Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Avoiding the Plot

Victor wasn’t anywhere in the manor from what I could tell the next morning. After our adventure the day before I was a bit hurt. That was until I remembered this was a normal part of the book.

After seeing Victor act like a bloodsucking critter (ok, a vampire) Annalise was supposed to feel completely confused by the situation. What compounded Annalise’s confusion was that Victor also left to attend to some emergency the next morning. So she stewed on her own thoughts by the window until she couldn’t take it anymore and then went to wander the grounds. I was definitely confused, but not in a sit by the window and brush my hair 100x with the silver brush confused way. Now I wanted to know if Victor knew me, if he’d just gone to the same school, or how he knew that was my school.

I hadn’t even realized how giggly this whole line of thought had made me until I noticed Bearon standing awkwardly behind me at the entrance to my room. It took me another minute to work up the confidence to acknowledge him after realizing he was there. “Yes?” I asked at length as I turned with the largest fake smile I could muster.

“I came to check on you my lady, you didn’t come down for breakfast,” he replied.

I hadn’t even realized I hadn’t, “oh I forgot.”

He was eyeing my desk suspiciously. “You should be careful… my lady,” he continued, “while the lord of the manor is out he has requested you don’t explore too much.”

“Ok,” I replied. I did my best to sound chipper.

Bearon seemed like he was about to loudly sigh but stopped himself before it became too obvious, “you certainly shouldn’t go into his study… my lady.”

Oh yes the study. I, I mean Annalise, was supposed to traipse down there and learn Victor is older than I thought and then go back downtown on my own and learn more about how he’s a vampire or something nefarious. There was just one issue, if he really was transported here like me I honestly didn’t care. I did the worst possible thing to respond, “sounds great!”

Bearon looked extra annoyed as he bowed and took his leave of me. Something told me that wasn’t going to be the last of him that I saw that day:

Maybe it was stubbornness, or maybe I was just curious if I could turn Bearon into a gummy bear, but I proceeded to spend the day doing everything in my power to avoid the next plot point and not go into the study. I took an early walk in the garden where I verified that Victor’s anxiety inducing plant was indeed still thriving. To my surprise no dead creatures appeared. Nor did any life size animal employees.

I next investigated the hallways of the house. I was debating whether I was actually allowed to enter any of the rooms as I meandered down Victor’s awkwardly historically incorrect hallways. One thing that did surprise me was that all of the paintings were of Victor. To a ridiculous extent. Even sillier was he looked just as morose as he had when I found him melting into the chair in his own study. In some of the paintings he was even seated in the same chair. I was marveling at how silly this seemed when I came across Bearon dusting off a particularly large painting upstairs. He turned his head to stare at me as I walked by him. I was not surprised to see his eyes follow me as I headed for the end of the hallway. He smirked as I almost turned the wrong way down a different hallway. “I’m not snooping!” I yelled back at him as I turned the other way.

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I was disappointed to see Robin was still not a bird as I went down for lunch. It seemed my wanderings may have been akin enough to Annalise’s to keep things moving. Or at least things stable in the world. This vexed me given what I really wanted was a gummy bear Victor. What was really baffling to me was how much the estate in general seemed unchanged given how much the rest of the world changed when I deviated from the story. Besides the animals of course. What also was fairly baffling was how Bearon seemed to always know exactly where I was.

I saw him creeping behind me in the garden on my afternoon walk. “Do you need something sir Bearon?” I asked him as saccharinely sweet as possible.

“Sir?” he replied with an annoyed tone. He sighed, “I was checking on you, my lady.”

“Am I all checked up on?” I replied.

I could have sworn he rolled his eyes as he turned to walk back towards the mansion, “please do let me know if you’ll be needing tea today. And please make sure to avoid the study.”

“I’m too busy with the flowers anyways,” I replied.

“The flowers,” he mumbled. I was disappointed to see he still looked relatively human. I was hoping for at least some bear paws.

I saw him again creeping behind me towards the kitchen when I went in for a snack. It didn’t surprise me to hear him whisper under his breath, “the study.” I half expected him to be a bear by the time I headed back to my room for the evening. But I was surprised instead to see everything was normal. I had almost started to wonder if things only went haywire when Victor was present. Or at least I wondered that until I noticed something was off about the room. It seemed almost… cloudy? I was standing in what appeared to be a thick hazy cloud.

I took a minute to try and assess the source of it. Was something on fire? It almost seemed like there was smoke. But strangely it was only around me. I moved to the window to observe the hazy cloud follow me. It dissipated a bit by the window. I felt a pang of anxiety as I debated if this meant that I was about to turn into a gummy bear by not following the plot. I wished I had a mirror in the place to see if this was turning me into a duck or something. I tried to flap the window at myself to see if I could catch a glimpse of my own reflection. I hadn’t seen my own face since I’d gotten here and true to the story, still couldn’t see it in the window pane. I was amazed that there was glass on the window at all. After all glass didn’t become popular until the early 17th century. Sure the Roman’s started using it around 100 AD. But their mere presence here suggested Victor or Victor’s predecessors had spent some crazy money building this place. I would have continued down this line of thought had I not wanted to figure out what was generating the haze.

I noticed the haze was stronger in the bedroom which made me then start to assess what could be hiding in the room.

I went to grab the closet door to see if there was something in there when I noticed something even more concerning. When I grabbed the handle of the door it began to light up as if it were getting very hot. I dropped it as quickly as I had grabbed it. Was it melting?

I went to grab the second handle and saw the same thing. I nearly jumped backwards as I noticed the singe marks next. So something in here was on fire. I felt the realization start to dawn on me in a minor anxiety inducing panic. I felt my arms start to tremble as I lifted them to examine my palms.

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to look at my hand until that point. Maybe I was willfully trying to ignore what was actually happening? Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it. But there it was. And it was nearly just as surprising as Bearon’s first bear appearance. I gasped as I tried to rationalize what this new unwanted superpower meant. Because there in front of me, was a bright blue and orange extremely hot disaster. I don’t know how it had happened, but my hand was on fire.

Up until now I had assumed that only the “NPC” characters could be changed. Basically the ones not mentioned in detail in the book. Besides the sheer shock of realizing I had been turned into a fire ball this had a much more dramatic implication. This meant I too could be modified by deviations from the plot.