A/N: Here’s the third chapter. Hope everyone enjoys it!

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12:39 PM

“This is a pretty big property. There’s an apple orchard down there, and then there’s a pond on the other side of that bunch of trees. Even though it’s not apple season, there are apples on all of the trees. One of the quirks of the place.” Tabitha stood up and surveyed the estate.

“Can we come up on the roof any time we want to?” Blair asked.

“Of course. You live here, after all!” One of Tabitha’s cats climbed through the attic trapdoors, and mewed pitifully. “I have to go…there’s this photon experiment I’ve been working on…well, enjoy yourselves, you can wander around and do whatever you want, just not in my lab when I’m not there, all right?” she dropped through the trapdoors quickly, and ran down to her lab.

“Well, that was sudden.” Sam remarked, stretching out on the roof, and opening her book. Yesterday it had been Homer’s Odyssey, today it was The Phantom Tollbooth. “I think I might enjoy it here.”

“And do you know what we have to do?” Blair sat next to her. “Buy you some new clothes! I’m not going to be seen with you when you’re dressing like that! School’s over, so you can dress however you want!”

“I am dressed how I want.” Sam replied tartly. “Anyway, where are we going to get new clothes? The closest thing this town has to a clothing shop it a hardware store.”

“True.” They sat in silence for a while.

“Do you want to go look for them anyway?”

2:42 PM

Lilly wandered around the apple orchard, followed by a couple cats, singing a little song to herself.

“I don’t know about this place.” She said to a little orange kitten. “There’s something creepy about it. I wish there was someone I could play with. I guess not, though.” She sat on the ground, and stared up at the sun through the branches of the apple tree. The branches were full of ripe red apples, which hung just out of her reach. She stood up, and jumped for one, but her fingertips just brushed its smooth skin.

Determined, she wedged one foot into the crook of a branch, and hoisted herself up. She climbed the tree, reaching for the apple that always seemed a little out of reach.

Finally, she grasped it, and pulled it off of its stem. It was perfect, round and red, completely without blemish. She wrapped her arm around a bough, and bit into the apple. It tasted just like she thought it would, juicy and sweet, without even a hint of bitterness. She looked back down at the ground.

“Woah! I’m much higher than I thought I was, kitty!” she shouted down to the cat sitting down on the ground. “Look at me!” she unhooked her arm from around the branch, and waved at the cat below her. As she bit into her apple again, still staring down at the cat, her foot slipped. She grabbed for the branches around her, but as they snapped, she felt herself plummeting towards the ground, surrounded by broken branches and falling apples.

Crying out, she covered her eyes- and stopped.

She removed her hands from her eyes, and gasped. She was hovering above the ground, held up by a net of new branches sprouted from the apple tree.

“Wha-what?” she pushed herself up against the new branches, which were winding themselves against her arms. She pushed away the tendrils, and slid to the ground. “Did you see that, kitty? That’s AMAZING!”

Gathering up some apples, she trotted back to the house.

3:18 PM

Jack knocked on the door of Tabitha’s lab. “Tabitha, can I-”

“Come in, come- WAAAAAAAAH!!” he could hear faintly, and pushed open the door. All he could see was a long staircase, with cats scattered all over. Carefully making his way down the stairs, Jack entered the lab, full of sunlight despite being in the basement. Tabitha was crouched on a table, frantically trying to screw in an extension on a lightbulb. “Jack- ah, thank GOD! Hurry! Close the curtains CLOSE THE CURTAINS!” she juggled with the extension and dropped it, diving off the table after it.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked, closing all the shades and shrouding the lab in shadow.

“The plants! The plants!” Tabitha manically screwed in the extension, and minutely examined the leaves of the assorted plants assembled.

“But…” Jack rubbed his head.

“I’m conducting an experiment seeing what drastically effects plant’s photosynthesis rate, because if I can do this, it will make the plant grow at a virtually visible rate, as well as give off almost three times the oxygen. Here…can you hold this? I know it’s primitive, but it really does work.” Tabitha handed Jack a candle, lit and burning brightly in the dusky light of the shrouded basement.

“But what’s this going to do?” Jack asked.

“You’ll see.” Tabitha skittered around the lab, checking the curtains, and putting all but one of the plants, a little bean sprout, in a dark locker. “Just stand right there. No back up a little. A little to your left…no, my left. Back a little more…that’s good.”

Jack followed her directions until he was standing in a corner, the farthest away spot from the small plant in the whole basement. Tabitha, completely changed from her frenetic self a moment before, reached up slowly.

She flicked on the light. For a second, it looked as if nothing had happened, but the plant’s leaves became greener, and after a minute had passed, the sprout reached up towards the extension, through which a faintly pink-tinted light was streaming. It was growing- stretching up, and sprouting tendrils, wrapping them around Tabitha’s hands, and locking her in place. The candle in Jack’s hands flared up, wax dripping down the sides, melting faster and faster.

The bean plant grew more and more, blanketing the table, sprouting flowers which in a matter of minutes wilted and turned into beans. The candle melted down to its base, but instead of burning out, it flared up, and reached down to wrap itself around Jack’s hands.

Tabitha fought against the vines wrapped around her arms, but to no avail. She glanced around the lab for a small hard object, finally deciding on an empty terracotta pot.

Jack felt the fire gently on his skin, like a warm summer breeze. He held one had up, hypnotized by the fire spreading up his arms.

Tabitha whipped around, and kicked the pot directly at the lightbulb. The lab went completely dark. The plant stopped growing, and the fire on Jack’s hands went out. She ripped her arms loose of the vines, and pulled the curtains open. Sunlight, plain, ordinary sunlight, flooded the lab. Jack flung up one arm, blinking in the sudden rush of light.

“Sorry about that, Jack.” Tabitha looked around at her lab, now blanketed by vines. “What did you want?”

“I just was wondering about if you knew where my sisters were.” Jack said. “I’m sorry about your experiment.”

“Sorry about what?” Tabitha’s face lit up, and she jumped onto a chair, now nothing more than a knob of vines. “It WORKED! Do you have any idea how few of my labs actually work? I’ve been working on this one for ages!” She waded across the plat-carpeted floor, and tore all the vines off the door. “I fancy a cup of tea. I suspect your sisters are by the lake, or in the orchard. By the way, what happened to the candle?”

4:29 PM

The lake was huge, and peaceful. The water sparkled in the sunlight, rippled with little waves, and a few turtles sunbathed on rocks.

Sam had shed her shoes and socks, and jacket, and waded through the water determinedly. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she had a look of intense concentration on her face. “I’m sure I saw something there! Didn’t you?”

Blair was barefoot and had her jeans rolled up to her knees, too, but was staying in the shallows, investigating the shells buried in the sand. “These look like seashells…but what would seashells be doing in a freshwater lake?”

“It was something sparkly…” Sam caught her foot in a strand of pondweed, and splashed into the lake. Catching hold of the same weed that tripped her, she opened her eyes, and scanned the bottom of the lake for something…she didn’t know what exactly.

Blair heard the splash, but didn’t look up for another few moments, distracted by the shells in the shore. When she did, she saw Sam hurriedly coming towards her, half swimming, half running, completely wet.

“Blair, Blair! Come look at this!” she cried, grabbling hold of her sister’s arm, and dragging her deeper into the pond. When they reached the spot where she had gone under, she turned to Blair. “What did you say about this being an ocean?”

“I just saw some shells, that’s all! And they weren’t ordinary snail shells either, but they were weird ones.”

Sam shuddered, and pointed into the water. “Look down there.”

Blair ducked underwater, and opened her eyes. It was calm, with pondweed gently growing…she screamed, and water rushed into her open mouth. Sam reached under, and pulled her up, coughing and gagging.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

She had. A skeleton, bones picked dry and bleached white, draped across a trunk, its hand almost lovingly placed upon the lock, and a sword through its heart.

5:56 PM

They had dragged the trunk up to land. It was an old-fashioned trunk, but huge, big enough that one of them could easily fit inside it, but was locked, with an old, rusty-looking padlock.

“Can you get it open?” Sam asked, bending down to examine it. We don’t have the key or anything, but it’s kind of rusty…”

Blair climbed on top of the trunk, and jumped on it. “It must be solid metal!” she bent down to examine the lock. “I don’t think I can get it open.” She jumped off the trunk and stretched. “We should be getting back to the house.”