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 Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 10:40 am
"This is my life now," Michael amended. Even if he wasn't alive, he was an agent and a friend first and foremost. He didn't want Maia to think that he would wish otherwise. After all, if he had lived his life uninterrupted, he would have died in middle-age and never seen the world as it was now. Some days that seemed preferable, but there was no going back.
"When I was alive, though, I was the fifth and final child of a middle-class man and woman. They'd lost three children already, an elder sister only a couple of months before I was born. I had a nanny-- child-rearing was different then. If you were wealthy enough, you hired a governess or a nurse to take care of them and only dealt with them when you wanted to. As my parents had lost so many children, they doted on me. I had done something to my mother when I was born. There were no more." He sipped his tea before he continued.
"My father was in imports and my mother stayed at home. There was no family business to inherit, so I decided I wanted to go into medicine. This was a time when 'miasma' was the prevailing theory for the spread of disease. That's entirely false, we know that now." He had been studying medicine still, though in the form of books and documents and the internet. It had been a comfort on his good days. It was a reminder of his life. "Either way, I was sent to apprentice under a surgeon in a nearby city. I was with him for several years, he caught me doing something of which eh did not approve, and the rest is history." He nodded. "I drove him insane and existed in that house for most of a century."
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:12 am
Maia listened, sipping at her tea. "You're still studying?" She asked. "I think you would be a brilliant doctor." Not would have been. Would be.
She opened her mouth to ask a question before something upstairs sounded as if it was being moved. Like furniture scraping against the floor.
"Are you happy, with your job? You're really good at helping people."
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:35 am
"To a point. Nobody is going to let a ghost rifle around in their innards, and I haven't had any hands-on practice in a long time. I enjoy learning, though, even if I can never put it to use." He was hoping to get a look at someone stricken by the illness the spirit here caused, and maybe be able to help a little. It was just a shame that it'd probably be on Toby who got sick.
He looked up toward the ceiling where the nose echoed and then turned back to Maia as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Of course I am. I wouldn't have stayed if I didn't. The light is very inviting." There had been a distinct feeling that whatever lay at the top of the glowing stairs would be much better than the terrestrial world. "Do you think we should go see what she's moving around? It might be a hiding place."
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 12:01 pm
"You saved Toby's life," Maia said, and reached for Michael's hand. "There're few people I trust more." He'd saved Toby, and she would never forget it.
"Let's go," she agreed. Maybe they'd be able to catch a glimse. She stood, putting her mug aside. "Do you think I should go alone? She might talk to me?"
But it didn't seem going upstairs was necessary. Maia's chair was pushed back. Her cup was lifted and floated towards the kitchen.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 12:33 pm
Michael watched the cup float away.
"Hello again," he said. He smiled to Maia and nodded for her to follow- he would keep an eye out for her. Now wasn't the appropriate time to answer her in words, though. Reasonably, she should stay down here with the spirit to distract her while Michael went upstairs to check the noise, but that would be rude and probably incite some more bullying. Instead, he turned to the monitors to try and use sound graphics and video to find the source of the noise, and to see if the moving furniture was visible on any of the cameras. Victorian architecture didn't allow for easy surveillance, but it wasn't impossible.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 1:17 pm
Morning came sooner than Maia expected. The hours seemed to blur together, and seemed like no time had passed at all when the slamming of doors woke her. The spirit didn't seem to be a morning person. They hadn't yet been able to get any visual, apart from seeing things move.
Toby would feel dizzy and fatigued upon awaking up.
"Maybe if I look around, she'll talk to me." Maia offered. The sooner they could communicate, the sooner they could get Toby away from this man hating entity.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 3:29 pm
Toby had known that it was starting when he woke up. Mikey had gotten him on a much earlier schedule, and already he felt like s**t. It felt just like a normal illness, and if he didn't know better already he'd probably think it was. He'd woken up, asked for some tea, and now sat hunched at the table watching the cameras with a aching head, burning throat, and foggy brain. It felt just like the start, though. it was going to get worse, and Toby was trying to prepare himself to feel like he was dying.
Lori nodded to Maia. "You can try. Take this." He pulled a pair of walkie-talkies from the cradle on the table and offered her one. "If anything goes weird, call us." Code words and special rhythms wouldn't work when the invisible spirit was likely listening all the time.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 3:47 pm
Maia took a walkie talkie and thanked Lori. She kissed Toby on the cheek. He didn't look well. "Go get some rest, love," she said. Poor guy. He hadn't been sick in over forty years.
She headed upstairs, opening a few of the doors. She found a small bedroom. The wallpaper and furniture were obviously antiqued, but the brass on the bed was shiny like it'd just been polished. The wallpaper wasn't faded. Pillows were strewn on the bed, with roses on them. A candle was lit and set on the bedside table.
...someone was living here.
There was a plate of cookies on the bed, like someone had left their snack to grab a glass of milk.
There was a soft sound behind her, then, and she was shoved violently forward in the room. The door was slammed shut. The candle went out. "I told you to leave. Now your husband will die."
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 4:34 pm
Maia hadn't called, but everyone downstairs heard the slam. Every head turned up toward the sound, and Toby's head screamed at him for daring to move at more than a crawl. He starting trying to stand, but Dari was already heading for the stairs. Obviously the spirit wasn't going to talk to Maia, so there was no reason to try and stay away.
"I'll go," he said, and headed up the stairs at a half-sprint. They hadn't heard anybody fall or scream, but that didn't mean it was good news.
Lori depressed the button on his walkie talkie. "Maia? What's going on?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 4:49 pm
Maia lifted her walkie talkie. She was shaken, but took a breath. "I think she's got me locked in," she said. She moved towards the door, but was shoved back again.
"Maybe not locked in, but she's not letting me out."
"What is this device?" Another voice demanded. "What is it?"
"It allows me to talk to my team--"
"Tell them they will die if they don't leave."
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:02 pm
Toby, still glaring at life in general, coughed. So that was the voice of the woman who had made him sick. And she was harassing his easily-frightened wife. So much for female solidarity.
"Could you please let our friend go?" Lori asked, addressing the spirit through the walkie talkie, "We won't come back upstairs."
Toby snuffled. "I'll go get her."
"Sit," Lori said. "You think going after her is going to make you less sick?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:19 pm
"No." The voice responded. "No, I don't think I shall. You, and the others, leave now, then I'll let her go. I warned you! More than once, now. I told the others to leave, and they wouldn't. They wouldn't listen. They complained. Oh, they whined and begged and no. No. I told you to leave, and you'll have to deal with the consequences when you don't listen."
"Lori--" it was Maia. "Send up Michael?" Michael and she had talked at length last night. He'd mentioned similarities between he and the entity. And they were definitely dealing with a person. Not an insane broken record like the first ghost mission she'd been taken on. Whatever this was, she was reacting to them.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:31 pm
Lori had been about to warn the spirit that they'd just come take Maia, but he knew better than to jump to emotional responses like that. It had to be about reason, and Maia had a suggestion. It was worth a try. Hopefully the entity wouldn't see them preparing the tools that would be necessary to take the door down, should they need to.
Dari raised his hand to knock on the door, but Michael appeared beside him in full Victorian garb.
"Wait. Let me. Go down and help the others," the ghost said.
Dari nodded and headed back down.
Michael's logic for the change of outfit was that, especially if this woman was a ghost but even if she was fae, clothing from her time period may be a comfort. He was more comfortable in it himself, but if he could be something familiar and help the situation, he would have anyway. The house was old, the garden was old, the spirit was old, and he was old.
He rapped lightly on the door and then laced his hands behind his back, waiting for a response.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:39 pm
The door swung open. Invisible to Maia--but not Michael, was a girl about nineteen standing there. She was pale, with her brown hair falling down her shoulders. She was in her night clothes, blinking at him.
"I won't let you take her," she said. She looked him up and down, seeming to hesitate before standing aside.
"I've never had a man in my bedroom before. Don't do anything uncouth."
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 6:43 pm
Michael smiled, exercising the calm that had been bred into him, and ignoring Maia entirely. Drawing attention to the spirit's prisoner would only return the focus to the imprisonment. His goal was distraction as well as reason.
"I wouldn't dream of it, my lady," he said, and he bowed deeply to her. She was a Victorian for sure, and he'd bet she was dead as well. No Victorian would appear in their bedclothes if they were sane, either, not that there had been any question as to the female spirit's motivations. "I'll remain here in the hall." And he wouldn't dare even look into the bedroom, though in his periphery he saw it was well-done, like a vision from the past. "I'm simply here to speak to you."
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