Part 30 or whatever it is

[I win!!! This last chunk marks 50,036 words. In a month.]

        There were more rooms that I took to be guest rooms, mainly because of the lack of personal touches. Or, rather, of the difference between those personal touches. The same overall feeling that had dominated the villa was in each of these rooms. One was done in shades of deep purple and dark woods, but with golden highlights to brighten the room, the bedsteads and window frame and fixtures all a bright warm... no, not bright, not any longer, but I had been in the house long enough that my eyes had adjusted, as they would have to darkness, to see past the dust and bits of debris that settled with time, and see the place as it should have been. It felt less empty to me now, as I began to recognize the personality that had gone into each space in the villa, the artistic touches that were the trademark of the couple who had lived here.
        Another room was done in bold crimson and fiery scarlets, also highlighted with gold, gilt covering large areas like amber mirrors. It felt very flamboyant, yet there was still a good amount of elegant detail, in embroidery and bead work running across the fabrics, and I could only imagine how inviting it would look under the colors of open flame lighting the room. Each of the guest rooms, in fact, had a fireplace, though smaller than the ones on the lower floor. Most were outlined in some sort of stone, though the type varied depending on the decor of the room. I considered now and again whether I could actually light a fire in any of the rooms, just to see how the lighting played out, what kinds of lovely shots I could get... I wasn't feeling much of a stranger at all now, more like a friend who'd come by to visit, only to find the owners out on some errand, so I was wandering around waiting for their return.
        One room was done in shades of deep green, and plants had once stood in the corners and all along the window, though they were now faded to dry tan, their leaves brittle and lifeless. There were bright splashes of tropical colors here and there, as flowers among the leaves. In this room, there was a lot of... glass? crystal? probably crystal, given the way it refracted the light into different colors. Unfortunately for me, this room faced the back of the house, so I wasn't able to get the full effect of how the light would hit the thousands of tiny prisms. I'd have to come back... not that I had any question about this any longer, I'd be back every chance I could get. But the key... what was I going to do about that? Could I carry an invisible key with me? Or would it still be here when I came back? I shoved the thought aside again, though I could feel it continue to knaw at my stomach.
        The next room I came to looked as if it were beneath the sea, done up in a hundred different shades of blue, green, and purple, that somehow all blended together and seemed to fit together. There were more ruffles here, like the caps of low waves on the water, and crystals again, though here there were even more of them, and they were so small I didn't see them at first, just noticed the sparkling that highlighted everything in the room. This room was on the front of the house, so the light fell in gently, filtered through thin, billowy curtains, which were themselves dyed in several different colors, though it was impossible to tell where one color ended and the next began.
        When I reached the end of the hall, I realized it wasn't quite a dead end - I hadn't gone as far down it as the length of the hall below, I'd come to about where the library and parlor should be underneath. The hall actually turned a sharp corner and ran perpendicular for a short ways, like it did by the stairs at the other end, and then a door was set in the wall that stood between here and the tower area. Had to be the master bedroom, being this big - and the other rooms having been so... oh not bland, not by a long shot! But they felt designed rather than lived in, and none was really nicer than the others (though they were all far more stunning than anywhere I'd ever been inside). The door was a heavy one, of dark wood, carved with intricate patterns of flowers and vines, like so many other things in the house. I put my hand on the golden handle, and lifted it slowly, my heart pounding like it had at the front door, wondering what I would find - and praying it wasn't locked. (There had been locks on all the bedroom doors, but so far none had prevented me from entering.) I breathed a sigh of relief as the handle moved easily upward, and I felt the latch release from the wall. I pushed the door slowly open, and before my eyes saw a thing, I was struck by the scent - a spicy floral scent, like cinnamon but not quite, like roses but wider, more even but stronger, a denser scent than that. I had no idea what it was but it was incredibly rich and heavy, almost completely covering the musty scent that hung around the old wood that was present all through the villa.
        I gasped aloud when my eyes caught sight of what was beyond the heavy door. The light poured in thickly through the window on the front of the house, its golden hue almost tangible as it fell onto the wooden floorboards and was lost in the once-vibrant colors of the vast intricate carpet which spread over about half of the room. The walls were paneled three-quarters of the way up with the rich dark wood, every other panel carved into ornate flourishes and scenes of some kind, though I didn't take in what exactly at first. About six feet from the floor, a heavy gilt border of warm gold marked the edge of the paneling and the beginning of another fresco. As glorious as the one in the ballroom had been, this was even more breathtaking, and the more I gazed at it the more lost in its images I became. My eyes first fell on the figure of a naked man, his body perfectly formed - but not muscular, there was strength evident in his limbs but they were lithe and graceful, like a dancer's. He was surrounded in large flowers, which he touched tenderly, but with an expression of heartbreaking sadness. I felt like I could see his fingers trembling, he looked so vulnerable despite the grandeur in his figure. There was a faint glowing behind him, and if I didn't look straight at it, the lighter shades took the shape of huge feathered wings, spreading dreamily behind him.
        There were vague outlines of structures, mostly Grecian pillars and a few pedestals, brief stairways and bits of railings, all in a warm white marble, and with vines and flowers wrapped all around them. The tendrils of the vines and stems of the flower buds reached out and formed slightly abstracted borders around each scene, tying them together and separating them at the same time, a constant link and something to fill every empty place left by the absence of the figures... There was such strong emotion tied to the flowers in this place, and I knew it had to be more than just their beauty, but I didn't know what else it might be...
        As my eyes moved across the ceiling, happily lost in the incredibly detailed, vibrant flowers that decorated every inch, I found other figures, wrapped in the vines or leaning against the pillars, lounging on marble steps that led down into brilliant bodies of quiet water, almost luminescent... There was a woman with long flowing curls, of a rich chestnut color, with delicate features and wide blue eyes which seemed to always be smiling at something, seemed always to be pleased at something beautiful before them. There was the man I'd first seen, his hair a little long and very dark, his eyes often distant, and always with a hint of sadness in them, even as he smiled lovingly down at the woman...
        And I realized that these two figures were the same I had seen in the photographs. This was their room, and the painting which surrounded it showed their story. Though I couldn't quite grasp it in any sort of logical way, I couldn't put their story into words, I could feel it somehow, its emotions spilled over into me and ran all through me... There was so much sadness in him, and he saw so much beauty in her. Every image of her was radiant, not quite so blatantly as to have a halo around her body, but there was a brightness to every scene, something fresh and sparkling and new. He often stood nearby, in almost a protective embrace of her or leaning over her, in some way holding at bay anything which might disturb the world of joy-filled beauty she created around her just by being in a place... And yet there was a sadness to her as well, when she looked down at him sleeping, and laid a hand softly to his forehead, and I knew without seeing it that she wanted to badly to brush away the years of sorrow and pain from him, and I knew that she knew she would never be able to, no matter how long and how devoted she was to him...
        There were feathers scattered among pale roses, and feathers turned dark hidden among the leaves of some flower I didn't know the name of. There were half-hidden faces in some of the clouds, if I didn't look straight at them, and little flits of mysterious light darting among the flowers in places.
        I wished so badly that I knew flowers better, I knew instinctively that there was a reason for each one that was present in the mural, with special meaning for the ones that encircled the man and woman... Obviously roses meant love, but given that they meant that... did the other flowers once have a meaning, too, that popular culture just hadn't hung on to, once it stopped being so dedicated to gardening, and flowers in general? I'd have to look it up later on.
        I managed to drag my eyes away from the ceiling, knowing that I could literally spend days looking at it and still not see every detail. I couldn't even guess how long it would have taken... The room was pretty large, given that it took up all the room of the parlor and the library combined, plus the amount of hallway between. Parts of the ceiling weren't quite as detailed, there were large patches of warmly colored clouds, or sparkling water, and there were places where the painting was interuppted by long arching beams of dark wood that stretched from one side of the room to the other. Rounded! I hadn't even realized, the ceiling here was rounded, the walls began curving upward and inward where the painting started, and the whole ceiling was curved. I wondered vaguely how that worked, given that the roof over this spot was no different from anywhere else... I guessed there must just be some empty spaces and extra beams between the lower parts of the ceiling in here and the roof overhead.
        The bedroom was incredibly luxurious, every piece of furniture covered in loving artistic details, the wood carved and polished to a shine that remained noticeable even now, the metalwork embossed with tiny patterns of vines and flowers, the china painted in delicate florals. There was a smaller carpet by the bed, that looked incredibly soft and thick. And the bed itself! It had the highest canopy I'd ever seen, but it wasn't the usual rectangular kind at all, supported by tall poles. Instead, there was a circular fixture of some kind hung from the ceiling, and the fabric descended in long languid folds from almost a point at the ceiling, down over the ring , and from there spreading onto the floor in pools of shimmering semi-transparency. Several colors were layered together, a mixture of golds and magentas and violets and oranges, like a fairy tale sunset... and I realized as I finally took a step forward, that the fabric sparkled - undoubtedly set with embroidered details and tiny beads, like the curtains by the ballroom balcony. The bed was immense, and looked wonderfully soft, the sheets full and fluffy, probably down inside the patterned silks. There were easily a dozen pillows, of various sizes. The materials looked kind of Indian, with rich colors and intricate patterns, lots of warm hues. It was set fairly high off the floor, with a huge headboard of gold flourishes, and an only slightly more normal sized footboard of the same. There were tables of dark wood set on either side of the bed, elaborate candelabras and a book or two on each, a glass of cut crystal set on one.
        There were several giant pieces of furniture in the room, at least one of them probably a wardrobe, one or two which might have been dressers. There was a stand with a basin and pitcher, like the one I'd seen in the bathroom downstairs, and an elaborate vanity table, with several mirrors in gold frames and all sorts of little bottles and containers and small boxes. Oh there was too much to see in here! I'd been getting worried that I wouldn't find any of the couple's actual stuff anywhere, but here it all was. Well not all of it, I had seen the coats and things downstairs, and I was pretty sure there was more to be found inside cabinets and things, but I hadn't seen anything else laying around. Apparently they were just a lot better at keeping things picked up than, say, I was. Actually they'd probably had at least one servant out here, probably a good handful. It might not have been a giant mansion, but keeping it as clean as people this wealthy and social would want must've been a pretty full-time job, and then there was all the cooking and things too.
        I walked slowly around the room, leaning down to look at things or take pictures every now and again, my fingers brushing reverently against the furniture that had made up their home, their bedroom, their place of refuge and privacy. There was a small tray on one of the dressers, filled with what I guessed were odds and ends from his pockets - spare change, a cufflink, a button, a tiny white shell... A thought suddenly struck me, and I scooped the change into my hand. I picked out each coin, lifting them one by one close to my eye, angled toward the front window, squinting to read the tiny print that marked each with a date. My eyes widened as I realized that the next penny I picked up was an Indian-head. I hadn't ever actually seen one in real life. Dated 1895. There was one penny with the profile of Lincoln I was used to, but even that had the wheat-ear back to it - dated 1910. Looking at the rest of the coins... none of them had the pictures I knew so well. I tugged a wooden rocking chair a little closer to the window, and sat down. I mean, I knew the villa was old, but... this really made it sink in, none of the guy's spare change even looked like what was in my own pocket! It felt so strange, almost unreal, to hold these in my hand... Given that they all had some indication of how much they were worth, I could see what they were, but... There was one about the size of a nickel, in a silver metal, with the Roman numeral for three on the back. A three-cent piece? I'd never even heard of something like that. I wondered if there were any foreign coins mixed in too, these people were obviously wealthy enough to have been able to travel anywhere they wanted. But no, all of these were labeled "United States of America", though they looked completely foreign to me. Apparently Roman numerals were a fad around the turn of the century, most people I knew could only read a few, and I only knew them as well as I did because my grandma had had a big clock in her living room that was all Roman numerals, so I'd wound up learning them that way. One of the coins was gold in color, and was apparently worth "2 1/2 D." I had no idea what that would even be! I let my hand drop to my lap, and gazed out the front window, looking abstractedly at the tangle of garden that made up the front yard. So it really was about a hundred years since anyone had lived here... and they had left without even picking up the change sitting on the dresser. What on earth had happened here?