The House On Vine Street

Chapter One

The house on Vine Street was not perfect by any means, but at first glance it had heaps of character and charm. It immediately created a feeling of being in another time, an era of elegance and grace. Yet when one looked at it closely there was work to be done, but nothing Holly and Ivy couldn't do themselves. At least it appeared that way from the outside.

It was unfortunate that they couldn't see inside the house, the windows were quite dirty. They knew they would be taking a big chance buying a house that they would have no access to until it was their own. Nonetheless, both girls new as soon as they saw it, it was a place they could both call home.

It took considerable wrangling of their finances to purchase this house, however, manage it they did. The two girls held their breaths when they turned the key in the lock of their newly acquired Victorian home for the first time and as they opened the door, expecting to find it empty of all belongings, they were pleasantly surprised to find several pieces of furniture which had been left behind by the previous owners, as well as some rather peculiar fittings inside.

The entrance hall was quite grand, with a beautiful timber parquet floor, but there were some very strange copper pipes running horizontally along the wall with several brass columns sitting vertically upright. Though they pointed towards the ceiling, they didn't penetrate it, the girls were ecstatic and found the house completely fascinating.

Holly and Ivy became so engrossed looking at all these strange bits and pieces that protruded here and there they didn't notice the pair of eyes watching them from a small recess in the hallway. The eyes belonged to a small creature, not more than a fifteen or sixteen inches tall. It followed behind them stealthily, keeping to the shadows to avoid being noticed as the girls continued exploring all the rooms of this wonderful old house.

They found the whole house intriguing, but the library was the most exciting room of all. It was dimly lit, smelt a little musty and still had beautiful leather bound books sitting on the shelves. There was also a lovely mahogany desk with a matching chair sitting in front of the tall window.

Sunlight could be seen through a crack in the dirty velvet curtains, shedding a shaft of light directly on the top of the desk, where a book lay open as if someone had just been reading it. Holly walked over to the desk and silently turned the page, sending a small puff of dust into the air. The dust looked quite pretty as it was suspended in the sunlight, twinkling like stars in the night sky.

"We have some work ahead of us Ivy, if we are to make this house a home," said Holly as she opened the centre desk drawer. Inside the drawer was a set of tiny gold keys, much too tiny to fit in to any lock in this room. "Mmm, I wonder what these little keys open?" she murmured softly.

"What was that you said?", questioned Ivy. "I was wondering about these little keys, they are very small and unlike anything one would expect keys to look like, but definitely keys all the same", replied Holly. Ivy strolled over to her side and looked at the keys. They were the smallest keys she had ever laid eyes on and such a bizarre shape. Where normal keys usually have a straight side called a blade and side that has bits sticking out called a bow, some had two bows and no straight sides at all.

The little creature was becoming frustrated, huffing and puffing to himself, almost to the point he gave himself away. "How dare they touch my keys", he thought to himself. "They can see they are not human keys by their size, put them back in the drawer and leave them where they belong." Creatures like him, often spoke to themselves inside their heads, as they didn't like being discovered by humans, especially girls.

Ivy pocketed the keys and the two continued exploring, wandering from room to room, suggesting decorating ideas to each other along the way. The creature however, was not at all amused by the fact Ivy now held the keys and tried to think of ways to recover them, before the girls deduced what doors the tiny keys opened. He continued pursuing them, not knowing how or when he was ever going to retrieve the keys, but retrieve them he must if he is ever going to have some peace living in this house.

Later that day, just as the sun was setting the girls left the house and got in their car. The little creature sat on the window ledge watching them as they drove down the driveway and disappearing through the iron gates at the end.

"Oh how ever am I going to get my keys back now?" he moaned out loud. It didn't matter how noisily he spoke now that they had gone, there was no-one to hear him. He climbed down of the ledge and jumped up and down on the floor, his face red with anger. Fortunately this little creature didn't stay angry for very long, once he had calmed down, he wandered slowly back along the hall and into the library gloomily saying to himself, "I suppose I will have to sleep in the desk drawer tonight".

CHAPTER 2