wallpaper and old toys

This is the kind of wallpaper in the little bedroom, though there are touches of the colors of some of the others in this set. (And that site is absolutely amazing, I looked at eeeeverything they offer before leaving the website last night. The papers are all so, so pretty! and such a fantastic reference for historical interior design. <3)

It took me awhile to get the kind of information I wanted about kids' toys around the 1880s, 1890s. Teddy bears were 1902, but a German company, Steiff, started selling these little felt elephants as pincushions right about 1880 - only kids played with the things more than mothers used them as pincushions, so the company decided to go for making stuffed animals instead.

I had a hunch wind-up toys were around that era... and, holy crap. The little wind-up tin toys were a decade or so away from mass production, but what *did* exist, were absolutely stunning clockwork-type little things. And from there...

This blog gives a great overview of the sort of thing I wound up looking at. 1860-1910ish, there was a HUGE amount of this kind of thing being created, these stunning little animated figures. At Disneyworld, I was pretty blown away by the animatronics, largely created forty, fifty years ago... but this stuff? 1800s. Long before anything could've possibly been digital - the "memory" of these machines is all mechanical.
That blog has a video of one of these automatons, sculpted as a little boy, that *writes*, in a gorgeous old-fashioned cursive, one of three different poems, and can also *draw*. I can't even imagine how you would plot points like that into a clockwork machine's memory...

Even more stunning, was this guy - Pierre Jaquet-Droz, 1770, made these things - one could write, one could draw, one could play a piano. And what really grabs me, about all of these, is the insane attention to detail in the animations - watch a few, and you'll see how lifelike the eye movements are, the way the figure will turn its head, or move its hand vaguely, or all the thousand little things we do without thought. Absolutely astonishing work.

...though they also creep the hell out of me. I was looking at all this, of course, shortly before going to sleep last night, and when I closed my eyes, I kept seeing ones like this - eerily accurate movements and all, but with all the mechanisms exposed, the bodies half-decayed...

I love these things, though I really don't think you can get much creepier. So they're coming into my story - Mr. Mason and his brother have much, much more wealth and influence at their disposal than the townspeople will ever have seen. The kids can have some pretty darn expensive toys.

Part 24

All of this... all of this beauty is gone from the world, without a trace. I'm the only one still living who's seen it... and I can't just let it all slip away.
      I put my sketchbook away, and take out my camera, wrapping the strap around my wrist to keep it close. I make a slow circuit of the clearing, pushing aside plants now and again, searching to find the ruins of this place, trying to get some sense of its outlines. There are a few low piles of bricks, some still stacked neatly, but no more than three feet of a wall are together anywhere. The stone foundations are visible in a few places, but the plant growth covers nearly all of it, and the long years of plant growth followed by decay means there's probably a good bit that's actually buried now. Nothing is left of the interior walls – I suppose they were constructed of wood, though the outside walls were brick. I do find a rectangle of brick and stone against one wall, that I suspect may have been a fireplace or chimney. But there's nothing more concrete than that... even the outline of the house's exterior walls, I'm largely guessing at. I keep hoping for another flash of vision, but there's nothing... I suppose the historical society may have a photo somewhere, so I'd at least be able to see what the house looked like from outside. Still... the amount of artistry in the entryway alone! I'd love so much to just walk through that house once, just once...
      But all the wishing I can do gives me no glimpses of that long-gone mansion. So far as I can tell, the visions are purely at random. It's like playing a computer game, you can click on some objects and make them move around or pick them up or whatever, but most of them are just background, inanimate. No way to know which it is until you pass over the object – though with a mouse on a computer screen, it's a little less time-consuming than walking over every inch of ground on this estate.
      There's a corner of a wall still standing off to the left. The bricks are only a few feet high, the mortar loose and crumbling away at the edges of the wall fragments, but apparently there's just enough shade and moisture for ferns to want to live in the little nook. I walk closer, taking a few pictures, smiling at the vivid contrast between the smooth, bright green leaves and the dingy, mottled black and rust of the rough bricks, all made the sharper by the wetness left by the rain. Then I spot a cluster of forget-me-nots, their tiny faces of luminous sky blue brightening the dark corner. They're such sweet little things... they're one of my favorite flowers, I think, and they're the perfect shade of pale blue. And the name is so evocative... and so fitting for this place, come to think of it.
      “I promise you'll not be forgotten...”
      I take some more pictures – the tiny blue petals set against the rough, weary brick make for some stunning photos. I don't know if I could draw it or not, the grittiness of the wet brick's texture is more than I think I could do with pastels. Oil or something maybe, were I better at it. Maybe a dense enough charcoal would do it...
      I straighten up, and take a long look around. I want so desperately to find more here... but there's just nothing. Even in my own head, the idea of finding some small trinket – a locket, a kid's toy, an old photograph – in this place, sounds pretty far-fetched. It's been a hundred years, a whole century. Teenagers have probably come out here to get drunk and make bonfires in some corner I haven't gotten to yet. Those who knew Cora, I'm sure, would have walked these grounds after she had left, in memory, or to continue admiring the flowers. Young couples walked here together, little kids have undoubtedly come here to play and make forts, hell, hunters have probably crossed this ground after deer or turkeys or something. Anything that could be found has surely already been found, and if not, it's got to be buried under several inches of plant debris and soil.
      I sigh. Irrational though it was, it's still a hope I hate to part with. I want to find some token of the lives that were here... all those intruders in between the Masons and myself hardly exist in my mind, they were only transient presences, and they left no mark on this place. But Cora, her children, their father, and the enigmatic couple who built the place... those are the ones who are still here, who will always be here.
      I walk slowly through the house's vague outlines, my mind warring between trying to imagine the house, and trying not to imagine it, knowing that what I picture has so little evidence that it's almost definitely wrong, and may skew any other clues I find. But I think back to the glimpse I had of the entryway, of the warm rich colors, of the artistic eye that arranged the thousand small touches... What would the dining room have looked like? The parlor? The master bedroom? I'm sure they had some sort of room for entertaining in, the parlor would have done for social calls, but I'm sure there was... maybe there wasn't a room for larger gatherings, if it was built by a honeymooning couple who made no contact at all with the outside. I'd forgotten that, I was thinking only of Cora, with a finger in every social pie in town. Was the entryway I saw hers, or that other young woman's..? My gut tells me it was the original entryway, as first envisioned by a new bride – that wasn't a room set up to have kids running up and down it. And the artistry was the same that I keep finding in the garden... the colors of the drapes against the warm wall, the vivid colors in the paintings, were chosen with the same sensibility I've seen in the gardens. But I wonder... did the Masons find the place empty and vacant, the walls bare and furniture gone, or did the other couple leave everything here, taking only themselves to their unknown destination?
      I stumble on something, and barely catch my balance – clinging to my camera for dear life, terrified of damaging it. But I manage to not fall or hurt the camera, and start poking around to see what it was I tripped over. Another rectangle of brick and stone – probably a fireplace? I've never actually lived in a house with a fireplace, but I'd imagine this is about the right size. What would have been the central part where the fire was placed is actually still fairly flat, though grass and small plants have invaded the crevices between the bricks in places. I sit down tentatively on the brick base, but the bricks don't shift at all – they must go down a few layers deep? Or maybe it's a layer of stone beneath them... there's a bit of a hole a few feet away, and I can see some unusually flat rock at the bottom of it, past the plants that are trying to cover it up. I scan the grasses and small bushes around me, trying to see where the lines of the room would have been... and I do see something, at least, it seems like there's a bit of a depression on the ground on the left, almost a straight line where the plants aren't growing. That must have been a wall... I look around to try to place this room in the larger space of the house's outline. I'm not quite in a corner... though I am beside an outer wall, the fireplace would have butted up against it. Makes sense, I suppose it would have been a pain to run a brick chimney up through floors of the house, it would have been easier to build it into a side wall. There must have been a window, looking outside...
      I shiver, wondering suddenly if this was the library. The library Mr. Mason met his death in... but no, I don't think it is. I know my intuition has absolutely no basis, but... hell, the visions have no real basis either, and if I can see them, why can't I have some weird inexplicable sense about what room this was, a hundred years ago?
      I feel like... I don't know, like it was a bedroom. It feels like a small room – though I can only make out where two walls were. I smile wryly, closing my eyes, and imagining into place a child's bed, covered in a thick quilt, gauzy curtains at the window, stuffed animals everywhere... Then I laugh, shaking my head. That's not at all what the room would have been like, good freaking God. I'm sure society women worked on quilts too, but, there's no way Cora would have used the rough patchwork thing I was imagining. And the stuffed animals would have been pretty different from the ones I grew up with... hell, even some of the ones my dad had as a kid, that are still sitting around my grandparents' house, I find really, really creepy looking. Would these kids even have had stuffed animals? Teddy bears didn't come in until, what, a little after 1900? Evelyn would have had dolls, of course, like the one she had with her... Clara?
      But when I open my eyes... I open them to see what can only be a toy box, though it's made of some gorgeous reddish-brown wood, intricately carved. The lid is open though, and I can see colorful wooden blocks, some tin soldiers... and something that looks like a little felt stuffed elephant. Guess I was wrong there, but I don't dwell on the thought – quickly, I look around the room, not knowing how long I'll have here.
      The walls are papered in a vivid aqua blue and bright sunflower gold – and though the images are cluttered and busy at first glance, after a moment I begin to see the intricate patterns of stylized flowers and vines, and detailed birds in light fuchsia darting among them. I'm taken aback by the vividness of the colors – but I've only ever seen hundred year-old interiors in their faded, worn-out and discolored old age. The wardrobe is of the same color wood as the toy box, and the carvings on it seem even more intricate. There's too much detail to take it all in at a glance, but I get an impression of wild animals, rampant lions and rearing horses and things.

Part 23

      Next chance that I get, I head back to the garden, determined to find the site of the old house. It shouldn't be far from the central fountain, the glimpse I caught of it was off to the right of where I was standing, just at the corner of my eye as I turned...
      It rained last night, so I get soaked on my walk through the woods. It's a gray day, and while normally that means for bland photos, I have a good feeling about it today. I love the look of wet stone, the grittiness of concrete and stone and brick after the rain, and having that richness set against a flat gray sky makes for some really nice visual atmospheres. Looking at the ruined foundations of a house that burned down, just after the rain with a gray sky above? Should be just about perfect.
      I crank up my headphones to distract myself from the uncomfortable feeling of my jeans and socks getting soaked through. “Stand Up Comedy”, off U2's latest album, is loud and surprisingly raucous from them, but a great song for walking determinately to. Coldplay's “Square One” follows it, and I can't help but smile. I tend to make playlists according to moods, but it's so cool when the songs I leave on shuffle compliment each other so nicely – this is another great song for walking, full of this striding energy, the chorus ringing out over wide sonic spaces...
      Wriggling under the fence is especially irritating today, with the mud and the inevitable sliminess of wet leaves, both on the plants and covering the ground. I've really got to find another way into this place... I should figure out where the actual real entrance to the grounds are, and see how far out of my way it would be. But just as I'm about to come out into the garden, one of my favorite Kent songs comes on, and I can't help but smile. Thank you, music, for once again saving my mood from gloom and doom. It's another good song for walking to, almost for running to, and I find myself half-dancing as I follow the path toward the central fountain.
      When I reach it, I sit down on one of its benches again, gazing thoughtfully at its myriad flowers, that are so full of life, despite the lifeless metal they're made from. I take a long drink from my water bottle, leaning back against the bench and looking around, taking in the surroundings. There are five paths leading out from this paved area, set equidistant around the edge of the clearing like the points of a star. Two of them are in the right direction for the mansion... at least, I think so. And the path I was on before wound around so much, it's really hard to guess where any of these might lead.
      I flip a mental coin, and decide to go for the one a little more to the right. It's a little closer to where I think I caught sight of the house, at least I think so. I was pretty distracted by everything else I was seeing at the time...
      The gray skies are keeping some of the flowers closed up, but there's still plenty of ones that are blooming anyway. Every time I walk into this place, there's more color than the time before... It's just getting to be really, truly summer now, and the garden should really start hitting its main stride. Or... it would, if it were still cared for. I can't even imagine how many gorgeous, delicate little flowers have been crushed by the more voracious varieties, how many beautiful little vignettes have been overshadowed and lost over the long, long years...
      A wrought-iron bench is almost completely obscured by some vine of a plant, and while instinct would have me uncover the gorgeous ironwork I'm sure is hidden away... the vine is covered in the largest and boldest flowers I've seen yet. They've got to be something like six inches across! A rich, warm, velvety purple, with a reddish tinge along the center of each of the six wide petals. The center is a burst of white, little... I don't even know what they're called, stamens? The bits that have all the pollen on them. I dig my guidebook out of my bag, and flip through it... Clematis? That must be it. This plant is immense... it's covering everything within about ten, fifteen feet, maybe more, I can see the leaves merging into some other bushes around the bench... It's an interesting mix, the tendrils of the ever-growing vines twisting around the tendrils wrought of immobile iron. I jot a note in my sketchbook, and continue on – while I still want to take everything in, I'm determined to make it to the mansion today.
      And eventually, I do reach it... at least I'm assuming so. There's a space that's... well, it's still covered in green growing stuff, but most of it isn't as tall, and it's more sparse than anywhere I've seen yet. The area was definitely clear at one time, and it's a pretty large area. I'm an awful judge of any measurement that's bigger than my sketchbooks. But it's definitely enough room for a house, and a pretty large one at that. Large for two people anyway... and I have no idea how many stories it had. At least three, I'm sure, the tower I saw seemed pretty tall.
      There are the remains of a path leading a short distance into the clearing – marble? I think it is, it's discolored and worn down with the years... there are pockmarks and dark spots all over, but I can tell it was once white. It looks just like the oldest of the gravestones I've seen... I shudder a little, trying to shake the image from my mind, but I can't entirely. This place is the grave, of one person at least... Mr. Mason died in the fire here.
      I can't see the ground itself anywhere, everything is covered in grass and low brush and invading flowering plants. A few things, at least, I recognize at a glance – there's a huge swath of daylilies, blooming bright gold and orange off to the right. A small patch of crayon-colored zinnias are just beside my feet. And there's another one, in the far left corner of the semi-clearing... the structure is familiar, and I want to say it's yarrow? It turned up in one of the older books I read once, it was used for some kind of homeopathic remedy, though I can't remember what. But I was young enough at the time that I was still looking up every word I didn't yet know in the dictionary – yarrow was one of them, I looked it up, and for whatever odd reason I can still picture the illustration in my head.
      Ask me what I ate for lunch yesterday, and I have no clue. Ask me about a picture I saw fifteen years ago, and I'll describe every line of the damn thing.
      But near the end of the aged marble path, my foot hits something hard – hard, but it moves a little at my nudge. Crouching down, I see that it's a rusted railing... must have been painted once, there are little scraps of white on the insides of the curlicues... and their shape is somehow familiar, and I realize it's the same pattern as the fence around the estate! Only much reduced in scale, obviously. From the size of this, I'm guessing it was a railing on a stairway maybe, leading to the front door? I can see some stones nearby, their tops jagged and rough – probably once broken by the weight of the house crashing down on them, but worn a little smoother by the weather of a hundred years.
      Stepping into the area that was once the inside of the house, I stand still and just look for awhile, feeling subdued, feeling like an intruder. I pull out my iPod, to turn down the sound, feeling like the music is an intrusion on the silence of dead memories that cling to the walls no longer here... But as I reach for it, the lines of the song catch my ear, and I shiver though I'm not sure why.
      “Only love, only love can leave such a mark. But only love, only love can heal such a scar...”
      Alright, so it's U2's “Magnificent”, which I love, and granted the song does tend to give me shivers. But not shivers like that one... There was an odd sense of connection, for just a moment, the words came as much from the crumbled stone foundations as they did from my headphones.
      Instead of turning it off entirely, I turn it down to the edge of where I'm just able to still make out the song, then begin to walk slowly, slowly, through the house, my eyes fixed on the ground under my feet, searching for any clue about the place I've never seen...
      And I get a flash of an entryway, a hall with a high, high ceiling. Twenty feet above me, a chandelier of a thousand tiny crystals hangs, its light refracting into a million dancing glints of light on the warm golden-yellow walls. The walls are draped in jewel-toned fabrics, and hung with absolutely stunning paintings of ancient paradises and people whose beauty makes your heart ache to see, and there are huge tropical plants in every little nook...
      But I've barely had time to throw a glance around the room before it's gone again. I stand still a moment, reeling a bit. When I'm sure the vision has gone, I perch cautiously on something that might once have been part of a pillar, and jot down everything I can recall in my sketchbook, making a few rough sketches of the general outlines. As eager as I am to keep exploring... I can't let myself risk losing any tiny detail I learn of this place. These visions... they give me so much information that's totally gone from this world. I'm sure there's no record of that hallway, anywhere in the world, apart from my head, and now my sketchbook. There's no newspaper article about that chandelier, there's no town record of the huge leaves on whatever that plant by the door was.

semi-autobiographical

All my characters are, to some extent or another. I can write their interests as well as I can, because I share them - I love that moment during photo development, where suddenly a blank white page shifts and grows shades and an image appears like a ghost. I love bringing out the thousand gradations of color in a scene when drawing it, bringing to the fore the pinks in green leaves, the yellows in gray stones.

But this is my new favorite observation - about myself, as well as Kimber:

I'm an awful judge of any measurement that's bigger than my sketchbooks.


So true it's ridiculous. I hate it when directions tell you something is 100 feet, 200 feet, away. I have no idea what that looks like. Everything I do, I visualize how it would fit against an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. I was trying to visualize the 5" diameter given for a clematis flower - they vary, I know, and I have a hunch some variaties can get like 10" across or something insane, and I spread my fingers apart against the short edge of a sheet of paper. I also have a good idea of 11", 17", and 18", 24", 36". Fifteen feet, not so much.

Part 22

      I smile to myself, knowing just how pretty that little girl was. I wonder if she grew up to be just as beautiful? Though a part of me has always found the sweetness inherent in the innocent beauty of a child far nicer to look at, than the made-up, rather pretentious beauty of a young woman. I shake my head a little, coming back to the conversation.
      “Well, anyway, the children were kept pretty isolated, and their father avoided people whenever he could manage it. Cora, though, was the biggest social butterfly to have ever landed in the town at that point. She headed up every sort of committee she could find. If she could have held any kind of political office, I'm sure she would have. I think she actually found her husband's reclusive tendencies to be a pleasure at times. It allowed her much more freedom to run her own affairs than she might otherwise have had had. Wives were sometimes allowed to govern their domestic domains, but I think she had a lot more power than most managed to get. She was a very independent sort... and I really think that's why she married that man – not for the money so much as for the lack of interest he'd take in managing her life.”
      John snorts. “Pure conjecture. You women and your gossip.”
      “Well, I think it makes all kinds of sense, so you leave my theories be,” Mary huffs, then winks at me. “Kimber can make what she will of it. There's really not all that much actual evidence to go on about people's personalities, conjecture and intuition are all we've really got.”
      “And, of course, rational conclusions drawn from evidence.”
      “Who's telling the story here!”
      “No-one. You're gossiping.”
      “Well. Back to the story then. Not that there's really much left... The family spent ten, fifteen years in the town. Cora was active socially, and constantly gave tours of the garden, hosting all sorts of events there. The children were quietly tutored as far as we know – there's really no information on them. Mr. Mason---”
      “Do we know what his first name was, John?” Susan cuts in. “I've only ever seen his name given as 'Mr. Mason'.”
      John furrows his brows, thinking. “You know... I'm not sure that we do. I know I don't, though I would think it would be given in the article about the house burning down. I seem to recall that there's no obituary for him in the paper at all. I thought that was strange at first, but then once I heard that the rest of the family moved away almost the minute the house burned down... well, I can't imagine anyone else in town was fond enough of the man to have tried to write anything about him.”
      “He doesn't have a grave in one of the cemeteries, does he?” I put in, curious. “I mean, I know when the original college building burned down not long before all this, even though they weren't sure of the girls' remains, they still got a monument in the cemetery, all listed together.”
      John shakes his head. “No, he doesn't. None of the Mason family are buried here – for as important a family as they were for that short time, they really didn't leave their name attached to anything here. I'd imagine that there weren't any remains left in identifiable shape after the fire, it was an especially severe one. House burned right down to the foundation. Being so far out of town, no-one even saw the smoke and thought to go look, until the house was nearly all gone. Mrs. Mason and the children were found on the road heading toward town, and said they didn't know how it started, but that the servants had all left, and Mrs. Mason said her husband had been in the library, where she'd seen the roof collapse before she saw him leave the house. He was such an odd character, and Mrs. Mason such an upstanding citizen, that nobody ever questioned her story. They all assumed he just let himself die in the fire – rumor suggested he might even have started it, for whatever reasons of his own.”
      “Mrs. Mason didn't give any more explanation of it?”
      John shakes his head. “They really did leave town the day after the house burned down – she said they were going out to stay with her people, somewhere up north, though I guess the kids scattered when they grew up.”
      I nod, remembering what the map-guy had told me about the estate's ownership.
      “I think that's about it,” Mary says, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Anything else you two want to add?”
      Susan and John look at each other, John shrugs, and Susan shakes her head. “No, I think you've pretty well covered it,” John concludes.
      I smile warmly at all three of them. “I can't thank you enough, that was so much more information than I thought I was going to be able to get!”
      Mary laughs at this. “Oh, Kimber, little old towns like this don't forget their histories... We may not have the grand landmarks that big cities have, but the stories, we hold near and dear. I think those are the real treasures anyway.”
      John chuckles at this. “We're also a small enough town that our entire history pretty much fits into one office, with a handful of filing cabinets.”
      “It certainly does not,” Susan retorts. “I should know, I'm the one that's cleared the cobwebs and swept the dust away from all those archival bins we store in the basement. And I clean in the museum every other day. And---”
      “I was joking, Susan!” John laughs, reaching across the table to pat her hand. “Still, we are a small enough town, that it's actually possible for a body to know pretty much all the history worth knowing.”
      Mary nods at this. “True. Although,” she adds, turning to me. “You should still stop by our office in the town hall some afternoon – you can take a look for yourself at the newspaper articles about the fire, as well as what photos we have. They're all on microfilm here at the library of course, but I find those machines absolutely awful to read on.”
      I nod, relief showing clearly on my face, I'm sure. I'm so glad to hear an actual librarian admit this! “I definitely will! I'd especially love to see the photos... to see how the gardens used to look.” And so, to verify that what I've been seeing is every bit as real as all my senses can tell me that it is. But for now, I shake the hands everyone's offering me, and say goodnight.

      There's a lot running through my head when I get home. I spread my drawings and sketches around me, lost in thought. Most of what I've just learned isn't too far off from what I would have guessed anyway... I still wish I could have learned more, but I suppose there's only so much written record that survives a hundred years. Especially with the fire having destroyed anything the Masons had actually owned... I suddenly realize that I still haven't explored the site the house once stood on. There's so much garden to see, and, well, the visions or whatever they are keep distracting me. I wonder if there's some reason for that... no, I'm sure it's just coincidence. Next time I'm there, I'll look for the ruins of the house. I had only that one fleeting glimpse of it when I saw the fountain, but that was enough to give me an idea of where it stood at least, though I couldn't make out much of what it looked like.
      I'm having trouble reconciling Cora's character in my head, though. That sad, wistful young woman I saw sitting on the bench, the honeysuckle blossom held so tenderly in her fingertips... and then this bold, independent, somewhat domineering woman who ran the town's social life. Did I see her in her one moment of vulnerability? Or was she not the proto-feminist that's so easily extrapolated from her social résumé? Maybe her involvement in all these things was a less-bossy one than everyone thinks... Maybe it was just one of those things, where everyone knew she could handle the tasks competently, and she couldn't say no? Nodding to myself, I re-trace a few lines in the sketch I've done of her under the honeysuckle trellis. That explanation fits much better with the woman I saw... And her husband being what he was, I'm sure she would have taken every chance at getting out of the house, or having other people around – even Evelyn knew that her father had to “be respeckable” when there were guests. I can easily imagine Cora making sure there were guests around as often as possible, if his temper was as bad as I've heard – and seen.
      Evelyn... Avery, her brother, I still know nothing about. Is he the older one, or the younger one? No, he has to be the older one – his father wouldn't have called for him if he was the bed-ridden child. And Evelyn said he was prone to arguing with their father, I can't imagine someone younger than Evelyn doing anything as rational as argue. Throw tantrums, yes, but not argue. I wonder what the third child's name is... and if there's any way I can find out? Did doctors keep records back then? Or would the Masons have had a private physician for the boy?
      “Aaaaargh!!!” I drop my face into my hands and shake my head, laughing ruefully. Every question I answer, I get a good dozen more... and I know full well that most of them are hopeless, in terms of actual, normal research. The visions are my only hope for real information... and is it actually real information? Even if it is, they've been totally unpredictable so far. The last two have been much longer than the first ones were, and the one of Evelyn was so long, so clear, so involved... will she remember me, if I see her again?
      Sighing, I turn to my loose sketches of the young couple I saw at the fountain. Those are the real mysteries... no records at all of them, not even their names. The only, absolutely only, thing that is left of them, is their garden, and my fleeting vision of them... I want so badly to know what brought them here, why he would create such an elaborate little Eden for her, only to leave it again without a word... I can imagine secreting themselves away from the world, like an extended honeymoon, living only for each other. At least for a little while. But I can't imagine two people living in total seclusion forever... and that could explain them abandoning the place, but, why not just make contact with the town? Go out shopping, go to whatever festivals the town held back then, go make some friends? Why leave a place so beautiful as this once was? They must have loved it dearly, to have put so much effort into every detail of it, the way I can see that they did...

what happens when you're not paying attention...

Writing this whole historical society meeting section, I didn't plan the characters ahead of time. At all. Mary is vaguely related to a character I thought this story was going to have (though it turned out not to), but the other two just wandered in and started talking, breaking up the monologue.

And it wasn't until just now, as I was trying to wrap up the scene, that I wrote:
      “I think that's about it,” Mary says, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Anything else you two want to add?”
      John and Susan

And then burst out laughing. JOHN AND SUSAN are my freaking relatives, that live in a little town not far from here. They pop into the store now and again. Susan's the sister of one of my grandparents (I always forget which side of the family is which). I had no idea, until this very moment, that I had unconsciously named my characters after them. The characters, I should note, were never intended to resemble them, though it occurs to me now that the Susan in my head looks a smidge like the Susan I'm related to.

omfg I am not going to be able to finish that sentence as it stands. I can't put the names together or I won't stop giggling. DAMN YOU SYNAPSES! Fire in ways that are HELPFUL!

Part 21

[look out, it's a long one - wanted to get caught up, and a bit ahead, today. but there are older people bantering, so it's all good.]


      Sitting down to draw that night, I think over the day's events, and all the sudden it hits me---
      I touched her. Evelyn's hand was solid in mine, she saw me, her father and the dog all saw me. The dog was nervous, but aside from that... it was as if I were really there, and supposed to be there, like I was seen as I would normally be, not like a ghost or anything. Evelyn was certainly no ghost. I'm tempted to call Anna, but from the way she reacted to my initial story, I don't think she has any experience with something like this. With seeing ghosts, sensing spirits, yes, but actually physically touching things, touching people, that have been gone a hundred years?
      Why didn't I try taking a photo? I'd feel less crazy if I had a photo of that past garden. I'd know this whole damn thing wasn't in my head... though something in my gut tells me it wasn't, that it was as real as the world I walk around in every day.
      Groaning, I let my face fall into my hands, shaking my head. What the hell is going on? I'm not just having visions, I'm having full sensory hallucinations... but I've never had dreams this clear, no character I've imagined has ever been this sharp in my mind. I can see Evelyn's face as clearly as I can see my little sister's.
      I've been trying to keep myself from thinking about all this, from moment to moment I change my mind on whether I'm crazy or there's a logical explanation, if this is all real or not... I've got to take a photo. Then I'll be sure it's real.
      ...how it can be real, I haven't the faintest idea. But if it is, then it is. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Sherlock Holmes, I think? And Holmes wasn't anything but rational and logical – far more so than I am, anyway, which is what matters here.
      I brace my arms against the floor and lean back, letting my head fall back. I stare steadily at the ceiling. I am not crazy. I'm an artist, which means I'm freaking weird at times, but, I'm not crazy. My ear is still there, and I feel no absolutely no imperative to hack it off. There's some explanation behind all this, and while it may be totally bizarre, and something other people – or even I – would think totally absurd, it's happening, so it's real.
      The explanation doesn't matter, it's going to keep happening, so I may as well get all I can from it. Who needs musty old library records, when you can talk to the family themselves? I grin at myself, shaking my head and turning my attention back to my drawing. I'll still research the hell out of this place, I have far more questions than these quick glimpses can answer... But I'll gladly take the images it's given me.

      I poke around the website for the college in town. I remember my art history professor's name, but I don't think I ever needed to check his office hours. The guy was full of fascinating stories, but he knew so damned much, I would never have felt worthy of talking to him. That, and I never had anything to ask him about – I just tried my hardest to keep awake in the two-hour lecture periods, full of slide projections. Slides always make me conk out, no matter what the subject. (Power Points go double – they don't even have the retro appeal factor in their favor. And people always try to make them “fancy” and “artsy” and it's just freaking painful.)
      His hours aren't posted there, but the number for his office is. Summer sessions are running right now, and I know art history's a popular requirement to try to get out of the way in the summer. I'm not a fan of calling people, but maybe I'll just get a voice mail. I'm home from work, so maybe he's done for the day as well.
      “Hello. You have reached the office of Dr. Reiff, head of the art history department at the University of North Carolina. I'm not in the office right now, so please leave a message. If you would prefer to speak with me directly, my office hours for the summer session are Tuesday from two until five, and Friday from eleven until three. Thank you.” This is followed by a beep, and I suddenly panic, realizing I haven't decided if I want to actually leave a message or not. I have no idea what to say. I hang up. I'll drop by his office hours next time I'm free, I'm not going to try making an appointment via an answering machine. I'm still close enough to a student that I can get away with just dropping in unannounced.
      But checking my work schedule, it's going to be a whole two weeks before I'm free in either of those time frames. Damn it. But that reminds me... am I free Tuesday night? I am! I can jump on someone at the historical society's meeting, and pick their brains about the Masons. If anyone's heard stories about people seeing things in the garden, I'm sure they will have.
      For all the running around I'm having to do, for all the people this project is making me talk to, and going out and doing things outside my cozy little comfort zone... I'm feeling oddly happy. I think it's a really, really good thing, to have some to focus on, outside of work and chores. I don't know if... no, I guess I do feel like my life has a little more purpose now. Who else can draw this garden long-gone? Who else can capture images of these people who might otherwise be forgotten?
      ...and who else would have saved Evelyn from a beating today? I shudder at the thought, I can't help it, she may be a hundred years gone but the fear in her eyes is still fresh in my mind.
      I'm serving some sort of purpose, being involved in the garden like this... and whatever end it might be toward, even if all I get from it is these drawings, and the meeting with Evelyn, that alone has already made my life all the richer.

      Tuesday night, I walk into the library a little after 5:30. Should I approach someone before the meeting, or after? I kind of feel like after would be more natural, but, they're probably a very social little bunch, and they probably sit around chatting about their families after the meetings, maybe go meet somewhere for coffee or something. I'll ask someone beforehand.
      I wait until there's no-one in line at the counter, then approach the lone librarian at a desk by the door. “Hi... Do you know where the historical society usually meets? I just wanted to ask one of them a question, when they come in.”
      She beams. “Anyone in particular?”
      “Uhm... no, I guess not, I don't actually know any of them, I just...”
      “Well, you know one now! I'm the secretary, actually. Mary Sueter.”
      I can't help but smile back, she's so effusive. “Kimberly Bennett. ...do you want me to wait until the meeting, or..?”
      “Lordy, you think I'm busy around here?” She laughs, gesturing at the empty counter in front of her. “Nothing but the ghosts of cranky dead authors around here in the summertime, when there's not a story hour for the kids or something. The historical society generally treats this place as their club house. Cheaper than renting out the Moose Lodge every couple of weeks, and more convenient for me, anyway.”
      She's somewhere around middle-age, maybe a bit older than my mom, with bits of gray in her light brown hair. It is, indeed, tucked back in a neat librarian bun, but she's not wearing glasses or a blouse with a pencil skirt. She's wearing a light yellow short-sleeved sweater, and a rather artsy necklace of hand-worked glass, with big splotches of bright colors. Her eyes are bright and interested, and her smile is one of those that you can't help but return.
      “What was it that you wanted to know? And call me Mary, I hate standing on ceremony.”
      “Kimber, then,” I respond with a smile. “I actually want to know about the old Mason place.”
      Her eyes widen a bit, knowingly. “So do a lot of people... you know a little about it already, I presume?”
      I nod. “I've heard the basic story, that there was a gorgeous garden when the Masons lived there, but a fire pretty much destroyed the property, and killed Mr. Mason. And that Mr. Mason had said his brother had built the place, but no-one knew who that brother actually was, Mr. Mason kind of appeared out of nowhere.”
      “A very mysterious man... and his brother, even more so. Do you know, for all the public attention that estate drew at the time, we don't have a single picture of Mr. Mason? A few of his wife, Cora, and their children, but none of him. And no visual record of his brother and wife, either. Absolutely none.”
      The memory of the man and young woman, curled close around each other beside the fountain, blankets my thoughts. No photos... nothing by which to see them is left in this world, apart from what I carry in my memory.
      “Jerry knows more about the place than anyone, but it's mostly a technical knowledge – what the house looked like, the layout of the gardens, how much the place was worth before it burned, things like that. He's not all that big on gossip – but I am.” She grins and her eyes sparkle. “I never thought I was much of a gossip, but over the years, I've learned that I am downright nosy. Especially when it comes to people's stories. Eventually, I realized that that means I am, in fact, a gossip. And I refuse to be ashamed of it.”
      Mary laughs, and I join in.
      “But I'm talking your ear off and you're stuck standing there. Let's go over to the table there, the others will be here before long, and they can fill in any gaps in my story.”
      Following her to a long table in the middle of the room, I ask, a little timidly, if I won't be interrupting their meeting.
      “Interrupting!” She laughs gaily. “Dearie, you'll be the highlight of our month. There's nothing we old bookworms love more than showing off all the things we know, and it's so rare that anyone as young as you is actually a willing participant. Are you still at the college?”
      I shake my head – I hear this a lot. I'm learning that it's pretty rare for most people to stick around town after they graduate, unless they grew up here, in which case the whole town already knows them. “A few years out, actually.”
      “History major?”
      “Art, with a concentration in drawing.”
      “Oh! That just makes you more interesting. What piqued your interest in the Masons?”
      “I actually live near there, in the apartments on Watercress? I was walking around in the woods one day, and found the fence around the Mason property... Eventually I found a way in, and started walking around.” I decide to keep quiet on the whole vision-thing, at least for now. Instinct tells me Mary wouldn't judge me poorly if I told her, but... I'm still pretty wary of talking about it. “Even though it's so overgrown, there are so many traces of how beautiful it used to be.”
      She nods, her eyes going a little distant. “Isn't it a sweet kind of sad place? You can just feel the stories lurking there.”
      I smile happily. “Exactly.”
      “Well, that's plenty of reason to be nosy about it, then! Let me tell you what I know... oh, and here's Susan! Susan! This is Kimber. She's an artist and wants to know all about the Mason place.”
      “Well isn't that nice! Are you doing paintings of it? It used to be such a pretty place. We have a few photos of it somewhere in the town records, you'll have to come by the office and see them sometime. We're right in town hall, there's someone there most afternoons.”
      “Doing a few drawings, actually... so I'd absolutely love to see the photos.”
      “Now, where to start... We really don't know a thing about the original owners. Can't even find the original deed to the property, if you can believe it! It was probably lost in the fire, but there should have been some kind of copy in the town records, only we've never turned one up.”
      “Could have settled the place before the town was built,” Susan puts in.
      “Well, yes, the town wasn't really a proper town until about ten years before the Masons we know about moved in. We have no idea how long the house was there before that, though to judge by the gardens, it was easily decades.”
      “When people first started filtering in, nobody was exactly worrying about paperwork,” a male voice breaks in, as a man with scant white hair pulls up a chair on the opposite side of the table. “Far enough from the capital that it was pretty much wilderness being settled, the bureaucracy didn't move out here until there were enough people to make bossing around worthwhile.”
      “Why, hello John! You're here awfully early.”
      “The wife was cleaning. I thought it would be prudent to relocate before I got recruited.”
      “Well, this is Kimber, John, and we're telling her about the Masons.”
      “Always a good story. You know more of the gossip than anybody, Mary, I'll let you continue.”
      “Why thank you. So, we have no idea what the original owners were like. All that ever got around town was that it was a man and his young wife, and no-one ever saw them or learned their names. It doesn't seem like anybody even knew the place was there until the Masons turned up and moved in. The town was pretty small then, and their place was really out of the way – no real road was ever built too close to it, I have a feeling Mr. Mason made sure of that.”
      “Such a recluse, that man was,” Susan clucks.
      “Now don't jump ahead of me, Susan! I'll get to him in due time. For all that no-one ever saw the man and his young wife, there were still plenty of rumors that went around town later on. Mr. Mason was always making his wife angry by contradicting her claims to being responsible for the splendidness of the garden. She tried to take the credit for it, and he always made some snide comment about how it had already been there, just so, when they moved in. His brother did it all, created this little Eden for his much-beloved wife.”
      “Didn't she die young?”
      “Well, that's one of the rumors. Tuberculosis, cholera, take your pick of the major diseases of the time, I've heard they all killed her. She was always a frail little thing to begin with, though very beautiful. I've also heard that he killed her himself. She went into town one night, desperate for companionship, and he caught another man walking her home, killed them both in a jealous rage.”
      “No record of that one in any of the old newspapers,” John puts in.
      “I know, but it's such a delicious story, I just had to mention it,” Mary responds with a twinkle. “I've also heard that she ran off on him, never to be seen again, and he killed himself in despair.”
      “No record of that, either.”
      “I don't care if there's a record or not! It's been passed down in the oral traditions of the town, so it still counts for something,” Mary snaps, though her eyes are still sparkling.
      “But it's my job to point out the accuracy of things against the known written record,” John responds calmly, obviously used to playing this game with her.
      “Yes of course... but the record is never half so interesting. The most realistic story is that they simply moved away. There seems to have been a good deal of money in the Mason family, I'm sure the brother had as much at his disposal as Mr. Mason did. And he must have been quite young at the time, so I'm sure the young couple just flitted about as the whim took them. There's really no evidence at all about their time here, apart from Mr. Mason's insistence that they were the ones who built the mansion and its gardens. How much was theirs, and how much were later additions by the Mason family, no-one knows.”
      “I have the impression that Mrs. Mason, Cora, did quite a bit,” Susan puts in. “She was quite the woman in the town's social circles.”
      “She was indeed, and she was so terribly proud of those gardens... But that family moved in somewhere around the late 1880s, the date on that isn't quite clear, either.”
      “There's a notice in one of the town papers that mentions Mrs. Cora in 1889, in connection with one of the local church mission groups.”
      “Thank you, John. Mr. Mason was incredibly reclusive, as I'm sure you're realizing. Mrs. Mason insisted he make appearances from time to time, but I think he purposely made her always regret it, by his rudeness and snide comments to and about her.”
      “And Cora did so much good for the town!” Susan joins in.
      “I saw a photo of her in that book about the town, it listed her being in all sorts of organizations,” I put in timidly.
      “Dan Reed's book? Wonderful thing, isn't it? He ransacked our entire archive, and quite a few ancient attics around the county. Couldn't fit everything, of course, but it's still a wonderful compilation, really piqued local interest in the town's history.” Mary beams.
      “That reminds me, Dan can't make it tonight, his kid's got a soccer game,” John notes.
      “They moved out here for health reasons, the youngest son was a really frail thing. Not quite clear what the issue was, but it kept him bed-ridden much of the time.”
      “Could have been something with his lungs, could have been something with his legs... Medicine was in a pretty sad state still at that point. Mostly consisted of leeches, and getting 'good air' into people. Miasma took the blame for many illnesses.”
      “Miasma?” I know how the word is generally used, but I have no idea how it connects to disease.
      John re-adjusts in his seat, sitting up a little straighter and clearing his throat. “One of the leading medical theories for centuries. It basically blamed all illness on 'miasma', which was really nothing more than 'bad air'.”
      “Pollution,” Mary puts in.
      “Evil spirits,” Susan replies.
      “A little of both, really,” John chuckles. “Leeches are a little more familiar to you? Then you know they were used to draw out the 'bad' blood, which was thought to cause disease. Miasma was pretty much the same principle, it was this atmosphere of disease that was thought to permeate cities mostly, but also pervade any area of illness. Today, we stand back when someone sneezes, envisioning germs filling the air around them. Back then, they had no concept of the germs, but an invisible cloud would settle over an area, and the bad air would cause illness.”
      “That's why you had so much interest in seaside vacations and things at the time,” Mary adds. “And there was some truth in it – getting away from the pollution of the crowded, newly industrializing cities obviously made a lot of people feel better.”
      “Like in Little Women, when they take Beth to the seaside?” I ask, feeling a little childish.
      But Mary grins kindly. “Exactly. And Beth felt better while there, but it wasn't any kind of lasting effect, poor girl. That book makes me cry to this day.”
      Susan sniffs. “You're such a sap, Mary Sueter.”
      “But I'm an endearing sort of sap. What sort of world would it be, if there was no-one around to cry at sad stories?”
      “One without sappy stories being written in it,” John retorts gruffly.
      The rest of us laugh, and John's eyes twinkle.
      “Oh, he's just an old crank,” Mary says to me, rolling her eyes. “Ignore him. Were you finished, John?”
      “Guess I am now,” he says, rolling his eyes in return. “Continue your clucking, women.”
      Mary huffs at that, then returns to her story anyway. I realize that I'm enjoying this meeting immensely.
      “There was a daughter, and an older son as well. They were seen a little more, though still not often. Cora didn't exactly bring them along on social calls when they were young, and the fire happened before the daughter had turned sixteen.”
      John raises an eyebrow. “We don't have any birth record for the daughter, are you sure of her age?”
      “No, but we'd have social mentions of her debut in society if she'd turned sixteen here,” Mary retorts. “So there. I think the daughter was in the middle – again, there's not much to go on, besides a few vague mentions in social columns of the newspaper. The family doesn't come up very often in correspondence of the time, though there are a few mentions in some of the diaries we've found. It seems the children had both nurses and tutors to watch them and teach them, so they really had very little contact with the town.”
      “The daughter was a pretty little thing though, isn't there a photo in the archives, of her in the garden?” Susan asks, idly paging through an issue of Better Homes and Gardens she's pulled from a nearby shelf.
      “There is,” John affirms. “Derick Reese took it, it's in the collection we have of his work. Quite a nice photo, actually, the man was expert at creative portraiture.”