Heather’s jolt immediately caused her pain in her right side as her body pulled hard against her shared seam with Lindsey, causing Lindsey to awake with an “Ouch!”
    Heather, worried that she may have woken everyone up, gave a whispered, “Sorry,” to Lindsey, explaining, “I was having a bad dream.”
    Lindsey, now fully awake, responded with, “It’s okay, I wasn’t having that great a dream either. Is anyone else up?”
    Looking around, it appeared as thought they were the only ones up, so Heather responded, “Nah, but since you’re up do you want to read that book we got from the ghost in the library?”
    Slowly, the two girls sat up, where Lindsey said, “Sure.” Pulling the book out of the purse, the two girls stared at the relatively plain cover. Besides the golden lettering of the title, the cover was very plain. The back of the cover did not offer any additional information as to what the book could possible contain. Opening the book to the first page, the girls began to read.

    ‘The history of the Mercurin Family began like many of royalty, with the marriage between two warring factions in order to bring posterity between the lands. It was by pure coincidence that these two groups would be the relatively unknown Cupressus, a family mostly known for their proficiency with plants and herbology, and the clan Merlin, a family of warlocks and witches, often mistaken for those in the Arthurian Legend.
    As time passed by, things seemed to go well for the family. They would become known across the land as the group to go to in order to solve problems that could not be solved through the regular channels. The mixture in the extensive knowledge of plants and herbs, and in the ancient arts of dark magic could not have been more ideal. It was even rumored they could cure death, however the fact that no investigation or history book ever linked the group to such actions, such rumors never got far.
    Eventually, the notoriety of this family became so wide-spread, that even the King of England was forced to address the growing concern that there was a family more powerful than his Highness. The King’s answer was to send his best armies at them, forcefully ejecting them from their castle, and casting those who survived into the ocean.
    It would be pure coincidence that those surviving members of the family would be the able leader, Michael Mercurin, and his wife Katherine. These two members of the Mercian household survived thanks to the fact that they had been visiting with the Spanish King Ferdinand on the rumor that they had discovered a new world to the East. When the news came that they had lost most of their family, the two begged the King to lend them a boat such that they could create a new home for them in this new world, free from persecution. The King, feeling bad that such a fate had befallen his good friends, granted this request, allowing them to take his very best ship and several of his best vassals to the new world.’

    ‘It was by sheer luck that they managed to land safely on the East coast, allowing them to settle in and create a new community, a new family, no longer constrained to follow the rules of any others. They built a giant wall made out of lumbar to help protect themselves from the neighboring native tribes, and while new communities would begin to form around them, the Mercurins remained here, using the best materials available to strengthen their precious wall and to keep the majesty of their new home alive.
    Sadly, prosperity was not enough for this family. Michael, realizing that he and his wife were getting much older, and that they were unlikely to live much longer, began research into what had only been seen as speculation: How to bring the dead back to life. They searched through the writings of the Mercurin’s past, which were delivered as an apology gift by the grand-daughter of the original King of England whom had attacked their old home, and against all odds, figured out the secret to beating death…’

    Heather and Lindsey would have read more, but were sadly brought out of their concentration by Susan waking up a couple of chairs away from them. Rubbing the sleep out of her, she looked around commenting, “Dang. There was the smallest thought that this stupid tour was all a dream.”
    Heather closed the book, putting it back in her purse, “Yeah, me too.”
    “Ah well, my dream kind of sucked anyway,” Susan said, getting up from her seat and walking over to the girls, “It was mostly just me falling, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
    “No way!” Lindsay said, a bit too loudly, as it clearly woke up Echo, “That was my dream too!”
    “Five more minutes,” Spencer said groggily, sitting up from his lounge seat as well, waking Veronica up in the process.

    “Well, we’re all up now. So what should we do?” Heather said, taking charge of the situation by standing up.

    What happens next?

    1.) Scarlett comes in with a surprise for the group
    2.) The group tries the door, finding it open
    3.) The ghost from Heather’s dream show up