Part Twenty-Nine

The girls slept soundly in their separate chambers, their bellies full from dinner and their walk with their father. Eyelids heavy, the barely made it into their nightgowns before collapsing into bed, their hand maidens tucking them in before leaving them for the night.

Blue dreamed of mirrors and doorknobs.

Georgeanne dreamed of dark rooms filled with forgotten things.

*******

The Queen left her husband asleep in their chambers. The day's events had left a bad taste in her mouth and a sour ache in her belly. Clad in her nightgown and black velvet robe, her slippered feet stepped soundlessly across the stone floor as she walked through the castle.

She thought best on her feet.

Moving like a shark through water, she passed the library and paused. She turned the knob and pushed the door open, remaining in the doorway. With her hands clasped before her atop her stomach, she entered the room recalling how the princesses seemed to have miraculously been here the entire time.

Spying the spot where the girls had been found, she recalled how Marcella said she had checked the room before but then immediately apologized for not being thorough and missing such an obvious display. Staring at the area which had long since been cleaned up, the Queen's brow furrowed.

The younger woman could be dim at times, but not that dim.

The Queen turned and left the library.

*******

Stealthy as shadow, he crept through the castle. A sense of worry had filled him after his run-in with the King. He thought he'd overdone it a tad with the roses, but the King seemed to love it.

The Queen... not so much.

He was on his way back to the gardens to clip some herbs and collect seeds and berries for Agathea when he couldn't help but check in on the girls. A few seconds at each of their chamber doors, he heard the calm rhythm of breathing and then slipped out of the castle and into the dark. He'd collected several samplings of bark, some leaves as well as a few flowers when his name sang through the air. He turned and saw the gazebo some yards off. But then a silhouette formed in the shadows and took a moment for his eyes to adjust. As it continued to advance, he stood ready and said, "Aggie? Is that you?" The silhouette then slowly stepped into a small patch of filtered moonlight which didn't completely illuminate the person, but was enough light just the same. His eyes began to water, a smile spreading across his face, as he stepped forward and hugged his sister.

Part Twenty-Eight

She moved through the darkness slowly, her hands out cautiously before her as she blindly followed her senses. Her mind had become obsessed with the idea of a door, and her gut led her forward away from the room that had been her prison for so long. Slowly and steadily she continued on, guided by the idea of freedom but more for another reason, another feeling.

Her girls needed her.

The floor below her began to ascend, the incline moving up and up, slowly at first and then grew steeper until she thought she could no longer keep her balance thinking she might slip and fall backward into the blackness of the room below.

Then her hands met something solid... or very near to it. Palms flat, she pressed, and what she thought was a wall started to give way, pushing in, stretching, bending to her insistence. The further she went, the more she felt swallowed up by some cold thick material as if she were walking through a wall of mud. Almost completely covered, she wondered if she would suffocate in whatever unknown thing she was being surrounded by. Preparing for the worst, she took a deep breath in before pressing forward with all her might.

And then it was gone.

She still stood in darkness, but she was someplace new. Even though she couldn't see anything, she knew she was no longer in the limbo forced upon her by her sister. With a wave of her hand, a soft glow filled the room. Squinting, she turned slowly, looking around her and realized she was in a section of a lower level of the castle used for storage. In every direction were odds and ends from various parts of the castle - the girls' cribs from when they were little to artwork to wooden trunks to all sorts of other things.

When she had come full circle, she found where she had come from - a standing oval mirror, the drop cloth that had been covering laying in a circle around its base. She stepped toward it, curious about its working, wary of touching it fearing it may bring her back to the place she'd just escaped. In the dim light, she caught her reflection and thought herself a dreadful sight. Tears tickled the backs of her eyes but did not fall. As she inspected her face, her hair, her manner of dress, she heard a noise from somewhere in the room. Quickly, she turned trying to hone in on the sound, preparing to pounce if necessary. A silhouette began to emerge from one corner of the room where various vases and bookcases were placed. Her eyes narrowed as she watched this silhouette take shape and then when it came into view. She blinked several time and almost pinched herself to see if she were dreaming.

"My darling Aiyana," said the figure standing before her.

The tears now fell as she stepped forward, falling into their arms, and with a contented smile, she said, "Mother."