Chapter 2

The next morning Sam and Sarah got up early again with the sun. The snow was still fresh on the ground but nothing new had fallen in the past few days since right before New Years Eve.

“Sam? Did you have that dream again? Because I sure did…” Sarah was smiling when talking about the dream again. “The world seems so real. I really wish it was. Our lives here are so sad right now I would love a place like that to go to…” she concluded. Sam was thinking “Yeah I had it too. It is so strange to dream now two times about a place we have never seen before. Plus we are sharing a dream which is interesting I do not think we have done that maybe ever. Have we?” Sam turned to his sister. “No Sam we have never shared a dream before that I know of…” Sarah said in reply.

Grandma and Grandpa made them breakfast again. Waffles with wipe cream on top and strawberries the twins favorite. “So tell me kids what are your plans for today? I know you start school next week so you better enjoy this freedom before then!” Grandpa said with a wink. Grandma just smiled at her husband while doing the dishes.

“We were thinking about just staying in today and exploring a bit. This house is so huge and old. Maybe we can find a secret room or something!” Sam said all excited. Sarah smiled really big at her brothers excitement. “Yeah that would be cool!” She said in agreement.

“This house has many rooms, and many secrets. Now my only rule is: do not break anything! We have glass things here and there just be careful cause they could be old and we do not want to replace them. Plus you could get very hurt. You understand?” Grandpa stated to them. “Otherwise have fun” Grandma said with a smile. “We understand no breaking things!” Sam and Sarah said together and then laughed at this thing they always did.

The rest of the afternoon the kids went from bedroom to bedroom making up stories and playing with all the things. “This house is huge! Did you notice that? How many rooms do you think they have here?” Sarah was staring up the huge stairs that seemed to climb into heaven they went so high. “I am guessing at least 10 rooms maybe more. It seems like there is at least 3 possibly 4 stories plus an attic I am betting!” Sam replied while staring at some books he had found in the old library. “They could use a maid in here. These books look like they have not been read in a long time they are very dusty and old looking. Haha look the spiders have made a nice home on them!” Sam was laughing pointing to several daddy long legs that had made webs across part of the room in different places. Sarah just made a face and looked away “I do not like spiders that much you know that. Stop teasing me about them!” Sarah walked out of the room to get away from them.

“I was just JOKING Sarah! Come on!” Sam ran after his sister. Most of the rooms in the house had things in them but even with a few things most parts of the rooms were very empty still. “They surely do not use these rooms very often. Why have such a huge house if you are not going to at least entertain people here once in a while?” Sarah remarked staring at yet another room with some books and chairs and nothing else. “I mean you would think they could easily rent out these rooms and make someone really happy and maybe even make some extra money.” Sam replied while staring out the window. “How long have they had this place? Maybe they built it here themselves. I wonder if we could ask them?” Sam thought out loud while still looking out the window. Turning from the window he stared at his sister.

Sarah shrugged and walked out of the room to the next one. Each floor seemed to hold at least 3 rooms all the same nothing at all in them or just very little. By the time they had climbed to the attic they had gone through at least 4 floors of rooms.

“We should make this our secret hide out up here! Its amazing!” Sam said excited staring at the attic. “There’s hardly anything up here and its at the top of the house. I would love to just hang out up here and read and stuff. Would be so much fun!” Sam was almost jumping up and down with excitement at the thought of it.

Sarah sat down on one of the old chairs and stared out the window.  “It is a nice quiet area but this whole house is like this. It is almost spooky this house the way it is situated with just them living here. I hope it is not haunted. I hear noises at night when I can not sleep and I wondered if it was something creepy like this. Now that I have REALLY seen this house I do not know what it is about it that I do not like or whatever.” She sighed turned back to her brother. He was looking at her shocked. “You hear things too? I swear sometimes I think I am hearing my own name at night! Its freaky and it is not you. You have usually been asleep and maybe you were not but I doubt you would say this and be saying my name to scare me. You do not scare people not like that…”Sam sat thinking after this.

“Kids. It is time for dinner. We are having mac and cheese and hot dogs. I know it is your favorite!” Grandma was yelling up the stairs but she was not very loud so the kids only heard “dinner” and started coming back down.

The sun had set and the kids were in their room reading when Grandpa came in to say good night. “I hear you had a wonderful day of exploring! You get enough or are you going to do this all week?” He said with a wink.

“Well we were thinking about maybe doing it for a few more days we have not found anything secret yet just a lot of rooms. How many rooms are there in this house? Just curious!” Sam said smiling. “Well there are about I think 6 stories total which includes the basement and the attic. If you do not count those two has rooms there is about 4 rooms on each floor so I am guessing 12 rooms? We got this house when it was first built so it is has been in our generations 3 now you guys being the third. It is very old and we do not even use most of the rooms as you have seen…”Grandpa trailed off.

“Very cool Grandpa! Never been in a house that is so large before. We could not find any today but do you have any secret rooms you want us to know about?” Sarah said smiling. “No kids there is no secret rooms you have such imaginations just like your dad did as a kid here. He loved exploring all the rooms and did not hold back on guessing about secret places to go. I am so glad you are just like him in that sense!” Grandpa smiled before leaving. “Good night kids see you tomorrow!” And he left. Grandma walked in, gave each kid a kiss on the head. “Good night kids, we shall see you in the morning for breakfast. Sleep well” and the kids were alone.

“I can not believe that it has that many rooms. I knew it was a lot. We never went in the basement. We should try that tomorrow. Basements are always super creepy I can not wait!” Sam was excited. “I am not so sure about that…” Sarah said frowning. “It could have some more SPIDERS!” she said rolling over.

“I wish you would get over the thing with the spiders. You always have been afraid of them. It is not like I did anything to make you afraid of something you just naturally do not like them. Sorry I can go alone if you want to just hang out then we can maybe go get some more library books later and play in the snow. It is snowing again tonight did you see?” Sam put down his book on the nightstand before looking out the window. “I miss mom and dad a lot right now. We used to go sledding with them in the snow. I hope they are happy in heaven and can see us. I want them to be proud of us.” Sarah said staring out the window now too. “It is okay Sarah. We will see them someday” Sam hugged his sister before climbing back into bed.

“Okay you can go explore and tell me if there is anything cool. Is that alright? I will find something to do but do not be too long I want to go play in the snow and the library. Maybe we can go ice skating? I have not done that in a while!” Sarah said smiling. Sam mumbled “Ice skating…” before going to sleep.

“SAM! AHHHHH” Sarah was screaming when she suddenly woke in the middle of the night. Panic Sam sat up and turned on the light. “What is wrong Sarah? You have a bad dream?” Sam looked concerned at his sister going to sit on her bed. Her forehead was covered in sweat and she was crying. “Sorry Sam. It was horrible. We was in the fire again and this time I was okay but the flames were coming for me and no one was coming and you were on fire next to me. So I screamed out your name and woke up. Oh my gosh that was so scary!” She hugged her brother tight crying some more. “I hate nightmares I have not had them in a long time…” she said sniffing. “Okay you want to sleep in my bed? It is big enough for both of us haha” Patting his bed Sam scooted over where Sarah climbed in. Within minutes both kids were once again asleep.

After an uneventful rest of the night sleep the kids woke up earlier then usual before the sun. It was snowing again heavily. Sarah was looking out the window when Sam woke up. “I could not sleep anymore after the nightmare not really” she said with a sigh. “Guess we will be stuck inside again today. Great day for more exploring don’t you think?” She smiled at him. Sam was rubbing sleep from his eyes and looking out the window now too.

“Yeah. I will try the basement then I thought we could re go back to all the rooms and see if there is anything we missed. We got all day nothing else to do…” and they got dressed to go downstairs.

Before their grandparents were awake Sam and Sarah went outside for a second to look at the snow. Then Sam went in the basement while Sarah stayed up above safely in the living room. “I am going to go down there. If I do not come out in the next hour send in a search party!” Sam said with a laugh, turning on his flashlight. Sarah rolled her eyes and flipped on the television.

Grandma and Grandpa were up and making breakfast by the time Sam emerged from the basement an hour later. He was covered in dust and looked like he’d been through a couple of cobwebs. “Sorry I did not come back sooner but I got lost. That basement goes on forever and ever…” he said laughing. “Nah. It really is huge and I can hardly see with no windows it would be a great hideout. But there is not a lot of stuff down there just some old books and stuff much like half the rooms here…” he said with a shrug. Sarah looked uninterested. “I see you ran into a few spiders too. Did you tell them my regards?” She said with no expression on her face. “Yes I found some spiders of course hello webs all over me! Ugh I ran into at least two or three I could not see till I was walking into them. Thankfully I do not think I brought you any friends. Did I?” Sam turned in a circle for Sarah to inspect him. She nodded in approval. “No spiders! Good!” Smiling Sarah and Sam went to the table.

But when Grandma saw him looking all dirty she quickly told him he needed to go clean up in the bathroom. “You need a shower! Or at least a good washing. Go wash up before you come eat. What have you been doing?” Grandpa just stood looking concerned but did not say anything to him yet. “Nothing. Just went exploring in the basement…” Grandpa now looked worried but just still said nothing yet.

After Sam had cleaned up the family had breakfast together. Waffles it was very good. The kids were very excited to go explore again. “We are going to explore a bit more today and play in the snow. Is that alright?” Sarah said with a big grin at her grandparents. “Fine by me.” Grandpa said “But I advise against the basement. It is very dark down there we need to change the lights and you could get hurt. Who knows what lives down there? We could have some bad insects or something. There is nothing to see so just leave it alone if you can please at least till we put some lights in!” Grandma looked at him in shock. “Yeah your Grandpa is right but soon as we change the bulbs we will help you clean it up and you can explore all you want!” She said with a grim smile.

Gathering together a notebook and pen each the kids decided to take notes for every room really exploring them. “I think we should just start here in the first floor and make our way around. Who knows what we will find…” Sarah smiled at her brother. “And do not forget the flashlights. I want to fully explore best we can today.” Sam replied.

Sarah and Sam proceeded to explore each room on the first floor. They noticed lots of odds and ends. Like a hidden stack of notebooks or journals. “What are you doing?” Sam asked Sarah when they had discovered them. “I am looking to see if they are something we need to know. Look here it says ‘the door’ what does that mean? Its all about this door in all these journals. I wish we had time to read them. I say we take a break and I will peek okay?” Sarah sat on the ground with the four notebooks in her lap. After each of them reading for several minutes. Sarah sat up quickly.

“Check this out Sam! ‘This notebook is to record all that I have learned from the secret door. The world beyond is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and I can not believe no one before me has ever found this door. I do not want to disclose where I have found this door incase this gets in the wrong hands. However I will be telling in detail what I find and have found so far from exploring. Signed J.D.’ Do you think it means grandpa? His initials are J.D. meaning Jerry O’Darcy…” Sarah was so excited she continued to read. Sam was just seeing the similar thing in his journal. His was from a different person. “Oh my gosh. Sarah check THIS out. ‘This notebook is a record of all I have learned from the secret doors. I have discovered there are two doors in my very house but I do not want to disclose where they are located. Each one leads to a world I have never seen before. Here is my records. Signed S.D.’ Is that Dad? Stan O’Darcy? Sarah I think there is some secrets we did not even know in this house. Take these with us we are going to go try to figure out if there are such doors here. Look everywhere!” Sam was smiling almost jumping up and down.

After putting the four notebooks in a backpack Sarah had on her they continued to explore the rest of the first floor but there was nothing else that turned up. The second floor held three rooms full of books and one with furniture and some old instruments. This is where Sam had put his drums and Sarah had stuck her guitar. “We should really play those before we can not anymore.” Sarah said with a frown. “Oh I can play all the time if I want. School wont get in the way of my drums!” Sam said with a smile before heading to the first library.

Sarah stood staring at the book titles for the first time. “You should see some of these titles these are things I have never read. And its not just because they are for grown ups. What is this one? ‘Fantasy Creatures and when they lived’? How about ‘Planets Yet to Be Discovered’? I am serious these are weird titles for books in this library. Plus why do they have so many books? They are just getting dusty!” Sarah looked disturbed by what she had discovered. Sam was looking at one of the books she had pointed out. “It says here that ‘not all planets will ever be discovered. If you find a planet no one knows about you can get to name it yourself.’ Well that’s just crazy! How do you discover a planet no one has heard of? You would need a telescope and one that is very powerful. Like one of those observatories or something…” Sam put the book back on the shelf where he found it.

After another few hours the kids had covered every floor but the attic and the fourth one. It was getting late. “Do you want some lunch? We could take a break and go in the snow for a bit yeah?” Sarah was smiling at him.

The kids had some lunch of soup and sandwichs Grandma was more than happy to make for them. Then they got their ice skates on and went down to the pond near the house. There was a lot of kids over there ice skating in the light fallen snow. Grandma was standing there to watch them so they did not get hurt. They skated for an hour before getting tired and cold. “Come on kids lets go back inside and get some hot chocolate!” Grandma said with a smile. The kids went back inside and drank some hot chocolate but the fire.

“Lets go explore the last two floors before dinner we only have a few more hours of day light…” Sam said to Sarah and she smiled at him and they began to climb the stairs. The fourth floor was only library stuff lots of books in all kinds of subjects. So they each took to going through two rooms each.

Sam was having no luck at all pulling books out and staring at them, peeking around corners and meeting lots of spiders. “Ha ha. Sarah would hate it over here.” He remarked to the bugs before going to the next room. This room too was nothing but books in subjects he knew very little about. Some were fiction books. All were covered in dust and looked like no one had read them in years, decades even.

Sarah on the other hand was having a lot of fun. Pulling books out one by one and staring at them and their titles. “Sam would never get it but these books are great!” she thought out loud to no one at all except the spiders she had noticed in the corner.

It was at that moment that something caught Sarah’s eye. The shelf itself did not look right in one spot it looked like it had been broken. She noticed then it was a straight line in the back and looked really odd. The top part of this area had a hook like thing to pull. “That is the strangest thing I have ever seen!” She said out loud again. Being a bit tall for her age she stood up on her toys and began to pull. It was really heavy but she realized after a minute she was pulling the book case just that part forward. The harder she pulled the more it moved and suddenly she realize it was a door! Opening it all the way she stepped inside.

Right behind that door was another door that was just a regular door. She pulled it open and could not believe what she was seeing on the other side!