-We on our side found the kitchens, a sort of pantry, a portrait alley, what seems to be a ballroom and a cellar.
Pony asks:
-How many floors were there?
Red answers:
-We didn't search everything. It keeps going up after the fourth.
Charismatic takes a step forward to intervene with her own observation:
-The first floor makes a sort of loop.
Potatoes changes the subject to ask a question that seems to be crucial to him, if Dust believes his expression:
-What do we do for the pantry? Should we test the food to see if we faint with it too?
The discussion disperses, questions fly accompanied by proposals:
-I would like to visit the portrait alley maybe there are clues...
-Clues for what?
-What did you find in the cellar?
...
Dust doesn't follow too much from there. He would like to be alone, but he follows the movement when the others decide to look at everything together.
That's how they went to inspect the cellar.
If you ask Dust's opinion, it looks like the old vaults of a church crypts.
Rough stone arches on simple pillars fall onto a floor covered in water.
It also seems to extend to infinity. A few candles hanging on the walls light up enough to realize that it is empty.
They leave to visit the kitchen and the pantry in turn. A kitchen that is surprisingly large. No utensils that use electricity are present. There are stone fireplaces browned by smoke with burnt wood inside and above hanging brass pots.
The candles also light up work tables. Numerous cuts on their wooden surfaces draw abstract images that testify to their frequent use.
The flagstone floor then takes them into the pantry, almost as large.
The food, threaten to overflow from the boxes placed on the rows of shelves.
Bunches of grapes on peaches and apples sit alongside red cabbages and yellow carrots.
Ropes hang the meat high up.
The blue legs of roosters are thus tied next to those of pheasants that still have all their colored feathers and some quails.
At the very back on a table a piglet cut in two, is also hoisted high up.
They decide not to touch anything for the moment, Potatoes' eyebrows lower themselves under the news, dejected by disappointment.
The portrait alley and is what impressed and worried the boy the most.
The room presents itself as a long corridor, the walls are the opposite of what the duo saw on the upper floors.
The tapestry is black, with the flames of the candles a small relief in arabesque can from time to time and depending on the angles stand out in a reddish reflection.
Fairly simple but old wooden frames decorate the walls at regular intervals. They all have the same format, which is almost double the size of Dust.
On these enormous canvases, in a black background of the exact tone as that of the tapestry, full-length portraits emerge. As if the models came out of nothing. Some subjects represented are taller than the boy, others smaller. But all have a size that is realistic humanly speaking.
Moreover realistic portrait in everything.
Dust looks at them, shocked, motionless.
In front of him a man with a bent back and glassy eyes, dressed in jeans and sneakers stands.
The boy expected to find paintings of people from another time in the castle.
But instead they discover people who could very well be from the present.
And they look so real.
He gets a little closer to the canvas.
From this close, he manages to perceive the pores painted with care by the artist.
His fingers pass over the canvas.
He traces the outline of the character, feeling the weave of the lin which confirms to him that it is not a photo.
The portraits scroll before his eyes, the alley bending itself into a huge circle.
Then there is an exclamation, and Dust finally comes out of his trance.
The group has gathered around another painting a few meters away.
Dust goes to join them followed closely by Red.
On this portrait, there are no strangers staring at him but the old man.
The perplexed looks pass from the old man to the canvas in silence.
-Me too I'm here!
Notices Pony who on the right is throwing herself in front of her own portrait. Her green eyes wide open, astonished by the discovery.
Later everyone finds their own representation.
Dust is entitled to it too.
The boy looks at himself as if he was in front of a mirror.
...His representation like all the others seems soulless. No emotion is visible in his eyes.
The unease returns.
After these strange discoveries They leave without going to the end of the corridor.
Strangely they discuss little on the fact that everyone has a portrait.
Nobody is happy to have had this honor. Because no one knows what it means.
The ballroom is visited much more quickly.
Crystal chandeliers, silver fabric curtains, a fresco representing a setting sun, and Corinthian columns are not enough to hold their attention.
It is magnificent but they are too distracted to appreciate it.
The first floor except for the fact that the two wings join is finally the same as the others above.
Finally after having shown the hidden stairs they all take leave of each other.
Well almost all of them.
Dust returns to his room accompanied.
At first he thinks that Red will also want to return to his own room but before the boy can open his door the man begins to speak:
- You were getting tense so I told you that to relax you...
Dust frowns, pivots to get a better look at his companion who is standing a few steps away from him.
Red makes a funny pout. His two thin lips pressed against each other, digging furrows in their contours to become small dimples before he continues:
-But the passages for servants are never like that...
This time Dust turns around completely.
What is the man getting at?
-What do you mean?
Red approaches the boy a little more.
The two look at each other.
The Adam's apple of the first one rises and falls before he continues:
-I mean that paths like this usually lead to corridors... not to rooms.
Dust narrows his eyes while observing his companion carefully, since the other has come closer he has to raise his head to maintain eye contact.
The blue irises are two mirrors that do not let any emotion show.
The smaller of the two is however disturbed by the intensity of the gaze, he gets agitated and puts his hand on the clinche whose coldness relaxes his nerves.
-And...?
The man gets closer little by little, lowering his spine to continue staring at Dust.
The boy wants to back away, his personal space being invaded but yet he stays there, frozen.
-Well it's worrying, isn't it?
He sketches a new thin smile, his clear voice lower and lower he continues:
-Anyone could enter the room...
The boy remains silent. Don't take the pole that Red seems to be holding for him.
The red-haired man seeing that the other doesn't react more than that takes a look at the hand that squeezes the door handle and then come back to the boy's eyes.
The two are alone in the hallway. Red, with his tall stature, is now slightly bent over, leaving his shadow hovering over Dust's face.
-It worries me anyway ... Dust we could ...
The boy repeats slowly:
-We could ...
The blue eyes break away from the brown ones again to go down the cheeks and then to the boy's lips when he completes his sentence:
-We could sleep in the same room. It will be safer if we are together.
Dust pauses, not understanding what is happening.
After a quick reflection, he opens the door.
He goes in and Red naturally follows him.