Once Upon A [Stolen] Time (Stolen Series Book 1)

by Ahsan, Samreen

  All across the expansive entryway, the walls had wide openings onto the north side of the barren ground. There were huge windows all around, adorned by black velvet drapes hanging from the forty-foot-high ceiling. The windows were designed to let light into the room, but there wasn’t much light coming from them. The velvet curtains gave the feeling of darkness taking over the light, even though they were tied back so the light could get in. And despite so many openings for natural light, there was a strange feeling of darkness that crept inside the castle. Maybe I was wrong—maybe I would see more light in other places; maybe the sun would come out and it would look less gloomy. I was teaching myself to stay positive. I didn’t want to get scared at the start.

  We ascended the stairs, which were made of solid stone that led to the Great Hall. I looked around at the huge, high ceiling and into the corners, and I was amazed to notice that the entire area was free of cobwebs. It was quite strange, because if we don’t dust our walls for a month, the spiders make their homes in the corners.

  “You know, Steve, I completely despise rats.” I grabbed Steve’s arm to catch his attention. “I’m sure this place will be filled with rats and spiders, so stay close to me.” It was strange that even though we’d just met the day before and we didn’t have any romantic relationship, I felt close to him. It was a comfortable relationship.

  “No, Miss Farrow. You won’t see any living creature here, so don’t bother about bugs or rats,” Julia answered.

  “So you’re saying that their drainpipes and rat holes are empty?” Tyler asked, exasperated. “How is that even possible?”

  “Let’s go and find out,” Julia shrugged.

  The walls around us were decorated with animal heads—wolves, deer, panthers, falcons, hawks—all animals that could be hunted.

  “The Hue men were very fond of hunting.” Julia pointed toward the frames. “After their breakfast, they’d typically spend several hours in the woods, hunting. Besides, they had plenty of time, since there was no Internet or smart phones to kill time,” she joked.

  “They were not readers?” I asked.

  “Reading was an expensive hobby at that time. More like a luxury. Women were not allowed to read or write much except for basic Latin, but they were too busy knitting, sewing, spinning, baking and taking care of other household chores. And men were supposed to master horseback riding, swordsmanship or archery.”

  “So there wasn’t a library in the castle?” I asked again.

  Julia took a deep breath. “They say Queen Jasmine made a library once. She was originally from Morocco and her family was famous for weaving stories. They travelled from one country to another in order to weave stories.”

  “You mean storytelling?” asked Tyler.

  “No. They wove stories. They had a special and secret way of recording actual events in their books. Like capturing certain times, and locking them up.”

  “Locking them up where?” Steve asked.

  “No one knows where they were preserving time. They were called Sahra, which means ‘magicians’ in Arabic,” she added.

  “I don’t get you,” Steve said.

  “People say the Sahras belonged to a cult which mastered black magic. I don’t think black magic allows you to capture moments like a movie or photographs, though. According to the legend, the moments were captured in a secret thing.”

  “What thing?” I asked.

  “Who knows?" She shrugged. "The legend also says the person who would unlock the secret would belong to Jasmine’s bloodline. The person would see everything stored in the secret thing in front of his eyes. It’s like belonging to that family is your identity and the password to unlock the secrets.”

  “How do you know?” Steve asked.

  "There's a book which shares a secret of this castle. It is in an ancient bookstore in Morocco, on the outskirts of Casablanca,” replied Julia.

  “How do you know all this?” I asked out of curiosity.

  “I will tell you in a while,” she answered.

  The steps ended and we stood in what seemed to be a hall.

  “This is the Great Hall.” Julia turned toward us. “As you can see, this is a huge area, and possibly the largest room you’ll find in this castle. All castles in earlier times had this Great Hall. In it were held sessions with the public and the king, and it was also a common dining room. Later on, they made a separate dining area just for the royal family.”

  It was indeed the greatest hall I had ever seen in my entire life. You could play cricket here.

  There was another stairway leading up somewhere. I saw many openings all around the great hall, leading deeper into the castle.

  “To answer your question regarding how I came to know all this, let me take you somewhere.” She started walking toward the east side of the hall. We all followed her automatically. The walls were paneled with dark wainscoting, and there were huge sconces that acted like candleholders. The big candles were half burned, and amazingly there were no cobwebs there either. Maybe Julia was right. Maybe there wasn’t any life here.

  There was a dark windowless passage, which took almost five minutes to walk, leading to a very large room. Steve used his phone’s torch to light the way.

  “This is the castle’s chapel.” Julia’s voice echoed in the barren room. I had thought the passage would lead us to some dungeon, but here we were in a chapel.

  “It’s empty—doesn’t look like a chapel from any angle, except for that cross and the vaulted ceiling,” Tyler exclaimed.

  The room was dusted with smoke and carbon. I could still smell the burned wood, so I asked Julia, “Did this place catch on fire?”

  “Not catch! It was set on fire.”

  “Oh boy! They burned those babies here?” Steve jerked and looked around.

  “No, this chapel was in use till the last heir of the Hue family died. After the government claimed the castle and many people started working on the restoration, they were haunted by that.” She pointed toward an eight-foot-tall wooden frame, which had a black screen. “So people burned it down without the government’s consent, because it was hard for them to work in here.”

  “What’s so scary about that screen?” I asked.

  “It’s not just the screen, Miss Farrow,” she responded, and started walking toward it. The area looked like it was once an altar, two steps above the ground. We climbed onto the altar and I noticed small openings in the ceiling. Surprisingly, there were no birds’ nests. I’ve been to so many churches and I have always noticed birds nesting there in those small openings. This lack of life was strange and creepy!

  The huge wooden frame hung on the wall just above the middle of the altar. Above the eight-foot-high, four-foot-wide frame was the cross.

  “This was originally Jasmine’s mirror.” Julia waved her arm toward the frame. “When she was forced to leave her own place, she placed the mirror in this chapel and cast a spell on the whole area. According to the legend, she cried and sought God’s power, and said that if one has no heart and could kill the babies, that one should not be allowed to worship Him. Guess what? He heard her and since then, this mirror is locked on this wall and no one is able to move it.”

  “It doesn’t look like a mirror,” Tyler acknowledged.

  “You’re right. That’s because it’s covered with this black screen. The curse on the Hue family was that they could never see themselves in this mirror or any mirror in the castle, because King Andrew killed the babies and named them black hideous beasts.”

  “So what did they see instead of their reflection?” I asked.

  She blinked twice at me and said, “Black hideous beasts.”

  “Why were people scared, then?” Steve asked.

  “Because no one can see his or her own reflection in this mirror. You’ll only see the black hideous beast,” she said quietly.

  “Have you seen it yourself?” Steve asked again.

  “No. They screened it in the mid-eighteenth century because pe
ople kept seeing themselves as hideous beasts. A priest from the area told people to set this place on fire because they couldn’t move the mirror. According to him it was Satan’s mirror.” She stepped closer to the frame. “Now, if you notice, everything in here burned, but you see the wooden frame is still intact and maintains its original color.”

  I came closer and touched the five-inch-thick wooden frame. I noticed something written in gold all around the frame, repeating over and over. I moved in closer to read the cursive writing:

  “That’s right. This is how I learned about the book in Morocco, where Sahrah’s cult came from. If you Google this phrase, it will show you one result—a book kept in an ancient bookstore in Morocco. I took down the address of that store and went to see the book, hoping I could find something related to this mirror or Jasmine’s curse or who she actually was, but unfortunately I was not able to read it.”

  “The language problem?” Steve questioned.

  “No. The book was empty. The owner said the book was passed down, generation after generation, but it is of no use to anyone because there is nothing in it. The pages are just empty shaded papers, or maybe the text faded over time. The bookstore is more like a museum, preserving old books written on papyrus—before regular paper was invented. But every book has text in different languages.”

  “But the text never fades on papyrus. That’s what I’ve read,” I commented.

  “You’re right, but that book has nothing in it. Just the first page has this text, in the same font as the carving on the mirror. All the other pages are empty,” Julia replied. “I don’t even know the purpose of that book.”

  “It’s really giving me some bright ideas for the game, though,” Steve commented amusingly. Indeed, we were all fascinated by the dark fairy tale. “A magical mirror where no one can see his face, but only one belonging to the cult—or maybe a magical book which can only be read by one of those magicians. What do you say, Myra?”

  I was too busy looking at the carved, golden text. I moved closer to the screen, which was like a sticker on the mirror. I wanted to see what kind of beast it would show.

  I placed my forehead on the screen and lost the voices behind me. The last thing I heard was Julia explaining something to Steve and Tyler. I covered my temples with my hands on both sides to avoid extra light coming from different directions, and looked deeply past the mirror.

  My face looked back at me. Shit! I wasn’t prepared for it and it wasn’t my mirrored reflection—I saw myself wearing different clothes—from the fifteenth century—a long dress fitted to my waistline, its skirt going down to the floor. It looked like a wedding gown. I was holding white flowers, smiling at me.

  “Oh shit!” I jerked back and stumbled on the stone floor. My breath was shallow—I could hardly feel my heart because it skipped somewhere, looking into the mirror.

  Steve rushed toward me. “What happened, Myra? Are you okay?” Tyler and Julia also knelt down.

  “I saw my face. I was wearing a wedding gown…and…and smiling.” I was trying to catch my breath. I had never been so scared in my life. Although I saw nothing other than my own reflection, the norm is: you see you in the mirror—the way you are and not in some wedding gown smiling strangely at you when you’re not even smiling.

  “You gotta be kidding me.” Tyler snorted. He stood up and walked toward the mirror and placed his forehead closer to it. “I don’t see anything. It’s just black screen. You can’t see anything past it.”

  “I swear I saw it.” My voice was barely audible.

  “Why don’t you try again, Miss Farrow? It could be your imagination,” Julia said.

  Steve held me by the arm and helped me up. “Don’t be scared. We’re all with you,” he assured me.

  I looked around the chapel. Besides the small openings close to the ceiling, the chapel had large windows with green, red and blue mosaic glass. It was very unusual for a church or chapel.

  “The window designs are unconventional for a typical church,” I commented, looking at one of the windows.

  “Yes, you’re right. It is not like a typical English church. Since Jasmine was a Moroccan and David was Roman Catholic, you will see the blend of both cultures.” Julia answered.

  I gathered my courage and walked slowly toward the mirror—the fear of watching my own reflection again was making my heart race. I did the same thing—closing my hands around my eyes and looking past the black screen. I saw myself again in the same gown—holding flowers—but there was a man behind me, watching me in my gown. He wore a loose white shirt and pants, and a full-length black velvet cape clasped at his neck. His hair was dark blond, down to his shoulders, and he had a short beard, not even an inch long. I couldn’t see his face clearly because he was standing at a distance behind me, but I would still recognize him if I happened to see him somewhere. It was the love in his eyes that caught my attention. I had never seen a man carrying so much passion in his eyes.

  I jerked back again and breathed hard. “Yes…” I tried to get my bearings. “It’s me, in the gown, and there is a man in a loose white shirt and pants and he’s wearing a long black velvet cape.” I moved away from the mirror. “This was a chapel—I could see pews behind me. There are two columns and around ten rows of pews.” I looked toward Julia, hoping she’d understand.

  She looked at me in shock. Her face turned white. “She’s right.” She looked at Steve. “That was how it was before it was burned. It had ten rows of pews on two sides.”

  “All right,” Tyler announced. “Can we just get the hell out of here? Because it’s freaking me out.”

  “You’re such a chicken, Tyler!” exclaimed Steve.

  “”What the fuck, dude? Okay, I’m a chicken. She sees herself in a wedding gown in that goddamn black screen, whereas I don’t see shit.” Tyler was shouting at Steve but pointing at me. “She sees a man standing in that thing when there’s no one here. She sees the pews behind her and guess what…Miss Watson acknowledges this shit.”

  “Myra, are you sure you’re not making it up?” Julia asked me.

  “Why would I make it up? You just said it had the same number of pews, otherwise how would I know I was right? And guess what…the walls were light yellow and now it’s all dusty due to the burned smoke and carbon.” I sighed. “Okay…let me try again and I will tell you what else I see.” I walked again closer to the mirror and placed my forehead on it, closing my hands in to look past it. I took a long breath. “The girl looks like me and she’s apparently not looking at me. She’s just looking at her reflection and the man behind her, who is watching her with intense love.” I paused. “She’s holding white lilies.” I didn’t know why, but now I was not scared of the reflection anymore. It looked so pure and divine—I was already jealous of me in the gown. I’ve always dreamt of a gown like this. “The gown is magnificent. It’s made of lace with white diamonds attached to it. Her net veil is touching the ground.” It was a still moment—like the couple was locked in time—too busy staring at each other to pay attention to the world around them. And me? I was so lost in her dress that I hardly bothered looking at the man behind her, but his grey eyes still caught my attention.

  I moved back from the mirror and glanced toward Julia. Her face looked like I’d just told her a horror story. I moved my head to the opposite side where the entrance was.

  “Above that entrance is a painting of Mary holding baby Jesus.” I pointed toward the wall above the entrance and glanced at Steve, who was apparently shocked. “You see, Steve, the hook is still there but the frame is gone.” Steve knitted his eyebrows and looked at the place I was pointing to. Tyler stepped down off the altar, walked toward the entrance and looked up.

  “Holy crap!” Tyler said in amazement. “I can see the shaded mark on the wall where the painting hung. Like it was there for a very long time, but then someone took it down.” He walked toward us. “Shit shit shit! You’re not lying!” he admitted finally. He turned toward Steve. “Dude, I don’
t think it’s a cool idea to film this castle. I’m already having goose bumps.”

  “No way, Tyler! It took me two fucking years to get into this place and I’m not going anywhere until I explore it. You can come with me or not—but I’m going to bring this castle into my game because I know it will be the biggest hit in the gaming industry.”

  “Yeah? It will only be a hit if we survive this mess,” yelled Tyler.

  “Stop fighting, both of you,” I interrupted. “You’re arguing like kids.” I looked at Tyler. “Let’s stay together. I’m as scared as you are, Tyler, because something seems weird about this place.”

  “I’m going on.” Julia spoke in between us. She looked at her watch. I also checked the time. It was past noon. “We have to look at other parts of the castle before it gets dark.” She looked toward Steve, who nodded silently.

  Julia stepped down from the altar and we all followed her. I scanned the room; it looked good on the other side of the screen. I didn’t know if I was seeing it before it was burned, or if the mirror was showing me the future.

  Maybe the woman in the mirror wasn’t me. Maybe it was someone else who looked like me, but the man who was watching her—the way he looked at her—it was filled with so much love and warmth—like it was the happiest moment of his life. I could feel the connection between them. It was pure and sinless.

  “I’ve got this creepy feeling that it’s not a good idea to explore this place.” Tyler sounded afraid.

  Despite his words, we all moved toward the chapel’s exit to explore the mystery.

  “Hatred does not cease by hatred,

  but only by love;

  this is the eternal rule.”

  Buddha

  CHAPTER 4

  EDWARD

  APRIL 1415

  After breakfast, I headed back to my room to prepare for my lesson. Today was a swordfight with my sword master Phillip Concord. He was the toughest man in our kingdom, and I was supposed to fight him man-to-man. I was still wondering how I could compete against my own teacher. It’s common knowledge that a master always keeps one last lesson to himself, so he will never let his student win. The purpose of this fight was to make me stronger in King Stefan’s world, and a bully in my view.