The music drifting through the air tugs at my ears, begging me to listen, but I wave it aside. I wait for the right note, my cue, my calling forth, but it never comes. I will stay there waiting forever, slowly turning into a statue behind the curtains closed on a dusty stage where music once was played. I feel like a relic, an antique from years past; something people examine, exclaim over, and move away to the next marvel. I want to be alive again. I wait here for the sacred note that was never played, the career I never had. I wait here, collecting the dust of the years, hoping that some day I can wake up and complete the life I never lived.

I looked at you. You gazed back at me. And suddenly you frowned, your brow wrinkling into a frantic, worried stare. Then I turned around, and finally saw what was causing you to worry. But I didn’t understand it. A man was buying doughnuts, and he turned to leave just as I turned to look at him. Who was he? I wondered, waist deep in thought. But it didn’t matter, for you curled a finger at the frightened waitress, and, with a fresh cup of coffee, you struck up a new conversation. But behind the smile and the words casually mentioned, I could tell that you had something to hide, and you weren’t doing a very good job to hide it.

“It seems to have stopped raining,” he said, pouring a glass of the startling red cranberry juice. He took a sip, wincing at the crisp tartness, and placed the glass before a window. The sun streaming out through the glass left a sparkling crimson stain on the table. The man’s eyes grew bright with a spark of genius, and he proceeded to paint the random scene. Fully absorbed in his work, the yelling of neighbors through the thin walls of his rented room didn’t bother him, nothing would until he had finished. It was like that; it was always and would be always like that until he was finished. Then he would be left in depressing silence, until another startling object or idea only visible inside his mind would make its way onto the blank canvas.

“What?” She exclaimed. “This cannot be possible!” She franticly dug through the mounds of paper that surrounded her in the dim dusty room. “It has to be here somewhere!”

We leave her there, digging through the papers, trying to find the one that does not exist.

Who is she, you wonder. But I have no answer to that question.

One day she would have been an heiress, but the mystery of her birth was never explained. For you see, she had just found out that she was not a true child of her parents. The birth certificate for which she searched did not exist.

We join her again, collapsed among the papers, soft tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. Sadly, she murmured, “Who am I?”

The great search begins, for the princess is not who she seemed to be. The search is for her true identity, the search for things that sometimes are best left alone.

“For this to work,” he said carefully and quietly, “we must all play at this dangerous game. One false move could ruin everything! Remember, they think we are innocent visitors. You each know your place, so as soon as you see the signal, go!”

A small group of people, each dressed in black, had been gathered around him, but now they silently melted into the shadows around him. Only one other person remained with him in the dark courtyard in the dead of night.

Together they carefully lit the ornamental tapestries on fire. As soon as it caught, the other person with him, a woman, was soon back inside the mansion. By then an alarm went up, and servants, half dressed in their haste, franticly tried to beat out the fire. The woman lit the candles in a window on the third flour so that a bright glow shone out.

It was the signal.

The others slowly slipped out of their hiding places to go into the mansion or around it. The plan was in action.

The man who had given directions was in the dungeon, swiftly removing the chains from a young man who looked surprisingly similar to him. You could see them both in the light now, for the hood of his black cape had fallen back as he worked. The other man, now finally free, rubbed his chafed wrists, saluted the man who had freed him, and hurried out wearing a black cape similar to his friend's cape.

The woman up in the third floor tower had slipped back to her room, changed into some borrowed brightly colored men's clothes, and gathered her hair into a knot at the back of her neck. The woman was not visiting this place, but had lived there, for many years of her life. She was glad to be leaving, once and for all, for she had been kept practically prisoner there, unable to do anything she wished, though she should have been in control of the estate.

This preparations and only taken her a few minutes, and at the same time the prisoner was being released. Now, all seemed to be in place. She grabbed a packed bag, and quickly opened a secret door in the floor of her closet. She threw the bag down the stairs, and blew out the candle in the room. She now went through the secret door, closing and locking it behind her.

After the stairs, there was a long passage. In about the middle of the passage, she came upon the former prisoner, and her heart leapt at the sight of his face, a smile lighting up her own beautiful face. They quickly embraced, and then they arranged the disguises she had brought on each other, a beard for her, and a dress for him. They would leave the mansion with a group who had come in as performers the night before. The same group had helped them escape.

With disguises complete, they left the tunnel by the quickest exit. They surfaced near the wagon. They leaped in, and away they went. The group had already taken care of those at the gate, so they left the place safely. On the road away from the mansion that had imprisoned them both, they gazed out the back of the wagon towards the mansion. Dawn was just breaking, and they were grateful to be alive together.