Chapter Thirty Five

I watched Jonathan exit the room and I walked towards the store, standing in front of the door not knowing what to do. I was feeling apprehensive whether to open the door or not. I had almost asked Jonathan what was behind the door and I had stopped myself. If he wouldn’t tell me what the store and I found out on my own, I didn’t think he was going to like it so a better option was to keep quiet and allow him to tell him myself but I have a feeling that If i stepped into the room it was going to be obvious that the room belonged to is mother.

I sucked in my breadth and backed away from the door staring at the door. I dangled the rusted keys in my hand, swallowing hard. I had no idea when last they cleaned the room, if it would be dirty or how it was going to look like. Jonathan had gone for a council meeting so I knew that he was going to take a long time before he came back but something also told me that he had intentionally found an excuse to leave the room because I was going to clean the store.

“There’s no use hesitating now Amira, you are going to end up cleaning it” I muttered refusing to think anymore although I wouldn’t stop thinking about why Jonathan had chosen to give me the key to clean. He had so many trustworthy subordinates by his side.

Was he trying to test me?

I approached the padlock and slid in the key, tugging at it a few times before it opened. I slowly pushed the door open, the room was dark and looked gloomy, I could smell the room from the door. I quickly grabbed a light and walked into the room finding the window and pushing it open as I took a closer look at the room.

It wasn’t a small store like I had thought, it was more a room that was turned into a store. Dust accumulated over the years was covering every single thing in the room and I coughed quite a number of times from the smell and taste of the room’s humidity in my mouth.

“It will take a long time cleaning this room” I muttered to myself as I walked towards the vanity table that was already covered in dust including the mirror. I used my hand to clean a part of the mirror and my reflection stared back at me. I looked both familiar and unfamiliar,  my usual features from admiring myself in the palace when I was still a Princess had faded away. I looked thinner, skinner and my cheeks although sunken looked somewhat better.

I took another look at myself in the mirror and turned away refusing to think about how different I looked now. Things had happened to me and yet I was a survivor and that was what mattered the most. I had survived and I was still surviving. I opened the wardrobe drawers and a sight of gold earrings and accessories stared at me. They were also already dusty but the shine on them hadn't left yet. I opened more drawers and found out all the jewelleries were inside, ranging from anklets to bracelets to necklaces and so many other jewelries that I knew that only a Queen would have since I knew that my mother was one.

“Did he leave all of these here all these years?” I asked no one in particular but the dusty jewelleries stared back at me giving me my answer.

I turned to move but my leg hit the vanity drawer and I heard a small plop, “Ouch!” I winced in pain as I rubbed my toes, bending down to pick what had fallen, it was a book and it was dusty. Dusting it off made me cough repeatedly and I stared at the book turning the page open but every page as well was covered in dust although preserved. I dusted a few pages off and the crisp but clean handwriting stared back at me.

I read the first page and Immediately closed it. It was Jonathan’s mom’s diary.I flipped through the book and realized that she had written a lot and even almost used up the book. I wanted to read it and go through it but I didn't dare to.

I stared at the book wondering whether to tell Jonathan about it, that his mother had kept a journal, a diary and he might want to see it but I hadn't seen it when I first searched the vanity table. It had fallen when I had hit the table. 

I immediately bent down and stared underneath the table, plasters stared back at me and I furrowed my brows. It was very obvious that the book had been plastered underneath the table. The person had very little time to hide the diary. 

And if not for the years that had most likely worn out the effect of the plasters, if i hadn’t hit the table so hard, i wouldn’t have found it either because what the hell would be looking for under a vanity table. I doubted if i would have found it after cleaning the room in fact.

But why would a Queen need to hide her diary? There was no logical reason except that she had written down things she shouldn’t have. The books had secrets, I stared at the bok debating whether to take it with me or to leave it or to tell Jonathan about it. The Berg secrets weren't my business and if there were secrets that his mother was hiding, it wasn’t in my place to reveal them.

I grabbed the diary holding it firmly in my hand thinking and then I heard movements and steps and without thinking I bent underneath the vanity table plastering the book back in place before slowly walking out of the door, Jonathan was standing in the middle of the room.

“Can you come back some other day to clean, maybe in the evening?” he asked and I opened my mouth to talk but at the end of the day, the words didn’t come out.

“Yes, your Highness”