InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Rising Gale ( Chapter 39 )

~~Chapter 39~~

~Rising Gale~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“You know, you're horrible for a girl's ego.”

 

Gunnar blinked and pasted on a tepid smile as he met Carolyn Stieger's gaze. Tucking a long strand of ash-blonde hair behind her ear, she heaved a melodramatic sigh and pursed her ruby-red lips in a petulant little pout calculated to get under a man's skin. “Am I?” he asked mildly.

 

She laughed softly, abandoning the pretense of being upset with him since they both knew that a pretense was all it was. “I won't ask what's on your mind so long as you tell me it wasn't another woman,” she teased.

 

He chuckled. “And if I said it was?”

 

She sighed again and tried to look stern—an expression that was completely lost when she broke into a bright smile—the same smile that had earned her spots on the covers of the best selling fashion magazines in the world. “As long as she isn't the one on your mind while we're having sex, then I suppose I can live with it.”

 

“What makes you think that I'd have someone else on my mind at a time like that?” he parried.

 

“I'd hope you wouldn't,” she allowed, dabbing at her lips with the crisp beige napkin before dropping it onto the plate of food that she'd barely touched.

 

“How was your trip to Guam?” he asked, effectively changing the subject.

 

Carolyn shrugged and nodded across the room at the waiter. “It was nice enough,” she allowed. “I didn't have time to get out very much, though. I swear RJ was a slave driver in a past life . . .”

 

Gunnar shook his head. “You poor thing,” he commiserated.

 

“But he is the best in the business, as far as photographers go,” she went on, “so at least the end result will be worth it.”

 

“I'm sure,” Gunnar demurred, his attention slipping away once more. She paused long enough to order a glass of wine before launching into a story of her adventures in Guam. All he had to do was nod every now and again and look like he was paying attention.

 

It wasn't as though he thought Carolyn boring—far from it, in fact. The only child of pharmaceutical tycoon Grant Stieger and Karyn Rice-Stieger, the retired president of Medialome Technologies, Carolyn was a model with a PhD in psychology, and he had to admit that he enjoyed spending time with her. She loved a good debate—anything from the state of affairs of the United States government to the theory behind many of the laws that dictated youkai policy, she was a good mix of passionate and intelligent when defending her beliefs while also being able to laugh and admit if she was proven wrong . . . Refreshing, really, especially for a woman—smart, witty, self-reliant, and damn good in bed . . . He'd thought that she'd be a good distraction while he was in the city, which was why he'd called her in the first place.

 

He should have known better.

 

He just couldn't stop thinking about the investigations. He was waist-deep in the search for a youkai who had committed a few murders about ten years ago who had reportedly surfaced near Santa Fe, New Mexico recently, and when he wasn't concentrating on that case, then he was plodding through all manner of legends that Myrna thought were the most likely to pertain to Griffin Marin and his hidden past. Thus far, he hadn't been able to find much information in either case, and it was enough to frustrate the hell out of him, and then he'd been sidled with the task of taking care of some things in the New York office, to boot . . .

 

There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Marin was definitely hiding something, and the more he dug, the more convinced he was that whatever the bear-youkai was hiding, it was something really, really big. It stood to reason, didn't it? An innocent man did not go to the lengths that Marin had in order to cover up his past . . .

 

As near as they could tell from the weeks spent examining every viable option, Marin had spent a century or better in and around the Canadian region though it seemed that he had ventured further south periodically, too, if the legends held any credence. Though they rarely had any sort of concrete dates to them, they were simple enough to track back to certain spans of time. The first stories seemed to place him around Toronto sometime during the eighteenth century though pinning down a year was vague, at best. Those tales ran the gamut between the `scarred angel' who had saved a group of children from certain doom to a beast—a monster, they called him—who slaughtered children when they misbehaved. Gunnar would have discounted the last tale except for the mention of a `scarred bear with glowing red eyes'.

 

What grated on his nerves the most was the feeling of complete frustration every time a potential lead ended up nowhere. For a man used to getting results, it was almost more than he could stand . . .

 

“Hmm, you haven't heard a word I've said, have you?” Carolyn's voice cut through his reverie.

 

Gunnar blinked and shot her a smile that was as close to apologetic as he could muster. “You were regaling me with stories of your assignment,” he replied.

 

She rolled her eyes but laughed, obviously amused by his answer. “Maybe you'd feel better if you talked about whatever is sidetracking you? I might not have a clue about what's bothering you, but sometimes it helps just to say it out loud, don't you think?”

 

“Ah, the psychiatrist rears her head,” he quipped in a somewhat dry tone.

 

She shook her head. “No, but I do hope that you would consider me a friend, at least on some level.”

 

“Friend? I suppose . . .” He sighed and shook his head, leaning back in his chair as he stared at Carolyn. True enough, she was damn good at keeping things private—a plus, considering that she led a fairly high-profile life. He'd dated her when she was around or when his work took him to New York City quite a few times in the last six months, and he knew well enough that anything he said to her would stay between the two of them, and she had a point, in a roundabout way: sometimes it was easier to see things if you stated them out loud. Still, it grated on his nerves, the idea that he was being outwitted by Griffin Marin, and that was a feeling that he would not abide.

 

“I'm chasing a shadow, or so it would seem,” Gunnar muttered so that his voice wouldn't carry in the upscale restaurant.

 

Being youkai had its advantages, he supposed. She heard him just fine if the slight quirking of her eyebrows meant anything at all. “Shadows,” she repeated, the vaguest hint of a smile touching her lips, illuminating the depths of her pale green eyes. “Sounds mysterious.”

 

“Not nearly as mysterious as it is troublesome,” he ventured, shaking his head once more in abject disgust.

 

“Hmm . . . I take it this has something to do with your job?”

 

“Not at all,” he said mildly, tapping a tapered claw against the highly lacquered table.

 

She looked confused but didn't comment. He made a point of not talking about his work with anyone other than family, and only selected family, at that. Even then, she never asked too many questions—another thing that Gunnar could appreciate about the woman.

 

“My cousin's boyfriend, actually. In fact, she moved in with the guy without knowing a damn thing about him—at least about his past.”

 

She laughed softly, taking a moment to sip her wine. “You're that concerned for your cousin's well-being? That's touching, Gunnar—very touching. Not entirely surprising, but touching, nonetheless.”

 

He grunted at the teasing in Carolyn's tone. “Yes, well, Izzy has a habit of ignoring the modicum of common sense that she was allotted at birth.”

 

“Ouch. Are you being a bit harsh?”

 

He snorted, pinning Carolyn with a droll stare. “Not at all,” he said rather caustically. “In any case, she's positive that this . . . man . . . is a saint on earth.”

 

“A saint on earth? That's a pretty tall order.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

She pondered his words, pursing her lips as she shifted her gaze out the huge plate glass window that overlooked Central Park. “And you're convinced that there is some deep, dark secret that this guy is keeping from her?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

He could tell from the look on her face that she thought that maybe he was being a bit obsessive even if she didn't flat out say as much.

 

“The guy, as you so blithely put it, has gone to extraordinary lengths to bury his past,” Gunnar went on, measuring his words carefully. “No one goes through that much trouble unless he has something to hide.”

 

Carolyn smiled. “You make him sound like the devil, personified. Who is he? Granted, I'm sure I don't know him, but . . .”

 

Gunnar shook his head and heaved a frustrated sigh—he'd been doing that a lot of late. “Marin,” he said. “Griffin Marin . . . he's a professor at the University of Maine.”

 

“Never heard of him,” she admitted.

 

“I didn't assume you had.”

 

“Well, I have very little doubt in my mind that you'll find out whatever it is. You're nothing if not resourceful, Gunnar.”

 

“Keh,” he snorted. “One would think that it'd be a bit easier to find information on a scarred bear-youkai,” he muttered, more to himself than to his dinner companion. “He's old, damn it. It's impossible in this day and age to cover your tracks that thoroughly . . .”

 

“Scarred . . .?” Carolyn cut in with a shake of her head.

 

Gunnar froze, chin snapping up at the strange hitch in her voice. Narrowing his eyes speculatively, he leaned forward and tilted his head to the side. “Do you know him?”

 

She shook her head again, a thoughtful scowl marring her brow. “Well, no,” she admitted then waved a hand. “Not personally, anyway, but . . .”

 

“But?” he prompted when she trailed off.

 

“It's just . . .” she wrinkled her nose as her cheeks pinked slightly, as though she believed that Gunnar was going to think that what she was about to say was absolutely ridiculous. “My mother used to tell me this story,” she said slowly, haltingly.

 

“A story,” he echoed but didn't try to stop her. “Go on.”

 

She rolled her eyes and forced a smile that was much brighter than it should have been. Offering a nervous sort of laugh before she spoke again, she bit her lip and seemed to be trying to figure out where to start. “Well, she always said that when she was little, a group of kids got stuck in a cave. They went in there to explore from time to time. Anyway, she said she wasn't sure how it happened but that the woods outside the entrance caught fire, and by the time they got back to the front of the cave, a couple of the burning trees had fallen to block the entrance.”

 

“There wasn't another way out of the cave?”

 

She shook her head, staring at the wine in the glass for several seconds as though she were trying to remember exactly how the story unfolded. “No . . . Mom said there was a pond or something like that in the depths of the cave . . . anyway, they started to yell for help.”

 

“How old is your mother?”

 

“Not that she looks it, but she's pretty old . . . She was born in 1783. Always said that things were so volatile back then that she and Dad decided to wait to have children . . .”

 

He nodded, understanding that sentiment well enough. It was one of the reasons that his grandparents had opted to wait to start their own family, as well. “You're right; she doesn't look it,” he agreed instead.

 

Carolyn cocked her head to the side, regarding him with a certain measure of curiosity then snapped her fingers, her eyes lighting in obvious understanding. “That's right . . . Medialome did business with Inutaisho Industries, didn't they?”

 

He nodded. “I don't recall meeting you on your parents' visits.”

 

“They were hardly social calls,” she said mildly. “I was never interested in accompanying them on their business trips . . .”

 

“A damn shame,” he murmured.

 

She laughed. “Maybe it was.”

 

Gunnar held up a finger to stop their conversation while the waiter gathered their plates and slipped away again. “So tell me more of this story . . .?” he prompted after satisfying himself that they wouldn't be overheard.

 

Carolyn shot him a smile and sighed. “Well, Mom said that the smoke in the cave was bad; one of the children had already passed out from it, and they all thought that they were going to die when this . . . voice . . . called out to them—there was a woman with them—she was in the cave gathering some plants that only grew in there, I think Mom said . . .” She trailed off and drew a deep breath before launching into the story once more. “That's not really important, is it? Anyway, Mom said that he tried to move the trees but couldn't. They were those huge ones? At least a hundred years old or so . . . She said that most of the children were passed out by then, but she remembered hearing this unearthly howl and a flash of yellowish light despite the smoke and flames—she said it was the eeriest thing she'd ever seen, if I recall . . . but the next thing she knew, this huge bear-paw splintered the logs and sent them flying. She said she thought she saw a flash of his red eyes but wasn't certain since it all happened so fast . . . Mom got a few splinters from the flying debris in her eyes, too. It took her awhile to fully regain her sight, but she swore that the paw she saw was . . . was covered with scars and missing fur on the side where a human would have had a thumb . . .”

 

“The scarred bear youkai . . .” Gunnar murmured.

 

Carolyn shrugged and sipped her wine again. “So it would seem. I always just thought it was a silly little story that Mom told me before bed.”

 

Gunnar frowned, unsure whether or not he really ought to lend the tale any real credence. “Tell me something, Carolyn . . .”

 

She winked at him and smiled. “What do you want to know?”

 

Pursing his lips as he considered the tale he'd been told, he reached for his wine glass. “Where, exactly, did your mother grow up?”

 

She didn't seem surprised by his question. “Up around Quebec, I believe . . .”

 

“Quebec,” Gunnar repeated. “I see . . .”

 

“That's all I can remember,” she said with a shake of her head.

 

The smile that touched his lips was genuine if not a bit on the calculating side, and he took his time swirling the contents of his wine glass in an idle manner. “On the contrary, Carolyn,” he said as the smile widened just a little, “you've been more help than you realize . . .”

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

“Where are you taking me?” Isabelle asked, a hint of reluctance in her tone despite her best efforts to keep it in check.

 

He shook his head and kept walking, pulling her along behind him as he made his way down the hallway and through the living room into the dining room. Stopping before the basement door, he let go of her hand and stepped side. “Go ahead,” he mumbled, expression inscrutable as he gestured for her to enter.

 

She backed away, shaking her head, unable to fathom just what he had in mind. It was his sanctuary, wasn't it? That was what he'd always maintained, and while she understood intuitively that it was the only way he could think of to tell her that he was sorry, and while she'd teased often enough that she wanted to know what he did while he was down there, for some reason she simply couldn't bring herself to go, even if he did want to show her. “No . . .” she said softly, biting her lip and hoping that he could understand. “It's your place, and I—”

 

“You wanted to know what I have down there, didn't you?” he said. Heaving a sigh, he shrugged in what she supposed he wanted to be an offhanded sort of way. Entirely forced, she could tell, and that was enough to bolster her resolve.

 

“I don't need to,” she assured him, offering him a shaky smile as his words came back to her.

 

“The one thing I asked you not to do was try to go down to the basement, and you can't even do that! My God, you have absolutely no decency, do you? No, you don't! Whatever you want, right, Isabelle? Whatever you want, and who gives a damn about anyone other than you?”

 

He was right—entirely right. All she'd ever done was laugh at him time and again whenever he'd said that he didn't want her in his life. All those times she'd been certain that he was just grumbling, but maybe he hadn't been. She'd forced her way right into his home, for kami's sake . . . If he hated her, it was no more than she deserved, and the last thing she wanted to do was to invade the last stronghold he had, even if he did maintain that he was all right with it . . .

 

“It's fine,” he said, shuffling his feet and stuffing his hands into his pockets in a completely unsure sort of way. She couldn't see his face. The way he hunched forward made his bangs fall like a curtain.

 

“Griffin—”

 

He stepped toward her and grasped her hand once more, pulling her along behind him as he stepped through the doorway onto the old stone steps. So old that they were worn down in the middle of each step, she wondered vaguely just how long Griffin had lived in the house. The stairs were surprisingly warm under her feet, she noted as he led the way. There was no light over the steps, but she the hazy glow of a single lamp was enough to keep her from feeling stifled in the darkness. Froofie lifted his muzzle off his paws and wuffed softly in greeting as Griffin stepped off the bottom rise, and he pushed Isabelle forward before planting himself in front of the staircase to bar the exit should she try to flee.

 

The fire in the hearth was banked and glowing—she hadn't realized that there was another fireplace in the house, and he had left a lamp on though it was turned down, giving off a glow that was little more than nightlight intensity. It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the dimness, but she could smell the scent of cut wood. It seemed to permeate the entire room though it didn't seem like a dusty sort of smell. No, it smelled very clean like fresh-cut wood—not the same smell that she associated with hunks of rough firewood, at all . . .

 

Blinking as the darkness seemed to recede just enough for her to be able to better discern her surroundings, she couldn't help the small gasp that escaped her. The longest wall was lined with shelves—little more than rough wood planks bolted to what looked to be tree trunks with the bark stripped off, but on those shelves . . . The menagerie of animals carved out of wood were neatly arranged four or five rows deep, running the lengths of the shelves back into the deeper shadows in the corner where she couldn't rightfully see them anymore. Taking an involuntary step toward them, she stopped suddenly, casting Griffin a nervous glance, as if to ask his permission.

 

He seemed to understand her unvoiced question, and while she couldn't make out his features very well in the dimness, she did see him jerk his head once in a nod as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

 

They were all different, she realized as she slowly shifted her gaze over the collection of animals. Though there were more than one of the various kinds of beasts, they were all posed differently, every single one captured in motion: a walking deer with the most delicate antlers—splendidly detailed antlers no thicker than a toothpick in places . . . birds in flight with wings spread wide . . . a fox with a fish hanging from his mouth as he ran . . . a bear standing on his hind legs with a paw stretching up above him like he was swatting at something that he just couldn't reach . . . “These are amazing,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

 

Griffin grunted and pulled his hands out of his pockets, shuffling toward the hulking stone fireplace on the far end of the room. “They're just hunks of wood,” he mumbled.

 

Carefully lifting a beaver that seemed to be floating on his back, Isabelle peered over her shoulder with a censuring frown that Griffin didn't see. “These are no more `just hunks of wood' than my grandfather's sculptures are `just hunks of marble' or `just hunks of clay',” she chided.

 

He didn't answer her. He didn't act like he'd heard her at all. Digging into a small wooden bin near the hearth, he tossed a few pieces onto the banked fire and jabbed at it with an iron poker.

 

Isabelle sighed softly and wandered toward him, her attention focused on the carving in her hands. The absolute devotion and care taken with the piece was enough to make her frown as what began as a fleeting thought took root in her mind. The look on Griffin's face she'd unwrapped the carving of her dog solidified in her mind; his words, her words . . . and the significance she'd foolishly missed at the time . . .

 

“You can see it, you know.”

 

“See what?”

 

“The love . . . Whoever made this . . . he loved making it, didn't he?”

 

“Maybe he did . . .”

 

“You made it,” she said, her eyes flicking up to stare at him, an incredulity in her gaze, a sense of wonder that she hadn't realized it sooner. The truth had been there all along. She'd seen the odd expression on his face; a sort of embarrassment, a hint of surprise that warred with the vaguest trace of reluctance whenever she'd asked about the woodwork . . .

 

“Made what?”

 

She shook her head, as though to tell him that he simply wasn't going to get away with his elusive half-answers. “The dog you gave me for Christmas . . . you made it.”

 

He snorted but didn't deny it, busying himself with nursing the fire back to life.

 

“Why didn't you tell me?” she asked, her tone gentle despite the slight hitch caused by the telltale tightening in her throat as she knelt beside him.

 

“I did tell you,” he countered mildly, his voice giving away the embarrassment that he was trying so desperately to hide. “I said that it was—”

 

“—Just a hunk of wood,” she interrupted with a shake of her head. “But it isn't; not to me. It never was.”

 

Tossing another handful of pieces onto the fire, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, still stubbornly refusing to meet her gaze. “Don't worry about it,” he mumbled, staring at his hands with a thorough frown on his face.

 

She opened her mouth to argue with him when she finally took note of what he held in his hand: the headless body of what looked to be a buffalo. Before she could make sense of it, he tossed it onto the fire, too. She reached out to stop him, but it was too late. “What are you doing?” she asked, staying his hand with hers.

 

He blinked and shot her an inscrutable look, his eyes veiled in shadows made all the starker in the warm glow of the burgeoning flames. “The scraps make good kindling,” he muttered, his tone indicating that she ought to have realized as much.

 

Narrowing her eyes on him, she shook her head. Pushing herself to her feet, she stepped over to the wooden box and winced inwardly as her suspicions were confirmed when she knelt down to get a better look. Filled with the odds and ends—broken bits of ruined sculptures—it didn't take long for her to figure it out. She'd known it, hadn't she? Despite what he wanted, his hands just weren't capable of intricate work for very long. How long had he worked on some of those pieces, only to inadvertently snap them? Moreover, how hard had it been for him to create the beautifully rendered dog—her dog—that he'd given to her for Christmas? And in the end, he tossed the imperfect ones into a box to be burned regardless of how many hours he'd spent working on them . . .

 

“Don't worry about it,” he said with a shrug. “It happens.”

 

She didn't know what to say to that, and in the end, she supposed it didn't really matter. For whatever reason, Griffin had come to accept what he considered to be his limitations, and while she wanted to tell him that he could probably get surgery to help with those issues, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. Staring at his profile, she could see it: his understated pride, and even if he thought every now and then that the pain he endured could be eased, she knew deep down that he was far too proud to ever ask for that kind of help. It was one of the things that she loved about him: his indomitable spirit, his quiet integrity. To ask him to be any less than he was . . . she simply wouldn't do it.

 

“It's not polite to stare at people,” he said, his voice breaking through her reverie.

 

Isabelle felt her cheeks pink at the gentle reprimand, and she cleared her throat, extending the beaver to him in her open palm. “This is really cute,” she told him.

 

He grunted, and she thought that maybe she could discern the hint of a blush in his skin. “Just animals I've seen,” he remarked. “Nothing special; not really.”

 

“Don't sell yourself short,” she insisted, pushing herself to her feet and wandering back over to the shelf once more. She could hear Griffin moving behind her but didn't turn to see what he was doing. “All of these? You've seen them all?”

 

“Mm, at some point or another.”

 

Setting the beaver back on the shelf, she carefully picked up a sculpture of an eagle. “Wow . . . these are extinct, right?”

 

He turned up the lamp before moving toward her, peering over her shoulder at the bird in her hands. “Yeah, that one is. The bald eagle . . . declared extinct about . . . forty years ago? Fifty years ago?” He uttered a terse sound that might have passed for a chuckle if it weren't so dry, so empty. “Humans have a habit of killing things . . .”

 

She shook her head and sighed, concentrating on the bird in her hand. “And you actually saw a bald eagle?”

 

He nodded. “They used to be all over in some areas . . . If you sat and watched them, it kind of made you wish that you had wings, too . . .”

 

She blinked at the almost whimsical statement then smiled. “Wings, huh?”

 

He blushed and shook his head quickly, obviously embarrassed at having made such an observation, at least out loud. “Well, not me,” he amended. “Bears can't have wings . . .”

 

“Do you ever carve people?” she asked, setting the eagle down and reaching for another statue.

 

“Uh . . . no . . .” he said. “Y-you want some tea?”

 

“Okay,” she agreed absently.

 

She heard him move off toward the stairs but didn't stop examining Griffin's work.

 

It was remarkable, really. She'd love to show her grandfather these sculptures—maybe even Ben Philips. Ben knew a lot about art. He was Cain's business manager, after all, and he knew talent when he saw it . . .

 

With a sigh, Isabelle put the carving back and turned away from the shelf. She'd never do that, though, would she? At least, she wouldn't without Griffin's knowledge. Though he hadn't said as much, she knew that these things were highly personal to him; moments of his life that he'd managed to capture in vivid detail . . .

 

Further down on the shelves were some other odds and ends: toy trains and cars, much more detailed than the standard type things that were a dime a dozen at toy stores that still carried the old fashioned wooden toys. Griffin's were done in such detail that she didn't doubt for a moment that he'd seen those before, too, and she had to wonder why he'd carve items like that.

 

`He does work with children, Bitty,' her youkai pointed out reasonably. `Maybe he makes a few for them. It makes sense.'

 

It did, she had to admit. If there was nothing else she knew about him, she knew that he was a big softy when it came to children. She'd seen it, herself, hadn't she? When she'd observed him with children, she'd realized that he was definitely the fathering type even if he had a gruff exterior and even if he had trouble saying exactly what he wanted to say sometimes . . .

 

In the light, she was better able to get a good look at this place—Griffin's sanctuary. In one corner was a box full of what looked like furniture legs in various states of finish, and she shook her head. She should have known that he'd been the one to make most of the furniture in his house. Though she hadn't thought of it at the time, it made perfect sense, didn't it? He was a man who enjoyed the simpler aspects of living, and in many ways, he seemed to cling to what others might consider an almost archaic way of life. He never bought anything that he could make himself. She'd teased him one day when he'd donned a surgical mask and chemical proof gloves so that he could mix up a batch of soap, and she knew that the kiln in the back yard wasn't just for looks, after all.

 

Yet those were some of the things that Isabelle respected the most about him. In his unassuming and oftentimes quiet way, he didn't draw as much attention as some of the men she'd dated before, but she couldn't say that was a bad thing, either. There was much to be said for leading a quiet life, wasn't there?

 

Smiling wanly, she set the eagle back on the shelf and rubbed her arm as the softness of fur brushed against her ankle once, then twice. “So this is where you've been hiding,” she commented, hunkering down to rub the kitten's downy head.

 

The kitten half-purred, half-mewed in answer, rising on her tiptoes to rub herself against Isabelle's hand.

 

`True enough,' Isabelle thought with a soft giggle. It seemed that both the cat as well as the dog preferred Griffin's presence. `Perfectly understandable . . . so do I . . .'

 

The kitten caught sight of a wooden ball on the floor nearby and darted away, diving on the toy and rolling onto her back, kicking at the ball with her hind feet while holding onto it with her front paws. Isabelle cocked her head to the side, smiling gently as she watched the kitten play.

 

Something caught her attention, and she turned to get a better look. Back in the shadows of the corner of the bottom shelf stood a dollhouse.

 

Frowning as she crept closer, Isabelle pulled it out of the shadows. It wasn't completely made of wood, as she had first thought, but was instead built using different mediums, from the small stones that had been mortared together to create a fireplace in the living room to the clay that he'd used to create certain fixtures like the sink in the kitchen and small bathroom. He'd meticulously carved the shingles that were secured to the roof, and he'd pieced together delicate bits of wood to create furniture for the dwelling, too. He'd carved a small wooden dog that was curled up near the fireplace, and he'd even carved intricate scrollwork along all the doorframes and windowsills.

 

Still, it wasn't the absolute care that had so obviously gone into the creation of such a thing that captured her attention and held it. No, it was the one figurine standing in the middle of a small bedroom on the second story of the house. Isabelle's hand trembled as she reached for the figure and gingerly lifted her from the dollhouse.

 

Hair blowing in an imaginary wind, she seemed to be dancing. Standing on the tiptoes of her right foot with her left leg bent and her arms outstretched, it was her face that captivated Isabelle. Caught in the middle of a fit of laughter, she seemed, with her round cheeks bringing to mind the images of the little cherubs she'd seen depicted in calendars and cutesy prints in lower-end art stores. She was just a child—maybe five or so—dancing happily in a floral-carved kimono . . .

 

“There are a few translation notes I need you to look at,” Griffin said as he stepped off the staircase, carefully balancing two mugs of tea and a plate of fruit and crackers.

 

Isabelle slowly turned to watch him as he set the mugs and plate on the stout end table beside the lamp. “I thought you said you don't carve people,” she said softly, cradling the figurine in her hands.

 

His head shot up, and he cast her an inscrutable look, his eyes widening as he saw what she was holding. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but she thought that he'd paled just a little as he closed the distance with three long strides and very carefully—almost reverently—took the figurine from her and knelt down in front of the doll house. “You asked if I do. You didn't ask if I have.”

 

Frowning at the hint of belligerence underlying his answer, she bit her lip and watched as he placed the figurine in the dollhouse once more. “I'm sorry . . . I didn't realize . . .” Isabelle ventured, reaching for the smaller tea mug.

 

He stopped in the process of pushing the dollhouse back into the corner, shooting Isabelle an almost nervous sort of glance before resuming his task once more. “It's all right,” he muttered quietly, sitting back on his haunches and letting his hands dangle between his knees.

 

“That's an amazing dollhouse,” Isabelle went on between sips of the fragrant tea. “It seems like such a shame to hide it.”

 

“I'm not hiding it,” he contradicted, planting his fingertips on the floor to push himself to his feet. “It's just . . . I-I-I don't know why I made it . . .”

 

She didn't say anything as he moved closer. Taking his mug of tea, he shuffled around the sofa and sat down, nodding in the direction of the papers stacked neatly on the low coffee table. He seemed eager to change the topic, and as much as she wished it were otherwise, she just didn't have the heart to pry , especially when he'd let down his guard enough to allow her into a place as intensely personal as the basement seemed to be. “You, uh, want to take a look at these notes before I go on?”

 

“Griffin, you know . . . If you don't want me down here, I'll be happy to go back upstairs,” she offered, hoping that he didn't take her statement in the wrong way.

 

“It's all right,” he said though he didn't sound completely certain. “Probably disappointed, right? No dead bodies after all.”

 

She smiled just a little at his attempt to make a joke.

 

He sighed. “She was my sister,” he said in a voice so low that she had to strain to hear him.

 

“She's beautiful,” she replied softly.

 

“Yeah, she was,” he agreed, his sadness evident in his tone; in his demeanor. “She looked just like Hahaue.”

 

Blinking in surprise at the Japanese word he'd used, she wasn't entirely certain why that had surprised her. After all, she'd realized that he'd been around for awhile, hadn't she? `Hahaue,' she thought, pressing her lips together as she pondered. `Mother . . .'

 

“It was a long time ago,” he murmured.

 

She smiled, deliberately casting aside the desire to ask him more about his mother. “Who do you look like?”

 

He shrugged. “Chichiue . . . at least, that's what . . . they said.”

 

“They?”

 

“Anyone who ever remarked on it.”

 

Isabelle wandered around the sofa to sit beside Griffin but didn't speak. She could tell that it was difficult for him. She'd have to be stupid not to. He was scowling at his hands, having set the mug on the coffee table beside the research notes, but she could see the suspect brightness in his gaze; the pain he fought to hide from her. “You don't sound like you believed them.”

 

Griffin snorted, shaking his head as his hair fell in a thick curtain, veiling him from her perusal, and he reached for a pencil, twisting it idly in his hands, as though he needed something to occupy himself. “I don't think so.”

 

There was something else that Isabelle could sense but couldn't grasp; something subtle—a hint of foreboding or maybe . . . “Everyone says I look just like Mama, and I suppose I have most of her coloring, sure, but I've always thought that my face was shaped more like Papa's . . . Is that what you mean?”

 

The pencil snapped, and he jerked back, surprised by his own actions. “Uh, no,” he said then heaved a sigh, tossing the bits of pencil across the room and into the fire. “I . . . I don't know what I mean.”

 

She didn't believe him, but she didn't press for more, either. Staring into the rollicking flames, his eyes were veiled by the mists of time, looking back over centuries and into a place that Isabelle couldn't see. “It was yellow,” he said, swallowing hard and refusing to meet her questioning gaze. “Her . . . her kimono was yellow . . .”

 

`The little girl who would forever be dancing,' Isabelle realized slowly. `His sister . . .' Unsure what to say or if she should say anything at all, she nodded. “What . . . was her name . . .?” she asked quietly.

 

He didn't answer right away. The consuming sense of sadness that permeated the air took on a more savage bite, an angry undertone as the gravity in his expression gave way to a blackened scowl. “Kumiko,” he replied.

 

`Kumiko . . . Long-lived child . . .' she thought with a grimace. “You . . . You came from Japan?”

 

“Didn't all youkai originate in Japan?” he countered, his tone taking on an acerbic bite.

 

“There is that,” she allowed. “When did you come to America?”

 

He drained the tea from his mug before he shrugged. “I don't remember. I sort of . . . wandered for awhile. Up through Asia . . . across the Bering Strait . . . Traveled around Canada . . . Didn't really aim to come here, if that's what you meant.”

 

“And you met Attean and Maria.”

 

He shot her a quizzical glance, as though he'd forgotten that she knew about the couple. He looked a little . . . scared? Why . . .? “No,” he said before she could make sense of the expression. “Not right away . . .”

 

“Sounds like you've been everywhere,” she commented, hoping to lighten the invisible shroud that seemed to have settled over the room.

 

Griffin grunted—a sound that reassured her much more than anything else ever could have. “I've been everywhere and nowhere in particular.”

 

She smiled gently, trying to reassure him that everything really was all right if he would just let it be. “But you're somewhere now, aren't you? You have a home: a place to belong . . . people who . . . who need you.”

 

His chin snapped up, and he looked at her as though he couldn't quite credit her words. Startled, certainly, with a hint of guilt underlying it and maybe a little uncertainty, yet there was still a subtle hint of hope buried in the depths of his eyes; so deep and so guarded that he didn't seem to understand it, himself, but she did, and given time, maybe—just maybe—she could make him realize it, too . . .

 

But he sighed and looked away, tapping his fingertips together in a nervous sort of way, and when he sighed, he sounded so very weary that it made her want to reach out to him. “She would have liked it: that dollhouse . . .”

 

“So you built it for her,” Isabelle said with a nod.

 

“No . . . yes . . . I don't even know . . .”

 

`But you miss her, don't you . . .? Your sister . . . Oh, Griffin . . .'

 

She wanted to reach out to him, to touch his hand and to tell him that it was all right. In the end, all she could do was sit beside him and hope that he understood. He didn't have to be alone anymore because . . .

 

Because she wouldn't leave him, no matter what he wanted to believe . . .

 

 

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A/N:

 

Hahaue: Japanese term for Mother.

Chichiue: Japanese term for Father.

 

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Final Thought fromIsabelle:

…His sister …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Avouchment): I do not claim any rights to InuYashaor the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~