Mort winced from the dream, jerking slightly and her eyes popping open, only to see the crystals dangling above her bed glittering in the morning light, swaying lightly in the morning breeze. Her right arm flopped over her forehead, gazing up at the ceiling, she tried to recall her dream. Was there water? A beach? No good. It was gone. Rolling lifelessly to her side she stretched over and clumsily grabbed at her journal, her fingers fumbling for a pen, and propping the book against the wall she scribbled on the page:

Water

And so shut it. Tossing it to the foot of her bed she wiggled herself down deep into the covers again, and closed her eyes. Determined for it not to be daylight.

“It’s eleven! It’s eleven!” the voices boomed, as her two younger sibs pounded into the room, flinging the door open with a BAM and pattering across the wooden floorboards on their hands and feet like excitable animals. They vaulted themselves onto her bed, shouting, “It’s eleven! Eleven! ELEVEN!” at the tops of their lungs, Mort scrambling to hide from the onslaught.

“Nyx IT, stop IT!” Mort bemoaned, throwing the blankets over her head as the two nuisances crawled over her. “Why aren’t you both at school—GET OFF me, Newt!” she shouted with a shove, sending her little brother tumbling to the floor.

Like bread from a toaster he popped up, grinning from ear to ear. Was he wearing lacrosse pads?

Four year olds, Mort thought, rolling her eyes.

“Why aren’t you at school?” Hildegard pressed, sitting on her older sister’s covers, her big brown eyes wide with sneer.

“Because I didn’t want to.” Mort groaned, trying to pull the covers over her as her sister tugged them back. “Hilde, cut it out!”

“Well, we didn’t want to either.” Hilde stated. “So we didn’t. It’s the last day anyway; nobody cares.”

“No body cares.” Newt slurred, his lips flopped over the corner of Mort’s night stand, a vacant look in his eye.

Mort finally gave up, tossing the blankets over her sister’s head (“Hey! Why’s it so dark?”) and sat up, squinting and rubbing at her eye in her slowly forming energy. “Well, where’s Dad?”

“IT’S ELEVEN!” Newt shouted.

“He left early to get Hells and Lycan. But, I think Gentry’s coming home, too. Meaning they‘ll all be here for the summer!”

“Really?” Mort asked, her anticipation for the day growing. She looked around her room and towards the door. “Are we the only ones here?”

“No.” Hilde pouted, picking at the quilt in her lap, “Glastig and Onx stayed home, too. They’re in the kitchen talking about boy stuff.”

Newt grabbed a football helmet that he must have brought in off the floor and placed it on his head, shrinking low and glowering, “Boy stuff.” he repeated.

Mort bit her cheek, thinking, and disappointed that she and Hilde and Newt didn’t have the house to themselves. Throwing her feet over the side of her bed and at last rising she padded quickly across the floor and over to her closet, stepping over her mounds of clothing and cauldrons and knickknacks along the way. Opening her closet door and kneeling down she eagerly began to dig through her piles of stuff, searching for the tool of her desire. Hilde and Newt scrabbled themselves upon her bed, watching her.

“What are you looking for?” Hilde inquired, pulling at her feet, both her and Newt watching curiously. Mort continued to dig until at last she tugged out an enormous black book.

“This.” she said with pride, as she carried it over and climbed up onto the bed with her two siblings. “I wanna turn Onx’s hair pink”

“We’re not suppose to do magic while Mom and Dad aren’t home.” Hilde said, as Mort flipped through the pages, searching for the right spell, disregarding her sister.

“Listen,” Mort said, “how long do we got until Dad gets home? An hour? Two? Look at this. I totally know where Mom keeps the oxtail and the snapdragon. And she totally has pink.” and turning the book around so her comrades-in-arms could see, she pointed to the spell in the book.

Newt threw out a giggle, and Hildegard’s eyes just bloomed, the corners of her lips turning into a thrillingly mad grin.

“Let’s do it.”

(Like this post? Read about the new Deadman House web series here. Also, be sure to check out my other web series, The Trinity, here and here.)