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  Aren’t you going to ask me what is happening back at home?” Zac asked.

  Grandpa lifted his eyes from his newspaper once more to stare down at Zac. Grandma momentarily paused what she was doing, then went on as though she had not broken a sweat.

  “We know,” Grandpa said. He went back to burying his face in between the pages of the internationals.

  “How do you get newspapers here?” Zac asked, starting to realize that they were practically in the middle of nowhere.

  “We’ve already told you, son,” said Grandma. “This is a big village. There’s everything here.”

  “I don’t get it, Grandma,” said Zac. “When we were coming here with Grandpa, I didn’t see a thing. I mean, the whole place is just—”

  Zac was cut off by a large booming noise coming from the upper sections of the house. It was so loud it seemed to be accompanied by a large crash, like the noise of multiple windows breaking.

  Grandpa raised his head, looking at the ceiling. Grandma was busying herself with preparing the meal. She was crisscrossing the room without commenting.

  The large, booming noise happened again, this time louder, and created a slight tremor in the house.

  “What was that?” Zac asked. It seemed appropriate that he be the one to speak.

  “Can I have something to eat?” Grandpa asked, turning in the direction of Grandma and ignoring Zac’s question.

  “You have nothing to worry about, son,” said Grandma, walking over to the table and setting a plate down before Zac. It was a sumptuous beef stew with potatoes and some greens. Grandma also set a similar plate for Grandpa before him.

  “Eat!” Grandma declared, observing closely as Zac reached for his spoon and took a dig at the food.

  “This is actually quite good, Grandma,” said Zac, shoveling mouthfuls of the relieving food into his mouth.

  The loud, crashing sounds happened twice while they were eating, and Grandpa made sure to eat hastily before leaving in a rush.

  “Be careful,” Grandma shouted at him as he left the room, making Zac even more nervous.

  “What is it, Grandma?” Zac asked.

  Grandma smiled, joining him on the dining table after placing Grandpa’s dishes in the sink. She sat down heavily.

  “You have nothing to worry about, son,” said Grandma, “Grandpa will take care of it.”

  There was another large, crashing noise. Then, a screeching scream.

  Grandpa’s scream.

  Zac stumbled to his feet now, his heart racing and his eyes wide in bewilderment.

  “That’s Grandpa,” he said. “Should we go and help?”

  Grandma was about to respond, but just as she was, the lights suddenly went out and the entire house was doused in pitch blackness.

  Chapter 8

  Outside the small country-house, a blizzard was raging over the frozen landscape and the darkness of the night attempted to blacken the whiteness of the surrounding.

  Inside the house, it was pitch black, and everything had suddenly gone silent.

  Zac was still on his feet, frightened by the sudden disappearance of the lights. Grandma appeared motionless. Even she seemed surprised by the abrupt turn of events.

  “That’s odd,” her scraggly voice floated to Zac through the darkness. “That has never happened before.”

  “W-what about Grandpa?” Zac asked. He was frightened, and he felt himself trembling. “Is he going to be alright?”

  “Of course, he will,” said Grandma, and even Zac could tell that her voice was frightened and that she was afraid of revealing this fact.

  She got to her feet and shuffled to the other side of the room. She bumped into several things, such as the chairs and the dinner table, but she ultimately reached her destination and flickered on a wand. It emitted a low glow of light from its tip.

  Her face appeared as if completely out of the darkness, and she pointed the wand in Zac’s direction as though to confirm that he was still there. The frightened young boy was standing over his seat by the dinner table, trembling.

  “Sit down, son,” she said, “I’ll go check on your grandfather.”

  Zac was wary about sitting alone in the dark in a kitchen he was not familiar with.

  “Can I just come with you?” He asked.

  He watched his grandmother’s face twist slightly as though looking for the right words to stop him. However, she seemed to resign to what was evidently inevitable.

  “Follow me,” she said, “but stay close.”

  Zac stumbled after his grandmother, and he could barely make out the house in the darkness as they stepped into the next room. There was a strong hint of mint in the air, and all he could make out were different sets of furniture.

  “I’m sorry that your first night has to be filled with lots of drama,” whispered Grandma, creeping forward and opening the door to the darkened room.

  “It’s okay, Grandma,” Zac whispered back.

  The house was so large—Zac had no idea that a blizzard was raging outside nor that there were very strong winds whizzing through the icy landscape. The entire house was engulfed in a raging snowstorm that tempted to swallow it in its swirling, twisting chasm.

  The door that Grandma opened led into a narrow, winding stairwell that led to the very top of the house. The stairwell was made of metallic meterial, and when Grandma started wobbling up the first few steps, a loud, banging noise emanated from them.

  The miniature illumination coming from Grandma’s wand was almost unhelpful for Zac, and he had to stay close to his grandmother in order to go forward.

  They did not speak as they noisily climbed up the stairs. The house had become eerily quiet, and the loud crashing noises from before seemed to have altogether disappeared.

  As they climbed the stairs, Zac noticed that there were doors at regular intervals up their climb. When they reached the third door, Grandma opened it, and they stepped into a narrow, unlit hallway.

  Oddly enough, Grandma secured the door behind them - the door to the stairwell before - proceeding through the darkened room to another door at the far end.

  In this room, Zac could not see anything at all, partly because of the poor illumination, and partly because of its sheer, large size. The items in the room were distant from each other and practically impossible to see in the sheer darkness.

  “This way,” Grandma said in an undertone that reverberated through the blackness.

  Zac was not sure whether he should be scared or curious. The door out of the room emerged to another long, stretching hallway.

  Zac could not see, but from what he could tell in the darkness, they were standing in the longest section of the house. There was a slight breeze blowing through it, and this was probably from a window at one of the extremes of the large hallway.

  “W-where is Grandpa?” Zac’s frightened voice was barely audible to Grandma. And she chose to ignore it.

  She remained silent as she started trudging down the hallway, Zac hesitantly following behind her. Zac could not see a thing, and he felt the intensity of his heartbeat increase with every step he took.

  Suddenly, looming in the darkness and standing facing the opposite direction in front of them in the middle of the hallway, a large, towering dark figure was heaving in and out heavily.

  Grandma stopped short on her feet, so brusquely that Zac bumped into her.

  The large figure in front of them did not move—it remained motionless, heaving in and out. Zac could hear the distinct whooshing of air as it rushed in and out of the figure’s lungs.

  “I think we need to get out of here,” Zac said, his heart racing rapidly. He could not see in the dark that Grandma’s face had stiffened into a frown. However, she did not say anything.

  The figure turned around in the dark, and Zac could distinctly see a large, shining cleaver in its hands.

  “Grandpa?” Zac called out. He could almost tell Grandpa’s body shape through the darkness. However, the figure remained unr
esponsive, the cleaver still clung on its hands.

  Then, without warning, the figure started to move forward, so quickly that Zac, who had already resolved to start running back in the direction they came, stumbled and lost his balance.

  As he crashed to the dusty floor, he saw the figure rush towards Grandma and clutch her by her chin.

  “No!” Zac shouted, immediately getting back to his feet.

  But the large, shiny cleaver was already being pointed directly in his face.

  Chapter 9

  “Why have you brought him up here?” The cold voice of the figure jeered at Grandma. The cleaver was pointed at Zac’s face—then, the figure slowly dropped its arm.

  In the midst of the confusion, Grandma had dropped her wand, and the illuminating tip shone brightly on the dusty concrete floor. She bent over to pick up the wand and raised it to the figure’s face, revealing the disgruntled face of Grandpa in the darkness.

  “It’s dangerous up here,” he said, still clutching the cleaver in his hand threateningly.

  Grandma then pointed her wand behind Grandpa, trying to illuminate what was behind him. But from where Zac was standing, he could barely see anything else at the other end of the hall.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Grandpa, walking past Grandma. He turned to Zac. “You should never come up here while you are living in this house. I hope that is clear.”

  He then shuffled past Zac, walking slowly in the direction that they had come.

  Grandma sighed heavily, still pointing the wand in front of her, then she turned and set off after Grandpa.

  Zac could not seem to understand what was happening in this weird house in the middle of nowhere.

  “Come,” Grandma said to him, “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping for the night.”

  The next morning, Zac emerged from his large room that was on the first floor, into the kitchen to find both his grandparents at the dinner table in the kitchen.

  The kitchen almost looked the same as the previous night, with the main difference being the source of light coming in from a closed kitchen window. The whiteness of the snow outside was sufficient to illuminate the kitchen with adequate light.

  Grandpa was seated quietly, reading that morning’s newspaper. He only raised his eyes once when Zac strode into the room, then resumed burying his face in the pages.

  “Morning, son,” said Grandma, a much more cheerful look on her face than the previous night. “Get yourself something to eat.”

  She pointed to the kitchen counter where there was a steaming kettle and a platter with different kinds of food.

  “What will you do while you’re here?” Grandma asked as Zac set about serving himself something to eat.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What’s there to do?”

  “You can help your grandfather do some cleaning in the garage,” Grandma said, motioning her head in Grandpa’s direction. “You can also help me do cleaning here in the house. I’ll be going to the synagogue later on when it’s a bit warmer than it is.”

  Zac looked outside the window to the emptiness of the whiteness outside.

  “Does it get warmer?”

  Grandma laughed slightly. “I realize it’s hard to imagine,” she said, “but when you have lived here long enough, it is possible to tell even when there is a slight change in temperature.”

  Zac took a seat on the dinner table, clutching in his hand a small plate and a steaming cup.

  “I think I’ll just look around,” said Zac, “explore the place.”

  Grandpa looked up from his newspaper once again, briefly, with a big frown on his face.

  Grandma smiled widely at Zac.

  “You’re a curious one, aren’t you?” She asked.

  Zac was enjoying his breakfast.

  “What choice do I have?”

  After breakfast, Zac found himself outside in a moderately cold environment, with the shape and proportion of the house he had slept in the previous night completely baffling him.

  He stood a few meters from the front porch of the house. There was no fencing around the house, and neither did it look sophisticated, but the inside of the house was a totally different experience. He had been raised in a magical world, but the very magical details that he encountered in his grandparents’ home was nothing short of astounding.

  There was the howling sound of a passing breeze, but the sound was always constant and unyielding. Zac simply could not understand how there could be life in this place, with the cold so discouraging and the emptiness so desolate.

  His grandma had told him that there were other homes and a synagogue towards the right side of the house. She had told him that he would be able to find other people along the track—other youngsters, in fact, that he might socialize with.

  This prospect made him happy because he could not understand how he was going to bear a holiday all by himself in this ice desert. This was compounded by the fact that he had no idea what was going on back at home, whether he would ever be able to return and see his father and mother once again.

  Zac started to amble in the general direction east of the house. He was looking forward to meeting up with his age mates and finding out what he could do in this place.

  As he walked, all he could see was whiteness. After about twenty minutes, he was both surprised and saddened by the fact that he could not see his grandparents’ house, but neither had he come across any satisfactory signs of life.

  But just as he was starting to lose hope and resolve to go back to the house, he started hearing another distinct sound above the howling noise of the wind.

  A much scarier sound.

  It was the sound of hooves crunching over the open, snowy landscape—the sound of multiple hooves approaching in his direction.

  Zac’s eyes widened, looking around him, but he could not see anything. All he could see was the whiteness of the surrounding. Instinctively, he started running in the opposite direction of the sounds of the approaching hooves.

  He started feeling like he did the previous day all over again—the nervousness, the heart racing, the disbelief and contempt for what he could not see was posing danger to him.

  The sounds of the approaching hooves were getting louder as he started to run across the snow. He needed help, but he could not see anything in the whiteness.

  Every time he threw his eyes behind his shoulder, he could not see any animals chasing him. However, the distinct sound of their approaching menace was audible enough for Zac.

  Then, up ahead, as though springing out of the darkness, a small shed-like structure appeared before him. It was made of clustered wooden walls and a corrugated metal roof.

  Zac felt a slight tinge of hope cast itself within him, and he quickened his pace, hoping he could get to the shed before whatever danger besetting him got to him.

  But the shed was so far away, and Zac could only run so fast. It was inevitable that he would lose his balance when he was just a few meters away from the shed, critically, just when the sounds of the hooves had got close enough.

  “Nooo!” Zac shouted as he plunged face-first into the thick snow.

  The invisible animals that were giving chase closed in on Zac.

  Chapter 10

  Once on the ground, Zac was almost immediately able to confirm his worst fears. The approaching animals had already surrounded him and were snarling and growling, just like a pack of dogs, and they were very intimidating in the aggressive steps they were taking towards him.

  However, as Zac braced himself from an attack by raising his hands to his face, he noticed the oddest thing—he could not see the animals.

  He could almost feel the hot, malodorous breath of the animals as they circled around him—growling ominously and making loud, crunching sounds as they were traversing the snow.

  But they were invisible - completely out of sight - and Zac felt that this was the most threatening aspect of their peril. He could not tell what type of an
imal they were. The sounds of their menacing growls made him assume that there were at least half a dozen of them.

  “What kind of magic is this?” Zac muttered to himself under his breath, lowering his hands, realizing that he had no chance to defend himself. He was out in the open, surrounded by an invisible enemy, and all he could do was watch in horror.

  As the invisible threat prepared to manifest itself, Zac heard approaching footsteps from behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a short girl racing towards him, her hand outstretched, clutching a wand. She was flickering it in Zac’s direction, and he immediately noticed the growling noises disappearing one-by-one.

  By the time the girl got to him, the growling noises had almost completely disappeared. She stretched out the other hand.

  “Come with me,” she said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  Zac was a little surprised.

  He looked at the stranger before him—a girl no older or younger than him, dressed in a slick dress and a light, white top. She had eyes bluer than the sky, and a beautiful, shapely physique.

  Realizing that he had no choice, considering the imminent threat bearing down upon him, Zac grabbed her outstretched hand, and she pulled him up from the ground. He had to brush snow off from his bottom.

  “Let’s take shelter in that old farmhouse,” she said, pointing to the shed that Zac had earlier spotted. “Quickly!”

  They raced across the ice, Zac tumbling in the deeper sections of the snow. They got to the door in a wave of relief, the girl getting there first, yanking the old door to the shed open, almost off its hinges and stumbling into the security of the darkness inside.

  Zac closed the door behind them, pushing it shut with his back against it. The girl flicked her wand in the darkness, and just like Zac had seen with Grandma's wand, a small glow was emitted from its tip and it provided faint illumination.

  Zac sunk to his knees—panting and trying to brush off the snow on his clothes. His heart was racing profusely, and despite the coldness of the place, he had beads of sweat clinging on his face like pierced earrings.