"I might
be the

but you'll
always
be the
words."

"Is this..." I trailed off, staring. It was beautiful.

"Yeah." Alastair glanced at me, before driving the car past the opened iron gates, standing tall on each side of us. "My parent's house."

I'd like to believe he sounded sad when he said that, but he didn't. Once again, like all those other times, his voice stayed devoid of any emotion.

I forced my gaze away from him, back towards the house in front of me.

Alastair stopped the car when we neared the mansion, parking it along the paved driveway. When I got out, my eyes darted around, trying to take everything in at the same time. I'm pretty sure my mouth was still parted in surprise.

Though what surprised me more was the untamed grass on each side of the paved path. And not just that, but the silence as we both walked towards the entrance of the huge house. It looked empty and sad.

That's when I remembered Alastair telling me how it had been left abandoned for a long time now.

How could someone leave such a beautiful place like this?

Alastair shrugged. "I'm guessing my aunt or our other close relatives were scared that something else might happen if they even tried renovating this place." I must've spoken it out loud. "So they left it abandoned."

"Oh," I replied, still too transfixed at the magnificent structure in front of me. "Why is it...why is it so far from the town?"

The entire land was secluded away from the rest of the population. It should've been all scary, but for some reason, it also felt strangely peaceful.

Alastair took his time to reply. I looked at him and saw his gaze directed at the tall closed doors in front of us, frowning, almost as if he was trying to figure something out.

"They thought this was peaceful. Away from the townspeople and all the noise," he murmured, before looking back at me. "My parents."

I nodded because somehow, I understood. It could've been peaceful once, but now that everyone was gone from here it just looked sad. Hauntingly sad.

My eyes darted across the land before stopping at a small shed near the tall iron gates we had just passed from. I hadn't really noticed it before.

"Are there any guards here?" I asked him curiously. God, I was bubbling with questions.

Alastair started walking towards the doors. "There can't be." He passed me a glance over his shoulder. "The guard shed is trashed." And when I squinted enough, I realized that he was right.

The windows of the shed seemed broken. That should've made me feel better, because really if there had been guards they might just not have let us in. But instead, it concerned me a little.

"This is scary," I whispered as I followed Alastair up the marble porch stairs--covered with dried fallen leaves--and towards the doors.

He stopped with one hand against the door and turned a little towards me, offering me his other hand. I don't know why I didn't think twice before slipping my fingers into his. Scary, I know.

"Just stay by my side. You'll be fine."

How strange was it that I actually believed him? It bothered me, it really did, so much so that I didn't even notice us both entering past the front doors, inside the old Victorian mansion.

The Hawthorne mansion.

The doors directly led us to an enormous lounge, or at least that's what it looked like to me. It was dark. The only source of light came from outside through the opened doors behind us, but it wasn't much.

I was glad, however, when Alastair pressed something on one of the walls and one by one the chandeliers lit up.

I was left awestruck yet once again.

Despite the old structure of the mansion, the inside was nothing like it. The entire lounge, I noticed, was elegantly decorated with furniture that was pretty modern, but held this little old Victorian touch to it too.

Like the beautiful tapestries, and the silver crystal chandeliers. The dark red, soft velvet couches, and the round silver staircases on each corner of the house. Nothing looked trashed in here, which was surprising.

Maybe someone was looking after this house. Maybe Alastair didn't know.

When I looked over at Alastair, feeling his grip loosening a little on my hand, I saw that he was still frowning. He looked distracted, and not by the beauty of this house like I was. He looked distracted by something...else.

"Are you all right?" I asked him, tugging a little on his hand, hearing my voice breaking the silence around us.

He looked at me and the frown disappeared.

"Yeah." I didn't quite believe him and maybe he noticed that too. "I think I remember this place enough for a tour. What do you say?"

I agreed, obviously. Like I mentioned earlier, I was bubbling with curiosity, and not just because I had never seen such a beautiful house before. But also because there was something about this house, sad and captivating at the same time. I wanted to know more.

"Is there a basement here?" I asked in a low whisper, looking around with wide, curious eyes. "There must be an attic too. And those balconies I saw outside. Oh my god." That last part was me remembering about the swimming pool, the place where the Hawthornes were found dead. That was one place I wished not to see.

"We've got the whole night." He smiled.

I don't know how long the tour took. I lost track of time, which wasn't my fault since this place was enormous and intriguing, as Alastair took me from one doorway to another. I didn't count how many hallways we passed, but there were a lot with the same marbled floor and the same crystal chandeliers. The paintings too, of beautiful written landscapes and the graceful brush strokes, each one of them left me in awe even if there weren't much paintings I saw in the first place.

I wonder who painted them.

When I asked Alastair about them, he barely glanced at it before passing me a clueless look.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Must've been bought from someone."

The bedrooms were huge just like every other room, but mostly empty. There were no personal belongings of anyone who used to live in this house, which I think seemed to bother Alastair too as his gaze raked across the empty bookshelves, a frown on his face. He didn't really say anything about it though.

Neither did he say anything when we came across his childhood bedroom.

It was empty like the other bedrooms and guest bedrooms, and even though I was expecting something like his dorm room, it was absolutely nothing like that.

It looked like a room that had been left untouched for years, even more so than the other rooms.

The kitchens and the supposed staff area were all covered in dust, cobwebs, and things that I told Alastair we should not go near. He tried but failed to stifle a laugh when I felt something crawling against my ankle, and I clutched onto his hand--which he still hadn't pulled away from mine--a little too tightly.

We didn't go to the attic for obvious reasons. Just thinking about it and how bad the kitchens had been, gave me the creeps. Alastair was the only one who found it amusing.

We were walking down another empty hallway when I came to a halt in front of two dark brown doors, closed shut.

When I pushed them open, a small gasp escaped my lips. "You've got to be kidding me."

"What?" Alastair asked, sounding a little alarmed.

I stepped inside and couldn't help but stare.

"A library."

I wasn't really looking at him, but I heard the smile in his voice. "Right. I forgot you love libraries."

As I wandered around the tall dark shelves, looking past the thick leather-bound books, I didn't understand how anyone could not love libraries. Not when they looked so pleasant, so undisturbed. I didn't even care this time that they were mostly covered with dust and prickly cobwebs. It was just amazing. Libraries were amazing no matter what.

"Oh, I love this place," I murmured to no one in particular, picking out book after book, skimming through its contents. They weren't novels, like the ones I adored in a library, but mostly informative books. Old, informative books, with almost worn-out pages.

Some of them even smelled funny, almost as if rats got stuck inside them, decomposing along the way. If this place really was untouched for those many years, I wouldn't be surprised.

I stopped my exploring just as abruptly when I noticed Alastair stopping by one empty corner of the room. Following his gaze, I noticed a large black piano near the small window from which you could see the wild backyard outside. But since the library was built on the highest floor, I could have only made the almost-dark night sky outside.

My eyes once again fell to the piano and then over to Alastair. He seemed frozen in some sort of a trance.

"Did you used to play it?" I asked him softly, wondering what was going on in that head of his. He had seemed like that since the moment we were standing outside of those front doors, dazed and distracted.

His eyes found mine. It surprised me a little when I realized that he seemed bothered.

"No," he murmured, then looked back at the piano. A small frown formed on his face. "I don't know."

I was left confused, so much so that I momentarily forgot about the book in my hands.

"Do you wanna play it?" I asked him, hoping that he'd tell me whatever that seemed to be bothering him at that moment. And he was. Bothered, I mean. I was pretty sure of it. He wasn't even trying to hide it this time.

"Why?"

"I...want to see if you know how to play it." It was the truth, and I realized, right now maybe he needed that. The truth.

"I don't...I don't think I know how to play it." His words came out in a quiet whisper. I couldn't pinpoint the strangeness in his voice. But then I saw him letting his fingers slowly skim across the black and white keys, and I realized that it was fear.

He was scared.

I must've leaned forward without meaning to since the book in my hands fell down on the floor with an obviously loud thud, making me flinch. I quickly bent down to pick it up, murmuring a small apology.

My eyes, however, fell on one of the opened pages--an old fraying page--and I noticed that it was scribbled with words and phrases. The handwriting wasn't untidy, but more like whoever wrote it was in a rush.

My eyes froze at the few bold words scribbled on one end of the page,

why is it always black and white?

I frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

I was about to go over and show it to Alastair, but I didn't really get the chance. Not when I heard a slow tune, softly taking over the silence around me.

I looked up at him, not even caring that I had my mouth agape, and watched him softly playing the piano.

It surprised me how easily he could play it. It surprised me that he just told me he couldn't play it. Yet that wasn't what made me shut the book in my hands with the surprise I felt at that moment. No, it was the shock. Because I knew what he was playing. I knew that melody.

It was awfully similar to the one Rowan had played on his guitar, the first time I met him. It was the one in the Walkman, the same one that drove him to a panic attack back at the sanitarium. It was the exact same melody.

My mouth went dry.

Did he even know that he was playing it?

He might not be aware, I told myself. He'd start panicking if he was aware of what he's playing right now.

He seemed dazed.

I broke out of my staring unexpectedly when he stopped, pulling his hands away from the keys and staring down at it in what I assumed was surprise. Or maybe I thought that because I was surprised.

"Wow." I breathed out. "That was...beautiful."

"It wasn't," He replied in an instant. This time he looked down at the piano as if it had grown itself into some kind of a monster.

"No," I whispered, still looking at him with wide eyes. "That really was beautiful, Alas."

The slight wince that escaped his lips didn't go unnoticed by me.

"It wasn't, Ophelia."

"What are you talking about?" I asked him slowly, stuffing the book back in its place, and then walking towards him. "What's wrong?"

He looked up at me from the piano and his eyes, I noticed, they looked sad and scared and wild. He didn't know how to hide it all.

"I don't know. I really don't." My heart ached, hearing that small hint of fear in his voice. What was he so scared of?

"Maybe we should leave." He whispered, still looking at me, waiting. "I don't...I don't feel so good here."

That itself was confusing. I didn't know what to make of it, of anything that had happened in these past few minutes. Alastair looked just as confused as me, like he couldn't figure out how all that had happened either.

I found myself nodding. "Yeah. Sure."

Something felt awfully wrong about this.

We left the library after that and as I turned around after closing the heavy mahogany doors, I noticed the way Alastair was curling and uncurling his fists, his frown still directed at the now-closed library doors.

"Come on." I broke the silence once again, the tense silence, nudging my head at Alastair to follow me.

He seemed to relax a little as we walked down the familiar hallway, away from the library. I even noticed his frown dissolving. I wanted to ask him what that all had been about. I wanted to ask him if he was all right. But I decided not to, at least not right now.

"I feel tired," I spoke up, gazing out of one of the glass windows. The moon was right there, up in the sky, giving that ghostly glow. "Maybe we should head back."

He seemed surprised when he looked at me, though I did notice the relief too. "Really?"

He was here because of me, I told myself. I didn't think he would've ever come here if it hadn't been for me. And maybe that had been...wrong of me to bring him here. It hadn't been anywhere near closure, as far as I could tell.

There wasn't closure back there in that library. All this got me was him being tense all over again, like when we had arrived in this town--tense and distracted. And that all had led to where? Him getting drunk.

"Yeah." I nodded at him with a small smile. "Let's stop by and get some ice cream. It's a nice night outside."

He dragged a hand through his hair, tousling his soft black waves. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"Okay." I echoed and continued walking alongside him, nearing the end of the long hallway. I wasn't holding his hand anymore, but I wished that I was. I wish I could have told him that whatever that was bothering him, it would all go away.

Instead, all I did was stop short when I noticed an unfamiliar single door at the other side of the hallway, closed shut, and out of our view due to the dark. I didn't even remember coming across it when we came upstairs. It almost seemed hidden. On purpose.

"What's behind that door?"

Alas followed my gaze and shrugged. "I don't know."

Then we both were walking towards it, maybe because we both were just as curious. For one second, I forgot about the library. I forgot about Alastair's bizarre reaction, all until he slowly pushed open the door and I peeked inside.

It was dark, darker than any other room I had come across. Which made me realize that this room must not have any windows. That alone was creepy enough. But then I noticed that it wasn't like a normal room. There were stairs, stairs which led down to some kind of basement.

I moved a little closer and the smell hit me.

I made a very unladylike noise, covering my nose and stepping away from the door, just a little. "God, what is down there?"

When Alastair didn't reply, I glanced over at him. His face had gone pale and that wasn't just the moon playing tricks on me. His face looked ghostly pale as he stared down at the darkness.

"Alas?" I pulled my hand away from covering my nose and absentmindedly gripped his hand. That, I don't know how, seemed to do the trick and he broke out of it, looking down at me.

"What happened?" My voice was just a whisper, concerned as I looked at him.

"Nothing," he murmured, looking back at the darkness and the stairs that led down to God knows where. "It's...strange. I thought I saw someone in there when I opened the door."

He could have just been saying that to mess with me, scare me. But when I followed his gaze down to the darkness in front of us, it was almost strange, highly bizarre that I felt this cold enveloping me. This coldness seeming to come from the darkness below, wanting me to step closer. It was like a cold pull.

I shivered a little, still staring down at the stairs in front of me.

"Do you want me to check it out?" Just saying it out loud took all my guts honestly, but I was strangely not that scared. If this place had been left abandoned, anyone could have come here, any homeless person. Even though the thought disturbed me, there was a possibility that someone could've been down there.

And leaving just like that, without helping--well, that seemed to make me feel cold all over again.

I think I was shivering.

"What? No." Alastair gripped my arm before shutting the door a little forcefully, then he frowned down at me. I hadn't noticed taking a few steps towards the stairs. "Why would you do that?"

I blinked up at him. "If someone's down there--"

"You don't just jump into the fire, Ophelia." His grip on my arm was strong, but not strong enough to hurt.

"I know that." I rolled my eyes, then looked back at the closed door. "But if it's someone who needs help--"

He cut me off. Again.

"Don't be stupid," he said it like he meant it, before steering me away from the door and out of there. "I'll tell my aunt. She'll ask someone to check it out."

Later when we left the mansion and I felt this heaviness lifting off of my shoulders, which was creepy now that I think about it, I realized that back there, me being all willing to go down that basement, it had been stupid. Really stupid.

Why did I even think going down there would be fine? Why had I been willing to go down there and help when anyone could have been there?

Or no one, I told myself. It was probably just empty.

Still, just thinking about it all bothered me. I would never in my right mind go down a scary-ass looking basement all willingly. I wouldn't even go down there if someone dared me to. That only meant I had not been in my right mind back there. That cold pull I felt--

No, I shook my head, it had all just been stupid.

******

We settled on a hilltop after getting some ice cream from a really cozy-looking parlor downtown. I got a