Bedeviled

Chapter 21

I cocked my head at her, "What do you mean?" She flipped open the book and paged through it before putting it back and pulling out another. I spoke again while she shuffled through a few more, "Lucy, tell me what you mean".

She stayed silent through my demands, tucking a journal under her arm and pulling out one more. She pushed them into my hands and said, "I don't have enough time to read these with you, take them and read them when you get the chance. Let's go, I wanna show you one more thing"

"Wait, I-" She was already extinguishing all the candles in the room, "I can't take these Lucy, he'll probably be freaked out if he knows."

"Oh, you'll be fine! Just hide them." She shushed me and walked out of the room, holding the door for me.

She locked the door and gave it a kick before walking away. I held the leather journals tightly against my chest, feeling my heart pounding anxiously against them. I'm not going to read these. I am going to return them right when she leaves.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, jogging down the stairs behind her.

"My old quarters," She paused and looked over her shoulder for at me, "our old quarters".

I struggled to keep up with her fast pace as I thought over her choice in words. Did she use to live with him?

We were in the hall near my quarters now and stopped in front of an intricately decorated wall.

"This is new" She muttered.

"The decor?" I asked. It was decorated with tons of artwork. Beautiful woven rugs, intricate paintings, and uniquely sculptured wall art hung on almost every inch of the wall.

"No, there was a door here. They've hidden it".

I walked up to the wall and examined it closer, checking behind some wall hangings, looking for cracks where a door may be. I found what looked like hinges running up the wall. I smiled in victory as I looked among the artwork for a handle.

Whoever wanted this passage hidden did a good job, the outline was hidden very well between everything. I found another set of hinges about eight feet on the other side and realized this was a set of double doors.

I centered myself between the two hinges and searched the wall. I looked over at Lucy to stood and watched me, "are you going to help?" She shook her head as if she was lost in thought and walked over to the wall.

Where the handles should have been she found two small animal skulls. We carefully attempted to pull one off the wall but was met with great resistance. I found it rotated much easier though and turned it 90 degrees clockwise. Behind it was a keyhole, the place where a door handle used to be was empty.

A hole where the handle sat was removed, and I bent over to look through the hole. On the other side of the door, I saw a long passage lined with windows on both sides. I moved the other scull only to find the same door-handleless chunk of metal.

I looked up at Lucy, "You've got the key" she said. I nodded and pulled it out of the pocket in my dress. It clicked to the side and unlocked the door. Unsure of how to pull the door open, I fumbled my hands around the wall, trying to get a grip on anything.

Eventually, with Lucy's help, we held one hand on the key and the other on the small animal sculls and pulled. The double doors made a large cracking noise as they opened and I winced, looking around to check that we were alone.

I pulled the key out and slipped inside. Before closing the door completely, I paused, worrying about a way out, wedging my foot to keep it from closing.