Down on the Farm PV Clifton T. and Alexa M. Clo

"Supper sounds lovely, Mr. Mackenzie," Alina smiled to him, never one to turn down food. She was a petite girl with a small frame. Maybe she just had a good metabolism or something because especially with all the sweets she liked to eat, especially the lemon drops, she was still able to maintain that small figure.

They followed him inside the house but Alina's mind was on the haunted forest and the castle ruins. That sounded absolutely fantastic! She couldn't wait for night to fall so her and her friends could go explore it.

"So do you have any other animals? I've always wanted to see an alpaca. Apparently when I was about four, that was my animal of choice. I said I wanted one for Christmas and cried when I didn't get one. Then I had it on my Birthday list and was denied all the same."

She looked around the farmhouse and smiled. It would be such a lovely place to live and she hoped it was filled with lots of fond memories for Alexa. It was such a vast difference from her home, but it felt welcoming. Sometimes hers could be large and overwhelming, daunting. Still, it had its own charm.

A delicious dinner with @Alina Rosier and @Alexa Mackenzie

He was surprised when the older woman--Annie--pulled him into a hug almost before introductions. Her husband stepped in right after to shake his hand. Clifton grinned, suddenly understanding where at least some of Alexa's easy warmth and friendliness must come from.

But a haunted forest and and some castle ruins? Just when he'd thought it was impossible to like this place any more. It sounded a lot like their adventure touring Hogwarts round two and he really hoped they could make an escape after supper.

He smiled at Alina's comment about alpacas as they made their way through the house. Of course that would be her animal of choice. It was unexpected, just like her choice of candy or books or adventures or, well if anyone were to ask him, boyfriends.

Supper was amazing. Maybe it was because some of the food was fresh from outside, a concept still slightly mind-blowing for Clifton, but he'd never remembered actually liking vegetables before. Not since meals at Alina's place where Margie worked her magic. His Mom's classic I-give-up-just-throw-something-in-the-microwave didn't typically cut it.

He wasn't sure who made the meals, what with four adults at the table, so he decided to thank Alexa's family in general.

"You guys could run a restaurant," he smiled. "I'd probably still take the train to get here for it too. Is all the food from your farm?"

He realized it was probably a dumb question after having just driven an hour away from any stores, but he just really impressed they could live like that.

Alexander Mackenzie smiled at Alina. “Please, call me Alex. Come on in.” With a sweep of his arm he gestured them all to come inside. Alexa led the way.

As they stepped in, Alina asked about alpacas, and Alexa frowned thoughtfully. “We don’t, but there is an alpaca farm down the street. The wool is supposed to be pretty good, but everybody else uses sheep. Maybe we could visit tomorrow if you wanted? I don’t know much about alpacas,” Alexa said, as she led the way into the cramped entryway.

Ones immediate impression of the house is that there was a lot of wood. Wooden walls halfway up with plaster above them, and then wooden ceilings. Not to mention the floors, though many of those were covered with carpets. In the entry hall, there was a place to hang your coats on the left that was covered in an odd assortment of clothing, including flannel clothing (Alina should be pleased, Alexa smiled to herself), woolen caps, working gloves, and a collection of boots at the bottom of the coat rack.

Straightahead was a narrow hallway, side-by-side with the staircase that led to the second and third floors. The house was narrow and not very large, but it was cozy.

Alexa took the first left door in the hallway into the dining room, which was furnished simply. Both her mother and Annie had collaborated on dinner, though as Annie was the better cook, she usually did most of it.

Clifton asked about the food, and Clare Mackenzie smiled. “Most of it is grown in the garden in the back, next to the guesthouse. Annie is a fabulous gardener and can grow anything,” she added in her British accent, smiling at the Scottish woman. Annie smiled brightly back as they all dug into their dinner.

When dinner ended, Alexa quickly let her friends upstairs to her own room on the third floor. There was another guest room here, for either of them, along with one on the second floor with the master bedroom. She shouted good night to her family (she included Joe and Annie and her family), as she let her friends upstairs so they could plan for the night ahead in secret.

Her room was simple, and she stepped to the side to let them in, looking down and scuffing her toe of her trainer against what part of the wooden floor showed around the weathered round rug that covered the middle of the floor. In here was her bed, with dark wood and a colorful quilt, wardrobe (there was no closet space), her desk and a chair. The rest of the room was dominated by three bookshelves, and a large window out into the night. Her bookshelves were full of knickknacks that she had found in her adventures as well as books. She wondered what the others would think.

Alina's eyes were drawn to the bookshelves first because of the collection of various things upon them. They looked like a great assortment of items and she smiled, thinking of some of the seashells and the sand dollar that Clifton had given her and she glanced over her shoulder to smile at him.

"So there really is a haunted forest and castle ruins nearby?" she asked and turned to face her friend. She had been DYING to ask her about it since she mentioned it but knew they couldn't during supper. But now they were alone and it was time to get to business - Alina's adventure loving side couldn't contain it any longer.

Each was so vague in her mind because she tried to imagine every possible scenario as she ate earlier at dinner. Haunted Forest. Was it haunted with ghosts? Spirts? Odd things appearing and disappearing, only to appear other places? Or perhaps it was more like Hogwart's forest, filled with creatures that were dangerous. Maybe there were werewolves there or something.

And castle ruins. Were they almost so delapatated that they were nearly unrecognizable as a royal estate or was it mostly still intact? She had been to Château de Chambord, Château de Villandry, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Château de Chenonceau, and the Château de Chantilly all in France and spent weekends there. She had been to Buckingham Palace in London, and of course she had been to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry which was its own beautiful castle, but she had never seen castle ruins before.

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Alexa looked up at Alina and smiled, a little shyly. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s haunted by Hogwarts standards. But people go in there, and they mention seeing things… Things that appear and are suddenly gone. I wonder if it’s not ghosts, but then they would have to be wizard ghosts, since only wizards can become ghosts, right?”

She shook her head slightly. “I’ve always gone during the day, and it’s less spooky at that time. All the reports of sightings of… something have been at night. I did go at night one time with an old friend of mine, but she got really scared and we had to leave. Wouldn’t say if she saw anything, but I didn’t.” Alexa frowned. She wanted there to be something else there, especially now that she knew magic was in the world, and in her!

“The castle ruins can be a little dangerous in some parts getting inside; most of it is half crumbled away onto the ground, but there are two towers with several rooms. Everybody talks about the second tower with their sightings particularly, and I haven’t been all the way up, admittedly,” she added sheepishly.

“So we will have to pretend to go to bed, and wait for my parents to fall asleep. That usually doesn’t take long: they are usually in bed by 11. Then we can sneak out, let’s say we meet up on the staircase at 1130.” She looked at the clock beside her bed. It was already 930, and in at least an hour her parents would be expecting them to settle down. But they had time to plan in the meantime.

“I have some flashlights that I hid in my wardrobe, enough for each of us, since we can’t use Lumos.” She would’ve loved to have been able to use magic at home, but that wouldn’t be allowed for several years yet. “What else do you think we should bring?”

"Lemon drops, of course," that was ALWAYS on her list. Alina smiled and continued, "a small blanket or jacket in case we have to place over a rough area, water, maybe some bug spray, a small first aid kit, maybe a small knife, our wands just in case, and umm....an adventurous attitude?" she laughed. She hoped that didn't seem overkill but she did want to slip in the first aid kit just in case. Always good to have on hand, but especially since her friends didn't know about her disorder. She had the type of blood disorder that something as small as a papercut could become a big deal.

In fact, during her first year she had a run in with some unhappy older Ravenclaw girls who decided it was Alina who was too loud one day in the Study Rooms and caused their low OWL scores. They took up revenge but cornering her into a wall and hitting her, one catching their ring against her right temple. That bleed until she got confused, weak, and passed out. She was the type of person though that didn't like to show her weakness, Clifton knew that, so she hadn't mentioned it. And luckily, even her fall from a tree, only caused small scrapes, not enough to bleed.

"And maybe a camera? Do you have your phone with you?" she asked Clifton. That phone of his could do ANYTHING. It could be a flashlight, it could play music, it could take photographs and store them so you could look at them later. She adored that muggle device.

Scheming with @Alina Rosier and @Alexa Mackenzie

Clifton grinned and whipped the device out of his pocket.

"Us muggles are basically attached to our phones. That's sounds like a good list." Better than what he packed when he went exploring, that's for sure. "Maybe we can grab some of those things on our way out. That way your parents won't suspect anything if, for example, I randomly steal a knife from some place. And I have an extra jacket if we need it." Because Clifton always had an extra jacket. Almost against his will.

And then something Alexa said way back at the beginning of the conversation finally caught up with him.

"Wait. Only wizards can be ghosts?" His brain whirred with all of the historic hauntings his dad had told him about. "Guess there's more of us out there than I thought." Even with the Quidditch match Alina had taken him too over the summer, it still boggled his mind that he'd gone his whole short life not knowing he was part of such a immense and separate world.

"I must've missed that part of class," he admitted. Which wouldn't have surprised any of his classmates what with his late entrances and daydreaming. Somehow, he'd managed to remain a decent student, but tossing magic, a girlfriend, and a stuttering friend who got himself in fistfights into the mix had definitely thrown off his usual grades.

"Anyway, you said 11:30 at the staircase? What rooms are we staying in?"

"I'll stay in the room by the master," Alina decided. "Somehow I think it'll be easier for me to sneak out than clumsy you," she smiled to Clifton and leaned in, kissing his cheek quickly to let him know she didn't mean it as an insult.

With their luck, the boy would stumble upon his exit, waking up Alexa's parents and blowing their adventure before it even got a chance to get started. She sighed dramatically. "I'm sorry. Not everyone can be elegant and full of grace like me." She smiled widely. She COULD be elegant and full of grace but surely she wasn't always.

"We should totally saddle up one of the horses or pack up one of the burrows to take with us," she added but seemed to get odd stares from both of her friends. "I umm...might have attempted to research some muggle farming before coming here. It was....quite tragic. An American tv show called Ponderosa and movies with an actor named John Wayne? This umm...isn't quite like how they pictured it..." she admitted. This was better...and a bit of a relief!

She felt she should stop talking now and she glanced down. It would be much better to carry on the conversation with ghosts than it would her horrible attempts at figuring out what farm life was like prior to visiting Alexa.

Plotting with @Alina Rosier and @Clifton Troublefield

Alexa nodded in agreement with Alina. “I don’t have lemon drops, but I’m sure you can take care of us in that regard.” She grinned at her friend, and went and pulled her old leather satchel from a hook on the wall. “I have a really old phone, so I’ll take flashlight for myself. Do you guys want any, or are you good with Clifton’s phone?”

She put a small blanket from the end of her bed in the satchel, then slipped out to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit and bug spray. She came back. “I have a pocketknife, if that works. There are water bottles in the kitchen which has a door we can leave through!”

She didn’t have a camera on her phone, at least not a good one, so she would leave any picture taking to Clifton, and said so. “Yeah, we have other knives in the kitchen, a bunch of pocket knives in a drawer. They’re not like normal ones, with all the attachments. Well, mine is, but the rest are basically foldable blades.” Thinking of that she rummaged in her desk and pulled out just such a blade. It was better than the blade on the pocketknife, but she liked the attachments, so she brought both.

“Yeah, but don’t worry, I didn’t hear it in class. I asked one of the ghosts one time. He was very informative,” she added with a smile.

Alexa laughed at Alina’s comments on Clifton’s clumsiness. She hadn’t seen much of it herself, but she could believe it. She laughed harder when Alina apologized that not everyone could be as elegant and graceful as she. “Certainly not me,” Alexa said, still laughing, looking down at her gangly arms and legs. She had grown over the summer already.

Alexa stared almost blankly at her friend as she babbled about farm life, and then grinned when she mentioned John Wayne. “Those are mostly American Westerns! We do things a little differently in the Highlands,” she winked.

“Let me show you to your rooms,” she said, glancing at the clock again. Just as she opened the door, her mom called from downstairs, “Alexa, are you guys going to bed soon I hope?”

Alexa called back, “Yes, mum, good night!” She smiled at her friends. “This way,” she said, leading them to Clifton’s room.

They stood outside Clifton's room for the visit and Alina reached out to take his hand, squeezing it softly. He smiled to her and she smiled back before stepping closer, giving him a soft but quick kiss (so not to be uncomfortable for others) on his lips. "Goodnight, mi amour" she whispered to him, but knew very well that she'd be seeing him again quite soon. She then wished Alexa a goodnight as well.

The three departed their separate ways and Alina went into the guest room by the parents' master bedroom, turned out the light, and then decided to take in some reading by her EZ Glo Luminous Ball that her father had invested in. It worked wonders, allowing her to see the words on the page without drawing attention to the light under the door.

Plus reading was a quiet activity and her book would keep her awake so not to accidentally fall asleep. Although there was very little chance in that because she was excited. Her best adventures, like finding the hidden passage inside the school, had been with Clifton and Alexa. She hoped that this one would be as equally exciting, if not more so. Haunted forests and castle ruins at night were not something one came by every single day.

[Word Count - 227]