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Author's Chapter Notes:
the house your parents warned you about
Of all the things Max or Justin might have expected to find in front of Pickford’s most shunned house, a bunch of kids standing around at Vineholdt’s front gate was about the last.

All of them arguing with an older boy, whom Max noted bore a strong familial resemblance to a certain caretaker they were just talking to earlier this morning. He appeared to be doing his best” or worst” to drive them away from this place, but the kids just weren’t having any of it. At first glance, that would seem a reasonable course of action, but even before they got within earshot, he found something about this just didn’t sit right with him.

“…You’ll get in trouble, too, you know. So why don’t you just run… along…” Travis Tully trailed off, faltering as he noticed their approach.

“What’s going on here?” Justin asked.

“Melissa went… mmph!” one boy began, then Travis reached out and clamped one hand over his mouth.

“Nothing!” Travis blurted, glaring at the others as if he dared them to say one word.

All six of them called his bluff at once, rambling at the same time.

“Shut up!” Travis roared, and all the children backed away from him.

“Our friend went in there,” one girl piped up, taking advantage of the moment of silence.

“And that other guy, the one with dark glasses, went in to find her,” another boy added.

“He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?” another chimed in.

“Shades went in there?” Max looked out at the mansion with a sinking feeling he just lost any chance of leaving this deathtrap unexplored. For once. And here he thought he was tagging along to keep Justin from doing anything rash.

“You mean that guy I fought?” Travis cocked his head, very visibly not liking where this line of conversation was leading.

Fought?” one boy snorted. “He whooped your ass!”

“Shut up, you little shit!”

“You?” Justin tried not to laugh as he regretted missing this. Deciding that perhaps vigorous constitutionals could be entertaining after all. “Beat up him?”

With a snarl of fury and indignation, Travis tried to take a swing at Justin.

But Max was quicker, whipping his arm out and catching him across the face, even as Justin was leaping aside.

“We weren’t talking to you,” was Max’s curt reply as Travis hit the ground. Quickly grasping the gravity of the situation, and concluding that this one was wasting dire time.

“I’m not afraid of you…” Travis muttered as he struggled to regain his feet.

“I don’t care,” Max warned him, “and it doesn’t matter. You’re no match for me anyway.”

Though it came out sounding like something Erix might say, it was about the truth of the situation, and with both his friend’s life, and this Melissa’s, in the balance, he was wasting no more time.

For his part, Travis reassessed Max, and appeared to conclude that discretion was the better part of valor.

“Seems like an asshole,” Justin mused, “no wonder Shades beat him up. I don’t like bullies, either, so if you’re too chickenshit to be any help, then stand aside.”

“I ain’t goin’ in there!” Travis stammered, finding himself on the retreat, shouting over his shoulder: “Ha! Even those Lucy-witches couldn’t do anything! That house will take you, too!…”

“Good riddance…” Justin spat.

“Now please,” said Max, turning back to the kids, “tell us what happened.”

In fits and starts, the related the basic gist of what transpired before.

Just as they got to the part about Shades going in to investigate, an odd four-wheeled vehicle rolled up, about the size of a golf cart, and bearing the seal of the Pickford Sheriff’s Office.

A deputy rolled down his glass and leaned out, calling, “Hey! You kids get outta here, before your parents hear about this!”

One of them looked like she was about to say something, when Max turned to them and said, “It’s okay, there really is nothing more you can do here. Leave this to us. Please, go tell Moira at the Pines what’s going on, and we’ll handle this.”

The children nodded, their reluctance unmistakable as they turned and head back toward town, though both of them somehow knew they’d drift back out here when no one was watching. Eerily certain that no one else would stand and watch this place for long.

“You should know”” Max began.

“And you,” the deputy cut him off, glaring at both of them in a way that left Justin wondering just what the hell people were saying about them, “you should be ashamed of yourselves, leading children out to a dangerous place like this.”

“Um, actually,” Justin informed him, “we just got here.”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” the deputy countered, turning pale as he glanced at the house with palpable anxiety. “Sheriff Duhan’s gonna hear about this, and he’ll have you run outta town. I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you go into that house, it’s your funeral, boys.”

With that, he fired up the engine, kicking up a small cloud of dust as he rolled up his window and turned to escort the kids and herd them back into Pickford proper.

If Shades was in there, they both now understood, there would be no help from town, Melissa or no Melissa, and Max for one, could not abide waiting another minute, leading the way past the front gate and straight up to the door.

Justin sighed in resignation and followed. Once upon a time, he would have scoffed at the idea of a haunted house, but even without this recent fun tour of the Woods, about half the places these two dragged him off to had weird shit going on. Figured it would be no different here as he set out to see what Shades had gotten himself into this time, any notions of treasure-hunting all but forgotten.

As they reached the front entrance, Max tried the door handle. Finding it locked, he wasted no time, whipping out his laser sword and slicing right down between the double doors. Locks severed, the two doors creaked slowly open.

Justin looked back to see the kids staring in awe. Even partway down the road, they apparently kept glancing back in spite of the deputy. Likely never seen weapons like theirs, not out here in such a remote realm.

The doors parted, a ray of sunlight illuminating a small foyer, beyond which they found a spacious, though gloomy, great hall, with a grand staircase leading to the upper levels of both wings. Faint light filtered in through a handful of dusty windows, so they were both glad they heeded Moira’s advice and kept a pocket flashlight on them, even during the day. Even to those without any latent psychic abilities, the place still seemed to loom over them as they looked around, attempting to figure out where to start their search.

Max turned right, heading for a door on that side of the chamber. Beyond was a spacious sitting room, and it only took him a moment to spot the ball, right where the kids said it would be. The only thing he could discern was that neither Melissa, nor Shades, had come in here and retrieved it, a fact that bothered him visibly.

“You don’t like this either?” Justin confirmed.

Max nodded, then turned back to the great hall to seek more clues, wondering if perhaps they should have followed the girl’s footsteps around the side of the estate instead. It was almost as if the thought of following tracks conjured dusty footprints leading up the grand staircase. Turning to Justin in mutual unease, they both shrugged and started up the steps.

At the top of the first flight, they found a door standing slightly ajar, so Max toed it open while Justin covered him.

Inside was a room full of junk. On closer inspection, though, they both noticed that it was mostly a collection of children’s toys, including a rusty old rocking horse near the middle of the room.

Max glanced down at his feet, spotting a toy sailboat. One of eerily familiar design. His jaw dropped at the sight of the name The Edge painted on the bow.

He stumbled back, barely noticing as he bumped into the newel post on his side of the landing. His mind’s eye full of tossing waves, driving rain and howling winds. Surrounded by dead-looking Cyexian pirates, all sopping wet and draped in seaweed.

Bloated, pale, waterlogged. Rheumy eyes, stringy hair and rotten teeth. All shambling toward him across the deck…

“Max!” Justin shook him. “Max! Snap out of it!”

Max blinked, looking around the stair landing as if trying to remember what he was doing here. The assault on his senses leaving him slightly shaky. On impulse, he looked down at the toy boat again, only now it bore no particular resemblance to his uncle’s lost ship, nor did it bear any name on its bow, let alone The Edge.

“What the hell was that all about?” Justin asked him.

“I… Nothing…” Max mumbled, not wanting to into the details of that fateful night now any more than before, resenting the house for even dredging up memories he didn’t care to dwell on. After a few seconds, he repeated more firmly, “Nothing. That boat just reminded me of something, that’s all. Let’s move on.”

Justin nodded, deciding not to bring up Max’s mumbling, reminding himself that his friend never talked about how he got shipwrecked on the Isle of Paradise, that he shouldn’t be surprised that Max wouldn’t talk about it here, either. Didn’t like this in the slightest, but also knew all too well that Max was never very good at quitting, and quietly hoped they weren’t about to find out what it would take to make him, as he wasn’t sure whose regrets he could bear less, his or his friend’s.

To both of their dismay, they noted more footprints, leading up and down both branching stairways. They both glanced at each other, their only relief that, clearly, neither of them had splitting up in mind, not in a place like this.

Before either them could open their mouth to discuss which way to go, they both nearly jumped out of their skins at an unearthly tolling of bells, that seemed to be emanating from all directions at once, looking around for its elusive source, to no avail.

Even as they listened to its echoes die away, Max found a grim moment to wonder why his unsettling vision of Slash’s pirates all consisted of drowned corpses.