Inside the darkened house, the cloaked figure fumbled at the wall, apparently looking for something. A flick of the wrist, and the room was bathed in a greyish-yellow light. In normal circumstances, such a figure would lower his or her hood whilst glancing about to get bearings, but as these circumstances were anything but normal, the hood stayed up.
A decision was reached, and the slender figure lugged the limp man down a short hall to what appeared to be a bedroom. A thin coat of dust covered everything, and the cloaked figure suppressed a sneeze, trying to maintain silence and anonymity. The end of the ordeal was in sight, and the body was laid down on the bed and arranged precisely. Had there been an observer other than the cloaked figure in attendance, surely he or she would have noted that the attractive, black-haired young man now lying face-up on the bed was not only unconscious, but was not breathing.
As it was, there were no other witnesses, and the cloaked figure didn't appear to be bothered in the least by the utter lack of animation (although the boy on the bed could not possibly have been over twenty years old) and merely reached inside the voluminous cloak, withdrawing a small, ornately carved bottle that sparkled in the moonlight. The thin, spidery fingers of the pale right hand deftly uncapped it as the left reached out to pry the full, ruby red lips apart. Having succeeded, the evilly glittering contents of the crystal phial were poured into the mouth of the youth, and with a swish of the cloak, the cloaked figure turned and tucked the bottle into a pocket as it swept off, extinguishing the light and closing the door before it disappeared.
The boy woke some time later – whether this time was several hours or several days he could not possibly have told you – in utterly unfamiliar surroundings. He lay still for some time, feeling around under his pillow and beside him on the mattress for something for a few moments before finally giving up. He listened hard to the silence that greeted him, and assumed it was probably safe to move. He sat up and swung his long muscular legs over the edge of the bed and recoiled, whimpering, from a throbbing headache. He felt as if his head would split in two. Glancing around at the surfaces in the room showed no headache relief set out on an obvious surface - in another room, perhaps, or maybe in a drawer.
He was in an impossible position. To get up and move would cause his head to throb worse, as would going back to sleep. Fate decided him, though, when his bladder also gave a dangerous twitch, and he realised if he didn't get to the lavatory soon, he was going to have a rather uncivilised mess to clean up.
There wasn't an en-suite lavatory in this room, judging by its lack of obvious facilities and the fact that it only had one door, which obviously led to a hall. He stood slowly, mindful of his pounding head, and crept carefully toward the door, casting anxious glances out the window, although if anyone knew where he was, he probably would not have survived long enough to be worrying about a full bladder.
A glance up and down the hall showed a promising looking room, so he headed that way and was rewarded with the proper facilities.
And no light.
He reached up to what was obviously the light and fiddled with it, trying to find the starter. Some small part of him - the part that wasn't recoiling in pain from his overly full bladder and aching head - noted that the lights couldn't possibly be lit thus because someone who wasn't blessed with his height would never have been able to reach it.
Blast, how to get the lights on?
He remembered, vaguely, that someone (in another life, he reminded himself) had told him once that some houses - and this was likely one of them - would have a starter switch of sorts on the wall, so he fumbled for it, but was unable to find it. He stepped carefully back out to the hall and flipped that switch, using the light from the hall to illuminate what looked like a pull-cord connected to a light in the loo, and pulled it, casting the room in a hideously unnatural light.
"Ugh," he winced, but at least now he could see.
The person who had told him about the lights, of course, was his sadistic cousin, in her mocking and sing-song voice. His sadistic first cousin - who he suddenly realised he'd never see again. For all that his family had harped upon the importance of blood, he found himself not the least bit disturbed by this revelation.
Of course, he'd never see his brother again, and that DID bother him, even though they'd not spoken for several years. They'd been close growing up, but once school started, they'd drifted further apart than two brothers in the same boarding school had any right to. Even still, he knew that his brother - wherever he was - would approve of what he'd done.
And even if he didn't, it didn't matter. He'd made his choices and this was his life now. He'd have to live with this ridiculous and hideous lighting, in this unknown town, pretending to be someone he was not, in all probability for the rest of his life. Given his age, that was likely to be a considerable amount of time.
Oh, well.
He was alive, and that's a damned sight better than what he could have expected, under the circumstances.
After standing over the loo for what felt like five minutes, the young man now faced a new pain - his bladder had been SO full that it now ached from being overly stretched. I can't win, he thought silently to himself, flushing the toilet and washing his hands before extinguishing the hideous light and padding down the hall to investigate the rest of the house.
At the end of the hall was a larger, open room, in which sat a battered couch flanked by two small end-tables, a coffee table, a wing-backed armchair and a bookcase which held no immediately familiar titles. Further away from the front door (which he immediately locked and then felt foolish for so doing - surely anyone who wished him ill would have come when he was asleep?) and up against a wall sat a small table, upon which an envelope sat. He glanced at it momentarily before walking past it to view a small but otherwise functional kitchen. A cursory glance through all the cabinets revealed sufficient crockery and flatware to feed him from the well-stocked larder - assuming he could figure out how to cook. He opened a strange looking stand-alone two-door larder, wondering what it was and was assaulted by a blast of cold air. Alarmed, he shut it quickly, wondering vaguely if he'd be able to figure out how to operate the cooker.
Temporarily persuaded that he was in no immediate danger, he headed back toward the small serving table and tore open the cream-coloured envelope that was addressed to a Reginald Browne in narrow, loopy writing. He snorted derisively and extricated the paper within.
Dear Mr. Browne,
I do hope you find your new accommodations agreeable. The pantry and refrigerator are well-stocked, and there is sufficient money stocked in a hidden drawer in the bedroom wardrobe to provide for your needs for the indeterminate future. Monthly and quarterly bills will be delivered to and paid by our solicitor, so you needn't worry on that account.
At the present time this street is uninhabited, other than you, although given that things are picking up, you likely will have some neighbours soon. There is a small shop a few streets away, at which you will be able to purchase food as you need it. That is as far as we can guarantee your safety.
Someone will come by occasionally with news and to ensure any other supply needs are met. I needn't remind you how precarious your position is, so trips to larger towns for clothing and the like could be dangerous not only to you, but anyone else who lives in the area.
Do take care, and I sincerely hope we shall be able to converse more properly sooner rather than later.
There was no signature, but it didn't matter - he knew who it was from. He would have known even if he hadn't recognised the writing.
He sighed and returned to the bedroom to continue searching for a headache remedy, now with the idea to check how much clothing he had and find the promised money. After that, he supposed it would be a good idea to get his bearings, and find the shop.
A few very lonely months went by before Reginald saw another person on his street at the dawn of spring. A pretty woman with red hair and blue eyes appeared one day in the yard in front of one of the other houses. He was apprehensive, but thought it only polite to be neighbourly, and grabbed a bottle from the cabinet in his bathroom before he sauntered that way. Her expression brightened when she saw him, but then she winced.
"Headache?" he asked knowingly, his voice raspy from disuse.
She nodded, and he handed her a bottle.
"What is this?" she croaked.
He cleared his throat, trying to find his voice. "Excuse me, it's been a while since I've seen another human being - slightly longer since I've spoken to one with any regularity. That's aspirin - it's made from an extract of the bark of the white willow tree. My first day here, I had a throbbing headache and walked down to that shop a few streets away," he said, pointing in the general direction of the store, "and asked if they had anything for a headache. They offered me something called 'paracetamol' but I was wary, and so they gave me that. Not the best stuff I've ever had, but - eh - it worked."
She made a sceptical face at him, but opened the bottle. "How many?"
"One - or two. No more than two," he offered. "Dissolve them in water. It's absolutely vile," he warned, "but then, the water isn't much better without it."
She glanced back up at him as if she didn't quite believe him and extracted two of the powdery white pills, but then looked up at him in obvious discomfort and flipped the bottle over and scrutinised the writing.
"If I wanted to poison you," said Reginald softly, "I could simply have put something else in the bottle, you know. Although, if I wanted to hurt you, I would probably not have chosen poison as my method of delivery."
She conceded the point and offered her hand. "You're Reginald Browne, right?"
"Mmm," he nodded slightly, taking her hand.
"Mary Anne Mackenzie," she offered. "Care to come in?"
"Sure," he shrugged, and so resigned was he to his fate that he never even analysed her name to try and figure out who she really was.
He followed her into the house, noting that it was similarly decorated to his, but much larger. "My whole family is with me," she whispered, "but they're all still asleep." He nodded and winked and followed her into the kitchen where he casually flipped the switch on the wall. She started at the sudden illumination and turned around to look at him, and he flipped it twice more. She smirked at him and filled up two water glasses, handing him one. He took it, but neglected to drink it, and laughed quietly when she made a face.
"I told you!" he said as she yanked his glass out of his hand and poured both of them down the drain with a shudder. Turning her back, she pried open the refrigerator door and analysed its contents.
"Where do we put the ice?!" she asked quietly in alarm.
"Er - it's kind of like the lights, I think - it's always on; you don't have to do anything.
" . . . I . . . see . . . " she said, her tone of voice indicating that she did nothing of the sort.
He snickered. "You'll get used to it," he said confidently.
"Haven't much choice, now do I?"
He shook his head, laughing quietly, then grinned at her. "Well - I suppose you always have the choice . . ." Her scowl told him exactly what she thought of that, and he laughed again.
"I - ah - would invite you for a meal," he offered, "but I'm afraid I'm not much of a chef. The first couple of weeks, I subsisted entirely on sandwiches and packaged crisps because anything I tried to cook was a disaster. I've moved up to spaghetti and tinned soup now, though, so apparently there's hope for me after all," he said with a grin and a self-deprecating roll of his eyes. "Although - if your family is up for overcooked spaghetti, then my door is always open!"
She laughed. "You can eat here any time you want!"
He looked aghast. "No, no - I was not trying to impose my company on you. Just - I know how it is the first couple of days especially, and I didn't want you to think I'm a complete arse for not inviting you."
"Nonsense. I have to cook for my whole family, and as it seems we're all going to be here a while, we may as well get to know each other. Say, seven? That should give everyone time to wake up and get adjusted."
He nodded. "Er - you say 'everyone' and mentioned your 'whole family' earlier? Just how much of your family are we talking?"
"My husband, my kids, and me."
" . . . 'kids' . . . ?" he said cautiously, knowing full well he was teetering precariously over the precipice of what was considered acceptable conversation for the terms of his exile. " . . . how many 'kids' . . . and how old are they?" he asked with increasing alarm. Acceptable conditions be damned, this was a threat to his own life.
"Three - almost three, five and a half, and eight. Two girls and a boy."
He cleared his throat and put one foot over that precipice. "And - um - have - ah - 'arrangements' been made . . . for their education?"
"Yes," she said with a smile, understanding his reluctance. "They'll be going to the local private school until they're old enough to go to a more specialised boarding school. The, ah, boarding school . . . I highly doubt you've been there. It's - um - not close."
He nodded gravely, yet not completely assuaged. "And, uh . . . they won't . . . say anything?"
"No," she said with finality. "Taken care of."
"I beg your pardon - but I did have to ask."
"I understand," she said, smiling to show she held no ill will.
"All right. Well, I will let you get acquainted with the area. If you have any questions please feel free to come and ask me. It's not like I have anywhere else to be," he said with a wink.
"Ok. We'll see you at seven, then, if not before?"
"Seven it is!" he said cheerfully, and with a longing glance to the games laid out on the coffee table (he'd been alone for several weeks, and a bookcase full of fiction and deck of cards could only entertain you so much by yourself, after all), went back to his new home.
Dinner that night was a rowdy affair and became a weekly occurrence. Unwilling to - and by virtue of his extremely proper upper-class upbringing, completely incapable of - impose his company upon the Mackenzie household more than once a week, he struggled to learn to cook better, finally asking Mary Anne if she'd teach him some things. Once he could prepare something more palatable than sandwiches and overcooked pasta, he made it a point to invite them over once a week as well. A couple more weeks passed when two more men - red haired, blue eyed twins named Geoff and Frank who had a disconcerting habit of completing each other's sentences (when they bothered to speak at all) -arrived. Reginald greeted them with aspirin the same way he'd greeted Mary Anne and invited them to the weekly dinner that was taking place at his house that night. Later, after everything had been cleaned up and the two rambunctious men were out wrestling with the children, Reginald looked at the newcomers and remarked to Joe Mackenzie, "we're outnumbered," with a grin, referring to every other person on the street having red hair. Joe grinned back and gave Reginald another beer.
A couple of months passed, the weather growing gradually more oppressively hot and humid before their little housing area increased again with the arrival of a brunette woman none of them knew. She just showed up one night, knocking on Mary Anne's door, apparently drawn by the noise and asking for something for headache, and she was welcomed to the dinner table with open arms and the bottle of aspirin passed to her with nary a second glance.
On the night of the longest day of the year, they were all outside observing the stars when Reginald noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Immediately on his guard, he slid behind a tree to observe, but recognised the gait of the approaching figure and realised it posed no threat. He immediately went back to the group, strode to a high point on the hill and drew their attention toward a particular constellation, turning back to answer questions. He took note of the house the figure left and watched almost wistfully as it walked off. He hadn't any real desire to return to his previous life, but that one had been a friend.
The figure turned about, and Reginald inclined his head slightly in greeting, knowing his old school-mate would recognise it for what it was.
He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a twitch of a hand in response.
The next morning, Reginald went to the house he'd seen the cloaked figure leaving and tapped lightly on the front door. A blonde woman with brown eyes opened the door, looking mutinous. He introduced himself quietly and told her he'd seen her arrive, told her the names of the other residents and their assigned housing, and offered her the bottle of aspirin, telling her she was welcome to dinner at 7, which that night was scheduled at Geoff and Frank's.
As the summer built to an unbearable climax, if any of them noticed that Reginald never wore short sleeves, even when he wore short pants, none of them mentioned it. Nor did they mention his unique peculiarity of occasionally flinching and hissing low through his teeth whilst he nearly doubled over, seemingly in some untreatable pain.
They knew he wouldn't explain if asked, anyway. They also seemingly ignored the fact that for his age he showed an unusual lack of interest in pursuing either male or female, although with his roguish good looks and easy charm, he probably would have had his pick of anyone present. Besides, just asking would violate the terms of their agreement. None of them were to know anything about each other, and most certainly nothing about anyone else's past or family. That Mary Anne's family was with her was purely an anomaly - yet another thing that nobody remarked upon.
By the time autumn exploded into a riot of multi-coloured leaves, their little community had grown by two other men and another woman who'd arrived unseen in the middle of the night, all separately from one another and all housed separately. Desperate for some semblance of normality, they'd bought pumpkins and Reginald spent a significant amount of time teaching the children how to carve and sculpt them, which he was able to accomplish even with the meagre kitchen flatware they had. Mary Anne had gathered up all the pumpkin innards and was baking a large pie.
On Hallowe'en, they decided to let the kids all stay up late. It was a Saturday night, after all, and nobody had any obligations the next day.
As the mythical "witching hour" approached, Reginald was hunched over a chess board against Curtis, one of the newcomers, engrossed in a very intense game when he suddenly let fly a blood-curdling shriek and fell to the ground, rolling about in the foetal position and howling, obviously in some significant pain.
Bertram, another of the newcomers, rushed to the door and windows, frantically gazing out and up into the sky as if he expected a threat to be there. Geoff and Frank rushed to the aid of their fallen comrade and tried to get him to lie flat, which he refused to do - or perhaps was just incapable of doing it. He seemed to have no connection to his surroundings at all, almost as if he were in an altered state of consciousness. The only problem with that theory was that when they tried to get him to lie flat, he fought them.
Geoff and Frank looked at each other in some consternation, then they looked about the room. "No muckin' about - does anyone know ANYTHING about this bloke?"
"No - none of us know anything about anyone."
"It's against the rules - surely you know that?'
"Be damned about the bloody rules - something is WRONG with him and how are we going to get help?!"
"He's all right now, look."
And indeed, Reginald was laying more or less flat on his back, gasping helplessly, brow furrowed, fists clenched so tight his hands and wrists were white. Geoff, who was sitting at Reginald's left side, grabbed his hand and began to turn his arm over so that he could put pressure on the flexor tendon to get him to relax his hand, much as one would do with an infant. But the arm was rapidly yanked away and cradled to his abdomen. "'Munnabesick," he mumbled and crawled to his feet. Frank offered to help him but was brushed off, and Reginald staggered down the hall, leaving a very confused, and very concerned, gathering in his wake. The lavatory door was shut, and vigorous vomiting could be heard from the other side of the door, followed by a short silence, followed again by running water, followed again by a short silence.
A sense of calm at this rational behaviour began to radiate over the assembled group, and Curtis bent down to right the upset chess board, when yet another blood-curdling screech could be heard, this time emerging from the bathroom. This screech was followed by the sound of shattering glass and a great deal of profane screaming.
"Fuck! SHIT! DAMN!! FUCK! It was for NOTHING! All of this for bloody NOTHING!" Reginald screamed like a man possessed, then slammed the door open so hard it bounced off its hinges - a fact he was oblivious to, once more bellowing, "F-U-C-K!" as he stormed out the door in an insensate rage.
Nobody followed him.
Three days passed before anyone saw him again. He didn't show up at dinners, and he didn't answer the door when anyone knocked. Bertram, Curtis, Geoff, Frank and Joe were huddled in the middle of the street, seriously discussing breaking into the house when Reginald - looking only slightly the worse for wear - emerged. He glanced at them with a sullen expression and then strode purposefully toward them. "I apologise for the other night."
"It's fine," they all said in unison.
He shook his head. "It's not fine, and I should not have behaved that way, especially in front of the children."
Joe sighed. "You know perfectly well they've seen worse than that," he said, dancing precariously around the issue they were all not allowed to discuss.
Yeah. And by people just. like. me. Hell, probably by members of my family! Reginald thought to himself scornfully.
"In any case, I will replace your mirror - and I believe your door?"
"Don't worry about it. It's already been repaired," Curtis offered.
Reginald narrowed his eyes in confusion, fully aware that the small store in which they bought groceries did not sell any DIY materials. "As you wish," he conceded. "I'm not feeling particularly social right now, so I believe I will skip dinner," he said to the red-headed men who flanked him. They nodded in response, and he spun about to return to his house, when Bertram called after him. "Oh, and, um . . . Reginald? Do answer your door tonight - I think you'll have a visitor."
Reginald's light blue eyes peered from behind a curtain of black hair, sizing the other man up for a moment before nodding curtly. "So noted," he replied and went back into his house.