A repost from the original An Eighth Shot of Espresso blog on Wordpress.
Write about a character who finds themselves in a child's toy room--except that this place has been closed off for decades. Why would this character open it up? And most importantly, why was the room closed off in the first place?
Day 120: East Wing, Holyrood Castle
We consulted the maps from Master Ifan Holyrood's journal (see insert 13A). This interior wall does not show up anywhere and it is literally sandwiched between two other walls. The outer is the one that everyone sees every day. Then there is this one, and then the innermost one. A mere five feet separates the outer wall from the innermost, but the triple layers are so masterfully crafted that no one is aware of its existence. Why the secrecy? What do these walls hide?
_____
It took us nearly two full days of demolition. We couldn't just use explosives; that could bring the entire castle down upon our heads. So pickaxes, shovels, and sledgehammers, and several volunteers carefully tunneled their way into the walls. They had to stop and make sure their work didn't destroy a support wall or inadvertently cut into a previously undiscovered cache or chamber. It was slow and dirty work, for Master Ifan had built these walls to last.
Perhaps this was the rumored Holyrood crypts from the time of the Crusades. Master Ifan's journals did chronicle his constant frustration at not being able to find the remains of his (in)famous ancestors. Had he indeed found them, and discovered a terrible secret, so terrible that he had to hide them again?
On the afternoon of the second day, Master Mitchell's pickax hit air instead of stone. Foul air rushed out from the hole, but it lasted only a few moments. Whatever lay behind hadn't seen the light of day in perhaps two centuries or more.
"I think we've found it!" he shouted.
We shone our torches into the hole, but saw nothing. The darkness was ever so deep, so penetrating, that mere torches could not illuminate whatever this chamber held. Masters Mitchell and Hoyle quickly enlarged the hole, making it possible for the party to enter in single file. Mitchell was the first to step through it, and I quickly followed.
My foot crunched on what seemed like powdery ash. It covered the floor in strange patches, along with the remains of bits of colored fabric and rusted bands of silver. I frowned and picked up one of the bands. It looked like it could have been a ring, sized for a smaller hand, the fake jewels set in it fallen out long ago. I shivered at the sudden sense of foreboding.
"What on earth is this?" I asked aloud.
The chamber was only perhaps fifteen paces by twenty, not very big, but a small pallet sat in one corner of the room. The remains of what looked like a bassinet of some kind was next to it, several small boxes and chests, and scraps of faded fabric and thread. Debris and broken parts lay strewn all over the dusty floor. A lone candle stood in a holder nearby.
"It looks like a sleeping chamber of some sort," said Hoyle. He had followed us with his torch held high for illumination, "but there are no windows and no door."
I took a step forward and my foot crunched on stone. I looked closer to see the remains of what looked like a miniature wheel, like one attached to a toy car. A closer examination showed that the rest of the car lay nearby, the colored paint long lost, and a metal figure still in the driver's seat. I slowly circled the room. What I had taken for debris, was, in fact, the remains of...
"Toys," I murmured. "Children's toys."
Wooden letter blocks, a ragged doll with wide blue eyes and tangled hair of yarn. A deflated ball once filled with sawdust. A lone wooden soldier missing a leg and his hat. Charcoal sticks snapped in half. I went to one of the rotting chests and flipped open the lid. There, folded within, looked like costumes, ones that a child would use to play dress-up on a rainy day.
"How odd," Mitchell murmured. He reached into the bassinet and picked up a broken baby rattle.
It didn't take us long at all to examine the contents of the room. A worn out teddy bear, several threadbare blankets, a wooden duck with a pull-string, game pieces, dice, tiny plates and cups for a tea party. Oddly enough, a set of small knucklebones had been carefully gathered and put in a tattered drawstring bag. I shivered and did not touch it. It seemed out of place with the rest of the toys.
I looked around at the rest of the room. This could easily have been a children's nursery. It held everything to entertain a group for hours.
Yet why was this sealed away behind multiple walls? There was no door for entrance or exit, or windows to let in the sunlight, and the only illumination was the single lone candle. Furthermore, there were no identifying marks on any of the toys, despite the fact they had seemed to be well used.
It was odd tableaux of a child's life. I could imagine he or she spending an afternoon here under the watchful eye of their mother or governess, engrossed in the games and without a care in the world.
"Indeed," I said. "Odder and odder, still."
"It seems no one has been in here for quite some time. The dust was undisturbed until we broke the walls," Hoyle remarked. "Perhaps this was an unknown part of the East Wing in Master Ifan's time, and even he had no idea-"
"The walls were old, but not ancient," Mitchell pointed out, "and my little ones would recognize and play with most of these toys. No, there is something that does not make sense."
I circled around to examine the walls, but there were no pictures or any childish scribbles or marks. Mitchell had a point; for a nursery, it was a strange one, indeed. Then I spotted the small box in the far corner, easily overlooked in the dim flame of the torches. I approached and knelt in front of it.
"What have you found there, Elizabeth?" Hoyle asked.
I opened the box to find a large leather-bound book. The spine had been cracked and the hand-sewn pages barely held together by thread. The lock fell apart the moment I touched it. Carefully, I took it out of the box and blew the dust off its cover. I frowned at the heraldic shield embossed on it.
The Holyrood sword and staff.
"A record book of some sort," I said. "Bring the torches here, I need more light."
The book held slips of parchment between its pages. For Papa, written in tipsy capital letters. Faded photographs of a mother and swaddled child, next to the bassinet. The woman wore a simple gray gown, her hair tucked in a severe bun. Her eyes were large, dark and haunted, with the expression of someone with too much to do and not enough time to do it.
Five different children in five different photographs, two boys and three girls. The youngest only days old, the eldest perhaps seven or eight years old. Two dark haired, a blond, and two gingers who appeared to be identical twins. I compared the photos. The gingers were obviously siblings, the dark haired ones could have been cousins, the blond did not resemble the others at all. Their names were scrawled on the back of the pictures, and strands of hair carefully taped under them.
"The children's hair?" Mitchell asked. He had a disturbed expression on his face.
"I've heard of people saving locks of hair as keepsakes," I said, as I looked through the photographs. "Some were put in lockets or scrapbooks like this one."
"It still doesn't feel right."
I nodded in agreement. "No, it doesn't."
We looked at the names. Hannah. William. Edward. Mary. Katherine. Here were the two boys playing with the cars and toy soldiers. Katherine clutched at the bear. Hannah rolled the ball on the floor and Mary drew with the charcoal sticks. The room had been theirs.
One of the papers was a request for more food and candles, and still more toys from the carpenters'. Another was written by a shaky hand and said, I beg of you, do not forget us, do not forsake us. Punish me if you will, but let the children go free. They do not deserve their fate, they are innocent. Let them play in the sun, not in the darkness.
I felt a shiver down my spine. This had been more than just their playroom. This had been their prison. No windows, no door...
Hoyle read it over my shoulder. "You mean to tell me that they were trapped in here? Five children and their mother...or caretaker? Elizabeth, have you heard of this?"
I shook my head. "No. The Holyrood family history makes no mention of anything like this."
Mitchell made a noise of disgust. He had three little ones of his own, and I could tell that he was imagining this injustice in his mind's eye. "This is a travesty! Why would they neglect their own flesh and blood like this?!"
"And what happened to them?" Hoyle looked at me. "Look around...it is as if someone came in and tried to destroy all the toys, possibly after they were gone."
I went through every scrap of paper, but there was no further mention of what befell the five children and their caretaker. None at all. The room had been cleverly hidden between two layers of walls.
Two layers of walls.
I nearly dropped the fragile album as another cold shiver went down my spine. No, it couldn't be. They wouldn't have done such an abomination, couldn't they? I stared at the ash on the floor, the scraps of fabric, the poor twisted band in my hand.
The knuckle bones.
"God be good...they never left. They were here and they were bricked up inside."
"What?" They both looked like they were gut-punched. Hoyle gripped his torch and Mitchell's face completely drained of color.
"Their playroom is a tomb. We need to get out of here." I tucked the book under my arm and looked around. Some injustices cannot be forgiven. We will not let this be forgotten.
And even as I had the thought, the one solitary candle in the playroom slowly, inexplicably, flared to life.
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