It all began a few months after Demi & Melissa started dating...
Demi's birthday was coming up and knowing his love for magic and his background as a professional illusionist, Melissa wrote a story about a Wizard who was in search for some lost time. Instead of simply giving Demi this story in the form of a little book, Melissa created something all illusionists carry around with them. But to find this necessary item, she challenged Demi to a treasure hunt.
After a series of clues and random stops, Demi was led to a little package and one last message.
The package contained a custom-designed 54 deck of playing cards. Each card had a section of a larger picture on one side, and on the flip side, was a section of a surprise story.
Demi's final challenge was to put the picture together, in the same way you would piece together a puzzle. When Demi had the picture complete, Melissa told him to gather the cards, one row at a time starting from the left column. Once this was done, Demi could then flip the deck over and begin reading the surprise story.
From this experience the idea to create a double-sided surprise jigsaw puzzle was born. At first, Demi & Melissa began with developing a picture on one side of the puzzle and a written surprise story on the flip side, similar to this surprise deck of cards. But being a jigsaw puzzle, they wanted the overall story to be told with pictures alone.
Out of all the genres they explored, a series that told haunted fictional stories stood out to them the most. And thus, their little adventure began with Series One Haunted Places & What Lurks Within.
