Part 3

Part 3

*In deep voice* Previously, in the story:
Everything was dark. Amber pulled out a match and lit her candle. She suppressed a gasp. She was there; the South Wing.
*Theme music plays, intro credits…ok. Here’s the next episode:*

Amber found two large eyes were staring down at her. Her heart nearly stopped as she raised her candle. She let out her pent up breath. It was only a mounted boar’s head. She held the candle higher and peered into the briefly illuminated room she was in. It was another hallway with many different doors leading to many different rooms. There was no light at all except her candle, though she could see there were torches set in the walls. She wondered what it had been like to wander down these horrifying halls when they were all lit, 200 years ago. Would they be less frightening and more wonderful? She couldn’t see very much at all, for the candle only lit what was directly in front of her.

Amber opened the first door she came too and closed it behind her. It led to another hall. She frowned. This was odd. She started walking down the hall very slowly, her heart beating rapidly. Out of the corners of her eyes she saw something move. She cast the light on the floor behind her. Nothing was there. She was so sure something had moved. Her heart began racing now and her breath came faster. She continued to go down the dark hall. Cobwebs hung from the unused torches and a thick layer of dust covered the furniture. She brushed off a cobweb. There! She saw something move again, this time to her right. The only thing there was an old chair. Her candle began to flicker now. It had never been very big, only casting its light on what was directly in front of her. She silently begged it not to go out, not daring to speak for fear of waking some terrible beast from the past. Its flame grew smaller. She began to move faster, hoping to get to the end of the hall and find some kind of light switch.

As Amber ran she happened to move her candle to shine on the walls. She suppressed a scream and dropped her candle. There was a person in the room with her! The candle was out and she was submerged in darkness. She ran even faster, trying not to stumble, and as she ran shapes rose up from all around her. They moved with her, running beside her, in front of her, behind her. She couldn’t see their faces, only shapes, and they all moved at the exact same time. She felt them closing in around her ~ they were everywhere. She tripped over the rug and fell. She didn’t get up; she just closed her eyes and cried because she was so afraid. She was afraid that the second she opened her eyes they would get her, take her, do something to her, and she didn’t want to know what. If she just sat there, hiding her face in her arms, she felt nothing bad could happen. Nothing could happen if she just kept her eyes closed. Silence. Darkness. That was all she knew or felt. A long time passed. She didn’t know how long she sat there, waiting for the cold fingers to seize her, in that terrifying darkness. After a while she gained control of herself and stopped crying. Why was nothing happening? She opened her eyes. It was so dark it was like she still had her eyes closed. She looked around her. Where were the figures?

Amber lit one of the matches from her pocket. Trying to breathe normally, she cautiously stood up. Movement! They too began rising all around her! She dropped back down. She frowned. They had dropped with her. They seemed to be coming from the walls… She rose again, going very slowly. She was surrounded, but this time she moved toward one of the walls of the hall. She looked at it closely and then felt a wave of emotions flow over her. It was a mirror! The walls were all mirrors! She held her match up high to see what she had forgotten the first time. She had been looking at the floor the whole time! If only she had noticed the walls and how her image had been multiplied in them! She felt silly, angry, a bit disappointed, and a small part of her wanted to laugh, if only out of nervousness. So this was the main room in the South Wing. A hall of mirrors. She groped around for the candle she had dropped. She found it and lit it, grateful it was still long enough to be lit. After exploring a few more rooms, she tried to find her way back and out of the Wing. She knew there was still more to explore but she was unnerved and reluctant to and she wanted to go back to electrically lighted halls.

Amber managed to find her way back to the door she had entered. As she placed a hand on the handle she felt something behind her. She turned slowly, in case it was another mirror. Holding her candle to her side she noted the walls were normal. No mirrors here. Her brows came together. Her hand slid off the door knob and she peered into the gloomy black hall. She was about to turn and open the door when she saw something shadow-like in the corner of the ceiling. It flew from one side of the room to another then disappeared, as if it was smoke. Her heart began racing again but she determined to not be afraid. Embarrassment from her last exploration still clung to her memory. Then she saw the quick, rapid movement around a chair. It was like a vapor, for it shifted and then disappeared. She tried to regulate her breathing and not panic. She held up her shaking candle. Nothing was there. Nothing’s there. “Nothing’s there,” she repeated to herself, as if those words could erase that sight from her brain. She let out her breath in a long sigh, breathed, and turned around, completely calm. She screamed. A face was indeed staring back at her ~ a human face that was not her own. Then it was gone, like a puff of smoke! It was all so fast she hardly remembered it a second later, but she quickly opened the door to the library without looking back and blinked against the blinding light. Those eyes! She could not get rid of those eyes! In the middle of a black, smoky vapor there had been two great yellow eyes staring at her.

That day she got lost again in the rest of the house, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the eyes she had seen. Amber looked for her aunt but she was seemingly not in the house. She ventured outside into the spacious land surrounding the mansion. The grass was green and there were many trees and ponds in the yard. Her aunt owned a lot of land. There was an orchard on one side of the house with large apple trees, and a big pond that seemed to go on for as far as the eye could see on the other side. She looked around and approached the orchard. Her aunt was sitting in a big tree, swinging her legs from a high branch. She had carried a basket up with her that was hanging on a nearby branch. She held a pen in her hand and was tapping in thoughtfully on her chin as she stared at a notebook in her lap.

“Aunt Cindy?” Amber called to her.

She didn’t move. Amber walked closer and called again. Her aunt looked up from her paper.

“Amber?” she asked lightly. Amber started talking at once, but her words came out jumbled and mismatched. Her aunt patted a limb beside her. Amber climbed up. Aunt Cindy reached into her basket and pulled out a chocolate bar. She handed it to her neice and urged her to take deep breaths. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“The South Wing. Eyes. Darkness. My candle … it went out. I saw a face and then it disappeared!” she stammered. She took another bite of chocolate and watched her aunt’s face. Her aunt leaned back and closed her eyes. She said nothing for a while.

She murmured something to herself and it seemed to Amber that she said, “Perhaps a candle wasn’t the best idea for a first time down there.” Then louder, “What was this face like?” she asked, her eyes still closed.

“Only eyes. The rest was like smoke,” Amber replied. Her aunt’s eyes flashed open and she began packing up her things into the basket, which she swung under her arm.

“That’s no reason to fear. They cannot hurt you now. However, if a mouth develops, be sure to tell me,” she said as she dropped lightly out of the tree. Amber’s mouth opened wide and she jumped down beside her.

“You mean…this doesn’t surprise you at all?” she asked.

“Amber,” she said, walking toward the house with Amber in tow, “I’m a writer. As a fantasy writer, I strive to write compelling, adventurous stories that will baffle and engage the reader so they want to continue reading and having adventures of their own.” Her voice changed. Amber had noticed in the past few days that her aunt’s voice was very unique in how it seemed to be threatening, mysterious, and sometimes musical whenever she wanted it to be.

“People like stories with ogres and goblins, dragons and faeries, elves and monsters because they think it’s all make believe, that it’s only a story, made of words on a page. But what if all they fear and dream about is in existence, in flesh and blood?” Her voice changed again, still lower as she said mysteriously, “What if the very stories they read about…are happening all around them?”