Legacy of the White Raven: Volume I

Chapter Eight: Family Reunion

Lydia led Chris by the hand through the manor to the grand staircase, where she invited him up to the second floor with the promise of giving him another piece of his past, one that illustrated a grieving parent's love for a lost child. She gave him no hints as to what he  was about to discover. Instead, she informed him as he trailed behind her during their climb up, that the second floor housed all of the private bedrooms in the manor, five in all.

    When they reached the top of the stairs, two opposing hallways presented a choice that Lydia made by guiding Chris down the one to their left. It was a long hallway with two evenly spaced doors on each side.  She brought him to the last door on the left, where he swallowed hard at the name painted near eye level on the wooden door. In regal strokes similar to a medieval calligraphy, black letters spelled out 'Corbin', giving the door a hallowed rank among the other unmarked doors in the hallway.

   Releasing his hand, Lydia opened the door in a respectful manner and followed it inward, spinning around to put her back against the door so she could stay clear of Chris' path while catching his expression when he entered. A rose window at the far end of the room allowed more than enough daylight in through its stained glass to assure Chris that what he saw on the walls when he stepped past Lydia into the room were not tricks played by shadows. His head turned to his neck's limit on his right and left, giving his eyes a sweeping chance to discern the life size images that lived on the walls with striking degrees of painted realism.

    All around him, in ages that ranged from very young  to adult, were boys and men who could never leave the surface of the walls, no matter how real they seemed at first glance. There was not a space on any wall in the room where they did not meet Chris with the same happy eyes and smile. Lydia spoke from behind Chris, who listened, but kept his focus on the assembly of phantoms all around him.

    "In addition to being a great architect, Pappa was also a very talented painter. This was how he dealt with his grief after the tragedy at Aunt Sylvia's house. He would come here to your room, and paint how he thought you would look as you grew up."

    An assortment of small, child-size pieces of furniture in the room bore witness that at one time a child lived in the room. Chris wandered over to the tiny bed, looked at the brightly colored comforter on top and the small pillows that waited for innocent dreams; then he strolled over to a small desk and traced it's edge with his fingers. He'd hoped its feel would jar a memory or two. Glancing up at the closest painted figure, one that appeared to be near his age, he suddenly realized that Pappa must've stood very near to where he now stood when he painted his son grown and happy. The smiling figure, with all his clones of varying ages spreading out around him on the walls of the room, reflected onto Chris a father's love.

    Chris turned with a pile of scrambled emotions to Lydia, looking to her for the right response to the room. She hastily left the door and went to him, taking both his hands in hers to soothe the emotional unrest she saw overtaking him.

    "You don't have to say anything, you just have to know that you have always been loved," she confirmed. 

    Chris drooped his head to hide his feelings, and his hands went limp in Lydia's, but she squeezed comfort into them as she respected his moment by bowing her head too. They remained like that until a certain bold voice interrupted them with a question.

    "So, can we call ya Corbin now?"

    Chris raised his head as Lydia swung around to his side while still holding onto his hand. They saw Shade leaning with folded arms against the door jamb, waiting with a raised brow for an answer. Chris consulted Lydia's expression, which could not contain the eagerness for the answer she wanted, then he scanned the painted phantoms on the walls as he directed his eyes back to Shade. Squeezing Lydia's hand in his, he swallowed then declared earnestly with all of the belief that the proof within the manor gave him,"Why shouldn't you, that is my name."