The Secret Ball
By Ninetails
Chapter 6: The Scrying Bowl
Quatre looked up at his sister, his mind working hard to think of a way to explain the bowl without admitting he'd been in the forest. It would be easier to tell the truth, but then all his sisters and his twin would want to go and his father would be on to them in no time.
The true story was that once again, as he had done the day before, he'd slipped through the opening in the wall and stole out into the forest under the pretense of taking sword lessons – turned cooking lessons. It had been just hours ago.
The day was gray and he clutched at the cushions, remembering.
Taking off his silk shoes, he once again began to pick his way over slippery rocks and fallen branches, moss and damp dirt. A mist of rain had caused strands of silken hair to dampen against his brow.
He'd gone only several steps when he paused.
An ornate bowl, from which a strange light emanated, had sat nestled in the gnarled roots of a giant, dead tree. The sky had been so gray that the unearthly swirl of light couldn't have been a reflection of the sun caught in the bowl's golden interior.
Quatre had knelt and picked up the bowl, carefully holding it in his hands. The light continued to swirl inside the bowl, then unexpectedly expanded until it poured out of the bowl.
Startled, he'd tossed away the bowl, which had slid across moss before coming to rest upside down. The glow had shone a few minutes more, illuminating the mossy ground, and then receded. Wary yet curious, Quatre had retrieved the bowl, now looking simply like an elegant vessel with a golden interior.
At that moment the sky had opened, causing a furious dance of light and shadows on the leaves above his head. Clutching the bowl under his cape, he'd ran back to the manor. His first stop had been to his chamber, where he'd planned to hide the bowl in his trunk. But two maids were in there, cleaning. "We'll be done in a moment, lad," one of them told Quatre. "Go join your brother in the study, if you please."
Quatre opted to go to the sewing room, where he thought that only a few of his sisters would be, hoping to conceal the bowl under his cape. He'd meant to keep it hidden from them at least until he could think of a way to explain where he'd found it without revealing that he'd been out in the forest.
But now ten curious faces surrounded him, alerted by Iria's loud question. "What is it?" asked Saens, echoing her sister's query, unable to take her blue eyes off the ever-expanding ball of light in the bowl.
Staring more closely into the spinning glow, Quatre observed an image of a figure moving inside the ball of light. It was in miniature, like a small, moving painting.
Straining to bring the blurry image into focus, he saw that the figure was female. If all his sisters had not been standing around him, he might have thought the figure was one of them; the family resemblance was that strong. Could it be some eleventh sister?
The woman in the glowing ball gestured, as though she wanted to show Quatre something. Why was she so blurry, though? Was she under water? That's how it seemed to Quatre, but how could she breathe if she were underwater?
Quatre glanced up at his sisters. "What do you think she's trying to tell us?" he asked.
"Who?" Sumire asked.
"Don't you see the woman in the bowl?" Quatre asked.
"I only see light," Ayame said, and the others nodded in agreement.
Looking back to the figure in the bowl, Quatre saw that the woman had lain down as if asleep. Then she stood and pointed at the floor. What was she trying to say?
With the bowl still in his hands, Quatre left the sewing chamber and headed down the wide, turning staircase toward the first floor bedchambers that housed his sisters' and his sleeping quarters. His sisters trailed along behind him.
"What's that, twin o' mine?" Duo asked as they passed by him. "Where are you taking it?"
"I want to see something," Quatre replied with a tight smile for his twin.
They entered the girls' bedchamber with its ten beds, five on either side of the large room. It was each of his sisters' favorite place in the whole manor house because it was all that remained of the original cottage before the other rooms and floors had been added. It retained the original wooden walls, rustic beams, and wide, rough-hewn floorboards.
Once they were all inside, Quatre locked the door and dropped to his knees. Flattening onto the floor, he peered under the rows of beds. Not seeing what he searched for on one side, he did the same thing on the other.
"What are you doing, little brother? What is it that you search for?" asked Charme.
Quatre picked himself off the floor and sat back on his heels. Glancing down, he saw that the woman in the glow was still pointing to the floor. "What do you see? What is it? What's in the bowl?" Duo asked rapidly, keenly interested.
When Quatre told him, a look of sudden inspiration swept across his twin's face. Hurrying to the farthest space that occupied his and Quatre's beds. He gestured for his siblings to enter the space enclosed by a screen. He gestured for them to assist him in shoving his heavy iron-wrought bed away from the wall. As soon as the bed was moved, they saw a trapdoor with an iron handle in the floor.
The sisters shot questioning looks at Duo, while his twin intently studied the trapdoor. "What is it?" Ayame asked, slowly approaching the iron handle.
"I discovered it a long time ago," he explained with a wide grin. "A breeze wafts up from its cracks and the cold air wakes me sometimes in the night. It cools me in summer, a definite plus, but makes me shiver in winter."
"Why have you never mentioned it before?" Iria asked him sharply.
"It's always been there, ever since we moved into this room," Duo explained with a shrug and a jaunty swish of his chestnut braid. "I assumed it was simply part of the house, an old root cellar or something. This room was originally the back part of the kitchen."
The enclosed room became alive with nervous anticipation. "You say she's pointing to the floor?" Saens checked with Quatre.
Quatre nodded.
They all looked to Iria as they always did in times of indecision. "Perhaps we should tell father of this," Iria considered slowly.
All of them scowled at her. "This is no time to be so sensible, eldest sister," Duo objected, voicing what they were all thinking. Here was an adventure thrown in their path when they were so absolutely starved for anything new and exciting.
Iria nodded a bit reluctantly and bent forward to grasp the handle. Tugging at it, she managed to pry it up slightly. Her twin brothers immediately came forward to help her, crowding their hand onto the handle.
"Now!" Iria shouted as they united to give the door a powerful yank. The effort threw them backward onto the floor in a pile, their sisters hurriedly backing off in a flurry of long skirts.
As they got up, Quatre was the first to begin moving to the drum and lute music wafting through the open trapdoor. At first he didn't even know he was swaying in time with it, but then he noticed Duo and their sisters doing the same. As if unable to resist, he stepped forward and turned in a full circle, swinging his arms in a graceful arc, beckoning them downwards.
The drumbeats grew louder, more insistent, moving the siblings faster and faster with their driving rhythms. The siblings laughed with giddy delight, jubilant as they twirled and leapt. The music swelled to a crashing crescendo and, one by one, with one boy taking the lead, and the other boy tailing the sisters, they climbed down into the opening in the floor.
TBC
06/13/07
Author's Notes:
Oh. My. God. I had a VERY close encounter with an exhibitionist at the bus this morning, as I was on my way to school for enrollment. Gah. I'm traumatized for life. (shudders) If you want details, tell me in a review or e-mail or something. Gah.
'Nyways, next chappie would be a short interval featuring the villain of the story. I hope you liked how this chappie turned out. I'm too not in the mood to add more, what with being somewhat-molested in the bus and all. Gah! (shudders)