Chapter Four #2
Ransom wastes no time at all as he strides over to the door and carefully opens it. The rest of us push up behind him as close as we can so that we can see over his shoulder because we are all so impatient that none of us wants to wait.
“No way,” he exclaims as he pulls open the door. “It’s my workroom. Exactly as it is back at the other house and with everything that was there.”
“It’s exactly as it was?” Doc asks incredulously.
Ransom shrugs, “Pretty much. I mean, it's missing the coffee cup I left on my desk, but other than that, it looks the same.” He moves around the room, picking up random things, checking the contents of vials, and even looks under one of the chairs and pulls out a pen that he must have dropped there but forgot to pick up. “This is insane.”
“It’s extremely impressive, and shouldn’t be possible,” Raiden adds.
“At least it’s one less thing that I need to go back to the house and get,” Doc points out with a smile.
“That’s true, it probably would have taken you a fair few trips to get all of the stuff that I needed from my lab. To be honest, it’s pretty much all of this,” Ransom admits with a wince.
“Probably, but I didn’t mind,” Doc replies with a smile.
“Whose room is next?” Van asks as we all leave Ransom’s room.
Ransom lingers behind for a few moments to look around again with a smile.
“Can we check out mine?” Griff asks.
A door right at the end of the hallway opens up.
“I’m guessing that means yes,” I smile.
Griff’s room suits him perfectly.
It’s completely natural, rough natural stone walls that are somehow warm and not cold to touch.
The roughness of the walls is counteracted by the thick, dark green carpet and a big, soft couch that is facing a fireplace, like in Coen’s room.
Griff’s room is dark, cozy, and welcoming.
He also has a huge balcony, not as big as Coen’s since Coen’s dragon is so much bigger than Griff is with his wings out, but it is plenty big enough for him to land comfortably with his wings still outstretched if he wanted to.
“I didn’t know you painted,” I comment as my gaze finds the easels and paint supplies.
Griff frowns slightly, “I don’t. Not anymore. I used to, but I got bored with it pretty quickly, and it took too long to do. I never managed to finish a painting because I was always doing other things, so I just stopped. I wonder why House has given me so many painting supplies?”
“I would say that House could have made a mistake, but I don’t think that it's likely that he did. Especially since he’s gotten all of the other rooms so perfect,” Doc says.
“I would be tempted to suggest that House knows something that we don’t,” Coen theorizes as he looks around the room.
Van nods in agreement, “Yeah. I think that’s probably a fair assessment.”
“Well, at least if you’re going to have enough time to paint to this extent, then that means that we might be getting some downtime and won’t be as busy as we think we’re going to be,” River points out somewhat hopefully.
“That’s true,” Griff mutters. Still frowning, “I just wish I knew why. It seems so random. Everything up until this point has been spot on when it comes to the rooms, but I haven’t picked up a paintbrush since the Magical Academy, when I was a teenager, and even then, I think it hasn’t been since the first couple of weeks at the academy.
Life just got too busy, and I wasn’t that bothered with it anyway.
I agree with you Doc, I don’t think that House would make a mistake, so I’m curious about why it’s put the supplies in here. ”
As I open my mouth to reply, Griff’s eyes turn black, and I shut my mouth. He’s not going to hear us now anyway. Either the timing was coincidental, or his visions have decided to answer his question, which would be kind of helpful and unexpected as well.
When his eyes clear, Reed asks, “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, apparently I’m going to start painting some of my visions. It’s going to help me make sense of them or something,” Griff replies, still sounding unsure. “It’s not very clear.”
“Well, it looks like the new frequency of your visions isn’t a temporary thing,” Coen adds, watching him closely, “are you okay with that?”
Griff hesitates slightly, “Well, I don’t think that I have much choice. But I’m more okay with it than I used to be.”
“Just because we can’t do anything to stop you from having these visions doesn’t mean that you have to just be outright okay with it. You can still not like it,” Raiden points out to him.
Griff smiles, “Thanks, man. I know. For the time being, I am really okay with it. I’m sure at some point it’s going to get frustrating, but at least for the moment it’s okay. They’re actually being relatively helpful at least.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Van agrees. “I didn’t think it was normal for them to just answer a question that you have though.”
Griff shakes his head, “From what I understand, it isn’t. The visions are supposed to come randomly, and I’m not supposed to be able to control when they happen or what they’re about.”
“He’s right, and that’s not just a rule for him, it’s a rule for everyone.
Some people obviously get visions more frequently, or more intensely.
Some people know that they can get a vision if they touch something, but even then, it’s a big question mark, and they can’t call on the vision to answer a question for them like you just managed to do.
” Raiden explains. “It could be a one-off, a coincidence, it could happen every now and then, but not all the time, or you could be able to ask questions and have your visions answer them.”
“Whatever way it goes, I think it would be a good idea to keep this latest development strictly between us, like everything else,” Reed suggests. “It’s either so rare that none of us have ever heard of it being possible, or it’s completely new and only relevant to Griff.”
“Agreed,” Griff says with ease. “I’m good with that. I’ll keep an eye on them. We already know that they’re different from usual visions because my eyes turn completely black, and that’s not typical as far as we know.”
“I’ll add it to my Griff list of things to look into,” Raiden says with a smile.
“Although I didn’t account for this being on my research list, and although I tried to pack as many books as I could for as many situations as I could, I’m not sure I have one with me that will cover it.
There’s a good chance that I’m going to be missing a book when something comes up that we hadn’t expected. ”