So I couldn't update too much yesterday because I had to have dinner with my fam. Between my dad dropping the pie and my grandmother dropping her bracelet in the toilet and everyone talking about politics at the tops of their lungs, I got a severe headache and could barely look at a screen let alone think up a new chapter. That's what you get when you take six Italians and combine it with chocolate pie…
Thanks to DeluxeMagnum69 for reviewing the last chapter. I have been softening up to the IbxGarry fandoms, but I still have only one setting in my mind for Garry: brother. It's just what my mind is hardwired to think. I do understand that the age difference isn't that high (considering my parents are 8 ½ years apart and my aunt and her boyfriend are about 15 years apart) but I have something else in mind for Garry this time around (*snickers*).
Rate, review, tell your friends, eat pudding with a fork. Thank you.
"Oh crap," Cassia muttered as they entered the next room.
There were no doors, just walls. An olive green pattern laced the top and an ornate design cascaded down the ivory paint in pillars. Cassia and Holly turned around to go back, but the hallway disappeared behind them.
"Now what?" Holly asked.
"Let's look around for switches or more paint," Cassia said, moving forward towards the wall. "Maybe we can get to a clue."
They split up, fanning out to all the walls. Holly looked on the left, Cassia on the right. She ran her hands across the wallpaper, looking for notches or loose paper. She scanned the room and something caught her eye. She went over to the front wall and saw that there was more paint dripping down from a crack. She ran her hand over it and saw that half of it was dry and half of it was still dripping. Suddenly, she heard a familiar stamping sound and stepped back, but there were no words this time. Suddenly, the lights went out. Cassia stumbled backwards and hit the back wall.
"Cassia?" Holly whimpered. "Cassia?"
"I'm here Holly," Cassia said towards the sound of her voice. "Just stay there. They'll come back on."
They did, in fact, come on again, but the image they were met with shocked Cassia. The entire room was covered in words. Huge, painted words crudely fashioned all over the floors, ceiling and walls spelled out this:
PAINT THE WAY
PAINT THE WAY
PAINT THE WAY
PAINT THE WAY
"Paint the way?" Holly asked. "Is that Belle's handwriting?"
"No," Cassia said. "It's crude, more childlike. Curvier. Belle's handwriting is more regal, fancier. Like she was well taught or wrote often."
"Have you seen this before?"
"Once, when I first came in here," Cassia said, examining the letters on the wall closer. "It said, 'Not alone, not alone, find them all, if you want to go home.'"
"Is there someone other than Belle here, you think?"
"Maybe," Cassia said. She opened her bag and fished around inside. Once she pushed aside her notebook and ebony pencils, her hand closed around a small stick of wood. She brought out the bristly paintbrush – her biggest one – and flipped it around. "As for the clue, I have an idea."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nothing happened the first time they tried.
"Okay," Garry said, "It's a start."
"She said that the hall she was in was empty," Adrian supplied. He pointed to the two other people in the hall with them, looking at the paintings at the end of the area. "Maybe we need to empty it first."
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a convert," Garry smiled at Adrian. Ib laughed a little under her breath.
"I figure you're either telling the truth, or you'll get arrested for trying to jump into a painting and be out of my hair forever," Adrian shrugged. "It's a win-win."
"Can you get those people out of the hall?" Ib asked. Adrian nodded and went over to the two people. Garry and Ib watched him as he flashed the couple a winning smile and said a few things, then they were led out of the hall by him.
He came back and said, "Mission accomplished."
"What did you say to them?" Ib asked incredulously.
"I said that I was an official working for the museum and that I was asked to clear the hall for tour purposes," He smiled crookedly, almost like Garry does. Garry couldn't help but compare Adrian to himself and some of their shocking similarities… and shocking differences. "I even threw in that you were an art critic visiting with your daughter."
"Nice touch," Garry said. He pointed back to the lights and said, "Ib, get the lights again. Let's try this one more time."
Ib went over to the lights and flicked the switch up and down, up and down. Garry had a strange sense of vertigo and he knew it was working because he was it in Ib's eyes as well.
"Stop now, Ib," Garry said, and Ib stopped the lights. None of them dared look behind them to see if the area at the end of the hall was still inhabited by art enthusiasts and museum-goers. "Did it work?"
Ib was the first to turn around. She ran to the end of the hall, Garry in hot pursuit. Adrian trailed behind, probably scared of the outcome. Ib and Garry emerged into the large domed area, and what they saw shocked them. The area which had been previously taken up by about twenty people looking at art was now deserted. You could cut through the silence with a knife.
"It worked," Ib squeaked.
"Come on," Garry grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down the hall towards where Adrian was, an when they found him they saw he was staring at a little blue stain under the painting, like it just dripped out or appeared out of nowhere.
"It just… came out," Adrian said.
"This is good," Ib said. "This is very good."
"Ib, go up and touch it," Garry prompted her. She looked at him nervously, but he smiled down at her and said, "It's okay. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
Ib nodded and went up to the blue splotch of paint. She reluctantly stretched her arm out, and her fingers met the wet paint. There was a stamping noise, and on the floor letters spelled out. But they didn't say 'Come Ib'. They said something different:
COME ADRIAN
"Me?" Adrian's face paled. "Why me?"
"I don't know," Ib said. "But we'll find out."
She grasped Gary's hand tightly in one hand and Adrian's shaking one in the other. They looked at each other and Garry nodded to Ib.
"Let's go," he said.
Together, they jumped into the painting.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"All done," Holly said, leaning back from the wall, wet paintbrush in hand.
She'd spent about five minutes tracing the outline of a door and a doorknob on the far wall. She'd spent some time on the detail, making it look like the doors she'd previously walked through. Nothing happened for a moment, then the lights shut off again. The darkness was quick because it was only out for a few seconds, but when they came back on the letters had changed:
IT WON'T WORK
IF NOT BY HER HAND
"That's Belle's handwriting!" Holly exclaimed, running up to the wall. She ran across the swooping, curly writing with her fingers and said, "She's trying to tell us something that the other one won't."
"'If not by her hand'…" Cassia said. She held out her hand and said, "Holly give me the paintbrush."
Holly handed her the paintbrush and she filled the end with paint. She then traced over the door Holly drew with careful precision. As she painted, the blue paint seemed to shimmer in the light, as if pumped full of bright glitter. When she was finished, the door frame glowed, and suddenly a knob popped out of the wall like a card would pop out of a dispenser.
"You have magical painting powers!" Holly gleefully exclaimed, spinning around. Her dress twirled around her.
"I highly doubt that," Cassia muttered, putting her paintbrush back into her bag. She pulled on the knob, and the wall opened up like a door. She gestured to the door and said, "Shall we?"