PART 2: The Princess of Cloudy Castles
He came down the stairs; his trek would have definitely become shorter but more painful had he not grabbed hold when he slipped while on the lower section.
"A tip for the future—next time turn the lights on," he quietly but nevertheless angrily criticized himself.
Shaggy entered the living room. It was then he noticed the hairy lump on the rug. A smile crossed the young man's face. It seemed like Scooby Doo did not bother to retire for the night to his own room. And that already was an omen: the dog had probably visited the kitchen. In the dark he noticed another figure beside the Great Dane. Much smaller in size but unquestionably of the same breed, a young dog slept soundly, using Scooby as a pillow. Great, so they both had had supper… but maybe they still left him something.
Shaggy brought his hand down and carefully patted his best pal on the head. Scooby mumbled something in his sleep and nodded his head. The human chuckled lightly at that reaction before patting the tiny pooch, who gave no response. Having them around was not just great—it was beyond it—and he would not have been able to imagine life without them…He immediately regretted that this thought came to his head that moment. It sparked new associations. The young man sat down on the sofa trying to churn them.
Truly, ghosts were not the only beings that could haunt a person. Thoughts and memories did as well.
That would be groovy.
This phrase sounded in his ears, a late and distant echo. For a few seconds it made him shake as though he had caught a fewer. It sounded so charming, so sweet-toned. But he could not comprehend how something so nice could be so haunting as if it had made a distant, and the worst part, unnatural, journey from beyond.
He threw a look at the TV set. Shaggy thought that if it suddenly turned on by itself, and a nightmarishly familiar zombie-looking announcer would address him and reply from the other side of the screen…that would be slightly, but only slightly, a more preferable haunting.
Am I really that desperate that I'm thinking of such things? That thought crossed his mind, "Probably so," a possible continuation to a statement formed.
Shaggy stood up and proceeded to walk back to his room; he was not hungry anyway. He did not keep to his earlier instruction and went up the staircase surrounded by the night's dark.
Finally, he reached his room. He stepped to the window but the scene outside had not changed since last time: darkened windows and an empty street, burning streetlamps and the celestial form of the moon.
A tear slid down his cheek as he made a deep but trembling breath. He would probably be suffering from insomnia this night. Still standing, he closed his eyes, trying to keep the tears away. He remained like that for a bit, unpierceble darkness before him. But then it faded away as if Shaggy Rogers walked through a mystic portal.
—
These things kept repeating with a frequency of a performance in a theatre. The similarities did not end there. Like any play, be it Elizabethan or kabuki, the events followed an established formula. It was the case once again.
There were the warnings. There was the setting. There was the monster. There were the suspects and the clues. All of the appearances and characters changed from one installment to another but the act continued. Ultimately, everything ended like a scripted event. The monster would find itself locked in the jaws of a trap, or hanging in a net in mid-air. Then would come the unmasking part.
It was no different in this case.
The police had already arrived to take the criminal for a free ride to the local prison. What they saw was the suspect—what seemed to be a human-sized gargoyle—lying on the green summer grass, pinned to the ground by a net or at least some sort of net-like thingamabob. Giant wings sprouted from the creature's back, yet it had no use to it while the monstrosity was in its snare. The gargoyle turned its head in the direction of the cops, possibly the only movement it was free enough to make.
"Ok, then," said the sheriff, catching the gaze of the beast, "what…is…that?" he made breaks in his statement but his voice remained solid.
"Not what, sheriff, but who," he was corrected by one of the few people present near the vanquished creature, a flaming-haired girl in her early twenties.
She stepped out of the midst of her company, and lightly walked to the beast until she stood just before it.
"That is none other else than…" her statement was addressed not just to the police but all those who witnessed this awkward to the uninformed scene, "George," she said as she pulled off the mask, revealing a man in his early forties.
"George?" sounded a gasp of another man, an older one by the sound of his voice.
The sheriff threw a look at the speaker. The man was truly old: age had repainted his hair snow-white, and his face had been crossed by wrinkles. Yet he still stood soundly on his feet, the frame proud. The extravagant jacket he wore hinted that this man definitely did not have to do hard work to make a living.
"George," he repeated the name, lightly shaking his head as if he was still skeptical, "But why?"
"Just greed," the young woman replied.
It was then she gave an account, which was both an interpretation and summary at the same time. It was a tale of a man who dressed up as a gargoyle to terrorize his rich neighbor's household in order to create a distraction while he looked around for the alleged and possibly mythical precious stones allegedly left hidden by one of the mansion's previous owners somewhere in the building after his death over fifteen years before. It made sense to the sheriff. The old man too found it logical. And the suspect could not deny it.
"Am I right?" she turned to the captured wrongdoer.
The guy behind the gargoyle's mask made a fake chuckle, "What do you expect me to do? Confess on the spot because some little redhead bitch says so?"
"I'm not telling anything," he circled them all with a hostile look.
"Well," said the sheriff, "I suppose this means you're going to take a ride with us to the nearest station. And I hope you'll be in the mood for talking by the time we get there," he thought he could never understand why crooks tended to deny the obvious even after being caught red-handed.
In the end, the creep got what he deserved and ended up traveling in the back of a police car, his wrists handcuffed.
Only five of them were now left standing in the mansion's front yard.
"I don't know how to properly thank you enough for your help," the old man said, his words accompanied by light gesticulations.
"No thanks are necessary," the young woman said.
"Like that's what we do," Shaggy, silent during the unmasking, finally spoke.
His gaze slightly shifted as he saw dawn color the horizon in the distance. He had to admit that this place looked actually nice. By one side the landscape, grass its only vegetation, seemed to stretch on and on, going upward and turning into higher ground miles away. The building they stood before on the other hand was not a contrast to most other mansions they had had the chance or bad fortune to visit. No matter what part of the country they stood in, the structures always had an amount of grimness in common. That, or either he had bad taste in architecture.
Shaggy shivered slightly—the early morning air was quite chilly even during summer.
"Then please accept my big thanks," the old man responded.
The mission was over, and that meant it was time to hit the road once again.
"That was a really neat trap you came up with, Scrappy," the girl said to the pup as they approached the van, referring to the snare used to catch the villain.
"Oh, thank you, Daphne," Scrappy Doo replied in his typically light tone, "but I could have never come up with it without the help of my uncle Scooby!" he gestured with both his front paws in an introductive manner towards the Great Dane that stood on his four on the ground beside him.
"Oh…" the big dog chuckled in his raspy style, though he had no idea what his nephew meant. He put his paw on Scrappy's head and patted him.
They all took their places: Daphne behind the steering wheel, Shaggy next to her, and the dogs in the back of the van. And so they were off from the scene of their recent case. The owner of the mansion watched the vehicle become smaller as the distance between them grew until it completely vanished from his sight. The old man silently thanked them again before turning around and retreating towards the inside of his spacious dwelling.
Shaggy leaned into his seat and turned to the side window. He gazed at the landscape by the other side. Green spaces unused by farmers spread out forward and back, molding into hillocks at the borders of the early morning sunrise. Random trees began appearing in sight before the road led them into a divided grove. Pines and other high trees stood proudly by each side, together their own miniature world. He saw a squirrel rush to the nearest giant, slightly frightened by the noise of a moving vehicle. The young man turned away from the views of the wild.
He heard the voice of Scrappy Doo breaking the silence as he addressed his uncle.
"Hey, Uncle Scooby," the pup sounded as curious and joyful as always, "tell me again how you saved all those prized dogs from that mean Geronimo ghostie. Pretty please."
"Rokay," barked the older dog, "Now, rere to rart…" Scooby Doo hummed, thinking about a proper introduction.
Shaggy raised a brow lightly. That Scrappy with his celebrity-like admiration for his uncle. Like, had he not heard those tales several times after all this time of being with them?
And then Scooby recounted that story in the most unique and at the same time common (to himself) manner as he could. The dog managed to unite most methods of storytelling. It contained everything: partially a narration in his raspy voice; partly sound impressions, although not actually well-done; something like charades was also featured; and of course there were dramatic reenactments of certain parts. Shaggy loved Scooby Doo both as a pet and a best friend, but one thing was beyond denial, Scooby's narration skills were not that good; to be honest, he would not have understood anything from this account had he not been one of the people witnessing it.
However, any genre had a following, and so did Scooby's.
"Gee, Uncle Scooby, that's so neat!" Scrappy Doo definitely had different poetic tastes, "I want to be just as cool as you are when I'm your age!" he kept jumping up and down.
The Great Dane replied with another flattered 'ooh'. As the pup's applauding words kept floating across the back of the van, Shaggy remained silent, calmly watching the view in front of him. The Mystery Machine had driven out of a grove, and he hoped he would soon see the edge of a town materializing in the distance. He wished it would be sooner than later— it was almost breakfast time. They really should have asked the owner to pack some sandwiches as a token of gratitude.
He kept looking at the road, already imagining how a diner would appear on their path and what he would order there.
Shaggy had friends who believed that letting a woman drive a car was just as wrong as playing football on a minefield. He disagreed with such a view. In contrast to this flawed stereotype, Daphne knew how to drive that one did not have to regret not leaving behind a will before the journey. One did not have to shake all the time and keep his eyes shut in order not to see the sight that would precede that of an operation room and doctors in white coats. No, Daphne's driving was calm and steady, perhaps in a way even soothing.
He slightly turned towards the driver's seat. The redhead kept her eyes on the road, her hands resting on the steering wheel. Shaggy was aware of another thing about Daphne—there was nothing easier than throwing a glance at her, but tearing his eyes off the redhead was a problem…
Her charms were irresistible. Every time he looked at her, whenever he heard her voice, he felt his heart make an additional beat.
He loved her. Yet this type of love was different than that a person experiences towards a good friend.
It had been hard to accept this at first; even now as he sat next to her, peaking with a corner of an eye it remained just as hard. However, something hidden in the deeps of his consciousness troubled him. He thought that a weak voice kept whispering to him. Perhaps he was just becoming paranoid in his early twenties? But that was not the worst part. It was the content of this transmitted message that bothered him. It held to its thesis like to a shield. This non-written note contained only several words and the simplest claim: that this was wrong. There were no serious arguments provided but the tiny voice within him stood firm to its position.
Shaggy did not know what to do, and most of all, how had he reached this condition. This was not so just several years ago when there were five of them, constantly hanging out together and solving mysteries as an inseparable team. He and Daphne were close friends, the same applied to him and Velma. There had not been any hints of him experiencing more than friendly feelings to any of the two. He had even made light, harmless jokes about their relationships with other men. So when did it change and how exactly?
The most obvious point to be marked was after the gang split up, all of them ending up on different path. Eventually he got reunited with the redhead as an aide in her reporting career. Yet the point of divergence lay not there. She was still just a friend.
He had searched for it on a number of occasions.
"Hey Daphne, how well are you familiar with the local geography?" he needed to say something, afraid that his companion might have noticed his glance.
"Not actually sure myself," sounded her silvery voice, "Why are you asking?"
"Just want to know where the closest diner is," he laughed.
"Riner?" was Scooby's expected reaction, "Yummy-yum-yum."
"Easy there, Scooby," Daphne giggled, "We should come across one at some point."
Her words later proved true. The place was not big but it served its purpose well.
"That was good, wasn't it Uncle Scooby," said the pooch comfortably leaning into the diner's soft furniture.
The window they sat by—the humans at one side of the table, the dogs by the other—opened a view of the inn's parkway and the road. Car after car would drive past them, each going their own way in the now awoken country in this bright morning.
Their meal was complete, and the team now just sat there, taking a break from the journey; most of them at least. Daphne made a noise hinting on irritation as she crossed out another statement in her notebook.
"Nah, doesn't feel right," she quietly commented.
"What's the matter Daphne," Scrappy asked.
"Oh, just can't come up with the best way to paraphrase a paragraph in the article I'm writing," she replied, playing the pen with her fingers.
They had a long road ahead, literally. They would spend a big portion of the day in travel as it often happened, and after that find lodging in a motel.
Shaggy did not have to knock on the door to her room; it had been agreed he would drop in on her to check out her article and give an opinion on it at seven in the evening. In a way, it was a tradition.
The young man turned the doorknob and entered.
The room differed little from the one he got. Very few pieces of furniture decorated it: a bed, a wardrobe, and a small table with a chair. He found Daphne where he expected least; resting on the bed, the same pen and notebook lying beside her.
He approached her. Indeed, she was asleep. Perhaps whatever she was doing her report on was more difficult than she had expected. He wondered whether he could gently wake her up, but he quickly decided against it—she deserved rest after an entire night of fleeing from or pursuing the gargoyle.
Perhaps it would be better just to check out the article? He carefully sat down beside her and was about to lift the notebook when his gaze ended up bound to her dreaming pretty face. She was just as astonishing in her sleep as awake.
His earlier pondering returned. When exactly did his views on her change. Perhaps during the earlier mysteries they shared as the two remaining humans in the gang when she had a chance to display all of her qualities and skills.
Nevertheless, as he sat there he could hear the earlier thought return. He again felt himself like a condemned criminal. He felt as though he had betrayed the gang and its principles by falling in love with her. He felt sinful. He wondered what she would think if she ever found out? What would Fred and Velma think?
He saw Daphne's lips move in her sleep as she trembled slightly before turning to the other side. She was probably reliving one of the gang's previous adventures in a dream. As a side effect Shaggy received a light kick with her heel. This made him chuckle quietly.
Ok, I should like be going and let her rest.
He was about to stand up and make an exit when another thought crossed his mind. He looked at her sleeping form again. He really had an urge to kiss her, so strong her charms were. Yet another part of himself was already labeling him a pervert for thinking thus. No, his wayward desire would not come to pass!
"I love you, Daphne Blake," the sincere but unintended words slipped out as compensation.
Standing up, he carefully walked to the door so as not to break her slumber.
"Did you really mean what you just said?" even the softest voice could strike a person as sharply as lightning in the middle of a storm.