A Tale of Shadows - THE OUTDATED VERSION

Chapter 3 - The Visitor

"Your apprentice? Why in the world would you need me as your apprentice?!" Melinda asked Patrick, her eyes wide open.

"I simply cannot afford to lose such a valuable opportunity. Only an insane person wouldn't like to have a person with great supernatural abilities by their side."

"So you're planning on using me as a mere tool?"

"No, I did not say that. Everyone knows of your fame, but think of what use this could be for you. You could use techniques other people only dream of. You could create works of art with maximal elegance. You could strike fear into the hearts of your enemies more efficiently than before."

She frowned as if she had swallowed something sour. "Fear, fear, fear. You always talk about fear!"

Patrick would have continued if it had not been for a knock on his door. Birds had halted and not a twig could be heard, as if nature didn't want to be disturbed by his various visitors. For many seconds the visitor stood, appearing to be willing to wait for his permission to enter all day long if need be. He looked at Melinda with a glance that could burst right through one's soul, opening his mouth to talk.

"I have forgotten to tell you that I am expecting a certain person beforehand, but they seem to have arrived early if my speculation is right, which bothers me quite a bit. Do not even attempt to escape," he told her, leaving the room before he could have been able to tell her the name of said person even if he wanted to.

As soon as he left the room, Melinda sighed. "How can I get out of here?"

***

"Hello, Patrick. I'm glad you had arrived so quickly."

The woman saying this was a short, pale one with a tender smile. Her hair was a dark shade of brown, freely falling down her shoulders. She was wearing a yellow dress with black flower patterns that day. It had tiny, puffy sleeves and it reached her knees. Her legs were covered with black heels whose heels were not very tall, but her clothes did not matter to him as much as something else. Her arms were crossed, and in her chestnut eyes, there was a spark that to one may seem warm and comforting at first sight, but which contained power that the mightiest of curses could not face by themselves. Trying to ignore all of that, he shook her hand.

"Maria, I must admit that I'm impressed by your speed. What makes you so ecstatic about this meeting?"

She laughed briefly and sweetly. "Nothing that you would expect!"

"Oh, spare me! Will you waste an hour of my time with remarks like this one? I have work to do!" he announced, rolling his eyes.

"I have heard of your latest moves. You're such a great planner that it took me by surprise. I can only see a fragment of what you're attempting to do right now, but it will soon be as relevant as an ant among elephants."

He frowned. "Is this a threat, Mrs Thorne? And, if you're planning to go through some kind of negotiation with me, I can safely say that I'm not interested."

"It is not really a negotiation that I'm offering you, but an armistice," she responded, trying to conceal a frown."

"If you want to consider yourself unharmed, give me the throne. I promise I will treat you as well as possible.

"I knew it was a threat!" he spoke, facepalming mentally.

"Let's speak of this more eloquently in a more private place," she proposed.

And so they went through hallways with no lighting whatsoever, hallways so distanced from the sunlight that it might as well have been the night when they walked through them, hallways where all candles shrivelled up and died, hallways where no plants with enthusiasm or life lied. In these hallways, pictures were many, filled with dust, glued to the walls as if they were trying to hide themselves in shame, pictures of people whose existence everyone knew of, but which themselves were so forgotten that no one knew their name. Dreams of a person that would never breathe for another moment went away with them, a person whose blood refused to leave. Alas, its efforts were in vain, at least for now.

***

"I wish you hadn't even bothered!" Patrick yelled at Maria in disappointment.

She squinted. "What do you mean?"

"It's a terrible idea!"

"Oh, so it's a terrible idea because it's not convenient enough for you?" she asked with a hatred capable of tormenting plenty of souls. The tone of her voice was at an absolute low, but she made up for it by spitting every single word through her teeth.

He stared at her, his gaze as vacuous as the void. "Did you not think of what this would do to other people? Your husband would despise you, your friends wouldn't even want to look at you, and let's not start talking about your little children!"

"Since when do you care? You're a very despicable and evil person."

He sighed. "This scheme of yours isn't good for anyone. Do you think this land will look any different with you in charge?"

She smiled. "I'm doing this for the good of my people, unlike you."

"And I assume you have come because of Melinda as well?" he inquired, trying not to explode.

"Yes, I have, and it would be better for you to give her over, unless you don't want to wake up the next morning."

He spoke no words. She glared at him with pure and unabashed venom, but no amount of glares in the world would have scared him. A mere facial expression of negative emotion and nothing more, he believed. Also, he had known Maria for a lot of years. Even though she had known him for that same time, it caused her to her look less scary to him.

"You'll see just how damaging your actions can be when I come for you," she told him, heading to the front door.

***

"I must come up with a plan," Melinda whispered to herself, her voice echoing through the room she was trapped in, as meaningless to the universe as a coin in a treasure chest.

At least that part of the abandoned castle was less melancholy than the one her parents were locked up in, which, of course, she had no way of knowing. She had expected a place full of traps, a place full of gloom and despair, a place where she could go mad enough to be as good as dead. It was a solid enough clue to tell her that Patrick wasn't bluffing at all while talking to her, or just not a lot.

There where time and truth were not certain, she could be sure of nothing more than one thing: her captor may have been a bad person, but that didn't influence how he decorated the rooms of the buildings he owned. The walls were beige, and, because there was a lack of patterns, he put up a picture of an autumn forest, a shipwreck, and a sunflower - one for each wall, except the fourth, thanks to the birch door. She placed two fingers on her chin, thinking of what could be the meaning behind those paintings, knowing that there was most likely none.

Then, she began looking for minor details, because even the smallest of things can sometimes help. She believed that he must have claimed his place not so long ago, for he hadn't moved an old brown couch that was full of holes, with nails visible everywhere. However, that did not mean that he hadn't changed anything else. There was a circular rug with brown and white triangles all over it, going brown - white - brown - white and so on. In a corner of a room, a snake plant had been put into a tiny and humble pot, a shade of very light brown, unlike that on the rug. She would have spent more time looking at the decorations if she didn't notice a hole in the wall, from which she could see the room next to her if she came close.

How convenient that he hasn't covered it up yet. Perhaps I could use it for my escape.

On the tip of her toes, she walked over there in about a minute. The planks the floor was made of were a little creaky, but she knew that he would still have no idea what she was up to, probably believing that she was just strolling around the room. With her right eye, which was grey as the sky on a rainy day, unlike the other one, which was the colour of a chestnut, she noticed two people in the other room. One of them was a woman in a pink dress with white polka dots, and the other one was wearing a brown shirt and black trousers. She smirked.

Now that I know my parents are here, everything will be easier!