Zoe gasped as she stepped inside the house. She had been expecting some disgustingly dirty hovel with blood covering everything. Instead, it was well looked after, apart from a couple of claw marks on the walls and small patches of dried blood on the floor. There was a posh cream sofa like rich people in the cities had, and it was so clean Zoe doubted it had ever been used. There was also a bed with a blood red pillow and duvet, and a pure white sheet. Zoe loaded an arrow in her bow when she saw what was attached to the posts of the bed. Chains, each with an open cuff. She heard a noise behind her and spun around, arrow ready to fly. Aoife took a step back.
"Oh, it's you guys. I thought I was about to be attacked." Zoe said, breathing a sigh of relief and lowering her bow.
"Keep your voice down! We don't want to draw attention to ourselves if whatever took Alba and Evie is in here somewhere." Nessa whispered.
"But if Alba and Evie are being kept prisoner in here, they might hear us and yell for help. Then we could find them more easily!" Zoe hollared. Alex covered her ears. Kat put her hand over Zoe's mouth.
"Stop talking. If the evil thing is in here, we'll probably be killed if it finds us." she said, glaring at Zoe. Alex whimpered. Kat suddenly withdrew her hand from Zoe's mouth and wiped it on her jeans, looking disgusted. "She licked me!" Alex giggled, and Aoife and Nessa rolled their eyes. There was a banging noise from the other side of a door, which probably lead to another room. Alex froze. Nessa lifted a spear, Kat pulled out a knife, Zoe and Aoife raised their bows. Bang. Bang. Bang. It sounded like...
"Footsteps." Zoe murmured, edging towards the sound. Bang. Bang. Then silence. Zoe pushed the door with her foot. It swung open, creaking loudly. Zoe stepped through the doorway. She gasped.
"What?" Aoife whispered.
"There's someone in the house. He just left the room. He looked at me first..." Zoe murmured in response. "I- I think he was trying to get away from me. He looked like a young deer when it sees a hunter. Like he was trying to get away from a predator. He was definitely a boy. He looked scared, but, at the same time, sort of happy, like someone had given him a really nice present, but he was terrified of it." Zoe went towards the door the boy had gone through. The other girls followed, weapons out and ready to be used. Zoe seemed more hesitant. Her bow was out, but it was only raised half way: not much use if they were ambushed and needed to fight back quickly.
"He went through there?" Nessa asked, and Zoe nodded, lowering her bow and opening the door.
"Maybe we should check upstairs first, seeing as that's probably where he came from." Aoife said, but Zoe shook her head.
"We'll follow the boy. He was definitely trying to get away from something, if it wasn't us, we'd be walking straight into trouble." she demanded.
"You mean we're not in trouble already?" Kat muttered, and Nessa, being the only person who heard her, smirked. Zoe walked into the room. There was a boy in there.
"Get away!" he all but screamed, staring at the weapons in the girls' hands, amber eyes wide in terror. Zoe removed the arrow from her bow and placed it in her quiver, before placing her bow on the ground. She raised her hands, taking something seriously for probably the first time in her life.
"It's okay, we're not going to hurt you." she said, making her voice soft and even, nothing like her usual energy-filled tones that were constantly jumping to different octaves. She looked at the other girls and gestured for them to put down their weapons. Aoife obliged, but slid her hand into the pocket her kitchen knife was in. Kat put her knife on the floor, and Nessa slid her spear back into her bag with the other two. Alex kept her knife in her hand, clinging to it like it was her lifeline, but lowered her hand.
"The others. The two girls. They said people would come. He didn't think it was true. But it is. You came. You have to go! It's not safe!" the boy yelled, tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Who didn't think it was true?" Aoife asked.
"Him. The master of the house. The one who shows his true self only when the moon is full." the boy replied, and Zoe edged towards him slowly, hands out in front of her so he could see they were empty.
"Zoe, don't! He's probably tricking us. He's the one who took them. There's no sound coming from anywhere else in the house." Nessa said, grabbing Zoe and pulling her back.
"At least tell us who you are." Zoe demanded of the boy.
"I cannot tell you. Only my kind, his kind, can know." he told her. The two locked eyes. Sea green met bright amber. "I'm sorry." Zoe looked away.
"Come on, Zoe. Get a grip." she muttered to herself, before turning to the girls. "Come on, let's look around a bit." She picked up the bows, and gave Aoife her's back.
"Thanks for all the amazing help." Kat muttered sarcastically.
"Goodbye." Zoe said, turning back to the boy. He smiled slightly, and a contented beam found it's way on to Zoe's face. Nessa wolf whistled.
"Someone's got a crush!" she sang teasingly.
"I didn't tease you when you liked that boy from the butchers. What was his name again? Kobe?" Zoe retorted, and Kat laughed.
"Doesn't Kobe mean beef?" she asked, and Zoe nodded, grinning.
"And he's the butcher's son?" Aoife added, smiling. Zoe nodded again. Her grin became wider.
"Beef the Butcher's Son? Nessa likes Beef the Butcher's Son?" Alex asked incredulously, and the four burst out laughing while Nessa glared at them.
"Can we please focus on what's going on here?" Nessa asked them, and Aoife, Kat and Alex stopped laughing. Zoe pulled a face that looked like she was constipated, then began to laugh again.
"Let's... go... up... stairs." Zoe managed between manic fits of laughter. Kat sighed and rolled her eyes as the five made their way up the stairs. Zoe stopped laughing as they saw the corridor.
"It's certainly... different." Nessa commented. Aoife wiped her index finger across the wall and inspected it.
"It's absolutely filthy. Even Zoe's bedroom's cleaner than this!" Aoife exclaimed, and Zoe stuck her tongue out at her.
"There are so many doors..." Alex said, sounding nervous.
"Which one shall we search first?" Kat asked. Zoe closed her eyes and started spinning. She stretched out her arm and pointed with one finger. She stopped spinning and opened her eyes.
"That one!" she said, walking towards the door she had ended up pointing at. She loaded her bow. "Weapons out, girls!" Nessa twisted the handle.
"It's locked." she stated. Zoe rolled her eyes.
"Then we've got to break in!" she exclaimed, and kicked it. It snapped off its hinges and fell to the floor with a crash. "Oops... I may have kicked harder than I meant to." she smiled sheepishly.
"You don't know your own strength." Kat said, shaking her head. Zoe turned to look at her.
"You sound like my mum. That is most certainly not a good thing." she said petulantly as she stepped into the room. She gasped. The other girls entered the room behind her, and Aoife had the same reaction as Zoe. The room had floor to ceiling bookcases on each wall, and the centre of the room had an antique desk (which, the girls noticed, was made of walnut wood) with a tall vase of lilies resting on it.
"Why would something as nice as this," Aoife said, gesturing to the room they were in, "be in a building as horrible as this?" Nessa shrugged.
"Maybe it's a clue." Zoe said, and the other girls gave her strange looks, which she ignored. "Alba and Evie had gone out to gather lilies when they were seen approaching the house. It all makes sense."
"Pattern matching." Kat said, shaking her head. "There's no reason for you to think that those lilies have anything to do with Evie and Alba."
"They would have walked along by the river to get here. Evie always walks along the sandy bank, and there's sand over there." Zoe commented, pointing to a small pile of sand by one of the bookcases.
"Zoe, it's not even the same colour as the sand by the river." Nessa pointed out, and Zoe pouted.
"I'm still going to investigate it." Zoe replied as she walked over to the sand and crouched down next to it. She started sifting through it, and gasped. She began to furiously brush it away from where it had been, and the other girls crowded round to see what had shocked her. The five were so transfixed by the strange pattern carved into the floorboard that they didn't notice the creek of a loose floorboard behind them.