Part 25

I tried to line up a shot of some of the more elaborate bottles, but the light was far too low. I was going to have to clear some of the vines off the windows, if I was to do any serious picture-taking in this place.
        My stomach growled violently at me then, and a glance at my cell phone showed it was about noon. Glad some part of my body was still properly aware of time passing... the rest of me wouldn't have been able to make any kind of guess at all as to the time. I was so lost in this place, in the odd sense of another time that hung so heavily in it, like I could smell the long years in the mustiness of the air, and it was slipping into my blood. I stretched and looked around, trying to decide where to eat. I felt far too intimidated by the vast table in the dining room to sit and eat there all alone, so I went back to the ballroom, and sat on one of the wooden chairs next to a window, one that let in a little more light than some of the others. As I pulled a sandwich out of the brown lunch bag, I caught sight of my hands, and wished I had found a bathroom first. Or maybe tried one of the kitchen sinks? I pushed the sandwich up partway out of its plastic bag, and started eating, holding it from the outside of the bag. Would the water even work? Probably not, it wasn't like anyone would have been paying the bills... but there again, had running water really been common back then? Would the villa have even been hooked up to a town line or something, this far out, that long ago, or would it have drawn its water straight from a closer source? God, there were so many questions here! And I really hadn't answered any at all. I was now pretty sure that the place was abandoned, had been for ages, and that its inhabitants had once been incredibly wealthy. That was it.
        Well, no it wasn't. I knew they must have been really socially active, to have built a freaking ballroom in their little forest get-away, and have such a huge dining room, and...
        That struck me as odd. Why be so far away from town, able to have some peace and quiet, if you were only going to invite company all the time? It didn't make any sense whatever way I looked at it.
        They had definitely had strong artistic eyes, to have created a place such as this... or, at least one of them, I supposed. I realized that I didn't even have any evidence at all for it having been a "them" that lived here! I had just assumed it was a couple, a man and his wife, he very much in love and creating this place for her... but I laughed wryly, shaking my head. I had no way of knowing this, it was nothing more than my own longing for an interesting, bittersweet story to be attached to this place.
        But I knew there had to be a story like that, the sense of it had seeped into the very walls. Only how on earth was I to read it?

        I wasn't going to get anywhere by sitting here chomping on peanut butter and jelly. I shoved a cookie into my mouth, and pushed everything back into my bag, slinging it over my shoulders as I stood up. I decided I'd head up the stairs and see if they really did lead to the balcony on this side of the villa, finishing up this wing of the house before moving on to the other. The light would be doing better things outside than inside right now, anyway - it would be coming straight down, and so actually hitting the clearing, instead of being lost in the trees. And it wouldn't be able to slant in through any windows for an hour or two, so I wouldn't get much help with indoor lighting.
        I left the ballroom the way I had first come in, this time actually noticing the space at the end of the entrance hallway. Large glass doors actually opened onto... well, what I guessed had once been a patio, though it was so overgrown now I could only make out what was probably the shape of a table and a few chairs underneath the rampant leaves and flowers. Indoors there wasn't much, it was a largely empty space, probably kept that way to accommodate all the traffic coming in the front door and heading into the ballroom. Ball gowns probably required having a good bit of clearance - I grinned sheepishly as I remembered my own clumsy attempts at walking around in my prom dress back in school, and I doubted that had had nearly as big a circumference as some of the skirts that had passed through here. Still, there were a few low cabinets and tables along the walls, as in the hallway, with vases and flowers and statuettes and other small things artfully arranged on their tops. There were paintings on the walls here as well, though these were very small, and floral studies.
        Re-entering the hallway, I soon rounded the bend and climbed up the stairs. I stepped cautiously onto the first few steps, unsure of how sturdy they would be - but it seemed that whatever the place had been built of, it stood up to the aging process pretty well. Heck, even the front door told me that - made of wood, but no signs of rot or decay at all, after all this time? Even I knew that was impressive. I let my fingers skim lightly over the banister, leaving trails in the heavy dust. But I was feeling a little more secure here now - largely because of my increased confidence that the place was all mine, but also... I wasn't sure what, but I didn't worry so much about the villa being damaged by my being there. I knew that didn't make any sense, so I left the thought alone, to figure out later.
        There was a landing at the second floor, and to the right a hallway stretched out into the wing of the house I hadn't explored yet. To the left, as expected, a short passageway led to the curtained balcony. There were heavy curtains on this side, too, and I gingerly pushed them aside just enough to slip through. They really did weigh a lot more than you'd ever expect fabric too, and up close, I could see that they were embroidered with incredible details, with metallic thread and tiny beads (gemstones maybe?), an abstract flower-and-vine pattern as far as I could tell. The thread and beads were very close in color to the fabric though, so despite the density of the pattern, it had an elegant, subtle appearance. They smelled musty, but some other fragrance hung about them a little too, though it wasn't anything I could place. The balcony itself was carpeted - as was the passage leading up to it, I now realized, in some dark color that I couldn't quite make out in the dim light. There were a handful of comfortable looking chairs, two low tables, most of these placed near the elaborate gold railing that ran around the outside. Tall vases, which stood about up to my waist, were placed on either side of the entryway. A small chandelier hung in the middle of the balcony area, though it was far overhead, maybe fifteen feet or so, the chain it must hang from lost in the shadows of the curtains, which I knew went all the way up as high as the ceiling of the ballroom.
        I stepped up to the small space where the curtains were opened. I couldn't imagine how on earth to set about opening them wider, just pushing them far enough aside for me to get in here had been difficult enough. The view down over the ballroom was, as I'd expected, pretty amazing. I stood there a long moment, my imagination covering the glowing wood floor with the abstract blurs of couples dancing across it, their elaborate costumes a rainbow of colors, gemstones and gold and silver catching the light from the crystal chandeliers and making everything sparkle as a thousand colored stars...
        I don't know how long I let the daydream run, but one hand was starting to fall asleep, from the way I was leaning against my arm, which rested on the railing. It took me a bit to shake it off, though, which was unusual for me... unusual, too, to have visualized it so clearly. Maybe it was because I'd been spending so much time seeing the world through my camera's viewfinder, and my visual instincts were getting a lot more attention lately. Still... something about the daydream had been incredibly magnetic, something about the world it gave me a glimpse of felt... almost familiar, and I felt an oddly yearning sense of loss now that it had gone.
        Weird.
        I shook my head and stretched, shaking my hand violently to wake it back up. I grimaced as the pins and needles set in. Stupid circulation. I swung my backpack in front of me, and rummaged around for a flashlight. Turning it on, I made for the stairs leading upward, which were almost completely in the dark, with these curtains closed.
        I walked even more carefully on these stairs, thinking that since they led outside, they might have suffered a bit more damage over time. The lower ones at least didn't seem to have, they were made of the same golden wood as the floorboards in the rest of the house. As I neared the top, I saw that there was actually a door - which made sense, I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted winter winds spilling down through here and leaking into the balcony, and from there into the ballroom. The door was of the heavy, dark wood, but with a window set into it, an arched one with black iron trim, and colored glass set into an abstract floral pattern. It was a regular door knob on this door - the first I'd seen, come to think of it - and I moved my hand to gently turn it.