Morningstar Manor

Fall was finally here, meaning there were only a finite number of pleasant days left in the year. Bridget had decided to take advantage of this while she could, so after work she got dressed in some more casual clothes and took the kids to play at the park.

By the time the outing was over and Bridget brought them back to the Manor, both Penny and Jeth were all tuckered out and dozing in their double stroller. This was yet another opportunity that needed to be milked, so she stopped in the Mocha for a latte. She wasn't planning on being down there too long (there was still dinner that needed to be prepared), but a little break in the cafe while the kids were asleep wasn't a bad thing at all. She picked a table away from the main walking area so the stroller didn't get in the way and sat back to watch the customers as she sipped her drink.

Padget enjoyed the garden in Morningstar Manor's courtyard all the time, but mostly in the early day when the flowers were coated in dew and nobody was around. It was quiet, something she relished, and the wet grass on her bare feet felt good.

If someone had asked her if she were happy, the answer rising to her lips would have been automatically a "yes." But the truth was, her husband and children, the people who should have brought her the most joy, were the same who were slowly driving her toward thoughts of running away to join the circus.

Maybe she should give up the idea of being a stay-home mom and housewife; maybe she wasn't cut out for it.

She sighed.

Hemp shopping bags were Charlie's latest 'thing'. Heavy duty, hard wearing and ecologically friendly - so he had one on each shoulder stuffed to the brim with groceries and was glad to put them down for a moment in order to empty his mailbox.

Junk, junk, junk, bill, junk, bill, bill, letter from Joanie, bill, junk, postcard from Tom, bill junk.

Tristan didn't sleep on Friday nights. He had never been able to and it didn't seem to be dwindling. Tonight, he had chosen to wander - like a rebel without a cause, and see just how many different security cameras there were in the halls. So far, he'd counted nearly thirty. And had barely reached the fifth floor. Hopefully it wasn't peeving off the security staff. Even so, if anybody with a security uniform should stop him, he could just wander back up to his own apartment. Taking one set of stairs, walking the length of the hall and going up the other set of stairs... It still got him there.

Padget, her belly huge in front of her, was craving grilled cheese and tomato soup, neither of which she could seem to find in the vast refrigerator that mocked her with its emptiness. Why hadn't Craig stopped at the store the way she wanted him to? With a grumble, she reached in to pull out a loaf of half-stale bread, the jug of milk, a package of cheese, regular and swiss.

Her bladder twinged. The babies were sitting on it. With a sigh she headed for the bathroom, leaving the kitchen through the swinging door to the hall.

The soft sound of her slippers on the smooth tiles should have been odd -- what was she doing out in the hallway in only her slippers, anyway? But Padget wasn't alarmed. Sleepy, still, she pressed her fist to her mouth to contain the yawn. Babies crying had kept her up last night. New neighbors, maybe. She'd dreamed of taking care of the boy, lifting him for a cuddle.

Padget laughed to herself. She was a long way off from having babies. Had to find a man, first, though that delicious Craig Burke from the fourth floor was looking pretty palatable.

Maybe she was on her way to do laundry, or down to the Mocha for a coffee...maybe she was wandering in her slippers. But for Padget, this lack of certainty didn't register as more than the teeniest bit of strangeness.

Until the floor tilted, just a little, as she neared the elevator.

She stopped, off balance, and put a hand to her forehead.

Why had she dreamed of babies? And why was she in the hallway in her slippers?

Bridget was in the middle of a nice dream. She'd managed to win a gold medal in the 2028 Saskatchewan Olympics, and was currently performing victory back handsprings around rivals Nastia Liukin, Kerry Strug, and for some reason, Kristi Yamaguchi. Her dad was telling the press that this was his happiest moment in his life ever, and her mother was crying behind him...

...crying and crying and sounding a lot like Jeth did when he got all worked up. Backspringy Bridget was confused until she realized that she was awake and her gold medal dreams were just that. She turned toward the baby monitors and let out an annoyed sigh. She was too tired to get up. So she started nudging Phin's back.

Padget (pronounced to rhyme with hatchet) Burke lived with her husband Craig and their two children, Mathilda (Tilly) and James (Jamie) in the Manor from the mid 80's to early 90's, when Padget suffered a tragic accident in an open elevator shaft during one of the Manor's "incidents." She died instantly, never knowing what happened. Her husband, grief stricken, took the children and moved out of the Manor shortly after. Nobody knows where.

For years Padget has known nothing, but now, perhaps because someone's moved into "her" apartment, or there's been construction, or something else has happened, she's woken up.

At first she'll be invisible or just barely glimpsed by those in the Manor who she meets, which will frustrate and frighten her because SHE will see those residents who are alive as the spirits. Over time, she'll come to realize something is very wrong. She might even meet a few of you who won't realize she is, in fact, dead -- just that she seems a little strange, a little out of date, (but not so much it's immediately obvious) and that she has a habit of disappearing and appearing when you least expect it.

Padget is caught in a sort of time loop that activates if she goes in the elevator -- once there she blacks out and wakes up again in her apartment to start all over. Sort of a macabre Groundhog Day. She has only the vaguest memory of her husband and children, though it will return in time.

Since there's a bunch of boxes in the basement storage that have her name on them and are full of her past, at some point she'll be able to figure out what happened to her, but she'll need the help of someone living to help her piece it all together.

Hope to get some fun play going on with you guys! ;)

And PS, if you want Eamon he'll be back soon with Andras and really, he DOES have more to offer than being snarky and Andras' boyfriend.

M