Patricia`s point of view
On my first night in Aachen’s palace, I finally understood that I was irrevocably separated from my father. I began to cry, ran to the door, and with my weak little hands pounded against it, shouting, “I want to go home! I want to go home!” Martha tried to calm me, but how do you soothe an utterly desperate eleven-year-old child? My panic kept growing, wild and uncontrollable. And then the door opened. King Aachen stood there — tall, dressed in black, with cold, merciless eyes.
“If you do not stop this instant, I will throw you into a dungeon without windows or doors. Forever.”
Of course, that threat never happened, but from that night on, I never cried again. The nightmare, however, remained — me, locked inside a dark room with no windows and no doors. At some
