Chapter 2
The Living Wall
Snow and David began to find Emma at the living wall on a regular basis as the princess continued to sleepwalk, they stopped arranging searches after the third time and started posting a guard at the hallways entrance but still the sleeping princess managed to slip passed unnoticed and she was found curled up a sleep at the foot of the wall during these nightly excursions.
In her dreams Emma pushed and pushed at the barrier but it never shifted, in her waking hours Emma snuck back as often as possible and tried to recreate her dreams and pushed again but still much to her increasing frustration the barrier held strong, weeks turned into months and months into years and still Emma was drawn back to the wall again and again with no change until the eve of Emma's thirteenth year when the living wall spoke to her for the first time,
"Happy Birthday sweet Emma" a nurturing voice spoke as the princess approached the wall,
"who's there?" Emma asked looking around though she already knew the answer,
"Don't you know" the wall chuckled, and Emma reached out to touch it, it felt different somehow, more alive than ever before and happy, "that's right" the voice came again "I'm here" and warmth suddenly flooded through Emma like a warm hug,
"I know there's more of you to see" Emma whispered relishing in the warmth that surrounded her "Why won't you show me"
"Patience young Princess" the wall replied, "you're not ready yet but when you are I promise that I will reveal all" and then much to Emma's frustration the wall fell silent again.
It stayed that way, its life ebbing silently beneath her palms until her next birthday when it again it wished her a happy birthday and flooded her with warmth, again Emma asked to see more and again the wall told her that she wasn't ready.
That day as she sat in her favourite spot reading beneath her apple tree Emma glanced up through its branches and spotted something incredible, a single large red apple ripe and ready to be picked just in her arms reach, it would have been impossible to see had she not been sitting underneath the tree's branches looking up, she stood and reached for the apple plucking it feeling its weight in her hand and stroking its flawless silky skin before bringing it to her lips and biting into the sweetest apple flesh that she had ever tasted, as she returned to her seat on the ground and resumed her reading while still crunching she felt certain that this apple came from the wall somehow,
When the wall spoke on her fifteenth year Emma didn't ask to see more, for she was already certain of what the walls answer would be and instead she smiled thanked the wall for its birthday wishes and embraced its warm hug, then she went into the ground where she found another single apple hanging from one of the tree's branches,
"Thank-you" Emma whispered looking back at the castle as she held it in her palm looking forward to savouring, her first bite, her only reply was a gentle breeze which played with her hair and sent some of the tree's branches swaying.
Part of Emma knew that she should be freaked out about this whole situation, that she have told someone about the wall years ago but for some reason she wasn't afraid and still she kept the walls secrets, the truth would only lead to misery Emma knew that her parents would fight to keep her away from the wall if she knew its secret and worse still maybe even try and destroy it and Emma couldn't bear the thought of that happening.
On her eighteenth year Emma went to the wall as she did every year on her birthday, she didn't even think about whether she might be ready to learn more yet she just looked forward to her birthday wish and that warm hug feeling that she only got once year.
As soon as she approached the wall she sensed that something was different, she reached out with both palms to touch it as she did every year though she no longer tried to push past like she had as a young child now she just touched it and embraced the life ebbing within it, only today as her hands connected with wall Emma felt a rush of power within her and solid wall quickly gave under her palms, the wall she saw was still there but her hands had gone straight through it,
"Am I ready?" Emma whispered "you are princess" the voice replied, and an invisible force gave her push forwards sending Emma through the wall and out the other side.
Emma gasped as she got her first glimpse of the secret wing, it wasn't in ruins as Snow had ascertained years before, it wasn't even damaged, there was no glamour on the outside to disguise it she realised because there didn't need to be, but whether that was her mothers or her grandfather's lie she still didn't know but one thing was for sure someone had wanted to keep people from finding whatever was hidden here and that of course just made Emma want to find whatever it was all the more.
She looked in every room as she went, the rooms were dusty had an air of neglect about them but all in all they had been well preserved seeing as no one had entered them for years.
As she explored the rooms it became quickly obvious that this wing had once belonged to somebody important, a bed chamber fit for a queen lay untouched by time, its huge four poster bed was perfectly made, water still filled the porcelain washbowl nearby, stone cold and turned green by the years, the centre of the room was dominated by a sewing mannequin that was wearing the most extravagant wedding gown that Emma had ever seen its train running far behind it across the dusty floor and the door to the walk in closet stood ajar, when Emma walked in she found it full of more beautiful gowns just her size, as she fingered the exquisite fabric of the closest one a cloud of dust rose from it making her sneeze so she backed out and continued her explorations.
Across the room tall glass doors let the daylight filter through their grimy panes, she pushed them open and stepped out onto the huge balcony on the other side approaching the balcony's railing, she gasped as she looked out at her new view, from here she had the most amazing view of the grounds, she would have killed for this room she thought eyes trying to look everywhere at once but that wasn't what had made her gasp, the gasp came when her eyes fell on something not too far away, something that this balcony gave her a perfect view of, in all the years that Emma had sat in that spot she had wondered many times why it was there, all by itself when the castle had its own orchards further afield but now she suddenly knew the apple tree that Emma had claimed for her own, her favourite spot in the whole castle other than the wall had been placed there for the enjoyment of whoever had once occupied this room.
This new realisation had Emma longing for more information she needed to know who this room had belonged, what had happened to them and why she was suddenly permitted to enter it. When she found no answers in the sleep chamber, she moved on continuing to explore the other rooms, further down the hall she found a small cosy sitting room with plush sofas situated around a small table in front of a huge fireplace that had a huge mirror hanging above it with the most intricate frame that Emma had ever seen surrounding its glass, a small wooden box sat in the centre of the mantlepiece beneath it.
On the table sat a single empty crystal glass, and a side board rested against the wall behind the sofas with a silver tray on top, three more matching crystal glasses sat on the tray alongside a matching crystal decanter that was still half full of an amber coloured liquid, pulling the stopper out Emma took a whiff recoiling slightly at the strength of the apple cider inside, it smelt she thought as she replaced the stopped as though it had been made using apples from her apple tree.
After a rifle through the sideboard turned up nothing Emma resumed her search of the wing, frustration building as each room she searched yielded more evidence of a person having once lived here but nothing to tell who they were, what they looked like or where they went, the mystery of person's identity just seemed to deepen with each room she explored.
At last she came to the final door pushing it open and gasping when she found a beautiful library inside it was a lot smaller than the castles main library but no less stunning, heavy red curtains were pulled back by golden ties allowing the sunlight to flood through, Emma walked beside the shelves tracing her fingers across the spines of the books as she had done many a time in castles main library, then she moved to the centre of the room lowering herself into the high back red velvet armchair ignoring the dust that rose in clouds making her sneeze ferociously again as she reached for the small leather bound book sitting closed on the table next it, as Emma began to thumb through it, It fell open at a bookmarked page, she paused to admire the royal purple silky bookmark stroking it with her thumb before she turned her attention to the writing on the open page realising that this may have been the last thing that the owner of this library had read here, sitting in this chair.
She sighed when she found herself unable to understand what the book was about, there was squiggly drawing of what looked like some sort of plants on the page that the bookmark rested on while strange words that rhymed like poetry but made no sense filled the other, she flicked through more page's frustration returning when all she found was more of same,
'No clues here" she sighed dumping the book back on the table,
Tired and more than a little disappointed that her explorations hadn't yielded greater results Emma was ready to admit defeat for today and return with a clearer head in the morning. She did one last turn of this beautiful library searching for a book that she hadn't read before to take back to her own room with her before she left, as she looked she let her fingers brush the spines of the books again, she would never tire of that feeling, a book finally catching her attention on a shelf just above her head as she raised her hand to take It down her fingers brushed the spine of the book below it instantly sending the familiar feeling of ebbing life flooding through Emma making her gasp and drawing her attention away from the book she had been aiming for and onto the unassuming, inconspicuous looking book directly below it.
Emma lowered her hand grasping the books spine welcoming the familiar ebb like an old friend, she then tried touching all the books immediately surrounding it, none of which ebbed with life, finally she returned her hand to living book and eagerly tried to pull it from the shelf believing that it must contain the answers that she was looking for, but though Emma pulled the book refused to budge, now Emma was infuriated, did this newest block mean that she would have to wait countless more years to get her answers? She pulled the books either side of it free of the shelf with ease dropping them to the floor by her feet as she took the spine of the living book in both hands and desperately pulled at it with all her might, she was just beginning to think that it was a lost cause when the book suddenly gave and shot forward sending her tumbling back and tripping over the books that she had just dropped by her feet landing on her bottom as to her excitement the bookcase swung inwards.
Emma picked herself up and stepped through the hidden doorway excitement mounting, the room on the other side was like no room that the princess had ever seen, light shone through the walls and ceiling which were all made of stained glass and when Emma would stop to properly look at that later she would see that the pictures within them told a story, but for right now as beautiful as they were the windows couldn't hold a candle to that which had captured her entire attention.
I the centre of room a huge beam of sunlight fell onto a huge marble slap raised on a plinth on top of that slab with her arms rested across her chest lay the most beautiful woman that Emma had ever seen, long dark hair fanned across the pillow that her head rested on, her eyes were closed and her chest was still to anyone who didn't know better she appeared to be dead but Emma knew better as she reached out and felt that familiar thrum of life under her fingers as they closed around one of the woman's warm hands she realised that the wall wasn't alive after all and neither was the book that she had touched, no the life that she had felt ebbing under her palms all the years, the warm hug like sensations that flowed through her on her birthdays and the voice that spoke to her once a year for the past five years all somehow came from this woman and if she was ever even the slightest bit uncertain about that fact what happened next cemented it for her,
"Emma, you've found me" the familiar voice sounded joyfully in her head though the woman on the slab remained completely still.