"What website?" I didn't say anything. He didn't need to know yet.
"What website was he talking about, Trish? What did he mean by 'clients'?" Dad scratched his head in confusion.
"He means on the broker website, Dad! They need commissions and whatnot. This house is dirt cheap, so he asked for five stars for his clientele. You're a business guy; you of all people should know." I taunted him.
His brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of the man's words.
I had a choice: I could tell him the truth, let him in on the shady dealings I'd gotten us into, or I could just dismiss it and ignore the feeling of insecurity and anxiety we all felt when we stepped foot inside this town, outside this house. I chose the latter. It was too long of a story, too tangly, and honestly, too unsettling to share right now. The last thing we needed was more stress.
I handed the keys to my little sister. "Ki, you can open the house!" Kiara's face lit up with excitement, her wide eyes sparkling with the pure innocence of someone untouched by the darker side of life. There was surely something about Kiara—an aura of positivity and warmth that seemed to brighten even the gloomiest of days. I'd seen it happen before—how her mere presence could turn a stressful situation around, her laughter could control conflicts, and her smile could lift spirits. She was our (my) beacon of light, and I had faith that whatever 'evil' nested in this house, she could purify it.
As she took the keys, a small smile tugged at her lips, and I could already feel the weight of the atmosphere lighten just a bit. It was as if her joy was contagious, spreading through the air and pushing away any doubt and fear. I almost felt the sense of nervousness slip away; maybe the evil is out.
"Yay! I call dibs on my new bedroom!" Kiara cheered, her small hands gripping the keys tightly. Her enthusiasm was infectious, a bright contrast to the gloom that surrounded us. The house loomed before us, its derelict facade a stark reminder of the stories that had followed it—stories of tragedy, of lives lost within its walls. The sun was setting, casting long shadows that made the mansion appear even more ominous. The windows, like hollow eyes, stared back at us, dark and unwelcoming.
The keys jangled in Kiara's hands, five of them knotted together: one for the main door, one for the gate outside, another for the back door, the basement door, and the garage door. They were old and worn, their metal cold to the touch, as if they hadn't been used in years.
Very…how would Finn say? Antique? Elegant? Well, in the end, they were a bunch of old, unused keys, but they had fancy carvings in them.
When Kiara placed a corroded, reddish-metal-colored key into the gate and turned it open, I noticed It also had a text in Latin in the crevices of the carvings.
I would know that since I took AP Latin. It was a very weird language, had barely words to communicate basic emotions like hunger, anger, and love, but had more than a hundred ways to describe death and chaos. I liked that.
all of them had similar writings.
The main gate entrance key read :
Mi glutos vian animon
Which means: "I'll swallow your soul".