[QCrit] MG Fantasy - MONTABELLE MANSION (50K/Third attempt)

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Thanks again for all the feedback! It's really helping me out.

Eleven-year-old Roz doesn’t need help. She can do things herself, like cooking and climbing ladders and decorating for Christmas. That way, Mom won’t be so tired after work. They can eat together for once, and play games and drink cocoa and Roz can give Mom her painting of a penguin made in art class. But, to Roz’s disappointment, her cousin Horatio has come to stay the whole week. Goodie two-shoes, tattling, mom-stealing Horatio. Even worse, Christmas Eve ends with a monster smashing their windows and carrying Mom away into the night.

No one believes her, of course. But Roz can find Mom on her own, despite Horatio inviting himself along. A clue leads her to Montabelle Mansion, the maze-like home of a mysterious family who vanished ten years ago, only for Roz to discover they never left, doomed to serve the very witch who cursed them. To fight back, Roz–and Horatio–must find a magic brooch lost inside the mansion’s enchanted rooms. On the way, Roz comes to realize that the monster who took Mom may be someone they once knew… and loved.

Horatio urges her to accept the help of others, while Roz has never been one to doubt her own abilities. But when the witch threatens to curse them next, or else take Roz as a prize when she displays a magic of her own, Roz might finally be in over her head.