Page 3 of A Princess, Stolen
I spotted a few bare branches near the ground. Something in my stomach fluttered like a little bird learning to fly. In fact, if I made myself small, I could get to the other side.
However, I couldn’t possibly crawl through! “Dad will freak out if he finds out!” I whispered to myself. Besides, how didNathan know about this gap? I discreetly looked around for my bodyguards, but both seemed to be in the house. They probably thought I was with my nanny, Delilah, but I had told Delilah that I wanted to go into the garden with my bodyguards. I hadn’t wanted them to see Nathan.
“Come on!” I heard Nathan say on the other side. “There are no cameras here either!”
I glanced over my shoulder again. “We’re not going to be gone long, are we?” My voice sounded a little too shrill.
“No. I just want to show you something.”
I thought about the kiss that I was certain he would have given me even if I hadn’t agreed to it. “Which is?”
“Something beautiful. Something that reminds me of the dead.”
Goose bumps scurried down my spine. How could something be beautiful if it reminded you of the dead? Then, I thought about Mom.
“Are you chicken?”
“Of course, I’m not chicken!” I hesitated anyway. “But this time you won’t grab me when you kiss me.”
“No! I won’t.” He sounded honest. I looked back one last time only to see Mr. O’Brien mowing the lawn, so I bent down and made my way through the branches. They scratched my face, arms, and legs. It hurt. I wasn’t used to this kind of thing, but I didn’t want to look like a squeamish rich girl, so I gritted my teeth.
Nathan silently offered me his hand and helped me the last bit through the undergrowth.
“Where are we going?” I suddenly felt like a runaway and that was strangely wonderful, like Nathan’s eyes, which both intimidated and encouraged me.
“To a ballroom where ghosts dance.”
“Ghosts do not exist,” I stated, automatically repeating what Dad and Dr. Moore had repeatedly told me. Anyone who believed they saw ghosts had not come to terms with the past, were their words.
Nathan didn’t seem to care what I said. He led me by the hand through a bamboo forest until, after a few minutes, ancient walls towered before us.
“The remains of a country estate that was destroyed in the war,” he explained to me.
“Like Rosewood Manor only in ruins.” My heart was pounding as we walked along the property. Fascinated, I looked at the ivy and ancient oak trees that seemed to have grown together with the former palace walls. Moss-covered trunks protruded through open ceilings. Vines crawled up the walls, encircling the shattered windows like frames, and Spanish moss hung from the trees everywhere.Like the silver tinsel on our Christmas tree!
After we rounded a corner, Nathan and I climbed a rickety staircase. “This was the former slave entrance,” he whispered as if someone might hear us.
I merely nodded. I had never been in such a spooky place before, and without Dad. I followed Nathan through several corridors where moss and weeds formed a green carpet.
“Here it is,” Nathan said abruptly. He had let go of my hand and stopped. I glanced over his shoulder into a circular hall. Light flickered in it like a thousand candles in the wind.
“Incredible,” I whispered. I entered the banquet hall behind Nathan and stopped after a few steps. I looked around in amazement. I felt like I was in the middle of a broken kaleidoscope. The tall windows all around shimmered in numerous colors, but some were partially cracked. Strands of ivy hung from the broken glass dome ceiling, looking like intricate columns, and where there was no ivy, the roof was covered invines so that the sunlight painted a magical pattern of light on the floor. I ran from one spot of light to the next, watching them change, darting back and forth and trembling in the wind. I was electrified.
“Hey, Willa, look!” Nathan’s words made me glance over at him. He pointed into the air and that was when I saw it too.
Green-, blue-, red-, and yellow-colored lights sparkled everywhere, tiny dots like fireflies: on the old walls, the remaining marble floor, and on Nathan’s face. A strange magic brushed my skin and left a smile on my face. “Beautiful,” I said softly and playfully caught a blood-red dot in my hand. It glowed on my fingers.Mom would have loved this!
“The colored light comes from the glass that’s everywhere,” Nathan explained, nodding toward the shattered windows and shards of glass scattered around the outer edge of the hall. I walked around, lost in thought.
“A magical place,” I heard Nathan say. “But also a bit spooky.”
“Yes.” I pulled the bracelet he’d given me out from under the wide bangle where I was hiding it from Dad. For a moment, I imagined Mom twirling around in her rustling organza dress, translucent as if she were one of the trembling lights. “It’s really like ghosts are dancing here,” I said.
“Oh…I thought they didn’t exist?”
I turned to where he was standing in the middle of the hall, his arms folded and a steel-blue dot on his forehead. “They don’t,” I replied. “But if there were…” He didn’t need to know everything about me right away. “Can you dance?”
“Dance?” He stared at me as if he thought I was nice but somewhat crazy.
