Milady – (PowerHouseCreatives Contest) – Fiction

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(Edited)

Milady

Three months ago, I took all my belongings and left the dwelling in which this door remains; the red door that I had first found enchanting two years prior while conducting business in Heidelberg Germany in 2009. I had been working hard and needed a break. I walked to the town center to buy a crepe, and then went for a casual stroll through the quaint and often narrow streets and alleyways branching off the square.

It was during that stroll, catching a glimpse of the old castle on the hill above occasionally, and as I approached this particular door, I felt an almost physical pull toward it. Well, truth be told it was pulling me to it. I had no idea why or how it was doing this, but there seemed to be a feeling of familiarity with it. As I touched the door I felt a powerful rush of emotions I had never felt before.

“Let me make a guess… you were attracted to my door.” I turned around to see a gentleman with a smile on his face, whom I assumed to be the owner of the abode. “Why yes, as a matter of fact, I do find it to be a beautiful door, and I guess maybe I did imagine feeling something when I saw it.

“Not imagination - you felt it because it knows you,” the man said.

“It knows me?” I asked. At this point I felt like I had had the misfortune to attract a nut or a street bum who would soon attempt to pry some money out of me to cover his afternoon round of Schnapps.

“You are related,” he said. “Your ancestor was the purchaser of this door as a gift almost six hundred years ago, and that’s why she’s pulled you to her.”

I started to think that this guy was definitely ramping up an attempt to scam me, so I said, “Well, it’s all very interesting, and it was nice speaking with you, but I need to get back to work now.” I extended my hand and as we shook, I felt compelled to ask the man if he would consider selling the door. I knew I didn’t want it, but I could not stop myself from asking.

“Even if you had not asked, I would have insisted you have her,” he said. “She’s is meant to be with you and you are meant to be with her.”

“That’s the second time you’ve referred to the door as though it is female; why do you do that?”

“It’s because your ancestor gifted this door to a princess he loved; a love that she returned even though he was not of royal blood, and therefore it was hopeless to think they’d ever be together. But they would not give up.”

We stood there in silence for a few moments, and then I said, “Well, that’s certainly a strange story, but I…” At that point I was interrupted by the man, who said, “Don’t be foolish, please. You do not know how long she has waited for you… YOU! You need not pay me anything, but please, you must take her.”

I lost my will to resist at that point, and agreed to take the door. It’s such a weird story about how I came to own it - it’ll make a good conversation piece, and with all the history behind it, it should stir the interests of guests that I have over on occasion. I must admit, it is a pretty door.

I arranged for the door to be shipped to my home in a secluded area on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, and it would arrive nine days later.

The day the deliverymen arrived and had me sign the acceptance forms for the door, they told me that if they didn’t know better, they’d think the door had pushed them like a tail-wind on the seventy-some mile trip from Reno-Tahoe International Airport to my home. I shared a nervous laugh with them, and they brought the door into the garage before leaving.

During the night, I awoke to the sound of wind chimes. While the music was beautiful, I own no wind chimes, and even if the nearest neighbor had a hundred wind chimes, I wouldn’t hear them. Once I was fully awake and could still hear them, I got up and went outside to investigate. As soon as I walked out and closed the door however, the wind chimes stopped.

When I reentered the house, I no longer heard the wind chimes. I brushed the whole thing off as a sleepy, overactive imagination, and went back to bed and back to sleep. Later that night, I had a vivid dream as a beautiful queen came to me as I wandered in a forest, and begged me to take care of her daughter. When I awakened the next morning, I felt depressed.

I made a call to Jerry, the guy at the office who takes care of everything having to do with the company building, to see if he could refer someone to set the red door as my bedroom door. He said he’d check, and within fifteen minutes, he called me back and said he could get a guy out to my place right away. I told him to go for it and thanked him.

The guy, a Wayne Tyson, worked at the local big home improvement store and it was his day off. On his days off, he liked to take on the small jobs to earn some “under the counter” cash when they pop up. He said it would take him a couple of hours to do the job. I went out to sit by the pool and to look at some issues that had arisen at the company and which had sat on the back burner while I’d been away.

Almost three hours later, Wayne came out and told me the job was done. As I walked inside with him to check the work, he said he’d had to change the door so that it faced the other way. This meant he’d changed the door’s hinges from one side of the frame to the other, and he did it without asking me first.

When I confronted him about it, he said that it was really the best way to do it, and he had felt compelled to make the change without consultation, because it would ultimately be in my best interest. He said he’d never felt so strongly before that he’d done the right thing. He was so sincere that I had no choice but to accept his opinion.

Now, the door that once faced an alleyway in Germany faced my bed inside my home.

My first night of sleeping with my new bedroom door in place was filled with dreams about castles and polo matches and grand royal affairs. I was a knight; the favorite of the king; his most trusted. When I awoke the next morning, I felt invigorated and motivated. I felt a fighting spirit I had never known I had before.

Night after night, I would dream as though I was going through a planned procession of events. As a knight in the dreams, I would fight battles and joust with other knights. After a week of this, the princess herself entered the dreams.

She was beautiful beyond compare, with long, brown hair, flawless skin and green eyes. I knew who she was. She was my lover; I had no doubt. I had missed her for hundreds of years and now we were together again.


The next morning, I felt elated. Good thing, since I’d decided to make some changes that some employee groups had begun complaining about. I needed to directly address some things and clarify other things, but mainly, I had to squelch the complaints. At that point I wasn’t attributing my waking emotions to the dreams, but it soon became clear to others that I was not my normal self.

Linda, my secretary of 13 years, was the first to say something, and she was probably one of the few people at the company who would speak matter-of-factly to me when she felt concerned about something she detected. She asked me point-blank if anything had happened to a family member, or if anything had been troubling me, as she said that I seemed to be stressed-out nearly every day lately.

For some reason that I can’t explain, I started telling Linda about the door; how I’d come upon it during a leisurely walk, the strange man and the story he told, and of course, the dreams I’d been having nightly.

Linda said that to her, the door sounded like it was haunted. “You know what?” Linda asked excitedly, and before I could answer, she continued on. “I just met a lady by the name of Naylene the other day at lunch. She‘s an analyst/tech-writer and a new hire here, and she’s led studies on dream activity on her last job.”

And you think I should do what? Have a palm-reading session with a new employee who reads minds on the side?

“Well,” Linda said, “There are crazier things you could do, you know.” Picking up the papers she’d been carrying and getting up to leave, she said, “Just consider it; if you decide you’d like her to have a purely professional talk with you, I’ll introduce you to her.”

“Wait a minute Linda,” I said as she opened the door. “I guess you’re right about this, and you’ve never led me astray before. Go ahead and see when you can set something up.” She smiled, gave me a thumbs-up and left my office, closing the door behind her.

Before the end of the day, Linda had set up a catered get-acquainted luncheon in my office the next day so that Linda, the analyst, and I could get the introductions out of the way.

At the appointed time the next day, Linda brought the caterers into the office with lunch and beverages, and shortly thereafter Linda was back again with Naylene, a brunette with lovely green eyes. Linda introduced us and I suggested we just have a casual and informal talk while we ate lunch. I started off by telling the story of the door from beginning to the present, along with the dreams.

I asked Naylene if she’d ever heard anything so weird. “Based on what you’ve told me, my professional opinion is that what the man told you is probably true; that an ancestor of yours purchased the door for the princess. The German man likely has the ability to see into your past, and it appears he was very sure that you are the rightful owner.”

She asked me why I fight against the dreams and ignore the princess’ communication attempts. I told her they were dreams, not reality, and therefore I could not accept the dreams were some attempt at opening actual communications between me and a princess who lived hundreds of years ago.

She asked me if I’d ever felt a connection with the princess, and when the words effortlessly rolled from my tongue that she was my lover from far in the past, I was almost as surprised as Linda and Naylene, except Naylene also seemed to have been affected emotionally, frequently blushing as I spoke of my feelings for the dreamy princess.

I started to feel so strongly that Naylene and I needed to be alone to talk, that I asked Linda to leave us in my office so that we could discuss some things in private. After Linda was gone I got up and walked over to Naylene. We embraced and kissed passionately. Naylene was indeed the princess, now in the flesh - but how?

I had been sent off to war, and Naylene was being pursued by a Spanish royal who had tricked the king into dispatching me to battle in the hopes I would be killed, and he could then ask for her hand. Fearing her father would be forced to let her be taken by the Spaniard, Naylene coaxed the court wizard to secretly seal her inside the door which would release her only when she had found me once again.

Today, Naylene and I have a happy life together, odd as it may seem. We now reside in a suburban community in Midwest America and live a fairly normal life - all things considered.

I am her knight, and she is Milady.

Milady © free-reign 2019

Sources for images used in this post:

Red Door: Photo by Lasse Møller on Unsplash
Heidelberg Castle: Image by Herbert Aust from Pixabay
Wind Chimes: Image by Luis Eduardo Bastias from Pixabay
Princess: Image by Adina Voicu from Pixabay
Catered Lunch: Image by Aline Henda from Pixabay
Loving Couple: Image by Oleksandr Pyrohov from Pixabay


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18 comments
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Great story and it read very different than I am used to with your writing style maybe it is just my imagination. I like the word milady actually and most things more medieval and magic so would have liked a longer intro I noticed the quick hop skip jump over the love scene but regardless it is well rounded and imaginative. !tip 1

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Thanks! I always worry when writing the love scenes, because I can too easily go into X-rated stuff. LOL

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@free-reign - I like it! Totally opposite of my red door story - I love how one image can spark so many different avenues of imagination. That was some catered lunch for 3 people, lol.

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Thanks @blueeyes8960! I apologize, but I've been so busy lately and I haven't gotten a chance to read the other entries yet. I'm gonna do that today. Do you think I could use this as an entry to the Oct. Narrative contest? I believe it's over 2K words, and I think 1000 is tops over there, right? I do have a couple other October posts here I think I could enter.

Haha! I thought about that catered lunch, but I've seen them overdo it before!

Thanks for reading!

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Well allow me to tell you that this is a great story when one reads it intently and emotionally. The introduction didn't matter to me , as you caught my attention with the old man that appeared out of nowhere.
I have to say here that I am not a professional writer and that I will never be one, as I don't much care for boundaries and rules. But in this being said, I know a good story when I read one.
Blessings!

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Thank you so much for your kind words my friend. I feel blessed to have been given the ability to write things that others enjoy! Blessings to you and yours!

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Writing is an art my friend and you were certainly born with the talent.
All of the best to your future efforts.
Blessings!

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What a great story @free-reign, great job. We lived in Heidelberg in 1961 when I was three years old. 😁

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I actually visited there in 2009 (as the guy in the story did) and toured the castle. We had a wonderful time there! I took pictures of many of the doors as we walked around, and that got me off and running. It's also why I brought Heidelberg into the story.

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Awesome fun read! What a great story with only a picture of a door as inspiration. Great imagination!

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Thank you @wwwiebe! When I visited Heidelberg, one of the things I remember the most were the many beautiful doors the homes have, as we walked around through the streets and alleyways. The "door" prompt cued those memories to start off the story there.

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Excellent story! I'm so glad he found her again

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Great story @free-reign. It has all the elements to keep one interested, suspense, drama, haunting, love and a happy ending. 😊

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