The Magical Door - 1st Draft

Reginald was a dreamer. He spent most of his days with his head wandering while his body toiled away in the wheat fields of his home. Odd things happened around the lad no matter where he went.

The one time a swarm of bees that had been knocked loose from their hive by a clumsy broom handle, Reginald suffered not one sting. Or another time a traveling gypsy picked him out of the crowd and bestowed upon him a rusty old key she had claimed was once owned by a mysterious gypsy king.

The king of the gypsies had long since disappeared from his people. Many stories abounded as to what had happened to him. All of them began with the loss of his heart to a beautiful woman. From there the stories veered off track. Some say he was slain by a jealous rival. Even more say the woman was of royal blood who was chained to her duties and thus the king saved her and carried her off to a far away place.

So while Reginald worked tediously his mind was ever pondering the fate and adventures of the gypsy king and his bride.

But the lucky boy with his rusted old key - kept on a leather thong around his neck - was summoned one day by his guardian, Mable. Mable was a blind old cantankerous woman who always found some way to blame Reginald for all her ill-fated troubles. Today, she had had an argument with the Old Wife of the village concerning the condition of her - and Reginald's - farm. The boy was obviously slacking in his duties for their farm to fall on such hard times (no matter that the weather was more likely to be the cause, as the Old Wife and countless others had been dribbling on about for some time now).

Reginald, not particularly keen on sitting in to another earful from the blind hag, hid himself away in a long-forgotten dumb waiter. He'd plan to wait until the old bitty worked herself to a sleep with all her yammering before he went back to his chores.

His back brushed up against something solid and painful. He found a small door hidden away in the darkness and wondered at its perplexity. As he studied this unremarkable door, he noticed it had a keyhole. Without thinking he took the key from around his neck and twisted it into the lock.

With a sound like a griffon's talons against steel, the deadbolt clanked free and the door opened.

By then the old woman, alerted to his presence by the noise, clambered down the hallway like a bloodhound catching a scent.

Determining any fate to be better than facing Mable's ire, Reginald plunged through the small door and quickly shut and locked it again.

Turning around he was he was nowhere near any farm or village he had come to call home. As his brain caught up to what his eyes were seeing, he realized he had traveled to a far off land with brilliant mountains, flourishing trees and blazing skies above.

And as the gypsy king and his striking beloved strolled up to greet and welcome him home, Reginald knew they had been waiting for him to join them for a long while.

When the blind hag tore out of her farmhouse in an angry storm the villagers soon learned of the little door. For as the old lady was just about to wrench Reginald to her, her unseeing hands met with the door instead.

Many of the curious went to investigate this door within the dumb waiter, but none ever found it. And as for Reginald, no one knows what happened to him.

Years later stories were still told of the dreamer and his magical door. But no matter how hard they searched, they were never able to find it again.