Where's My Dolly?
Woo! So hi, I'm updating this cause I have finished my exams and am officially on my summer holiday now! Happy days!
Hope you enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 18: Behind the iron wrought gate
Leaf never thought she would see the day that she would be excited about something that is neither pleasurable nor relaxing. The plan for the day, as far as Professor Oak is concerned, is that Gary and Leaf are going to the library to do their school projects which would be true if Pallet Town had not been thrown into jeopardy only weeks ago and if the police were not so incompetent (though, their slip ups have been more beneficial than detrimental thus far).
The pair of brunets managed to rope Daisy into the plan too. She was going to make sure that the gramps abstained from calling or heading over to the other lab today. It was clear to Gary and Leaf after a while that Professor Oak had been to visit the other lab when they were informed that Professor Oak had returned only moments before they had the day before despite leaving Ivy's country home much sooner than they did. There was no doubt in their mind that he went to the lab and had already spoken to the professors there about their subsequent arrival. If what they have guessed so far really was true, they'll have a hard time getting information out and if they do, it will definitely get back to Professor Oak.
But Leaf had thought ahead. Kind of. She had played around with some ideas in her head regarding how to get the Professors to squeal but for her plan to work, the professors would have to have somewhat of a guilty conscience and judging from what they know they have been doing, she cannot say that they do.
If they fail that though, they will have to resort to her original plan, the one that she thought was the coolest anyway, after all, no story is a good story without a bit of theft, right?
"Here we are." Gary said as he and Leaf stopped outside a grand looking house that was certainly not built in this century or the last even. They had driven the car to the local library then parked it there and travelled the rest of the way by foot – according to Leaf, that made their story more believable.
"Wow. This place looks so… Sad." Leaf described in the best way possible as her eyes took in the iron gates that had been painted over in black not too long ago. The red-bricked walls were only partially visible in narrow strips between the untamed wall plants. The trees that stood tall around the house did an excellent job of concealing the majority of the house from the outside world, until you reach the gate, that is. The metal gate and the brick walls were nothing compared to the height of the house.
"Imagine coming here on Halloween." Gary commented. In his mind, he could picture this place being the house that every kid on the street is convinced is haunted by the old man who lives there but died without anyone knowing, a fitting scenario for the recent happenings in town. It would not faze them at all if that really was the case.
"This would've been the place that we'd try to sneak into, you know, if that wasn't already the plan." Leaf pointed out.
Gary nodded. She had a point there. He was itching to get inside and have a wee scope round the place. If the interior was anything like the exterior, it would make a great adventurous anecdote one day.
The pair continued forward and walked up the few creaky steps of the porch and stopped directly in front of the heavy looking brown doors; as if they were waiting for it to eerily open on its own.
Gary and Leaf have each other one last encouraging look then Leaf raised her arm and pressed on the cold doorbell once and listened to the melodic chimes of the bell.
Almost a minute had passed before they heard footsteps approach the door on the other side. There were a few clicks from the unlocking of the door and finally, the door itself opened a small crack, just enough to reveal a small part of a facial profile, a green pair of woman's eyes.
"Can I help you?"
"Hi, are you," Leaf took the piece of creased paper from Gary and squinted at the small and overly swirly handwriting, "Dr. Abby?"
The woman did not answer right away. "Who are you?" She finally replied as though it required a great deal of thinking.
Leaf made a mental note of the woman. She was being cautious, maybe they should too. She looked at Gary and tried to tell if he noticed too but it seemed not. He was clearly gazing into her mystifying green eyes; a pair of green eyes that looked exactly like they belonged to a cat; a pair that would belong to the black cat that people stayed away from in fear that it foreshadowed danger.
Leaf gave him a quick and subtle nudge in the ribs then put on a smile. "Can we have a chat?"
The woman thought for another while then opened the door wider to invite them in.
"Thanks." Leaf said as she entered the house and past the doctor into the run down looking wooden hallway.
"Sorry about the hall." The woman said when she noticed Leaf's expression towards the appearance of her hall. "We've been refurbishing the house."
"It's okay." Leaf said in return but she had to admit that the house did not look like it was being refurbished at all. It looked more like her own bedroom, like someone had been in here and trashed the place then left in a hurry.
"Why don't we go through to the living room." The woman suggested then gestured towards the first door on the right. "Take a seat and make yourselves comfortable." She said then put on a smile. "I'll go make us some tea."
Leaf watched her as she walked out of the living room through the back door of the old, country house styled room. She had to admit, when Ivy handed them the contact, she expected the scientists that this lab to be much older and less… Attractive. Dr Abby has the most stunning pink hair and she could not have been over twenty-five years of age, twenty-eight at the very most.
"Gary?" Leaf waved a hand in front of Gary's face, only to have it swotted away. He had not said a word since the door had opened and what was even more unusual was that he had not fed the woman any compliments on her beauty which is almost a given whenever he sees someone attractive, no matter how much of an age or league difference there is.
"What?" he asked.
"Just checking you're still with me?" Leaf studied his face as she spoke. Something was definitely up with him.
"I am." He replied.
"Good." Leaf made a mental note that she was going to be going solo today.
"Except for one problem."
"What?" Leaf asked. That was NOT part of the plan. She had factored in problems to appear later on.
"She's not Dr Abby." Leaf shot Gary a confused look and before she could ask him to elaborate, the woman appears through the door with a tray containing, three teacups with saucers and spoons, a milk jug, sugar and a teapot with a familiar looking tea cosy over it.
Leaf tried to remember where she had seen it before and it hit her. They were at a small arts and craft session one time when they were younger just before Valentine's day. All the kids were making tea cosies for their parents except for one person. Gary made that tea cosy. That means this must be…
"It's been a long time Gary." She says with a smile that lights up her whole face.
"It has, Anna, or should I say, Dr Anna." He replied though, the speech did not contain quite the same amount of friendliness behind it.
Leaf suddenly started to feel awkward. This certainly was not part of the plan. She felt like she had just walked in on two old flames having a reunion (which it essentially is now) and that she should be anywhere but here.
If Leaf could recall correctly, Anna was Gary's first love, his future wife, as he's used to say when he was five and ignored the ten year age gap. But then she left Pallet when Gary was only eight and he had not seen her since. Well, at least he never mentioned her again.
While Leaf had drifted away in her thoughts, Gary and Anna had engaged in an awkwardly formed conversation.
"Then after I earned my doctorate title I came back here. To Pallet." She said as if they unsure as to where "here" is.
"Gramps never mentioned anything to me." Gary said as if he was trying to defend himself to clingy girlfriend who had just demanded why he did not call her last night.
"I've only seen him a few times since I moved back here. I work under Dr Abby and I'm based in this lab most of the time anyway so I don't usually get an opportunity to go to Professor Oak's lab."
Their conversation finished short and the room relapsed into a cold silence.
Leaf looked at both Gary and Anna's faces. "So you work under Dr Abby?" Leaf asked, trying to resurrect the conversation. "What's she like?"
"Dr Abby is such a genius." Anna replied without missing a beat. "She has such a creative mind, bringing together two impossibilities: human engineering and nature; dreams and reality; infancy and maturity. She just pushes all boundaries." Anna replied, bursting with enthusiasm.
"Is that so." Leaf said, her voice dripping with suspicion. "You see we actu-"
Leaf was interrupted by a sudden song being played. "Sorry." Gary said then answered his phone. "Hey, what's up Daisy? … Sure thing. See you soon."
"What's wrong?" Leaf asked once Gary had hung up. Professor Oak must have been on his way over or something if Gary was making them abandon the mission.
"Daisy needs help." Gary said. "So, we need to get going."
"Okay." Leaf replied then turned to Anna. "It was nice meeting you." She smiled politely at her.
"You too." She reciprocated then showed them out.
Only until they were outside and a fair distance away from the house did either one of them feel safe to say anything.
"That was unexpected." Leaf threw in casually.
Gary nodded in response, a slow, not completely sure response. "Didn't think I'd ever see her again."
Leaf wanted to say that she never thought she would meet the woman that her best friend had spent about three years of his life infatuated by. But that might have been slightly insensitive and inappropriate so she kept her mouth shut.
"Where to now?" She asked instead. "What did Daisy want?"
"I text Daisy to call me. I just wanted to leave." Gary explained candidly.
Leaf decided not to question why but just went with it. She was sure he had his reasons and right now, they were insignificant. What was significant was what Anna had said in their short talk. There was something that raised questions in her head.
There was nothing like sitting in front of an open fire with a cup of hot tea and a blanket. All that was missing was a good movie and snow lying on the ground outside.
Except now was not an appropriate time for that. Gary had been a bit on the quiet side since they returned and Leaf did not know what to say. She wanted to ask him if he was okay and snoop into his mind, find out what exactly he thought of Anna or even felt towards her. But she was somewhat certain that he was not in the mood to talk, even if it was just to say "I'm not hungry" properly when asked why he was not eating much of his dinner by Daisy.
Leaf leant back so that her back rested against the front of the couch and a cup in her hands. She had taken out the 'investigation file' as she had named it and looked at all the clues that they had gathered again when she heard a sound in the distance.
Leaf turned round to the only door of the library which was slightly covered by some crammed bookshelves.
"Gary?" she called out.
She received no verbal reply but instead heard a small creak of silent footsteps against the loose floorboards.
"Daisy?" Leaf tried but no response again. Not even a creak.
Leaf gave one last suspicious look to the shielded door and turned her attention back to the paper in front of her. Sometimes she wondered why they had not written the information down in legible sentences but incoherent notes. Looking at some of them now was like trying to decipher some ancient hieroglyphics.
Leaf took the sheet and held it up high, squinting at the writing then let out a heavy sigh and decided to call it a night after a few seconds. It was a Sunday night and she had school in the morning. She needed her sleep if she was going to be able to get up and pay attention in class tomorrow.
She gathered up all the notes and held them against her chest with one arm while her free hand carried the empty mug. She could feel a slight panic rise in her as she approached the direction of the door but she calmed down again once she could see beyond the bookshelf. Nothing was there. The sounds must have been imagined or from somewhere else. That must be it.
Leaf clumsily shut the door behind her and headed towards the kitchen. She placed the mug in the sink and rinsed it out with some water, casually looking out of the window and into the darkness as she waited for the mug to fill up. She did a double take though. She swore she saw something move outside.
At least she thought it was outside at first. She definitely saw something in the window but was it outside? The house is raised off the ground slightly and directly below the window outside was a shrubby bush. The figure she saw in the window was far too life-sized.
Leaf whipped her head round to see… Nothing.
She could not quite decide if she was relieved or not. Nothing could be a good thing but it could also be one of those things that comes round when you least expect it and bite you. And that was what Leaf was afraid of.
Leaf jumped slightly when she felt the cool water overflow onto her hand and splatter loudly into the metallic basin. She quickly turned the tap off and put the cup down, avoiding looking at the window, then left the kitchen and turned the corner leading to the staircase and she thought she heard it again.
A creak on the floor boards.
Leaf did not bother to turn round this time but sped up her pace, climbing two steps at a time. She just wanted to hide in her temporary room where she knew that if there was going to be trouble she could easily scream for help and be heard by Daisy and Gary who were respectively in the room next to hers and across the hall.
Leaf made it onto the landing no problem and turned to the hall that her room was at. She felt better about being so near a place that she had started to subconsciously think of as a safe haven, a place that she could feel protected by someone she cared about and someone who cared about her.
Leaf slowed then when she reached the hall but felt her heart thump hard then stop. The window at the end of the hall, directly across from her. The reflection. It showed… It showed…
It showed that she wasn't the only one standing at the start of the empty hall.
Xxxxx
So, I kind of realised a few things as I typed this chapter and looked back to the old ones. The characters drink A LOT of tea. And nothing just happens straight forwardly. But hey, that makes a good story, right? (Please lie if you have to!)
Anyway, I hope you like this chapter and I will try to update more often throughout the summer.
Oh, one more thing before I sign off. I want to thank everyone who has supported me and helped me reach 100 review!s (Triple digits, woo!) Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It was because I got reviews for this story that I kept it going after the first two chapters (back then, I didn't really know where I was going with this) and came up with an actual solid plot. So, yeah, thanks like sooooooo much to all of you peeps out there!
Lots of love and cuddle,
*silver-hedgehog