The Reuels and their Places (Chapter 1)

In the dayspring of mankind, our distant ancestors observed the passage of the sun across the sky, the regularity with which night follows day, the movements of the moon and the stars. But then there were two children, whose names were Cyrus and Helen Reuel. The story is about a few places, places that the children found once they were sent away from Middlesborough.

Their father was Abner Reuel. He had enlisted into the Royal Navy when he was just eighteen. He wanted the extra money so that he could attend a tour into Africa. When their father was called to serve for his country in some far off place, Cyrus and Helen were sent to the house of an old Uncle Alvis who lived ten miles north of Edinburgh.

Their father told them that his uncle was a wealthy hermit. “Uncle Alvis teaches English and History at the local college in Edinburgh,” but the other than that he was an elderly scholar with vast, almost encyclopaedic knowledge.

This great citadel, where he hid, their father explained, was stranger than Alvis himself. “Supposedly when Uncle Alvis purchased this house; this previous residents were megalomaniacs. I remember when I visited him once; there were these strange rooms, all different from each other, as if each separate quarter of the house had its own personality.

Well no worries, both of you will have fun in your new lavish quarters. At least that is how I remembered it. Oh, and don’t pay much attention to my dear uncle, even if he is lit’le crazy, eh? Go on, go on or the train will leave you both, go.” Those were the last words he said to them. They boarded the train to Edinburgh, there their old uncle would receive them to take the twins home.

The twins pressed on through the crowd until they found an empty compartment near the head of the train. Cyrus sat near the window of the box and had placed his trunk directly above his head. When he was settled in he looked over at his sister. Helen, on the other end of the box, had laid down her trunk right next to her on the seat.

“I would like some leg room while I sleep on the train,” she grunted, “I will move it when the train starts moving.” She squirmed a bit before she was finally comfortable and settled down.

Cyrus used this time away from his sister to appreciate the country that passed as the locomotive sped through. He then rummaged around his trunk above him and pulled out a blue journal with a lock on the binding. He took a key from a chain hanging on his neck and unlocked the journal, found an empty page near the middle and began writing:

         We’re away from home now, heading to Edinburgh in Scotland. I remember you use to tell us about Scotland. You loved it so much, you missed it so. Helen has fallen asleep so this is my only chance to write to you. I miss you so much. It has not been the same since the day you left us. Father is most likely aboard his ship now. He was fairly eager for us to stay with his Uncle Alvis. I do not know if you ever met him, but from what father told us; “he’s a bit strange.” I wish you were here now; now more than ever I miss you. I Love You.
         --C.R.


The train ride was about twenty-two hours from Middlesborough to Edinburgh. Now the two of them were sitting on a bench, in the railway station, with trunk piled up around them. It was a populous, active city station and with so much commotion on the platform. Cyrus had been deep in one of his favourite fantasy fiction books by C. Blanco, on of his favourite authors. He had an extensive library of fantasy books from Tolkien to Lewis, and with the recent completion of the Rowling series about that young wizard boy. Cyrus knew these stories were just fictional worlds, he never anticipated any of it would be true. He had read a great many other books as well, and retained a lot of the information. He would argue the differences between Heracles and today’s translation of Hercules from Greek mythology to folklore scholars at the local college. He knew the complete history of the Persian Empire and the various reasons for its fall. And he knew much about the chemicals contained in the locomotive’s exhaust, which was now making him cough.

Helen gazed up at the sky waiting around for the next airplane to pass. She was very intrigued by the mechanics of today’s modern machines. Anything that broke the laws of friction and gravity because of a few metal gizmos really captured her interest over the past few years. She loved to take apart a broken toaster or remote and decipher its innermost functional ability. She gazed around the station panning around from the clocks on the high wall to the businessman’s portable computer sitting in front of her.

The twins waited for two hours before their names were pronounced over the station’s speakers. Cyrus and Helen Reuel, your dear uncle has arrived. Please meet him outside around the driver’s circle. The young woman’s voice was faintly heard throughout the station. The children gathered their trunks and strutted through the front doors of the station. As claimed by the young woman, there they found a stout bearded man standing adjacent to a horse-driven carriage.

“Father wasn’t kidding; it’ll take us another day to get to that house in that thing. Seriously, who rides carriages anymore?” Helen snickered to her brother.

“You two must be lit’le Abner’s special pair. I am your esteemed Uncle Alvis. What are your names?” Asking as if they were infants, he introduced himself so proudly, that it would have been hard to distinguish whether this was the man that their father had told them all about.

“My name is Helen, sir, and this is my brother Cyrus.” Cyrus kept quiet, as he usually did. Helen thought it was rude sometimes, but she appreciated the extra attention in taking the lead.

“Well then young lad, how would you like to ride alongside me, eh?” He entreated Cyrus having noticed his silence to his previous question.

“May I take the reigns?” Helen quickly shouted.

“Why yes, yes you may. And Cyrus will sit right be me, is that ok?” Uncle Alvis patted the carriage seat smiling slightly. Cyrus nodded. Uncle Alvis found it quite complicated; it was difficult to get any speech from Cyrus while his sister was around.

They entered the carriage and rode off. Those ten miles were not so long, there were endless hills along the country path to regard. When they had arrived at the aged estate the twins took their time to admire the landscape that adorned the front of the massive house. The ruderal growing alongside the length of the granite brick walls flooded the exterior of the mansion.

“A few of these plants, the birds you see, and the small animals around this house are azonic to this area, they’re only found in this part of Scotland.” Uncle Alvis explained the rarity of the house and its features within. As they got off the carriage Uncle Alvis pointed out the window belonging to their respective rooms. Cyrus’s room was on the west end of the house and Helen’s on the east side. They walked up the stairs to the front door, Cyrus and Helen, with their mouths hanging down, staring at the grand stature of the mansion that stood before them, and before the door opened Uncle Alvis warned them: “There’s something about this house that you two will either discover to be strange or a great adventure,” and with those words he unlocked the Scottish double doors and opened.

A gleam of light reflected through the house as Cyrus stepped inside. Then as Helen followed with Uncle Alvis, the brightness toned down and now they could see the interior features of the house.

The wooden floor reflected the light from the candle chandelier hanging above the hall. As the light from the outside lit up the hall, its features were revealed. A marble spiral staircase rose from the centre of the entrance hall and split apart, halfway up, and joined with the second floor. The walls were not adorned with decorative papers as seen in lavish homes, but with old portraits of random people. Each of the portraits had name plates and years inscribed on the bottom of their respective frames. The cement blocks behind the paintings protruded through the grey colour, as you would see at a prison yard. Ten large double doors, made of different woods, adorned this great hall with variety, five on each side of the grand room. Panning around the hall Cyrus and Helen now examined the peculiar portraits embellishing the walls.

“Who are these people?” Helen asked as she walked over to a portrait of a woman dressed up to her neck, with curled hair and bushy eyebrows needing a serious pluck.

“I…I don’t know, really,” Uncle Alvis replied. “I’ve had trouble removing these portraits in the past. They were cemented to the wall, or most likely, installed during construction.”

Cyrus approached one of an elderly man well-dressed with a bowtie and bowler had. He examined the portrait more intently as if having a staring contest with the man. Cyrus won, but just for a second, the man was back in a flat pose. Cyrus was flabbergasted, yet he said nothing but immediately pulled his uncle over to the painting.

“Th…Th…the picture, it…uh,” Cyrus was too dumbfounded to say anything intelligently. He started blinking incessantly at his uncle while repeatedly pointing at the portrait. He looked crazed; he could have been confused to have a seizure, without the constant shaking.

“Is there something wrong child? What’s wrong with your eyes? Stop that or you’ll need to have them fixed.” Uncle Alvis interrogated him all worried, with no concern to the portrait. “My dear, please assist your brother up to his room. And do get settled quickly, dinner will be ready at seven.”

She nodded. She grabbed Cyrus by the arm and pulled him to the staircase. She turned back to her uncle halfway down the hall, “What about our luggage?”

“I have asked Naomi, the housekeeper, to carry your luggage up to your quarters.” He assured them, and as soon as they were out of sight he began examining the portrait himself. Cyrus and Helen snuck a peek through the balcony railing and noticed Uncle Alvis downstairs, flailing his finger and screaming at the portrait. They quickly backed away from the railing and looked at each other with wide eyes and opened mouths breathing much quicker. The twins were speechless, they couldn’t believe what they’d just seen, or maybe their uncle was playing a joke on them, maybe he knew they were looking down at him.

“Naomi, can you please help cover something in the main gallery?” Uncle Alvis shouted.

“Yes sir, I’ll be there in a moment, I’ve just finished preparing the last bedroom.” Naomi responded and was heard coming down the upstairs hallway. Cyrus looked at Helen and they scurried away to their rooms.

Cyrus’s room was closer to the main stairway. He turned the corner at the end of the hallway and there at the end of the brightly lit corridor was a sunroof window right above a door. He turned the star-shaped knob and pushed the door open. A king-sized bed complimented the size of the circular room. He walked toward the bed and took notice of all the room’s features. Bookshelves lined the wall all around the room fill with the classics, from Dickens to Tolstoy. He rummaged through the shelves and got excited when he noticed his personal library duplicated in this collected, with the addition of prominent others. Turning from the assortment of esteemed novels he noticed a bright orange couch facing the northern shelf-lining. He went and picked out a book at random, Cry the Beloved the Country by Alain Paton, and sat down on the couch. He turned a few pages and then looked at his watch. It was a quarter to seven, dusk was approaching and Cyrus was headed downstairs to the dining room.

In the meantime, while Cyrus settled into his room, Helen was on a quest at the opposite end of the house. Turning darkened corridor after corridor, it was proving difficult to see except for the candles hanging in midair along the walls. Going deeper into the enlarged estate the candle sconces dimmed the hallway. She finally reached a doorway revealed by a large crescent-shaped window that reflected moonlight off the doorknob. This knob, she noticed, was identical to the window, a crescent crystal that divided the light into a spectral twilight. Helen turned the knob and let the moonlight from the single window barely light up the room. The room was dimmed with blue light. She took a candle from a sconce in the hallway and walked inside. She placed the candle down on a night table near the door. She could now see the furniture and stars painted all over the walls. There was an enlarged sofa, which doubled as a bed, in the northeast corner. The wooden floor creaked as she walked over to the sofa. Opposite the great sofa was a black velvet recliner near the corner with a tall fern standing beside it. Getting to know her room, Helen laid on her sofa and as the twilight slowly drew on her energy, she heard a buzzing sound; she fell…

Helen opened her eyes slowly, lazily, the thin flap of her eyelids uncurling. She got up and headed downstairs to retrieve any leftover scraps from dinner, because everyone must have gone to bed by this time. Helen checked her silver laced watch, it told 1:00. Looking for the kitchen a buzzing sound was echoing off the walls, again. Where was it coming from? She found the kitchen and the buzzing got louder.

The kitchen was enormous; at the least, it was bigger than the one in Middlesborough. Two refrigerators as tall as the room itself took the majority of the space available in the north end of the kitchen. An island with two stove tops and extra counter space stood in the centre. On the east end, the counter top was replaced with an enlarged sink. The rest was adorned with stone counters and pantries hanging all along the walls. Another door, which Helen just noticed while moving about the kitchen, closed an entryway on the south end.

Helen picked up two bread rolls sitting in a basket on the stove tops. She opened the south door and the buzzing got even louder. She faced a stairwell that led downstairs to a basement. At the bottom she saw a light, but curiously it was not candlelight, it was much brighter. She followed the light and now the buzzing changed.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech…

Helen couldn’t bear it; she lifted her hands up to her ears, covered them, and kept walking at a steady pace.

Synthesizers produce music and sound not normally heard in nature, but this one was producing more noise than music. A young woman was bent down on her knees in front of the keyboard with her ears covered by her hands. She had light brown hair and goggles protecting her small hazel eyes from the bright flashes discharged by the machine. Helen walked over and turned off the power switch. The young woman didn’t seem to know what she was doing; she went back to the machine and moved knobs randomly. The machine started up again with the buzzing, but much louder this time.

“Pardon me,” Helen said softly, but it seemed the woman couldn’t hear her. “Pardon me,” Helen commanded this time, but with no response. Helen found the power cord connected to a generator and pulled it out. The young woman looked up instantly, confused at what had happened.

“Hello,” Helen greeted her innocently, “Pardon me.”

“Oh, well good evening there, I didn’t notice you there,” she responded quite relaxed, but then her tone changed, “Who are you, and what are you doing here? You’re not allow…”

“I’m sorry, my name is Helen, and I was in the kitchen looking for food, when I heard a buzzing, I believe coming from that synthesizer,” Helen pointed.

“What did you call it?” The young woman asked, her eyes grew larger as she approached Helen, anticipating her response.

“Um, I’m sorry, but who are you?” Helen quickly asked before the young woman invaded her personal space.

“Oh, yes I’m so sorry for that. My name is Naomi, I am the house keeper, including this room,” she responded so delicately, “now can you tell me what this is again?” She walked over to the synthesizer.

“That is a synthesizer; it is used to create music and sounds not normally heard,” Helen replied, trying to explain its uses with everything she had learned about electronics. She then walked around the room, her eyes opened far enough to see everything all around her without moving. She was breathless at the sight of this electronics stockroom. “Semiconductors, resistors, vacuum tubes, nodes, and motherboards. There’s enough equipment here to build at least nine supercomputers.” Helen fumbled through various containers, sitting in rows and rows of shelves, naming each component as she opened each one.

“So may I guess that you know how all this works?” Naomi asked with hands grasped, nodding her head hoping for the answer she wanted.

“Well most of it, yes. At home I would pretend that something was broken so that my father would allow me to repair it, but I really just wanted to take it apart and see how it worked. I built my own computer, mostly from components all around our house.” She responded losing breath with every word from all the excitement.

“That sounds great, so…wait, can you help me get his running right? I don’t under...”Naomi asked Helen about the synthesizer.

“Yes, yes I could… she walked over and a grumbling so soft, yet loud enough for Helen to ask, stopped her midway, “but I couldn’t do so on an empty stomach.” She could have worked on the machine but she was hungry from the long ride from Middlesborough.

Naomi nodded with a slight smile on her face and they headed up the stairs.

In the kitchen, sitting around the island, Naomi and Helen were sitting on metal stools. Helen quietly enjoyed her food that Naomi quickly heated, while Naomi began telling her story.

“20 years ago, when your uncle bought this house, the people that lived here experimented with electric appliances as you saw. Your uncle hired me to remove all the electronics from the house, nothing electrically operated could stay, with the exception of this kitchen. Throughout my first week here I discovered that door, but it was locked.”


One day Naomi found a strange remote in one of the grand rooms and clicked one of the buttons. A reverberating sound rang through the house. Alvis was at the college for his early classes, while Naomi continued her job clearing the house. Naomi was startled and dropped the remote. She picked it up again and clicked that same button, but the ringing stayed there. She followed the ringing to the kitchen where the locked door was now wide open and a bright blue light reflecting from within. She followed the light and found great metal structures with blinking lights and dozens of gauges flickering back and forth. These great machines filled the room and created so much noise. There were ten in all.


“I tried to stop the noise, but the remote was no help, and I found no knobs, or power cords connected to the machines. These machines had their own power source in each of them.” Naomi paused looking over at the doorway. “Let me show you, come,” Naomi insisted and led Helen back downstairs to the deepest section of this underground warehouse.

         A large drape covered one large structure; it was as tall as the room itself. Naomi pulled the sheet down, and as it fell, it revealed one very big machine, a self-contained computer, with bright blue screens and voltage gauges. No buttons, no knobs, no way of controlling this self-powered machine, but there was a weird symbol on the side that looked like a sideways torch.

Helen looked around the warehouse, but did not see any other machines. “Didn’t you say there were ten? I only see this one.” Helen asked Naomi looking through the shelves filled with various containers.

“Um, yes there were. You’re looking right at them.” Naomi slowly replied. You said it yourself, if I had to take them apart to see how they worked, how they were running, and…I couldn’t shut off the noise.” Naomi spoke quickly hiding her guilty conscience. “But, but I do have the remote.” Naomi dashed down one of the stock rows and returned with a container labelled “Remote.” Handing the container to Helen with a sly smile, “I tried to fix it.”

“I’ll do it, but it will take me all night.” Helen found a workbench near the stairs and turned the container over. She began running back and forth through the rows of shelves and returned with a screwdriver, a soldering iron, and a hammer. Flashed of melting metal sparking from the workstation told Naomi she could go rest now.

“Okay, see you later.” Naomi yawned.

“Wait, I thought you would stay here with me. I don’t know this house enough to be left down here alone.” Helen quickly jumped up following Naomi.

“Oh well, you said ‘all night’, so I assumed you wouldn’t need to be wandering around the house. I’ll be back tomorrow morning to check on you. Goodnight.” Naomi disappeared up the stairs.

“Goodnight.” Helen was quickly back to work. Clashing, flashes of light, and drilling, she was almost done with all the normal components  of a regular remote when she noticed two pieces of a crystal left in the container. They were cracked. “I wonder, hmm.” Helen placed the two pieces in the battery compartment. Then came the test, Naomi was right, this remote wasn’t like other remotes. It had twelve buttons, with no numbers or letters to identify their functions, but weird shapes. The buttons at the head of the remote had a picture of the sun, and there was a star at the bottom of the remote.

She pressed on the sun, but nothing happened. She walked over to the machine and aimed the remote this time, but again, nothing happened. She felt disappointed; sighing, sometimes a sound of relief, but this time for Helen it was failure. She got angry and began pressing all the buttons, but when she touched the star button the machine began beeping and then, just as quickly, shut off. Now that she had gotten some progress she tried pressing the star with the sideways torch. Again the machine buzzed and a few lights blinked on and off, then the room began to shake, then it just stopped as before. This was awkward. Helen felt tired again and so she headed back upstairs to her room.


The next morning Cyrus awoke to a bright glare from the window. He walked over to the couch and pulled out his journal from his luggage.

         I think dad was leaving a few things out when he described our dear Uncle and his strange mansion. This has seemed weird away from home, but I have a lovely room complete with a library and reading area. This may not be so bad after all, the housekeeper, Naomi, cooks very well, but no as good as you, I wish you were still here. I love you. – C.R.

         The aroma of toasted bread filled the house. Cyrus packed his journal into his backpack and took it with him. He walked downstairs to the kitchen where he found Naomi making breakfast.

“Thank you for the delicious meal last night,” Cyrus said.

“Oh, you are very welcome. By the way, have you seen your sister this morning?” She asked as she stepped away from the stove to attend Cyrus.

“No, Ma’am. Did she not come down to eat last night?” Cyrus responded.

“Well, she did come down to eat last night, very late though, and she helped me with something down in the basement, but I left her to work alone when I went to bed.” Naomi explained.

“Work? On what?” Cyrus asked. He sat down at the counter, and Naomi served him a plate of toast with sausage, eggs, ham.

“I had some equipment that I was trying to fix downstairs and she offered to help. She knew more about them than I did. I left her to fix a remote that I had broken.” Naomi opened a drawer under the Island counter and pulled out a remote. She placed it in front of Cyrus.

“What does it do?” Cyrus asked looking at the remote.

“I don’t know. That’s what your sister was trying to figure out.”

Cyrus picked up the remote and looked over all the buttons.

“Naomi is there construction going on nearby, because last night it felt like some dynamite was blowing off,” Cyrus asked her, looking more intently at the remote.

“No I don’t think there is, but I felt it too. It was a little after I had left your sister downstairs. I am sure she was fine though, I went downstairs this morning and didn’t find anything out of place,” Naomi assured him. Cyrus stared at the top button with the sun.

“Do you know what this button does?” Cyrus asked as he pressed it and as soon as he did the buttons started blinking randomly. Suddenly the house began to shake like the night before, but this time it didn’t stop.

Cyrus and Naomi ran to the great hall. Helen and Uncle Alvis came running down the spiral staircase.

“What is going on Naomi? Is the city getting bombed? Should we go down to the shelter?” Uncle Alvis ran to look out the front windows, and searched for planes. The day was nice and clear outside. The sky was empty as a hole.

“Uncle,” Cyrus screamed out, he held out the blinking remote. Uncle Alvis glanced over at Cyrus and immdetialy froze in place. His eyes were unsteady and silent. His face washed in a white paste. His nerves running down his spine chilled his entire body. He tried to move his lips to release some words.

“Wha…What are…What are you…you doing with that?” He asked Cyrus then glanced over at Naomi with a stern face. He was about to scream when one of the great room doors started glowing. The double doors were shaking sporadically as if trying to let something out. Uncle Alvis walked over to the door cautiously; everyone else followed behind him. He reached for the doorknobs and slowly turned them.

A great thunder blew the doors open and threw Alvis and the others to the groun. They all got up quickly, and Cyrus ran to the doorway to gaze at the splendour of bright colours gleaming inside.

There was no room, just a place. A place to big to fit in a room or a house, it was here that their adventure would begin. Alvis, Cyrus, Helen, and Naomi all stared at the spectacle before them.

Helen side-stepped to Naomi and pulled on her shirt. Helen the started winking at Naomi and drawing a small rectangle in the air and raising her eyebrows to imply if it was the remote that caused all this. Naomi nodded and pointed her chin towards Cyrus.

Cyrus looked back at Naomi, then at Helen and revealed the remote sitting in his sweaty hand.

“This is not what I remember; this is a much better place.” Uncle Alvis said out loud. The shaking had stopped when the doors opened. Helen peered in the place and approached it with her hand stretched toward the doorway. As she passed her hand through the colour barrier a prickling sensation swept through her body and she fell in.

“HELEN!” Cyrus screamed. He ran after her, and with Naomi’s attempt to catch Cyrus by his shirt, she pushed Uncle Alvis and tripped into the barrier altogether.