Plenty of things in Vicar's life had unsettled, or perhaps disturbed him, but nothing prickled at his mind quite like hearing the infirm Winnifred and her close friend Evelyn had been trapped by the scheming motives of the doctor. "What a curious man!" Vicar chewed his lips and pondered. This Dr. Radcliffe's plans were well-thought out, if one considered how long he could have possibly stayed at Evie's house. If Vicar hadn't known any better, he would have thought the doctor was far more aware of the Thomas household than he was letting on. Why else would he arrive, only to dismiss the issue at hand he was summoned for?

None of it made the damnedest bit of sense. Vicar had been standing for hours at this point, and still, he paced in frustration. His feet cried out with every step, but he absolutely needed to understand. As Winn did not live in his house, and neither did Evie, could the reasoning for Ms. Peterson's journal being in Vicar's attic mean this was the doctor's house? Was this where the unfortunate heroine's had been relocated to after the death of Evie's mother?

Vicar sat on the ground, hungry once more. As he toed a rolling candle-holder, he wondered if he shouldn't just quit all of this and return to his own world, where gardens were not built and mother's were not known before their early deaths, where doctor's did not pursue the grieving daughters of their patients and friends were not forced into marriages they didn't want. Vicar thought about the sky now, and how different it must have looked to Winn. She could have seen clouds and the very rain fall from each spot in the cosmos, but if Vicar stood and looked out of the window, he doubted he would have seen much more than smoke. Sometimes, the sun peeked through, or the moonlight straggled its way into the city, but even the sunset he'd seen earlier through the broken attic window was a poor excuse for light. Only a hundred years had passed from one tale to the next, and yet, how horrifically it had been ruined by his generation! Then again, the burning of buildings as large and as old as his university hadn't helped, but that was a long way away from here.

Wishing he had a garden, Vicar assumed a stand once more and made his way begrudgingly over to the attic door. He was hungry again. With no way to tell the time, Vicar could only assume it had been a very long collection of hours since he'd last eaten, and he was reasonably sure nobody had brought anything else up. Then again, he'd pored through so much of Winn's journal, that he wasn't sure if he'd have been able to hear anything, were it loud as the nosing and poking around of those downstairs or silent as the pages of the old journal that lay on the improvised seat.

Hesitantly, the door opened. There was the low murmur of perhaps two or three people talking in hushed and low voices. The kettle could just be heard hissing two floors down. Vicar disliked the idea of being seen - he would have to move quickly. From where the noises came filtering up, it sounded as though the kitchens were still being occupied, but the drawing room still had hidden caches of food and drink.

At the very least, there was a very small stove and several canisters of tea in the drawing room.

Making sure there was nobody lurking behind the door, ready to pounce on him should he quit the attic, he stepped a hesitant foot out onto the cold floor. Having removed his shoes some hours past, he was grateful for the silence they provided when traversing across the wooden planks, but rather unhappy about the now-frozen state of his heels. Still, if being cold was what it took to remain as hidden as Dr. Radcliffe's motives, then Vicar was all too happy to bear with it. At the very least, he had a warm drink waiting for him downstairs.

Once he'd toed his way down all of the steps - managing to avoid creaking all but one stair - he paused and squinted around the next room. There was still one more flight to descend before he was anywhere near the kitchens or the living rooms, but Vicar had no way of knowing who had grown intrigued with the upper levels of the house. Fortunately, there was nobody waiting to surprise him. All that remained since his brother's passing in this part of the house was the crackle of an occasionally alive lamp. Where Vicar had been keen on his translations, Gaston had been a great friend indeed to re-purposing lights, and often for no other purpose than surprising his fellow residents. Even now, Vicar flinched as the ceiling fan hummed and buzzed a gloomy green colour, only to flicker back out into darkness.

The rest of his journey passed in relative silence. Once he'd padded his way to the drawing room, he managed to slip inside without a squeak, only the dust looking forlornly up at him from the floor.

"Thank the Lord!" Even from the doorway, Vicar could see the drink cabinet, glistening in the light that filtered in from the uncurtained window. How odd! Gaston had been mortally afraid of any sort of natural light - the curtains were a necessity, were always pulled heavily over the windows. In any other room, Vicar could have understood something changing from his brother's preferences. The mourners did have to move things around, after all, and it would have been ridiculous to assume they'd leave everything as it was. This was no ordinary room, though. This was the only room Gaston took any meals in, the only room he read letters in, the only room he received guests in. It was perhaps a more private collection of walls than any other in the house, and therefore the least likely for any guests to have felt the need to wander in. Why, then, were the curtains pulled back?

Unfortunately for Vicar's attentions, one more mystery was perhaps just too much to handle, and doubly so when hunger and a strong desire for a hot drink were weighing on him. The matter of the curtains was forgotten as he approached the cabinet and extracted a bottle of whiskey and a teapot. This particular teapot was outfitted with a coppery sort of shield (Vicar didn't really have any better words to think of the pot) that his brother hoped would heat up the drink within faster, and a handle made with a much thicker material than one would usually have seen on an instrument of this sort. Cautiously peering inside of the container, Vicar then looked about for something to fill it with. There was nothing readily inside.

God's favour with him having run dry, Vicar knew he would have to leave the safety of the drawing room and locate someplace with water. There were only two such locations that he knew of on the first floor, one being the kitchen which he refused to enter. The other was the washroom on the other side of the kitchen, albeit through a thick layer of walls designed to keep the smell of laundry from ruining the food. If Vicar did manage to make his past the guests, would they hear his stumbling around for water?

Tea was an awfully strong motivator. He was going to risk the meeting of those who expected him hours ago. Just the prospect of being yelled at made his insides want to curl up and disappear forever, but he was also of the opinion that a hot cup of hearty black tea would scare away the nervousness he invariably adopted when reading about the misfortunes of others.

The plan was going as perfectly as it could, until Vicar heard what everyone does when sneaking by barefoot from room to cold room in their own house - his name. Coming to so sudden a stop that the teapot flew from his grasp and bounced on the thankfully carpeted hallway, he dropped at once to the ground and trembled. After a moment of not hearing shouts directed at his head, he looked up and realised that his name was not being directed at him, but another in a hushed voice. A voice coming from the kitchen. On just the other side of the wall, no more than fifteen feet away. He wheezed silently to himself and crawled a few feet into the gloom of safety.

Now, here Vicar was pressed with a dilemma yet again. He could continue his crawl and collect his tea water, or he could determine why on Earth he was being spoken about behind his back. Not usually one for eavesdropping, regardless of the subject, this would normally have been a very easy decision, but the introduction of his brother's name now had arrested him regardless. He remained kneeling.

"Gaston wouldn't have wanted this, you know. To see him hiding away after all this time."

"You think America was hiding?"

"What else? Piere didn't want him around, made that much clear, right until he died. There wasn't much choice, but it broke Gaston's heart just the same."

"If Vicar could be loved with all of his hiding, why can't we just accept that this is too hard on him? He's it, you know."

"He very well isn't, and I don't know why he thinks that. Are we women not real? Are we to be written out of being a confidant because we married in?"

"You know what I mean - we have no claims to Andrews. Vicar knows this, and you can't say he's ever trusted us. As far as he's concerned, we're in the way of his house, and in the way of his grieving."

Vicar felt himself pale in the darkness. Was he really this predictable, this easily read? Not that he thought the women who'd been unfortunate enough to bind themselves in marriage to his family weren't worthy of anything, they just wouldn't understand. To suspect madness and failure would haunt you straight through your bloodline, would drive you to the brink of insanity unto your last days - that was something that could hardly be condemned as a reason for wanting to quit the country. Granted, Vicar hadn't yet managed to escape this, especially not since he'd been forced to return home after all, but the gossips in the kitchen didn't know that!

Convinced he was the only one not murmuring in the other room or outside, Vicar stood and fumed his way over to the washroom, filled his pot angrily with water, and marched back to the drawing room, not caring to hide himself. If anyone'd listened to their account of things, Gaston was the most attentive and caring man in the world, and Vicar was only a selfish child for hiding from his responsibilities! As he turned on the kettle and unbottled the whiskey (alcohol and tea never mixed well with him, but he was far too upset to think about this as he tipped the whiskey into his mouth), he decided that what Gaston wouldn't have wanted was a group of strangers mucking about his house, rearranging his furniture, and speaking so ill of Vicar.

"He's the one who welcomed me back, who offered me my old rooms, you vile women! He's the one who said I had a place at this house when my father as good as banished me! Well, you aren't really vile," he added as an afterthought, growing suddenly calm as he downed another swig of whiskey, "but I would just as prefer you keep your thoughts to yourselves." Dangerously close to being drunk, Vicar realised he only had a few more sips to go before quietly returning to the attic was no longer possible. Swaying in front of the cabinet, he turned his gaze to the window.

Shining as best as it could, the moon sneezed and hiccuped its way through the smoke and the clouds. The same greenish hue from the lamp Vicar passed earlier came rolling in from the fog, as though the depths of a ghost-laden ocean were rising up on the land and the city streets. Even the view of the buildings was unsettling, a hundred similar blocks of the same grey walls and the same black roofs forming a fortress around the Andrews house.

Vicar knew there was something wrong with the way his mind operated, but this felt beyond his physiology. Was this why the curtain was always drawn? Was this view exclusive to this cursed scene?

Not wanting to spend any more time looking at what had become of his house (for the bleak and dreary view was most certainly what his own home looked like, had he gazed upon it from any other location), Vicar picked up the kettle (now burning red, thanks to the copper that ensnared it), emptied the last of the alcohol into his throat, and turned to quit the drawing room. Bump as he did on the way up to the attic, nobody bothered to stop him or call him back down to his duties. They could all wait one more night - Gaston's body wasn't going anywhere.