Chapter Seventeen

Chapter 17

"Kathleen!" Derek yelled as Kathleen vanished into the gaping black hole.

"Derek, stop!" Philip said as Derek started to run toward the hole. Derek showed no sign of stopping so Philip tackled him to the ground.

"Let me go!" Derek yelled.

"Afraid not." said Philip. "We can't risk losing you, too!"

Derek stared at Philip. "Ok. You can let go of me now." said Derek.

Cautiously, Philip released Derek. They got up from the ground.

"What will we do now?" asked Rachel.

"We start fighting the evil." said Derek and there was no emotion in his voice, none at all.

Kathleen hit the ground with a loud thud. Groaning, she hurled herself up from the ground and looked around. Kathleen is in the middle of an abandoned hall with stone walls and floor. Right ahead of her is an arch doorway. She walked there, despite her guts feeling screaming NO! DON'T GO IN THERE! Kathleen had to know so she reached the door. It was then the sight hit her hard. In the middle of the room is a large stone square table. Around them was slowly rotting wooden chairs. All of the chairs were occupied.... by grinning skeletons. Some was holding goblets and others swords. Plates of now non-existent food lay before the skeletons.

They were poisoned. Kathleen thought, but by who? She went back out of the room and headed down the hall. Something about the hall bothered her but she couldn’t tell what. Kathleen continued to walk down the hall and turned around. The wall… there was something different about the walls. She noticed the color different in the right wall.

Kathleen walked to the wall and put her hands on it. The stones suddenly started to move as she pushed. It tumbled to the ground until there was a hole big enough for her to get through. She stepped over the fallen stones and saw there was another hall. Kathleen wondered why that hall was blocked up.

Wait a minute. She thought. The building, the halls… it all seemed familiar. But why.. how? Kathleen remembered now she studied about the castle of tragedies. It all happened after the king had lured a group of people he considered criminals into a room, fed them food laced with sleeping powder and had that room blocked up. One of the people was a warlock and he placed a spell on the kingdom. It was said that the warlock continued to live in other people. He haunted and killed people in the whole kingdom. The king committed suicide 10 years after the whole thing started. But how did the castle got here in the first place? The Castle of Tragedies was in England, not in San Francisco, USA.

She stopped suddenly. Kathleen heard the sound of footsteps behind her and turned around. There was no one there. She continued walking but heard footsteps started up again. Kathleen stopped and listened carefully. The footsteps stopped, too. This must be echoes. She thought. I feel foolish. So Kathleen continued to walk but when she reached the stairs, evil laughter broke through the air and the sound of the second footsteps no longer can be heard.

The group gathered around in the den. “We are confronting a kind of evil we might have never met before.” said Derek.

“There are no evil being we haven’t met before.” said Nick.

“Kathleen is still alive.” said Salome. “But we might have to fight it without her.”

“I agree.” said Derek. “The problem is we have no idea what the evil is.”

“Try Mr.Hitchcock and Peter.” said Nick.

“This isn’t Mr.Hitchcock’s style.” replied Derek. “It’s something much more powerful.”

“How do you know?” Nick wanted to know. “You have not talked to him over twenty years.”

“Nick is right.” said Rachel. “During all those years, he could have learned witchcraft.”

“Let’s not focus all our attention on Mr.Hitchcock.” warned Derek. “It could be something else.”

“The hole in the ground in the lobby…” said Dara. “It could lead to somewhere.”

“Yeah.” replied Justis. “What do you say, two of us go down that hole?”

“No,” said Derek. “Nick will be going with you two.”

“Ok.” Nick said.

Kathleen started climbing the stairs. It seemed to be familiar but she couldn’t tell what. The torches lightened the stairs up. When Kathleen reached the top, she looked down the hall. She was hit by a strong feeling of fear. The hall had no doors on either side and at the end, it divided into two. Kathleen continued the walk. When she reached the fork, she looked down both halls. The first hall had three doors, two on right and one on left, before ending. The second have eleven doors, six on right and five on left. Kathleen picked the second hall.

She began to check out the rooms. The first five doors were bare but things got interesting from the point. The sixth door used to be a bedroom of a young lady before she killed herself. The four-poster bed with a dresser and a mirror were all the sixth room had. The fireplace was lit, and the bed was fresh of any dirt. It was as if someone was living here.

Something made Kathleen turned around. Someone was standing in the doorway! She was wearing a fifth-century dress. Her brown hair was braided. The girl stepped forward into the light. Her face was wet with tears.

“Legacy!” she screamed. “Legacy!”