A Window Between Worlds

A Window between Worlds

JD Bonsal

"Ouch!" cried Marie as she was walloped hard in the face with a snowball. She could hear snickering from behind a bank nearby. "Sean, Michael, you had better stop, or I'm telling!"

The boys relinquished their cover from behind the snow bank and began making faces and shouting insults.

"You're such a baby!"

"You're never any fun!"

Marie was visiting her Uncle Scott's cottage in northern Vermont. Sean was her cousin and Michael was his best friend. Every winter when Marie came to visit, they would torment her to the point of insanity. They loved to play pranks on her, just the winter before they had put Sean's pet frog in her bed sheets and lathered her hair in honey as she slept.

The two boys picked up more mounds of snow and began preparing them to be projectiles. Instinctively Marie did the same, but she wasn't fast enough and received

another two blows to the head and stomach.

"Hey! Stop it!" she screamed. "That hurts!"

After realizing that wasn't going to work, she bolted for the safety of the cottage, still followed by a barrage of snowballs. Once inside, she removed her shoes, because that was her uncle's number one rule, no shoes in the cottage, snowy or otherwise. You see, even though this was only her uncle's winter house, this was no ordinary cottage, it was practically a mansion! From the door, there was a great room directly ahead with an large couch that seated twelve people, a glass topped coffee table directly in front of it and a five foot flat screen TV six feet from the table. The floor, like much of the house, was made of hickory. There was a stone fireplace in the right corner of the room and the entrance to the kitchen was to the left.

The double doors to the kitchen were thick glass and swung both ways on their hinges so that you never had to pull. There were three metal bars about three feet above the floor so that carts could be pushed through. Upon entering those doors you found yourself in an immense high end restaurant style kitchen with metal cabinetry and Italian marble flooring. The sounds of frying flounder and the chopping of knives added a sense of urgency; it was hard to be blasй about the display of culinary arts. The air was always filled with the aromas of fresh breads, pies and pastries.

To the right of the kitchen doors was a large staircase that curved with the wall, which lead to a long hallway with dozens of doors. Most of these were not used, but Scott and Sean's quarters were the first door on each side. The second door on the left lead to the garage, which spiraled down past the first floor and continued down to the road. Unfathomable amounts of rare, classy and expensive cars filled nearly every space available: Plymouth Prowlers, Corvettes, Shelbies, Calaways, Mustangs and many, many more.

The second door on the right was Sean's game room. Directly in front of the door was an air hockey table, to the right was a pool table with a deep purple felt and a bar light overhead. About eight feet to the left of the pool table was the video game area. All platforms worthwhile were hooked up to another big screen TV and thousands of games were in a gigantic hutch. Around the corner were a few arcade style games like Galaga and Pac Man and some pinball machines.

But there was one room that was truly the favorite of both Sean and his father, and that was the medieval weaponry room. It was the last door on the left. When you entered that door, straight across the room was a rack of practice rapiers and to the left of that was a closet with training suits. On the left wall were a few bows and a quiver of arrows to be shot at a target directly across the room. All the walls were adorned with medieval weapons of all sorts: swords, daggers, katanas, spears, bows. The floor in this room was padded for obvious reasons.

Most of the others were the employee's rooms, except for the upstairs bathroom which was the last door on the right.

Marie saw her uncle in the kitchen making himself a sandwich at the small bar. This was something that he could easily have had one of his employees do, but he was a kindhearted and tender man and was never demanding. She walked into the kitchen and the first words out of his mouth were, "Hi sweetie. Out playing with the boys again? Looks like you had fun but you look freezing. Why don't you go sit on the couch with a blanket and I'll bring you some hot chocolate." He was completely naпve of her discomfort, but it was so hard to tell him because would never think that his Sean was capable of some of the things he did, though he had been caught in the act a time or two.

So she did as she was told and flipped the television to Cartoon Network just as Sean and Michael clamored in the door getting snow everywhere. Immediately a domestic arrived on the scene and cleaned up the disarray. They were so uncaring and it drove Marie bonkers. They came and sat on the other end of the couch but did not change it because cartoons were the only thing they did agree on, though they did seem to be being nicer to her than usual.

After about an hour of cartoons, Sean suddenly blurted out, "Hey! I've got an idea! Let's go to the game room and play some X-Box!"

Michael yelled his agreements and Marie shrugged lacking enthusiasm. She was never any good at video games, and she lost to them every time. This time they chose to play Soul Callibur 2. Marie was quickly annihilated by Michael but Sean proved to be the master by demolishing Michael. The person not playing at the moment always played the winner, so Sean never got off and after about fifteen minutes Marie opted to just watch until after God knows how long, she fell asleep.

Marie awoke the next morning to find herself on the couch in the game room. She slowly sat up and looked around. She was alone in the room and wondered out loud, "What happened to Sean and Michael?" She stood and walked out the door and noticed voices to her right. She continued to walk in that direction and realized that the sounds were coming from the weaponry room. When she entered she saw two small figures in training suits (obviously Sean and Michael) and Uncle Scott leaning up against a wall watching. Marie could tell by the level of skill that Sean was on the left and Michael on the right. Sean parried and thrusted again and