Morning broke, the storms since moved further south, breaking up until bringing only light rain, it's briskly cold as the humidity went with the storms. The ground slowly drying out and the river that went down the winding path dried up, the intertwining trees dripped with remnants of the rainstorm.
A loud yawn echoed throughout the guest bedroom, his icy blue eyes slowly opened to see the light coming from the stained-glass window overlooking the bed, rubbing his eyes, Theodore raised his head, his arms outstretched on the bed, Lila absent.
Pushing himself off the pillow, popping his back as he stretched, slowly blinking as he turned to his side, Theodore glanced around, seeing his freshly washed clothes neatly folded on the stool in front of the vanity mirror.
A smile on his face, Theodore climbed out of bed, wrapping the bedsheet around his waist as he retrieved his clothes, gone into the loo, stepped out fully dressed, refreshed.
Stretching out his arms, Theodore popped their joints, before stepping out of the guest bedroom, his large hands in his stitched pockets, following the sound of the aptly nicknamed Howells informing Harold they can't stay for the celebration like planned.
Walking around the statue, Theodore sees the Howells standing near the large French-style doors, looking at Harold, fear in their eyes.
"It was terrible, it looked like I was staring at the Devil!" Mrs. Howell swore to Harold as he's bemused at the claim that Mrs. Howell saw glowing eyes when something woke her up early this morning.
Mr. Howell turned to Harold as he says, "I only saw it when she woke me up, but it was gone before we could do anything. It looked like it was crawling on the ceiling!"
Harold tried to calm them, but the old couple weren't having it, they didn't want to stay at the mansion, they're taking the carriage back to town, they thanked him for the invitation, but the sight truly scared them.
Unable to reason, Harold's forced to see them off, when he closed the doors, he let out an exasperated exhale, before noticing Theodore standing by the statue, quietly.
"Don't tell me," Harold sighed, but Theodore informed him that he didn't see any glowing eyes, last night, but the scene drew his interest.
Sighing heavily, Harold says to Theodore, "First one hears scratching noises, the other says he hears howling, and now, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester saw glowing eyes."
Sounds like last night was something.
Theodore tells him that he still planned on coming to the celebration, which delighted Harold, before he ushered Theodore towards the dining room, where he sees Lila, Douglas Adam, and Professor May, sitting around as they're eating breakfast served by the butlers.
"It sounded like ghosts to me," Douglas Adam argues with Professor May who munched on a piece of bacon, staring at him with a dull expression.
Chewing on the piece of bacon, Professor May goes, "Audio hallucinations, your head's filled with all those ghost stories, it's starting to affect you."
Snorting, Douglas Adam retorts, "And what's this about scratching noises?"
Shrugging, Professor May responded with, "I only told Mr. Thornton that I think there's a rat infestation behind the walls. That's probably what Mrs. and Mr. Winchester saw, a rat, but they were dazed by night blindness, that they were confused."
Tilting his head, Douglas Adam asks, "Can rats climb ceilings?"
Shrugging his tweed shoulders, Professor May thoughtfully says, "No. The distribution of the weight would make it difficult for them to cling to the ceiling. Their paws can't grip the ceiling for long, coupled with the weight distribution, it would've fallen on their bed."
Snorting, Douglas Adam then says, "Then it couldn't be rats, could just been a bat, then?"
Shrugging his tweed shoulders, yet again, Professor May only said, "I only heard the scratching noises behind the walls, I didn't see either rodent, I'm only basing on my observations."
Crossing his arms, Professor May then added, "Then, since you didn't see the howling ghosts, you don't know for certain that you heard them, either?"
Douglas made a snide comment at him and wouldn't listen to him.
Shaking his head, Professor May knew he couldn't argue with him, just continued chewing on his bacon, while Douglas went and grabbed his mug of coffee.
Sitting across from Lila, Theodore exchanged greetings with her, bright smiles on their faces, as they sat around talking, sharing bacon, and the like, while Theodore was caught up to speed what Lila listened while he was sleeping in, which he caught the tall-end of when he saw the Winchesters leaving and heard Douglas and Professor May arguing.
"For someone who prescribed the thought I had an auditory hallucination, I'm shocked you haven't come to the conclusion yourself, or that Mr. and Mrs. Winchester hallucinated those glowing eyes," Douglas pointed at Professor May as he denounced the good professor's proclamation prior, only causing the professor to quietly shake his head, before continuing to munch on another piece of bacon.
Turning his attention to them, Douglas asked Theodore if he experienced anything unusual last night, causing him to silently share looks with Lila before he says with a restrained, "Slept like a dead, sorry. Don't know what you're talking about."
Grumbling, Douglas went back to eating breakfast, Theodore, and Lila exhaling as they subtly shared looks, before they began dining on their respected breakfast.
Exhaling sharply as he entered the dining room, the bedeviled Harold looked at the remaining guests, before quietly taking his spot at the head of the table, with a maid bringing him a cup of coffee.
He looked displeased about the Winchesters leaving suddenly, that he stewed quietly while the others ate their breakfasts in silence, afraid of talking to him out of risk they'll say something wrong that'll set him off.
It's uncomfortable silence, but for Theodore and Lila, they held their conversation with telepathy, no one the wiser, and no risk of accidentally setting off Harold.
"Glowing eyes?" Theodore's intrigued about the Winchesters mentioning seeing a pair of glowing eyes looking at them rom the ceiling, causing Lila to reply with, "And howling ghosts."
Theodore had to hide the subtle smile he had at the thought of Douglas believing he heard howling ghosts.
That's preposterous, as Theodore distinctly remembered him having the guest room further down from them.
No one complained about the howling ghosts except him.
"The scratching noises?" Lila wondered as she chewed on some bacon, herself.
Shrugging, Theodore goes, "Could be rats, like he says, even if Harold took care of the mansion, rats have no shame taking it over in the spots that he can't see."
Rats aren't deterred, even if Harold had enough money, they'll still find their way into crevices, and once they established themselves, no short of fire gets rid of them.
Though, compared to insects, rats have finite room to nest in.
For the glowing eyes, maybe it was a bat that got in the Winchesters' guest room, he'd be impressed about a rat gripping the ceiling that long, but without proof, it's speculation, and nothing really grabbing Theodore's interest.
"Dunno, the Winchesters seemed spooked," Lila subtly shrugged as she points out that there's something to the Winchesters' claim that they saw glowing eyes.
Well, it wasn't like they're getting anything more from them, since they fled the mansion like bats out of hell.
The two didn't have any encounters of something going awry, not that they'd remember.
"When I got up, I just picked up your clothes and folded them for you, the only thing I heard was your snoring," Lila says that nothing looked out of place when she woke up first.
Just a snoring aloof giant sleeping in bed, leg half exposed from under the blanket, part of the blanket pulled down, exposing his back, and his arms outstretched.
Their conversation ended when Harold finally spoke up, stewing in silence, his voice remaining calm and collected, asking them if they're deterred from the celebrations due to the Winchesters' unusual experience.
Professor May and Douglas say they weren't, they didn't see any eyes, they didn't have proof of what they heard, no reason for them to leave.
Theodore and Lila didn't see or hear anything, either, and well, there's the matter of the letter, that they'd be foolish if they left without learning what's going on in the mansion.
Delighted, Harold thanked them for their understanding, he apologized profusely for the inconvenience of them staying in the mansion, but easily forgiven.
"The celebration shall commence in time, I've prepared several courses, drink pairings, desserts, and all," Harold smiled at them as he informed them what he planned for the celebration.
Once breakfast concluded, Harold resumed the tour around the mansion, this time, he held it outside, since they didn't get to see the garden in the back of the mansion.
Among the flowers, hedges, there's statues, one of them caught Theodore and Lila's eyes as they walked towards it with intrigue.
It's an old statue, showed its age with how worn it looked, there's a spot on the base where the statue sits that looked like something was carved into at one point, but due to the water besieging it, it wore out whatever was carved at the base.
To describe the statue, it was a woman, the rainwater wore away most of the details carved into the statue, but the most striking were the wings, having lost the intricate ridges that separated the feathers, it looked almost like bat wings.
Harold said it was one of the Thornton originals, however, as they see, it's seen better days, and no chance restoring it to its proper visage, without risking ruining it.
"What's it supposed to be, like an angel?" Lila asked a simple question, figuring it was just one of the standard angel statues that proved popular, and she's able to deduce that it wasn't a masquerading weeping angel that decided to make a new home in the garden of the mansion.
She sees hesitance in Harold before he answered her, "Yes, but this one's special, it was made by the late Lady Thornton, said to have fallen into madness."
Harold tells her that Lady Thornton made the statue in her bouts of madness, no rhyme or reason, said to have attacked anyone who attempted to move or destroy it, that it remained in the garden since.
"Why did she fall into madness?" Theodore asks Harold why Lady Thornton fell into it, Harold telling him that she'd just lost her youngest son to typhoid, her middle son having gone missing inexplicably, and her oldest crippled following an accident, also disappeared shortly after.
Since there was no such thing as mental health or any doctors capable of treating her, Lady Thornton saw treatment that considered barbaric or snake oil, as expected, neither helped her, only worsened her condition, until the night she attacked and killed her husband.
No one knows what happened to her, she allegedly disappeared after that night.
There's a myriad of stories about her haunting the mansion, said to howl and shriek late at night, in her bitter attempt at reuniting with her children, but no one's reported such a sighting, so Harold thinks it's only tall tales.
"They never found her body?" Lila blinked as she looked at Harold as he stared up at the statue.
Shaking his head, Harold says, "No. Some historians believed that she drowned herself in the river not far from here, but no one's certain."
No death certificate, no bodies were found since then that matched her description, and from the many renovations of the mansion, no one found her skeleton, either.
It's as though after she slashed her husband's throat, she disappeared, vanished.
"Creepy," Lila recoiled as Harold lowered his head to look at her, "what about the other sons, what became of him?"
Harold mentioned Lady Thornton's first and middle sons disappeared, too.
Again, no body, no death certificate, with the renovations, no one reported finding even one skeleton buried somewhere in the mansion proper, that it's hard to say what became of either two.
"Undue stress from such losses can be a difficult challenge to maneuver around, wouldn't you say, professor?" Harold glimpsed towards Professor May as he looks up at the statue with interest.
Nodding, Professor May said that enough stressors can set anyone off, with Lady Thornton look her only sons in such a short time, bound to cause something to bubble to the surface.
As Harold said, that mental health wasn't understood as it is, now, that it's difficult to know what Lady Thornton suffered from since there's no official paperwork detailing her symptoms, but Professor May hedged severe depression and mania, given that she made the statue.
"Why an angel statue?" Theodore's curious about the reasoning Lady Thornton made an angel statue, Harold told him that no one knows why, one day she sat in her garden, with lumps of clay, sculpting and crafting, mixing bits of metal, whatever she felt, that it wouldn't surprise him if she had unknowingly exposed herself to copious amount of lead.
"Some claim that Lady Thornton was visited by an angel who told her something and the angel statue she made was to signify that she understood," they heard Douglas claim that there's a theory going around that Lady Thornton had an encounter with an angel, before her maladies began, and when she lost her sons, the statue was to show she understood the message.
Turning his head, Professor May goes, "What message's that?"
Shrugging, Douglas says, "Dunno, that's the beauty of it, no one knows what really went on in those days, no one has a time machine."
The men debated over the angel statue until Harold pulled them away, touring the garden while they had a chance before the rains come again.
Despite the owners over the years, the garden remained like it been since its first inception, the pond remained maintained, and Harold says there's fish in it that've been alive for at least over fifty years, give or take.
Peering into the pond, Theodore sees the schools of fish as they swam around, koi, of various shapes and sizes, speckles, spotted, singular colour.
Certainly fed, the pond carefully maintained, the koi have it better than most fish do, with the statues, no crane bothered them, thus they're allowed to swim without worry, just carefree swimming.
The water clear, Theodore sees the stones at the bottom, not even a piece of algae attached to them, the stonemason walls didn't have a hairline crack, plenty of underwater foliage for the koi to hide among, and Theodore sees there's hideaways for them to swim into if they're threatened.
Living the best life, them.
"All they're missing's a martini glass and a paper umbrella," Lila commented on the sight as Theodore chuckled, replying that they'd have little straw hats on top of it.
The tour continued until the end, when Harold's stopped by a maid, informing him of something, couldn't hear, but he promised to retrieve the guests when he finished handling a pressing manner.
Left on their own accord, the guests mingled, before breaking off to walk around the massive garden, everything pristine, not even a blade of grass bent or too long.
Their arms interlocked, Theodore and Lila took the time to walk around the garden in a leisurely stroll, the professor and Douglas off doing their own things while waiting for Harold's return.
"Yay 24-hour allergy medicine," Lila noted how she'd have a sneezing fit already, hadn't she taken her medicine prior to this, fast acting, too.
Despite the allergies, Lila admired the flowers in the garden, not a wilting petal, everything smelled nice, and it looked like a backdrop for garden magazines.
"Mum would've liked it," Theodore noted that his late mother appreciated work like this, having had her own garden, she be out here walking among the hedges and the flowers, her arm interlocked with his father's.
Gently rubbing her interlocked hand against the side of his arm, Lila complimented, "Hm, if I had to choose, hers looked better."
Mrs. Smith's garden had the charm that this wasn't didn't have, every set of flowers had a meaning to her, remembrance to an event that happened.
From the birth of her children, to wedding anniversaries, Mrs. Smith preferred meaning in her garden than only flowers that looked nice.
A warm smile on his face, Theodore thanked her with a kiss to the side of her head, a giggle from Lila, before they continued their leisurely stroll.