Concept
Marceline Chen
Toast never tasted so good.
Careful not to get any crumbs on the pages of the book she was currently flipping through, Marceline dipped the bread into the sunny runny yolk on her plate, taking small satisfaction in trying to dye as much of the white slice as she could before bringing it to her mouth and biting it off. The crunch crunch of her chewing filled the silence in the room, only occasionally broken by Félix checking in on her. It wasn't long before Marci had polished off the rest of her light meal, having not realized how hungry she was.
Just as she was washing down the breakfast with some cold - and absolutely mind-blowing - apple juice, Graven swept into the room, cradling a cup of coffee and an empty plate. Somewhat astonishingly, he seemed only slightly worse for the wear. He was wearing an expensive looking shirt, a charcoal grey pair of designer jeans, which were rolled up past the ankles to reveal his navy socks, embroidered with colorful feathers.
“Goodmorning!” Gray addressed the room, bringing in with him a bright energy. First, he smiled, acknowledging Marci’s presence, and then he turned to Felix, who had followed him in to collect his tableware. “Thank you for a wonderful breakfast, Monsieur Dubois, my compliments to the chef. I intend to retire to the lake this afternoon for a little swim. Would you mind terribly preparing a little picnic platter of, let's say, just cured meats and cheeses will do wonderfully. Oh and definitely a bottle of wine as well, with two glasses, please. I hope to bring Miss Marci along, if she will agree to accompany me.” Gray sat down at Marci’s table and smiled again, warmly. He tilted his head a fraction of an inch, as if to silently ask her opinion on the matter.
An amused smile had taken over the female's face at his entrance, and at the mention of her joining him on a trip to the lake, Marci made a small "Ah!" of surprise before nodding her head to happily oblige. "That sounds great to me; I'm in."
“Of course, Mr. Birch. Will you have a preference for any particular bottle this afternoon?”
“Nothing so heavy as last night’s Bordeaux, but we’ll have to do red for the cheese. A Pinot, perhaps? Does that sound alright with you?” Gray turned from Felix to Marci, who could only nod again as the former of the two began his exit from the room. "Please excuse me. I shall have your basket ready shortly.”
Marceline took the glass of water from the table and sipped from it before offering Gray a sheepish grin while tucking her legs underneath her on the chair, criss-cross apple sauce. "I'll probably only have a glass of the red. I'm still, uh, recovering. Hope I wasn’t too much of a handful last night.”
“A healthy dose of antioxidants is all part of the recovery process, I assure you."
She chuckled and downed some more of the water, a thought occurring to her. “Mmmm. I was just speaking to Kim about the lake, actually. She’s in the library…" She hesitated, then decided to forge ahead. "Did you happen to hear some loud noises from outside last night? Apparently something was going on and the other guys in our group got caught up in it…?"
The smile that had occupied Gray's face while Félix was in the room faltered slightly. “What sort of noises? I imagine there must be a fair amount of wildlife around here, an’ I suppose it can’t all be friendly.”
“I dunno, apparently there was some loud splashing and howling out there… But it wasn’t a wolf or anything - or so Jonas says. I’m not really clear on the details, since this is all coming from Kim, but... The guys also said they saw something getting dragged over by the water?” She made a spooked sort of face by arching her brows and thinning out her lips, before shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know. I didn’t really hear anything myself… I passed out when my face hit the pillow, hah.”
Gray paused for a moment, visibly (and uncharacteristically) disturbed. “Normally I’d blame something like that on a little too much liquor, but a manor home belonging a family of Bavarian aristocrats is not really the place to let your guard down.” After another moment, he waved it aside with a brush of his hand. “It’s nothing to panic about though. I’m certain we will find a perfectly reasonable explanation for the whole thing. I spoke to Maria yesterday and I got the impression that the family is pretty secretive, but there is no reason to assume the intentions behind it are sinister in nature."
Inhaling deeply to emit a sigh, Marci lifted her glass of water in cheers to him. "Well. At least one of us is optimistic," she quipped before taking a drink. “But I guess you’re right. No reason to get so worked up over it..." And then to herself, she added quietly, "Yet, at least.”
It was then that Félix came right back into the room holding a large basket filled with their goodies. He placed it on table and somehow knocked over salt and pepper shakers just to the right of where Gray was seated, breaking up the conversation. “Your basket, sir. Hope everything is to your liking. Please let me know if there is anything else, Mr. Birch.” He then proceeded to clean up the mess made on the table.
“Wonderful!” Gray presented himself to Felix as delighted and carefree. He stood up and clapped his hands together. “As always, you never fail to impress, Monsieur Dubois.” Turning to Marci, he spoke plainly, though she could tell both of them were now acutely aware of Félix's proximity. “Shall we? I imagine you’ll need a moment to fetch a bathing suit. I’ll be waiting for you in the lounge with the piano.”
Picking up on Gray’s lead, Marci nodded and stood up as well, collecting her book and taking one last sip of the water. “You got it. I will be right back. Thanks for the food and wine, buddy," she added to the butler on her way out, to which he responded with a few somewhat perplexed blinks before resuming a stoic expression.
She parted ways with Gray in the entrance hall and rushed upstairs, fishing out her room key from her pocket as she went. Fifteen minutes passed before she was skipping back down the stairs again, now in high waisted denim shorts and the same gray paint-splattered hoodie over a simple V-cut black halter-top bathing suit. She also had her journal and her polaroid camera in hand.
Gray was in the lounge, over by a section of the Wolf family portrait wall, examining a few odd ones in turn.
“Hope that didn’t take too long. Had to dig this out of my luggage.” She hooked a thumb under one strap of her bathing suit and tugged it so it lightly slapped back against her collar bone. “Ready when you are.”
He extended a hand and beckoned her over with a waggle of his index finger. “Fantastic, just give me a moment to stretch these old bones and then we can head out.” He stopped in front of one particular painting, pulled a small magnifying glass from his pocket, and started to examine the painting further. When Marci was finally close enough, he suddenly whispered, “If there really is something strange going on at the manor, we need to be careful what we say and where.”
Marci blinked a few times, much the same as when Félix had done so in the dining room, and stifled a smile. This could have been a short clip out of a movie. But she nodded her head in agreement, leaning forward as if to examine the paintings as well before whispering back. “Right. And I’m sure Félix’ll be lurking around in here with us soon enough.” Paranoia crept up on the back of her neck and she turned her head just slightly to take the smallest of glances back at the doors, before returning her attention back to the paintings to actually look at them. “Oh... ”
She raised her brows, actually registering what they all were. Kind of creeped out by how all the Wolfs were staring out at her now, she grunted and chewed on her bottom lip, pulling her hoodie tighter around herself for comfort.
“Exactly. Have you noticed the period differences in the section of the wall? The entire collection follows a pretty established stylistic progression of Germanic art, all except this section… The brushstrokes, pigmentation…” Gray whispered, and after a moment, Marci grunted again, this time in agreement as she squinted at the paintings in inspection and suspicion. “Yeah… How strange…"
Probably realizing she was right about Felix, Gray straightened up momentarily to look back at the entrance to the lounge. “Would you mind closing that door? I want to try something.”
"Ah... Yeah, sure?” Hesitantly, she made her way over to it, and after taking the quickest peek out to check if the coast was clear, she closed it as quietly as she could. Turning back to Gray with a slight frown on her face, she nodded to herself as if to assure her climbing anxiety that they weren't doing anything fishy at all. “Alright, you’re good. What are you planning to do?” She continued to speak in a low volume as she walked back to him curiously, albeit a little warily.
“It probably has nothing to do with the sounds that the others heard last night, but I want to take a look at the back of this painting, there’s a strange gap in the early 20th that’s been bothering me since I saw it yesterday. Here, look at these ones.” Gray pointed to the paintings on his left. “Based on pigment decay and brush stroke analysis, I’d put them between 1890 and 1920. But these...” He then waved a hand over the paintings directly in front of him and then reached forward to carefully lift it off the wall, eliciting an involuntary wince of uncertainty from Marceline. Is this guy for real right now...? He gently placed one end on the ground, and tilted it to expose the back of the painting.
“It’s hard to accurately date this one from the front, but look here, the canvas is attached to the stretcher with staples. European artists didn’t switch from nails to staples until the 50’s, but it quickly became common practice because it’s easier on the paintings. Older stretchers were made of dark, heavier woods in an H or X shape but this one is light and square, using mitered edges. All things considered, this painting simply couldn’t have been made less than 20-30 years from those others.”
Marci remained quiet, simply listening to him and his observations. He was right about everything, of course, and it really was fantastically suspicious. But not exactly being the sleuthing type to connect dots, or to search for things that would further her own paranoia, she didn't understand what he was getting at. Pushing the hair behind her ears and furrowing her brows, she whispered back, “So, what are you thinking?”
Gray looked back up at the wall in thought. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really expecting to be right about any of this. But see the second hole in the wall next to the hanging nail? The painting must have been moved at some point, and how the spacing between the paintings seems off? This had to have been done recently, but I just can’t figure out why…”
Marci had begun chewing on her lower lip again, a sure sign that her inner worry-wart was kicking in; as if the goosebumps that had erupted all over her arms weren't proof enough. “Yeah… Shit, that is pretty weird. Maybe they were in a rush to hang it up?” The small joke was punctuated by nervous chuckling as she swiped at the back of her neck to calm the goosies creeping over it. Glancing back at the door, she hugged her journal and the polaroid camera to her chest. “Uh, maybe we should head out though… I’m sure someone would have noticed the closed door by now…” Although she was trying to play it off through mere concern for sketchy activity, she was very much just creeped out by the room in general, and it was obvious.
“You’re probably right.” Gray took a second to look back over everything on the wall for anything he might have missed, but apparently came up empty since he spoke again soon after. “We should definitely get out of here. Can you help me with this painting?” He stood to one side of it, waiting for Marci to get the other.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Of course.” Quite relieved that he had agreed with her suggestion, she put her belongings down and moved over to the other side to help him heave the thing back onto the wall. Once it was back on, she gathered the journal and camera and made a beeline for the door. Nearing it, she spoke again, trying to keep up a somewhat casual front. “Fresh air sounds great right about now.” More nervous laughter escaped her as she waited for Gray to catch up.
When he did, he opened the door, motioning for Marci to go first. “It certainly does, I can’t wait to have a swim. That picnic basket looked wonderful too. Oh, wait..."
“Yeah, it did, didn’t it?” Marci was way too happy to be out of the lounge that she didn't immediately realize that Gray had stopped moving behind her. She turned around just in time to see Félix coming towards them, carrying the basket that Gray had apparently forgotten in the dining room. Marci's relieved smile faltered. How could she have not noticed that Gray didn't have it with him? She immediately froze, resisting the urge to look to Gray in exasperation. After he had already reached them, she managed to mentally kick herself into gear in time to fumble out, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, “Oh… Hey Félix!”
“Hello again, Miss Chen. You forgot your basket, Mr. Birch.” The two didn't fail to notice the way Felix eyed the door to the lounge before he proceeded to hand over the basket to Gray. “Thank you very much Monsieur Dubios, as always, you never fail to impress me.” Felix bowed slightly, before turning and retreating back into the kitchens.
Jesus Christ...
Once the male had disappeared, Marceline spun around, let out a huge breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and covered her face with a hand. “Oh shit... Oh shit. That was freaky… That was freaky, right?” She looked to Gray with all the panic coloring her face pink, wanting some sort of confirmation that Félix was way too timely for anyone's good. After a moment of recollection, she huffed like a child and lightly gave him a frustrated smack on the shoulder with the hand that had been hiding her face. “How the hell could you forget the basket, Gray?”
“You will figure it out when you’re older” Gray smiled, devilishly, to which Marci replied with a roll of her eyes. Still, she eventually couldn't help letting out a few genuine chuckles, shaking her head at how eventful her morning has been. Thank goodness the headache and nausea from her hangover were practically gone or else she might not have handled any of this and still had her breakfast in her stomach.
“Now, come on. Let’s get out of here.” Gray made his way over to the manor's back doors and pulled one of them back, holding it open. “After you.”
"Mm, thank you," Marci sang, her mood considerably lighter now that they were finally getting out of the house and away from the possibility of finding more anxiety-inducing mysteries.
- 1:14 PM
Toast never tasted so good.
Careful not to get any crumbs on the pages of the book she was currently flipping through, Marceline dipped the bread into the sunny runny yolk on her plate, taking small satisfaction in trying to dye as much of the white slice as she could before bringing it to her mouth and biting it off. The crunch crunch of her chewing filled the silence in the room, only occasionally broken by Félix checking in on her. It wasn't long before Marci had polished off the rest of her light meal, having not realized how hungry she was.
Just as she was washing down the breakfast with some cold - and absolutely mind-blowing - apple juice, Graven swept into the room, cradling a cup of coffee and an empty plate. Somewhat astonishingly, he seemed only slightly worse for the wear. He was wearing an expensive looking shirt, a charcoal grey pair of designer jeans, which were rolled up past the ankles to reveal his navy socks, embroidered with colorful feathers.
“Goodmorning!” Gray addressed the room, bringing in with him a bright energy. First, he smiled, acknowledging Marci’s presence, and then he turned to Felix, who had followed him in to collect his tableware. “Thank you for a wonderful breakfast, Monsieur Dubois, my compliments to the chef. I intend to retire to the lake this afternoon for a little swim. Would you mind terribly preparing a little picnic platter of, let's say, just cured meats and cheeses will do wonderfully. Oh and definitely a bottle of wine as well, with two glasses, please. I hope to bring Miss Marci along, if she will agree to accompany me.” Gray sat down at Marci’s table and smiled again, warmly. He tilted his head a fraction of an inch, as if to silently ask her opinion on the matter.
An amused smile had taken over the female's face at his entrance, and at the mention of her joining him on a trip to the lake, Marci made a small "Ah!" of surprise before nodding her head to happily oblige. "That sounds great to me; I'm in."
“Of course, Mr. Birch. Will you have a preference for any particular bottle this afternoon?”
“Nothing so heavy as last night’s Bordeaux, but we’ll have to do red for the cheese. A Pinot, perhaps? Does that sound alright with you?” Gray turned from Felix to Marci, who could only nod again as the former of the two began his exit from the room. "Please excuse me. I shall have your basket ready shortly.”
Marceline took the glass of water from the table and sipped from it before offering Gray a sheepish grin while tucking her legs underneath her on the chair, criss-cross apple sauce. "I'll probably only have a glass of the red. I'm still, uh, recovering. Hope I wasn’t too much of a handful last night.”
“A healthy dose of antioxidants is all part of the recovery process, I assure you."
She chuckled and downed some more of the water, a thought occurring to her. “Mmmm. I was just speaking to Kim about the lake, actually. She’s in the library…" She hesitated, then decided to forge ahead. "Did you happen to hear some loud noises from outside last night? Apparently something was going on and the other guys in our group got caught up in it…?"
The smile that had occupied Gray's face while Félix was in the room faltered slightly. “What sort of noises? I imagine there must be a fair amount of wildlife around here, an’ I suppose it can’t all be friendly.”
“I dunno, apparently there was some loud splashing and howling out there… But it wasn’t a wolf or anything - or so Jonas says. I’m not really clear on the details, since this is all coming from Kim, but... The guys also said they saw something getting dragged over by the water?” She made a spooked sort of face by arching her brows and thinning out her lips, before shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know. I didn’t really hear anything myself… I passed out when my face hit the pillow, hah.”
Gray paused for a moment, visibly (and uncharacteristically) disturbed. “Normally I’d blame something like that on a little too much liquor, but a manor home belonging a family of Bavarian aristocrats is not really the place to let your guard down.” After another moment, he waved it aside with a brush of his hand. “It’s nothing to panic about though. I’m certain we will find a perfectly reasonable explanation for the whole thing. I spoke to Maria yesterday and I got the impression that the family is pretty secretive, but there is no reason to assume the intentions behind it are sinister in nature."
Inhaling deeply to emit a sigh, Marci lifted her glass of water in cheers to him. "Well. At least one of us is optimistic," she quipped before taking a drink. “But I guess you’re right. No reason to get so worked up over it..." And then to herself, she added quietly, "Yet, at least.”
It was then that Félix came right back into the room holding a large basket filled with their goodies. He placed it on table and somehow knocked over salt and pepper shakers just to the right of where Gray was seated, breaking up the conversation. “Your basket, sir. Hope everything is to your liking. Please let me know if there is anything else, Mr. Birch.” He then proceeded to clean up the mess made on the table.
“Wonderful!” Gray presented himself to Felix as delighted and carefree. He stood up and clapped his hands together. “As always, you never fail to impress, Monsieur Dubois.” Turning to Marci, he spoke plainly, though she could tell both of them were now acutely aware of Félix's proximity. “Shall we? I imagine you’ll need a moment to fetch a bathing suit. I’ll be waiting for you in the lounge with the piano.”
Picking up on Gray’s lead, Marci nodded and stood up as well, collecting her book and taking one last sip of the water. “You got it. I will be right back. Thanks for the food and wine, buddy," she added to the butler on her way out, to which he responded with a few somewhat perplexed blinks before resuming a stoic expression.
She parted ways with Gray in the entrance hall and rushed upstairs, fishing out her room key from her pocket as she went. Fifteen minutes passed before she was skipping back down the stairs again, now in high waisted denim shorts and the same gray paint-splattered hoodie over a simple V-cut black halter-top bathing suit. She also had her journal and her polaroid camera in hand.
Gray was in the lounge, over by a section of the Wolf family portrait wall, examining a few odd ones in turn.
“Hope that didn’t take too long. Had to dig this out of my luggage.” She hooked a thumb under one strap of her bathing suit and tugged it so it lightly slapped back against her collar bone. “Ready when you are.”
He extended a hand and beckoned her over with a waggle of his index finger. “Fantastic, just give me a moment to stretch these old bones and then we can head out.” He stopped in front of one particular painting, pulled a small magnifying glass from his pocket, and started to examine the painting further. When Marci was finally close enough, he suddenly whispered, “If there really is something strange going on at the manor, we need to be careful what we say and where.”
Marci blinked a few times, much the same as when Félix had done so in the dining room, and stifled a smile. This could have been a short clip out of a movie. But she nodded her head in agreement, leaning forward as if to examine the paintings as well before whispering back. “Right. And I’m sure Félix’ll be lurking around in here with us soon enough.” Paranoia crept up on the back of her neck and she turned her head just slightly to take the smallest of glances back at the doors, before returning her attention back to the paintings to actually look at them. “Oh... ”
She raised her brows, actually registering what they all were. Kind of creeped out by how all the Wolfs were staring out at her now, she grunted and chewed on her bottom lip, pulling her hoodie tighter around herself for comfort.
“Exactly. Have you noticed the period differences in the section of the wall? The entire collection follows a pretty established stylistic progression of Germanic art, all except this section… The brushstrokes, pigmentation…” Gray whispered, and after a moment, Marci grunted again, this time in agreement as she squinted at the paintings in inspection and suspicion. “Yeah… How strange…"
Probably realizing she was right about Felix, Gray straightened up momentarily to look back at the entrance to the lounge. “Would you mind closing that door? I want to try something.”
"Ah... Yeah, sure?” Hesitantly, she made her way over to it, and after taking the quickest peek out to check if the coast was clear, she closed it as quietly as she could. Turning back to Gray with a slight frown on her face, she nodded to herself as if to assure her climbing anxiety that they weren't doing anything fishy at all. “Alright, you’re good. What are you planning to do?” She continued to speak in a low volume as she walked back to him curiously, albeit a little warily.
“It probably has nothing to do with the sounds that the others heard last night, but I want to take a look at the back of this painting, there’s a strange gap in the early 20th that’s been bothering me since I saw it yesterday. Here, look at these ones.” Gray pointed to the paintings on his left. “Based on pigment decay and brush stroke analysis, I’d put them between 1890 and 1920. But these...” He then waved a hand over the paintings directly in front of him and then reached forward to carefully lift it off the wall, eliciting an involuntary wince of uncertainty from Marceline. Is this guy for real right now...? He gently placed one end on the ground, and tilted it to expose the back of the painting.
“It’s hard to accurately date this one from the front, but look here, the canvas is attached to the stretcher with staples. European artists didn’t switch from nails to staples until the 50’s, but it quickly became common practice because it’s easier on the paintings. Older stretchers were made of dark, heavier woods in an H or X shape but this one is light and square, using mitered edges. All things considered, this painting simply couldn’t have been made less than 20-30 years from those others.”
Marci remained quiet, simply listening to him and his observations. He was right about everything, of course, and it really was fantastically suspicious. But not exactly being the sleuthing type to connect dots, or to search for things that would further her own paranoia, she didn't understand what he was getting at. Pushing the hair behind her ears and furrowing her brows, she whispered back, “So, what are you thinking?”
Gray looked back up at the wall in thought. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really expecting to be right about any of this. But see the second hole in the wall next to the hanging nail? The painting must have been moved at some point, and how the spacing between the paintings seems off? This had to have been done recently, but I just can’t figure out why…”
Marci had begun chewing on her lower lip again, a sure sign that her inner worry-wart was kicking in; as if the goosebumps that had erupted all over her arms weren't proof enough. “Yeah… Shit, that is pretty weird. Maybe they were in a rush to hang it up?” The small joke was punctuated by nervous chuckling as she swiped at the back of her neck to calm the goosies creeping over it. Glancing back at the door, she hugged her journal and the polaroid camera to her chest. “Uh, maybe we should head out though… I’m sure someone would have noticed the closed door by now…” Although she was trying to play it off through mere concern for sketchy activity, she was very much just creeped out by the room in general, and it was obvious.
“You’re probably right.” Gray took a second to look back over everything on the wall for anything he might have missed, but apparently came up empty since he spoke again soon after. “We should definitely get out of here. Can you help me with this painting?” He stood to one side of it, waiting for Marci to get the other.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Of course.” Quite relieved that he had agreed with her suggestion, she put her belongings down and moved over to the other side to help him heave the thing back onto the wall. Once it was back on, she gathered the journal and camera and made a beeline for the door. Nearing it, she spoke again, trying to keep up a somewhat casual front. “Fresh air sounds great right about now.” More nervous laughter escaped her as she waited for Gray to catch up.
When he did, he opened the door, motioning for Marci to go first. “It certainly does, I can’t wait to have a swim. That picnic basket looked wonderful too. Oh, wait..."
“Yeah, it did, didn’t it?” Marci was way too happy to be out of the lounge that she didn't immediately realize that Gray had stopped moving behind her. She turned around just in time to see Félix coming towards them, carrying the basket that Gray had apparently forgotten in the dining room. Marci's relieved smile faltered. How could she have not noticed that Gray didn't have it with him? She immediately froze, resisting the urge to look to Gray in exasperation. After he had already reached them, she managed to mentally kick herself into gear in time to fumble out, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, “Oh… Hey Félix!”
“Hello again, Miss Chen. You forgot your basket, Mr. Birch.” The two didn't fail to notice the way Felix eyed the door to the lounge before he proceeded to hand over the basket to Gray. “Thank you very much Monsieur Dubios, as always, you never fail to impress me.” Felix bowed slightly, before turning and retreating back into the kitchens.
Jesus Christ...
Once the male had disappeared, Marceline spun around, let out a huge breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and covered her face with a hand. “Oh shit... Oh shit. That was freaky… That was freaky, right?” She looked to Gray with all the panic coloring her face pink, wanting some sort of confirmation that Félix was way too timely for anyone's good. After a moment of recollection, she huffed like a child and lightly gave him a frustrated smack on the shoulder with the hand that had been hiding her face. “How the hell could you forget the basket, Gray?”
“You will figure it out when you’re older” Gray smiled, devilishly, to which Marci replied with a roll of her eyes. Still, she eventually couldn't help letting out a few genuine chuckles, shaking her head at how eventful her morning has been. Thank goodness the headache and nausea from her hangover were practically gone or else she might not have handled any of this and still had her breakfast in her stomach.
“Now, come on. Let’s get out of here.” Gray made his way over to the manor's back doors and pulled one of them back, holding it open. “After you.”
"Mm, thank you," Marci sang, her mood considerably lighter now that they were finally getting out of the house and away from the possibility of finding more anxiety-inducing mysteries.