The Lost Crown

Through the Cabinet of Doorways

Walliam’s mind raced when he tried to fall asleep that night.  Planchiko had told him that they would probably be sailing the next day as well.  He was waiting to hear from someone, and they had to stay until he received the message.  Then they would go.  Walliam wanted to roam around the city and see the sights.

He was thinking about home and suddenly he found himself standing in the drawing room, where Planchiko had drawn the doorway and they had entered the hidden world.  He looked around and saw that it looked just as it had earlier that evening.

He thought he heard a sound and he carefully went to the door to the room.  He heard a few footsteps down the hallway.  He heard them and then he heard nothing.  He peeked slowly around the corner and saw that the hallway was empty.  He went down to the next doorway and slowly peeked into the library.

The room was empty but the curtain near the other end, that screened off the niche with the strange cabinet, was moving slightly.  Then it was still.  Walliam took a deep breath.  He didn’t know what to do.  He thought he should go back to his room and make himself go back to sleep.  He realized he needed to ask Planchiko how to get out of the hidden world when he dreamed himself there.

After another moment of waiting he crossed the library to the niche.  He pulled the curtain aside and looked at the cabinet in the strange half-light that illuminated the hidden world.  The door on the left side of the cabinet stood open.

Walliam carefully went around the cabinet from the other side so he could look inside the open door that blocked his way.  The inside looked just as it had when he had looked through the other door.  He saw the same little hole midway down the side of the wood backing of the cabinet.  He put his finger in and tugged to the right and the wood folded like a cloth curtain and revealed a dark, stone walled room on the other side.  He listened but heard nothing.  He poked his head through and looked around and saw that it was a large storage room.  There were a few strange mounds, covered with burlap, sitting in the corner.  There was another cabinet, off to the right, that looked like the one he was peeking through.  

Awkwardly, still holding the curtain to the side with his right hand, he took a careful step into the storage room.  He realized that he was stepping out of another cabinet, the glass door standing open.  There were two cabinets in the room.  He wondered where this storage room was.  There were no windows and he saw nothing that he could identify the place with.

Walliam looked at the second cabinet.  A wooden door stood open, but he saw that there were other doors on the other sides of the cabinet.  He thought that perhaps the person he had heard had gone through that cabinet as well.  He looked at the doorway he was keeping open.  He looked back through at the library.  He let go of the curtain and it fell into place.  He put his finger into the small hole and pulled it aside again and saw that he cold still see the library in Sundjahar House.  Nothing had changed and he let the curtain fall shut again.

He went to the next cabinet and looked in the open door.  The back of this cabinet looked like it was lined with velvet.  He reached to the velvet and pulled it aside and looked at the room on the other side.  It looked like a library, but not like the one he had left behind.  There were numerous bookshelves along the walls, that he could see from his perch inside the cabinet.  He thought for a minute about stepping through and exploring further when he heard a man’s voice.  Whomever it was, he was standing out of Walliam’s sight.

“There, now do you see?  I showed you how to do it.  Those protections are very limited in strength.  If you bend it, like I just did, you can walk right through.”

Another man’s voice spoke.  It was an older man, and of a higher pitch.  “But I just don’t see what difference it will make.  If he tries to take them how can I stop him?”