The Tree House Mystery

Chapter 9

By the time I get to my room balancing a plate filled with PB & J sandwiches with one hand and a tray with glasses of icy lemonade in the other, Ned looks like he's already surveyed it properly. When I enter, I see him standing beside my bed, staring at the painting hung on the wall.

"I'm here!" I announce to break his reverie, then put down the plate and tray on my study table.

"Oh, sorry. I was just checking out your room..."

"Sure."

"...so, did you paint that canvas?"

"Hmm. Do you like it?"

"I just love it! It's absolutely wonderful."

"Well, thanks."

"You're one talented girl, you know that? I mean, it's not even been two days since we met, and already I know that you're intelligent, adventurous, strong, independent, curious, courageous, artistic, a writer..." He counts off on his fingers, grinning all the time.

"Okay, okay! Stop it. You're exaggerating. A LOT." I interrupt him, and he his grin becomes wider and more mischievous, showing his perfect set of pearly white teeth.

"That's not true! I could just go on and on..."

"Thank you, I guess that's enough for now, so let's get down to business, shall we?" I turn around and pick up a sandwich, hiding my blush from him and trying to change the topic.

"As you wish." He says in a sing-song voice, and picks up a sandwich as well. We each finish one in silence, Ned strolling around the room and checking out my bookshelf, and me sitting on the edge of my bed, pretending to switch on the laptop but mostly watching him.

He suddenly turns around to face me, and I hastily lower my gaze to my laptop. "I say, you came down from this window that night, didn't you?"

"Yes, that I did."

He nods in understanding, then goes over to look out the window, after opening it. "Wow! You climbed down from here. And the distance to the ground isn't very less too — I can't see how I'd have managed to do what you did. And that too in the dark, at night. Hats off to you." And he bows lightly.

Well, now I just can't control it. I burst out laughing and blushing both at the same time, and while at first he's startled, he soon joins in.

"Now please  let us do some work?" I ask him, still smiling.

"I never held you back!" He holds up his hands in defense, grins, then continues, "Okay, so let's get started, seriously."

"Right." I exhale and then open up Google on the browser. "So, what exactly should I type?" I look at him, with a raised eyebrow.

"Umm...try, 'Old tree house in Savannah'?" Ned suggests. He joins me on my bed

I quickly type in the words, and hit "Search". It takes about 3 seconds for the results to come, but nothing is of use to us. "Buy tree house in Savannah", "The Tree House Hotel, Savannah" and "Old and Historic buildings in Savannah" are the general results, plus a lot similar ones.

Definitely not what we're looking for.

I purse my lips, thinking hard what to search to get our desired result.

"What about, 'Ancient tree house in Savannah forest' or 'Mysterious places in Savannah'?"

"Hmm...let's try these as well."

I repeat the procedure twice: type, search, then results....'About 13,50,000 results(0.77 seconds)'. Ugghh! How can we ever find what we want to, from over 1.3 million links?

"May I try?" Ned asks.

"Of course." I say, and hand him over the laptop.

He stares at the screen for half a minute, perhaps thinking what exactly should he type, then, as if he's just found the answer, he begins to type furiously the following words:

Savannah Forests' History

Results pop up almost the instant he presses the 'Enter' button, and scrolls down the page till he finds what he's looking for. Subsequently he clicks on the link saying, 'GA.org— All About Georgia—Savannah Forests, History, Wildlife...'

When the website opens up, we see that it's the official State-run site about Georgia and its cities and towns, plus a lot more. In the search bar there, Ned types, 'Tree House' and skimming through the results we come to an article labelled—'Mystery of Savannah Forest Tree House', written by a public contributor, whose name or any detail of identification isn't displayed. Alongside the link, there's also a strange red mark pointing to it, and when Ned hovers the cursor over it, it shows a message in a small box: 'This source may not be reliable, article review by authorities under progress.' Weird.

We look at each other for a moment, our hearts beating fast with the excitement, after he clicks on the link and the page starts loading.

In about ten seconds we're already through the short article, which goes on something like this:

"A mysterious tree house has been found inside the deep forest of Savannah, whose ownership is not clear. The old wooden structure may have seen quite a few decades, from the looks of it.

"Locals have reported sightings of unknown persons in it during night-time, and often the screams and laughter coming out of it has kept awake the residents of the town who live near the boundary of the forest.

"Some residents have more than once tried venturing into the house, but haven't been able to find anything that proves the presence of those people sighted there during the night.

"This seems a solid evidence in favor of the existence of the supernatural. As yet there has been no formal investigation into the matter by the authorities, as no one has ever come to any harm because of it.

"People are warned, still, to keep away from the abandoned, ghostly and mysterious tree house. The hunt is on to trace its owner."

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Hi there, readers! :D

I'm extremely overwhelmed by your response to this story. Thank you for your faith in me! We've reached close to 300 reads and almost 25 votes, but don't you think that the ratio of votes/comments to reads is a bit unbalanced? ;)

I'd just take this opportunity to remind you that each and every vote and comment means a lot to an author, so please don't hesitate to let me know of your opinion. :)

Also, in case you were thinking, I don't have any update schedule and since I'm still a school student, I'll try my best to update about every 10 days or less, if possible.

One more thing—I'd like you to go through this poem written by my best friend @ananyasen7 on the given external link and vote if you like it. Just have a look, you'll find it very true! :D

That's all! Thanks for your patience!

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