4 (:

‘Are you ready?’ Josh asked.

I was in a forest near the castle.

I had been a week in the castle. No one had seen me or heard about me except a maid, called Sarah, that had helped me to dress and taught me some stuff I could do and say when I was in front of people.

‘I’m always ready’ which wasn’t a lie.

I had a horrible itchy green dress on, a long coat that looked more like a cape and some horrible high heels shoes. I was wearing my mom’s necklace and my hair loose; we wanted me to be as recognisable as possible.

I was now on one of the castle horse. Somehow I manage to stay on the horse instead of falling off.

‘You know what you got do?’ I saw concern and guilty in his eyes.

‘I do’ hard not to when you are the one that came up with the plan ‘I made the plan, remember?’

‘That’s why I’m worried’ he was serious but something in his eyes told me he was amused.

‘How old are you?’ Sometimes he looked at least 15 and the other he looked 20 or something like that.

‘I’m 16’ He was 3 years older than me.

‘OK. I’m ready’ I said wanting him to stop looking at me so intensely. ‘Just little question’ I said remembering a doubt I had about the plan ‘How will I get inside without getting delayed?’

‘Oh, that’s easy. I paid a guard, he would guide you to the dining room’ He gave a lazy smile ‘You ready?’

As an answer I took off towards the castle. It took me fifteen to get there, in just those the fifteen minutes my butt was aching from the movement of the horse. I found the entrance pretty easy, It was giant with long turrets at each corner and at the front it had a huge, wooden  drawbridge, the kind you see in movies, when it came down the paths on the inside were all cobbled.

A soldier came forward; he had a coin in one hand and a paper in the other. He looked me up and down before giving me the paper without a word.

The paper said:

“Mary, this man will guide you to the dining room with the excuse of you telling him you knew information about the third daughters place. All you will have to do is say that you are the third daughter, I know you don’t understand about the third-daughter part but you will soon. Take care.

P.S: This man doesn’t know the coin is for him. Tell him to keep it”

After reading that I turned to the soldier, he just nodded and started walking.

‘Hey! Wait’ I shouted. Some heads turned to me, including the soldier; I just gave them a calm smile. I got down the horse and walked to the soldier, he was waiting for me.

When I got to his side he put the coin in my hand with no words.

‘It’s yours’ He gave me a bright smile when I said that.

‘Thank you, my lady’ his voice was deep, he sounded at least 30 years old.

‘Will you please guide me to the dining room?’ Something I knew from my running experience is that you needed to be friends with everyone.

‘Yes, my lady’ I could see in his eyes that he was starting to like me, shame it wasn’t to last long; I always did something, accidentally, that make them hate me.

He took me through some smelly road and after that he just following a small path that lead to a shortcut to the dining room. I didn’t realize we were in the castle till he told me.

‘We are inside the castle now’ he explained ‘I had to take you through the shortcut because if I didn’t the others soldiers could notice you before time’ after a few minutes he spoke again ‘you will enter the dining room through the main hall so everyone will be able to see you’

I nodded. I knew the rest of the plan. We kept walking till he lead me to a big garden after that he just gave me some instruction of how to get to the dining room.

‘Not all royals are open minded’ he warned me ‘remember that’

I nodded, said my goodbyes and followed his instructions without looking at him again.