Hauntingly Lovely

Epilogue Chapter 3

Elizabeth's P.O.V.

I get to the woods and start walking towards the house when my knight Issac stops me. I start to panic.
"Halt, have you seen the princess?" He asks. I'm caught off guard, I thought he had recognized me but I guess not.
"No." I say in a deeper voice than usual and walk by him. When I get to the house it's all lit up and decorations are everywhere. I walk to the door and before I even knock a boy in a masquerade mask holding some candy opens it for me. I walk in and grab some candy. Strangely this place is abandoned and old looking, but some parts look newer than others. It's almost as if someone tried to fix it up at some point but gave up on the whole thing.
I spend most of the night talking with this group of people the masquerade boy introduced me to, there's him, a girl who's little red riding hood, a cat girl, a cowboy, a bloody prisoner, and a crazy mental patient who looks sorta like my sister might if she was still my age and a boy. Of course that's not possible though, she'd be in her thirties by now if she is still alive. We talk and drink, I've never been drunk before tonight but it feels pretty good.
Eventually, I let it slip that I'm the princess by accident.
"Do you know what happened to the royal kids who came before you?" The mental patient asks me.
"Yeah, they were kidnapped on Halloween. You're not gonna scare me with some scary stories about the prince and my sister." I tell him. He looks down at me.
"That story is what the king and queen want you to think," he replies. "They weren't really kidnapped though, apparently they came to this exact party one Halloween, just like you." He continues.
"If they weren't kidnapped what do you think happened to them?" I ask him, unsure if I really want the answer.
"I heard they got sick of all the rules they had to put up with, maybe it was the arranged marriage that made them do it. I think they ran away." He says.
"I bet they left and went far far away, never to return. They're probably happier now, having good lives." The prisoner adds on.
"The point is, they probably left by choice, and they were probably better off because of it." The lunatic finishes. I think about it for a moment and remember the prince's room.
"Heh, you know, you kinda look like she did." I tell him. I pull out the picture I had tucked in my hood. "See?" I ask.
"Where did you find that?" The prisoner asks, looking over the asylum guy's shoulder.
"I found it in the closet of the prince's room in the abandoned castle, I go there a lot and I always thought it was a prison cell until I found the closet earlier today." I tell him. They flip the note over and read the back before handing it back to me. I put it back in my hood.
"They definitely wanted escape." Prisoner boy says quietly. Then I hear a loud voice from the direction of the dance floor, the DJ is shouting about a costume contest. I start to walk over but the lunatic boy grabs my arm.
"Don't. The contest is rigged, it's always rigged. Honestly, you should go home. Your parents are probably worried sick about you and they already lost one heir to the throne, they won't want to lose another." He says, he looks almost sad for a moment, then he gives me a harsh push towards the door. So I leave and go home. My parents are waiting for me at the door.
"Young lady where have you been!" My father shouts at me, my mother is crying.
"I went to a party, it's no big deal." I say.
"No big deal! Do you have any idea how worried we were? What if you had ended up like your sister!" He shouts again.
"My sister! My sister who ran away! My sister you lied about!" I shout back. He looks at me in surprise, he starts to cry too.
After that night, they told me what really happened to my sister. About how they blamed themselves and how they were doing everything they could to make sure they didn't lose me too. I started following the rules more too, knowing they just wanted to keep me safe. I grew up, I didn't marry royalty like my family wanted, but my husband is a kind man, a funny man, a good, and honest man. Together we fixed up the abandoned castle and turned it into a home for homeless children of all kinds. We had some kids and made our castle a little less foreboding for them. Now, I am the queen of this kingdom, and although I never went back to that house, as the queen I had the abandoned house where my sister and the prince once partied, and where I once partied, declared as a national monument. The only day people are allowed in is on Halloween night during the party that will go on forever.