Our Pan

((::Kikvws: You sure get around! My gosh! I swear this portion of the site is being run on the power of your reviews! *L* It's amazing. And I really really appreciate the time you give me on this. Thank you! *L* And I'm glad you're enjoying it!!!! :)
::Haywire: Odd, that flattery thing. *L* I find myself flattering in the cases of beginning writers who are struggling to find their voice. And complimenting those I respect and enjoy. Having an author I truly enjoy say that they care for MY writing is one of the grandest compliments anyone could ever have. Thank you! (*L* It's gratitude night, here at memme-house) And yes.. dreams.. realities.. it's all getting a bit difficult to follow, isn't it? *L* My pardons. And yet, I'm cackling with glee over here too, so don't take that at face value. *w*

On to the next chapter! Pardon the delay. This one got a bit sticky there for a while. Also, I've another, more serious (if you want to call it that) story site where I've had some inspiration for some stories that I've been sitting and brooding on. And when one gets an inspiration, I'm learning it's imperative that one follows as quickly as possible, before the muse slips out the side window or the back door or up through the chimney, or however the hell they get away from us. Those chapters are far longer and require more thought (though not much more in one case) and beta'ing and that sort of time consuming idiocy. Then stack on holidays and the like. I will do my best to finish Left Turn and Our Pan soon, so that I can take the holidays and focus on my other site.

Also, if anyone is interested, I've intentions of doing a story based on the creatures in "Katje"... if you think that might be fun, let me know? Not yet sure where that would go.

Only a few "days" left for Gabriel. Things will conclude one way or another and if he's lucky, he'll get something a tad better than a goose egg, as my grandmother used to say. All of which means to you, the readers, that we've only a few chapters left! YAY!))

Our Pan

Mrs. Vantage takes one look at him as he enters the office, concluding from his red rimmed eyes, the lack of a well knotted tie, the state of his slacks (unpressed) and his hair (poorly combed), and the fact that, when he sits down, neither of his socks match, and she promptly calls all of his daily appointments, rescheduling all but a simple but important check of Mrs. Tabors' youngest and the cough the child seems to have had for the better part of the week. Then, accepting no excuses, she shoos him from the office and closes the door behind him, turning the placard to "The Doctor is OUT" to the outside of the clinic window.

"Now then, Dr. Chelsea, best you pop off home and get yourself a bit of a rest," Mrs. Vantage presses him to his motorcar and pats his back with a worried smile on her generally mischievous face.

And always a rather dutiful young man, Gabriel does just that. He undoes his tie as he drives down the road, his mind wandering about, attempting to make sense of this now dull and swimming world he discovers himself a part of. It seems like it has all become a dream, or pieces of a dream that are spilling into life. And like a dream, he can't recall the last moment in the next. He's attempting to recall the simplest of actions; what he's had for breakfast or if he's had breakfast at all for that matter, what radio programme would be playing at this time of the day, why he's driving to the Manor.

He leaves the car at the front of the walk, gets out and searches for his bag. He doesn't have it. But somehow, he wouldn't be surprised if he reached into his pocket and pulled out the various implements he had need of, by virtue of the very way things have been going of late.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Chelsea."

Gabriel stares at Christian Lowe with a puzzled crease across his brow. This reeks of familiarity.

"Muscle's back to working quiet well, thank you. Master Finn will be grateful to meet you. I've told him to expect you." Chris continues after a moment, nodding as if Gabriel had said something to him that everyone but Gabriel could hear. Only, Gabe realizes, there isn't much to hear at all from this place on the walkway. He can't even hear the sound of Chris' hoe tucking up against his aged boot. The tip of the hoe ought to have made noise when it was placed there, his mind tells him. But it didn't. That in itself could be, and should be counted as odd.

Chris smiles and nods. "Aye, been and gone, really," and Gabriel coughs.

"I'm sorry?" Gabe frowns, confused.

"Certainly, sir," Christian nods then turns back to his weeding.

Gabriel stands frozen on the walkway, watching Christian. The man seems intent on the action. The sole action. That being, the rise and fall of his hoe upon one point in the earth, catching soil, turning it over, then as if that wasn't enough, repeating the same action in the same place with the same clod of dirt. Gabe watches this action repeat itself three times and is well into the fourth when he shakes himself free of it and turns, certain that he is truly dreaming now.

But paths are meant to be taken in dreams, are they not? He stares at the path leading up to the doorway. It beckons and he follows without thinking again on it.

He knocks and Etain opens the large door, her black eyes flashing with the predatory certainty of a hawk about to leap from the glove. "Dr. Chelsea," she says in her chilly, American voice; her accent causing the sounds of his title to cut rather than slide harmlessly past.

"Mrs. Finn," Gabe inclines his head. "I've come to see your brother-in-law."

"Dr. Chelsea!" Finn's voice seemed to jangle less, but it still pained Gabe's ear. He hadn't ever disliked American accents. He just isn't ready at the moment to wonder what it is about this particular moment that makes those sounds so off. Wrong sounds from the wrong people.

"Mr. Finn," Gabe inclines his head once more. "Your brother - "

"Will be just fine. He's in no rush to get up," Finn laughs calmly. "Come, do join us for some tea?" and he asks this with a large smile, taking Gabe's arm and leading him from the foyer, past a small satyr, around a statue of a young nude male, long hair swept back from his face, his head tilted back as a snake curls up and around his thigh, about his waist, mouth closed around his throat. Though the young man seems not in pain, but ecstasy. Gabe steps so violently away from the second statue, his heart pounding in his chest, that he almost runs into Etain who, with a small, cold smile, touches his arm.

"Do you not like statues?" the woman asks smoothly.

"Actually, I find them generally enjoyable," he assures her hoarsely.

"Generally?"

"Well, there are levels of statuary subjects that I find somewhat disquieting and the more modern pieces lack much of the soul from earlier periods, however..." Gabe's words trail off and he swallows. He's randomly attempting to fill space with his words. He senses that it's more amusing to her in the way a mouse struggling is for the cat about to feast.

"Really," she says and passes him to enter the room first, his skin rising to goosepimples where she'd brushed with her fingertips. "Would you care for some tea, Dr. Chelsea?"

NO!!!!

His chest starts to constrict and he rubs his breastbone with an uncomfortable wince. "Err, no. No thank you, Mrs. Finn. I had something on my way here."

"Of course," Mrs. Finn smiles, her black eyes don't join the rest of her face, however and Gabriel finds himself taking a step to the side, as if her genteel manner were but a cloak for some ravenous maw behind. He smiles apologetically, attempting to relieve himself of his failed duty to act as a proper guest in her home, inwardly laughing at his childish fancies.

"Now then," the tall bespetacled man sits in a chair, waving a hand to the other wingback before the fire, "tell me what has been happening of late in the town. It's been ages since I've visited it."

"You've been here before then?" Gabriel settles down, relieved to be somewhat out of sight of Etain's black gaze.

"Oh, a time or two," Finn smiles more brightly. There is a flash behind his spectacles, a light more of a violet than grey, yet what exactly type of grey they were to begin with, Gabriel can't quite say.

"Ah, well then.. I suppose you've seen all there is to see as it is. We are an almost silent, so quiet are we, village, Mr. Finn."

"Just Finn, if you please," the man crosses his hands across his leg which he's bent over the other. "And I suppose things are likely the same as they've been for centuries, hmm?"

"Many of our families have been in the village since before the 16th century, yes," Gabriel nods, finding that his mind has cleared considerably. This seems more like the reality he's known all his life. He can sit here, his hands rested on his knees, his social graces making up the path for him, rather than fumbling about in the midst of a surreal vapor, attempting to make a bridge out of toothpicks or bones or... whatever completely ill fitting objects one had at hand.

Etain, her fingers cupped around her own tea, smoothly makes her way to behind her husband's chair. Her fingers reach out and she dances them across the nape of his neck. Finn seems to not notice, despite the chill in the air and the uncomfortable look on the face of his guest. Instead, he nods as if what Gabriel is saying has all of the import of a stock report. "Well now, that is of interest. There is a great deal of history with this village. Family histories that stretch back centuries, complete with feuds and curses." Finn's smile is congenial yet Gabe finds his spine tense, as if preparing to spring away. The normality of the conversation is surface only.

He forces himself to quiet and nods. "So it's said. We do have a long time feud between the Crosswyer and the Duxton families. I'm sure that's been in effect since the mid eighteenth century. Or so they say," he chuckles and finds it sounding forced, "They're rather proud of the fact."

"I am sure they are," Finn smiles kindly. Then he leans forward and tilts his head to one side. "The history is one reason we wanted so to move here." His glasses seem more like shades then, with the firelight flickering across them, blinding Gabe and making it impossible to see the color of the eyes behind the lenses. Gabriel has a strange sense of deja vu, being unable to see a color, needing to see the color for some reason that he cannot begin to name. "The curse, you see. You know much of that? The curse that is on this house?"

Gabe swallows and nods. "It's one of the more hazy curses," he says, realizing that he's spoken or been spoken to in the same tone of voice, as if this were interesting history, yet the one telling is a tad uncomfortable while speaking of it.

"Hazy?" Finn looks amused. "Ah, makes you wonder, when no one can quite recall a curse, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Gabe nods.

"So what particulars do you know?"

Gabe fidgets, sensing that a child would not have managed to stay seated right then, "Well, it is said that two brothers, an elder and a younger, went to the wood when they were to be in bed. The elder met with an oak tree spirit, old and dangerous, biding it's life beside a secret pool. The younger brother did not go that far into the darkness, but waited for his brother by the edge of the wood. A woman came to him and warned him of the danger his brother was in. She was beautiful and good, some say. Others say she was Queen Mab, treacherous and without human sympathies. But in this case, she is beautiful and good. For the youngest ran into the wood and saved his brother."

"And that brought about a curse? This goodness?" Finn's fingers flex on the arm rests of his chair.

"Er, well now," Gabe strives to make sense of the rest of it. "I'm not sure," he has to admit. "I don't know why things happen then. It's just that the eldest was never the same. Then one day, he ran into the wood and his brother followed him. But in the end, the oak swallowed the eldest. They say that the youngest, as a man, came back and cut down the oak tree. He used the oak to fashion the beams of this house and that the malevolence of the wood permeates this house. That this is the curse." Gabriel laughs nervously, "I feel as if I'm telling a children's tale. My mother used to tell it to me at night when I wanted a scary story. It would frighten me, though it seems rather innocuous now."

"I'm sure it seems that way, but you are an adult. You don't have the imagination of a child, Doctor."

"No, I don't suppose I do."

"Reason comes and tells us differently when things frighten us, doesn't it?" Finn leans forward, leaving behind his wife's cool colored fingers hovering in the air.

Gabe laughs again, feeling foolish. "That is the problem, of course," he says, looking around the sitting room, realizing for the first time that it is completely overshadowed by great oak beams. "I am, somehow, not as grown up as I thought. For coming into this house, I feel at times as though I were walking into the very Wood, my mother warned me against."

Finn chuckles. "Then best be looking for the Lady to help you save your lover, my dear doctor."

Gabriel nods, standing. "I really ought to go see the patient."

"Of course," Finn stands as well. "I will take you to his rooms."

Gabriel doesn't speak as he follows Finn up the winding staircase, going up the left side. Clockwise, his mind tells him. Gone down right, up left, clockwise. Go down left, up right, that would be widdershins. Widdershins is the way to go if you want to undo. Clockwise, if you want to tighten the noose.

The hallway extends far too far too long and Gabriel can feel his breathing growing labored. He reaches out for the dark shape ahead of him, knowing that it is Finn, seeing the golden light of the candle Finn carries in hand shining against the man's hair. "Fff-" he hisses and cannot reach.

"Here we are, Doctor," a door opens and Gabriel stumbles in, closely followed by an amused Finn, sunlight from the large windows winking on his glasses and his hidden eyes taking stock of Gabe's reaction. "Are you all right?" the man asks.

"Yes. Of course," Gabe blushes. Now in the light, he feels silly to have almost been taken over by his childhood fears. No one had gone to the Black Manor. No one wished to go. It frightened them. He wondered how the boy managed running around in here.

Straightening, Gabriel gathers up his bag and exits the room with a slight bow to the man behind. "I will take a look at the patient then," he states with a professional smile, though he's sure he's not comforting anyone.

Watching the man leave through the great oak door, Gabriel can't stop himself from letting out a sigh. As Finn leaves, it seems some life returns to the room.

"They act as if it is all real," a young voice interrupts his thoughts from behind him. Gabriel whirls around and faces the small boy, his eyes dark now and his hair darker, as if the blood were almost dried. But there is no blood.

Gabriel lifts a brow. "They?" he asks.

"My brother and her' he says with youthful disgust curling his small lip. Then he brightens. "Are you going in to see him? Do you think he'll be okay? I've missed having him to talk to."

Nodding, the doctor smiles. "Yes, I will do what I can, young man." He almost asks the boy's name, but hesitates and thinks that with how things have been going, he might not want to do that.

"You should stay here for a while. You should rest. Maybe not this time. Maybe next time," the boy settles on his haunches like a small crow and tilts his head. "If you stay here long enough, you might even remember."

"Remember?"

"Oh don't be an idiot. Just go and take care of Martin, then come back out and have a glass of water. You do remember that the water is okay here. It's from the sky here, not from the woods."

Gabriel frowns and musing, turns to go into the bedroom where things are dark, but pauses and looks around at the small boy. "The woods?" he asks suddenly.

The boy laughs gaily. "Of course. Because that's where all of the memories go. Deep into the roots where only the dead can find them."

Shaking his head at the feeling of discomfort that topic raises inside of him, Gabriel pushes the far door open and enters the bedroom beyond.