The Chronicles of Asimue

Chapter Two

The two sisters had climbed the stone steps, tentatively scanning the ground in front of them, reaching the top, both let out their breaths. The room, filled with webs and dust, had a curtained bed, a fireplace at one end with light that tittered through the bay window,  from there they could make out the garden bellow.

Katherine passed over to the mantle which held a trail of photographs, picking up one and brushing off the dirt, whilst Amelia went over to the desk in the corner, it was littered with drawings and scribbles. These held, landscape scenes, unrecognisable, to her, a few watercolors and a strange depiction of a necklace, in great detail, it was a chained pendant of a family crest. All of these drawings were gone over and over several times with little changes, as if the artist was trying to perfect it.

"Look!" Amelia ushered in response, Katherine came over to her. Amelia looked to her sister, questioning, "Who do you think lived here? And why is the room sealed off?"

Katherine bringing the photograph to her, replied "I think I know."

Amelia began picking up the drawings from the desk, and passing them to Katherine, beneath one, a woodland scene was a leather bound notebook. Not long after, they heard Mrs Adler calling them down for dinner, they both straitened, darting down the stairs, heaving the bookcase shut, Amelia taking the notebook with them as they moved throughout the house. In a wood panelled corridor outside the dinning room, she safely tucked it in the draw of a loveseat, before joining everyone for dinner.

"I was thinking tomorrow we could resume classes and begin, with some light mathematics followed by some reading." Stated Mrs Adler, cutting into the roasted pheasant. Both Amelia and Katherine nodded, swallowing back their food and washing it away with tea.

"You seem awfully quick with your food tonight, any particular reason?" Mrs Adler paused glancing skeptically at the two girls, "What do you think about the reading?"

Katherine shrugged, Amelia continued to eat, within minutes, their plates were clean and they looked to Mrs Adler. Glancing up from her plate she saw they were already anticipating their leave, sighing she permitted, "Fine, go and enjoy your fun for this evening, but tomorrow I want your full attention" she watched them drop down their cutlery and scatter out of the room.

The girls leapt from their seats, before running down the corridor their braids waving behind them. Both gravitated to the old study, opening the door enthusiastically to one of the maids, busily cleaning the room. "Sorry" she exclaimed, Katherine and Amelia turned on their heels, defeated. Before Amelia grabbed her sisters arm, returning to the love seat, picking out the notebook from within, they travelled to their room, settling onto one of the beds they unclasped it.

Folding away the leather leaves, it was evident, that it was a Journal, the first entry dated, July 1893.It began with the writer explaining her horror of being locked in her room, away from the outdoors she so loved. "Why would they lock her up?" Amelia cried, searching her sister's expression. Katherine looked down to her sister sweeping away a stray caramel curl, "Don't you remember, they said she was mad. I thought they put her in a home, but they must have kept her here for a while."

"But was she really mad?" Amelia questioned, folding her sleeves over her hands.

"They all said Aunt Marcie was dafter than a rabbit and sprouted nothing but nonsense" Katherine spoke as she began to read though the entries, "See here she even mentioned something about a kingdom, and some sort of food named a Mieon" Katherine smiled, uttering the notebook was of nothing, but her crazed ramblings. Amelia grabbed at the bedcovers, her knuckles turning white, she leaned over to the book, scrolling to the last entry, "Look she speaks about a place not far from here" as she lifted it from the disregarded position on the bed. Katherine went to grab it back. The book twisted in the air, and a slip of paper landed on the bedding between them. Unfolding the paper Katherine gasped, but tried to stifle her sisters curiosity by closing it and attempting to slip it back into the notebook. Though Amelia pulled Katherine's ivory hands towards her and viewed the piece of parchment for herself.

It was a map, tired and hand drawn, it listed familiar land marks at the edge it even listed their village. Following the hedgerows to the fields they played in, it came to thick woodland, to the mountain ranges, of the west, behind that through it listed a valley passage which met the kingdom, Aunt Marcie had mentioned in her entries, the land of Asimue.