Flowers For McGee

1 - Predictable

A week after the letter the letter arrived, Rose sat in the backseat of their van and she was making little braids in the ends of her hair raven hair as she spoke to her brother and mother. "I'm telling you, I'm telling you right now what's gonna go down. We're gonna get there, the place is going to be run down and completely stranded. There is going to be a list of typical things to do and not to do left by the old woman-"

"The will, Rose, now would you-"

"No no, I'm not done," Rose says as her mother tries to stop her rambling. She had to get it out. "We carry out the things and we begin to clean up and blah blah. Something creepy is discovered, it turns out the entire place is haunted. We battle evil, someon gets possessed and we leave and never return. It will all happen to Johnny since he is a friendless nood." Rose says.

"Do you ever think this is why you don't have any friends?" Johnny says and Rose doesn't say anything. She is used to this from him, but to be fair, she started it.

"Shut up, Johnny," Rose says and crosses her arms. "I can't believe I'm the only one who sees how rigged this is. I didn't even know we had a great grandmother out here. Did you, mom?" Rose asks. She knew the answer, it was no. Maggie could not lie and Rose knew it.

"Well, not really, but the name sounds familiar." Maggie says and Rose groans. She puts her head phones back over her ears and she counts the raindrops rolling down the window.

-

"What did I say?" Rose asks and this earns an aggravated groan from her brother, who spins and looks at her while holding a box.

"Okay, we get it. You think you know stuff when in reality, you don't. Of course the house is going to look like this, it's several hundred years old." Johnny says and rolls his blue eyes at his sister.

"Two-hundred-and-seventeen to be exact." Rose steps around him to admire the beautiful exterior of the place.

The house, as they called it, was really a mansion. Instead of being long, the place was built up tall like a tower. Vines trickled up the walls and the roof seemed to scrape the sky. Window after window, brick after brick, Rose's amusement and annoyance grew. Weather stained and broken statues stood in the overgrown yard and around the house was bare, grassy fields for a mile at least. After this mile of open field, a thick wall of trees could be seen.

Rose grabs a box and she and Johnny walk up to the opened door. Their mother was already inside. Johnny stops and looks up. Rose stops beside him and searches for what he is looking at. Above the door, an engraving was smashed out.

"Her name was Bowksy, right? Bowsky doesn't have an M in it." Johnny points out and Rose agrees.

"First mystery. Damn, I love being right." Rose says with a smile and Johnny gives her a look. "Okay, sorry. Look, maybe the house belonged someone else before mom's family got it. Like it was pointed out, it's older than time," Rose says, not really feeling like suffering her brother's wrath. "Or maybe it was just weather or something.''

"Yeah, maybe." Johnny mumbles and they both watch as their mother and an elderly man walk to the doorway and they both smile politely.

"It was destroyed in a wages of war." He says solemnly and they all are silent. Rose glances back up at the broken plate.

Wages of war sounds a little too intense, but sure.

"Mr. McGwire, this is my son Jonathan and my daughter Rosanna." Maggie says and Rose examines the man from head to toe. He wore a full black suit despite his pasty completion. He had sunken eyes and looked as if he could drop at any second. Honestly, Rose was one second away from calling a hearse to take him away.

"Uh, we prefer Johnny and Rose." Johnny speaks up for the both of them and Rose nods in agreement. The man's face doesn't move as his eyes drift between the two and then to the dark sky. The weather was fine in town, so Rose was a little puzzled.

"I prefer Mister and Miss Carson. Follow along." He says and waves for them to follow him into the house.

"He gives me the creeps." Johnny leans down and whispers to Rose who quickly agrees.

The house was easily the oldest one Rose had ever been in before. The walls had faded tan and brown wallpaper tearing away at the corners and the wooden floors creak as they walk along and Rose feared they might fall through.

They were shown the living room and the dining room first. Mr. McGwire stops at the door of the dining room and puts his hand on the tall slipping doorway and just looks inside and he took a shallow breath as he just stood there. "You must forgive me. I'm older than my time." He says and Maggie assures him it is okay. Johnny and Rose stay silent, unsure of what to do or say.

They all enter the dining room and Rose felt a chill sweep over her. The dining room was a large room with a long table smack in the center, barely leaving any other room for anything else. A huge chandelier made from bone hung from the ceiling and portraits covered the walls. It was so creepy that Rose had to bite her lip to keep from saying anything.

"Who are these people?" Maggie asks in amazement as she looks around.

"Your ancestors, Ms. Bowsky." He says the name loudly and Rose shivers as a loud dong rings through the house, a clock somewhere. Rose sighs softly as she looks around the room with boredom crawling its way into her.

The voice of the old man drags Rose out of her thoughts. "This was Madame Geraldine, the lady of the house. The lady here is Rosaline, the eldest girl," McGwire says and Rose looks up at the portrait of the girl. Even in paint she was beautiful. Rosaline had a smirk instead of a smile or a straight face, like the others. "The next young lady was Gwen, the youngest, the boy is Doug. Oldest boy and the man of the house after their father passed away." He says and goes into more details about the family, but Rose wasn't all that interested.

"How unnerving." Rose whispers to Johnny, who rolls his eyes and bumps her, nearly causing her to drop the box still in her arms. "Um, can I give pick a room? Or am I required to actually stay for all this?" Rose asks.

"Be wary of the third floor, much of it is locked," He says and Rose nods. "Try and stay to the second floor. First door on the left, I think that room will suit you until renovation is completed upstairs." He says and Rose let the warning go over her head.

"Sure." She says and walks out. She wanders around until she finds the stair case and she stops at the bottom when she hears creaking. She slowly walks up the stairs and she turns to look back down, expecting to see Johnny, but she sees no one, so she keeps walking.

She sees the door that was mentioned and she notes that there are only three doors on this floor before another stairs case is revealed. She pauses a moment to look at it and she debates just taking a peek, but then quickly shakes the idea away.

"Never look where you're told not to go in these situation to avoid possession." She says to herself and she pushes open the door to reveal a rather girly room and she scoffs as she sets the box down. The walls had small flowers on them and the bed set was white and dusty. She walks over to the window and sees a path leading to the woods from the courtyard.

"You don't like this." She jumps away from the window and turns to see Johnny standing in the doorway of the room. The light from the window is the only light in the room.

"No, but I can live with the color. I have my own sheets. These look like they have been here for years." Rose says and runs her hand over the sheets, snarling her nose at the literal layer of dirt now in her palm.

"I'm taking a room on the first floor." He says and Rose raises an eyebrow.

"Why?" She asks. She didn't like the idea of that, but she didn't want to sound like she was afraid to be up here alone. She totally was, but that's normal.

"Both rooms on this floor are for girls. The other room is for a small girl, toys and such." Johnny says and shrugs.

"The third room?" Rose asks and Johnny shakes his head.

"It's a bathroom. At least you get that to yourself." He says and she sighs.

"Of course." She says and he crosses his arms.

"Don't be that way. Quit with all the superstition crap, you'll be fine. Now get the rest of your stuff, I'm not." Johnny says, leaving her to her suffering.

-

Rose sat with the paper plate in front of her and she didn't mutter a sound. Her mother rambled on about how much work was needed and how excited she was to be the one to do it. Rose still wasn't particularly interested in anything.

"Rose?" Her mother asks and the girl looks up and oushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "You aren't eating."

"I did a little. I ate a lot for lunch." Rose lies, she didn't eat anything all day.

"Maybe you'll be hungry later." Her mother says and Rose can tell the woman is worried, so she smiles.

"I'm always hungry." Rose says an stands. As she does, she takes a glance at the portraits on the wall. There was a bare spot in all of them. "One is missing." She says as she stops you look at it. She didn't notice it before, but now she doesn't see how she could have missed it.

"I noticed that." Maggies says and turns to look behind her at the spot. Beside the bare spot of the wall were the two pictures of two girls. "Mr. McGwire said that these were the first residents of the home."

"Yeah, I was there." Rose reminds her mother, slightly bothered that Maggie didn't remember.

"These people don't look like us. They are all blonde," Johnny says. "I am in no way blonde."

Rose took notice of that, too. The three at the table had dark hair. Those on the wall had silvery blonde hair.

"Whatever, I guess." Rose say and shrugs. "I'm going to bed."

She puts away her food and then runs up the stairs.