Chapter 2
Life was good
for Iain and Ofelia. Life was very good,
in fact. They lived in the palace, a
wonderful place of fun and happiness.
Home; this was the place where they belonged. Most of the time they didn’t even notice the room
that was off limits. There was too much
other great stuff to do! They would pass
it on their way to the kitchen or the art room since it was right in the middle
of the palace, but the sign was on the door to remind them not to go in there.
One day as Iain
and Ofelia walked past the door, they saw someone new. He was walking around outside that room like
he owned the place. Something else was
different, too. For the first time ever,
there was noise coming from the room – laughter and a different kind of music
than they’d ever heard or played in the music room. They could smell something coming from beyond
the door, too. It wasn’t like the breads
or cookies they had smelled from the kitchen or the flowers in the nearby meadows,
but it was intriguing. Odd. Very odd.
“Hi Iain. Ofelia,” said this stranger.
“How do you know
our names?” Ofelia asked. “Who are you?”
“You can call me
Slick. King Nascious and Prince Reed and
I go way back, so any friend of theirs is a friend of mine.”
“Odd that they
never mentioned you,” replied Iain.
Slick moved
closer to Ofelia, smiled and asked, “Ever been in there?”
“Why no,” Ofelia
answered. “King Nascious said to never
go in there. See the sign on the door?”
“Did he now?”
asked Slick. “Told you not to go in any
of the rooms, huh?”
“Well, no. We can go into any of the rooms in the palace
or play anywhere outside. Anytime we
want. We don’t have to ask,” said
Ofelia. “But the King has this one
rule.”
“Hmphf. Rules! In my day, rules were made to be
broken,” muttered Slick under his breath.
Then addressing Iain and Ofelia again, he asked softly, “So tell me,
just what is this one rule?”
Iain and Ofelia
looked at each other and back at Slick.
“Just what the sign says. ‘Do Not
Enter’ this room,” Ofelia said. “If we
do, we won’t be able to live here any longer.
King Nascious said we would be hurt so badly that we would even die if
we went in there.”
“Really?” asked
Slick. “Die? You won’t die!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you hear the music and laughter coming
from the other side?” Slick sauntered
over closer to the door and leaned in closer.
A smile crept across his face as he closed his eyes.
The music seemed
to be getting louder. It was a song that
sounding promising. Iain and Ofelia
leaned in a bit closer themselves.
Slick took a
deep breath, his nostrils flaring with the scent wafting from the room. Iain nor Ofelia could place the scent. It was definitely different than anything
they had ever smelled before.
“King Nascious
knows what’s inside there,” Slick said casually. He shrugged his shoulders and moved away from
the door. “If you went in there, you’d
be like King Nascious. You’d know as
much as he does.”
Iain and Ofelia
looked at each other. Before they did
anything else, Iain asked how Slick seemed to know what was on the other side.
“Oh, I used to
be a servant in this palace. But now I
have my own palace,” he said proudly.
Did Slick live
in as nice a palace as this, they both wondered? Was Slick a good king, too? Maybe the room was filled with even better
treasures than King Nascious had shared with them. Was that possible?
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