Woodbridge Recollection : The Hidden Kingdom

Chapter 7: Kelian and Vincent.

  Just like how I arrived, Maximus and Georgina transported me with horses. Georgina's horse was a light brown mare with white patches and a braided mane. Maximus' horse was a massive black stallion with a well-combed mane and a braided tail.

I rode on the back of Georgina's horse with her.

The village houses seemed to be modern built, but old fashioned to me. Most houses were made out of stones and bricks. Regardless, they held some sort of beauty that I couldn't fully appreciate just yet.

We stopped riding just as we reached the foot of the hill, before a rather large house with large garden and a barn.

After dismounting the horses, they left them in the garden and lead me towards the front door of the house. It was a large wooden door; very old fashioned looking with iron framing and a large door knob.

Maximus unlocked the door with a large iron key and then pushed it open. He and Georgina both gestured for me to go inside first.

With a deep breath, I walked past them and into the house. The interior was just as pretty as the exterior. The walls were made of stone and the floors were marble. So very modern, yet medieval. The furniture was rather modern too. Through a large door, I saw what looked like a modern kitchen and through another door on my other side was a flat screen television.

"Everything is so...modern," I said. Electricity and electrical appliances. It seemed so odd for a place where people dressed and acted so medieval.

"Did you expect candles and straw beds?" Maximus asked.

I bit on my bottom lip as I turned to face them.

"Kind of," I admitted. "Everyone dresses and acts the part."

"The modern world out there is not that different to our world here," Georgina reassured me. A nervous laugh escaped her. "Despite how we dress and act here. This is not the only hidden kingdom in the world either."

I nodded.

"Do I have a bedroom here?" I then asked.

Maximus pointed towards a door across the room. I stepped across the room and walked through it. Before me was a long corridor and wide corridor with several doors. Most of them were closed.

"It's the very last door," Georgina said.

I walked down the corridor slowly, taking in all the decorations. The hallway was adorned with many different things, a potted plant, a painting or two, and framed photographs of people that I didn't recognize.

When I passed a photo of a small girl with wild curls and a massive smile, I paused and looked at it. Was that me? It looked like me, and not just because of the similar style in hair. I knew that oval face and hazel eyes anywhere.

I looked up from the picture, only to find another. This one of me was easily recognisable. I was a teenager, maybe a young adult. I was standing rather proudly, dressed in the same white leather coat and brown boots that Maximus and Georgina wore. In one hand I held a bow and in the other, my pendant. The more noticeable thing was my hair. It wasn't nearly this untamed. In the picture, I wore it loose and the curls had been smoothed down to simple waves.

I touched my hair as if to flatten out the spirals. It must have taken a lot of effort to tame the curls that much.

"You had this weird kind lotion," Georgina said. I turned to face her. "You used to buy a bottle of it every month from one of the newer alchemists in the order. It helped you straighten your hair out." She smiled as if remembering something amazing. "You would always complain that the curls were too difficult to work with and that it was better than getting a Brazilian blow-wave from the hair dresser."