Author: Daydreamer
Date: 30 October 2005

The Painting - Part 1

The man in the painting was his dream lover.

Blair Sandburg stood staring at the old oil portrait with his blue gaze wide and fixed with disbelief. It could not be remotely possible; the person captured in that painted image had been real, had lived in another age, another time. Yet, he had never been more certain of anything in his life.

The portrait sat propped against the wall in the main bedroom of the derelict old mansion, next to the dirty, gray-white marble fireplace mantel. The life-size figure of a man in his mid-thirties, it was set in a heavy frame of carved wood from which the gold leaf had flaked in drifts. Though filmed with dust, yellowed by ancient varnish, and speckled with mold, it was still reasonably clear.

He was dressed in a velvet-collared, forest green tailcoat, a cream cravat and waistcoat, and tan trousers strapped under highly polished boots. Standing at ease beside an ornate table, he rested his right hand on the surface near a book which lay as if it had just been put down.

The de rigueur long hair of the day was brushed tightly back and secured, giving him an almost modern-day military look, and the beginning of a receding hairline added to his stern appearance. His eyes, under straight, dark brown brows, were as light as a summer sky and held a watchful intentness. The bones of his face were boldly angular, his nose straight. He did not smile though the precisely molded contours of his mouth hovered on the edge of some secret amusement.

It was him. Blair would know him anywhere.

How could he not know the man who had come to him with warmth and caring in the darkest hours of a thousand restless nights, summoned in wordless supplication, or sometimes with a sigh? How could he not recognize the turn of his square jaw, the line of his throat and width of his shoulders? And the mouth. The mouth that he had kissed, gently, sweetly, in passion?

How could he not identify the body he had clung to, wrapped himself around, slept beside while he dreamed? He knew the depth of that chest under the old-fashioned clothes, the hardness of those thighs. And more.

He had felt the man's tenderness, tested his patience, awakened his infinite capacity for inventiveness. He had shared with him so many small jokes, so many important and unimportant insights. He had held him in his arms to keep the pain away while he sat in the dentist's chair, and lain with him under the green sheets to hold him safe during minor surgery. He had come to chase away untold panic attacks and keep in company when he worked long hours. He had laughed silently with him at midnight, and allowed him to make love to him at noon while he sat quietly at his desk.

The lover of his dreams. Keeper of his secrets and his innermost heart.

Blair realized abruptly that he was holding his breath. He exhaled on a soft, wondering sigh. A moment later, he shook his head as the thought came to him of how long it had taken him to discover the painting.

Every time he had passed the old Ellison mansion in the two years since it had come on the market, he had felt the impulse to stop. Something always got in the way: he was running late for an appointment, it was his turn to catch the phones at the office, or he had to get home to spend the evening getting caught up on grading tests or his own course work.

But today, the timing had been right. The student he had been scheduled to meet at the computer cafe down the street had failed to show. Blair had waited for half an hour, and that was enough. As he was heading back towards campus, he'd felt a sudden yen for coffee and a snack as an afternoon pick-me-up, and swung his car in the direction of an aberrant, locally-owned and operated café in the midst of Starbucks country.

He'd sat for a while at an outside table at Tomleys. The café was one of his favorite spots in Cascade. He loved the view of the harbor, loved the salty scent of the sea air.

He'd felt his nerves unwinding as he lifted his face to the rare spring sunshine and felt the ocean breeze stir his long, loose hair. The wheeling flight of the seagulls around the spires of the old Catholic church only blocks from the water had a timeless quality, as if the same birds might have made identical patterns against the sky for countless decades. The rustling leaves of the trees overhead made a sound like the whispers of a thousand secrets. There was a curious peace for Blair in the reflection that the trees and gulls would remain long after most of the people eating and drinking around him were gone.

It was like the Ellisons. Fascinated as he was by the house, he had tracked down a family history and had it committed to memory. There had always been Ellisons in Cascade. The first Ellison, William was a trapper who'd made a fortune in pelts and hides, then parlayed that into a shipping industry before dying at the relatively early age of 35. He'd left two sons, James and Steven. Their mother had died at birth, and when the rough, untamed William, a man reputed to have a cruel and fiery temper, had died, the mother's French father, a doctor, had come to raise the boys. The oldest, James, had mysteriously disappeared at age 34.

It was the rumble of thunder that had made him move on. He hadn't wanted to be caught out in a rainstorm, especially with rush hour traffic just getting started. He'd dashed to his car and headed home. But there had been a small fender-bender on the main route out of the harbor area. Blair had made a quick detour, turning into the quiet side street where the Ellison mansion stood, slowing as he approached it.

It was the double front door that had made him turn into the drive. It had been slightly open. He'd scanned the yard, then the street, looking for a realtor or prospective buyer, but the area was empty. With a sigh, he'd climbed out of his car. Surely it was his civic duty to let the realty company know the house was open? And it wouldn't hurt for him to take a look around while both the traffic and the rain that was beginning to fall cleared.

The old house was a raised villa, with a colonnaded upper gallery reached by a double set of steps. There was a mansard roof to give light and air to the second floor, and a great many Italianate details grafted onto what had originally been an elegantly simple cottage.

Still, the house was in desperate need of repair. A corner of the gallery, or porch, sagged from a missing column; the millwork of entablature was rotting away and the paint had peeled to expose gray boards.

The interior was in no better shape. Scrap lumber and chunks of wall plaster were piled in every corner, along with bits of filthy carpet and curtains and other unnameable trash. Windowpanes were broken, and grime covered the old wavy glass that was left, combining with the rainstorm outside to make it almost too dark to see. A strong smell of rats and mildew and ancient, nonfunctional drains hung in the air.

Yet looking more closely, Blair had made out traces of past beauty. The cornices and moldings, though gray-black with dust and old spiderwebs, had been carved with meticulous grace. What looked like a corroded metal lid turned out to be a tarnished silver tray when he had lifted it. The knob of the door that led into the hallway where the curving staircase stood was painted with a design of roses and forget-me-nots. There was a skylight made of heavy glass panes above the staircase. It was leaking with the rain, the warm drops making a wet splotch on the moldy walnut treads. Blair had stepped carefully past it, also avoiding the places in the railing where the balusters were missing.

The first upstairs room he'd entered had been empty except for an old armoire that had been too big to move. Near the armoire sat a wooden box holding crumbling wax candles. There was also a small barrel filled with shredded wood straw. As he'd pressed down on the straw with his fingers to see if the barrel was empty, the jeweled jet button of a hat poked upward, a sign that someone else, some other time, had also searched the barrel.

An odd chill had moved over Blair. He'd shivered with it, turning quickly, half expecting to see someone behind him.

Nothing.

He'd been reminded, however, of another reason the house might have remained on the market. Claims had been made for years that it was haunted. There were the usual stories: lights that moved inside empty rooms, voices heard when no one was there, doors found unlocked when they should have been secured.

Blair had heard the tales ever since he had first come to Cascade as a 15, almost 16-year old college freshman. The house had stood empty then, and had been for years before that from what he had heard. Rumor had it that it had come onto the market two years ago, placed by the elderly owner who lived in a Massachusetts nursing home.

In a curious way, visiting the old house was like coming full circle. Blair's love of the old -- old people, old ways, old things -- had been part of him forever. He'd fallen in love with this house when he'd been 16, and being in it now felt like coming home. Just a few weeks ago he'd been talking about the house with another TA, telling her how he would love to buy it and fix it up.

"Lord, Blair," his friend Maureen, practical as only a twice-divorced mother of three can be, had exclaimed. "It would take far more than a TA could hope for, more than even a tenured professor could aspire to, just to fix it up. Let alone what it would cost to heat and cool!"

Blair had agreed. "But just think of waking up in the middle of all those beautiful architectural details and wonderful space. Besides, it would almost be like living in another time."

Maureen shook her head with its stylishly short haircut. "You, my dear friend, are hopelessly out of it, but then, you always have been. You've been mooning around that old place as long as I've known you. But it's time you stopped thinking about houses and all that old stuff and concentrated on now. Time you concentrated on finding yourself a good woman and settling down." She had eyed him critically. "Get yourself some new clothes, get your hair cut, or at least styled." She leaned in and sniffed delicately. "And a little cologne wouldn't hurt."

Blair sniffed himself. "I like the way I smell and the last thing I need right now is a girlfriend," he told her with a shade of defensiveness in his tone.

"I'm not talking about love and marriage, honey bun. There's also dinner and dancing. Nights on the town. Sex. You do remember sex, don't you?"

Blair wrinkled his brow in a parody of difficult thought. "I'm not sure I do."

"Yes, well, it's obviously time for a refresher course. I'm worried about you, Blair. You sit around sometimes with a look on your face as if you were somewhere else entirely, or wish you were. You've got to snap out of it, get with it. I don't know what's going on with you. A little good sex could be just the ticket."

Blair thought back to being a 16-year-old freshman, short and thin, too smart and too clever, with curly, long hair, glasses, and a serious case of the insecurities. How was he supposed to have had a girlfriend when everyone was two or more years older than him, taller than him, way more sophisticated than him? And every year he'd aged, so had the girls, and now his peer group was still years older than him, and while he could date the undergrads, it was frowned on, and besides, it felt too much like robbing the cradle. So, yes, he'd had dates, had nights on the town. He'd done romance and dinner and dancing. But somehow, he'd missed sex. And 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am' wasn't where his interest lay anyway. It certainly wasn't going to solve his apathy problems right now.

"I don't need a woman," he groused. "I need to find my test subject so I can complete my doctorate."

Maureen snorted. "I still think you need to find another topic." She held up a hand to forestall the automatic argument that was coming. "But, since you insist on this one, then you've got to believe that somewhere out there is somebody who fits the bill. But you aren't going to find him hanging around old houses." She mused for a moment as she studied him, then placed a long, red fingernail against equally red lips and tilted her head. "Unless you go for carpenters?" she asked with a smile.

He'd flushed at her surprisingly insightful comment and shaken his head forcefully.

He had tripped on a stair, suddenly jolted back to the present. He didn't go for carpenters or any other kind of man -- or woman -- he'd thought as he mounted the dirt-crusted stairs, trailing his fingers up the curved walnut railing. He didn't want one, didn't need one. He needed a Sentinel. Just the word made him smile. And in the absence of the real thing, he had his own method, mental and blameless of coping with everything else. With ridicule over his thesis subject. With being short and hairy and a geek. With no sex at age twenty-four. He hadn't told Maureen that, of course. His friend wouldn't understand, certainly wouldn't consider a dream lover a worthwhile substitute.

The master bedroom was on the back corner of the house, well away from the street. Its full-length French windows opened onto a small balcony that overlooked a courtyard garden and held a view of the sea. To the left of the windows was the doorway into an octagonal tower. Within the tower's dimness, the floor could be seen sagging dangerously to one side.

A magnificent half-tester bed in scarred rosewood sat against one wall. The half-tester had collapsed to dangle precariously like the blade of a guillotine. The amazing thing was that such a valuable piece had not been stolen. Unless, of course, it was protected by its ghostly owners.

He'd smiled a little at his own whimsy, then turned toward the fireplace on the opposite side of the room. It was then he had seen the portrait, and stood still while his smile trembled at the edges.

His dream lover. Just a dream, nothing more. Until now.

Blair moved closer. Almost against his will, he reached out to touch the canvas, with its thick, crackled paint. Following the curve of the man's full bottom lip with his fingertips, he closed his eyes. It seemed he could almost feel the warm throb of blood, of life.

How silly. It was just a portrait.

But so close, so very close to the real thing. If a vision or a daydream could be real.

Jim. That was the name he had given the man.

Jim had been with him as long as he could remember, since the time twenty years ago when he'd been separated from his mother and found himself alone in a deep forest. Jim been a boy then, a tall, strangely somber teenager who had come and taken his hand and led him back to the edge of the woods. He'd pulled away from the teen, clapped his hands in joy at seeing his mother, and when he'd looked back to the big boy who had saved him, he'd been alone.

He'd seemed to come in person twice more. Once, when he was fourteen and he'd been staying with some friends while his mother was out of the country. He'd sent him a bus ticket to come to Atlanta, but when he got there, his mother wasn't waiting. He'd been propositioned three times before he'd finally decided to get out of the bus terminal, but one of the pimps followed and it wasn't long before he'd found himself in an alley on his knees. And then there had been a light, and a roar, and a tall shadowy figure that seemed to come out of nowhere, and somehow, he'd been knocked down, knocked over, knocked out, and when he came to, he was on a bench in the bus station and his mother was bending over him.

The last time had been a year ago, when he'd been attacked walking home to his warehouse apartment. Three men had jumped him, knocked him to the ground and slammed him around. He'd had a vague, fuzzy image of a tall, strong man who'd cleaned house with the other men, and had thought the man had called him by name just before he passed completely out. When he'd come to, a police officer was telling him not to move, that an ambulance was on the way. The three men were being hauled away, all unconscious.

But other than those three hazy memories, from four and fourteen and twenty-three, all his other interactions with Jim had been in his dreams.

He stared up at the portrait and wondered if he'd seen if before. Seen it in some pre-conscious state that had burned it into his memory and made it the fixture of his dreams. He didn't remember ever having been in the house before, but with all the traveling he had done, perhaps he had been. Or maybe he'd seen it as a very small child, through a window even. Perhaps the impression had remained with him, giving form and color to his imagination.

Jim had, at first, been no more than a friend and companion. In a way, they'd grown up together, Jim reaching maturity first then patiently waiting for Blair to catch up. And James had become something else after Blair had come to Cascade, once he'd realized that he wouldn't have a girlfriend and after he'd discovered he wasn't overly upset by the thought. It was then that he had begun to allow this man, his friend, his champion, the one who watched over him, it was then he learned to allow this man in his dreams the liberties of physical closeness.

He'd been a confused adolescent, but he felt safe with Jim. The few times he'd made tentative overtures to a woman, he'd been, mostly, gently rebuffed. The one time he'd braved a silent, almost apologetic caress to male friend's face, he'd been punched. The deep and slow pleasures of erotic exploration had been a mystery to him. Sex had been a singular pursuit, an objective to be reached as quickly as possible.

In nighttime dreams filled with shivers of pleasure and tender touches, Jim had taught him differently.

Once more, he touched the painted face of the portrait, tracing over the broad forehead. He could, he thought, summon Jim right now. If he closed his eyes, he could see him with perfect clarity, could compare the image in his mind with that on the dirty canvas.

His eyelids drifted shut. He breathed deep, once, twice. He whispered Jim's name, calling it in the soft gray corridors of his mind.

"Jim?"

Yes. Oh, yes. Here he came.

Jim was smiling and shaking his head as if it was asking a bit much of him, but he would comply out of purest affection and his need to see Blair. He was in his shirt sleeves, a loose-fitting shirt of blinding white linen tucked into dark trousers that were fastened with straps under his boots. The light in his blue eyes was warm with promise, and with something more that appeared there only for him.

He was alive, so alive he made Blair's heart swell in his chest. And he was exactly like the man in the portrait.

Jim's pace slowed and a frown appeared between the dark ridges of his brows. He stretched out a hand toward Blair.

Behind Blair's closed eyelids, he saw the flash of lightning. It outlined Jim in its bright glare.

Just the rainstorm, he thought, as his eyes snapped open and he caught the dying flicker of light, heard the roll f thunder and the splatter of rain. He had almost forgotten it in his enthrallment with the painting.

It was then that he heard the scraping noise of a footstep. It sounded behind him, in the direction of the door leading into the rest of the house. He swung around so quickly that his hair, loose today from the normal tie that held it, flew out around his face.

The huge shape of a man was outlined in the door frame. His clothes were wrinkled and stained, and a sour smell wafted from them. His hair hung over his eyes so that he stared at Blair through the lank and greasy strands, blinking as if he had just awakened.

His gaze focused and his mouth twisted in an abrupt leer. He half-shuffled, half-swayed toward Blair. "Well, look what we got here."

It was a nightmare. Always smaller, always lighter, and always having been found attractive, he'd fended off more men than he cared to count. And here he was, alone in an empty house, with a man who outweighed him by a hundred pounds and was a foot taller. Some drunk sleeping it off, a vagrant, maybe a criminal in hiding. No way to call for help, no one to hear if he screamed.

Blair retreated a nervous step as he said, "This is private property; what are you doing here?"

"Just what do you care?" the man growled, easing closer.

The urge to run for it pounded through him. The man was blocking the main way out. The octagonal tower room leading from the bedroom was a dead end; he couldn't go that way.

"You're trespassing," Blair said almost at random. "You'll have to leave."

"Who's gonna make me? You?" The man laughed, an unpleasant, grating sound.

There was another door half-hidden behind the fireplace. It might give access to the rest of the house. Blair wasn't afraid of a fair fight, but this would be anything but fair and he wasn't in the mood to have his pleasant thoughts of Jim ruined by this obnoxious oaf. Angling his head in the direction of the fireplace, Blair said, "I'm a professor at Ranier, and I'm going to report you --"

The man lunged. Blair stumbled backward, slamming against the wall with his impact. Hard fingers dug into his arms, crushing him against the wall while the man hunched his rigid groin against Blair's hip. He twisted, wrenching away from the hulking giant, almost breaking his hold. Then the man shoved a leg between his, hooking behind to buckle him to his knees. A scream caught in his throat as he went down.

Pain and sickness exploded inside him as he struck the floor. The man's weight drove the air from his lungs. He was on top of Blair, pressing him down, holding his legs immobile with the heavy bar of his thigh. He tore at Blair's clothes with vicious, raking fingers. His shirt was ripped from his body. Those same fingers clawed at his belt, pulled it loose and began to force his pants down his legs.

A blood red haze rose behind Blair's eyes. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move. He felt a hand thrust between his legs and grope harshly at his groin. His balls tried to crawl into his stomach at the touch.

From deep in the core of his being there rose fierce rage. Curling his fingers into claws, he dragged an arm free and reached like a striking snake for the man's eyes.

The man jerked his head backward. Gasping for air, Blair braced his feet and heaved under him. As his attacker rocked to one side, Blair rolled, surging upward, snatching for the raised edge of the marble hearth to pull himself free.

The man cursed. He swung his fist in a punch with brutal strength behind it. It caught Blair behind the ear and he was flung against the marble mantel. His temple struck the molded edge. Blackness rose as a boiling cloud behind his eyes. He felt the cruel grasp of hands jerking, tearing at his jeans, stripping him naked even as he collapsed to the floor.

Somewhere on the edge of consciousness, he heard himself cry out. The sound was a plea, a prayer, a single name.

"Jim!"

And a shadow moved, emerging from the tower room. It glided forward in lithe strength and controlled fury.

Above him, the vagrant stiffened. He released Blair, struggling to stand. A hoarse noise of terror gurgled in his throat.

There was the meaty smack of a solid blow, followed by another and another. Thick curses and sobs of terror. Rasping breaths, scrabbling sounds. Running, staggering footsteps. Silence.

Strong hands, infinitely tender, touched him. He was picked up, cradled in a gentle familiar clasp against a firm chest. He swung dizzily, then felt himself carried with deliberate, steady steps.

Blair, hesitating on the dark lip of a long tunnel, sighed and slipped into the comfort of its mouth.

The soft, melodious chiming of a clock urged him to wake. Blair's eyelids felt as if they had lead weights attached. He was able to lift them, finally, on the third try.

The clock was sitting on the white marble mantel of the fireplace opposite the bed where he lay. A priceless French antique of gold-painted porcelain, it had an ornate design of vine leaves, flowers, and cupids. Matching candlesticks flanked it on each end, glowing with the light of wax candles. Centered above it was an oval mirror in a gold leaf frame that was tilted slightly forward at the top.

The mirror reflected the bed in exacting detail. Of polished rosewood with a carved pediment topping the half-tester, it had a starburst of creamy yellow silk underneath it. Bed curtains of heavy satin lined with cream were draped form under the pediment and tied to the tall, fluted posts. Beneath them, also tied back at present, was the gauzy muslin of mosquito netting. The wallpaper seen in the mirror's silvery surface, and also on the wall behind it, was marked in stripes of green and gold and cream in such pale, soothing shades they were almost nonexistence.

A frown of puzzlement gathered between Blair's eyes. What was he doing in such a finely restored museum of a house? Why in the world had he been put to bed in a perfect antique reproduction, and on outrageously expensive sheets with the glazed stiffness of starched linen and trailing vine leaves embroidered on the hem? And who had put this old-fashioned nightshirt on him, one of fine white linen with a high collar and long sleeves?

A soft rustling came from somewhere near the head of the bed. The face of a woman appeared around the bed curtains. Dressed in a plain cotton dress with a starched collar and cuffs, she wore a cap edged with crocheted lace over her graying hair. She was brown-skinned, as the Spanish, and possibly in her late fifties. She came closer to lean over Blair.

"Senor? Por ultimo! Don Ellison! El despertar!"

Blair followed the woman's gaze as she turned toward the French windows on the far side of the bed. A man stood on the balcony just beyond the open doorway, outlined against the gray light of evening. He turned at the maid's call.

It was Jim.

Every emotion and half-formed idea inside Blair scattered. He felt lost, disoriented. His head began to pound with a sudden, virulent pain.

There was a pantherlike grace and force in Jim's tall form as stepped inside and came to stand at the bed's high, ornate footboard. His gaze flickered over Blair without expression. Resting his hands on the carved wood in front of him, he said with suppressed violence, "Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?"

The lover of his dreams, the man in the portrait, the flesh and blood man who stood before him now: how could they all be the same? This must be what it was like to go insane, this sense of everything being completely solid and real while a small portion of the brain recognized in panic that it was impossible.

He closed his eyes, fighting for calm, for some kind of self-control. When he opened them again, Jim was still waiting with barely contained impatience for Blair's answers to his questions.

"My name," he said after a long moment, "is Blair Sandburg."

"You are not French, as my grandfather," the man stated. "You are not a trapper. You are dark, but not dark enough to be Spanish or Indian. Your voice is strangely accented; you must be of the Irish."

Blair stared at him as the odd phrases spoken in deep-toned and what he found to be attractively accented English trickled through his mind. "No," he said finally, "I'm not French or Spanish or Indian. And I suppose I do have an Irish ancestor or two somewhere. My name is Gaelic."

Jim's expression did not waver. "Who brought you here?"

Blair cast back in his mind for some wisp of memory, but there was nothing except an image that could not possibly be correct. He moistened his dry lips and swallowed with difficulty. His voice husky, he said, "I have no idea."

The man at the foot of the bed made a brief, sharp gesture toward the dark-skinned woman. She nodded and stepped toward the table near the bed. Glass clinked on glass. A moment later, the woman brought water in a crystal goblet to Blair and lifted his head to help him drink.

Cool, without a trace of chemicals, yet with a faint scent of mud, the liquid slid down Blair's throat. It was not easy to drink with Jim watching him so closely, however, he stared at the tall man over the rim of the goblet, just as Jim was staring at him.

Jim was wearing rather elegant evening wear, a fact that had not really struck him until that moment, because it seemed so natural to him. And yet, there was something odd about the formal clothing. The vest he wore was brocaded, and the tails of his coat much longer than ordinary. His shirt collar was worn turned up with only the slightest roll over the cloth at his neck, which was wrapped and tied in the fashion of an especially fancy ascot. The emerald stickpin at his throat, holding the white satin folds, was fancier than most men would consider acceptable. He looked, in fact, as if he might be wearing a costume.

As Blair signaled that he was finished, the water goblet was removed. The dark-skinned woman stepped to place the glass on the table, and Blair saw that the skirt of her dress reached the floor. She was also wearing a costume. Crazy.

Or perhaps not so crazy, after all. It was possible the clothes were for authenticity in the renovated mansion. Some people who bought and restored old houses were fanatic about such things, at least on special occasions. That was it. It had to be.

The moment he seemed comfortable again, the man who looked like Jim said, "How can you not know how you came to be here? Did you get into the house by yourself?"

Jim's small gesture of consideration with the water and Blair's arrival at a reasonable explanation for his surroundings gave him the courage to say what was at the back of his mind. "I thought that you -- that is -- didn't you bring me?"

Jim stared at him for long seconds, his eyes hard and cold as frosty sapphires. Directing his gaze toward the woman, he said, "Leave us."

"Pero, Senor --?" There was the sound of protest in her voice.

Jim's eyes were level and unrelenting. Something the older woman saw in them made her lower her lashes. She flung a quick look of doubt at Blair, then turned and moved swiftly from the room.

As the door closed, Jim stepped around the bed to Blair's side. Blair's heartbeat accelerated as he watched him move. This man was so familiar, yet unfamiliar, that his own response to him seemed all hay-wire. One second, he felt a comforting ease, the next he was supremely self-conscious and aware of the very male essence Jim exuded. His physical presence was so much more vivid and powerful than even the man from his dreams. Yet there was something in his eyes, a troubled sort of perplexity behind his anger, that touched a chord of responsiveness inside him.

Blair flinched a little as Jim reached toward him. The other man's face tightened, but he only picked up Blair's wrist. With a quick movement, he pushed the long sleeve of the nightshirt up to the elbow.

The purple splotches of bruises made dark patches on his arms. Turning them to the light of the candles, Jim asked, "Did I do this to you?"

Blair's gaze flicked upward from his exposed arm to where Jim leaned above him. "You?" he said in a puzzled tone. "Of course not!"

"You're certain?"

"Absolutely. It was -- just some squatter in the old Ellison mansion." He laughed uncomfortably. "I didn't make a very good showing in the fight."

Jim shook his head, then said, "Squatter?" as if the word had no meaning for him.

"A vagrant living in the old house. I disturbed him and he --"

"He attacked you?"

"You stopped him. Don't you remember?"

There was pleading in his tone. He thought that if the shadowy figure he had glimpsed and this man were the same, then he might not be going insane after all. There could be a simple explanation for everything: the candles, the costumes, the room, the bed, everything.

"No, I don't remember," Jim said, lowering Blair's sleeve and placing his wrist carefully on the mattress before he turned away.

"But you have to; you were there!"

Jim's shoulders tensed. Then he sighed. Without turning his head, he said, "I don't remember because I was -- not myself this afternoon."

Blair frowned at his back. "Not yourself?"

"I am subject, you must understand, to periods when I lose contact with what is happening around me. Sometimes I fall into an unnatural sleep. At other times, so I'm told, I walk and speak and act as I might at any other time, only I have no memory of events that occur. Usually these periods last only a few minutes. At other times, it may be hours, even days."

"Zone outs," Blair said, almost to himself. At the frown on Jim's face, he added, "Blackout spells."

"An apt description. Actually, it's the falling sickness. Or as my French grandfather would style it, the grand mal, actually petit mal in my case, since I have been spared the rigors of more serious attacks."

Falling sickness. Grand mal. Blair had seen the names for it in autobiographies and historical novels. Napoleon had been subject to such attacks, he thought, and Caesar. "Epilepsy," he said.

There was surprise in Jim's face as he turned to stare at him. "So the Greeks called it."

"And you had an episode this afternoon?"

Jim inclined his head. After a moment, he went on, his tone carefully neutral. "One of the more peculiar manifestations of my illness is delusions. Things I am certain I saw and did while seized with the malady I discover later never took place. Then there are the incidents of déjà vu, where things I have never seen, never done before, people I am seeing for the first time, seem familiar. As an instance of the last, when I found you here on the floor and picked you up to put you on the bed, I -- "

He paused and looked away while his hands closed into fists. Watching him, Blair felt a squeezing sensation in his chest. Through chilled lips, he said, "You thought you knew me?"

"Peculiar, is it not?" Facing Blair again, Jim squared his shoulders. "That is why I asked if it was I who -- injured you."

"You think you might have done it while you were out of it? No, it didn't happen. It didn't happen that way at all."

Blair watched him, wanting so much for this troubled man to believe him. At the same time, there was such a confusion of ideas in his mind that he felt dazed with them.

Was it really epilepsy, or was Jim suffering from the zone outs that true sentinels were said to experience? Did he really have a seizure disorder, or were his enhanced senses sending him more information than his mind could handle? Was he really subject to electrical storms in the brain, or was he simply subject to so much stimuli he overloaded?

Or was it both?

Parapsychology had always fascinated him, almost as much as his search for Burton's watchmen, his search for a sentinel of his own. There were studies of ESP, mind transference, astral projection, and so-called out-of-body experiences, but such studies were still in their infancy. Was it possible there was something to these mysteries?

What if each time he summoned his fantasy companion, he had in some way triggered for this man who looked so much like him an incidence of what he called petit mal? What if, in some manner beyond normal comprehension, Jim was able to walk into his mind while temporarily insensible, was able to do and be all the things he had required of his dream lover?

What if he was connected to this man in the way Burton had hinted guides were connected to their sentinels?

Dear God. What had he done to this man?

No. It was impossible.

He was an idiot for thinking such a thing for even a second. The resemblance was a fluke, that was all.

The words as impersonal as he could make them, he said, "Isn't there something that can be done for you, some medicine you can take?"

The other man's gaze hardened. His voice flat, he said, "No. Nothing."

Blair shook his head. "I know there's simple drug therapy for epilepsy, Dilantin and Tegratol, I think, and some others, that will allow people with minor cases, like you, to lead perfectly normal lives."

"You are mistaken."

He wasn’t and Blair knew it. He opened his mouth to tell Jim that very thing.

It was then that he heard the carriage.

He knew what it was because he had heard the sound in dozens of movies and television westerns. Its approach could be followed from some distance away, the clip-clop of horses' hooves, the rattle and jingle of harness, the faint squeal of an axle in need of grease.

One reason it was so easy to recognize these sounds was the quiet. The unnatural quiet.

He listened hard, but could not hear the ordinary noises of Cascade, that background rumble so familiar it usually went unnoticed. There was no drone of car and truck engines, no hiss of tires on pavement and blast of horns, no dull vibration of distant machinery. These things had ceased as totally as if the city no longer existed.

Onward the carriage came, its pace steady but unhurried. But now as he listened, mingling with the noise could be heard a few faint, almost unnoticed sounds after all. Crickets shrilled and tree frogs croaked, and a fly buzzed at the window, which stood open and unscreened to the evening air. Somewhere children shouted as they played and dogs barked. And there was a call from several streets away, faint, persistent, almost indecipherable in its thick Spanish accent.

"Pescado! Pescado nuevo!"

Fish. Fresh fish.

Such things had been sold by street vendors in Cascade in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the town was little more than a rough settlement on the Pacific shore.

Blair levered himself upward on one elbow. His head swam and he bit back a gasp. After a second, however, the room began to steady.

"What do you think you are doing?" Jim demanded.

Blair paid no attention to the question. Sweeping back the sheet and silk coverlet, he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. The bed was high off the floor. He could see a set of bed steps on the opposite side, but that didn't help him just now. He clung to the bed curtains as he slid down until his feet touched the floor. The hem of the nightshirt rode up, exposing his legs almost to his groin.

The man in evening dress stared hungrily for a moment, then averted his gaze.

The gesture, Blair thought, was made not from Jim's own embarrassment, but to protect him from the look. He hesitated, oddly affected by that sign of awareness and courtesy. He was a guy and he'd been in a thousand locker rooms. He'd been looked at and done his share of looking, but he could not think of single person he knew who would have bothered to look away, or could have made him so self-conscious by the action.

Then it was forgotten as he heard the clatter of the horse-drawn vehicle coming closer. He took a wavering step toward the window.

Jim moved in close to his side at once, placing a supporting hand under his elbow. Disapproval in his voice, he said, "You'll fall if you aren't careful. That's a nasty bruise on your temple; you should rest."

Jim's nearness and the heat and strength of his clasp sent a tremor along Blair's nerves. His heart began to beat with sickening strokes. Dizziness assailed him and he swayed where he stood. Jim reached across his back, encircling his shoulders with his arm.

Blair turned his head to stare up at Jim with wide eyes, letting his gaze touch the strong planes and angles of his face, the faint stubble of beard under the skin, the way his hairline had begun to creep backward. He was real, so very real.

"Come, let me help you back into bed." There was a faint note of concern in the roughness of Jim's voice.

Blair drew breath with an audible gasp. "No, I'm fine. I -- I have to see out."

Blue eyes held his own for long seconds. Finally, Jim said, "As you wish."

He did not remove his support. Blair was glad of it as he made his way to the French windows and stepped out onto the balcony.

The carriage was just passing in the street. Its body gleamed a rich maroon in the dusk. The horses that stepped high before it were matched grays. The coachman on the seat wore a burgundy coat and a top hat, and held his whip at a jaunty angle. Inside the carriage, barely seen in the dimness, rode a woman with a bonnet on her head and a shawl around her shoulders. Opposite her was a child with her nose pressed against the glass; she had ringlets tied in bunches in front of her ears. A pair of lean and rangy dogs, strays perhaps, loped alongside the horses, pretending to nip at their heels while keeping a wary eye on the driver's whip.

Blair closed his eyes tightly then opened them again as if that would change things. It didn't. The carriage rumbled away down the street, its wheels splashing in ruts filled with muddy water from a recent rain. Birds flew down from the tree limbs overhanging the narrow road to peck at grain fallen from feed bags.

Below the balcony was a lovely little paved courtyard garden in which a tiered wrought iron fountain played. Climbing roses reached upward to scale the wall of an octagonal tower that was attached to the room where Blair stood. The last time he had looked down into that side garden, it had been an overgrown ruin.

Turning slowly, Blair moved back inside. He stood staring at the doorway leading into the tower room, the room from which he had seen Jim come.

His gaze was almost fearful as he looked up once more at the man at his side. With a small catch in his voice, he said, "I don't think I -- quite caught your name."

"I beg pardon," the tall man said quietly. "It was an oversight. I am James Ellison."

"Jim --" he whispered.

"You give me the diminutive, as my father did." A moue of distaste crossed his face. "It is James, if you please."

His statement was polite, but emphatic. "Yes, of course," Blair replied.

Ellison. He was in the Ellison mansion. The Ellison mansion as it had been -- how long ago? A hundred and fifty years, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. On top of that, the Cascade he had known, with its traffic noise and paved streets, its street lamps and directional signs, had disappeared. Even the air was different. Gone was the smell of car exhaust and decay. On the evening breeze were the fresh scents of flowers and green growing things, and also the faint odor of dust and horses. The air inside the room carried the smells of burning wax from the candles and also linseed oil, perhaps from the hand-rubbed polish on the furniture.

No. He refused to believe it. It wasn't logical. It wasn't possible. Of all the impossibilities he'd heard of in his travels, of all the unusual things he'd read of, this just couldn't be.

He felt like Alice after she fell down the rabbit hole. Or as if he had fallen into one of his own fantasies.

But there had to be a way to establish normalcy, a way to prove that he was where he should be. There must be something.

In abrupt inspiration, he said, "I need to go to the bathroom."

James loosened his hold. "Bath room? You wish to bathe?"

"I wish to --" he paused as he searched for just the right idiomatic expression, then gave a mental 'what the hell' shrug and said, "I need to piss."

Amusement warred with disapproval on the older man's face. "You are very outspoken, are you not?" He nodded once, then added, "I'll assist you."

"I don't need any help if you'll just point the way."

James lifted a brow, then guided him farther inside the bedroom with a touch on the shoulder. Stepping away, he moved to the door set into the wall beside the fireplace and pushed it open. Without quite meeting his gaze, he said, "You will find what you require in here."

He could feel relief moving through him along with an almost panicky urge to laugh. How could he have been so silly? Any house that had a modern bathroom had to be a restoration. As for the rest, he must be somewhere in the country. Why he had been brought here, and by whom, he could not imagine, but he would get to the bottom of it or know the reason why.

Brushing past the larger man, Blair stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He turned.

It was not a bathroom. There was no toilet, no lavatory, no tub. There was, instead, an armoire, a shaving stand, a bootjack, and a washstand on which sat a pitcher and a bowl. There was also a sturdy wooden chair with an enclosed bottom and a seat fitted with a hinged lid which he recognized from his history texts as a closestool, a form of chair used to conceal a chamber pot.

He was in a dressing room.

The clothes in the armoire were hung on hooks instead of wire hangers. The soap in the shaving mug had never been adulterated by any form of detergent. The only razor in sight was a straight-edge blade in an ivory handle. There was no plumbing hidden in the washstand. The closestool was functional.

Blair's face felt stiff and blank when he emerged from the dressing room. He saw Jim -- James -- standing at the French windows once more. He stopped with his hands clasped together behind his back. In a tight voice, he asked, "The date? What is today's date?"

"The 30th of April. Why?" James watched him intently.

"And the year?"

"It is 1868."

Blair turned away with stiff movements. Reaching the bed, he picked up the linen sheet that trailed over the side, rubbing the material between his fingers.

Smooth, one hundred percent linen of a kind not readily available in his century. And who in the modern world had time to embroider vines leaves on such a utilitarian item. Yet, he must be dreaming. He had to be.

"Have you been here long?"

Blair stared at James without comprehension.

"My apologies. I meant no offense. But your odd language," he waved a hand, then tentatively reached forward before abruptly aborting the move and placing his hands behind his back, "and your hair..." He cleared his throat. "Conditions are not the best among your people, and I only thought, that is ..."

His people. Blair frowned then realized he meant the Irish. What was going on in Ireland in 1868? Was the famine over by then? Revolution? Another attempt at independence from England? He shook his head.

"I'm American," he said finally.

"Yes, of course. As are we all, fortunately or unfortunately."

He couldn’t cope with all this at this moment, much less continue coherent conversation. His head felt as if it were about to explode and his knees had a tendency to buckle. Climbing into the bed once more, he pushed the down pillows against the headboard and leaned against them. He closed his eyes and a small silence fell.

It was James who broke it. "You spoke just now of the old Ellison mansion. I don't know what you meant by that, for there is no other. Did you come -- were you sent to see me?"

"If I told you I came out of curiosity and nothing else," he said without looking at the other man, "would you believe me?"

"I might. There are those who have a taste for the bizarre."

His eyelids snapped up. "What?"

"Why else would you agree to come to me?"

"I didn't --" he began.

"Oh, come," James interrupted with weary distaste flickering across his features. "I don't object to your curiosity, but I prefer no subterfuge. If you did not expect me to guess your game, you should have played your part with more skill."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." That wasn't strictly true. He could guess, but he didn't like where his suspicions were leading him.

"Please. You have little gentlemanly reserve and your language is less than decent. You appear quite unconcerned at being visited in your bedchamber. There are those who know of my -- proclivities -- and some even do not object. You were brought into my house and my bedchamber by a man, either a procurer or a paramour, who used rough tactics to see that you remained when your curiosity, and perhaps your courage, failed you. You were left naked, not even draped with a cloth, leading me to think that perhaps you were imprisoned and thought to avoid your penalties by agreeing to bed the crazy man in the tower." He shrugged. "It becomes obvious."

"You think --"

"No, I know. And while I appreciate your form and I have a certain sympathy for your plight, I warn you, I resent being taking for a fool."

"You actually believe I'm a prostitute," Blair said with amazement threading his voice. He reached up and brushed his hair back.

James watched his gesture with grim appreciation, but made no answer.

Sitting forward a little, Blair said, "Because I don't speak and act like other men you know, you think I was brought here for your use? Why in heaven's name? If you want a whore, can't you get one? Even a male one? Did you send for one?"

Anger rose to darken the high cheekbones of James' face. "Certainly not!" He looked away. "I do not -- indulge -- that part of myself any longer."

Blair frowned over that then pushed it away. "Then why would you consider this possible? Who would supply you with a man if you didn't ask for one yourself?"

"My personal needs and wishes are not something I care to discuss --"

"Too bad, big guy! You're the one who brought it up! I am not for sale. And I want to know where you get off suggesting I might be."

"Come," James said, "are you sure you aren't acquainted with a good friend of mine? Have you never met a gentleman, and I use the word loosely, of some reputation named Van Ryf?"

"Never in my life," Blair said through his teeth. For good measure, he added, "I haven't spoken to him, wouldn't know him if he walked into the room, and I certainly haven't slept with him, if that's what you're insinuating."

"He must have seen you somewhere. There is no one else who would dare. Or care."

There was pain in his voice. Hearing it, Blair leaned back slowly against the pillows once more. He stared up at James for long moments. Finally, he said, "What I don't understand is why you would need ..." He paused. 1868. Not the most liberal time period. But still, it was done, wasn't it? Didn't men and women form non-traditional relationships back then? They just didn't talk about it, right? He was in very sensitive territory here and he wasn't sure how to proceed. He cleared his throat. "You are an attractive man. Surely you could form a -- liaison -- if that is what you desired."

James shrugged. "Even if there were one who shared my desires, none would chance the devil's curse."

"The devil's what? You don't mean your epilepsy?" Amazement was strong in his voice.

"The Greeks used to say the sickness was caused by the gods, an affliction sent for some past sin as a destructive whim. Now we blame the devil. It is all the same."

Blair shook his head. Maybe it wasn't epilepsy. He really needed to figure out how he could test this man, test his senses. If his own head would just quit pounding, maybe he could think.

"Maybe it's not epilepsy."

James stared at him.

"I mean, in my time..." Blair paused, frowned against his headache, then started again. "I have studied some of Sir Richard Burton's ..." Blair stopped again, amazement crossing his face.

"Burton?" James repeated. "The English anthropologist?"

Blair gave a little laugh. "That's the first time I haven't had to explain it was the explorer, not the actor."

"Actor? What do you speak of?"

Blair shook his head. "Never mind. Anyway, Burton discovered, or will discover -- actually I think this is the year he goes to South American -- he discovered that in the jungles of South America there were tribal watchmen, men with enhance senses whose job it was to protect the tribe. Sentinels, if you will.

James was staring at him with a very strange look on his face. "Enhanced senses? Like hearing things you couldn't possibly hear, seeing things you couldn't possibly see?"

Blair nodded. "And touch, and taste, and smell. All enhanced." He narrowed his eyes. "Besides the spells you call petit mal, do you ever have times when you feel like your senses are out of whack?"

"Out of whack?"

"Screwed up. Too in tune." He shook his head, struggling for the right words. "Do you feel that things are too sensitive? Your head hurts from the noise, your clothes are chafing your body, you can't eat certain foods?"

James nodded. "I have always been sensitive about what I can eat. And Maria takes great care to launder my clothes gently, else I will break out in a rash."

"Hearing?" Blair asked.

"At times," James began slowly, "I have thought I was going insane for I could swear I heard seamen on their vessels, not in the harbor, but out to sea. And again, when I would walk to the balcony to look, I could see them going about their business, tying off ropes, swabbing decks, hoisting sails, as if I had a spyglass to my eye." He shook his head. "And then the petit mal would seize me and I knew it was part of my malady."

"I don't think so. I think you may be a sentinel, living in an environment with too much stimuli. And when your brain feels overloaded, it just -- checks you out -- for a moment."

"Tis no matter," James said with a shrug. "Whatever the cause, the damage is done."

Blair swallowed hard, then said, "Burton said -- will say -- he believed that sentinels had partners -- guides -- who helped them control the stimuli and watched out for them when they had problems."

"Ah," James drawled slowly. "So you believe me to be this sentinel, and you believe yourself to be this guide, is that so?"

Blair flushed. "Maybe."

"Maybe you need to work on your story if you plan to be successful at your chosen career."

Blair flushed again. "Back to the prostitute, eh? So you think your friend fixed you up?"

"What?" James frowned again.

"You think your friend, this Van Ryf person, sent me to you, for you to use."

"I found you, naked and in a swoon, in my bedchamber. If you can't, or won’t tell me how you came to be here, then what else am I to think?"

Found. In his bedchamber. In this room, this house.

His question, Blair thought, was a very good one. The only trouble was, James would never believe the answer, not a man who talked about swoons and devil's curses. He couldn't even open his mind to sentinels, and he was probably one!

How could he expect James to believe, when he wasn't sure he believed it himself?