Hello everybody!

Audience: Hiya Dr Nick!

Cat: Sorry about the delay! I got over a writer's block and survived midterms, so here's the next chapter!

I have read the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, and initially I was going to have some similarities to that plot, but a review made me change my mind. I hope I succeed in making it different so that it stays original and interesting. Please let me know what you think!

And yes Jenna-chyan, the poem is the same as for Howl's Moving Castle. No other similarities to that story though, but, like Alea Seikou-san mentioned, we'll have to see if our poetry aficionado finds a 'woman fair and true'.


Shades of the Past

Chapter 4 – The One Who Lives Outside of Time


"Are you sure you're ready to go home?" Joshua asked for the third time.

Rosette glared at him from the passenger seat of the car. She waited two full windshield wiper swipes before deigning that question with a response. "Another visit from mister personality and I'll be arrested for murder."

They were driving down the desolate country road back to the Black estate, with rain pelting down on the car. The windshield wipers were louder than the radio, and the trees were just blurs on either side of the car.

"Come on Rosette, Mr. Black isn't that bad." Joshua replied. "He's just old. And they haven't marketed a prescription for sadism yet."

"It'll take a lot more than a prescription to take care of that old man's superiority complex. And if he's 'not that bad', how come you always hide whenever you see him coming?" Rosette cocked her head to the side.

"I didn't hide! I was in the same room as him for four whole minutes when you woke up!" Joshua replied, indignant.

"Gee. Four whole minutes. How dare I suggest that you're a coward when you stayed in the room four whole minutes."

"That's enough lip from you, invalid." Joshua shot back.

There was a comfortable silence between the two siblings, which was only broken by the rapid windshield wiper swipes. But after a few minutes of relative quietness, it became obvious to Rosette that Joshua was trying to gather the courage necessary to say something.

Most likely something she wouldn't like. She could tell he was anxious by the way his brow creased and by the unconscious tightening and relaxing of his grip on the steering wheel. Watching her brother's quiet deliberations, Rosette knew very well what he wanted to bring up wasn't going to please her.

"I've been thinking Rosette… maybe you should come home. And if you don't want to go home, I'll stay with you. I don't want you to live here alone." Joshua said, never once glancing away from the road.

"No."

Now he did look away from the road. "Why not?"

"Keep your eyes on the road Joshua." Rosette admonished calmly. "Wouldn't want you to swerve into a ditch."

"Don't change the subject Rosette, you nearly drowned! I can't leave you alone in that house!" Joshua continued, grip on the wheel tighter than ever.

She had to give her brother some credit. It took some nerve to try to boss her around. When they were younger, Joshua quickly learned that defying his sister wasn't worth the bruises.

"And where will I go? With you?"

"Yes! You can try and find a place near my school. Or if you don't like that idea, you can always go back home."

"And do what Joshua?" Rosette shot back.

"I don't know Rosette… we'll figure something out. Quit this job, you can find another one easily." Joshua said quietly.

Rosette couldn't believe it. He made it sound easy, but it wasn't. She couldn't go back, not when she had found such a great job. She had no supervisor breathing down her neck, no rent to pay, and free reign of a Visa. Was Joshua on crack? How could she possibly find a better job?

"You know I wont. No one hires someone with only a high school degree for above minimum wage." Rosette thought of her former job at a Seven Eleven.

"Wouldn't it be better than staying here alone in the middle of nowhere? With rats?" Joshua argued. "And don't pretend there aren't any, I saw what was behind the fridge."

"Yeah, I need to get traps for those."

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"Yes. Now stop nagging. I'm not quitting this job, and you're going to school."

Joshua deflated visibly. He was well meaning, to the point that Rosette wasn't annoyed with him for trying to run her life. Well, maybe a little. But, she had to remind herself, Joshua never argued without a reason. He was worried about her.

She was touched, but at the same time wished he would stop being an idiot. Realistically, there was no difference between being alone in the countryside and alone in New York City. At least here she had some cows to keep her company. She loved her brother, but sometimes he drove her nuts.

Joshua tended to live in a different world than hers: he was slightly disconnected from reality. When it came to equations and theory, there was no one smarter, or more efficient. Book smarts, Joshua had in abundance. But he was an idealist. He always tried to make the most of every situation, never took in monetary factors, and was eternally optimistic. Rosette was more of a realist. She was almost a Huck Finn to Joshua's Tom Sawyer. To her, common sense also counted for something.

And Joshua didn't have much of it.

"I just don't like the idea of you staying there alone." Joshua insisted.

"I'm not alone. I've got the town gossip hanging around, as well as my wonderful employer. And if I'm lucky, maybe I'll find the guy who saved me."

Joshua's face was hard. "There wasn't anybody there Rosette."

"There must have been, I didn't hallucinate, and I'm not romantic enough to fabricate a story about being saved by Tall, Dark and Handsome. If I were to make something up, I would have claimed that I saved myself." Rosette admitted. "Besides, Mr. Black seemed to know exactly who I was talking about."

"That old man gives me the creeps." Joshua punctuated that feeling with a shudder.

"You and everybody else. But Mr. Black described the guy perfectly, it's like he already knew him… like he expected the guy to be there. So I think it must be a kid from the town, and he must have run off after saving me."

"Why would he do that? Normally people would wait to see if the drowning victim is alright, or if medical help is on the way. If there really were a guy that saved you, why wouldn't he have stayed? You were unconscious, it could have taken hours before I found you."

Rosette rubbed her temples. "I don't know, maybe he was afraid he would get caught for trespassing?"

They had finally reached the house, and so Joshua brought the car to a stop near the front porch and looked out the car window with yet another sigh. "This weather is awful. I really don't want to step outside."

"Then dont. You still haven't told me how Mr. Black knew I was in the hospital." Rosette replied.

"I've reconsidered, the weather is just lovely!" Joshua exclaimed and made for the door. Rosette just grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

"Why are you running away?"

"I don't know how he knew you would be in the hospital."

"You mean you didn't call him?" Rosette exclaimed.

"No. It wasn't me."

"That's strange… and doesn't Mr Black live in San Francisco?" Rosette leaned back into the seat, crossing her arms against her chest when she was sure Joshua wasn't going to make a run for it.

"One of his aides told me he was visiting some relatives here."

"Ok, so he was already in New York State. But the news of my hospitalization couldn't possibly have travelled that fast. I was only out of it for a few hours, and there's no way information could have gotten around to him through other people, no matter how many people Kate told."

"Someone must have phoned him. It's no big deal Rosette." Joshua sighed.

Rosette furrowed her brows. Why did Joshua want to drop the subject so quickly?

"If it wasn't you, it must have been that boy!" She exclaimed, realisation dawning on her.

"Where would he have phoned from?" Joshua argued, being practical for once.

"Everyone has cell phones these days, even people from small towns. That must be why there wasn't anyone there, my saviour must have been phoning for help!"

"Whatever you say Rosette. Can we go inside now?"

"No, not until you admit I'm right!"

"You're right."

"Don't say it that easily! Admit it, you thought I was crazy!"

"Maybe you and Mr Aion are both crazy."

Rosette rolled her eyes. Joshua took this as an indication that he was allowed to get out of the car, so he took his keys out of the ignition and quickly ran over to the porch to get out of the rain.

Rosette leaned back into her seat and just stared at the house. It was hard to believe that she had argued to stay in this old dilapidated thing. Through the waves of rain sliding down the windshield, the old manor looked even more sinister.

And here the job had seemed to have only advantages. She had forgotten to factor in the creepiness to the house.

"I'm convinced this place is haunted." Rosette muttered, scrutinizing the house though the hazy windshield, almost expecting to see a light hovering from window to window. But there was nothing but darkness, and the windows stared back at her with their empty sockets. She shivered, suddenly uneasy. Never had she felt weary about the house like this before. Sure, there had been the fear she had felt when she realised that things were being cleaned up on their own, that someone other than herself was closing windows at night.

But somehow, that fear didn't match up to what she was feeling right now. Awareness of death overwhelmed her senses. Her heart tightened and she concentrated on taking deep breaths and making her tense shoulders loosens. She didn't understand the dread she was suddenly feeling. It was as if the house had two feelings to it, two distinct personalities.

One personality closed windows for her, and the other that was watching her every move.

It was unnerving to say the least.


Joshua's coddling had become unbearable, but Rosette bore it with grace. Despite his earlier concessions, he had spent the rest of the evening trying to convince Rosette to let Billy come stay with her to keep her company. Rosette was torn between thinking it was cute that Joshua was trying to set his friend up with his sister, and thinking that having Billy hang around was the last thing she wanted. But arguing had made her feel better, and she had completely forgotten her earlier panic attack.

She had cleaned out a room adjacent to hers for Joshua. Thanks to her new washer and dryer, the linens were clean within two hours, and she left Joshua to fend for himself while she went to bed.

Her bed was nice and clean, but the room was musty, so Rosette opened the window, with some difficulty, before going to bed. The curtain moved erratically in the night air, but she ignored it by turning around to face away from the window.

It was halfway through the night that the cold woke her up. She was curled as tightly as possible into a ball, but it didn't seem to make a difference. She wasn't awake enough yet for the thought of getting up to close the windows to cross her mind.

It was in that state, halfway between awake and asleep that Rosette heard the windows being closed. Groggily, she tried to thank Joshua, but when her hazy vision turned towards the person standing near the window, even in her half asleep state, she knew it wasn't her brother. But for some odd reason, this didn't alarm her.

"Go back to sleep." The dark haired boy said quietly. "We'll talk tomorrow."

The whole situation should have been alarming. Here was a strange boy, in her bedroom in the middle of the night, who got into the house god knows how. Yet despite all logic, Rosette did exactly what he asked. She went back to sleep without a second thought.

Years later, she would wonder why she did what the stranger asked, since it was not only illogical, but also completely against her character not to put up a fight. The only reason she could come up with was that his voice inspired confidence. He had the voice of someone much older, one that was responsible and comforting. For Rosette, who had long since lost her parents, he sounded like someone you could put your trust in. If she had been of the poetic tendency, she might have said he was a lighthouse to her boat on stormy waters. He sounded like home. But Rosette wasn't poetically inclined, and so was never able to articulate why those words were so soothing to her sluggish mind.

When Rosette opened her eyes again, sun was streaming though the closed windows, and the house smelt of burnt toast. She was tempted to stay in bed, but knew that it was dangerous to leave her brother unattended. So she got up out of bed and got dressed. Without glancing at the window, of course.

She padded down the stairs, past all the sombre painting of dark haired men. She took a moment to study them a little more closely. The last one, with the platinum blonde hair was definitely Aion Black. She didn't need to read the nameplate to figure that one out. But he looked radically different from the Mr. Black she had seen in her hospital room, and it wasn't just the age.

For some reason, she felt like this Aion, the one in the painting, was ten times harder than the one she knew. Even though he was smirking, his eyes were hard, almost bitter. It was hard to believe, but if the painter had captured Mr. Black accurately, than that would mean that he mellowed over time.

"Scary thought." Rosette muttered to herself. The boy next to Aion caught her attention. His pale face was frozen in a serious expression, and he looked slightly older than Aion. Like the rest of the paintings, he was dark-haired and had dark eyes. She felt a surge of familiarity when she looked at the young man's emotionless face, and knew she had seen it before. That was impossible though. The nameplate below the painting labelled him as Chrono Black, AD1913-1930.

"Long dead." Rosette muttered. His painting made him look dead as well. Unlike Aion's painting, in which the painter had captured the sharp eyes perfectly, this boy's eyes looked lifeless. There was no spark to them, as though they had long since resigned themselves to their fate.

The long line of Black heirs stared down at her as she reached the foot of the stairs. All of them were unnaturally handsome, and by studying their nameplates, she noticed that those who didn't die young lived an unnaturally long life. Some of the Black males lived well into their hundreds in a time when making it past seventy was spectacular.

Rosette wrinkled her nose when the smell of burnt toast intensified when she got closer to the kitchen. Only Joshua could carbonize a slice of toast. The silence of the house told her two things. One, that Joshua hadn't noticed that his breakfast was black yet, and two, that there weren't any functional smoke detectors in the house.

With a sigh, she opened the door and a few windows. Her brother was still nowhere to be seen.

"He must be in the library, that airhead." Rosette muttered to herself. She took out the blackened bread and put new slices into the toaster, making sure to adjust the intensity. Her brother had been thoughtful enough to buy jam, so when her toast came up she spread some marmalade over her breakfast. Joshua picked this time to return, with a book in hand, of course.

"Hey, that's my breakfast!" He cried out indignantly, making a swipe for the toast.

Rosette dodged and pointed out the blackened mass. "No, that's your breakfast."

Joshua looked at the burnt toast and then at the open windows before laughing sheepishly. "I guess I shouldn't have taken a look at the library."

"You must be the only person I know who can burn toast." Rosette stated between bites.

"Not true, I'm sure there's plenty of people who cant work a toaster." Joshua shot back indignantly.

Rosette wasn't going to argue that point, so she changed the subject. "What did you find?"

Joshua's face brightened immediately. "Look, I found a really old edition of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea! In French!"

"Can you even read French?" Rosette asked while chewing.

"No." Joshua said sadly. "But I'll bet there are some first edition books in there. The Blacks must have been really rich to have a collection like this!"

Joshua waved the book around animatedly. Books always did that to him. A library full of old books was as exciting to him as a candy store to a little kid. The mustier they were, the better.

"Yeah, they must have been." Rosette agreed.

"I wonder if they just had these for show or if they actually read them?" Joshua wondered, flipping reverently through the old novel.

"I doubt Aion Black read much. He doesn't seem like the intellectual type." Rosette mumbled around her toast.

Joshua nodded. "Yeah, for some reason I can't picture the old man laughing over Don Quixote with a cup of tea. He looks more of the Nietzsche type… there's some of that in the library too!"

"He wasn't always old. You should take a look at the paintings along the stairs, he was once young and handsome… not any nicer, I'm sure, but young nonetheless." Rosette polished off the last crumbs of her toasts and got up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to take a look at the library."

Joshua shrugged and went back to his book. "Whatever suits you sis, just don't kill your only brain cell."

He was rewarded with flying cutlery for his wit.

Rosette stomped off in a huff to the library. And slammed the door behind her when she got there.

"The nerve of that kid." She knew her brother's teasing was good-natured, but it was a little below the belt to take shots at her intelligence.

She looked up, and there, sitting on the stairs going up to the second floor of the library, was Chrono Black.

"You…" Rosette breathed out.

He looked exactly like the painting of course, except for his eyes. They weren't the lifeless ones from the painting. If Rosette hadn't known any better, she would have thought they were Aion's eyes. They had that glint of sharp intelligence that she had noticed only in Aion's painting.

"I'm glad to see you're doing well." Chrono replied with the same gentle tone that had lulled her back to sleep earlier that night. "I was worried when you wouldn't wake up, it was a good thing your brother found you."

He was talking about her near drowning, Rosette realised. And rather than being terrified that she was face to face with someone that should be dead, Rosette was relieved that she wasn't going crazy.

"What would have happened if Joshua hadn't come out?" She asked, because she didn't know what else to say. Would it be rude to ask him right out if he was dead? And if so, then what was he? A ghost? A vampire?

But then again, maybe it wasn't the same guy as in the painting. Other than Aion, all the Blacks look the same. Maybe he was someone from a younger generation.

"I wouldn't have been able to bring you to the hospital." He replied in answer to her question. "And I couldn't have asked anyone for help."

This answer brought a chill to Rosette's spine. "Why not?"

The library door opened behind her suddenly and Rosette spun around with a start.

"I'm going out to get more groceries Rosette, you want anything?" Joshua asked from the door.

Rosette looked back to the dark haired boy who was avoiding her gaze and looking out the window. Then she looked back at Joshua.

"Well?" He pressed.

"No, I don't want anything." Rosette replied, studying Joshua's face.

But her brother didn't give any indication that he thought there was anyone else in the room other than her. Chrono, or whoever he was, was in plain sight, but Joshua didn't see him. To Joshua's eyes, there was only his sister, and a bunch of books.

"Alright then, see you later." Joshua said and closed the door behind him.

Rosette's eyes were as wide as saucers. She re-evaluated the situation.

Maybe she really was going crazy.

"He was looking strait at you but didn't say anything." Rosette said accusingly. Chrono was still avoiding her gaze and looking out the window.

"He can't see me." Chrono said. "To him I don't exist."

"How is that possible? How can I see you, but Joshua can't?" Rosette walked over to where he was, and using all her courage, reached out and grabbed his arm.

She recoiled when her hand met his solid flesh. She couldn't tell if his skin was warm because she had grabbed his sleeve, but it was a shock to realise that he was substantial.

"It's complicated." Chrono said reluctantly. His black eyes were stormy.

"Why don't you explain then?" Rosette eyed him warily.

There was a little space separating them, but Rosette was acutely aware that he was slightly taller than she was. When he stepped closer and separated than distance, she was convinced she could feel his warm breath.

"Because I barely understand it myself." Chrono admitted. "But from what I can understand, I've been waiting for you."

"What?" Rosette's heart gave a little start.

What girl didn't secretly hope that a handsome boy said the words that were coming out of his mouth? It was too good to be true. It was as though she was stuck in one of those cheesy teen movies. And she was enjoying it.

"I've been waiting for you, Rosette Christopher. It's been so long that I thought you wouldn't come." Chrono's dark gaze locked onto hers and all of Rosette's blood rushed to her face.

"Uh…" Was Rosette's intelligent response.

"I've been hoping you could tell me why I'm here." Chrono eyes bore into hers.

"…Huh? What? I don't know." Rosette said, bewildered. "I just got here, I don't know what you're talking about."

Chrono's expression saddened. He broke contact with Rosette's eyes and looked away. "Oh. I'm sorry. I thought you would know, since the only clue I have is your name."

"My name?" Rosette echoed.

Chrono smiled darkly. "So you don't know either. Then it looks like I'm not any closer to knowing the truth. But since you're here, that must mean that things are in motion."

He looked away from Rosette's confused expression. "Imagine being alone in this house all those years with only a name to keep you company. Yes, your arrival must signify the beginning of something. I just wish I knew what it was."


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