Sands Of Time

Four

Henry opened the cabinet again and took out the pocket full of money before opening his car door and running round to Tara's side. He opened her door and carefully picked her up bridal style so she wouldn't have to walk at all.

"You ok?" He asked, closing the door with his foot.

Tara wrapped her arms around his neck and looked up at the house with interest "Uh huh. Thanks."

Henry tossed the packet of money into Tara's lap and then walked back around the car and up onto the curb. Tara never took her eyes off of the house throughout the time that it took Henry to stride across the parking area to reach their front doorstep underneath the grey, stone archway that covered it. Tara reached out and grabbed onto the metal door-knocker, which was the head of a lion, and clunked it against the brown, wooden door three times, and she then locked her hand back around her brother's neck. Henry stepped back politely and nosily tried to peer through the windows on either side of the door, but to his dismay, they were covered with deep-red, curtains that only had a thin gap in the middle where they met which didn't really let him see anything at all.

Tara swallowed and started coughing from the tight, dry sensation in her throat. She narrowed her eyes in pain and brought her hand to her neck.

"That man's done something to my wind pipe, I know it." She whispered.

The door suddenly opened with a few light clicks and Tara and Henry snapped their eyes onto the doorway to see a very tall, well-built, handsome man around his forties standing there. He had black, combed hair with plump lips and dark, brown eyes, and he was wearing brown trousers, a grey shirt with braces over his shoulders, and boots.

He blinked and eyed the two of them up and down with a raised eyebrow of suspicion "Yeeeeees?" He asked warily.

Tara frowned in slight hope "Mr. Na?... Na HyunJae?" She asked.

The man lifted his nose up slightly "What do you want with him?"

"We need his help. Our father sent us here wit"- Tara was cut off with a fit of painful coughs and buried her face on her brother's shoulder.

She couldn't talk any longer. Henry looked down at her with concern and then realized he had to take over.

"Our father, Park TaeHo, sent us here... Some really bloody crazy stuff's gone on, and we found a letter from our dad telling us to come to you." He told him.

The man's eyes lit up with immediate recognition "Park TaeHo?"

Henry nodded "That's our dad."

He observed the two of them for a few more minutes. He didn't know whether to truly trust them. Any of his enemies knew Park TaeHo used to be close with him... It could easily have been a trap.

"HyunJae? Who is it?" A woman called from a room in the house.

"So you are HyunJae?" Henry asked rhetorically.

HyunJae glanced behind him out of the corner of his eye in decision. Tara let out a painful groan when her ankle gave a sudden throb of pain, and HyunJae looked at her with slight sympathy. He soon sighted and stepped aside to let Henry in. Henry nodded gratefully and walked into the hall; the house looked completely different from the outside. The floor was a shiny, brown and white styled and the walls were a dark brown. Lights stood on tables here and there, and almost every piece of furniture and decoration was a piece of ancient importance. The paintings were all of Egyptian and Grecian people and pyramids etc., and there were many small statues of different types of Egyptian and Grecian myths and legends lying around. The house was very warm and Tara could smell the scent of some kind of creamy incense.