THAT ILLUSION || ONC 2021

~•{Chapter #08}•~

Laughing at her infantile dabbles, he took out his hidden hand to the front. He placed a lotus carved, brass metal box on her hand. She opened hastily with gleaming joy that endowed her amethyst a swift shine. A flat anchor patterned rose gold link with an empty hook, indicating the missing pendant was placed on a purple velvet cloth.

She took the chain in her cushy palms and examined it in glee. She hugged him expressing her joy, and his strong cinnamon whiffs made her sneeze twice. He hugged her back to cover up the little irk. After comforting her for some fractions, he whispered, "Now, it's your turn to find the pendant. You will win in this hoodie-boodie."

She broke the embrace and glared at him. "So you began it without telling me? But, I never win in hoodie-boodie," she said while her face fell fixed to the marble floors.

"Don't worry princess, you will surely find it," he assured her while floating his palm on her hair. Neither his words nor his caressing strokes could ease her.

"Okay, I will give a hint. It's in your room and nowhere else. If you couldn't find it, I will help you get that. Either way, it belongs to you." Hearing that she placed the box in his hands and hugged him quick.

Breaking the little moment of love, she ran through the steps and turned towards the left. She twisted the baton knob of the door and entered her music themed room.

"Our little princess is in," a mellifluous voice announced and played a melodic symphony. It was a custom that she felt proud of, but the task in her hand urged her to act otherwise.

'Stopiere Noew.'
'Stop now.'

She ordered looking at the golden violin that was hung connected to the baton doorknob. The soft, dulcet symphony halted suddenly, tugging a formal silence in the air. Ignoring that, she glanced at everything, from the lilac floral ceiling to the cream birds perching in the purple walls, checking if anything was off from its actual axis. To her unluck, everything was exact and steady.

Her scanning tender, amethyst orbs landed on her black oak piano cot clad with a black and white key sheeted mattress. She crawled in and pulled out three caskets from the notes ledge of the piano. Without missing even a short piece of finesse that she possessed, her eyes skimmed the possessions, one after the other, just to recognise her old pearls and lately brought gems but nothing fresh.

She got up from the bed and went to the black accordion bookshelf, her second dubious area. Even there, her yellow-tinted, slightly puffed classic scriptures of fairy tales and enchantments were arranged in the order she preferred them. She then searched the three-legged wooden saxophone seats that were kept around her brown-black marimba table. Unlocking the racks one after the other, to her amazement, she couldn't find anything.

In this processes of treasure hunt, she distorted her room from a squeaky-clean cabin into an untidy coop. When she was done searching everywhere that her three feet five could let her to, she then fell on her bed and placed her head unnoticed upon her xylophone toy. The sudden sharp outcry gave her a panic attack. Mumbling some curses for the hapless hardships, she lifted her head and took her toy in utter hatred.

The moment she tried to push it to the sides, she noticed something above her head glimmering at her. It was fixed at the base of the notes frame, which she could notice easily if she kept her head on the cushion. Why would father keep this here? she tried to reason out. Before she could begin plodding her thoughts, her eyes fell keen at it again in an attempt to invoke its every detail in depth. The very glance made her shiver and shudder at the same time.

Realising the play of odds and awes that it created in her, she straightened her thoughts with a deep sigh. Without any delay, she took the pendant and ran towards her father who was awaiting her arrival.