Back on the ground floor, they continued to wander through the house.

At one point Lijeux wanted to open another door. But it was locked. A little further on, she tried yet another door. To her delight, it opened.

Loud clattering of kitchen utensils echoed into the hallway. The smell of food hit Meia like a wall. Conversations and instructions from many people could be heard.

"This way.", Lijeux waved her over and disappeared into the room before Meia had taken another step.

When Meia herself reached the door, she saw, as expected, a kitchen. Dozens of cooks were hurriedly preparing various dishes on dozens of cookers. This must have been where all the staff was hiding. After all, there was seemingly no one anywhere else in the house except the butler and the other maid.

Lijeux must have wanted to go through the kitchen. This was now the second time she had wanted to leave the corridors. Meia would rather stay in the corridor. The kitchen was just three rows of kitchenettes and two narrow corridors in between. Meia really did not feel like bothering the cooks as they worked.

"Now come on." Lijeux waved again.

Demotivated, Meia trudged off, while Lijeux already pushed past the cooks as if she owned the house. She skillfully shoved everyone aside and squeezed through. She did not care if anyone was carrying anything. Nothing could stop her. She even turned one of the men back to the worktop herself with both hands on the basin before he could block her. He let her do it to him. The two seemed to know each other and exchanged a few words on the side. However, he did not know her as well as she knew him, because in passing she stole a piece of fish from his plate and he did not even notice. In general, the cooks seemed rather divided about her presence. A few snorted at her. Lijeux ignored such reactions and continued to scurry through the kitchen.

Things went less well for Meia than. Already the first cook stood in her way because he was busy shouting his complaint at Lijeux.

"Excuse me?" said Meia quietly, tapping him gently on the arm.

AS the cook turned around, Meia saw that he was about to get angry that someone else wanted to get through, but then when he saw Meia, he at first just stared at her in irritation. He then probably worked out that she was a guest and with an apology he pressed himself as close to his cooker as was humanly possible to let her through.

It did not get better from then on. Every cook who noticed her in advance squeezed himself into every tiny corner of his own accord so as not to obstruct her. Every cook to whom she had to first draw attention did the same, but at the same time apologised to her. It was very unpleasant. Although everyone continued to work, Meia noticed that everyone was staring at her. Everyone was confused that she was here. Lijeux was acting like she was the owner, but Meia felt like she really was.

The kitchen equipment was with gas, as were most of the lamps in the house. Light, cooking and heating, everything worked with gas. That was normal. At Meia's house there were more oil lamps, but otherwise it was the same.

After an exhausting struggle, Meia finally arrived at the end of the kitchen. Lijeux was waiting for her for some time. To her right was a door without a handle.

Meia was relieved that they could finally leave the kitchen.

When Lijeux pushed the door open and walked happily through, the relief turned unfortunately into bitter disappointment.

The kitchen was not really over. Beyond the door was another kitchen.

~Is this intentional torture?~

At this point Meia would normally say something if not for all the cooks waiting for them to finally leave.

The door was not even the only door here. There were several others. Surely there was one that would not lead into yet another kitchen. So why did they have to take this one of all? However, these thoughts came to late. Meia could not say anything anymore anyway. Lijeux had long since moved on. Meia had no choice but to follow her.

The second kitchen was at least not as crowded. The cooks were only sorting food onto plates and plates onto trolleys. Meia even almost did not have to force anyone to make room for her.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Liejeux arrived first at the end of the kitchen. At a kitchen counter there, stood a single cook bent forward, arranging mini spring rolls on a porcelain plate with meticulous precision. Essentially, he was just taking them off a serving plate and sorting them into a circle on an oval porcelain serving platter. Although it was nothing complicated, he was fully concentrated and his head was so close to the task that he could almost suck the rolls in with his mouth.

Immediately when Lijeux arrived, she threw herself swingingly onto the countertop with her upper body next to the cook so that the dishes clanked in the cupboards.

"Hey, Nicholas." she addressed him.

"Lijeux, I'm busy, please don't disturb me." he murmured back under his breath as he piled up the next spring roll with precision.

~Is it really that important how these things lie?~

Meia arrived now too, and with that she recognised that the supposed cook was not really a cook to begin with.

It was the butler once again. Only now he was wearing a white chef's jacket and a chef's hat. This was already the fifth time Meia had run into him and he was almost always wearing different clothes. Was he now a kitchen assistant in addition to coachman, porter and waiter?

"Yes, I don't want to disturb you anyway. I just have a question."

The butler rose after all, and Lijeux stood up again. Contrary to expectations, however, the butler did not want to talk to her, but only wanted to pull the plate closer. The moment he did so, he also noticed that Meia was there, whereupon the gears in his head visibly began to rattle. Following this, he turned to Lijeux.

"Why are you leading a guest?" he asked her, clearly upset.

Lijeux shrugged her shoulders.

"Rujell gave her to me."

"Why would she do that?"

"I don't know. She pushed her on me and said, 'I need a smoke,' or something like that. That's all I know."

"Is she going off work already?"

"Yeah, I think so. Say Nicholas, do you know where the key is to Miss Arvis'sss room is?"

"Isn't it in the door?"

"In the door?" For a second Lijeux looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "No. It wasn't there." she then replied confidently.

"Then Rujell still has it." the butler explained and went back to his work.

"That she would take it with her... Bad maid. Now I' already dragged Miss Arvis halfway across the house just because she has to hoard all the keys, because otherwise she doesn't feel so important if she doesn't wear all them on her sparkling key ring. As if that would impress anyone. Someone like you would never display such vanity ... or someone like the gardener .... or like his brother ... that much I know as a top housemaid."

Engrossed in his creation, the butler barely listened to her. Meia herself was also only half listening.

In the same time that Lijeux was talking to the butler, Meia noticed a stack of wooden crates with vegetables standing in the corner. The crates or the contents themselves were not her focus. Meia only recognised the symbol burnt into the wood. It was a deer pulling a small wheeled cart full of goods along a path. The symbol was from the delivery service from Wiestahl. That was familiar. Meia did not know why a deer had to be the draught animal. Deers were certainly cute, but not really strong.

The thing was that this delivery service had been alienating them a lot lately, so that the lady of the house by now had leg muscles like a professional athlete. Based on the fact that peppers and such things certainly did not stay fresh for long, Meia concluded that the delivery service had only failed to deliver to them because they had delivered here instead, which would mean... nothing. Or at least it would not mean anything significant. ~There's always a richer fish.~, was probably the only takeaway from all of this.

"What? Listen Lijeux, I have work to do. Go bother Rujell if you've misplaced the key. She's got the spare keys. And do it quickly this time, for once."

"I haven't misplaced it. I know exactly where it is. I swear on ... my sister... on her princess dream castle toy set."

"Lijeux." the butler admonished her.

"What, that's the most expensive thing in our house."

The butler gave her a serious look. "Now get out." he demanded irritably.

"Okay, I'm going." Lijeux hurriedly made off, but the few steps over to Meia she was already grumbling quietly again, "Everything is always held against me. How should I know where any keys are hidden here?" As straight as a candle, Lijeux stopped in front of Meia. "Miss Arvis, I'll take you to your room now. Would that be in your best interest?"

"Yes, very much."

"Very well then, let's get going."

Lijeux opened the door and Meia did not like the direction she was going in, because she went back towards kitchen one.

"No, please not that way." Meia begged her.

"Why not? It's a short cut."

The butler caught on. "Lijeux. We have a corridor. Use it." he admonished her again, sounding as if he was about to lose his temper.

"Yes, all right... I was just trying to cheer up the cooks."

Meia and Lijeux left the kitchen through another door. This time there was no other kitchen behind it, instead she saw the pool again. She also saw the double door with the square panes in a wooden grid facing the courtyard, lighted lanterns above the tables and that outside everything was full of guests. They were right by the middle door of the house. They were exactly one floor down from where they had left together. Meia could not believe she was back at the same staircase. The whole walk had been a complete waste of time.

There was a grandfather clock on the stairs. It was already 7:00 pm. So she had missed the beginning of the party.

"Oh, Wow, 7:00 already? We'd better hurry up. Technically, my shift's already over."

~Is she trying to blame me for this?~

.../ End Part