying to do!?" Alban turned to her confused.

"I'm trying to say his name backwards!"

"Do you even remember it?" he clearly mocked her.

"I'm just bad at visualizing what it would look like spelled backwards; just say it, you idiot, you're acting as if we have a ton of time to waste!"

"Li-, Ezanil... Linaze" he reminded himself the normal version of the name and then confidently spoke it backwards. I was not really expecting that to work, but it got us free somehow.

"Great!" Dagmar exclaimed and dusted herself off with her hands now free. "Let's go"

We opened the door with ease, another proof that this place is merely toying with us.

"We're leaving? What about the sorcerer? He might hurt people!" I argued running behind her.

"We have to get some iron to neutralize the magic!" Alban stopped just for a second to grab Dagmar's backpack from a sofa it was placed on. One goblin spotted us as we ran out the door. He shouted something out; I'm not sure if even in English.

We got on our bikes and rode to the fort; plenty of iron and silver was scattered there after the fae attack when Alban and Dagmar met. We took some of the iron to protect us and huddled over the grimoire as Dagmar begged us to at least check it for anything that could help us. The book moved its pages like it heard us and showed us a spell, glowing in white; I read it and memorized the words, Latin as Alban said. "De cinere venisti, in pulverem reverteris" I muttered the words to myself so I don't forget. We got back to the manor, Dagmar and Alban, old iron swords in hand, swinging them at every goblin who came at us. I kept repeating the words in my head: if I forget, there go our chances at beating the wizard. We ran through the winding corridors until we found him, licking a bone clean of blood. I fought my stomach as it demanded I return my breakfast. He flicked his wrist once again, yet the iron we carried protected us from magic; he advanced on Alban as he seemed like the most dangerous opponent. He picked him up by the collar of his shirt; I repeated his name backwards three times out loud "Linaze". He caught his own chest in pain, giving Alban a chance to stab him; the sorcerer, despite the pain, caught his wrist. He avoided Dagmar's blade just as swiftly, and I spoke the words "De cinere venisti, in pulverem reverteris!" He fell to his knees and stopped breathing. The manor spontaneously combusted in flames.

We ran; I don't even remember how we got out of the house. But when we opened our eyes, the manor was gone, the fields were empty once again, my lungs hurt like I've just breathed in kilograms of dust and ashes and the moon hung up high above us.