Hen that lays golden eggs

"Who could this be?"

She closed the book and sat up in bed. Her gums started itching a bit due to nervousness and she gulped, clenching her teeth. There was no clock nearby so she doesn't have any idea about the exact time but as per her assumption, it must be past midnight.

Thinking that her rescuer may have come back whose name she still didn't know because neither she bothered to ask nor he volunteered to tell, she crawled out of the blanket and tiptoed towards the door after quickly grabbing a rolling pin from the kitchen counter.

The door didn't have any sort of hole in there for her to peek outside so she just stood there for a while debating on whether she should ask who it is first, directly open the door and hit whoever comes in or not open the door at all pretending to be non existent.

To her, the second option seemed better by all means. If it's him again I could just hit him for all the times he had been mean to me and then pretend that I was just scared, perfect, she thought to herself and aimed the rolling pin above before clicking the doorknob open.

Her hand moved right at time but just swung in the air as the rolling pin hit nothing and apparently no one entered the door as well. She was about to scream 'ghost' when her eyes lowered and landed on someone who was glaring at her intently.

"Who are you?" came an angry interrogation from the short but old looking man who barely reached her ribcage.

He had a pair of round rimmed glasses over his wrinkling face which he was adjusting occasionally while looking in between her face and her hand which held the rolling pin. The thing that seemed most prominent and funny to her was a white beard which was only present over his chin but was elongating till his chest, giving off his face a pointed appearance.

"Who are you?!" She replied in the same tone but exaggerating the 'you'. Her hand was still hovering in the air.

"You are the one found at my house in the middle of the night, attacking me with my own stuff." He remarked sarcastically and kept ogling her appearance with his button eyes from behind the thick glass of his spectacles. "So mind introducing yourself as well?"

The moment he said 'my' house just like the way she said 'you' earlier, her hand lowered and her shoulders sagged. She noticed that he had a black leather bag in his hand which he set aside and stepped in, closing the door behind him.

She was internally implicating the man who had left her there assuring that no one would find her but she couldn't even pass a few hours of peace and the real owner of the house was standing in front of her. He must have done that on purpose to get rid of me, she thought to herself.

"I…well I am sorry Mr…?" She stopped and looked at the dwarf man who was now settled on the couch.

"Hingtom," he said. "You can call me Tom."

"Nice meeting you Mr Tom. I had no intention of hurting you as I had no idea about you showing up at this hour of night." She thought it would be a better idea to be on good terms with this man as she had nowhere to go. Maybe he will be kind enough to let her stay the night. "I was referred to this place by a friend."

The old man was running his fingers down his funny looking beard and looking at her intently when his expressions changed a little on the mention of a friend.

"Did Lio bring you here?" He frowned a little while his eyes narrowed at the girl who looked like she didn't belong to the poor class like him. Something about her appearance and the silk gown she was wearing told him so. He was a tailor and had a good recognition of cheap and expensive fabric. His greedy eyes observed everything from the thin gold chain stuck to her neck with a heavy pendant and delicate looking thin gold rings over her fingers.

"Uhh…" She didn't know who Lio was but assuming that it was the name of her rescuer she said, "Yeah."

"Hmm interesting," he stood up and walked over to the kitchen area. "When did Lio start bringing friends home?" he mumbled to himself but she heard it.

"Can I stay the night?" She asked outright, following him.

"Well if Lio brought you here then I can't kick you out." He shrugged and she let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"But," he continued and she became alert again. "You can stay upstairs but you have to pay the rent for the amount of days you will stay here. I have quite a hard time paying the bills and everything. You see I am an old man now, no one offers me work like they used to."

He glanced at her by the corner of his eye. He had assumed that it was a case of some rich spoiled child throwing a tantrum to her parents and moving out. It was a good time for him to earn some money as he previewed her as the hen that lays golden eggs.

She bit the inside of her lower lip upon realizing that she didn't pick up any money with her while escaping but nodded to the man nevertheless. How could I be this foolish? She mentally scolded herself but nothing could be done about it.

Quietly she gathered her stuff and walked upstairs. She didn't notice those stairs before as they were built outside the house and behind in the little garden behind. The cold wind and the silence of the night was giving her body goosebumps.

When she had climbed to the very top she noticed that the balcony was giving the direct view of the building of the Palace standing unbothered far, far away from her. She could see lights flickering from several windows and towers of the Palace.

'Was running away from the luxuries of the Palace worth it?' her inner voice chanted and she closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath that seemed to have sent down a cold chill to her entire body through her lungs.

It was a golden cage that could have given me everything but never let my wings grow when all I want is to be free and fly high, she debated back. She doesn't want to end up like her mother.

The room she got now was way better than the one downstairs. It seemed to have been set up for someone or by someone quite well. She wasn't feeling sleepy so she took out the book again and rested against the bedpost.

The opened window gave a clear view of the Palace building outside and for some reason she left it open but she shouldn't have…