Subj: Charade: Chapter 17
Date: 12/4/01 1:03:25 PM Central Standard Time
From: Nicole

December 9, 2008, Rose Cottage, 5:55 PM-Normal Time

“Um . . . I don’t know how to say this,” murmured Constance. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, making sure to keep her back firmly implanted into the soft upholstery as she writhed. There was something about this room that did not sit right with her. The high ceiling and seemingly endless walls were pale white. The furnishings appeared vaguely baroque, all gilded gold and creamy covering. The rug was colored in the deep reds, greens, and blues that most artists covet. The room looked shockingly grand. Why did it feel so wrong? Constance decided that it was just her discomfort ruining the scenery. She was here to apologize, not to beg. It should not hurt this much. “Well, I think Quentin has said something to you on this subject but I wanted to say something to you personally. I’m sorry that the twins–William in particular–freaked out your son.”

Angelique stared at her from across their brief distance. She leaned forward to rest her elbows on nylon clad knees. Constance thought she looked weary; she still looked beautiful, but she seemed in desperate need of a vacation. “Yes, Quentin did say something about that a few days ago. I will tell him what I told you: Although I think William may have gone a little too far, I don’t fault him. The boy did what he thought was right. We must keep in mind that he is a child. Children are prone to act more rashly than the average adult would in a similar situation.”

Constance stared at her incredulously. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes! Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?”

“Because you wouldn’t want to tell me outright that you were going to curse my son. You’d do that behind my back.”

“Who said I was going to curse William?” screamed Angelique.

“No one did!” bellowed Constance. “But I’ve seen you curse for less. I’ve seen you curse to please Josef, of all people. If you’d do something to please him, there’s no telling what you would do to please your own flesh and blood.”

Angelique laughed as she fell back into her overstuffed chair. She seemed to ignore Constance for a moment, as she glanced around the ornately decorated room. When she turned back to her, her attention seemed fully focused on her visitor. “You would bring up Josef again,” she sighed. “Anything I did for Josef I did out of my own naivety, if you chose to believe that I was ever naive. Constance, I wouldn’t curse William. I like the boy; I always have. He’ll be a power to be reckoned with when he matures.”

“That’s what I fear.”

“Would you let me teach him to control himself?”

“Aren’t you going to teach Griffin?” asked Constance.

Angelique shook her head. “I want to share my knowledge with someone who will appreciate it.”

“Ugh. I take it all isn’t well in Rose Cottage.”

“Rose Cottage is a portal to hell.”

“Do you mean in the same way the east wing of Collinwood is a portal to Parallel Time?”

“Bare with me, dear. It was a euphemism.” Angelique waited for Constance to situate herself in her seat to continue. “I mean to say that this place is . . . how can I saw this . . . boring. On most days, I find it suffocating just to sit in this room. Yes, it’s a
gorgeous room, but nothing ever happens.”

“I’ve always seen you as the kind of person who would make things happen,” said Constance. “Why don’t you sit down with Andrew and tell him how you feel?”

“Andrew won’t listen to me. He doesn’t see that I’m different from him. He can’t see that anything is wrong.”

Had Constance not known better, she would have begun to laugh. Angelique had often bitched to her about wanted someone without baggage. Of all the men her comrade had fallen for, Andrew had the least baggage. Now that she had her man, she was bored to tears. “Well, what have you been doing to keep yourself busy?”

“I’ve taught Meredith a little magic.”

“Let me get this straight,” sighed Constance, “you won’t teach Griffin but you will teach Meredith? What gives?”

“As I said before, Griffin won’t appreciate it. Over the past two months, Meredith has proven herself to be a more than willing student. And comes my angel now!”

Constance watched as Meredith entered the sitting room. She could understand why William had such a huge crush on her. The child had an unmistakable charm that would probably grow with time. Constance had always been able to pick out the lucky ones, the ones who did not have to try to get what the wanted. Meredith curled up at Angelique’s feet and laid her head against her mother’s knees. In her hands she held a small doll. The doll’s head was dominated by black hair made of the finest string and black wire framed glasses. Constance figured that they must have searched a craft store for such an intricate find. The doll’s eyes were black/brown beads and its lips had been drawn on with a deep red pen. It was clothed in the normal daily wear of any child in a cold weather climate. If she had not known better, Constance would have sworn that the child looked just like . . . “Meredith, dear,” she cooed, “who is that supposed to be?”

Meredith looked shyly up into her mother’s face as if looking for approval to tell. Angelique nodded and the girl turned back to Constance. “Um . . . it’s kinda supposed to be William? Does it look like him? I really wanted it to.”

“Yep. It looks exactly like him.” Constance’s gaze shifted from the child to her mother. “Tell me, Meredith, whose idea was it to make a doll of Will?”

Meredith scrunched up her small up turned nose, closing her eyes tightly as if concentrating on something intense and specific. “It was my idea to make the doll of Will but it was mom’s idea to make dolls. She thought that dolls would be the easiest way for me to start off, seeing that I love the pretty things so. She thought it was odd that I wanted to make one of Will, and she kept asking me if it was the right thing to do. I told her it was. She thought that I didn’t know what I wanted.”

“What do you want to do with a doll of Will?” asked Constance.

“Well, I want to keep it safe, keep it with me. I...um . . . I don’t think Will knows how much trouble he can get into, especially with Griffin. See, if I have the doll, I can see when he’s in danger and I can protect him accordingly.”

Constance did not quite buy the helpful neighbor scenario. She had watched Angelique, and countless others, long enough to know that one could do many cruel things to an individual with a doll effigy of that person. “But what if you get mad at Will? Wouldn’t you be tempted to hurt the doll and therefore hurt Will if you got too angry? Couldn’t you do something without thinking?”

Meredith shook her head violently at the thought. “Nope,” chimed the girl with suspicious confidence. “I don’t get angry. I wouldn’t hurt it. Besides, I don’t even think I can create a bond between the doll and Will with just the doll. I don’t have anything of his.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that. But if you ever do create a bond with the doll, keep it somewhere safe.”

“I wouldn’t think of doing otherwise.” With that, Meredith jumped to her feet and scurried out of the room. She clutched the doll tightly to her chest as she skipped away.

Constance fell back into her chair, letting out a strained breath as she eased back into the overstuffed chair. She looked back over to Angelique and hissed, “Do you know how badly your daughter just scared me? Is this your way of telling me to keep Will on a short leash?”

“First things first, I wouldn’t dare to tell you how to keep Will under control. For as long as I’ve known him, I thought he did a fine job of that on his own,” explained Angelique coldly. “And secondly, everything went as Meredith said. It was her decision to make the doll to be like Will. That wasn’t my doing.”

“Fine! I suppose I’ll take your word on it!”

“Did you always have such a problem accepting my word?”

“I have problems accepting everyone’s word. You should know me well enough to realize that.” Constance fell further back into her chair, careful to keep her eyes focused on Angelique. ‘Dammit,’ she thought. ‘Do I have to freak over every little thing?’ She slipped forward in the chair and whispered, “I’m sorry. Maybe you’re right. I’ve just been a little on edge for the past few days. You’re going to have to humor the bad temper.”

“What’s happened?” Constance went into quiet detail about the events of the last few days. She told Angelique about the housekeeper, about her I-Ching vision, and finally, about her experience with Parallel Time. “I can’t believe you crossed to another time band without me,” snapped Angelique playfully after Constance had finished. “I always thought you hated such Science Fiction excess?”

“I didn’t cross into another time band. My feet were firmly planted in the here and now, thank you very much.”

“But that couldn’t have happened,” insisted Angelique. “You say that this man, the ghost of Quentin, saw you in his time band and you were still in this one?” Constance nodded hesitantly. “Well, this is quite a predicament. I’ve never heard of such a thing happening.”

“Neither have I. What do you think it means?”

“I wouldn’t know. Have you asked Julia?”

“At first, she thought I was joking. She told me to ask you.”

“And you both just figured that I would know?” Constance nodded. Angelique began laughing hysterically. She literally looked as if she would fall out of her chair. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she chuckled, “but I’ve not heard something so funny in a while.”

“What, might I ask, is so funny?”

“That you both thought I would automatically have the answer to some odd supernatural going on in THAT house.”

“Well it wasn’t just the fact that it was going on in that house,” said Constance defensively. “We theorized that it has something to do with the fact that I was seen by a ghost. Maybe this incident has something to do with the differences between the privileges of the dead versus those of the living.”

“I’m not a necromancer! The dead aren’t my specialty.”

Constance sighed and slid back into her chair. This was becoming harder than she had expected. “Do you have any theories about the I-Ching vision?”

“Not now.” Angelique wearily reached out for the snifter on the counter next to her. She brought it to her lips and sighed. Constance thought she was enjoyed just the mere holding of that piece of finely made crystal to be healthy. Then again, she lived with Quentin, whose ability to clutch a snifter at a certain angle always held the ability to turn her on at a moment’s notice. Who was she to judge? “I’m sorry, Constance, but I’m not going to be of any good for you right now. You’ll have to come back another time.”

“I understand.” Constance rose from her chair and looked out the window. Waiting down below was Quentin’s car. Her ride had arrived. She turned back to Angelique and smiled. “Listen,” cooed Constance quietly, “I’ll arrange another time to come over. I might be able to bring Julia over and maybe we can come up with something. You know, we’ll put our heads together and come up with a good theory.”

“Sounds great.” Angelique tried to rise from her chair, but Constance ran faster, carefully encapsulating her friend in a hug before she could rise. When they released, Angelique looked sadly up into her friend’s face and said, “You told me not to do this. You told me I wouldn’t be happy. Well, I’m not happy, Constance, not by a long shot. Aren’t you going to say I told you so?”

“I don’t remember telling you not to. I don’t have the right to say anything about your choices.”

“Thanks,” mumbled Angelique.

Constance nodded and left the building. She walked up to the car and walked straight to the passenger’s side, taking a seat next to the driver without question. Quentin turned to her and asked, “How was it?”

“Fine,” mumbled Constance.

Quentin shrugged and pulled out of the drive way. They drove a while in silence, simply letting the odd peace of a quiet winter’s evening encase them as them as they made their way to the Collinsport Inn to visit with Cameron and Kelene. Quentin turned back to Constance and said, “So what did you talk about?”

“Girl stuff.”

“Can’t you tell me? For just five minutes, can’t I be one of the girls?”

“No!” bellowed Constance playfully. “I don’t think you can be one of the girl’s for five minutes. Hell, they have enough trouble letting me into that club; what a fit they’d have if you were there? For shame!” Constance waited for his laughter to die down before mumbling, “Besides, I don’t like the way you look in my underwear. SO not one of the girls!”

“That’s funny because I thought I looked perfectly fine.” Quentin turned back to Constance to notice the stern look that had overtaken her features. “Sorry,” he murmured with a shrug. They rode a few more minutes in silence before Quentin again ventured to ask about her visit with Angelique. “Now, in all seriousness, what were you talking about?”

“Everything,” muttered Constance quietly.

“Everything about you or everything about her?”

“A little of both.”

Quentin nodded slowly, seeming to suddenly grasp the situation as his head bobbed up and down. “She isn’t happy,” he said confidently.

“Nope.”

“Didn’t you tell her she’d hate it if she got married?”

Constance turned from the window and looked at Quentin. He seemed to be taking this as seriously as she was. She might as well tell him. “I told her she would be miserable with a normal man.”

“You didn’t tell her ‘I told you so,’ did you?”

“You didn’t see any bats swooping down for my neck, did you?”

Quentin laughed as he drove on. “I suppose not . . . I suppose not.”

Constance also laughed as she turned back toward the window. She would have preferred some sort of wide reaching show of anger from Angelique than the lethargy she witnessed. Constance had hoped that the witch would have had some answers for her; she received nothing except someone new to worry about. She still had to worry about the I-Ching vision; she worried that it might be some connection between it and the room in the east wing. Constance knew that they would soon figure the connection (if one even existed), but she feared that they would be too late the moment they did.

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