Chapter 2
Now Joshua Traeven, son of David Traeven, married against his mother's wishes. Angrily, Lydia refused to see her son or talk with him at all. One would think that David, remembering that his son could perhaps have reopened the door of Aeral, would have overlooked his son's choice of wife and not turned Joshua away, but David was now wholly consumed with his past in Aeral and did not even remember the things that were truly important. Some have said that this was by design of Markin, I do not know if it is so or not.
After the death of her husband, Lydia became lonely for her son, her last remnant of her beloved David, and decided to overlook past wrongs and speak with Joshua again. It is sad that in life we often do not realize what we have until it is gone, and we do not search for it until it is too late. Joshua and his wife had died a week before Lydia tried to contact them. One can well imagine that Lydia was in anguish. In one swift moment, everything she held dear had been swept away. Well, not quite everything: she was told she had a grandchild, a little girl named Miriam.
Little Miriam came to live with her grandmother in the big house in which her father had grown up. She was good and kind, and at times so reminded Lydia of her husband that she would turn away with tears in her eyes. Miriam brought fullness to Lydia's life that she would never have imagined possible. Perhaps it was because, for the first time, Lydia had someone who belonged only to her and loved her completely.
Things in the Traeven home progressed uneventfully until Miriam was ten years old, and had lived with her grandmother four years. Perhaps all adventures begin with a rainy day, I do not know, but this adventure starts when the wind was whipping around the big old home and howling like a wolf. The rain was beating against the roof and clattering against the windows. Inside it was as dark as night, the electricity had gone off (a good thing, too, for there is nothing so unromantic and nonmagical as electric lights) the lights had gone off and the old gas lamps had been lit. They cast eerie shadows upon the walls.
Lydia was sick and in bed, and Miriam was left to amuse herself. She took a candle and lit it, placing it in an old candlestick. She crept out of the part of the house she knew well and headed to the south wing. She had never been inside and now that her grandmother was in bed it was the perfect time. She walked down a long hallway lined on either side by dark walnut doors. She was in the center of the house and could not hear the rain very well, it sounded like the thudding of a giant heart. Miriam placed her hand on the knobs of huge double doors and swung them open. She was in the south wing! Miriam was slightly disappointed at what she saw. From where she was, she was looking at a large bay window with a window seat. The whole south wing was a single hallway! But Miriam had come this far, she might as well look in the rooms. The rain was chanting now:
Come a little closer
Keep on stepping nearer
Destiny awaits
Come a little closer
Keep on stepping nearer
On her left there were several doors, which led to empty rooms. After glancing at them, Miriam turned to her right and walked to the one large double door that was in the center of the right wall.
Come a little closer
Keep on stepping nearer
She lifted up her candle, but could only see part of the door. The frame seemed to be made in the form of a wood thicket, branches intertwined with flowering vines and surrounded the large door.
Destiny awaits
Lightening flickered through the window, momentarily lighting the hallway, followed by a low rumble of thunder. When had it started storming like that? Miriam lifted up her candle and looked at the knobs, they were in the shape of roses, and underneath each was a keyhole shaped like a teardrop.
Come a little closer
As she tried to see what the rest of the door looked like, a loud clap of thunder seemed to shake the very foundation of the house. Miriam gasped aloud as lightening brightened the hall until it all of the shadows were gone, but the lightning did not go away immediately like lightening usually does. The hall remained lit as if it were daylight or as if the electric lights were on. While the light stayed, Miriam looked at the door. It was covered with many strange figures and carvings. They were tales she did not know and people she had not met. But through it all ran these strange words:
Gentle friend, you who read these words,
Come within
Pure of heart, you have the keys
Come within
Royal one, rescue us please
Come within
As soon as Miriam read the last of these words, the lightening blacked out and she was once again standing in a dark empty hallway. She was frightened now, and turned and fled from the south wing.
