Chapter 23: "We Have All The Time Right Now"

Charlotte submitted the letter to the police and she was once again put into question.

Throughout this entire process, Mrs. Duchbury waited for her, despite it taking a long time.

However, to Charlotte's dismay, she had to be kept at the station for the sake of her safety. That is where Mrs. Duchbury intervened.

"Officer, can't you let her go?"

"Sorry ma'am but for her safety, Ms. Charlotte is obligated to be kept here. She has been involved in too many incidents to be let go."

"So it is her safety you are afraid of, no? How about transferring her to my place? She is provided with the utmost security there as well."

"But ma'am-"

"I am of the Duchbury household. I think my place is more than suitable to guarantee her security."

A certain detective then chimed in.

"Can you really guarantee her safety, Mrs. Duchbury?"

She gave him a light smirk, "Are you questioning my capabilities, Detective Cromwell?"

"Not at all, madam-"

"Then I believe I am more than eligible."

The detective gave her a heavy sigh, "Then may I ask for your reason Mrs. Duchbury?"

She then turned her head to look at Charlotte then smiled, "I have a long overdue conservation with Ms. Charotte. I believe it has been delayed more than a couple of months now."

Detective Cromwell looked at Charlotte and she could only shrug and state, "The madam is right."

With reluctance, the detective let her go under Charlotte's agreement. He didn't forget to warn the two about the dangers of the matter.

Mrs. Duchbury lead her to her estate with every step was the 'clack' sound from her cane.

Once arrived, Charlotte could not help but marvel at the sight. Mrs. Duchbury owned an enormous mansion that underwhelm the other houses surrounding her.

'Elegance' and 'sophisticated' were the only two words that came to her mind as she began looking around as if a lost child.

The hallways were all filled with decadence as the pillars and furniture were engraved with different intricate designs that people could only dream of replicating. The wallpaper gives a regal essence to the hallway through the stunning burgundy-red color plastered on the walls.

Charlotte took a peek at the rooms and was once again in awe at the interior, as each individual room would be considered the peak of luxury.

Smiling at Charlotte's expression, Mrs. Duchbury made a quick comment, "Isn't it neat that I get to own a place like this? Imagination truly is the perfect tool for sculpting."

Navigating the mansion posed quite a challenge as the deeper Charlotte went in, the more lost she was. The hallways all had a similar setup, everything down to the table, the mirror, the flower vase, and the flower itself.

It didn't take her long to realize it is actually a maze as she finally lost her position in this vast house. They kept turning at different corners yet the destination was nowhere in sight.

"Your imagination huh?"

"Fabulous is it not?"

Her cane kept knocking on the floor with every step she took and they finally reached an open-spaced room.

'It seems much larger than the exterior?' Charlotte thought as she stood dumbfounded at the entrance.

It was as if the room knows no bounds, as it kept extending into the vast distance which seemed to be covered with a layer of fog.

The layer of mist enthralled the room, wrapping around the never-ending corners yet it doesn't obstruct the view of the table and chairs set perfectly in the middle.

The floor was made out of wood, which gives a subtle warmth in the background. The room itself screamed the color brown, as beyond the mist seemed to have different shades of brown on the walls with traces of red in between.

It gives off a hazy atmosphere as Mrs. Duchbury continues to walk towards the table as if it were natural.

She sat in one of the chairs and looked back at Charlotte, waiting for her. Her actions seemed a bit too natural.

Charlotte complied and slowly walked towards the table, with every step calling for caution.

She pulled out a nicely decorated chair with a burgundy cushion and sat on it.

"It is surprisingly comfortable," Charlotte remarked.

"Yes, I personally made sure of that myself. The worse feeling is to sit on a wooden chair for hours on end," she replied while pouring Charlotte some tea.

Charlotte once again looked around her surroundings and squinted her eyes to get a better look behind the mist.

"It's curious is it not? How this place came to be? I guess it wouldn't surprise you if I told you I made this with my imagination. It gave me quite a bit of insight into the different details of the room."

"You imagined mist?"

"I currently am. The room changes into whatever I imagine. Quite neat."

Charlotte was still trying to wrap her head around the whole imagination thing and Mrs. Duchbury laughed and reminded her, "Aren't you curious about who I am? What this is? Where you are?"

Realizing her distraction, Charlotte cleared her voice and spoke.

"I do have a lot of questions. To be frank, this is too good to be true. I always fantasized about a world with magic or at least tried to imagine it. So it's exciting something like the sort is happening in front of you."

"I guess you could call this a sort of 'magic', as I personally am also not sure what 'this' is."

"You don't?"

Mrs. Duchbury nodded and took a sip of tea.

"You told me you are the author. And I am going to take a bold guess that the world I am in right now is a story that you, the 'author', wrote."

"Correct, I wrote this story and constructed it into the world you just saw."

"And you are a real human being? As in alive? Though it feels a bit far-fetched, the story is based on the real story of Jack the Ripper..."

"Ah, I'll explain to you my thought process throughout writing this. I was going to make it an epistolary novel, a novel written in the form of letters or other documents. I have been exchanging letters with a few friends about the situation and sometimes gather to talk about the ongoing catastrophe that was happening during my time."

"Your time?"

"Yes, during my time. In the current living world, I am now dead for well over hundreds of years by now."

"But how are you still here?"

"I'll explain a bit later as this is a very long story."

She then looked Charlotte in the eye and curved hers into crescent moons, "We have all the time right now."

"Now, where was I? Ah yes- the murderer was a very interesting gossip over the months and I have heard many variations of the story everywhere. Of course, each to their own, but it was getting ridiculous with the overexaggerated descriptions and reasons for what the murderer did. But hats off to them as we don't really know the murderer because we never caught them. Thus, speculation is all considered valid."

"I was an author writing under an alias as at the time, women weren't expected to work, much less write, and so I was known by my pen name. But that isn't quite important."

"After hearing all the different versions and takes of history, I decided to turn the speculations into a story. A tragic tale if you will and I wrote it as inspiration for this particular one."

"So, how am I able to... experience through it?"

"Well, I never published this story and wrote it into a book that I found. It is the very book that brought you here."

"But how?"

"I don't know. I found this old book once when looking through the shops and decided to buy it to plan for my novels. But as I try to open it, it wouldn't budge. So I left it on a shelf and forgot about it. As time went on, I grew older and I couldn't write anymore. I didn't find joy when writing and couldn't think creatively enough to write. It made me flip through old notebooks I had for ideas and I stumbled upon this book once more. I re-tried to open it and it worked."

"Did you experience a story as I did?"

"No, I didn't. Instead, I was met with a blank world, a blank canvas that was begging to be painted on. Slowly, I figured out I could create anything from imagination and so I created this space in which we are sitting upon this very instance."

"So how did you 'create' the world I just experienced?"

"Well, in the midst of the blank world, I saw a book. When you see a blank book, you must write in it, right? But I was so out of touch, I made myself take a break. Naturally, as time went on in this space, the habit of thinking came back to me as I was reflecting on different aspects of my life. The things around me gave me the inspiration to write about it. So, although hesitant, I picked up a pen and wrote until the very end. When I finished, I saw the world I created come to life. And since I saw everything I wrote, I was able to tweak it so that I can give it more detail, more life-like."

"And so you created a world of your story."

"Correct."

"But you have never experienced a story?"

"Why do you think that is?" she asked while sipping her tea.

Only one answer came to mind.

"Because you were the first author."