Allie McGee caught her reflection in the glass of her front door and wondered if Pete would be able to tell she’d been crying. He always could. Still, she gave her eyes a quick rub hoping it would wipe away the telltale signs.
“Just ten more days,” she said with a sigh, as she turned the knob and slipped inside her house, closing and locking the door behind her in one swift motion. Ten more days of school, and then Christmas break would be here. If she could just hang in there till then, her days would be filled with baking and music and jigsaw puzzles in front of the fire. Her book bag dropped with a resounding thud onto the entryway floor.
“I’m home, Pete!” she called to her little brother.
No matter how rotten her day had been at school, hearing him thundering down the hall to greet her always cheered her up. But today, the house was eerily silent.
“Pete?” she called a bit louder. Sometimes he got lost in his own little world, as young children are prone to do. She strained her ears. No answer.
Allie hung a left out of the entryway toward the dining room. She pushed open the door and poked in her head. The table was spotless, and the chairs were all tucked in under the table. Pete’s customary half-empty mug of hot chocolate and Rice Krispies treat wrapper were nowhere to be found. Allie furrowed her brow and headed towards the kitchen. All the cabinets were shut and the countertops were clean. Clearly, Pete hadn’t been there.
“Pete! Where are you?” she shouted, an edge of fear in her voice. No answer.
Her mind flashed with terrible things that might have happened to Pete before she got home. What if someone had broken in and kidnapped him? What if he had run away? What if he never made it home? She started to feel lightheaded, and her stomach felt tight.
Stay calm, she reminded herself. It was the first rule of babysitting, the one her mom, Laura, had drilled into her constantly when she was preparing Allie for her new role. Business had been slower than expected at the used bookstore her parents had recently opened. Her mom had decided to get a part-time job waiting tables to help make ends meet until the business was off the ground. Since Allie was almost thirteen, her mom had felt she was responsible enough to watch Pete for the few hours between when they got home from school and when her shift at the diner was over. It was only supposed to be temporary, but it had been almost two months already and nothing had changed.
Allie marched across the house and down the hallway, which was lined from floor to ceiling with overfull bookshelves. On a normal day, she would search each shelf for the latest additions her dad, Nick, had brought home from their store the night before, but right now she was starting to get a bad feeling.
“PEEEETE?” she called up the staircase at the end of the hall.
Silence
It occurred to her that he might have stayed after school for soccer practice. She sometimes got her days mixed up. She jogged back to the entryway, but Pete’s book bag was sitting right where he always dropped it when he got home. Another possibility crossed her mind: maybe he was hiding.
Lately, Pete was obsessed with ninjas and was getting good at moving stealthily through the house. He loved nothing more than to catch her reading on her bed, completely absorbed in a book. He would creep silently into the room and then run full speed towards her and fling himself into the air.
“Hiiiiyyyaa!” he would squeal, in his best karate voice as he executed a flying kick. A scuffle would then commence, which always ended with Allie kicking him out of her room. Even though she always acted annoyed, she secretly thought it was fun.
“Peter Nicolas McGee! Stop hiding this instant! You’re going to be in big trouble if you don’t come out right now!” she shouted, doing her best to imitate the tone her mom used to get him to straighten up.
Pete was mischievous, but this threat was always enough to get him to stop messing around. She stopped and listened carefully, sure she would hear his muffled giggling from somewhere down the hall. The only sound came from the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the living room.
Allie’s heart began thudding harder in her chest. She took the stairs two at a time and then raced down the hall to his room. Markers, crayons, and paper littered the floor, as usual. Colorful drawings of everything from castles to ninjas to whales plastered the walls. A half-eaten dog biscuit lying next to one of his pictures on the floor caught her eye.
“Boomer!” she called as she picked up the biscuit. “Where are you, boy? Want a treat?”
Boomer was their family dog, a Beagle-Dachshund mix. They had gotten him as a puppy when Pete was born, and the two had bonded instantly. He slept in Pete’s room every night and absolutely refused to leave his side if he was sick or sad. But even his allegiance to Pete couldn’t keep Boomer this quiet for this long. The offer of a treat always made him come running. Allie’s palms started to sweat.
After making a full search of his room, she made her way downstairs to the living room, looking in all of Pete’s usual hiding spots along the way. She noticed the sliding glass door to the backyard was slightly ajar. “Thank you, God,” she said to the ceiling. Pete knew playing outside before she got home was against the rules, but occasionally he forgot. At least, that was the excuse he always gave.
Pete’s favorite place to play was the backyard. Their dad had built a playhouse right after they moved in five years ago. It was alternately a fort, a pirate ship, a pioneer cabin, or whatever else they dreamed up. Lately, they had pretended it was a submarine and spent countless hours reenacting scenes from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. She had been Captain Nemo, and Pete had, of course, played the giant squid with boundless enthusiasm.
She jogged over to the playhouse and threw open the door. “Pete! How many times have I told you—” She stopped cold. The playhouse was empty. Her stomach churned as her brain raced to figure out what she should do next.
Her eyes scanned the yard. There was no trace of him anywhere. Her eyes fell on the line of trees that marked their property line and all at once, she knew where Pete was. He had been obsessed with a place he called the Forsaken Forest. His stories about his outlandish adventures in it had entertained the whole family as they sat around the dinner table for the past few weeks. And although at the time she thought he was making the stories up out of thin air, she now realized that Pete had been talking about these very woods.
They’d been on a family hike through those woods once before. Her dad thought the state owned the land because that’s what his real estate agent had told him when they were buying the house. They had marveled at how beautiful and untouched it seemed. It was the first time Allie had ever seen a fox in the wild.
The day after their hike, however, a mysterious note had arrived. They found it on the floor amongst all the ordinary letters that came through the mail slot at the front door. The oilskin envelope had no return address, and the lettering on the front was peculiar. A red wax seal embossed with a symbol that looked like an O held it closed. Inside was a folded piece of parchment, lettered in the same unusual hand. It read:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am aware that you have trespassed upon my land.
Take heed that it does not happen again.
If it does, there will be consequences.
The same symbol on the seal appeared at the bottom of the letter. Allie’s mom looked up the property information online, but the owner record only read NAME WITHHELD. That night her dad had called a family meeting and told them that further exploration into the forest was strictly forbidden. Though he loved exploring, Nick valued his privacy and the privacy of others. He explained that this O person was probably a man who simply wanted himself and his land to be left alone.
Since that day, Allie had always felt a little afraid when she looked at the forest. No matter how bright and sunny the day was, the forest always seemed dark and forbidding. Today it looked more mysterious and more dangerous than ever. She knew what she had to do, but she hated the thought of it. She had to enter the Forsaken Forest and find her brother.
-End Excerpt-
Escape From Olshek’s Castle is available in both ebook and paperback format on Amazon. Click the button below to get your copy!