Ansel of Pryor House

by Hayden Thorne

  “All this is mine now while I’m here,” he said, shaking his head in awe. “And—I had something to do.”

  No, his heart said. It wasn’t that he had something to do. It was more like he did the same tasks he used to do in his old home, though this time around, nothing was done to distract himself from the misery of home life or to avoid getting in his father’s way and earning another round of abusive words or a slap or two in the face. This time everything he did was—normal. Pleasant. Nothing was tied to the need for drudgery as a better alternative to pain and tears and the crippling, irrational hate of a parent.

  Ansel’s eyes misted as he listened to his heart. Yes, everything would be all right for him from there on out. He had hope now. When he glanced down and found his clothes and his hands dirty with ash, he grinned, utterly delighted.

  * * * *

  Now mindful of his time, Ansel took care to spend a good chunk of it in the library, studying, as he now called it. His book of stories remained upstairs in the master’s bedroom, so for that morning, he chose one that wasn’t fiction, and he labored through page after page of words that were cryptic beyond help. But he could manage, he told himself, scrunching his face in a determined bid for minimal understanding. Each paragraph would be read out loud before he’d go back and reread, still out loud, and struggle to comprehend.

  “It’s a book about different kinds of flowers,” he murmured at length, having gone through a handful of pages that also helped him with an occasional drawing of a flower.

  There were so many words in foreign languages that he decided not to bother with those; however, the harder he worked, the clearer things got, and after an hour of this, he had to shut the book and sit back, grimacing as a headache throbbed.

  “I wonder if Miss Peveler would be able to help me find a school I can attend. Doing all this on my own is a bit too much.”

  He blinked away the fog of pain and looked down at the book again. Then he grinned, self-consciously chewing his lower lip, at the thought that he’d just made another significant step forward despite his difficulties.

  “I suppose if I could manage to read and understand some things from a non-story book, I can read just about anything with some help.”

  The overwhelming, indescribable thrill of such an accomplishment returned, buoying his spirits further. He returned the rest of the books he’d never gotten around to reading (yet!) and spirited away the book of flowers.

  As he walked through the hallway, he gave the few paintings lining its walls a quick and casual glance. Then he slowed his pace and then stopped, blinking.

  “One moment,” he muttered as he turned around and scrambled back to the nearest painting. He stood before it, gaping in shock. “Am I dreaming? No, I’m not. Did I dream the ones before? No, I—I’m sure I didn’t.”

  The paintings—landscapes and portraits—appeared to have developed some detail in the course of his residence in Pryor House. As to when things had started to happen, Ansel didn’t know, and he dared not guess. His own strange adventures were a challenge as it was without the added confusion of magically shifting portraits and paintings.

  Yes, he could see now—certain features were more distinct than before. Eyes, noses, mouths, hair, clothes—even landscapes had developed details that gave Ansel a good idea what kind of places and people were lovingly captured in paint.

  He slowly walked up and down the length of the hallway, observing one wall first before turning his attention to the other. By the time he’d done, he was unsettled. The people he could make out in those portraits were all young, and they wore clothes that spoke of a vast span of time. Most of the clothes were definitely unrecognizable, and Ansel was sure it had nothing to do with his ignorance and everything to do with real history.

  The landscapes also hinted at human interaction within their frames. Though still a little vague, shapes could be made out, and those shapes appeared to be couples, not groups, lost in their special little world together. Ansel also realized that none were shown to be apart, that every pair walked, ran, played, or simply sat around or lay on the ground in close proximity with each other. Ansel had to walk up to the nearest landscape and stare at it more closely.

  Yes, the figures in that one were of two boys sitting by what appeared to be a pond of some kind. A casual, idyllic moment frozen forever on canvas. Ansel could make out one boy pointing at something in the water and the other leaning forward to look more closely. Around them rose gorgeous trees and even the distant shape of a castle ruin. There were a few birds flying above, and the entire thing simply spoke of simple pleasures and unadulterated happiness in a romantic, idealized world.

  All the same, Ansel couldn’t shake off that curious unsettled feeling. After another moment wondering about this newest development and finding himself—again—deeply baffled, he turned around and hurried up the stairs, his book of flowers held against his chest.

  Chapter 15

  Ansel noticed the change immediately after he’d stepped across the threshold. The master’s bedroom had brightened considerably, and unlike the previous changes, this one was nowhere near subtle. For a moment, Ansel stood against the door, wide-eyed and almost gaping, as he took in the room’s new brilliance.

  It was mesmerizing. He didn’t even realize he’d just crossed the room to deposit his books on the bed till he stood by it, looking down in hazy confusion and wonder as though he were searching for answers in those old, leather-bound volumes.

  “Maybe a nice little fire will help clear the fog,” he said, frowning, and turned around to march toward the fireplace.

  He’d just dropped to his knees with the matches when another realization dawned on him.

  “Why—it’s not as cold as before.”

  It was cool, to be sure, but certainly not icy cold. Ansel had to sit back on his heels, wonder growing. What on earth had happened between breakfast and that moment to effect these changes? They were significant enough to force Ansel to cudgel his brain mercilessly for answers. And whether or not one factor or several working in tandem with each other caused this, he also didn’t feel as lost and overwhelmed as he used to, grappling with puzzle pieces like these.

  Everything seemed to be happening too quickly, too suddenly, unless they’d already been going on for some time now, but Ansel had never sensed them. Perhaps he’d been too tightly swaddled in his terror and his shame in simply existing…

  There, that quiet guiding voice said, all gentleness and compassion in its tone. It’s a terrible way to live, isn’t it?

  Ansel had nothing to say to that despite his best efforts. Then his breath caught, his heart surging as he heard him.

  Nearly throwing the matches aside, Ansel scrambled to his feet and ran to the windows, almost biting his tongue in frustration when his desperate movements turned clumsy. It took him a few exasperating attempts at unlatching the window, but he finally got those bothersome casements open, and he was staring eagerly at the snowy scene below.

  Cedric was already there, standing in that same gap between two trees where he’d appeared twice before. This time neither sister nor pet dog was there with him. Even more puzzling was that Cedric stood facing the upper windows and looking directly at Ansel. And yet, he seemed not to see the other boy, let alone Pryor House.

  Ansel dared not move as he tried to make heads or tails of what was happening. Cedric didn’t move for what felt like an eternity—just looked quizzically up, a slight frown on his face. Then, finally, he turned his head, his eyes moving everywhere as though they were intent on finding the great house because he knew—perhaps deeply felt—that it existed but remained invisible for whatever reason.

  Compulsion made its presence known again, and Ansel took a deep breath.

  “Cedric?” he called out, wincing at how thin and almost shrill his voice sounded in his ears. When the other boy didn’t respond, Ansel tried again, this time in a louder and surer volume. “Cedric? I’m here! Can you hear me?”

>   Surprise—perhaps mild alarm—registered on Cedric’s face, and Cedric blinked.

  “Over here! I’m over here!” Ansel leaned out the window and waved both hands above his head. “Can you see me now?”

  Ansel’s heart thundered as he eagerly read Cedric’s expressions. Yes, Cedric was sensing something he couldn’t quite fathom, it appeared. He frowned deeply and took a couple of tentative steps forward. His gaze continued to move, darting everywhere, but ultimately resting on Ansel without showing a single sign of awareness.

  Cedric hesitated and moved closer. If he could see and hear Ansel, the distance right now would’ve allowed them a fairly normal conversation. He paused, eyes still fixed on Ansel, and then moved a hand and dug it inside his coat. When he pulled it out, Ansel saw that Cedric was holding a flower, which Cedric gently set down on the snow directly under the window. Not once did Cedric utter a word, and when he moved, everything was still unsure—as if Cedric doubted the logic behind his presence there. When he stood and glanced back up at Ansel, his face was flushed in embarrassment and self-consciousness.

  Then he turned around and made his way back through the bare-leafed garden to disappear in the direction of the wood.

  Ansel kept himself in check. Yes, there was again that initial urge to flee the room and the house, chase after Cedric, and hopefully catch him somewhere in the wood without being hounded by his father’s specter again. But things were significantly different this time around. It was Cedric who’d made the move to bridge that odd, otherworldly chasm between them. Why Cedric had been led there remained a mystery unless he’d also dreamed of Ansel the previous night or had been told by someone or something to seek Ansel out in the middle of a lonely patch of land.

  The flower lay on the snow—vibrant and lush, though a few petals had suffered from the flower’s containment inside Cedric’s coat, and they’d torn off and now lay scattered on the ground.

  Ansel went to the wardrobe and pulled out his coat. Before long he was standing under the master’s bedroom window, holding the flower up for inspection. It wasn’t a rose, but its apparent health or condition showed a source—perhaps a garden—that wasn’t deep in the winter season. The petals and leaves felt like velvet, the stem firm yet a little flexible. The flower boasted a faint, delicate fragrance that Ansel didn’t recognize, but he didn’t care.

  He brought it back indoors and, with permission from Mrs. Finn, found a container he could use for it. Flower and vessel both sat on a writing-desk in the master’s bedroom, and Ansel settled himself there for his afternoon “studies”, as he now called them. With the flower irrevocably linked to Cedric and the strange, almost mystical connection the two boys just had, its presence fed Ansel’s mood, which, in turn, pushed his mind to fight for knowledge, no matter how random or inconsequential.

  Ansel glanced up and regarded the flower after reading a particularly difficult passage, and smiled wistfully. “No,” he muttered, “I suppose there’s no such thing as unimportant knowledge.”

  He gently touched the petals, his fingers moving reverently as his mind replayed earlier events, and warmth suffused his face. This joy that now overcame him felt so odd. So alien. It was intoxicating, and he wished he could feel this way forever, but he knew it was impossible. Life never worked that way, of course, but it was still much more preferable than endless hours of despair, with hope always within everyone else’s grasp but his.

  “I want this. I—deserve this.” He paused and took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I deserve it. Like everyone else.”

  Then do what you need to do.

  “I will.”

  There was no hesitation there. There were no questions, and there was no confusion. After giving the flower another fond look, Ansel turned his attention back to the book and read some more. Little by little, information trickled through his tired brain. No, none of what he was reading would benefit him in any way as far as practicalities went, and so many passages still remained cryptic to him, but he found that he enjoyed reading about flowers—different breeds he’d never known about till then. Perhaps he could be someone who’d make flowers and other plants his area of study someday. Perhaps he could be a man of science, eager to discover new things about plants and share his knowledge with the world. Oh, it was a beautiful thing to imagine himself as someone older and very important with something equally important to contribute to society, but Ansel had to rein himself in once he realized he’d just wasted too much time on daydreams.

  He blinked, somewhat taken aback, when that word suddenly fixed itself in his mind.

  Daydreams.

  Silly little fantasies playing in his head. Silly little fantasies that gave him joy, regardless of their implausibility. Silly little fantasies that gave him hope despite their implausibility. Silly little fantasies that urged him to strive hard because of their implausibility. Did he have the strength for this?

  Ansel stared blankly at the open book, finding it difficult to breathe under such a sudden, overwhelming pressure from this release—this epiphany.

  “Everything’s happening so fast,” he murmured, too stunned to even shake his head in disbelief. “I don’t think I can—I—I know I can’t—”

  The dam had burst, however, when before the cracks had simply grown, allowing so many things through though at a controlled rate. But now the walls had finally crumbled, and absolutely nothing could be found as a shield behind which Ansel could hide, so he could remain in the lonely shadows of his past.

  If he’d only allow himself, he could be happy, he could dream, and he could be loved. The pain, fear, and hunger that had crippled his childhood and early adolescence would leave permanent scars, would forever define him, but he was capable of being stronger than his past. If he’d only allow himself. He deserved no less—like everyone else in the world, as he’d always said to Miss Peveler. He was no exception.

  His dream of Cedric flickered alive, forcing him to recall the other boy’s half-accusing question. “What you’ve been saying to Miss Peveler—why do you keep making that point, when you clearly don’t believe it?”

  A faint sound in the direction of the bed tore his attention away from his furiously spiraling thoughts. It seemed like the whisper of fabric against fabric. Ansel stood up, almost knocking his chair back in alarm, as he turned to look. No, there was no one in the room with him. All the same, the compulsion to investigate had returned, and it was insistent.

  Ansel didn’t even have to think. As though he were literally caught in a dream, he walked toward the bed and found the sketchbook there, lying open. A new drawing had been added, he saw, and he picked up the book for a closer look.

  It was of Cedric, of course, and this time he was standing by a structure, holding his flower up in offering. He smiled, of course, that familiar open, hopeful expression of his making itself felt despite being drawn from a side view.

  But what was perhaps the most surprising detail in that new sketch was the fact that someone was leaning out what was obviously an open window, and it was Ansel—smiling back at the other boy, a faint flush coloring his cheek. Only his head, neck, and part of his shoulders could be seen. But since he wasn’t shown to be accepting the proffered flower, Ansel guessed the two boys in the drawing couldn’t see each other, though each responded to the other’s existence that was perhaps felt deep in the gut. What Ansel observed was something he’d used to believe to be impossible, but in Pryor House, in that strange, magical home that only existed somewhere outside the physical world, he now realized how wonderfully close he was to having what he’d always needed. The chasm had narrowed considerably, but it was still there, and the effort to bridge it was left to him.

  Something told him to flip through the earlier pages of the sketchbook, and he did. Little by little, the unsettling feeling he’d had when he was viewing the altered paintings downstairs returned, but it also settled down into something surer and more comforting. Those young people he’d seen in those landscapes
and portraits were the same ones who’d been honored in that sketchbook. Each boy or girl would always begin his or her story in what appeared to be overwhelming odds—poverty, mostly, but also neglect or abuse, untended illness. Those youths were all strays and outcasts, unlucky enough to be born into families who were either too poor to properly care for them or who simply—like Ansel’s father—treated their children worse than dirt.

  But as their stories unfolded in a handful of sketches per boy or girl, there was always that indication of a second chance in the way their sad, haggard appearances would slowly evolve into healthier, brighter looks. Ansel would never know the real stories behind any of them, but at least he had a fairly good idea of what their future offered. As to how they eventually fared afterward? Well—everything lay on them, the choices they made.

  Of course, if you’d only allow yourself, you could be happy, you could dream, and you could be loved.

  For the second time since his arrival at Pryor House, Ansel wept hard for himself.

  Chapter 16

  When Ansel appeared before Miss Peveler later that day, he could sense—quite easily, too—that things weren’t the same. That, if he were to be honest with himself, things would never be the same.

  As before, he stepped meekly inside the music room, hovering by the door for a moment while searching for his benefactress. Miss Peveler normally waited for him at the piano, or bided her time on the loveseat across the room, lost in a book. That day, she stood by the piano, silent and thoughtful, her gaze pinning him where he stood. And oddly as well, Ansel wasn’t cowed or intimidated into silence; in fact, he grew keenly aware of being in the presence of something beyond all attempts at perfect understanding.

  He even stunned himself at his own audacity when he blurted out, “I—I hope you don’t find this rude, ma’am, but what are you?”

  Miss Peveler only bothered to move her hands, which she brought out from her back and clasped over her skirts. A faint smile lit her face.