Cecil rushes me out of the kitchen and through the dining hall. She bursts open the dining hall doors and marches her way through the statues of the entrance hall and up the large main stairs. I hardly ever used the main staircase. I’ve never had a reason to. She chatters away as she leads me up the flight of stairs.

“…He really shouldn’t eat and talk at the same time, but he just wants to leave the castle but he is not anywhere close to twelve yet, though when I was his age, I was off having adventures of my own! I climbed up a tree once and got stuck and my mother came rushing out to save me. She worked in a castle too as the head cook there, I cooked for the prince there too in the castle, typical isn’t it that the job you don’t really like is the job that you end up finding after looking for a new job?”

She looks at me as if expecting me to respond. I’m not sure how to.

“Yes?”

“Exactly!” She throws her hands up in the air. “I really would like to do something else you know? Go out and see the world! That’s why I came here in the first place. I mean I left to escape but then I wanted to see more after escaping the castle you know? But apparently you need money for that and that means working, and oh, here we are.”

We stop at the feet of the staircase to the third floor.

“I found him right here, at the bottom of these stairs. I was just coming back from feeding his royal highness form up there,” she points to the top of the section of stairs. “Obviously I only noticed him when I was there, can’t see him from the turning point of the top of the stairs.”

Suddenly a guard comes down the stairs. Cecil quickly whips her finger away.

“I wasn’t pointing at you!” She squeaks.

The armoured guard chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. But shouldn’t you guys go off soon? It’s well into the night, I would thought everyone’s gone to bed, my round has just begun, I don’t get many visitors.”

She smiles at the large man. “We were just admiring the staircase and are promptly going to go to bed soon.”

He chuckles again and made his way past us and descends down the stairs. “Take your time, it’s not illegal to be on the second floor. Really, youngsters these days wondering here and there.”

I blush at his words. Cecil pays him no mind. She continues her tour of the staircase.

“Over here was where the violin was,” she says pointing to a spot close to her feet.

Looking around to make sure no other people were around, I crouch down as if I could find some sort of a clue.

Naturally I don’t.

“You’re not going to find anything you know,” she says, “the maids take their cleaning very seriously in this castle.”

“Yeah… I… I know.”

“Well, I can tell you a bit of a something that I heard from one of the ladies cleaning though,” she grins.

“Yeah?”

“Well, apparently at the top of the stairs, no one wanted to clean this area in case they would occur bad luck, you know the same bad luck that befell Mortimer. Then the girl who drew the short straw to clean actually came back to her friends and said that while cleaning her fingertips turned gold! Of course the gold washed off really quick, but that was that. But she said it can’t be bad luck anyway, gold is a good colour and meant to be good luck after all.”

“Gold? Gold fingertips…” I ponder that for a bit.

“Well, I wonder if maybe someone sprinkled some gold dust around the area to ward of bad luck.”

“I…don’t think so… wait what? Do people do that?”

“I don’t know what people on this continent are into,” she shakes her head. “But anyway, we should probably get to bed soon before the guard comes back.”

I agree and we both travel on to our respective rooms.

I got ready for bed thinking about the large number of things that seem to be happening, and yet, since it has already occurred, has a lot happened at all? Regardless the day was a very long one I think, and I collapse onto my bed, waiting for sleep to take me.

That is until I hear once again, a singing voice permeating my room.