Pammy's Glided Cage

A day in an old castle where the wind carries the conversations and secrets are found lying everywhere. I was in my room, getting ready for the day, when I heard something I shouldn’t have heard. I lay closer to the door, my soft ears straining against the rough, well-shaped wood. I caught the murmurs beneath the door, hoping it was a misunderstanding, but the following words I heard only opened one page in a closed book.

“I can’t live like this anymore, Kevin,” Raftellyn declared, her Hazel eyes glistening with tears.

“And who said I can? I'm doing my best for this family, for Pammy, at least think about her for once. What do you think she will do if she hears any of this?” Kevin exclaimed.

“Doing your best? What we are doing is brutal; we can get caught very easily. You think she wouldn’t notice us staying away for weeks? Or the sound of moving things? She would be traumatized. Pammy needs to know that her life will change.” Raftellyn explained, pulling on her short, brown, silk hair.

“That’s the only way, Raftellyn. We are short on money, and my company is failing; I have nothing else to do.” Kevin remarked, gazing into her eyes.

“But…” Raftellyn murmured, looking down at her feet.

“That’s it. I'm done talking to you.” Kevin growled as he walked away.

I heard my dad’s loud footsteps coming closer, so I ran to my room, throwing my half-opened backpack on the bed. It was just the beginning.

My hands were shaking as I zipped up my backpack. Kevin was my father, and Raftellyn was my mother. Pammy was me. The words I’d overheard—the raw, desperate arguments about money, loss, and a life that was about to “change”—rattled the quiet safety I’d always taken for granted within the castle's thick, comforting walls. My parents didn't argue. Not like that. Their disagreements were usually calm, quiet, almost polite. But this time, their argument was a storm tearing across a quiet lake—shattering, violent, impossible to ignore.

I heard the heavy oak door of the master bedroom shut with a decisive, terrifying thud, followed by the faint. My dad's footsteps continued down the hallway, quick and heavy, and I knew he was heading for his office. It was his morning ritual, but today it felt like a retreat, as if he were running from something more than just morning work.

I waited a moment, heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, before creeping back to the door. I pressed my ear to the familiar, cool wood once more. Silence. A profound, aching silence that felt louder than their argument.

I grabbed my jacket and slipped out of my room, pulling the door closed with agonizing care. I ignored the faint, sorrowful sounds coming from the master bedroom and turned toward the West Wing. Everyone knew the West Wing was Dad's. It held his study, his private gallery of old maps, and a dizzying number of locked cabinets. But more importantly, it held the Grand Staircase, the one Mum always warned me never to use because of its unstable railing.

I tiptoed down the hall. The morning light filtering through the tall, narrow windows illuminated dancing motes of dust in the air—the ghost-memories of a thousand untold stories. They shimmered as if mocking the secrecy I was about to uncover. As I reached the heavy, arched doorway to the West Wing, I noticed something strange lying near the corner of a heavy tapestry: a small, carefully folded piece of paper.

It was thick and slightly yellowed, secured with a small, stiff wax seal that had been broken, its imprint a stylized R. I recognized the paper stock. It was the expensive kind my father used for his most important correspondence. I unfolded it. The script was an elegant, unfamiliar hand, but the message was clear, chilling, and written in a code only partially clear:

"...the deadline is tomorrow at midnight. If the mission is not accomplished from its 'safe' location by then, all assets will go to the House of Sterling. Acknowledge this with the White Rose."

House of Sterling, or House of Hollow, was the name of the rival banking family—the ones my father had been obsessed with beating for years.

My stomach dropped. This wasn’t just about money; it was about something hidden, something dangerous, and the conversation I’d overheard was the sound of the world ending. The White Rose… I had to know what it meant. And I had a terrible feeling about where I needed to start looking. I slipped the note into my pocket and turned, not toward the kitchen for breakfast, but toward the forbidden, dusty-covered Grand Staircase and the secrets it guarded.

The Grand Staircase was a monster of carved oak and shadow. Mum's warning about the unstable railing echoed in my mind, but the chill of the note in my pocket was a more powerful fear. “...the deadline is tomorrow at midnight… Acknowledge this with the White Rose.” I couldn't go to my dad's office now—he would be there, and I knew I couldn’t face him after hearing his lie about "doing his best." The staircase, however, led only to the highest, most unused attic rooms and, crucially, to the top of the West Wing, where the architecture was full of dusty old prototypes and forgotten promises.

I placed my hand on the railing. It didn’t just wobble; it sighed under my touch, a sound like old bones cracking. I stayed close to the wall, each step a careful negotiation with the aged wood. The air grew stale, thick with the scent of wet, damp, velvet walls and ancient paper. Halfway up, a landing window willingly showed a view of the polished grounds, as if it wanted me to see something I couldn’t spot inside the cage I spent years calling home. It looked utterly unreal, a perfect, wealthy aspect masking the wreckage happening inside.

My eyes scanned the deep, dark corners for anything out of place. This was Dad's domain, yet the secret felt too big to be just about business. Mission. Assets. What did those words mean in a castle?

Then I saw it. Tucked into the dusty cornice molding, almost invisible against the dark wood, was a small, white piece of fabric. I stretched, my fingers scraping against the rough, splintered edge of the window frame, and managed to pluck it out. It was a perfectly preserved, dried white rosebud. It was brittle, delicate, and clearly a marker, a sign that someone, perhaps my father, had already "acknowledged" the threat.

As I held the fragile rose, a wave of despair washed over me. This wasn't a misunderstanding. This was real. I was holding the physical proof of whatever dangerous agreement he'd made.

I turned back toward the stairs, the white rose clutched in my palm, when my foot snagged on something hidden beneath a thick layer of dust near the top step. I nearly lost my balance, catching myself on the unstable railing with a gasp. My heart hammered as I knelt. It wasn't just dust; it was a small, almost flat wooden box. Somebody didn’t lock it, just placed it there. As if they knew no one could enter this cursed place.

I lifted the lid. Inside, resting on a bed of old, faded blue velvet, wasn't jewelry or money. It was a single, small, leather-bound book with blank pages and a simple, silver clasp. Next to it lay an old, precisely carved silver key, the kind used for the most secure of locks. The key had the stylized 'R' from the wax seal etched into its head.

A thought slammed into me with the force of a battering ram: The West Wing held a dizzying number of locked cabinets. This key wasn't for the front door. This key was for a secret.

I shoved the leather book and the silver key into my pocket, the dried rose still hot in my palm. The silence had shattered completely now. I had the means to open one of my father’s secrets, and I had a devastating deadline. I had to get back down, and I knew exactly which locked cabinet I was going to find first. Vault 9, the one my mother always told me held “the useless old maps.”

Just as I was about to exit the attic, I saw a shadowy figure, Hazel eyes, short brown hair… who could it be?

The shadowy figure at the top of the stairs moved, and my blood ran cold. It wasn't my mother. It was Arthur, his hazel eyes—the same shade as Mum's, ironically—fixed on me with a cold, professional intensity. He wore the same tight, humourless expression he always did when discussing "asset management" with Dad.

I jammed the leather book, the silver key, and the dried white rose deeper into my jacket pocket.

"Pammy," Arthur said, his voice a quiet, controlled thread that barely cut through the attic's silence. "That's not where you should be. Have you seen anything unusual?"

I opened my mouth to repeat my practiced lie about the view, but before I could utter a single word, the heavy wooden door at the foot of the staircase slammed open with a sound that cracked the silence like a gunshot.