Lucid Waking

Archive for August 5th, 2010

Secrets of the Blue House (7)

If you are starting here, please read the story thus far (if you haven’t already) before continuing.

        The other doors in the front hall went to the dining room, ballroom, billiard room, and second hall. Behind the billiard room was the kitchen, which connected only to the dining room and had a stairs down to the cellar for storage. The second hall had the identical tile and white-wall appearance as the central hall, but was much smaller; there was barely enough room for both Gervais and Nick to stand. A mirror on the left wall faced the coat closet and straight across from the door was a set of marble stairs. These stairs led to the second floor directly where a myriad of doors surrounded the chandelier in the middle of the hall ceiling. Most of these rooms were bedrooms with their own bathrooms and various color accents for white walls. The master bedroom took up the entire corner of the floor with windows overlooking the elaborate French garden. The balcony from the master bedroom obscured the view of the patio, which was seen fairly well from the other bedrooms. The floor also boasted a study and library; the latter extended to the third floor as seen by the room’s height, though there was no door to lead to the upper floor. A small set of wooden stairs was hidden by a separate door and led to the third floor, which except for a rather extensive conservatory, was filled with servants bedrooms. Gervais let slip that this portion of the house had the most secret passageways, but he did not mention where, though the vagueness of the fact left Nick with a slight feeling of being watched. Gervais seemed to notice some sort of change in his guest’s demeanor, because he quickly mentioned with another uncharacteristic smile that even he did not know all the nooks and crannies of the house, which meant that no one else—especially the servants—would either.
        “I’m sure the servants will stay with the house,” he added later on in their tour, “And because I’m feeling good spirited, I’m willing to give you a little stipend to pay them, if you wish.”
        “We’ll see.”
        Though the house was grand and beautiful, it could not compare to the grounds before which it stood. The ballroom led directly out onto a stone patio, which based on the raised nature of the house, also served as a small balcony. Stone stairs on either side led down to another stone area with a large fountain in the middle of it. This fountain had a knight on a bucking horse holding up an unassuming goblet that sprayed water high into the air. The far edge of the stone patio bordered a geometric French garden, in the left corner a hedge maze began that Nick could see he mistook as the edge of the property from the street. There was also a gazebo far from the house beside a small pond that trickled into a thin brook leading off the premises. A few benches were set up under the trees nearest the house next to some glass tea tables with potted plants in the center. Far to the right of the house was the carriage driveway, which led to a garage and stable along with a rather large greenhouse.
        “There is a fountain in in the middle of the hedge maze, as well, although there is only one entrance. There is a reason we are called the Fontaines.”
Nick smiled at the quip. “Is there any reason for the statues being the way they are?”
        “You noticed that, did you? I’m not sure the significance, although this one must seem obvious. This is a no name knight who found the Holy Grail. The one inside is of a nymph, satyr, and boobrie dancing around the tree of life. The nymph represents nature, the boobrie represents water, and the satyr represents merriment. And the one inside the hedge maze, I believe, depicts Theseus killing the minotaur, but it’s been so long, I’m not sure.”
        “That’s a very morbid subject for supposedly a romantic place.”
        “Ariadne is somewhere in there as well, I think. But I always thought it was a rather strange topic, as well.”
        The sun was falling over the tips of the hedge and splashing light everywhere. Above it, the pink and lavender sky was quickly turning into a grayish blue while the shadows among the leaves and flowers got darker and larger. Nick accepted Gervais’ dinner invitation and stepped back inside the house, which was now darker and filled with random multi-colored spots from Nick’s glance at the sun. Conveniently, dinner was already set on the table, but still steaming and the two men seemed to lose no time in piling food upon their plates.
        It wasn’t until they both waited within conversation for desert that the doorbell rang, muffled by the dining room door. Gervais’ face clouded over just slightly, but he neither moved towards the door nor broke his train of the conversation. Out of the corner of Nick’s eye he could see Edna step into the door, her head hanging to avoid staring, but there was something rigid about her stance as well that gave Nick a slight, but needless, feeling of dread.

Author’s comments on post 395: I wrote this all the way back on July 13, but didn’t edit it until now. I also did some semi-major edits to the rest of the story, so if there is a difference between the published posts and the story in its entirety, please disregard the posts. The big time lapse was mostly because I didn’t like how I initially wrote it, believing it was not poetic enough, and finally came up with a good solution. I’m also pushing myself to finish this before I start other projects that have been slowly forming in my imagination and are almost ready to hatch. Never fear, I do have an ending in mind for this, I just need the time to write. More soon!