(PS - Words or sentences in "italics" represents Kavya's thoughts and feelings at that moment.)

I knew this Palace was certifiably weird, still there was something which was making me feel relieved and relaxed. Something that would do anything but would never hurt me, something calling me attracting me, which was yet to be seen. As if, I was waiting for something, maybe someone.

You have definitely gone crazy, Kavya!

I startled, with a knock at the door.

"It's open, come in."
"Good evening, Miss." A man entered.
"Good evening." I stood up and stared back at a same-aged, fair, nice-looking guy dressed in the servant uniform.
"What would you desire to have for snacks, Miss?"
"Anything would be fine."
"Okay, Miss."
"Listen, but it should be anything in veg. okay. I'm pure vegetarian."
"Don't worry Miss. All the servants are completely aware of that. We've special instructions of cooking separately for you as other than you, everyone here eats non-vegetarian."

Great! One more surprise, quite enough to feed my fear.
How I'd stay here, all alone?
Am I safe? And whats not safe?
What should I do now?

"Miss, When you're done with your work, please do let me know. I've instructions of showing you around and make you aware about all the places."

'Make you aware' Hhh, surely sounds like a warning to me.

But yuppie! I got a way to stay out of the room, at least for sometime.

"Wait, I'm free. I'll just change and come."

He waited outside and I quickly put on a cotton-suit from their newest-gifted-collection, applied a thin layer of 'kajal' and lip-gloss.

"Oh shit wet hair...I can't tie them", so I put-on a hair-band. Then grabbed a flip-flop and stepped outside.

"I'm ready."

So what should I explore first? 
Halls, rooms, other sections, umm.. I should ask whether they've any library or any place full of books. That way I can distract myself from the terror-stricken thought of breathing in a ghostly town.

"Come Miss, I'll first show you the library. You'll love it." He signed respectfully and I followed. Was I thinking out loud?

"Library, how did you know I'd like to go there first?" I frowned in annoyance.

"We all know a lot of things about you Miss." He gave a-we-all-know-everything smile.

Yeah I can see that. "For example...?" 

"Like you are a pure-vegetarian, use hand-made cosmetics, purple-color is one of your favorites, love to read romance books, enjoy exploring paintings, kaju-katli is your most favorite sweet etc...and so much more." A mysterious-smile stayed on his face throughout the time.

Shiva! It is all true.

My eyes almost fainted and fell on the ground, hearing all these coming out of a stranger's mouth.

"H...How...?" 

"We're already informed everything about any new guest. It makes easy for us to take-care of their comfort."

Guest! Who? 
I thought I'm assigned to be a future servant.

"Okay..." A lot of questions were still racing in my mind.

"But this time, it was a little more surprising." He seemed serious.

O, so there's more. "More surprising...in which manner...?"

"It was normal for us to be previously informed about the guest and their likings, but this time it was more specifically-described, as if Chote Hokum himself had discovered those things about you. Only he's capable of finding anything so perfectly-accurate."

"Chote Hokum?" Of course, I'll ask.

"The third son of Mr. and Mrs. Agnivanshi...."

That Prince!

"The one who's an artist, right...."

"Yes absolutely."

"By the way, what's your name?"

"Sam." He turned and smiled at me. I too forced a smile...I'm really not good with boys.

How could I be, I hardly got any chance to talk or be friendly with any boy other than Chetan. I don't know whether I'm interested in my best buddy or not, but I want to feel a love that consume me, drive me crazy and make me forget my name. Chetan is too good to be attractive to me, maybe that's the reason he never succeeded in reaching deep down to the core. He supports me every time I know, but he never understood that the one who will win over me will be the one who will win me.

I'm craving for someone who is manful enough to stand in front of me, lionhearted to change my decisions and amply brave to express his emotions openly to me. Maybe only then he could probably find a way to my clumsy yet complicated heart. He should be in love with me, the real me and never wish to do any changes in my crazy habits, not even intentionally. He should understand me even better than I understand myself...love me even more than I love myself, the list is endless.

So to cut long story short, I want someone to be head over heels for me, so that I could submit myself wholly. I wish for a man, the one with the real manhood. The one, who can put himself in danger, can sacrifice anything for me, can kill anyone for me well I won't wish him to do that one but I just meant he carries intentions of protecting me. I don't want a normal simple guy, somewhere I desire for someone dangerous, someone complicated, someone passionate, someone 'Unique'. Frankly saying, I'd love to be loved by a villain.

I knew it was confusing, so I had left everything on my heartbeats, when it'd go up with someone's touch, voice or appearance I'd know. Being a youth maybe I was really desperate to fall-in-love or be-in-a-relationship, still I chose to wait for that special-someone to come and make butterflies fly in my stomach. Until that moment, I preferred staying in his imagination and be naughty in my dreams and reveries.

While crossing the corridor, I was stopped by an eye-catching-portrait of a red-eyed white-eagle with grey-black strokes on the features. I'm sure it's yet another masterpiece by 'the only' artist of this Palace. I stood below 'that eagle'.

"So beautiful...."

"It's one of the most beautiful paintings made by him."

Certainly it is. "I'm sure it'd be. It's totally amazing. See....it seems like that bird was really sitting on that branch."

"It actually was...Miss." He smiled amusingly.

He is laughing, what's so funny? "What do you mean?"

"Each painting sketched by his-hands, is actually the result of a real-scene encountered by his own eyes. So, this one is also real, as it's the picture of his pet, Veer."

"He has kept an-eagle as his pet. Really...."

That man is spreading over me.

"Eagles are unique and that's enough for his choice." He replied with a smile fully filled with extreme-respect for his 'Chote-Hokum'.

Every time I hear something about him I feel motivated to find out more and more. No wonder he'd be an interesting person to meet.

I saw a room just on the opposite side, labeled with a tag 'restricted to enter'. It was a bit stranger than everything else, so how could I stop myself from asking?

"Why there's a warning on that place, Sam?"

"Oh! That one.... It's Chote-Hokum's room."

Chote-Hokum again! My interest suddenly piqued.

"No one's allowed to enter inside." He added.

"What? But why....?"

Is he a terrorist or someone on a secret mission sort of thing?

"We've no idea, Miss. But, I personally think he'd kept something in his room which he didn't want to be seen by anyone else." He lowered his voice and decreased the distance between us.

And the secrets started popping-out.

"Secretly, I'd also heard that his room is decorated with his own hand-made pictures of 'the-girl' he's in love with." He murmured looking right and left.

Pictures of a girl he's in love with..... Great... Awesome.....
I lost this chance. He already has a girlfriend.
Why the hell it happens always with me?
Why interesting guys can't be single?

Though, it was obvious that anyone could be a better and interesting girlfriend than me. Still I also want someone fascinating.

Shit! Till now I was thinking that it could be a love-at-first-sight. But he was already in love, so I wouldn't be feeling the same anymore. Our first meeting would be just-formal, instead of something magical, as I imagined or wanted. Double shit!

'As you can't reach in someone's heart if somebody else is already sitting there.'

Leave the track, girl, my meticulous subconscious warned.

"So, he has a girlfriend." I still dug deeper, following my wayward heart, as habitual.

"No, we can't claim that with surety, as no one has ever seen her. I think he hasn't proposed her yet." He claimed. "But you make sure that you never enter his premises. He gets really angry if someone even tries to peep inside." He added as some sort of serious warning.

"Don't worry. I never intended to."

I was still staring at that door. I'm a real bad liar. But I think Sam was even bad in catching lies.

"I know, Miss. You'd never do such a thing."

Finally we reached in front of the library. I peeked inside and it was big, really big with thousands of books arranged perfectly, as expected.

Plus I got my wish of falling in love-at-first-sight.

"Come Inside, Miss." He showed me a register to enter the book details, if I wanted to take any book out of the library. Then he guided me about the romance-sections, short-stories, fiction, non-fiction etc... and more...

"And if I wanna read something from those upper-sections, then?" I pointed my finger upwards.

"Just a minute, Miss." He disappeared for a minute and returned with a long-wooden-ladder which could even touch the ceiling. Great!

"You can use this. Though no one had used it ever before, as the only person who come here is Chote-Hokum and he never felt the need of a ladder."

"So, he'd be reading books present in the lower sections only. Right...?" Ops! Do I have to say that?

He smiled. "No, no it's not like that. Actually, Veer worked in place of the ladder, he used to bring his selected books from the upper sections."

What!

"So, you mean his bird could read too." I giggled sardonically.

He smiled again. "It's weird but yes, he could."

"Are you serious, an eagle could read...Really." I asked, vacuous.

"Yes, Miss. He's capable of reading most of the languages. He'd trained him so many things. He's one intelligent-pet."

"Awesome." Or weirder I don't know.

I was awed again but he was in love with someone. Shit!

"Make yourself comfortable, Miss. There are tables and chairs in the other section, you can sit and read there too, if you want to."

"Okay, thank you."

"I'll just bring something for you to eat." He left.

Okay...now it's just me and my loving-loneliness. The lower section have books related to the history-of-romance, historical-legends and so much more, in short the ones I'd never intend to read. Those upper sections were tagged with fantasy-fiction-romance published my Rajwadi Publications.

Now that's a treat!

Their stories are so realistic as if they were real-characters actually surviving in some worlds. I wanted to read them badly, but that ladder was scowling back at me. Finally my childish-fear won over my reading-desire and I held the ladder.

"Kavya, buckle-up."

After taking a long breath, I opened my eyes and started climbing, after reaching almost 14 - 15 feet above the ground, I stopped. Beside that section, I rolled my eyes on almost every bunch-of-paper and couldn't decide which one to pick first. I really suck at selections. That's why I always prefer someone to pick things up for me. Honestly, I haven't gotten that 'someone' in my life yet.

Accidentally, I peeked down and realized I'd get my bones fractured if I slipped. Although I was also sure I won't...as I fully trusted my strong-hold. But it was also true, whenever I predicted something like that, it normally happens opposite.

Once I was cutting tomatoes and I was like I'm so good at it that I could never cut my finger, ever. As soon as the thought completed, I saw blood coming out. That was merely an accident but, it made me believe as it happened only because I was thinking about it. Thus on the basis of several previous experiences, I ordered myself to stop such foolishly-dangerous thoughts.

Thud! I gasped with the sound of some object falling on the floor. OMG, what was that?

It all went dark in-a-wink and thundering started outside. Brilliant!

And I got the notion why they had included candles in the decoration of every corner of the Palace.

The heavy wind opened the windows, releasing cool breeze inside. Wait, it is the first ever window I have noticed inside this stately-home, maybe they are allergic to brightness. Look, the servant uniform is an example of that.

Those weather effects definitely panicked my poor heartbeats. I tightened my hold and stop moving completely. Okay, okay, calm down, calm down. No one's watching you, no one's around you. It is just the darkness, just black color.

I thought that it couldn't get any worse than that and suddenly something flew behind my back. Papa!

Obviously, I shook and lost the grip. Yelling loudly with closed eyes, I was ready to taste the pain of broken ribs. But I got saved by someone. I squinted and saw my face resting on his chest. I knew he was Sam.

Thank you Shiva, you send him on the right time.

"Thank you so much, Sam. You saved m......." I looked up...and my heart skipped a beat, he is definitely not Sam. A lightening thunder stroke near the window, revealed his manly face... Somebody remind me my name please.

The moon light falling over us, added extra charm to his countenance. Oh! 

To be continued......