The King is Dead (Part 2)

Hello!  Welcome to the next installment of The King is Dead.  If you missed last week’s installment, click here, and then come back!  Otherwise you will be very confused on what is going on.

Before we go any further, I want to let you know that I have entered a small writing contest with a story that I haven’t posted on here.  I will post it once the contest is over so that everyone can read it.  But, if you want to vote for it, follow this link and it will take you to the voting page.  Unfortunately you have to create an account to vote, but I would appreciate the vote!  Look for The Friend on the page and that’s mine!

This story is still part of the Paranormal category.  I hope you enjoy!

The King is Dead (Part 2)

“I raise you 3 stones.  If I win, I get all of the stones.”  Stratford sat in the hallway in front of a suit of armor.  There was a small pile of stones sitting between the two of them, most of them sat in front of Stratford.  There was a small checkerboard with all of the pieces in their correct spaces. Stratford scoffed. “Come on!  I play fair and you know that. Don’t you dare tell me that I cheat.”

The suit of armor stood tall, up against the wall.  He didn’t say anything. Stratford stood up and pointed a finger in the suit’s face.  “No! I will not agree to those rules. You agreed that we will play until the stones were gone.  You cannot change the rules now that you are losing.”

Nothing came from the suit.  Stratford threw his arms up in the air and started to walk away.  “Fine. You don’t want to play fairly then we won’t play at all. You brought this upon yourself.  I was trying to occupy both of our time so that way our afternoon went by quickly. But noooooo, you don’t want to play by the rules we set at the beginning and now we are here.  Now we are done playing checkers and I bid you good day.”

Stratford stormed out of the hallway and up the staircase to his room.  He didn’t know why he tried playing games with the suit of armor. The armor always tried to cheat and change the rules when he was losing so badly.  It wasn’t his best personality trait.

Once Stratford got to his room he slammed the door.  “How dare you armor! How dare you try to cheat through a nice game of checkers!  I try to be your friend and you just pull the rug out from underneath me. No! I will not allow it.”

Stratford floated up to the bannister of the bed and hung upside down.  He was upset with the armor, but he was able to look forward to seeing if Jonah had found anything.

 

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“Poison.  This recipe was for poison.”

Stratford was shocked.  How dare one of his people poison him.  That was rude.

Jonah put the scroll back in his pocket.  “Sorry King Stratford sir. It looks like someone was out to kill you.  It definitely wasn’t an accident.” Stratford started to float away, his arms crossed over his chest.  Today was just not his day. Jonah cleared his throat. “But…there is a note at the bottom saying that something is hidden in the library.”

“Go on.”

Jonah jumped.  “I didn’t realize you were here sir.  Um…but…I guess we can go to the library and see if we could find anything.”

Stratford raced to the library to see if he could think of anything.  He looked around the large room with a lot of empty shelves. It wasn’t very full, but there were still a couple books left on the shelves.  It was dark and dusty in the room because Stratford had hardly ever visited it. There were only so many times that someone could read the same book over and over again.

“Whoa…I thought this was going to be a lot fuller.”  Jonah spun around slowly, taking in what was in the room.  “Well hopefully this won’t take as long as I was thinking it would.”  He walked over to the first shelf and grabbed the book off the shelf. He started to page through the book and put it back.  “Not this one.”

Stratford laid on his stomach on the top of one of the bookshelves, holding his head in his hands and kicking his feet like a child.  He was enjoying watching Jonah work. It was almost like Jonah was his son and Stratford was very proud of him. If anyone could solve what happened, Jonah could.

“So the note said instructions were in the person’s favorite book.  I don’t know who wrote this note and what their favorite book was. King Stratford, if you know what book this is, could you let me know.”

He had to think.  If Charles was the person who wrote the recipe, he didn’t read much.  But there was a book that Stratford remembered Charles reading. He floated down to the floor and floated between the shelves to find that book.  He turned the last corner and saw the book sitting on a high shelf. Beowulf.  That’s the book.  Stratford floated up the the shelf and knocked the book off the shelf.

“What was that!”  Jonah came running to where the book was and shone the light on the book that was laying on the floor.  He walked over to it and picked it up. “Thank you King Stratford. I appreciate it.”

Stratford floated closely behind Jonah as he started to page through the book.  There were certain letters that were underlined on the pages. He didn’t really understand what was going on.

Jonah closed the book.  “Sir. I’m going to take this home and see if I can figure it out.  I think that it will spell something out but I don’t think I can do it tonight.  I need some time to do this correctly.”

He quickly walked out of the room and made his way to the throne room where he left his belongings.  Stratford slowly followed him, not wanting him to leave. It was just so boring all day and all night.  At least Jonah kept him company. Stratford watched Jonah drive off into the night, leaving him all by himself once again.

 

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“Ready or not!  Here I come!” Stratford went flying around the corner of the castle to look for the rabbits.  They always beat him at hide and seek. They also kind of cheated. He swore up and down that the rabbits purposely hid from him until he got bored and gave up.

But that was the point of hide and seek.

Stratford searched high and low for these rabbits.  He searched behind every rock, inside of every bush, and looked down every hole.  He groaned. “This is ridiculous. You guys do this every single time we play.” He turned around and saw a tree with a small hole in the bottom.

He put his hand up to his chin and floated over to the tree.  He leaned up against it. “You know…it would be quite a shame if you were all hiding…here!”  Stratford bent down to see the three rabbits all hiding in the hole in the tree. He laughed. “See!  I told you I would win this time.”

The rabbits scurried away quickly and raced into the closest rabbit hole.  Stratford threw his hands in the air. “Oh come on! Seriously guys! I told you that it was possible that I would actually find you!”  They disappeared into the hole, leaving Stratford by himself. He pouted. “Fine. I’ll go find other animals to play with.”

Stratford floated around the garden hoping to find someone else to play with but there were no other animals willing to play.  He made his way back into the castle, hoping that the suit of armor would be willing to play some checkers.