CHAPTER NINE
The House family mansion looked almost exactly as I remembered it. Two stories tall, surrounded on all sides by a tall, wrought iron gate, as well as protected by a wide variety of unseen spells that would turn most intruders into paste if they weren’t careful. Above the wrought iron gate was the House family crest, a stallion with rays radiating from it like the sun.
The mansion itself was of a late Victorian model. It had been built by my great-grandfather, Adrian Haus, when he first came over to America from Germany over one hundred and fifty years ago now. In the early morning sun, the mansion looked beautiful as well as ancient, surrounded as it was on all sides by rolling fields of hay. In the distance, I saw a large red barn, around which hundreds of black cattle roam
