Ghostly (Ian Hecox)

Chapter 2 - Documents

I woke up, still tired but excitement got the best of me and I jumped out of bed. I put on a pair of old ripped jeans, a t-shirt and went downstairs for some breakfast.

"Good morning." Aunty Carol said as I walked into the kitchen.

"Good morning." I said back and took a seat at the breakfast bar.

"What can I get you for breakfast?" She asked and I thought for a second.

"Could I have a piece of toast please?" I asked and she nodded, walking around the kitchen gathering things. "So." She broke the silence. "How are we getting to the third floor?" She asked me and I smiled, I've been waiting to tell her my plan.

"We'll walk around the second floor and go through every room and hallway and knock on the ceiling. If there is hatch to get up there, we'll hear it when we knock. If there's nothing there, it'll probably make a hallow noise." I told her and she nodded.

"Did you think about the possibility that the third floor is empty and it's simply there for decorative purposes?" She asked me, suddenly getting more serious than I've ever seen her.

"Yes I did actually. And I think that if this house was really built 150 years ago, it wouldn't be decorative. Everything I had a purpose and adding a third floor for no reason, wouldn't make any sense." I stated confidentially.

"Well okay then. Since I like your determination and because I love you, I'll let you drag me along on this wild goose chase. We'll start our search after breakfast." She said as she handed me my breakfast.

"Thank you Aunty Carol." I thanked her.

Why did I want to find out what was on the third floor so bad? Whatever's up there won't affect me but still there's something thrilling about a mystery and secret things.

I ate my breakfast as fast as I could and when I finished in no time flat, Aunty Carol raised her eyebrow at me. "Eager?" She asked and I nodded.

"Very." I told her.

"Okay then. Let's go. I'll go get the step ladder from the shed and we'll start knocking." She said and walked out of the kitchen.

I walked into the huge library. I was surrounded by huge wooden bookcases that went from the floor to the ceiling. There was at least 10 gigantic bookcases lined up in rows. I walked down the first row, in search of anything about the house.

"Eleanor?" Aunty Carol yelled. "Where'd you go?"

"Library!" I yelled back to her. A few moments later she emerged through the archway. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking at your books. Have you looked through them yet?" I asked and she shook her head. "And they all came with the house?" I asked and nodded. "Would you mind if I looked through your books later?"

"Of course not, knock yourself out." She laughed. "Ready to start looking?" She asked and I smiled and quickly walked to her and picked up the small step ladder and ran up the stairs.

"Where do we start?" I asked.

"Well, from the outside, it looks like the third floor only covers about half of the second floor. So we start at the back and work our way to the middle." She said and I nodded. I followed her to one of the empty bedrooms.

We knocked on the ceiling and when it was hallow, we'd move a few feet in one direction and then knock again. After we went through 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and the hallway, we got discouraged.

"I don't think there's a hatch to get up there." Aunty Carol spoke up.

"There must be another way then. I'll go through the library and see if I can find anything about the house." I told her and she nodded.

She went to the shed and I went to the library. I walked in, picked a shelf, grabbed the sliding ladder, put it against the shelf and started climbing.

For the first few bookcases, there was nothing but old literature books and old autobiographies of people I've never heard of. But when I got to about the sixth bookcase, it completely changed. The very two top shelves were books that were nothing like the rest. I skipped through the first few pages and they talked about things that I made no sense. I grabbed a few of the books, climbed down the ladder and put them into a box. I would take them to my room later and read through them.

The second last bookshelf was the one I had been looking for. The third shelf down was full of documents. I grabbed most of them and went down the ladder and brought them over to the desk to look them over. I read them out loud.

"Hecox Manor, built in 1856." I paused for a second, doing the math in my head. "This house is 159 years old. Wow." I continued reading. Most of the pages were about the cost of the Manor, building materials and other irrelevant things but then I came to one page that stuck out like a sore thumb. "It's a police report from the year, 1937. Murder of the first degree. Victim, Ian Hecox. State of case- Unsolved."

I took a step away from the desk for a few seconds. Someone was murdered here. That took a few seconds to sink in. I needed to know more about this "Ian Hecox."

I went back to the desk and looked for anything with his name on it or the name Hecox. I found two pages in this entire library with his name on it. One, which was his police report and the other was a family tree.

Ian was at the very bottom alone. An only child. He was the last member of the family and he was murdered. That must be why this house has been empty for so long. Ian's parents were Cheryl and Stephan.

I put all the loose documents back except for the two important ones and brought them to Aunty Carol.

After I told her all the things I found out, I couldn't tell if she was happy or sad. She looked over at the papers.

"You figured out the mystery!" She said excitedly. "You found out when the house was built and who built it. You did unfortunately find some darker things but you figured out the mystery of this house." She said happily.

"No Aunty Carol. I have only figured out half the myself. I still need to figure out what's on that third floor. I couldn't find any blueprints of the house or anything!" I said slightly frustrated.

"Hey." She rubbed my back. "We'll figure out the other half of the mystery together. I promise."

The rest of the day was fairly busy. I mowed the grass and Aunty Carol and I spent the rest of the day working in the garden and the backyard.

I fell asleep fairly early but randomly woke up in the middle of the night. I laid awake in bed for awhile until one thought hit me harder than a bus. I got out of bed as fast as I could, ran down the stairs, all while yelling "Aunty Carol! Aunty Carol!" When I finally made it to her room, she was awake.

"What's wrong?! What's wrong?!" She asked me terrified.

"I know how to get to the third floor!"