Day In. Hide Out.

Chapter 2

 I hear heavy creaking on the winding staircase coming into the room and involuntarily begin scrubbing more vigorously. "I like this floor, you wretch! Don't scrape the bloody surface off," King Branton yells with a glare down at me.

He's a stout man, with a belly like Saint Claus who's had too many cookies on one Christmas. A shower of amber colored whiskers decorate his cheeks and chin, but an unsightly mole draws your eyes to his upper lip. He has pale, blue eyes, like melting ice, and his dark pupils seem to be looking right through you. His wan pink lips are pursed in a straight line as his dragging blue robe slides off the last step and onto the marble flooring. He turns to me, crosses his arms for a moment, and stares.

I glare back into his colorless eyes as I stand up and pat my leg. Red, who was lounging under the coffee table asleep, jumps up and trots over to me, sniffing the bottom of the soapy bucket as I pick it up and carry it to the storage closet. With that, I go around the staircase and slip into the miniature hallway where a trapdoor hides under a red rug.
Reaching down, I push back the rug carefully and pull the elaborate black knocker up from the wood. Grasping it firmly with both hands, I pull it from its place and set it gingerly on top of the curled rug. Underneath me, a long cement staircase leads steeply down to a dark, bottomless abyss. I lift a candle from the ledge, hiding under the floorboards beneath me, and light it with a match sitting beside it. As the tiny flame flickers, I hear footsteps approaching on the creaky wood flooring of the hallway.

I briskly grab the door and the rug in one hand, and put my foot on the first step. Though everyone knows that I live in the basement, no one knows exactly how I get there, or what's down there. I sit down on the first step and slide down a bit until I touch the second step, and so on for a couple more. With that, I pull the rug and trapdoor back down to the ground and have only the soft orange glow of the little fire as guidance.

I bend my head down to avoid some of the cobwebs strung along the ceiling, and walk down the damp, cold stairs. As I near the bottom of the staircase, it gets a bit lighter. Evening moonlight spills from a small window near the ceiling into the dank room. A square of moonlight lands on my tan bedspread as I draw it back.

I can lose myself in the huge bed. It fills the room and is the only other piece of furniture besides a small dresser against the wall under the window. The large wooden headboard looms over me and casts shadows on the bed. I lay down and pull the comforter up to my chin, boxing myself in with pillows to feel safe. As the minutes drag by, the moon rises higher, pulling its comforting light away with it. The light dims, and I lay in the sea of pillows and blankets until it is nearly pitch dark.

Then, reaching carefully to the corner of the bed, I pull my sheets away and plant my bare feet on the cold cement floor. I pull the hem of my dress up from my ankles and prop it on my knees. It's a simple white dress, a bit thicker than most, with a long skirt and loose, flowy sleeves to my elbows. I slip on my boots carefully, fastening the buckles and running my fingers over the worn leather as if it were still as soft and smooth as when I'd been given them.

You see, my father was a cobbler, and these shoes are the last ones he ever made me. He made them for when I grew older, and he was going to give them to me for my thirteenth birthday. He kept them hidden away in a beautiful wooden box at the back of his workshop, decorated with a silk pink ribbon tied around the front. But he never made it far enough to give them to me. And so I got them when I was eleven, just before I was exiled to the castle, and just after he died.

I bend down and pull a satchel from under the dresser. Brushing the cobwebs and dust from it, I unbuckle the front and open a drawer. Inside, neatly folded, are stacks of clothing. Carefully, I pull three dresses from their place on the right and set them in the bag. Each is a different color, made of soft fabric and long, to keep the fall wind from chilling my legs. Again, I reach into the drawer and take away a heavy winter coat, for the chilly nights when the snow or rain comes and the fur inside is all that keeps me warm. Then, I drop in a pair of black shoes, closed toed but open on the tops, for running and playing in the meadows or walking long distances without my feet aching.

From the next drawer up, I retrieve my lavish food supply, which consists of only the following: four small loaves of bread, crusty on the edges but still moist enough to eat in the middle; a tin of soft cookies I stole from the kitchen in the night; a couple of apples and a soft orange; and a large glass jar full of fresh water.

I unload my stolen groceries into another compartment of the bag, easing the glass jar in last, and tie up that section. And finally, I open the foremost pocket and put in a box of matches and a couple of candle sticks. Closing up the satchel, I pick my only item of clothing up off of the bed and put it on. It's a cloak, with soft lining and a hood, thinner than my winter coat but thicker than my dress itself. The cloak is a dark purple, not bright like Miss Ballard's royal purple nightdress, but dark and bluish like the shadows the moonlight was making outside amongst the trees.

I tie the ribbon at my neck and button it all the way down to hide my snow white dress. It still dances around my ankles, but the moonlight hopefully will make no notion to hide away and enhance the purity and cleanliness of the fabric. I hang the heavy satchel up on my shoulder and take one last look at the room to which I've been confined for nearly five years now.