My Wee Mate

5 - A Lost Girl

Ailsa

With a twirl of my skirts, I sneak around a corner and into a hidden alcove as several people flutter by. I'm immediately swallowed by shadow. I press my back to the wall, the stone cold and rigid as I hope that it isn't Gentry passing by me.

Luckily enough for me, it's not my trusted maid whom I've betrayed. Just clan members who are oblivious to my devious hiding spot. They're caught up in their own worlds, completely oblivious to me and my sneaking.

As soon as they're gone, I reenter the hallways and bustle into a jog as I meander through the castle I've roamed since birth.

I don't have any place in mind specifically, I figure that my feet will take me where I need to go if I follow my intuition. I don't know where I'm going with my lit, smoking pipe in tow, but I know it's better than being stuffed into my room like a prisoner my parents would rather forget.

"Pardon me, lassie!" A kitchen maid swings by, sending me into a wall as she shrugs past me, a platter of barely cakes that give off steaming ribbons that fly through the air.

She's headed to the dining hall, and I watch her go, surprised she can waddle so fast.

I eye where she came from. The kitchen. It's risky to enter, with Gentry fetching me a bowl of soup and all, but the smell of food has me leaning dangerously close to the kitchens.

My legs seem to carry me there of their own accord. The limbs have a mind of their own as they deposit me directly in front of the room that I should be avoiding. I curse myself and my growling stomach.

I peep my head in, seeing no towering maid anywhere in the vicinity. I dart in. The cooks dodge me as I look wildly around for something to get my hands on. The victim of my attack is a shiny apple that I immediately take a bite out of.

Sweet apple juice bursts into my mouth, and I grin in triumph.

There's practically a skip in my step as I continue to roam as long as I can before being bedridden again.

I stop along my merry way, munching my apple as I decide that I must return to my cage. I sigh, apple in one hand and my pipe in the other. I must be a sight to see. I look like a lost girl traipsing around looking for a purpose. Maybe that's what I am doing, looking for my purpose.

That purpose clinks against my foot. I look down just in time to see my Father's cross necklace as it bounces off my shoe. I gasp, dropping my pipe and apple in an instant, bending down quickly as I try to catch it. It slips beneath the nearest door, sliding between the crack.

My heart stutters in my chest. Panicking, I jam my fingers under the door, desperate to right my wrong by grabbing the chain to retrieve the piece of jewelry that my father has never let leave his neck.

I feel the chain, and just as I think I have it, the thing somehow gets away from me. That's when it begins clanking away. It sounds like the necklace is falling down a flight of stairs.

Desperate, and unsure where I am, I struggle with the doorknob, trying desperately to get it open. All of a sudden, I look around and realize exactly which door I have stumbled upon. It's the door to the dungeons.

I pale, feeling all the blood draining from my face.

No one goes down there. Now I've not only lost my father's prized necklace, but I've lost is down the only place that's locked up tight.

Gulping, I look around frantically to see if anyone saw what happened. No one is around, but that is only a small win in this situation. I have no way of getting to the necklace. Something my father loves more than me and I've sent it to its death at the bottom of a staircase that won't be used again until another clan goes to war and prisoners are taken.

That's not likely to happen, so I'll have to find a way to get it myself.

Without a second to lose, I snatch up my pipe and abandon my half-eaten apple to the rats. This mission is more important than finishing my delicious fruit.

I know full well that my father will be at dinner and that means that his chambers will be empty. That's my target now. If I can just slip in and out with a key, then I will be set to return and finish my goal.

As I walk, trying to climb up the stairs as quickly as I can without upsetting my lungs, I don't know what I should be feeling. Even though I feel sick to my stomach I know there is some semblance of hope deep inside of me.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime, one I've been waiting for.

I have always been a burden to my father. First, the embarrassment came when I was born a girl, and second when it was discovered that I was born with an uncurable ailment that would render me weak and sickly forever.

Father loves his cross. He's carried it on his person since I could remember and beyond. As soon as he realizes that it's gone, he will enlist every able-bodied man to search for it. No stone would go unturned, and no door left locked.

If I am the first to find it, then surely he will see that I am not the useless girl that he seems to think that I am. I won't let this illness make me as weak as everyone thinks that I am. This is how I will prove myself.

Smiling to myself, still nauseated, I rush to get to that key that will redeem me.