Tell Me A Story

Chapter 11: In Cubiculo Magicas

   "What?" I was off my rocker when I heard what Amelia had asked. It was evident that Amelia was dreading something from the very beginning. But I never expected something like this.

   Anna just looked at me with a peculiar look etched on her face. And then, she began walking.

   "Where are you going to?" I called after her.

   No answers. No surprises there.

   She walked into a corridor. My footsteps thudded all around as I tried to catch up with her. It was a long corridor she had stepped into and appeared to me like the one in which Amelia had proposed her plan of elopement to George. Judging by the big windows laced with bars that adorned the archaic wall on one side, it must be.

   She halted precipitously at the other end. The walls around us were barely standing together and I was afraid that they might collapse on us any second. I wondered how these walls were holding up and I half-expected Anna to tell me that she'd put another charm on the walls.

   "Here. It was here that they thought they stood a chance for eloping," she said, more to herself than me.

   Then she moved forward, gently touched the bars of a window and closed her eyes, pulling in a lungful of air as she did so. A gentle breeze was ruffling her hair. More than recounting the story, she actually seemed to be living it.

   As she was venturing in her mental world, I glanced around. The corners were thick with cobwebs and everything from the ceiling to the floor was coated with dust. Our footsteps had left their prints all across the floor. My eyes traveled from the set of footprints that was just behind me to the very first one at the other end. But I saw a pair of legs there instead of footprints. When I lifted my head to check whose it was, I saw a woman standing there. An elderly woman, who appeared to be like what, sixty?

   "Look what she did to me when I tried to save her!" she whispered. But despite it being a whisper, it was carried all around the corridor and it appeared like the walls were mumbling it.

   And then she raised her hands but before she could perform that gruesome act of splitting herself, Anna began the tale. I turned back to her. She was still tracing the bars, her eyes still closed as she resumed the story.

   The cobwebs around us disappeared, the walls became strongly built and every speck of dust vanished into thin air as I found myself in the Palace of Doom about a hundred years ago once again.

                                ***

   Amelia was pulling out a weed from the field. The morning sun was gently caressing the back of her neck. It felt good, the warmth of the sun. And then she heard the kicking of hooves.

   Hooves? Who could that be? She wondered.

   As she raised her head to take a look, she saw the Prince riding on the back of his horse. And behind him was a man Amelia had never seen before. But she guessed that it must be the Prince's companion from childhood she'd only heard about.

   George.

   And then suddenly, George looked her in the eyes. That was when she became conscious of the fact that she'd been looking at him. It all happened in a haze of colors as he trailed away, just behind the Prince.

   She was dead sure of the fact that their eyes had locked in on each other's for a moment. For the first time in her life, she'd felt something. A brief stint of infatuation.