Chapter 2

Aurora finally climbed out of bed and headed towards the large bay window past the little sofa, without turning the standing lamp on to gauge a better view out of the window to investigate the dark forest, she climbed onto the window seat and pulled the throw over her legs ready to be seated for the next few hours. Pulling back one of the beautiful purple velvet curtains that hung the full length of the window, just enough to peak through a small gap rather than opening them completely on one side like the last two nights when she had wanted to investigate the howling noise, giving herself away by sitting in plain view. She didn’t think it would make a difference having the curtain open completely on one side or if it just so happened to be a small little gap.

As she glanced out of the window something caught her attention, it was a pair of large red eyes watching up at the window directly at her. ‘How can they see me’ I thought to myself. ‘Maybe I’m just really tired and imaging that these eyes are looking directly at me’ trying to reassure myself as I was a little freaked out. After what seemed to be hours of just staring out of the window at these eyes, they disappeared into the darkness. ‘Finally, they’ve gone, I wonder who it was? Why were they looking directly at me? How long have they been watching me?’ All these questions were flying around my head, when suddenly the loud howl was heard again sending shivers down my spine as this sounded different like an outside communication.

Whilst I waited to see if there was any further howling, I glanced at the alarm clock, seeing that it said 3am I sighed inwardly as I know that I wouldn’t be able to sleep now due to all the unanswered questions going on in my head. Getting up from the window seat, I headed to my bookshelf to pick up my favourite book, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, I switched on my lamp as I went past and got comfortable on the sofa to read until I had to get up ready for breakfast in a few hours as I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

“Aurora! Aurora!” I could hear my name being shouted from a distance followed by some loud banging on a door, ‘wait, what?’ as I startled awake it wasn’t just a dream it was happening right now, and that voice sounded like Poppy. I jumped off the sofa glancing at my alarm clock 8:30am, ‘shit’ I panicked running towards the door opening it wide to see Poppy standing there with a worried look on her face. “Are you ok?” She asked me, looking at the large bags under my eyes, “yeah, just heard it again last night and then fell asleep on the sofa” I said walking to turn off my lamp and to pick up my book that lay on the floor.

“Did you see anything this time” Poppy replied seeing that the curtain was still open slightly from last night letting in the morning sun. Poppy is the only person who I’ve told about the strange howling that has been happening as she is my best friend since we were small, playing on the floor with our toys whilst our fathers were working in the King’s office discussing the best new laws to introduce. “No, nothing again. Not sure why I keep hearing it so close to my room?” I lied, as I felt like this might be something dangerous or make her worry if I told her what was going on and what I saw. “Did you need something?” I reminded, to see why she was so urgent in banging on the door. “Yes, Mum and Dad want to see you, then we are going shopping!” She said the last bit as matter of fact as she knows how much I hate shopping at the best of times.

“I’ll be over in an hour, I need to have a shower and get ready, please can you let them know” I replied, gathering my clothes from the wardrobe, and putting them on the bed, turning to face her, she nodded and waved goodbye as she was walking towards the door to leave. I followed her out of my bedroom across the hall to take a shower, my bathroom is the same size as my bedroom with a large walk – in rain shower on one wall to the left of the bathroom door and a massive bathtub, that can easily hold 4 people, on the right. Hidden behind the door is the toilet in its own little cubicle. Right in front of the door, on the far wall opposite, is a large sink and mirror as well as the towel rack, that has the warmest fluffiest towels, just the right thing after a nice shower or bath as they felt like a nice warm hug. I quickly jumped in the shower and walked back to my room and got dressed to meet the King and Queen.