by Warduke » Wed Jul 18, 2001 7:32 am
by xita » Wed Jul 18, 2001 7:15 pm
by tommo » Thu Jul 19, 2001 1:57 am
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"She looked across at Willow, whose face was filled with light. She had never felt so calm and happy, and strong..." ~ Unseen: Door To Alternity
by Lonewolf » Fri Jul 20, 2001 12:16 am
Lonewolf
by CaptMurdock » Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:21 am
Note: This part is a little short. Sorry, but I wanted to get some material out here before you guys forgot about the story altogether.
********
"Are you sure that's everything?" Willow asked Tara, for what was probably the third time. The two of them had gone back to their room, after a fruitless search for the girl had garnered them nothing more than strange looks from lodge patrons and personnel.
Tara nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose and trying to keep her irritation from showing. Besides being tired, she was still mad at Willow for her subterfuge about getting the two of them up to Santa Cruz on a pretext. "She kept saying w-we had to go to the house. The house," using her fingers like quote marks, "'just up the road.' She somehow knew we were going to go there anyway, so…add it up yourself."
"Yeah, it comes out 'Winchester House' to me, too," Willow conceded. "Although why some tourist attraction is the center for supernatural activity is beyond me. I mean, it's like Walt Disney building his Magic Kingdom on the Hellmouth."
Even tired and angry, Tara found that amusing. "I-I'm not so sure, Will; I've been to Disneyland. Anyway, the lady who last lived in the house, uh…"
"Hang on," Willow said, booting up her laptop and looking for the Web pages she had saved before they came up here. She and Tara were sitting at the table, their chairs more or less at twelve o'clock and three o'clock. The page came up on the laptop screen. "Here it is. Her name was Sarah Winchester."
"'[She was heir to the family fortune created by the massive success of the Winchester repeating rifle'," Tara read from the screen. Instead of moving closer to Willow, she remained a conspicuous distance away. She had to squint to read the text, until Willow, making an effort not to show exasperation, slid the laptop over to her. "Thanks. 'In her later years she developed an obsession with the occult, demanding an increasing number of renovations to the family mansion, including some that made no sense.' Huhn."
"Huh? I mean, what huhn? Or huhn what?"
"Oh…uh, I'm not sure, but I seem to remember something about how mystical, um forces can be, like, channeled by structures, like churches, or houses. Part of it had to do with resonating with the essence of the living soul that inhabits the house. I think this even has to do with why vampires can't enter a house unless the person who lives, y'know, invites them in." Tara yawned, then moved her head around with the accompanying sound of popping cervical vertebrae.
"Is, is your neck hurting you?" Willow asked brightly, unable to keep a hopeful tone out of her voice. "Want me to rub it?"
"No," Tara answered flatly, letting it hang there a second before mitigating it with a "Thank you." She stood up. "We need to get to bed. We'll have to head over to the Winchester House in the morning and see what's going on there. Okay?" Willow nodded listlessly. Tara walked over to the bed and kicked off her shows. She made as if to take off her jeans, then stopped.
"Um, Tara, I just wanna say that—" Willow began, hoping to get a reconciliation.
"Willow," Tara intoned in her best don't-contradict-me-dammit tone, "I really think we should get to sleep." Lifting up the covers, she slid into bed, turned on her side facing outward and laid her head down so fast she almost banged it on the headboard. "Good night," she said, closing her eyes.
"G'night," Willow mumbled in reply. She sat there for a minute before somehow finding the energy and the will to gather her pajamas. She sat on the edge of the bed on the other side from Tara and proceeded to change clothes. Midway through she had to stifle a sob.
With a cold certainty, Willow felt at that moment that Tara had already decided that being with her was more trouble than it was worth, that once they got back to Sunnydale she would put in a request for a dorm reassignment. Of course, she might elect to transfer to another school anyway. Willow knew how lucky she had been when Oz decided to forgive her for kissing Xander; how foolish of her to think that she might get that lucky twice. Or, rather, three times, given how lucky she was to find Tara in the first place. Okay, four, considering that whole reverse-brainsuckage deal. Eventually, Willow thought as she finished changing, you just kept pushing your luck until it goes away.
She lay down, also facing out, creating a vast no-woman's land in the middle of the bed. Trying to be as quiet as possible, Willow nonetheless cried herself to sleep.
Tara raised her head slightly, hearing Willow's hitching breath slow as she drifted off. Oooh, I can't stand it anymore. She rolled over and draped her arm over Willow's chest and squeezed lightly. Even in repose, Willow seemed to lose some of her tension, and instinctively shifted her body against Tara's, as if sensing that her lover would watch over her in her dreams.
by xita » Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:35 am
[This message has been edited by xita (edited July 27, 2001).]
by Dr.G » Fri Jul 27, 2001 2:48 am
by mollyig » Fri Jul 27, 2001 2:59 am
Looking forward to the story of Winchester House - most intriguing!
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"The hardest to learn is the least complicated" - Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)
by tommo » Fri Jul 27, 2001 3:14 am
I suppose I just feel the love here. It's a beautifully crafted story, I'm impressed.
I felt a chill when Tara was being all cold and stern. Poor Willow.
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"She looked across at Willow, whose face was filled with light. She had never felt so calm and happy, and strong..." ~ Unseen: Door To Alternity
by christa monsta » Fri Jul 27, 2001 7:40 am
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"I am a whiz!"
"She is a whiz!"
"If ever a whiz there was..."
by Scout » Fri Jul 27, 2001 7:54 am
Lovin' the story!
by Warduke » Fri Jul 27, 2001 8:23 am
Can't wait for the next part.
by Halcyon » Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:19 pm
Great story. [This message has been edited by Halcyon (edited July 30, 2001).]
IP: Logged
IP: Logged
[This message has been edited by Halcyon (edited July 30, 2001).]
IP: LoggedRaneBig Pineapple IP: Logged
posted July 27, 2001 16:29 aww... this story is getting better and better. cannot wait for the next instalment but i guess i'll have to huh?by Rane » Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:29 pm
by Lonewolf » Sat Jul 28, 2001 12:38 am
Lonewolf
P.S. I think any of us here could forget your story it's really great.
by Puff » Sat Jul 28, 2001 10:38 am
Ok now I have to be patient and wait for the next part
by CaptMurdock » Mon Jul 30, 2001 8:35 am
Thank you all for your generous feedback and support. More of the story will be on the way soon. Promise.
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"Who am I? I am Commander Susan Ivanova. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the iron boot that is going to kick your sorry asses all the way back to Earth. I am the last living thing you are ever going to see. God sent me." -- Babylon 5, "Between the Darkness and the Light."
by legend » Mon Jul 30, 2001 8:54 pm
by RomanceJunky » Tue Jul 31, 2001 4:25 pm
The Junky...hit me again bar-keep!!!
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"I am, You know."
"What?"
"Yours."
by CaptMurdock » Mon Aug 06, 2001 10:41 pm
Disclaimers: The usual about Joss, et. al. The lyrics quoted below are the property of Missing Persons (or whoever wrote them, whichever comes first).
Notes: The Winchester Mystery House is of course a real place, but any dissimilarities between the real one and the one is my story should be attributed to artistic license and imperfect memory (hey, I've only been there once!)
*********
Since neither of them slept very well, Willow and Tara approached the new day with the enthusiasm of having root canal. They had a rather subdued breakfast, in contrast to the day before, wherein the waitress could not help but notice their changed demeanor as she served Willow's bagel-and-cream-cheese and Tara's "sassy eggs." The girls' sincere but subdued thanks was almost the only time they even spoke. Uh-oh, she thought, already dreading a lousy tip, Trouble in Paradise.
Perversely, the only station that the Marquis' radio could pick up besides boring classical, fruity jazz and el depresso country-and-western was the local all-bouncy-80's-all-the-bouncy-time haven, The Station That Time Forgot, where Culture Club never died and Quiet Riot rules forever. Terri Bozio's squeaky voice was really starting to work Willow's nerves:
(Life is so strange)
Destination Unknown
(When you don't know)
Your destination!
(And something is changed)
It's unknown
(And then you won't know)
Destination Unknown
"God, don't they have music from this century up here?" Willow muttered, breaking the rather stiff silence as they drove up to San Jose.
"Well, you were the one who picked this area for our little vacation," Tara replied offhandedly, before realizing how snarky the comment might sound. Willow stopped short of actually gasping, but did sharply inhale before turning to look out the window to keep Tara from seeing the tears of anger and remorse in her eyes.
Tara, for her part, sharply berated herself for speaking so harshly. She wanted to tell Willow that she didn't mean to say what she did in quite the manner she did, but Willow was turned away from her, the posture in her back sending a clear hazard warning. Sighing, she resigned herself to let the matter drop.
**********
Finding the Winchester Mystery House proved rather easy, thanks to Willow's judicious use of the Internet. Tara parked the Marquis in the adjacent lot and got out, looking over the huge mansion. The house was done in a hodgepodge of styles from the last century (or rather, Tara corrected herself, the nineteenth century), reflecting the eclectic tastes and, as legend had it, increasing eccentricity of Sarah Winchester. That said, it certainly didn't look sinister, at least in broad daylight.
Willow got out the passenger door. Tara noticed, or maybe finally allowed herself to notice, how pale and drawn her companion looked. She had virtually none of the usual Willow-bounce to her. All at once, Tara regretted not only the "cool" shoulder she had been giving her, but also for dragging her along on this strange little quest.
"Are you s-sure you're up to this?" Tara asked, after locking her door and coming around the front of the car, covering half the distance between herself and Willow.
The redhead didn't quite meet her eyes. "No. Let's do it." She settled her purse on her shoulder and strode toward the public entrance, leaving the blonde in her wake.
Since the tours were guided in groups, the girls were obliged to wait for the next run in the mansion's rather comprehensive giftshop. They looked over commemorative mugs, glasses, film slides, books, pens, pencils, notepads and other memorabilia to be had for only a mildly extortionate price. There was even a special cat-toy, which Willow immediately bought for Miss Kitty Fantastico. Tara in particular mulled over a selection of refrigerator magnets, some shaped abstractedly like the Winchester House itself.
Tara noticed Willow standing behind her. "Which one do you like?" she asked, indicating the plethora of decorative lodestone.
Willow, despite being rather down in the dumps, was able to come up with a chirpy quip: "Honey, one more magnet on that mini-fridge of yours and we might brown out the dorm." Tara's answering grin did lighten Willow's heart somewhat. Just then, the indicator near the far door of the gift shop changed. "Uh oh. Looks like they're ready for us." Tara nodded, quickly swinging by the register, while Willow rolled her eyes, to purchase the gaudiest of the fridge magnets, before they both headed into the mansion proper.
********
"I will say, I've been in some weird places, but this is…another weird place," Willow concluded, as the tour led through rooms on varying levels of the house. They had already passed by an alcoved stairway that went to a blank ceiling ("Dude....Stairway to Heaven...denied!" Willow quipped, earning her a smothered Tara-grin and rolling of eyes), a door that opened onto a brick wall, another door that opened onto a ten-foot drop into the main kitchen ("Well, it's convenient for those late-night attacks of the munchies," Tara allowed, bemused) and other architectural oddities. There were many rooms that were quite stunning in the styles and materials used in their construction.
The house had a light, airy quality to it, with many windows to let in more sunlight than Willow or Tara had anticipated. Even so, they both had a vague sense of unease, not so much an apprehensive feeling as a maddening familiarity.
The tour had stopped briefly in the magnificent main ballroom of the house, an large room done in dark woods that Willow judged to be big enough to hold her entire high school graduating class, including the Mayor after his ascension to Big Snake-ness.
Discretely, Tara pulled her over to a corner of the room, well away from the rest of the tourists. "Are you feeling what I'm feeling?"
Willow blew out air from pursed lips, exasperated. "Well, how am I supposed to know what you're feeling? I mean, I know what I did was wrong, but you've been giving me 'stay-away' vibes since last night, and, and I don't know what to do or say or, or..." Willow finally stopped babbled after the third time Tara made a slicing motion across her throat. "What? What?"
"I m-meant, are you picking up the same vibes from this house as I am?" Tara said, trying very hard to not be mad at, or amused at, her girlfriend's wild assumptions.
Willow, for her part, recovered as gracefully as she could, which is to say, not much. "Ohhhh! Yeah, yeah, of course. Well, huh, now that you mention it," she snapped almost instantly into Scooby Mode, years of instincts taking over, "yes, it does feel weird in here, and somehow familiar?"
"Yes! I was hoping maybe you could remember someplace you've been before that felt like this."
Willow nodded, closing her eyes and forcing her sleep-deprived brain to cull through its exhaustive memory files for a similar sensation. C'mon, Rosenberg, you took Psych 101, evil government scientist or not, she knew her stuff. Associate, dammit, associate!. Then came the memory of the taste of dust in the air, and the smell of burnt meat(?) and the echo of footsteps on linoleum. Just needed to find the right visual image…
"Hi!" said the tour guide lady, with an incongruous Texas accent, completely disrupting Willow's train of thought. "We need y'all to keep with the rest of the tour group, and we'll answer any questions you might have at the end of the tour!" She then moved off to lead the group into another part of the mansion.
"Y'know , we're never going to be able to mount a serious investigation with Perky McPerkster getting in our face every five minutes," Willow muttered, giving the tour guide the evil eye (thankfully, not literally).
Tara nodded. "It's okay. I prepared for this eventuality." She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a little brown plastic container, which Willow recognized as being a relic of Tara's brief all-expense paid trip to Brain-Drain City.
"Ooh, get you – 'Tactical Tara.' You gonna slip her a mickey?"
Tara gave Willow a rather indeterminate look, somewhere in the trackless wastes between Amusement and Irritation, making Willow berate herself for pushing her luck once again over a cliff. Instead of replying to the remark, the blonde witch took off the cap and poured a small amount of light-grey powder into her hand. Holding the fistful of powder in front of her mouth, she muttered an incantation too low for Willow to hear, although she did catch a reference to "Blind Cadria." Making as if she was coughing, Tara blew the powder in the direction of the departing tour group, with the guide at the front.
*****
With preternatural speed, the powder flew in a cloud and covered the group invisibly, causing a subtle alteration in their perceptions.
A minute later, after showing the group of tourists the next room in the mansion and pointing out the exotic moulding along the ceiling panels, the tour guide did a quick head count.
Nope. All present and accounted for.
She led the group to the next part of the mansion. Unnoticed behind them, a part of the mahogany wall bulged obscenely outward, as if something living was struggling to burst forth from the wall. A moment later, it subsided back, leaving the wall unmarred with so much as a crack.
**********
Willow nodded as the tour group left with no sign that they ever remembered the two witches had been there. Tara screwed the cap back on and replaced the bottle in her bag.
"Fairly impressive," Willow commented, smiling at her girlfriend.
Tara returned the smile with raised eyebrows. "Well, it's not flashy, like the stuff you like to do."
Willow raised her eyebrows in turn at the dig. Okay, moral superiority's fun and all that, but that's going a bit far. She was just about to respond when the voice behind them said: "Well, you took your damn time getting here!"
Startled, the girls turned around to see who had said that. They were not prepared, however, to see an old woman dressed like a refugee from Somewhere in Time, or maybe Great Expectations, depending upon one's level of cultural literacy. Strangely, instead of the bun that they would have expected the woman to tie her grey hair back in, she wore it loosely, given her a somewhat harried demeanor.
"W-w-waitaminnit!" Tara said, being first to catch her breath. "Were you expecting us? Wh-who are you?"
"Uh, Tara," Willow said, pointing at the floor in front of their new acquaintance. Tara picked up on what Willow had noticed in her analytical way: the woman seemed solid enough, at least so Willow and Tara could not see through her, but she cast no shadow from the light coming through the window behind her.
"Her name's Sarah Winchester," said another voice, this one coming from another corner of the room. Willow jumped again, but Tara recognized the girl-spirit who had spoken to her at the Brookdale Lodge restaurant.
Tara thought she looked the same as the last time she saw the young girl, but this time, Willow was able to see her, too. "Is that…"
"Uh-huh," Tara said, staring at the girl. "How did you get here?" she asked the girl. "Did you hitch a ride with us?"
"No, girl, she didn't," answered the ghost of Sarah Winchester. "She comes here quite a lot and keeps me company. And a damn good thing, too, because she was able to bring you here."
Willow's eyes widened, following the young girl's apparition as it crossed the room to stand next to the old ghost. "Hold on – you told her to bring us here?"
"Actually, it was my suggestion," the girl said, looking sidewise at Sarah, who rolled her eyes in a "whatever" expression. "My name's Brenda, or rather it was."
"'Was'? Then, you're the girl who-who…" Tara couldn't quite finish the sentence.
"Drowned. In 1974."
Willow smiled shyly. "And here I thought you were just being retro," she said, indicating Brenda's clothes.
"Why did you bring us here?" Tara asked, getting the discussion back on track.
Sarah looked at Brenda before answering. "We need your help. Rather, the help of an experienced witch. Better yet, two, like you."
"You want us to, I dunno, exorcise you from this house?" Willow guessed.
Brenda had the good grace to look amused, while Sarah affected a disgusted air. "No, of course not!" the latter thundered, causing Willow and Tara to step back a bit. "This house is a conduit between this world and the world that exists beyond. A portal to Hell."
All at once the thought snapped into both of the witches' minds, the reason that the atmosphere of the house seemed so familiar:
"Tara, do you remember that time when we…"
"…we were looking for Riley, in the ruins…" Tara continued
"…the ruins of Sunnydale High!" Willow finished.
"You've been to someplace like this before?" Brenda asked.
The witches nodded. "This house," Willow finally replied, "is on a Hellmouth."
------------------
"Who am I? I am Commander Susan Ivanova. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the iron boot that is going to kick your sorry asses all the way back to Earth. I am the last living thing you are ever going to see. God sent me." -- Babylon 5, "Between the Darkness and the Light."
by Warduke » Mon Aug 06, 2001 10:52 pm
And the house being on a Hellmouth, nice touch
by tommo » Mon Aug 06, 2001 10:58 pm
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"She looked across at Willow, whose face was filled with light. She had never felt so calm and happy, and strong..." ~ Unseen: Door To Alternity
by Sneaky Kitty » Mon Aug 06, 2001 11:00 pm
by xita » Tue Aug 07, 2001 1:26 am
by Scout » Tue Aug 07, 2001 6:43 am
Still lovin' it. Can't wait for more!
by rocketdyke » Tue Aug 07, 2001 11:19 am
michele
by Puff » Tue Aug 07, 2001 1:35 pm
by Dr.G » Wed Aug 08, 2001 12:04 am
by Kalita » Thu Aug 09, 2001 9:16 pm
Hee.
Kal
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