Mommy and Daddy laugh. Tim can feel that they are both happy again. Mommy looks at Daddy and says, “You’re right, honey. It’s time,” she looks at Tim and adds, “Tim’s a big boy now!”
Tim looks over Mommy’s shoulder as they leave the room. The light follows them and as the room gets darker, he sees Mommy’s home fade from the window.
“I’ve been here before!” Tim yelled, as the memory replayed in his mind.
Anna stopped shifting through the papers on the desk and looked back at him. “I was a baby- maybe two years old. I think it was the last time I was in here. My dad told my mom I’d start remembering things soon and if she wanted to keep them from me, she had to stop bringing me in here. Then I was crying, and my mom made me stop by showing me pictures on this window!” he said, pointing at the window.
Anna came over and looked at the window. “How?” she asked.
Tim shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, waving his hand in front of the window, “She did this and there they were.”
Nothing changed on the window. Anna looked at her dim reflection in the glass, next to Tim’s. She waved her hand, forgetting that it was still glowing. Suddenly, the bright light left her hand and floated over to the window. As it touched the glass, the glass changed. It actually looked like a window. If Tim didn’t know any better, he’d think it was a real window. It looked exactly like the picture his mom had left there. As they stood watching, a bird flew passed. They looked at each other. Pictures didn’t move. Tim reached the bottom of the window and slowly lifted it. The scene on the other side didn’t change. As he opened the window, he could even feel air, coming through, exactly like it was a real window to the outside. When it was open enough to stick his hand through, he moved his hand slowly, not wanting to hit what must surely be magic glass, hard. There was nothing there. His hand was outside the window. “How?” Tim echoed Anna’s earlier question.
He looked at Anna, his hand still outside. She looked shocked. “Anna! What did you do?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know what she did. She had been thinking about the papers on the desk, about how they still needed to search the room to find something, but they didn’t know what they were looking for. She’d vaguely heard Tim explain what he remembered and basically just copied what he did when he waved his hand in front of the window. Most importantly, she’d been thinking more about how they were going to get back to the secret room and through the wall, since they had stayed passed the time her mother had warned then not to. “Basically, I was wishing we were back in Snillotia. I don’t know why my mom didn’t think we should stay after the sun rose, but it did, and I was worried about it.”
Tim went over to the chair and sat down. “Arf!”
Tim jumped up. On the chair was a small pug dog. It was staring at him with its giant, bulging, eyes. “Where did that come from?” he exclaimed.
Anna walked up to the dog and held her hand out in front of the dog. The dog immediately sniffed her fingers and stuck it’s tongue out in a way that made it look like it was smiling. “I don’t know where it came from, but it’s cute!”
Tim wasn’t too sure about it being cute, but it found it really odd that a dog had just randomly appeared in a secret room that had also just magically grown a window. “Wait a second!”
Anna looked away from the dog. “You said you wished!”
Anna gave him a confused look. “You said you wished we were back in Snillotia. I bet we are!”
Anna shook her head. “We didn’t go through a wall. We didn’t go anywhere!”
“No! It makes sense! You wished we had a light, and then your hand glowed. You wished the light was brighter, and then it was! You wished we were back in Snillotia and now we must be!”
Tim ran out of the room and down the hallway. Sure enough, at the end of the hall was a normal door. Tim turned the knob and the door swung open.
CHAPTER TWELVE
His parent’s room was not on the other side.He was in a hallway he’d never seen before. He looked to his left. There was nothing except more doors. He looked to the right. Again, there was nothing but doors. There did not seem to be an end to this hallway, in either direction. Tim hesitated before venturing any further. He decided Anna should go with him, wherever they were, and turned around to go get her. He walked into her instead. Anna had followed him out of the room, the pug in her arms. He looked at the dog. “Why are you bringing that?”
“She is not a “that”. She is a girl. She started following me when I left the room. Obviously, she wants to come with us.”
Tim looked at the dog, suspiciously. The pug stared back, with a hopeful expression on her face. “Fine, whatever!”
He pointed to the hallway, “Do you see that we’re not in my house anymore? You must have wished us back! If you knew you had that power earlier, it would have made things so much easier!”
Anna shrugged and looked up and down the hallway. She didn’t really think her power was to wish for whatever she wanted, but she didn’t want to get into a long conversation about it right then. “Where
