The Bloodstained Parchment

Chapter 4

"A keyhole?" Kyra leaned in to look at Heather's finger for herself. Her hazel eyes widened. "How are we supposed to find a key?" She gestured to the bareness all around.

There was a moment of deafening silence that lay thick in the air, swimming around them, drowning their hope.

Audrey's shoulders progressively sank. Their progress was oozing through her fingers; every time she tried to catch hold of a possibility, it slipped away like a bar of soap. It was now clear to her that they'd be getting nowhere soon. "We're not." She scoffed, scuffing the ground with her boot.

"Audrey, we can at least try searching. Perhaps the key is nearby," Heather comforted.

Audrey scowled. "It's not. I know it's not." Her mind was now set on hopelessness, blocking out any other suggestion. She'd given up on grasping the soap bar and let it lay in the dirt.

Because of her discouraged attitude, Audrey did not take part in the search. As the others felt around the edges of the building, appearing comically like concentrated mimes, she stood at a distance pouting. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and felt their contents, expecting them to be empty. Upon discovering that they weren't, she yelped, suddenly remembering the key Kyra and her had stumbled across earlier. How could I possibly have forgotten? she scolded herself.

"What is it?" Heather rounded the structure and approached Audrey.

Audrey suddenly felt embarrassed holding up her discovery, but couldn't bear lying to Heather. "Kyra and I found this earlier. I'd. . . forgotten about it," she explained sheepishly.

"But that's marvelous!" exclaimed Heather, not seeming to mind the useless search.

Rehtaeh hopped over, looking concerned. With a scratch of her head, she mused, "But if that's the key, then what's this?" She held up a purely white-painted key, only visible since she held it against her hand. "I found it on the yonder side of the building," she explained, pointing.

Kyra joined the conversation. "Why would there be two keys if there's only one lock?"

Audrey snatched Rehtaeh's key and compared it to hers. "They're obviously different. They're not for the same lock."

In her excitement, she discarded in her mind the faint carving of a rabbit on the white key as a trivial ornament.

Heather peeked over Audrey's shoulder quaintly. "You're quite right. We will have to try both on the hole."

They eventually agreed, not before quarreling, on trying the whitewashed key second, and the other first. To Audrey's surprise, their first attempt was a failure.

Audrey held her breath as she tried the white one next. It fit in nicely with a soft click. Audrey exhaled quietly and since the surface lacked a doorknob, she simply pressed her body weight against the wall, muscles tensed in anxiety all the while. It rumbled, then a door-sized slab of it swung inwards, revealing the grey-stone interior of the cubic building. The color and shadows inside brought relief to Audrey's eyes.

The room appeared to be empty besides a wooden chest at the opposite end of the room of which she stood. It was small and equally as white as the key and exterior of the building. Its edges were encrusted with rubies, boldly contrasting the plain white paint. It rested on the ground beside a red-stained wooden door.

Heather pushed past Audrey and into the room, rubbing her fingertips against the stone walls. Audrey followed her across the room to the chest. Kneeling, Audrey examined it. "It has a keyhole," she murmured excitedly.

"Try the alternative key," suggested Heather.

Audrey pulled the purely white key from her pocket and poked it in. As the lock clicked, the top flipped open abruptly.

As the lid was flung backwards, so was Audrey. Colors upon colors poured from the box like a living rainbow. They flew over her dazed head like a slithering dragon, then over the head of Heather, and then of Rehtaeh and Kyra who had also stepped into the room. Out of the open entrance they poured, trailed by a black hazy substance that somewhat represented shadows.

Rehtaeh's face lit up as she followed the array of pigment outside. "The colors!" she shouted, her arms uplifted. "Come outside, Heather, Audrey! Come see!" She was hysterical.

Audrey stood, brushed herself and joined Heather in the doorway, whose face was white with shock, despite its suddenly full look, which Audrey realized was because the shadows must have returned to it.

Audrey turned to match Heather's gaze, and her breath was equally taken away as color flushed into the earth like a shy mistress's cheeks. The sparsely grassed dirt ground was revealed, spreading far further than Audrey's vision allowed her to see, flooding all the way to the distant horizon, and edging up that with a pale blue. Their painted building now possessed a shadow, that blended with the shocked spectators'.

Audrey glanced to her left at Rehtaeh whose face had suddenly gone blank and was slinking back into the building, gently pulling Heather with her. Audrey absent-mindedly backed inside along with them. Kyra shouted from the back of the room, "Hurry! Close the door before you get sucked back to reality!"

Audrey frowned and glanced back to the beautifully colored outside, lifting her face to see the blotchy sky that was still filling in. She didn't want to pull her eyes away from this enchanting display of obvious enchantment, but Kyra was already tugging the door closed, pushing her out of the way and further into the room. "No!" she grabbed Kyra's arm only to be shaken off. Rehtaeh pulled her close and held her back from the entrance, urging, "Stay back, let her close it!"

"No! It's beautiful out there!" Audrey complained.

A new thought sprung into Audrey's mind, Didn't Kyra say only a moment ago that it would "suck us back to reality?" Why wouldn't Kyra want mother and me to get out of this prison? An angry lump formed in the back of her throat. It took everything in her power not to whirl around and punch Rehtaeh in the face. Why isn't Mother doing anything about this, either? She's just standing in the back of the room like a coward. Is everyone against me?

But when Audrey glanced over her shoulder to where Heather stood, she suddenly understood why she wasn't springing to action. She was rooted in place with shock, pointing blankly at Kyra, who seemed to be... fading from existence? And so was Rehtaeh, her grip loosening on Audrey's arm. Audrey glanced to the door, which was already closed. When she glanced back to Kyra, she noticed the key in her hand, fading along with her! Seeming to read Audrey's mind, Kyra smirked and said, "Door's locked. Key's fading with me. Nothing you can do to escape now."

Audrey launched herself across the room at Kyra in a sudden rage, but her fingers grazed right through Kyra's transparent hand. Kyra giggled cruelly.

Sighing, Rehtaeh explained. "We're leaving now. We've served our purpose. I wonder who I'll be next..." she said dreamily. She was nearly invisible now, Audrey had to squint to see her. Her voice was fading as well, hardly above a whisper by now. "You'll find your own way, now." And with a soft wave, they were whisked away like a candle's smoke, leaving Heather and Audrey shocked and confused.