This is Prompt No. 12-Freedom
The house seemed to creak and moan loudly with every step that Mitchie took, but she realized that every sound seemed amplified because of her tension as she crept down the stairs and made her way down the hallway. Taking a deep breath, she crept past her parent's bedroom, wincing as a board protested slightly as she stepped on it. She stopped for a moment, waiting to see if she had roused either of her parents. A loud snore met her straining ears, and she was reassured that no harm had been done.
Creeping down the hall, Mitchie finally reached her father's study and began the task of sliding the door open as soundlessly as possible. The door slid open easily and Mitchie slipped inside, shutting it just as carefully as she had opened it. Turning around, she found the large study empty and rather cold. Mitchie rubbed her hands over her arms in an effort to warm herself up, but the action didn't help much.
"If I were a document, where would I hide?" she mused out loud, striding over to the desk, being careful to only step on the rugs that littered the floor so that her bare feet would not have to touch the cold floor.
And so began the process of riffling through her father's documents, drawers, and confidential files. Mitchie would open one drawer and take out everything, placing it on top of the desk just the way she had found it in the drawer, look through it, and then put them all back as though they had never been moved. Then, she would move over to the next drawer and the process would begin all over again. Look around, take the papers out, put them all back the way she had found them, and repeat.
After two hours, Mitchie was beginning to lose heart. She sat down behind her father's desk and placed her chin in her hands. It should not have been this hard to find one sheet of paper! But apparently, it was. She let out a low groan and stomped her foot. In doing so, she banged her knee against the underside of the desk, which emitted a loud thump from the contact.
Mitchie froze, worried that the sound would have awakened someone, but the house was still. She reached down to rub her now-bruised knee and felt a piece of wood stinking down from the underside of the desk. "Great," she muttered practically under her breath. "Now I break father's desk."
But when she actually scooted the chair back a ways and leaned down to get a good look at the damage she had caused, she was met with a very pleasant, and welcome, surprise. She had not broken the desk at all, but had uncovered a secret drawer. Mitchie's heart pounded as she looked through the small compilation of papers, a huge grin spreading across her face as she found what she was looking for at the very bottom: Anna's contract that bound her as a slave to the Torres household.
With a deft hand, Mitchie picked up her father's pen and signed her name in fluid, deliberate letters and added the date on which she signed it. "There," she whispered as she looked at the document with satisfaction. Her smile fell for one moment as her eyes took in the sure, almost arrogant signature of her father, dated almost six years ago and wondered why he had bothered to sign the document at all.
With a shrug that was more a way to brush off the questions in her mind than anything else, Mitchie slipped the contract into her robe and headed towards the door. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure that everything was back in the exact place she had found it in, and then she slipped out into the hallway.
No sooner had she closed the door and started down the hallway than the door to her parents' bedroom opened and her father stepped out, looking sleepy and rather confused. Mitchie froze mid-step, her heart pounding against her ribs as she watched her father's gaze swing toward her.
"Michelle?" he questioned sleepily.
Mitchie's mind was whirling furiously as she tried to think up a plausible excuse. What did one say at two o' clock in the morning? "Oh, I was just going through all your papers in your study, that's all. Go on back to sleep." For some reason, Mitchie doubted that even in his sleepy stupor her father would fall for that excuse.
"Yes, daddy," she said, adopting her daddy's-little-girl posture and attitude.
He rubbed his eyes, as though not quite believing that she was really standing there in the middle of the early morning. "What are you doing down here?" he asked.
Mitchie shrugged and said, "I couldn't sleep, and then I got really thirsty so I came down to get some water." As soon as she said it, Mitchie winced, realizing that she'd made a mistake.
Her father frowned. "The kitchen's on the other side of the house," he told her.
"Yes," Mitchie said, covering quickly, "but I thought I heard someone down the hall and I came to check." She smiled brightly, hoping that her smile would be able to charm her out of this situation. "But I didn't find anyone, so now I'm going back to bed. I'm tired."
Her father was still looking at her, puzzled. "Very well," he said slowly. "I should get back to bed as well."
"Yes you should," Mitchie agreed, trying not to sound too eager. "Goodnight, daddy."
He was already walking back into his room and didn't answer her. Mitchie smiled, not feeling at all shut out or ignored. She forced herself to climb back up the stairs, adopting a "tired" gait, and slipped back into her room, leaning back against the door when she had closed it completely.
"Where have you been?"
The voice startled Mitchie, already uptight, and she whirled to find Anna sitting up on her blankets, regarding her with curiosity and a little bit of fear. "Anna!" she gasped, placing a hand over her heart, which hadn't returned to its normal rate yet.
"You scared me half to death!" Anna hissed reproachfully. "I was about ready to come looking for you!"
Mitchie smiled bashfully at her friend. "Sorry about that," she apologized. "I had one bit of unfinished business that I had to take care of before we leave tomorrow."
"And it couldn't have waited until tomorrow morning, preferably at a decent hour?" Anna questioned.
Mitchie climbed wearily into bed, feeling completely worn out now that the adrenaline had dissipated from her body. "Not this bit of business," she told her friend with a smile.
"What did you do?" Anna asked suspiciously.
Mitchie smiled as she snuggled into her blankets. "I'll tell you in the morning. Goodnight."
She heard Anna mumble something unintelligible and she smiled, feeling the first drowsiness of sleep beginning to take hold of her. Now, her friend and her brother would truly be free.
