{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.15.1507;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\qc\f0\fs20\par \fs24 Haunted 2\par \par \par Chapter 1\par New family, same house\par \par \fs20\par \par \pard\tab It wasn't until the day after Paul and his kids Cassie and Luke moved in that the problems started. They had found a nice house on the outskirts of town. It was very large but for some reason the price was very reasonable. Not that Paul was complaining. It was a beautiful house. A large victorian era house with white paint and black trim. It had a large front yard, with willow trees dotting the property. All very scenic and wonderful. There was something . . . peculiar about it though. The kids seemed to like it well enough, but Paul felt on edge whenever he was alone in the house. On top of that, doors in the house seemed to have a habit of opening and closing on their own. Paul tried to put thoughts of ghosts and poltergeists out of his mind. It was a perfect home for his children to finish growing up. Luke was sixteen and a junior in high school. He was of average height and build. He was very smart but never had much of a social life. He had some friends but he never really dated much. Cassie was twelve with pitch black hair and fair skin. She was short for her age, but that was the only thing about her body that hadn't developed much. She had the body of a teen, and in fact was often mistaken as being older than she was. Paul hated relocating his kids so late in their school lives, but when the company he'd been working for went under he had to go where the work was.\par \tab Two days after the the moving truck had deposited all of the familys' possesions, there was still much unpacking and arranging to do. They all had to claim rooms, for starters. Cassie begged for the only room with it's own bathroom, and Paul eventually agreed. Luke took the room across the courtyard from Cassie, and that left Paul with the only other bedroom on the second floor. After that was settled Paul and Luke did the majority of the big chores, being the able bodied men, while Cassie took on minor projects. The men had already arranged the living room and kitchen, though the T.V. was still boxed up somewhere. They were almost done with the first floor when it neared dinner time. Cassie was undertaking the minor project of dusting and vacuuming her room when she came across something in her closet. Up on a shelf was what looked like a board game box. Pulling it down she found it to be an old ouija board. Just as she set it down on her desk her father called her down for dinner. Dinner conversation was scarce, Paul and Luke were tired and hungry due to the physical activity all day. After dinner Paul settled into his last project of the night, converting what appears to have been a library into his own study. Luke went to his room to read, and Cassie was eager to try out the mysterious ouija board. In her room she removed the top to the box that contained the game. What she found sitting in the box on top of the board surprised her. Rather than directions she was greeted by a couple pages of handwritten notes on lined paper. She sat down on her bed and started to read:\par \tab\i To the person who has this room next:\par \tab\tab\tab\tab\par \tab\tab\tab\tab\tab\tab Hi, my name is Emily. I used to live here with my father. You're reading this because we're moving because of my dads' work (again). If i'm right you're a girl who ends up here, if Jason has his way. Jason's the ghost who haunts this house. Don't worry, he's very nice and not scary at all. You can talk to him with this board, or with your computer if you have one. I'm writing you this to tell you this house isn't exactly normal. It is haunted yes, but there's more. There are magic things here. Along with many hidden secrets, like the secret passage behind the closet in this room. Jason will be able to tell you alot, just ask for him by name. Hope you enjoy this house as much as my daddy and I did.\par \tab\tab Emily\par \par \i0\tab Cassie didn't know what to think at first. Was it a prank? Figuring there was only one way to know she set up the board and placed her hands on the indicator.\par \tab "Jason?" She asked out loud. Almost immediately she felt the triangle bolt over to "yes". Cassie sat in shock for a few moments. She couldn't believe that there really was a dead person here, with her. Her hands shook on the indicator as she asked another question.\par \tab Down in the library Paul was setting up his T.V. and rearranging furniture. He had his desk where he wanted it, against one wall with his computer on it. Nearby his small fifteen inch T.V. sat on one empty bookshelf. He even had his very deep comfortable armchair in place. Once everything he brought was where he wanted it he turned his attention to the tings that'd been there when he'd arrived. There were still some shelves which held books, many quite old looking. Paul liked to read occasionally, but he knew his son Luke would really enjoy the old tomes. He turned on the T.V. for background noise as he began moving all the books onto one shelf for convinience. That way he could fill the other shelves with his own clutter that he was sure to accumilate. He listened to the evening news as he rearranged piles of books, attempting to dust off the shelves as he went. One shelf sported a set of bronze bookends, shaped as gargoyles. Paul thought they were interesting and decided he'd use them for his personal collection of reading material. A movie came on that Paul hadn't seen in ages, and he stopped mid-project to watch. That last bookshelf can wait, he decided.\par \tab Back in his room upstairs Luke was about to call it a night. He'd finished settling into his new room, though it would take a month of messiness to make it feel like home. He also wanted to store the standing mirror somewhere, as he really didn't have much use for such a large mirror. Little did he know Jason had other plans.\par \par \par \par \par \par \pard\qc\fs24 Chapter 2\par The Journal\par \pard\par \fs20\tab A few days later the town was drenched by a thunderstorm that lasted most of the day and into the night. Paul watched T.V. in his den, while the kids both retreated to their rooms. Cassie was reading the note from Emily again, and contemplating trying the ouija board to talk to Jason. As she read the note again it occured to her she never investigated the other part of the note. The note mentioned a secret passage in her closet. She got up and opened her closet door. Her closet was fairly bare since there wasn't much to store in there; the room was twice as large as her room in the previous house. Cassie couldn't see any sign of a passage. Until her eyes settled on the vent grate on the back wall. As she stared at it lightning struck outside, and she caught a flash of light from behind the vent. Bingo, she thought. there must be something other than a vent shaft back there. She didn't see any screws holding it in place so she pulled on it, almost falling over as it easily swung open to the side, revealing a room within. She shut her closet door before proceeding into the secret room.\par \tab Luke was finishing his book he'd been reading that week (he went through about one a week typically). He decided to check out the books his dad had found in the library. He'd mentioned at dinner that some looked fairly old. He wandered down to find his dad watching T.V. He asked if he could peek through the piles of books, which of course Paul didn't mind. It certainly wasn't as if he himself was going to be reading many of them. Luke read the titles of the dusty books until one of them caught his eye. It didn't have a title, it was leatherbound and worn. Picking it up he found on the first page what appeared to be a journal entry. He realized it must have belonged to somebody who'd previously lived here. For some reason this diary intrigued him, and he decided he'd read it. He returned to his room, leaving his father to the T.V.\par \tab Cassie had found a small peephole in the secret room, which looked straight into her fathers' bedroom! The only other thing she found in the room was a narrow set of stairs, leading down. she had to turn herself to be able to traverse the pasage, but soon enough it led back upstairs and the passage opened up again. She was looking through a window into a bathroom. Knowing she was back upstairs Cassie deducted that it was a two-way mirror in the upstairs bathroom, which her brother and father used. A thrill of naughty thoughts swept her mind as she contemplated being able to see both of them naked if she wanted. She was always curious about male anatomy, no matter whos' anatomy it was. However nobody was there to spy on currently, so she retreated back to her room, excited by the potential the new house held for her. Returning to her room Cassie had a thought. Emily had said that there were many secrets, and she'd only found one so far. She wanted to find out more and she only knew one person who could tell her. She took out the ouija board and called for Jason. The triangle slid over to "yes". \par \tab "Jason, can you tell me more about the secrets Emily wrote about?" She asked. She waited but the triangle didn't move. Then Cassie heard a noise behind her. On her table a pen had aquired a mind of it's own, and was busily writing on a piece of paper. She realized Jason was trying to communicate with her in a different manner. She read as the pen finished it's message.\par \tab "There are many unique things about this house. Your mirror is magic, for example." as she thought about how silly that sounded, the pen continued. "Touch the surface of the mirror. Trust me." Cassie got up and did as Jason asked. The surface shimmered like the surface of a pond, and the edges glowed green. As it settled down she could see Luke, laying on his bed reading. He apparently was unaware that he was being watched. Cassie marvelled at the secret that had been revealed to her. She could spy on her brother. Just as another thought came to her, Jason seemed to read her mind and began to write again.\par \tab "If he touches his mirror he can also spy on you. Or if you touch the mirror twice you can purposely let him see your room." She sat pondering that for a moment, then decided to press on. \par \tab "What else can you tell me?" There was a pause before the pen moved again.\par \tab "I can tell you that both your brother and father are attracted to you, they simply haven't acknowledged it yet. That is why I tell you about the mirror, because if he discovers the mirror, he will use it to watch you." Jason had dropped a bomb on Cassie. She couldn't fathom her family members being attracted to her. She thought the ghost was wrong about this, that her brother or father would never spy on her. Then it occured to her that she'd been open to the thought of peeking at her brother and father, out of sheer curiousity. She continued her conversation with Jason, somewhat afraid of what other secrets he may reveal.\par \tab In his room Luke was engrossed in the diary. It revealed quite a bit about the original owner of the house. According to the diary which was written by the owners' son, the proprietor of the house was quite worldly and well travelled. He collected strange books and artifacts from all over that were supposed to be imbued with magical properties. As Luke read, he found descriptions of some of the many items that had been brought to the house. One of these descriptions closely matched the mirror sitting in Lukes' own room. It said in the diary that if you touched the surface of the mirror you could look into the room where the matching mirror was. As skeptical as he was, Luke was too curious to not try it. He tapped the mirror, and was rewarded with a greenish glow and the reflections in the mirror disolved into a new image. He could see his sister sitting at her table with her back to him.\par \tab "It works!" Luke exclaimed. He sat and watched in wonder at the display of real magic before him.\par \tab Although she wasn't looking at the mirror, Cassie knew her brother was watching her. Jason warned her as soon as Luke touched the mirror. A simple "He is watching you." Didn't quite get the message across until he jogged her memory and added: "With the mirror." Cassie couldn't believe it.\par \tab "How does he know about it?" she asked without turning around to peek at the mirror.\par \tab "He found a book that describes several of the oddities of the house." Jason explained. \tab "He discovered the secret of the mirror there." Cassie quickly scribbled a question for Jason, as she could almost feel her brothers' eyes upon her.\par \tab "What do I do?" Jasons' response didn't feel helpful to Cassie.\par \tab "Whatever you want. You don't have anything to fear, he doesn't know you're aware that he's watching." Cassie decided she didn't even want to deal with this issue right then, and left her room to watch T.V. in the livingroom.\par \tab Luke was dumbfounded that the mirror actually did what the book said it would do. As the storm raged outside her scoured the pages for anything else they would offer to him. That night he found only found one other entry which looked promising. Apparently the boys' father had built a secret passage in his bedroom to secretly view the guest room. After studying the descriptions, Luke figured that Cassies' room was once that guest room. He wasn't sure which room was the fathers' but it described where the passage was. So Luke got up and went to the spot in his room where the passage would be. As Luke looked closely there did seem to be a part of the panelling on the lower wall which wasn't fitting properly. Putting his hand near it he felt a draft. Excitedly he pulled on the panel, causing a section to pull away from the wall, revealing the secret passage. Luke grabbed a flashlight from his closet and headed into the small passageway. It led him down very narrow steep stairs and back up again, to where the path made it's only turn; to reveal the room that the path was built to spy on. Luke was looking into Cassies' bathroom, by way of a two-way mirror. To his immediate right was a small nook. Luke actually began to get hard just thinking about being able to see a girl naked whenever he wanted, even if it was his sister. She was cute and she had large breasts for a girl her age, sister or not. He went back to his room then and continued searching through the book for clues about the quirks of the house.\par \tab Cassie hid out in the livingroom until she was ready for bed. She got ready only after she knew the mirror couldn't see her, then turned out her light and got into bed. She was troubled that night though, as she had visions of her brother spying on her constantly. Should she be freaked out? Flattered? The questions filled her mind as she fell asleep.\par }