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#1: The Castle
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| Prompt: "Who lives in this castle, and why?" |
“We’re going to die.”
She stood on the shore, watching her brothers pick their way
along the rickety dock, toward the green-black-algae-crusted dinghy tied there.
“We are not going to die, Lisa,” growled Mark, the oldest of
the brothers. “If they didn’t want people over here, why wasn’t there a sign?”
Lisa glanced over her shoulder, back to where her parents
and the younger kids played. She could neither hear nor see them. If they ran
into trouble, there would be no way for the others to know. They were
completely separated from safety.
“Got it!” Roger grunted, freeing the rope from its cleat.
The boat wobbled as the boys climbed in.
“You coming, Lisa?” Mark invited her.
She stared warily at the uneven surface dock, full of gaps
and hanging boards that looked ready to collapse.
“Can I get in from here?” she asked.
“I’ll try,” Mark offered, taking the oars. As he maneuvered
the boat closer to shore, one of the oars twisted in his hand. “Yowch!” He
dropped it, revealing a large splinter protruding the space between his thumb
and pointer finger. He pulled it out, releasing a small trickle of blood.
“Mark! Are you okay?” Lisa gasped.
He waved his hand, sending a tiny red droplet flying into
the water. “I’m fine; I got it out. It’ll stop bleeding soon.”
Lisa perched gingerly, not scooting lest her groaning wooden
seat give her the same treatment.
“This is a really bad idea,” she complained as they set off
into the water.
“This is a fantastic idea!” Roger argued. “Just think how
the others are going to react when we row over in this thing!”
Lisa crossed her arms. “If it even makes it that far,” she
grumbled.
Mark towed the boat along the craggy cliff face. As they
moved out to what should have been a better vantage point back to the beach,
Lisa felt her panic climbing when she realized she couldn’t see the beach at
all. The area around them seemed closed in by a high cliff.
“Um, we should go back,” she declared immediately.
“Are you kidding?” Roger scoffed at her. “We just got in the
boat!”
“Guys, look!” Mark pointed with his voice, his eyes fixed on
something ahead of them.
A large rock, roughly the height of the cliffs, protruded
from the water, with a ladder leaning against a door-sized opening.
“What’s a ladder doing way out here?” Lisa glanced around.
“That’s awesome!” Roger hooted.
Mark directed the boat to the end of the ladder. Roger
helped him tie the mooring rope to the bottom rung.
“Let’s check it out, guys,” he suggested. The shiny,
polished wood seemed to be in better shape than the dock or the boat had been.
“This is so random!” Lisa mused, but as her brothers climbed
into the hole in the rock face, she had no choice but to follow.
They climbed in the dark for a long time. Tiny gaps between
boulders let in the tiniest amount of light, but other than that, they
basically had to feel their way blindly around. Lisa regretted taking her mom’s
advice and leaving her phone “safely” in the car. At the very least, they could
have used the flashlight.
“Ouch!” Roger cried, from the front.
Lisa froze in her tracks. “What is it?” she hissed. “What
happened?”
“Banged my shin,” Roger grunted through clenched teeth.
“Against these... Wait...” his voice caught as they heard him moving around.
“Hey guys! There are stairs here!”
“Stairs?” echoed Mark. “Why would there be stairs in the
middle of a cave?”
“Maybe the same reason there is a ladder,” Lisa suggested.
“Guys,” trepidation leached through Roger’s voice, “you
don’t think somebody, like, lives in here, do you?”
Lisa snorted. “Oh, now you’re nervous?”
“Let’s just keep climbing,” Mark urged.
Traveling was easier along the stairs, steadily lifting them
upward. They bent sharply, and the darkness faded because light came in from
another hole in the cliff side—but this one had a pane of glass in it!
“Who puts windows in a cave?” Mark wondered aloud. The
further they climbed, the bigger the windows got, and the more the walls ceased
looking like raw rock, and more like shaped stone bricks with mortar between
them. Finally, they reached a door blocking the stairwell.
Roger immediately tried the handle. The door wouldn’t budge
at first. “It’s lo—“ Even as he said it, the door creaked open, and the three
siblings emerged into a large room with high, vaulted ceilings.
“It’s a castle!” Lisa cried. Doorways all around provided
access to various rooms and towers, large windows let in plenty of light, while
torches hanging from sconces flickered gently, dispelling shadows and radiating
heat.
“All right!” Roger bellowed loud enough to echo in the
space. “This is awesome!”
“How come Mom and Dad never mentioned that there was a
castle near the beach?” Mark wondered.
Lisa peered out the window, but the surrounding area was
still shrouded in fog. “I wonder if this place used to be part of the land, but
erosion separated it?”
Mark counted six doors. “I’m all for exploring this place,”
he said. “Which door should we try first?”
“How about this one?”
Roger immediately turned around and hauled on the handle
closest to him. The door didn’t budge.
Lisa turned at the soft creak emanating behind her. Mark had
joined Roger, and both brothers hauled with all their strength at the one door.
Lisa watched the one door waggle back and forth, as if something rugged at it.
“Guys?” she called back to her brothers. It was dark in the
area immediately behind the door, but she could see light coming from somewhere
inside.
“We just need to find something to pry it open,” Roger
panted. “Lisa, see if you can find a key or something.”
“Guys!” she snapped, prompting them both to turn.
“Oh,” Mark muttered.
“What the heck?” Roger demanded, resting his hands on his
knees as he fought to regain his breath. “How did you get that one open?”
“I didn’t,” Lisa blinked her wide eyes. “It was already
open.”
Both boys shuffled over to her, peering warily inside.
“Well, I guess we’re checking out this one first,” Mark
mused, crossing the threshold once he knew it was safe.
After a short entryway, they came to a long, narrow room
with just enough space to get all the way around an exceptionally large dining
table, still piled high with food. All three siblings gawked at the
incomprehensible array of confections and roasted game, fruit and vegetables
carved, plated, and displayed in a truly extravagant manner.
“Heck yes!” Roger stepped forward first. “I don’t know about
you guys, but I am hungry!” He grabbed an orange on the plate before him.
Rather than lifting it up, though, it appeared to Lisa and Mark that he just
stood there with a frown.
“What is it?” Mark asked.
Roger planted his feet and strained again. “It won’t move!”
he grunted. “Just like the door!”
“All this food is fake?” Lisa squealed. The mere suggestion
of getting a meal had wrenched at her stomach, but if this whole table was
nothing but a farce, she wouldn’t be able to satisfy this sudden hunger. The
cooler on the beach suddenly returned to her memory, and Lisa felt the wave of
dread wash over her.
“It’s not fake,” Roger assured her. “I can feel it like it’s
real... it’s just not moving.”
“But how?” Mark dropped to his hands and knees to see if
maybe there was some kind of mechanism concealed under the table, but he saw
only wood.
“Guys, this room is a bust, let’s get out of here,” Lisa
rambled quickly, heading for the door.
The three siblings emerged into the main hall once again. By
the light outside, it seemed that hardly any time had passed. She glanced at
her watch. The digital face flickered in and out.
“Oh no!” she murmured, trying to press buttons, but nothing
worked. What was this place?
“Hey, look!” Roger hollered, “There’s another door open.”
Directly across from them, the heavy wooden door stood
invitingly. Through this one, they could see shelves of some kind.
“I am so creeped out right now!” Lisa hissed, not caring who
knew it.
They entered a room less illuminated by natural light, as it
filtered through thick stained-glass panes. The bulk of the light came from
lamps and torches placed in protected alcoves. Rows upon rows of shelves filled
the room, bearing books of all shapes and sizes, bound with cloth or leather.
“A library?” Roger protested, but even the sound of his
voice did not seem to resonate one bit in the presence of all these pages, not
to mention the thick carpet runners that lined the floor.
One particularly large specimen lay displayed on an ornate
brass book stand at the front of the room. It had a shiny red leather cover,
and embossed gold writing on the front. Just the mere sight of books had lulled
Lisa into a sense of comfort, but as she approached the book on the stand, she
realized there was something wrong.
She squinted, and tilted her head to read the writing on the
cover.
Scratch that; something was very, very wrong.
“Guys.” She instinctively shrank back to cling to Mark.
“What is it?” He whispered, putting his arm around her and
attempting to see what she saw.
Lisa glanced to the shelf beside her and confirmed that
every book held the same disturbing feature.
“Look at the title,” she said. “That’s not English.”
“Oh wow, you’re right!” Even Roger, normally the one so loud
you could hear him several blocks away, couldn’t manage more than a soft murmur
in this strange room. “That’s not even Old English, I bet!”
Lisa shuddered and glanced around. She was by no means a
linguistics expert, but the swirling script adorning every book in this library
didn’t match any language she’d ever seen.
“What is this place?” she whispered to herself.
>>>>>>>> (To Be Continued?)
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