• Melissaaaaaaa!" My little sister whined.

    I reluctantly got up from my seat on the couch that had just been drug in the house the moving people, dropped the book that I had been reading, and walked down the halls. "Hope?" I called her name.

    "Up heeere!" she called. Her voice was coming from my right. To my right were stairs leading to the attic. "Coming." I sighed.

    The stiars creaked as I walked up them. Ugh. This house was so old. I reached the top and threw open the door.

    Okay, I know what your thinking: What are a couple of kids who lived in a nice, new house in New York City doing, moving to the middle of nowhere in a spooky old house? One word: Parents. They thought it would be a "welcome change," trading the exitement of city life for the "peace and tranquility" of the country. Right.

    My sister was upstairs, only the top of her curly, dirty-blonde hair seen over the load of old musty boxes that the previous owner had so thoughtfully left for us. Hope and I don't look much alike. We both have the same green eyes and pale skin, but while she has curly blonde hair and a slightly chubby face, like mom, I have dark, brown hair that's almost black and I'm stick-thin, more like dad. So, from behind, we don't look like sisters.

    I knelt down next to her. "What do you need?" I asked.

    "I got lonely." she said with wide eyes, "It's scary up here." I sighed, and rolled my eyes. Five-year-olds.

    "If its scary up here, why didn't you come down stairs?" I asked. You'd think this sort of thing would be obvious.

    Hope beamed. "I was esplorin', Melly!" she exclaimed, mis-pronouncing exploring.

    I sighed. I hated when she called me that. She knew, and called me Melissa... most of the time. Like I said, five-year-olds. You know how they are. "Oh, really. Did you find anything?" I asked with mock-intrest.

    "Yup!" she said. She scurried over to one of the many dark corners this place had and bent down. She scurried back over to me with a box in her hands. "Lookie here!" she said, holding it out for me to see.

    It was a pretty box. It had ornate designs on it, vines and other things. No paint, though, it was the same wood color throughout. One of Hope's tiny fingers jabbed at a ribbon-like design that wound its way across the box. "What's that say?" she asked.

    I squinted, seeing words for the first time on the ribbon thing. One word, actually, repeated over and over. I read it out loud. "Pravus."

    "What's a pree-vus?" asked Hope.

    "I don't know," I said, ignoring the mispronunciation of yet another word, "It sounds like another language. Maybe latin. I'm not sure what it means." I took latin class once my sophmore year and have no wish to repeat it.

    "Oh." Hope said. "I can't get the box open. There's a lock." She walked away to go look for more intresting things.

    I got up and prepared to go downstairs- she obviously got over her fear, since she was completly ignoring me- when a glint caught my eye. At the time I thought it was just coincidence, but now... now I'm not so sure.

    "Hey, Hope, I found a key." I called over to her.

    She ran over to me and grasped the key, which was a bit bigger than her hand. She tried fitting the key in the lock on the box. "It doesn't fit." she said sadly.

    I took the key from her. "You're putting it in backwards," I informed her. I turned the key around, put it in the lock, and twisted it. There was a small click, and then I pried opn the lid.

    Two clear blue eyes stared back at me. "Oh, pretty!" Hope exclaimed.

    The doll was pretty, with porcelian skin, wavy blonde hair done in pigtails tied with blue ribbons, and innocent blue eyes. It was wearing a frilly blue dress, polished black shoes, and tights. It was suprisingly realistic.

    I'm not going to lie and say I was creeped out by it, or that I felt evil radiating from it. It was just a doll, after all. Hope carefully picked it up and examined it. "Don't drop it." I warned her.

    "I won't." she said in a distracted voice, the voice she used when she was really intrested in something. "I'm gonna see if mom will let me keep it." With that, she walked down the stairs.

    I got up too, moving toward the door. I threw one backwards glance at the box. Hope had left it there, no longer intrested in it. It was still open, revealing the light blue satin lining inside. My eyes were drawn to the one word that was written so many times on it. Pravus. For a moment, I wondere what it meant.

    Then I flicked off the light swich and walked downstairs.

    A/N: If you want to continue reading this, you can find the rest of the story here when or if I add more!