A Writer's Wonderland [PDF] - University of Portsmouth

looked concerned.
‘No,’ Isabel agreed, her voice much quieter than usual. ‘There aren’t.’
‘Would it be possible that she’s been kidnapped, ma’am?’ asked the maid. ‘She is an
awfully pretty little thing, an’ it’s not long before she’s got to choose a husband an’ everything.’
‘Perhaps...’ said Isabel. She was rather surprised that she too was worried about her
step-daughters sudden disappearance.
Isabel dropped her case and quickly made off downstairs for Arianna’s chambers, at
first walking but soon running. Within minutes, she was standing outside her door. It was eerily
quiet.
‘Arianna?’ she asked, knocking on the door. For the first time in her memory Isabel
would have quite welcomed the distressed screams from her step-daughter, but there was
nothing. Something wasn’t right.
Isabel opened the door and looked around, squinting in the dark. She lit a candle and
just as the maid had said, Arianna was no-where to be seen. Something on the far side of the
room, however, was glistening. Isabel approached it cautiously, and gasped as she realised what
it was. She noticed it was perched neatly on the pillow of Arianna’s four-poster bed.
It was a pair of ruby slippers. Dangling from the heel was a little silver necklace, which
was swaying to and fro.
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