Tommy and the Monster

Chapter Ten

 Tommy lost track of how long exactly it had been since he first came to Lady Floor's castle, but he thought it had to have been nearly a month if it hadn't been a month already.

 Every day he would go looking around. Once he had covered the whole of the grounds and gardens, he started to look through the castle itself. On the ground floor, he found the kitchens, but there were empty. There was no one there. He began to wonder where their meals came from, but then remembered that this was a magic castle, and that he probably shouldn't ask.

 Day after day, he would go off exploring the many rooms of the castle. Every room he walked into had the same dark dreariness to it. What a bright, beautiful place this could be, he thought, if only someone would open a few windows.

 One day, he pulled open the curtains of a parlor he'd just walked into. It had been dark in the room, and when the sunlight came through he was met with cream-colored walls with chipped paint and some very dusty furniture.

 "Was this place ever any better?" he wondered aloud.

 One strange thing he never understood was that sometimes, at various times in the day, he thought he heard someone calling his name. It was faint and distant, but he could still hear it. He heard it at least once every day, and he had no idea where it came from or why he heard it.

 He sometimes saw Lady Floor out in the gardens during the day, and once when he was opening some curtains she suddenly appeared and asked him what he was doing.

 "Opening some curtains," he answered. "I wanted to let some light in."

 He wasn't sure how she would react to that, but she merely said, "Hmm. If you insist."

 She insisted they have supper together every night, and would say, "Now, Tommy, how was your day?", and he would always answer that it had gone all right.

 Once she happened to say, "Tell me about you, Tommy."

 "What do you want to know?" he asked.

 "I don't know. I take it you did not live in that farmhouse your entire life."

 "No. Roy and I moved there two years ago. We grew up in the city. My father was a merchant, and Roy and I took over after he died. Our problems started when a few of our ships were sunk. Pirates, I think. And the rest went missing. Things became frantic at our office, and then there was a fire. The entire building burned down. Our business was basically ruined. We agreed that it might be best to leave the city, and Roy found the farmhouse. It's not the same, but I always liked it there, anyway."

 "I take it you and your brother have always been rather close, then," she said.

 He nodded. "Of course. Roy's father died when he was very young, and I don't think he remembers him. But he and my father always got along well. He looked for me when we were children. There was once a gang of boys my age from school that chose me to pick on. One day on my street, when they wouldn't leave me alone, Roy came at them with a cane he'd found in the hallway. I don't remember if he actually hit any of them with it, but as they ran off he yelled that if they came around again he'd make them sorry for it. My father saw the whole thing, and he laughed and told Roy he'd really given it to them."

 "Do you...miss you old home?" Lady Floor asked.

 He nodded. "I do. You have a beautiful castle, Lady Floor, really, but-"

 "You don't have to explain," she said. "I understand that you miss your old home. It's perfectly understandable."

 Tommy wasn't sure how he felt about Lady Floor. He wouldn't say she was kind, but she was decent. And mysterious, since he knew nothing about her. He never asked her why she always wore a mask and cloak and kept her fingernails so long; that would be rude of him, and he knew it. The strangest thing, though, was that every night she would ask him to marry her. If she was looking for a husband, why him?

~~~~~~

 One afternoon, Tommy happened across a room he had never seen before. It was a small, round room, filled mostly with books. On one of the walls, he saw what looked like an old portrait. It was partly covered with a sheet, but once he pushed it completely to the side he instantly recognized the person in the portrait.

 It was the woman in his dream, the one in the blue dress who had told him to be polite and patient.

 He looked down to see there was an engraving at the bottom of the frame.

 Lady Floor Jansen.

 He exhaled sharply and turned away from the portrait. The woman in his dream was Lady Floor herself. If that was what she really looked like, why the mask? Something horrible must have happened to her.

 On the other side of the room was something covered entirely with a sheet. With a sudden curiosity, he pulled off to see it was only a mirror. He looked into it, remembering hearing stories of magic mirrors in the past.

 "I wish you could show me my brother," he said to his reflection. "It would be nice to talk to him right now."

 After he said it, his own image began to fade away, and he heard voices coming from within the mirror.

 "Tommy!" "Karevik!" "TOMMY!"

 Someone, or quite a few people, were looking for him.