Glass
Last tiny bit of the introduction in this story. After this, we move into the actual story. In theory.
__________________
The silence is awkward as we walk. Her heels clatter against the tiling and the elegant wooden floors, sharp, clean sounds. I shuffle along in my sneakers, staring at my Steno notepad and trying not to feel embarrassed. She’d offered, of course, to take me on this tour and tell me these stories, but…
Somehow now, walking down the dimly lit, silent hallways, I feel that it’s really all my fault.
I’m getting into something over my head.
I glance sideways at Ms Fairchild, but if she notices she doesn’t say a word. She walks ramrod straight and imposing, as if it isn’t almost nine o’clock at night and we’re strangers, walking the halls without any idea of whom we are.
Those haunted hallways.
I try not to think about that.
Eventually, the hallway widens again, and opens dramatically into a massive, white-walled room. I stare, because the ceilings loom over my head, ten, twenty feet. The windows, now shrouded in thick velvet curtains, span the width effortlessly.
Everything seems old and expensive.
“Let’s start here.” Emily Fairchild says, and it’s then that I notice the paintings.
Paintings everywhere.
“I take it this is the painting hall.” I comment, and I turn slowly, staring. Between each window is a painting, a life sized portrait. And there are more: landscapes, still life’s, charcoals, Japanese inks, dashes of peacock blue and big, equine eyes. The ceiling is a dizzying impression of stucco oil painting, and thousands of angels and cherubs peer down at me, laughing and waving: very Rococo.
When I look back at my tour guide, Emily Fairchild is smiling at me.
“This,” she said, “Is the beginning of the painting hall.”
I gawk at her instead of the paintings.
“This must have cost a fortune!”
“Oh yes.” She replied, looking around. “The ceiling was painted for Alexander Halliday, and some of these paintings were hung then too. Anne Halliday was a great lover of Rococo art in her later years, and the ceiling was painted as part of a gift for her thirty-ninth birthday.”
“Part-?”
“Oh, the original Halliday family was quite wealthy. None of them are painted in here-come on, I’ll show you them and start the stories there.” Her heels click again, and I hurry to catch up, dashing a sloppy, shorthand note on my Steno pad. The lights click out as we exit-on a sensor, but eerie all the same. I suppose the building is a museum, but it’s so odd to be preceded by light and followed by darkness.
“For the same birthday,” Emily continued conversationally, “I believe Anne received a grand piano. They had to remove the glass doors in the music room to fit it in.”
“You know a lot about the original Halliday family.” I commented carefully, staring around as we threaded through a smaller hallway, also covered in paintings. Most of these were still life’s of plants: flowers, trees, and a surprising emphasis on bleeding hearts.
“I know a lot about the Halliday family period. I can trace the original male heir back to King Arthur.”
“No one knows if-“
“It’s a figure of speech.”
She flung open the next set of doors and there were the real portraits.
The walls to this room were murals. The entire room was empty, tiled, with big glass doors on one end, locked tightly. The chandelier overhead flickered on as we stepped in.
“Here’s where we begin.” Emily Fairchild said.
“So how shall we do this?”
It had been silent for a while. She’d stood in the middle of the room, and I’d roamed about, peering at the faces that looked so gravely back at me.
“Well, how about-are these all the same generation?”
“Oh, no. The story starts at that side of the room. As you work around, you work around the generations.”
I glance at her, and say it. “This is bizarre. No one has a room like this. It doesn’t fit with the house…it’s something out of a book.”
Emily Fairchild looks out the door and recites: “The room was built in the nineteen-thirties, originally as a small ballroom. It didn’t get used much and was used for storage, until the fifties, when my grandfather began the paintings.” She smiles at me. “I remember the painting of the first few quite clearly. After that, it was just a fun project to paint the family members, or the main ones. We’re completed now, since the Halliday’s that own the property presently aren’t technically part of the bloodline. Stepchildren, you know, and only hold the Halliday name on the legal documents.”
She glances up and sees my face.
“It was just a project. Grandpa was going senile.”
I look back at the severe, elderly woman in the Empire-waist dress and gloves, painted on the wall.
The words don’t sound right. Her voice rings oddly, flat and bored.
She is lying.
Words parade through my head, phrases, all spoken in my mother’s voice: What do you know of this woman? What do you know about this place? Why are you alone in an (almost) empty building with her, on a dark and stormy night? She’s lying. Leave. Now.
I turn away from the paintings and look back at Ms Fairchild.
She smiles, her hands behind her back, the pretty, bright family historian.
Who knows everything there is to know about the Halliday Family Murders.
“So how shall we begin?” I ask, plunking down on the floor and flipping my notepad to a fresh page.
Ms Fairchild laughs and says, “Alexander was a young man, and the year was seventeen ninety two.”
________________
Will work more when inspired again *sigh*
Irene V
__________________
The silence is awkward as we walk. Her heels clatter against the tiling and the elegant wooden floors, sharp, clean sounds. I shuffle along in my sneakers, staring at my Steno notepad and trying not to feel embarrassed. She’d offered, of course, to take me on this tour and tell me these stories, but…
Somehow now, walking down the dimly lit, silent hallways, I feel that it’s really all my fault.
I’m getting into something over my head.
I glance sideways at Ms Fairchild, but if she notices she doesn’t say a word. She walks ramrod straight and imposing, as if it isn’t almost nine o’clock at night and we’re strangers, walking the halls without any idea of whom we are.
Those haunted hallways.
I try not to think about that.
Eventually, the hallway widens again, and opens dramatically into a massive, white-walled room. I stare, because the ceilings loom over my head, ten, twenty feet. The windows, now shrouded in thick velvet curtains, span the width effortlessly.
Everything seems old and expensive.
“Let’s start here.” Emily Fairchild says, and it’s then that I notice the paintings.
Paintings everywhere.
“I take it this is the painting hall.” I comment, and I turn slowly, staring. Between each window is a painting, a life sized portrait. And there are more: landscapes, still life’s, charcoals, Japanese inks, dashes of peacock blue and big, equine eyes. The ceiling is a dizzying impression of stucco oil painting, and thousands of angels and cherubs peer down at me, laughing and waving: very Rococo.
When I look back at my tour guide, Emily Fairchild is smiling at me.
“This,” she said, “Is the beginning of the painting hall.”
I gawk at her instead of the paintings.
“This must have cost a fortune!”
“Oh yes.” She replied, looking around. “The ceiling was painted for Alexander Halliday, and some of these paintings were hung then too. Anne Halliday was a great lover of Rococo art in her later years, and the ceiling was painted as part of a gift for her thirty-ninth birthday.”
“Part-?”
“Oh, the original Halliday family was quite wealthy. None of them are painted in here-come on, I’ll show you them and start the stories there.” Her heels click again, and I hurry to catch up, dashing a sloppy, shorthand note on my Steno pad. The lights click out as we exit-on a sensor, but eerie all the same. I suppose the building is a museum, but it’s so odd to be preceded by light and followed by darkness.
“For the same birthday,” Emily continued conversationally, “I believe Anne received a grand piano. They had to remove the glass doors in the music room to fit it in.”
“You know a lot about the original Halliday family.” I commented carefully, staring around as we threaded through a smaller hallway, also covered in paintings. Most of these were still life’s of plants: flowers, trees, and a surprising emphasis on bleeding hearts.
“I know a lot about the Halliday family period. I can trace the original male heir back to King Arthur.”
“No one knows if-“
“It’s a figure of speech.”
She flung open the next set of doors and there were the real portraits.
The walls to this room were murals. The entire room was empty, tiled, with big glass doors on one end, locked tightly. The chandelier overhead flickered on as we stepped in.
“Here’s where we begin.” Emily Fairchild said.
“So how shall we do this?”
It had been silent for a while. She’d stood in the middle of the room, and I’d roamed about, peering at the faces that looked so gravely back at me.
“Well, how about-are these all the same generation?”
“Oh, no. The story starts at that side of the room. As you work around, you work around the generations.”
I glance at her, and say it. “This is bizarre. No one has a room like this. It doesn’t fit with the house…it’s something out of a book.”
Emily Fairchild looks out the door and recites: “The room was built in the nineteen-thirties, originally as a small ballroom. It didn’t get used much and was used for storage, until the fifties, when my grandfather began the paintings.” She smiles at me. “I remember the painting of the first few quite clearly. After that, it was just a fun project to paint the family members, or the main ones. We’re completed now, since the Halliday’s that own the property presently aren’t technically part of the bloodline. Stepchildren, you know, and only hold the Halliday name on the legal documents.”
She glances up and sees my face.
“It was just a project. Grandpa was going senile.”
I look back at the severe, elderly woman in the Empire-waist dress and gloves, painted on the wall.
The words don’t sound right. Her voice rings oddly, flat and bored.
She is lying.
Words parade through my head, phrases, all spoken in my mother’s voice: What do you know of this woman? What do you know about this place? Why are you alone in an (almost) empty building with her, on a dark and stormy night? She’s lying. Leave. Now.
I turn away from the paintings and look back at Ms Fairchild.
She smiles, her hands behind her back, the pretty, bright family historian.
Who knows everything there is to know about the Halliday Family Murders.
“So how shall we begin?” I ask, plunking down on the floor and flipping my notepad to a fresh page.
Ms Fairchild laughs and says, “Alexander was a young man, and the year was seventeen ninety two.”
________________
Will work more when inspired again *sigh*
Irene V