Here's another one. Enjoy!!
Chapter 24
The Forbidden Door
"That was mean of him!"
"But he ap-gized."
"Is she gonna be okay?"
"I was sick like that 'afore and Mommy made me feel all better."
"So then what happened?"
Angela sat in the music room with Zoey, listening to Gwen play the grand piano.
She was truly talented. Angela had never before heard anyone play the instrument so well, not even the man who had tried to teach her had been this good. As for her, the blonde's fingers just hadn't gotten the hang of "dancing upon ivory and ebony to create angelic melodies".
The song tapered to a halt after several runs that had Gwen's fingers flying over the keys and perfect crescendo.
"Beautiful!" she said, clapping.
"Pretty! Gwen, you've gotta be the best piano player I've ever heard!"
"And how many of you heard, brat?"
Three heads whipped around to see a slender figure leaning in the doorway.
"Julietta!"
"Miss me?" the gypsy turned to look at someone further down the hall. "Beat it, Raph! I'm not gonna collapse, alright?"
Angela rushed over to her. "Are you alright? Leo told us that you were very ill, but for two weeks?"
"I got a bad cold."
"Colds do not last for two weeks. Pneumonia does." Gwen looked at the recently recovered up and down.
"Does it matter what I had? I'm better now."
"That's good!" Zoey hugged the taller young woman tightly. "I'm so happy you're better!"
"So am I," Julietta stretched her slender arms to the ceiling. "I finally get to escape that prison and, even better, the insane warden."
"What do you mean?"
"Raph wouldn't let me sit up, let alone stand up. I had to eat soup for two weeks. And he kept drugging me! Every damn cup of tea that turtle gave me put me to sleep!" She tossed her long dark curls over her shoulder. "This morning was the first time he let me get up by myself and eat something solid."
"Why was he the one looking after you?"
"Punishment. For both of us."
"He couldn't have been that bad," Gwen said fairly. "You're better now, aren't you?"
"Did you… you know, forgive him?"
"Zoey! That's none of our business!"
"Chill, Angie. Yeah, Zoe, we made up. Kinda."
"What's 'kinda'?" Angela asked, suspiciously.
"It's kinda none of your business.
"Just my luck that the day I'm released it's raining. You guys were looking after the horses, right?"
Gwen nodded. "Of course, except Demonio and Dancer kept trying to bite us."
Julietta's eyes narrowed, "I'll deal with them later."
"Don't be too hard on them, they're not used to me."
"Whatever. What do we do now?"
"Let's explore!" Zoey grabbed Gwen and Julietta's arms and tugged excitedly. "I've already seen everything on the third, second, and first floors, but I haven't seen the fourth floor! C'mon!"
"You want to spend all day wandering around the castle looking at old rooms?"
"What else is there to do?"
There was no arguing with this and so off they went.
By this time, Angela had almost been in the castle for almost a year and was getting to know it very well. Thus she was quickly able to lead them to a flight of stairs that took them to the fourth floor.
Like the other floors, it had flawlessly polished hardwood floors and carpets expensive enough to buy entire villages. The walls were covered with paintings and tapestries and were interrupted at regular intervals by niches holding sculptures, vases and weird little knickknacks.
Doors were opened and the rooms were examined.
Angela and Julietta were very taken with the armory they found. The walls were filled with every type of sword, spear, and bow imaginable.
"Look at these…" Julietta held two lovely slender swords.
"Aren't those kopis?"
The gypsy shook her head. "Kinda. These are the kopis used by the northern caravans. They're not like mine."
"Hey! Come see this!" Zoey called from across the room.
In the corner was a small forge, obviously for smaller repairs. And carefully wrapped in a stretch of leather on top of the anvil were:
"My blades!" Julietta cried.
And so they were – completely nick-free.
"One of the guys must have fixed them for you," Gwen remarked. "You'd better leave them until tonight."
"Why?"
"Well, one: they were obviously meant as a surprise for you. Two: you don't have your scabbards; you'd be carrying them around all day."
Scowling, the gypsy laid her beloved weapons down and tenderly rewrapped them in the leather.
They left the armory and wandered further down the hall.
Bedroom, sitting room, a room full of painting supplies – Zoey insisted on going in and staring at everything for at least five minutes before they could leave – a room stuffed with weird contraptions.
"This must be where Donny keeps his failed experiments!" Gwen cried, going inside.
They spent fifteen minutes trying not to knock anything over while the brown-haired girl fluttered around happily, examining each device thoroughly. It wasn't until Julietta threatened to leave her behind that she reluctantly left the room.
Bedroom, bedroom, locked, a balcony of the library, sitting room, bathroom, bedroom, bedroom, closet, a room full of flutes, a room with mirrors on all of the walls except the outer one and a wooden bar running across one side of the room, a room with a piano in it – "Don't even think about it!" Julietta warned Gwen – and a room filled with shelves that were, in turn, filled with strange boxes.
"What are these things?" Gwen wondered aloud.
"I think they're music boxes," Angela offered.
Zoey walked through one of the rows of shelves. "What are music boxes?"
The noblewoman walked in and pulled off a box from a shelf. It was covered in green enamel, looked a bit like a turtle's shell, and had a pattern of fish on it. Angie opened it.
Inside was the figure of a strange, brightly colored fish slowly rotating around and around. Best of all was the tinkling music coming from it.
"You see?" Angela said, holding it out to her friends. "There's a little crank in the back that you twist so that the music comes out. It starts playing when you open it. Isn't it beautiful?"
Zoey immediately rushed over and picked out another and opened it. This one had a little rotating butterfly and played a bright, cheerful tune.
The next ten minutes were spent hurrying about and taking music boxes off the shelves and listening to the tunes.
When they were finally bored of the exquisite little wonders, Gwen, Angela and Zoey turned to leave. They realized they were missing one.
"Julie?"
The gypsy was sitting crosslegged on the floor, a black music box in her lap. The box had the pattern of a beautiful red rose on a green stem lined with vicious thorns. Inside was a little figurine in the shape of a girl with a flaring skirt and as she turned, a dark rich melody drifted out.
"Julietta?"
She looked up at them, startled. "What?"
"We're leaving now."
"Oh," she stood up. "Okay. Let me put this away."
After Julietta had set the music box carefully back onto its shelf, they continued down the hall, looking into more rooms and staring at more priceless objects.
"You know," Gwen said after a while. "I wonder how the guys all came to live here. I mean… this place was built for royalty and the guys… well, unless turtles and rats have royalty, I think something is definitely going on."
Angela nodded solemnly. "All Leo would tell me is that this place has been in their family for generations."
"So what?" Julietta said sarcastically. "A rat male laid four turtle eggs? Raph told me that they've lived here their whole lives."
"Raph told you that?"
"I was strapped down for two weeks, there wasn't much to do but talk."
"Actually," Zoey said, staring at a landscape painting big enough to be a bed. "Mikey told me that they're adopted."
"Well, that makes more sense."
"Yeah, at least I can get the question of how a rat has four turtle sons."
"But that still begs the question," Gwen commented. "Of why they're turtles in the first place. In all the books I've read I've never heard of anything like that."
"I asked Raph about that. He just got all defensive and I ended up throwing my tea at him. Good thing, too – it was laced with so much chamomile I would have been a puddle for hours."
"Can't you guys get along?" Angela groaned.
"Sure. We spent two weeks alone together and we're both still alive, aren't we?"
Angie tried to imagine Julietta and Raph alone together having a civil conversation, and failed.
"Hey come and see this!" Zoey squealed a little further down the hall.
They went and saw the newest room was a balcony that overlooked a large room with marble floors and a long carpet that stretched from the door to an area on the other side.
"What's the carpet leading up to?" Zoey wondered, leaning dangerously over the railing.
"Don't know, this balcony's in the way." Julietta craned her neck.
"A grandfather clock!" Gwen said, pointing.
"What?"
There against the far wall was a huge old grandfather clock that stood a glorious fifteen feet in the air. It was made of oak and hammered gold, its face made of mother of pearl and its numbers signified by glittering jewels. In its case was the figure of a small man holding up the pendulum and weights. He appeared to frozen in the act of banging on the glass.
"There's only one grandfather clock in the castle," Angela said softly. "In the main hall."
"The one we're not allowed into?" Zoey asked.
"Maybe we should leave," Gwen whispered, taking a step back towards the door.
"That sounds like a good idea."
"Why should we?" Julietta demanded. "They left the door open!"
"C'mon!" Angie grabbed the reluctant girl's bandaged arm and dragged her out. "Let's go."
Their exploration was officially over.
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Vittoria fisted her hands in her hair. "How much more of an invitation do these girls need?"
The Lady folded her hands neatly in front of her. "Angela will not go inside. She respects Splinter too much to disobey."
Rachel grinned. "Zoey loves Splinter, but if I lead her to the main hall, she'll go inside."
"Gwen will go if I remind her how curious she is," Mary said.
"Julietta will go just because she's Julietta. But I'll pay her a visit anyway. We'll just have to hope that Angela goes in when she tries to stop them."
***********************************
Angela tucked her legs underneath her in her favorite sun room as she read her latest book. Leo had recommended it to her; it was called The Art of War and was written by an Eastern philosopher. She thought it was fascinating.
After their departure from the forbidden chamber, the four had gone their separate ways, Gwen and Julietta off to have a lesson and Zoey was off searching for Mikey. Julietta had been furious at being forced to leave and Zoey was fiercely disappointed at having missed the chance to snoop. Even Gwen had seemed rather upset at leaving.
But the guys and Master Splinter had been so kind to them all and all they had asked in return was their company and not to enter the room. She was not going to betray their trust.
She turned her full attention to her book and continued to read.
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Gwen couldn't concentrate.
Normally, she would have been fascinated by the improvements that they were brainstorming for the microscope, but today her thoughts kept wandering away to settle on the forbidden main hall.
What was in there that they didn't want her to see?
It wasn't her business, she told herself but there was a soft voice whispering in her thoughts that disagreed. What was the harm in just going to look inside once?
They had forbidden it.
Why? Didn't she want to know? Wasn't she curious?
Of course, she tried to tell the voice, but Master Splinter had asked that she not go in. Donny had asked.
Just once. Never again.
She bit her lip. What should I do?
********************************
That night, Julietta was wandering through a desert with her wolf companion.
She panted heavily – she was dying for a bit of water and, judging by the way her friend's pink tongue was hanging out, so was he. "I hope you know where there's some water around here, boy, or we're gonna be in serious trouble."
The hunter bobbed his head and turned a little to the west. Within five minutes they came upon a huge wooden door standing upright in the middle of the sand. He trotted over to it and scratched at the wood, then turning to look at her expectantly.
A few months ago the gypsy would have demanded an explanation, but now she trusted the wolf completely and did not hesitate to pull open the door.
There was a forest on the other side of the door, with huge venerable trees reaching to the sky with their autumn-colored branches. The coolness of the wooded area was wonderful on her hot skin and she ran gratefully into the trees with her friend at her side.
Within five minutes they had reached a huge lake. Whooping with delight and relief, girl and wolf darted into the water. Goosebumps immediately rose up and down her bronze limbs as she waded further into the water. She drank deeply and splashed herself up and down on her slender arms, cooling her heated flesh.
"MMMMMM… this feels SOOOOOO good," she sighed deeply.
Now thoroughly drenched, Julietta stood up and stretched lazily, the warm fall sun heaven on her skin. Meanwhile, wolf was standing up to his chest in the water looking after her.
"What?"
He looked at her with a familiar expression and cocked his head.
"We'll leave in a sec."
She ran her hands through her wet hair and looked down into the water. She looked as she always did, but soaking wet and red on bronzed cheeks. Then her eyes travelled over to the wolf's reflection.
And choked.
The wolf's reflection was not that of an animal.
He was a man. A gypsy.
About her age with broad shoulders, dark skin, curly black hair, and bright golden eyes. Standing up to his hips in the water exactly where the wolf had been standing.
She whipped her gaze back up. The wolf looked back at her. She turned back to the water.
He was looking off to the right, where she was standing. Seeing where she was looking, his eyes met hers in the water and a slow smirk stretched across his face. The golden eyes shining at her were the exact same as the wolf's. The same as someone else's too…
He grinned at her and pointed off to the side.
She stared silently at him and then slowly looked off towards the direction he was indicating.
A huge door – the door that led to the main hall – was standing in the middle of the lake.
She looked around to look at the wolf – and he was gone.
It was the young man, standing up to his hips in the water and smirking – where the hell had she seen that look before? He pointed at the door and extended a hand to her…
*************************************
And she woke with a start.
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Zoey hummed as she skipped out of her room after her bath after morning training. Julietta had said that they were going to try to actually sit on the horses today – to sit on a horse for real!
She hopped down the stairs and ran down the hall. And then she stopped.
A slender young woman was waving at her.
The acrobat stared – that was the woman who had lured her into the castle – the ghost.
"What are you doing here?"
The woman smiled brightly at her and beckoned her to follow.
"No way, the last time I followed you I ended up being trapped in a castle with a bunch of turtles and a rat!"
An amused smile spread against her face, eyebrows rising.
Zoey pouted. "It doesn't matter how much I like living here with everyone! You tricked me!"
The lady just giggled silently and walked away.
Sticking her lip out, Zoey tried to walk the opposite direction, to just leave this alone and see Rosie… but this was way too cool to let go. She followed the spirit down the hall, down the grand staircase, around the entrance hall and straight to the door of the forbidden main hall.
*******************************
Angela couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Julietta, with her kopis blades hanging from her belt once again, was tugging at the door handle of the off limits main hall. Even worse, Zoey and Gwen were flanking her, identical burning curiosity on their faces.
"Girls!"
The three turned in unison to look at her – Gwen with guilt, Zoey looking rather disappointed and Julietta outright annoyance.
"What do you want, Goldilocks?"
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Trying to open the door." The gypsy turned back to the door and yanked.
It opened easily and silently.
"Don't you dare! Didn't they tell you this was off limits?"
"Sure, but I want to see, anyway."
Angie had to literally remind herself not to tear out a bit of her own hair. "Gwen! Zoey! What are you doing?"
Julietta made to go inside.
"Julietta! You can't do this! We are expressly forbidden to go into the main hall!"
The young woman turned to look at her.
Silver on almost-black.
"Then stay outside."
And then she ducked inside.
The blonde ran to the door and hissed after the rebel. "Get back here!"
When there was no sign of obedience, the noble wheeled around to scold the other two. "What were you thinking?"
Zoey paid no attention, choosing instead to slip inside as well. "Sorry, Angie!"
Mouth hanging open, she watched as the auburn-haired girl vanished into the chamber.
"Angela," Gwen said softly. "I'm going inside. I'll be out in a few minutes, please excuse me."
And she went inside.
There was a long moment during which Angela could only stand stock still. And then she let loose a string of most unladylike words and followed them inside.
And gasped.
It was a throne room.
A throne room!
The carpet path they had seen cutting through the marble floor lead straight up to a large dais that stood at the back of the chamber. The room was all of marble – the floors, the huge pillars that held up the balconies like that they had encountered yesterday, and the walls – and the ceiling…the ceiling was all of glass planes and graceful frescos. Between the pillars, which stood along the sides of the room about twenty feet apart like sentries, were tall graceful windows that flanked portraits.
It was at these that her friends were staring at in awe.
Each painting was of handsome and very regal looking families. It seemed to be a family line of some sort as the father of the family usually seemed to be the biggest boy in the previous painting aged by about twenty years.
Angela walked down the room, gaping at it all, to join the others at the one they were staring at.
This particular one was of a wise, elderly looking man with salt and pepper hair sitting in a fine chair, surrounded by four teenage boys. The father looked nothing like his sons, and the boys looked nothing like each other. The father looked distinctly Eastern with neatly trimmed hair and goatee. He was dressed in a simple black tunic and black pants.
The young man on his right was extraordinarily handsome, with dark blond hair and dark brown eyes. He looked down at his audience with a gentle smile as though he was actually meeting each person looking at the painting.
The boy on the man's far right looked younger than any of the others and had pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes. His smile was huge and friendly, and had dimples on either side; she found herself fighting back a smile just by looking at him.
The kid on the man's left was… a gypsy? What else could he be with that brown skin, curly black hair and amber eyes? His smile was more of an impatient smirk – as though he was laughing at the painter who was wasting so much of his time.
On the far left was a teenager with light brown hair and dreamy brown eyes. His smile was kind and soft – and a million miles away. He was quite obviously thinking of something else.
Each boy was dressed in a white shirt and black pants, which accentuated their sheer differences.
"Wow," Gwen whispered.
Angela had to agree. Most definitely wow.
Her eyes kept wandering to the dark brown eyes of the proud young man on the king's – for surely it must be him – and the way they seemed to smile directly at her. And… those eyes did seem very familiar… but she couldn't place them.
"Are these the princes and the king?" Zoey asked quietly.
"I… I think so…" Julietta said softly.
Finally, Angie was able to turn to look up at the dais. The platform was circular and there were doors on either side of it. Huge windows were directly behind it, five enormous windows, three stained glass and two windows. The stained glass windows each held a depiction of great dragons, the right one gold, the left one silver, and the center one a brilliant white. Each was reared up, long necks thrown back nobly and their dark eyes were wise.
On the dais itself were five handsome chairs, four smaller silver ones flanking a larger gold one.
Thrones for the king and his four sons.
Angela could only stare.
This was beyond anything she had ever even dreamed of.
She slowly lifted up her skirts and stepped up onto the dais – she wanted to see what it was like.
"A – hem."
Her stomach and heart plummeted to her toes.
There was Master Splinter, standing at the entrance of the throne room, one arm folded behind him, the other holding his cane and looking rather stern. "Come."
They followed him silently out of the room.
They were, as Zoey so eloquently put it: "Busted."
And yet… whenever she closed her eyes, Angela could now see the handsome prince smiling down at her.
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