Teddy Bears, Kaleidoscopes and Ghosts (21 Oct 2001) Agatha and Alice clean out a room in the Manor.

Harcourt Manor, Upstairs Bedroom
This is one of the six bedrooms in the Harcourt Manor; one presumes that besides the master bedroom and the three for the children, two were reserved as guest bedrooms. The room smells musty, not having been aired out in some time, and a patina of dust sticks to the walls and the furniture, but if one were to remove that, the curtains hanging from brass rod fittings and the elegant four-poster bed might be quite beautiful. An amateurish painting of a river and forest scene hangs next to a mirror in an elaborate brass frame, and there is a massive wardrobe next to a walk-in closet.

Earlier in the morning, Agatha had gone to seek out Tom and been informed that he and Simon had gone on a camping trip and would be gone for some time. When she went up to the tree house, she found their camping equipment and a hearth where they'd had a fire the previous night, but not the boys themselves; perhaps they'd gone hiking somewhere, taking advantage of the beautiful day. She left written copies of the mysterious letters for them there, and a note to call her as soon as possible.

In the meantime ... perhaps she could clean out some of the bedrooms in the Harcourt Manor to make them fit for human habitation. The master bedroom of course had already been cleaned out, but she felt it best to reserve that to Mr. Kuning's use. She gave Alice's house a call and left a note with her mother in case Alice might be inclined to drop by and help.

After feeding Kuon and making sure Destre had plenty of food and water, and being warmly greeted by the both of them, she made her way up to the bedrooms to survey how much work was to be done. As it turns out, several of the bedrooms had sustained damage as treasure hunters had attacked the walls in hope of finding hidden gold or silver ... but three of the rooms seem fit for habitation besides the master bedroom, and Toby has promised that he'll work on the other rooms in the meantime. The steady sounds of his work come through the walls.

Agatha makes sure to open the room's window before tackling the dust, and considers tying a handkerchief around her face to keep from breathing the stuff, but decides it won't be needed. "The beddings first," she says, and starts to fold up the ancient bedclothes so they can be taken outside for airing and to have the dust beat out of them.

From downstairs, Agatha can hear the sound of a dog barking, followed by faint giggling and the call of "Hi, Kuon!". A minute or so later, footsteps echo from the hallway outside the room as someone makes their way upstairs. "Agatha?" a familiar voice asks uncertainly.

"In here!" Agatha calls, picking up the bundle of bedclothes. "Be careful, though. It's dusty."

The wind sighs through the room, picking up the dust that Agatha shook loose. It almost seems thick enough to see the dust, perhaps even to create shapes in it ... and then the moment passes, and the room seems more brightly lit.

The steps in the hall sound closer and closer until Alice's head pops through the door, smiling, and then she enters fully. "Hi, Agatha! Wow, this place is dusty." She peers around the room as she walks across it to the older girl, Lord Mel in hand, and her purse held by a shoulder.

"You might want to tuck Lord Mel away, so he doesn't get all dirty," Agatha suggests with a grin. "You aren't allergic to dust or anything are you, Alice?"

Alice shakes her head no. "Nuh-uh. Mommy helps me clean my room because a clean room is a happy room," answers the little girl. She reaches over and tucks Lord Mel in to the purse so just his head watches from the accessory, and the purse is placed back by the door and out of the way. "I asked Daddy about Lord Mel and Mom says he bought him for me and so does Gabriel but he doesn't remember."

Rhythmic hammering from the other room suggests that Toby is hammering more slats of wood into the wall to repair a hole, over which he'll add plaster and then wallpaper to restore the wall to its normal appearance. Fortunately for matching the appearance, he'd managed to find a roll of the wallpaper originally used in the house in the lumber room.

Agatha blinks at that, and takes the bedclothes out into the hallway. "That's odd. Or not. Anyway, you want to sweep the floor and under stuff while I get the cobwebs and tops of things?"

"Sure!" Little Alice has dressed jean jumper, and a fairly plain purple dress with a few embroidered flowers. It looks a bit old, and thus perfectly matched to the jean for cleaning up a house which is just as old -- or more likely far older. She looks around and announces, "I think I saw a duster and some rags in the closet when I came up here. I'm going to get them, okay?"

"That'll be great, thanks Alice!" Agatha says, and then goes to check the curtains, figuring they can just be flapped out of the window to clear out the accumulated dust.

Alice leaves the room shortly after Agatha agrees, and she can be heard walking around in the hall beyond searching for something to dust with that isn't larger than she is.

The curtains are lovely old tapestries-style things embroidered with patterns of unicorns and winged horses in gardens, tied up with golden cords to the ends of the brass rod fittings. It seems likely with a stepstool, one could untie them in order to air the curtains out the windows, though it wouldn't be a job for little Alice.

"Ooo!" is the sound from the hall that marks Alice finding what she was looking for. A moment later she can be heard walking back, and then steps in to the room with fancy duster in hand dusting the doorframe as she enters. "Found it!"

Since she'll need something to stand on to reach the cobwebbed corners and ceiling anyway, Agatha goes out to the hallway and picks up the beddings, then says, "I'm going down to the kitchen Alice, be right back!" before carrying the bundle down the stairs.

"Okay!" When Agatha has departed, Alice moves to begin dusting the large wardrobe, starting with the bottom most sections. Her gaze travels, and she looks around the mostly empty room uneasily.

Clouds of dust start rising almost immediately, shaped by the breeze into serpentine wisps, or perhaps ghostly shapes, too evanescent to really be recognized as anything. It's a good thing that they dissipate quickly as well, because otherwise they could be really spooky.

Alice watches such a cloud for a moment as it materializes near her due to her dusting, and her mouth opens in quiet surprise before she reaches over and dusts at it.

paff! The dust cloud evaporates almost immediately.

The little girl nods a little once the cloud dissolves, wrinkles her nose, then turns back to resume dusting the wardrobe. Finding herself having finished most of what she can reach she pulls on the door to see if she can open it.

The wardrobe seems to be locked, for there is an archaic-looking keyhole beneath the knob.

Alice peers at the lock a moment, leaning forward to look in to the dark hole and see if she can see beyond it. "Agatha?" she asks, followed by "Toby?" when Agatha doesn't answer.

"Huh? Oh, Alice!" calls a voice from the other side of the wall. "Something the matter?"

The rhythmic hammering ceases for a while.

"Hi Toby!" Alice calls out. "I can't open the big dresser. It's locked."

"What big dresser?" comes the reply. Shortly, Agatha's brother comes in to look the situation over, giving Alice a look as if to wonder why she wants it open.

Alice turns to face Toby and points at the "big dresser" with her free hand, letting the duster swing in her other with slow energy. "I can't dust it on the inside if I can't open it, and Agatha wants me to dust tops and bottoms and I think in-betweens too," the little girl explains.

Toby scratches behind an ear. "I see...." He bends over to look at the keyhole. "Well, if you just wait a while, Aggie'll be back, and she's got the keys to the house, but these old locks are easy. You could pick them with just a hair pin!"

"I don't have a hair pin, but," Alice reaches up and pats her hair, finding her hair ribbon, "I have a hair ribbon?"

The older teenager laughs. "I don't think that'll cut it, short stuff."

Alice frowns, looking disappointed, and lets her hand fall back to her side. "Okay. I'll wait for Agatha then, and go clean something else. Thank you for helping me, Toby," she says.

"Sure thing," Toby says. He heads back to the other room, where the sounds of hammering resume.

Alice leaves the "big dresser" alone for a while and wanders over to the bed, dropping down to balance on her feet with one hand on the bed frame for support so she can look under it. "Hello, Mr. Boogieman?"

Probably fortunately for Alice, there's nothing larger than very tiny dust motes under the bed.

Finding no Mr. Boogiemen or other under-the-bed monsters to greet her, Alice reaches in and begins sweeping the dust out and away. The massive bed dwarfs her and her bed at home, and she marvels at its gigantic-ness.

More clouds of dust envelop Alice ... Fortunately she isn't in her fancy princess dress, or her mother would be quite vexed. Just at that moment, she hears a creaking noise from nearby. Where nearby, she isn't sure.

Alice pauses in her dusting as the house creeks, glancing to her left, then her right, then resuming with a bit more vigor than she had been dusting with before.

Nothing there ... Except evanescing clouds of dust.

After raspberrying the dust, Alice again returns to her cleaning duties -- scooting on down the side of the bed so she can move to a dirtier section.

The work goes slowly as Alice is just barely able to reach the distant crevices ... But fortunately, thanks to the handle on her duster, she's quite able to do so. It doesn't seem as if there's anything unusual about the bottom of the bed.

Finding herself quite done with under the bed dusting, little Alice stands up again and dusts herself off a bit as she looks around for something else to clean. The dresser is locked, she's too short to dust the top of the bed, and the closet hasn't been seen to yet. So she moves over to the closet and reaches to open that door.

Down the stairs, Agatha encounters yet another of the phenomena that seem to beset all large houses. Though the creaking noises could always be the result of the house warming or cooling in the daytime and at night, this time it's a draft of unusually cool air at the bottom of the stairs. Popular superstition has it that this is a symptom of ghosts, but it might just be the way the air flows through the house, what with people opening and closing doors.

Agatha shivers all the same. "Brrr, I hope it doesn't do that at night," she says to herself, and hurries to the kitchen, so that she can drop her bundle off for later washing, and to pick up the stepstool kept there.

The stepstool comes to hand fairly quickly: it appears like a large wooden box with a handle on top, but when unclasped, it unfolds into a modest ladder. As the 19th century salesman might have said, "Amazing! Convenient!"

Carrying the folding stool back to the bedroom, Agatha pauses at the closet to pick up more rags and look for a second duster.

Agatha finally returns, carrying the folding stepstool and more cleaning supplies. "Sorry to take so long," she apologizes to Alice, and heads towards the curtains.

Alice begins pushing the door opened, then for a brief second she stops before whirling around to face the window, feather duster held out ready to dust what might be there.

Agatha also pauses as she's reaching up to undo the curtain rod, seeing a flicker of movement, then shakes the curtain a little to dislodge whatever might be caught in the folds. "Moths," she mutters.

What was there vanishes abruptly at threatened dusting, but not before the girl's quick whirl allows her to catch a glimpse of it. There was most definitely a slit eye in the upper corner of the window. It's gone, now.

Alice reaches up to cover her mouth in a look of surprise as she backs up a step and in to the closet door. "Agatha!" she whispers to the older girl urgently, "I saw an eye! An eye!"

Nothing falls out of the curtains except for dust.

"What?" Agatha asks, midway through untying the curtains. "Where's an eye?"

Alice removes her empty hand and points shakily at the upper corner of the window. "There. It was ... like a cat ... but ... now it's all gone," she answers.

Agatha looks at the spot, and says, "It probably was a moth, then. Some of them have eye-looking marks on their wings to fool birds." Untying the curtain sashes, she points out the unicorns embroidered into the curtains. "Pretty neat, huh? I bet this was a girl's room."

"It was ... kind of like, maybe, one of those little lizards Tommy used to scare me with when we were little." Alice slowly lets her other hand drop back to her side, and she hesitantly wanders on over to Agatha while keeping an occasional vigil on the window -- just in case. "Those are pretty curtains, Agatha. I wish my room had such neat curtains!"

Nothing unexpected shows up, though with the curtains hanging down, the room becomes rather dark, with just a slit of sunlight pouring through between them. Presumably one would light a candle or several at night -- the reading desk comes equipped with some raised shelves on which a lantern could be set.

"I've never heard of roof-lizards," Agatha says, and sets up the stepstool so she can finish taking down the curtains. "Did Elinor mention to you if any Houses used lizards as minions?" she asks.

Alice thinks about it, screwing her face up in an expression of concentration as she does, then shakes her head. "No. Elinor didn't talk about any lizard Houses. The only lizard I know was a BIG lizard and his little helper friend," she answers. Then she adds, "Oh, Agatha, do you have the keys to the dresser and maybe the closet? I can't open the big dresser."

After a brief attempt to lift up the curtain rod, Agatha realizes it'll take two people to manage. "Yeah, probably," she says, and digs the key-ring out of her pocket while stepping down from the stool. "It should be one of these keys," she says, holding the crowded ring out to Alice. "You can try them while I go get my brother. I need his help with the curtains."

"Okay, Agatha!" The key ring is accepted with the sort of awe and respect a kid shows when trusted with something important. She bows a bit as she finds the ring heavier than expected, and puts the duster down on the bed so she can hold the ring with both hands. Once she has it and has selected her first key, the littler of the two girls wanders back to the wardrobe and tries it out.

Agatha walks to the door of the room, and just yells, "Toby! I need your help with something!" in a voice that seems used to calling through floors and walls.

"What, Squirt?" calls the voice. The hammering stops again, and Toby comes around again.

Pointing to the curtains, Agatha explains, "I want to take those down to beat out the dust, but the rod is too heavy. Can you get one end while I get the other?"

"Sure, Squirt," Toby says. He walks over to lend a hand.

Most of the keys can be eliminated by simply being the wrong shape to fit the keyhole. Past that, it's a matter of trying each one ... and one fits! It's a pretty little heart-shaped thing with a few notches on the end. A tiny little click sounds from inside the closet under Alice's hand.

"Yay!" exclaims Alice as she discovers the right key. The key is removed first, looked at fondly, then Alice reaches up to open the wardrobe door and look inside.

Agatha scoots the footstool over a bit, and climbs up to lift one end of the curtain-rod while her brother gets the other. "We can lay it on the bed. I think I'll have to hang these on the clothesline and use a rug beater. And stop calling me 'Squirt'!"

Inside the wardrobe ... are a number of rather grown-up looking dresses of vintage appearance. They certainly would not fit Alice, but they might fit Agatha, as she's nearly grown-up in appearance. Part of the wardrobe is a make-up corner, with a mirror and tiny canisters of what must have been cosmetics for the period, lacking in the bright labels that today's powders wear.

Toby grins at Agatha. "Gonna make me?" He spares a glance for the wardrobe as he holds an end of the curtain rod, but finds its contents unremarkable.

Alice, on the other hand, finds the contents quite interesting. An exclamation of "Wow!" heralds the fact to all in the room. "Look Agatha! Clothes and makeup and ... lots of stuff! I bet some of it would even fit you!"

Agatha just sticks her tongue out at Toby, since she isn't really upset with him. "Just don't drop your end."

Agatha's older brother laughs. "I haven't let you down yet, have I?" He waits patiently.

Agatha turns her head to glance at the old clothes. "That stuff's even more out of fashion than what I normally wear," she comments, and then lifts up her end of the curtain rod.

"But it's pretty, Agatha ... " The little girl reaches up to try and remove one of the dresses from the hangar, and begin moving them somewhere safe so she can clean.

While the dresses might have been pretty when they were in period, Agatha is certainly correct that they're well out of style for these days. The wardrobe seems very much the province of a fashion-conscious young woman of her time, and there don't seem to be any things in there that might suit Alice.

It takes a few moments for them to manage the curtains, but eventually Toby and Agatha take the curtains outside and hang them over a line, raising quite a cloud of dust, then get them back in to be hung up again.

The closet, fortunately, is not locked ... And contains many boxes and even a chest that looks like an old toy box, judging from the painted castle scenes on the sides. This must have been where the room's previous inhabitant ... Anastasia? ... moved her things when she no longer had need of them.

Alice busies herself with the cleaning of the closet now, preparing to search through boxes and chests before she pushes them out to the main room for further inspection and cleaning.

Agatha clings to a bedpost with one hand while she dusts off the canopy. "I wonder why they put roofs and curtains on beds like this. Just for decoration, you think?"

The smaller boxes in the closet are easier to move, and prove to contain old books, or smaller clothes neatly folded away, some of which might fit Alice. Eventually she gets to the toy box, where she finds, amidst a jumble of dolls and wooden horses and the like, a stuffed bear with his head somewhat raggedly sewn back on, and a roughly carved wooden sword in his hand.

Alice squints in the dark as she fusses open one of the first chests -- this one decorated much like her own toy chest at home. "I think because it's pretty and because it keeps the wind out and because it makes a neat castle," answers Alice. She reaches down in to the toy chest and picks up the old bear, dusting him off a bit and holding him in her arms. "Sir Bear!"

Toby shrugs. "That's just the way they did it back then," he opines. He heads back to the other room, since it seems evident that he's not needed for any heavy moving at the moment.

"Thanks, Toby!" Agatha calls. "I'll be sure to tell Jennifer how handy you are!" she adds, just to see if it gets a reaction. She's still not sure who her brother's secret girlfriend is.

"Thaaanks, Squirt!" comes a long exaggerated drawl of sarcasm.

"You mean Sir Bruin," Agatha says, then straightens up and looks to see just what Alice is talking about.

Alice places the old bear doll on top of the toy box and works on pushing it out of the closet. Given how heavy it is, and how heavy she isn't, this takes a bit of effort on her part. "See!" she calls out, "Sir Bear, ... Sir Bruin Bear."

"Heh!" Agatha says as she sees the armed teddy-bear. "I wonder what Elinor would think if she saw that," she giggles, and changes bedposts to get to the next area of the canopy.

"I could show her it if she comes by, or maybe afterward," says Alice. She continues to try and move the chest out in to the light so she can dust it better, as well a free to closet from a bit of clutter so she can dust that too.

Agatha finishes up dusting the canopy, and kneels down to put her ear to the mattress, listening for mice or anything else that might have made a home in the stuffing.

With the toy chest out Alice returns to the closet, this time preparing to move one of the clothing boxes.

It takes some doing, and eventually help from Agatha, but the two girls finally manage to move the toy box out of the closet to where its contents can be examined in the light. Much of the toys inside seem generic to little girls of the period -- jacks, toy wooden soldiers to attend a cloth princess doll, but there are a few odd pieces such as a brass telescope and a slender silvery tiara set with what must surely be bits of colored glass.

Agatha reaches for the telescope, but pauses and looks back up at the nearby painting on the wall, having seen something familiar about it.

The painting is of a river running through a forest, not very well detailed, though the colors do capture the feeling of a springtime day. Behind the forest rise several spires and roofs of a distant town.

Alice returns from the closet, pushing a much lighter box of clothing, and as she walks she looks up to glance around the room with her nose wrinkled, as if confused or uneasy, then frowns and returns to pushing the box beside the others.

Agatha stares at the painting for a bit, and then imagines the same landscape covered in snow, with leaf-monsters hidden underneath.

The clothes don't seem all that remarkable, given Alice's own tastes in clothes; while some are of sturdy, plain cloth, others obviously Sunday best, there are some prettier frilled and laced dresses. Perhaps Anastasia had taken dancing lessons.

"I wonder if Mr. Kuning would mind if we tried on some of the clothing? It's so neat, they don't make clothes like this anymore," asks Alice as she peers in to the box. "Oh, and the closet is almost empty. I think I can clean it up now."

"Try them on?" Agatha asks, confused until she looks to see that Alice has found clothes in her own size. "I guess you could. I don't think Mr. Kuning has much use for girls' clothes. But be careful ... the Harcourts might be from Mirari, remember."

As Alice glances up from rummaging through the dresses, she catches sight of something marvelous: The teddy bear with its head stitched back on and a wooden sword in one hand makes a dash for the door soundlessly on its felt feet! It slips out of sight quickly.

"Aw, I don't think they use mag- ... " Alice's jumps with a sudden start, hands against her chest, then scurries towards the door. "Come back, Sir Bear!"

As Alice peeks into the hallway, she looks back and forth along it ... to find no bear in sight.

"What?" Agatha asks, turning towards the door, and Alice. "Did you see something again?"

Alice turns back towards Agatha and points out the door. "Sir Bear just ran away!"

The teddy bear is certainly nowhere in sight at the moment.

Agatha blinks at this, and looks around for the stuffed sword-bearing bear. "Are you sure?" she asks. Huge black unicorns and shape shifters she could deal with, but animated toys?

Alice looks around herself, then to her purse and Lord Mel, and then out the door again. "Yep! Sir Bear stood up and ran away, right out the door ... but I can't see him now!" she answers.

"Oh great ... that means magic." Agatha sighs, and looks over the remaining toys. Wooden soldiers; definitely don't want those marching around. "Well ... uh ... that was the only toy you took out of the box, right?"

"Well ... yes, but ... I was going to look at the other ones. Maybe if we took something else out carefully?" The little blonde picks up her purse and carries it over, keeping Lord Mel close as she looks at the toy and clothes boxes.

"Maybe we'd better get Kuon and try to track down the bear," Agatha offers instead, although she's very curious about the telescope now. At least that's not something that's likely to come to life and run off. "I don't want my brother to see him and think there are giant rats running around."

"Okay," agrees Alice. "Should I stay here and watch the toys while you get Kuon?"

Agatha considers that for all of two seconds. "How about you go get Kuon? You held the bear, so its smell should still be on your hands."

The blonde nods. "Okay!" And then she's off without another word, headed downstairs to get Kuon.

Agatha takes the brass telescope out of the box, then closes the lid before looking out the window with the device.

The older girl sees ... colors! It's an eightfold symmetry of colored flecks, made radiant by the light from outside.

Agatha jerks her head back from the eyepiece in panic, then laughs at herself. "It's a kaleidoscope! Why would a girl want a telescope, after all?"

Downstairs, a dog barks in answer to something Alice must have said.

The sound of footsteps come echoing up the stairs, the pattern of two and the scrambling of four. Some faint whispering can be heard as well, but whatever Alice is telling Kuon is too faint to make out.

Kuon passes the door, looks into the room, then pads down the hallway again, nose to the floor.

Beside the dog passes Alice, who peers in to the room and then walks on after Kuon.

After returning the kaleidoscope to the toy box, Agatha thinks about the bear. That it was holding a sword was unusual, sure ... but it also looked like the head had been sewn back on. Could something have been stuck inside of it that brought it to life?

"Did you let Kuon smell your hands, Alice?" Agatha asks the younger girl, and reaches over to pet the dog's head.

"Yep! Just like you told me too," Alice answers cheerily.

Agatha looks Kuon in the eyes, and asks, "Can you follow that scent? There's a little stuffed bear with a sword running around loose."

The dog wags, briefly distracted, then barks once as if to suggest "Of course!" and continues onward, and into another of the bedrooms. This one has been damaged like the other, as treasure hunters have smashed in the walls here and there to test for hidden chests of gold. They were unsuccessful, of course, but the holes broken into the wooden slats on which wallpaper was pasted have remained behind. Sir Bruin Bear sits on the chair -- a teddy bear dressed in a gray shirt with a red tabard and carrying a wooden sword in one hand. He is absolutely motionless, just as he was when first found.

Alice tugs on Agatha's jacket. "Look!" she says, pointing in the room. "There he is! Hello, Sir Bruin Bear! Don't run now, okay?"

"He didn't go far at least," Agatha says to Alice, and purses her lips. She's a bit hesitant to actually approach the toy.

Sir Bruin Bear makes absolutely no movement. Something catches Alice's eyes, however -- a bit of ribbon sticking out from underneath the teddy bear's shirt.

"Maybe he wanted to show us something?" suggests the littler of the two girls. Slowly, and with a hand on Kuon, Alice walks forward towards the bear and moves to reach for him.

Agatha looks around the room. "All I see are holes. Be careful, Alice, I think there's something stuffed inside him besides stuffing."

Alice reeeeeaches at maximum distance, stretches, bends, leans away ... and picks up the bear. "Oh," she says as she finds it doesn't attack her or try to flee again. With her other hand she reaches around and tries to pluck out the length of ribbon.

The ribbon appears to be a loop around the bear's neck ... And holds a brass medallion on the end of it! This is decorated a heraldic symbol of some kind, a sword over a wreath of four flowers with two four-pointed stars on either side of the sword. Beyond that, there doesn't feel to be anything in the bear besides stuffing, and not quite enough of that.

Alice unloops the medallion and winds it around her hand, turning to show it to Agatha. "I think he won a medal for sprinting," she explains.

Agatha chuckles, and takes a closer look at the medal. "I've never seen any like it. Are you sure he wasn't wearing it before?"

"I'm not sure," answers Alice truthfully. "I wonder if it's magic? Maybe one of those House symbols, like in the books on history about Europe."

"Hold onto it. We can ask Elinor if she recognizes it," Agatha says, and then asks, "Can I look at the bear?"

"Sure!" And thus the bear is handed right over, and Alice steps back to give Agatha some room. "I think you're a bit big to sword fight him though."

Agatha snickers, and examines the seam around the bear's neck, and squeezes the body and head to feel for anything hard inside.

Nothing. It feels a bit morbid to be handling the toy of some long-gone kid this way.

Alice shows the medallion to Kuon. "Do you know about this? One bark for yes, two for no!"

Kuon peers at the medallion, going a little cross-eyed.

Alice lets the medallion swing lazily from side to side. "Yoooou are getting sleeeeeepy," she utters, then giggles.

The greyhound snuffles the medallion, then tries to follow it as Alice swings it back and forth ...

"Kuon won't answer like that," Agatha points out, and returns the bear to the chair, propping him up into a sitting position, after finding nothing unusual about the bear, other than likely repairs and modification done by a child's hand. "Maybe the medallion is magic? Try putting it on Lord Mel."

Alice steadies the medallion so Kuon can get a good look on it, then reaches for her own stuffed doll, and brings out Lord Mel. She looks at the toy unicorn in her hands and frowns a little. "Are you sure, Agatha?"

Kuon flops over, apparently made dizzy by being asked to study a swinging medallion, and waves his four paws in the air. After a second, he stands up again and then trots over to snuffle curiously at one of the holes in the wall.

"Well, he wouldn't run away from you," Agatha says, keeping an eye on Kuon. "But I can hold him if you like, so he can't wiggle away."

"Well I just don't want something bad to happen, but if you're sure, okay ... " After unwinding the medallion from around her hand, Alice places it around Lord Mel's neck and secures it in a cute puffy ribbon bow.

The dog barks once, then turns to look back at Agatha askance.

Agatha turns away from Alice to look at Kuon. "What did you find, something in that hole?" she asks, and starts to kneel down next to the dog.

Kuon whines a bit.

"Something was here?" Agatha asks Kuon, then adds, "What sort of something?"

Kuon barks again, seeming to mean that he understood the question, but he can't describe what it was.

With the ribbon tied, Alice holds Lord Mel with both hands and turns him around to look at her. "You okay?" she asks her doll, sounding uncertain.

There seems to be no effect or change as a result of putting the medallion on Lord Mel.

Agatha bends down further, to see if there are any marks or tracks left in the dust around the hole.

Seeing nothing happening, and looking increasingly uneasy about leaving the medallion there, Alice reaches over to untie it again and retie it to her wrist so she won't lose it.

"There are tracks, I think," Agatha says, pointing out the little wide-spread marks. "How big was that lizard you thought you saw in the window?"

"It was kind of tiny. This," she holds up her Lord Mel-free hand, "big."

Agatha compares the scale indicated by Alice to what would have made the tracks, remembering that lizard legs stick out from their sides.

"Nope, couldn't have been what made these tracks," Agatha concludes. "It would have to be a lot bigger than that."

Meanwhile, Alice tucks Lord Mel under her right arm and uses her freed hands to examine the medallion further, running her thumb over it to try and clean it up a bit. "Do you think maybe someone is watching? Or maybe this is the secret castle of toys and that's one of their roads?" she asks.

Agatha thinks about it. "Yeah, we're probably being watched," she agrees. "We just don't know by whom yet."

Turning to Kuon, Agatha asks, "Who uses lizards as minions? One of the Summer Houses?"

Toby's voice calls from the other room, "Aggie! Mind helping me put the wallpaper up?"

Agatha blinks, and calls, "Be right there!" To Alice, she says, "See if you can find out from Kuon who would use lizards, okay?"

Kuon nods slowly.

At the doorway, Agatha adds, "Try Summer months," before heading down the hall to help her brother.

"Okay!" says Alice. She waves to Agatha then looks around, finding a dusty old section of floor where she kneels down and traces patterns on the floor. Each month is represented in abbreviation, and each season is traced above its months in the form of a symbol. A sun for summer, a leaf for fall, a snowflake for winter, and a flower for spring. "Okay Kuon, which house?"

The greyhound trots around the circle, as if puzzling out how Alice has arranged them. He slows down and then peers at the abbreviations of the months of the summer quarter.

Alice helpfully recites each of the months of summer, pointing to each abbreviation when its name comes up.

At the name August, Kuon barks, then starts wagging his tail.

"August!" says Alice approvingly. "So it's August, Kuon? Do you smell any August lizards around here? I think they're spying on us."

The greyhound snuffles at the air, then looks about the room. He turns first to examine the hole, where evidently the smell of whomever was here is strongest.

Alice stands up and brushes the diagram she drew away with a foot, just in case. She then follows along after Kuon to see what he's doing.

After a bit of peering at the hole, the greyhound reluctantly concludes that he won't fit at all. He looks back at Alice as if to wonder where they should search next.

"Hmm." Alice considers for a moment, looking out the door and down the hall. "Let's go look in the hallway, and follow the walls. Maybe he came out somewhere?"

Kuon wags and then puts his nose to the floor, trotting toward the hallway.

As usual the little blonde girl follows along after Kuon, keeping the medallion-bound hand on his back so she can follow him better -- and pet him, of course.

The greyhound pauses briefly to look in on Agatha and Toby where they are lining up the wallpaper against the plastered wall, getting ready to attach it, then trots down the hall toward the master bedroom. There, Alice can see that Mr. Kuning must have lived here for a while, since it's been cleaned up and lived in unlike the other bedrooms. A couple of library books about contemporary subjects are all that sit on the writing table. Hopefully they won't fall due too soon.

Alice looks in on the master bedroom, finding it much larger than her parent's room in their small house. "Maybe here?" she asks Kuon, looking to him questioningly. "It's Mr. Kuning's room, so, I need permission to go in. But you're his dog, so you can, so okay, right?"

Kuon walks in without a second thought, and snuffles about the room. His stance suggests that something was here ... but no longer is, as he circles around and back to the entrance.

Alice pauses at the door, not entering once she sees Kuon heading back out again. So she steps aside and prepares to follow him on to the next room.

The greyhound continues back down the hall ... and into the room which Agatha and Alice were originally cleaning. He snuffles about thoroughly, then looks toward the still-open window and barks, then looks back to Alice. Whomever it was, he's gotten away cleanly, his expression seems to say.

Agatha comes into the room, using a rag to wipe her hands clean of wallpaper glue. "Find anything out?" she asks.

The little girl eyes the window, leaning forward a bit to look out of it. "I guess he's gone. I wonder what they wanted ... " When Agatha enters, she walks back to her, pointing at the window. "I think whoever was spying on us left, but Kuon says lizards are from House August."

Kuon gives a slight nod of his head.

Agatha sighs. "That's ... three houses looking for the King then, probably. Two that have come sniffing around the manor."

Alice leans down and gives Kuon a big hug while she's standing beside him. "Good job, Kuon!" she praises him, rubbing up his fur, "Can you find one more House for us?"

The greyhound looks at Alice confusedly, then slurps her cheek up wetly.

"Oh crud," Agatha says, putting a hand to her head. "Four. We don't know what left those funny tracks yet. Unless it was a really big lizard. And I wanted to spend the night, too."

Giggling, the blond kneels down on the floor again and begins retracing the diagram of the Houses. She again shows Kuon the medallion. "Do any of the Houses use the medal?" she asks Kuon, then looking up offers to Agatha, "Kuon followed the feet prints when I asked him to find a House August lizard. I think maybe what was at the window was here first, or maybe it came in and left again and was in the wall."

Kuon puzzles over the design, and then narrows it down to the Spring Quarter.

Agatha ponders, "That one you saw at the window wasn't cat-sized though."

Alice turns back to Kuon and puts her left hand down on the floor, using her right hand to flip over the medallion so he can look at it more. "Spring? So maybe ... Agatha? What house of Spring was the Lady in the letters from?" she asks.

Alice quickly adds, "Oh, and maybe there were many spies or spies who could change shape."

Agatha says, "April."

Kuon looks up at Alice, as if waiting, then barks and wags his tail at Agatha's naming of the month.

"April! You're right, Agatha. See? Now we can be pretty sure whoever lived here was from House April," the blonde tells the older girl.

"I wonder..," Agatha muses. "Maybe Angelique and Bram came here and Anastasia was their daughter." She taps the painting on the wall, and says, "I'm sure this is a view of Elysia, where House April is."

Alice looks up and at the painting. "So where did Anastasia go? And Bram and Angelique?"

"Tom looked up the history of the Manor at the library," Agatha says. "He probably took some notes, but I don't remember the details."

"Oh," Alice says. "Well ... what should we do now?"

"I'm tempted to set out mousetraps," Agatha says, crossing her arms across her chest. "But I think I'll just let Kuon patrol the house during the day as well as at night from now on. At least when we're inside."

"Wouldn't House April look kind of like me?" inquires the little girl. "So if anyone in town looked like me, maybe that's where House April went? And maybe if we go to Mirari it might be useful maybe to borrow some of these clothes as a disguise. But I don't know if you match House April."

Agatha shakes her head, "I match September, I think. And the only way to get to House April probably is to ride Souhait past the Scare-Crow. I want to hold him in reserve though, in case we need to rescue someone stuck in Mirari."

"Okay." Alice looks back to the boxes, then to her friend. "Um, Agatha? Can I try some of these clothes on? I wanted to, but the Sir Bear ran away."

Agatha grins and nods. "Okay. Let me clean the mirror first, though."

Alice offers Agatha her bag, Lord Mel and all. "The mirror is in there. Just ask Lord Mel politely for it and you can take it. He won't mind." She then turns and rushes over to the toy box, picks out the tiara, then pushes one of the boxes of clothing back in to the closet before mostly closing the door behind herself.

The older girl chuckles and wipes clean the big wall mirror after setting Alice's purse on the bed, and her eyes stray to the dresses in the wardrobe now and then. "Nah, I'd look even sillier than I normally do.."

After a few minutes punctuated by the rustling of old clothing, and several thumps as Alice stumbles in the dark, the little girl opens the door slowly and sticks her head out before she continues in to the room. She's wearing one of the more ordinary dresses, though obviously of a different period and worn by time. On her head she wears the glass-jeweled tiara crown, and around her neck hangs the medallion taken from "Sir Bear". "Look Agatha, I'm a faerie!"

Agatha applauds. "Oh hey, hold on.... I'm gonna get my camera and take your picture, okay?"

"Okay! We can show Elinor and Tommy and Simon," agrees the pretend-faerie. She walks around the room, twirling once and letting the skirt of her dress whirl, then continues up to the mirror and waves at her reflection.

Agatha runs down to the kitchen to get her camera, and is back in just a few minutes. She poses Alice so that the light from the window is illuminating her well, then says, "Say 'Mirari'!"

Alice grabs Lord Mel from her purse so he can be in the shot with her, holds him in a hug against her chest with him looking out to the camera, and beams a big smile. "Mirari!"

click

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This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.