My Story Part 2 {Exploring}

Ok...um...I've been kind of busy with some other stuff...*cough, cough* Pirate story *cough, cough* Anybody got a RIIICOLA ? Sooo... here's the promised part two...sorry it took so long. I've been without inspiration for quite a while. Hm...*sips Dr. Pepper, tapping finger on chin* Ok. I got it.


Amber spent most of the week exploring the house. It was old and large and had 68 rooms, not including bathrooms and closets. It had dark corridors and winding staircases, grand parlors and extravagant bedrooms. It had several different wings and portions, and she imagined it could have been a castle if one had not seen the house from the outside. She wondered if this was the type of old, haunted house most horror stories originated from, with ghosts and secret passageways. Since her aunt wrote short stories for newspapers and best-selling novels, she gave Amber the liberty of roaming through the house as long as she didn't disturb her while she was writing.

She started in the North wing of the house where her aunt had redecorated. This was where her room was as well as Amber's. She walked through the living room where they had coffee the other day and she went through the door connecting it to the kitchen. This kitchen was large and the pantry alone was larger than any kitchen she had ever seen. She continued to walk through the rooms, noticing each one had a different color scheme and furniture arrangement. She came across a parlor that held a beautiful grand piano that was covered in dust from not being used. She ran a hand over its smooth surface...remembering when her father had taught her to play... She hastily walked out the door and avoided that room from that day on. She continued looking at all the bright rooms in the North wing, her thin shoes making hardly any noise on the wood floor.

Next Amber walked up the staircases to the West wing. The West wing held fewer rooms, and the focal point of this floor was the ballroom. It was like nothing she had ever seen before; something that seemed out of place in this century. With its tall ceiling, marble columns, decorative statues, and two great stone staircases it looked like something from The Beauty and the Beast. She looked at the ceiling, so distant and tall. It was decorated with pictures of clouds and angels and hints of gold reflected throughout the room were mirrored there. Several chandeliers hanging from the ceiling lighted the whole room up. She imagined what it must have been like, two hundred years ago, to dance here. She could almost see the beautiful girls in their puffy dresses and the men with their white wigs. She sighed. After noting a few more rooms {not that she would remember them or where they were; she had already gotten lost twice}, she somehow ended up in the East wing.


The East wing was not used often at all and Aunt Cindy hardly ever went there. Amber noticed that the rooms here were very different. Their walls were a deep brown, different from the golden rooms of the West wing and the colorful rooms of the North. The halls were lined with old suits of armor. Old oil lamps and even candles were the only lights. The walls held no tapestries like the other parts of the house, and even the creepy pictures were gone. She was thankful for that because these halls were scary enough without them. There were lots of bedroom, one parlor, and a few bathrooms, but the main room here was a gigantic library. This room was obviously used very often. It had electric lights, millions of books, and a few scattered couches in between the maze of bookcases. She walked down the rows of books, got lost, turned around, and found herself looking at a large chair behind a desk. Her aunt sat in the chair.

Aunt Cindy had been writing furiously, her pen scratching on the paper and her light hair slighly falling out of the bun she wore it in. She looked up and peered at Amber through her dazzlingly blue eyes. Amber tried to say something but she found she could only clasp her hands behind her back and not say anything.

"Amber?" Aunt Cindy asked. "Do you need something?"

"Er...no...I accidently got lost. I was exploring. This is the only wing I have left before the South, and--" Her Aunt leaned back in her chair and Amber stopped what she was saying.

"Do you want some lunch?" she asked. Amber nodded. Her aunt got up. She was thin yet she was not bony. She moved gracefully, and that grace suggested she had once been a dancer. Amber made note of that. She took a candle from the desk, lighted it, and led Amber through the library and into the dim halls. Amber tried to make note of the passageway there but she knew she wouldn't rember it.


"Aunt Cindy, why do you use a candle?" she asked. "I'm sure a flashlight would work just fine."

Her Aunt didn't look at her; she just looked at the walls and the ceiling as she replied, "Amber, do you like to read?"

"Yes," she replied.


"Candles..." continued her Aunt, in her musical voice, "Add an air of mystery...Look at the walls, Amber." Amber did. "In the flickering light of a candle, one can always see more than one expected to find. Everything seems...different...in candle light." Amber looked again at the walls. They were passing by the portraits. She looked at a picture of a girl and her mother. As she turned her head away she did a double take. Did the eyes of the girl blink?...And was the mother's head turned toward her now? She skipped a step and walked beside her Aunt. Her Aunt smiled. It took a few minutes for them to get to the North Wing. They stepped into the parlor. Her Aunt set the candle down and quickly made two sandwichs in the kitchen. Her Aunt blew the candle out. They ate silently at first. Amber looked around the room and spotted a book on the table. She reached out and picked it up. It was a hardback fantasy. She read the cover out loud.

"Trapped in Time by Lucinda Trendal..." Amber looked at her Aunt. "That's you. You wrote this?" she asked, turning it over to read the back. Her Aunt nodded. "What's it about?" she asked.

Her aunt smiled. "Why don't you read it and find out?" Amber said nothing. She flipped through the pages and smelled the book. She had inherited that trait from her mother.

"I expect you want to explore the South Wing next?" asked her Aunt. Amber put the book down and nodded. "I haven't been there in years. That's the only part of this mansion I haven't re-done. I left it just like it was in the 1800s. I seem to remember that I spent a lot of time there some years ago," her eyes grew distant with memory, "And I hope you find you love it as much as I do. I hope you...find what you're looking for there..." Amber looked at her Aunt, wondering what she meant.


"If you love it so much, why don't you go there anymore? And why don't you remodel?" she asked.

Her Aunt sighed, still distant, and said, "I don't want to ruin the adventure. If I went there everyday its significance would wear off, and like soil, it needs time to replinish. I left it as it is because it's so...mysterious and old, the perfect setting for some of my stories." She snapped back to the present, her eyes grew bright instead of glossy. "I'm sorry," she said, rising to her feet and picking up their plates. She disappeared into the kitchen then reappeared in the parlor. Amber almost questioned her sanity, but she soon forgot about that ~ after all, she was a writer. Most writers were eccentric and old, so she thought. Amber stood too, straightening her thin jacket. Her Aunt looked at her for a moment. Then she looked around herself and picked up the candle again. "I'm sorry," she said, "You just look so much like your mother..." Amber looked down. "Candle?" asked her aunt. Amber nodded. Her aunt handed her a box of matches which she slipped into her pocket.

"Thanks," said Amber.

"Any time," replied her aunt. "And if you ever want to talk, I'm here...or if you have any thoughts about writing or questions about my books, I'll be glad to answer them." She left before Amber could ask for directions. She sighed and walked through the hallways, hoping she would recognize something. She managed to find the library again. She found a door and somehow ended up in front of another door. It was thick. She opened it. Everything was dark. She pulled out her match and lit her candle. She suppressed a gasp. She was there; the South Wing.



~ Captain Bonnie Spinner

Part 3 coming...eventually....!