Legacy of the Necromancer [Legacy, BK1 - Completed]

Chapter 4:4

We made it to the Reinhardt property just as true darkness fell. The moon had just risen above the trees as Dad drove up the long gravel drive to the white plantation style house. It stood lonely in an empty field, the nearest trees thousands of feet away. He parked the car.

"Here we are, the Reinhardt Plantation."

The house looked a little run down, but nothing some work couldn't fix. The large, floor-to-ceiling windows of the first floor were boarded up, along with the door.

I climbed out of the car, and headed to the porch. The wooden boards creaked under my weight. Poe flew to my shoulder, giving a quiet caw as Dad approached with a flashlight to help me remove the boards before unlocking the doors.

We stepped into the dusty foyer, surveying the grand staircase to the second floor that dominated the entry way. "Do all the families know about this place?" I asked.

"I'm sure the other Heads and possibly a few of the older generation." He searched to the left of the door, and the chandelier over the staircase came to life, bathing the room in light. "It wasn't as serious back then to keep the locations of our homes secret. It was only after what happened to the Reinhardts that we all decided to move and keep our locations hidden."

"And you just happened to have the keys?" I glanced back at him, before moving into an adjoining room. The furniture was draped in large sheets of dusty cloth.

Dad followed me, tucking the keys into his pocket. "The Reinhardts and the Stanwoods always had a close relationship. Our two families often mixed; one of the last marriages before the war was my aunt and uncle's. I came back with my Mom and uncle after Aunt Emily was killed, to help pack the house. Since she was one of the last..."

His voice trailed off as he turned to inspect the fireplace mantel, and I kept moving through the room, not wanting to push. Poe launched from my shoulder, flying back to the foyer to land on the banister.

"How does this place still have power?" I asked, as the thought occurred to me.

"I made some calls last week. Got the utilities working again." He walked over to stand next to me. "I thought you'd at least want to see the place. Maybe, after we fix it up a bit, you and Avery could live here. If you want to, that is. Come on, the office was on the second floor, if I remember right," Dad said, starting for the stairs.

I followed automatically, stunned. He was right, I thought watching as Poe flew ahead of us. I was a Reinhardt now, where else should I be?

We walked along an empty hallway with doors that opened to rooms filled with more draped furniture. Faint outlines of picture frames and nails littered the yellowed papered walls. Dad opened a door at the end of the hallway and stepped in.

"This is it," he said, ducking a little as Poe glided in after him to perch on the back of a draped armchair.

There were dark, wooden, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into the walls that reminded me of Dad's study back home. The only difference was these shelves were dusty and bare of books. Instead, file boxes were piled high, hiding the bottom shelves. I pulled the top off the closest one to me and found it full of the missing books.

Glancing around the room, I counted the boxes. There were well over a dozen. "We can't take all of these, there's not enough room in the car."

"I wasn't planning on it," Dad said, lifting a box onto the cloth-covered desk. "I thought we could go through them tonight and see if any would be helpful to you right away. We can come back for the rest later." He started sifting through the books.

I turned back to my box, shuffling through the volumes. Some were leather-bound, and some were so old that the bindings looked like they'd been sewn by hand. Many books were written in languages I didn't recognize.