A Snow Queen's Tale- a Frozen Fanfiction

Chapter 85: Old Fashioned Clothes

🌻Anna's Pov🌻
I shivered. Things just kept getting creepier.
With only the light of the lantern to guide us, we had made our way out of the old dining room. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any direct access from the sealed section of the castle back into the main section or to the outside world.
On the upside, I noticed the flames of the lamp flickering in a specific direction, which indicated air moving through the walls. This led us to another partially open secret door, which led to a different secret passageway. Other than being dustier, it was no different from the first one: super-high ceilings, exposed beams, narrow windows letting in small amounts of light.
We moved as quickly as we could, but I was getting increasingly concerned about time. The ball was scheduled to start soon, and if I missed this... if Elsa missed this...
But there was only so much rushing we could do. Sometimes the space was so narrow we had to scoot through sideways while holding our breath. Other times the ceiling was so low we practically had to crawl. One stretch of crawlspace was rotting, and Elsa had to create a narrow ice bridge for the two of us to get safely across. Another section was blocked by a locked door, which fortunately, I was able to open with a bent hairpin.
We felt like we had been walking for miles, and given how much the passages twisted and turned and doubled back on themselves, we probably had.
      And then, suddenly, we found themselves in an old storage room. Along with walls, there were racks and boxes of clothes— mostly old dresses out of fashion for more than a generation, and mostly covered in a thick layer of dust.
      Mostly.
      "Those clothes..." Elsa's voice was quiet. "They've been arranged, like..."
      I finished the thought. "Like they were being worn by people and the people just vanished?"
      It was true. In the center of the crowded space, a group of ornate outfits lay puddles as if people had been dancing inside them. Near the bottom, shoes could be seen. Unlike the clothes still hanging or folded away, these were relatively dust free—as if they had been moved very recently.
      "But...they must have been like this for years. I mean," Elsa answered, "for whatever reason, they were stored this way. Or..."
      I poked at a dress, feeling the cloth. My hand recoiled instantly. "It's cold. Almost as cold as ice."
      Elsa grabbed the dress. "It's like it was sitting out during a winter night! How could it be so cold?"
      I gestured wildly. "Have you not been listening to anything we've been talking about for the last few hours? Ghosts!"