Greetings to all... My name is Frederic Larsan, detective of the Surete... Perhaps you have heard of me? My name seems to carrie with it a certain prestige as of late... My friends know me as Monsieur Fred, and as it would seem that we are all trapped here together in this most unfortunate situation, I would be greatly please to make more friends than enemies... I shall do my best to not be any trouble... Some food and perhaps a bed is all that I require. I have noticed the wonderful collection of books housed here, and I believe I shall spent a great deal of my time in deep study.

Though should any of you be in need of my assistance in any way.... you only need but ask.

Most humbly yours,
Frederic Larsan

Frowning, the girl with somewhat limp yellow hair looked up at the mansion, her dark eyes critical as she took in the massive house before her. The darkness and lonliness that emiited from the mansion did not faze her; she was used to living in such conditions. However, things were not right with this place.

Trying to assure herself, she patted the dirt-caked spade in her coat pocket and deepened her frown, preparing herself for what lay inside...


What assortment of people or creatures would Mary Lennox find in this place?

::Enters the house, drenched to the bone::

Hello. My name is Jane, Miss Eyre, if you wish. I have come to seek shelter from the terrible storm raging outside these walls, if you would be obliged to have me. Please forgive my abrupt entrance, but I do not think I could bear any more miles in these tired, worn shoes in this weather. I would be most grateful if you could accomodate me with a room for the night, or until the storm changes its tide. Thank you most kindly,

Jane

It sits silently in its clearing, bordered on all sides by steeply rolling hills, thick forests, and even a graveyard in near ruins.  A thick mist be it Bronte or Stoker or Stevenson lingers about it, rolling in copious waves.  

Deep withing the bowels of the massive mansion, something waits to be released.  A demon?  A ghost?  The inhabitants may never know.

The walls suddenly shift, the floors groan, doors fling open, a lady's scream is heard --probably one of those darn Brontes.  

Its inhabitants are a mixed lot: Brooding gentlemen, clever women, languishing ladies, murderers, a dual personality, a great detective, an immortal Count, a conossieur of rats and spiders, a masked musician.  There's an even a wolf or two.

But will anyone leave this angst and secret ridden house alive?

Greetings. I do believe we know each other... I am Mr. Renfield. Faithful servant to the master, Count Dracula. Do be careful not to step on the spiders around you.... Those happen to be my dinner! And please! I'm always happy to share if your hungary! In fact look what I found!

Rootworm Beetle Dip

Ingredients:

• 2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
• 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons skim milk
• 1/2 cup reduced calorie mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
• 1 tablespoon onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp. dill weed
• 1 1/2 tsp. Beau Monde
• 1 cup dry-roasted rootworm beetles

Just replace the milk with rats blood!

I'll bring the rats.

*clears his throat nervously* G-greetings, all. My name is Ichabod Crane, I was a school teacher in Sleepy Hollow, before coming here. It is -- quite nice to meet you all.

*stumbles in*

Uhhhnnn... *looks around all optimistic and hopeful like*. mmmmmrrrrrr!

*sees butterfly, follows it*

Oooohhhhhhh!

Good evening.

I am the Baron Frankenstein. I'm looking for assistants for experiences. I think you'll find me mostly in the lab, but if you look for a teacher, please, come and see me. I see there's a graveyard. This will be most pratical for my experiences.

Well I suppose I should introduce myself as it looks as though I'm going to be staying here a good while. My name is Katrina Van Tassel and I've come from a little town called Sleepy Hollow. It's a wonderful place, but very small so I doubt anyone here has heard of it. Excepting of course, Mr. Crane, as he is also from there.

I came to be here in most peculiar circumstances and after the last two nights I'm starting to wish I was back home in my dear Sleepy Hollow. I was on my way to a conservatory, a good few weeks' journey from my home, when the coach driver pulled up short. He said the horses needed a rest and that I ought to step out for the air. The moment I did so, he sped away! All of my belongings were still on the coach roof! I came to the house, at a loss for what to do next, and was very relieved (and surprised!) to find that Mr. Crane, the singing master, was here as well. Then I was told we are unable to leave, and I must confess I grew a bit frightened. But I suppose there is nothing to do now but make myself at home. It is quite nice to meet all of you, in any case! Please, don't hesitate to say hello, I do love meeting new people!

Hello all, my name is Sibyl Vane. After I woke up in these lodgings, I did not know why I was here, but I was more then delighted to see I'm not alone in such a large spacious manor. Although I'd feel much more at ease if my Dorian was here...

I have made quite a few friends, like Mrs. Catherine Linton, and the mysterious Count Dracula. I have met the quiet and serious Dr. Jekyll, a man by the name of Heatcliff, a girl named Christine and her lover the Vicomte. Of course there is that darling maid Liza.

If any you wish to speak with me, I shall more then likely be in the palor, or up in my room. Feel free to drop by for a visit at any time.


--Sibyl Vane

Well, I must say this entire place seems all too peculiar, but since it sounds as though I'm going to be here for some time, I may as well introduce myself. I am Philippe Georges Marie Comte de Chagny. Or Comte Philippe, which is much easier to remember. I come lately from Paris, where I reside with my younger brother Raoul, who it would seem you all have already met. A pleasure to meet you all.

::Strolls in quietly and has a look about the place, then wanders to where it seems the household is gathered.::

Let me introduce myself...Blaine Gray at your esteemable service. Just arrived this afternoon, though this was certainly not my intended destination. Bloody coach couldn't go one more mile without pay and...things are just a tick tight-fisted now, you see? Some nasty business in London a year ago forced me from the city.

What?

Oh, no...nothing to worry about. It was no big fuss. Not even a shadow on my name, you see. No one got hurt. ::no one of any importance, leastways.::

Hm...I'm here now. Might as well make myself at home.

What do I do? Now that's a right tricky question. What do I do? I had a medical practice for some time, but apparently performing an autopsy on a living patient is a bit frowned upon...I was a struggling artist for some time...but good nudes are so very hard to find and I am a dreadfully picky man. Then I was a...procurer of favors for other men like myself...and well...when one can't seem to stop disposing of one's wares, one does tend to...lose money.

So...::gives a tight smile and takes a seat, crossing his legs, and tucks a strand of dark blonde behind one ear.::...here I am.

*glances about, a faint, amused smile appearing, something of mischief in the lift of an eyebrow, the careless way his hands are shoved in exceedingly expensive pockets*

Hello, all. What a pleasure it is to be here, away from the London grey (though not Gray, for the dear fellow is charming as ever) and pleasure, of course, is a gravely important matter, in the way of all trivial things. But I haven't introduced myself! I am Lord Henry Wotton, and quite the expert in all things trivial, frivolous, or otherwise pleasantly useless.

Hello. My name is Alan Campbell, and I have -- recently arrived here from London, if you count the last place I was living. I am a chemist, and may be known as a musician to some of you. However, my studies have kept me far too busy as of late to practise anything.


OOC: I hope it doesn't matter if I'm using this journal in another RP as well? If it does, please let me know. ^_^

Having been a resident of this strange and disconcerning mansion for more that two days, I was not frightening by the gloomy interior, or by my stranger companions. My greatest unease came from the fact that I had not seen of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, in far too long. Under normal circumstances, I would wonder about his whereabouts, but resolve myself to waiting for his return from whatever he had been doing or where ever he had been. But after spending time in is odd and foreboding place, I have begun to worry for my old friend, growing more and more certain that he, in a search for clues, had found himself in a dangerous place.

Like that cellar that all have alluded too, but none have ventured...

::a plain, simply dressed young woman enters with a brisk step. Glances around, a bit unsure of herself but determined not to show it ::

Good evening, gentlemen and ladies. I am Miss Jane Eyre, a woman of no significance or monetary means. However I recently employed as a governess at Thornfield. It is pleasant enough as things go but I am not one for idle chatter. Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, sent me away as a form of holiday. Perhaps she thought I need it. My student, I suppose, will be fine for a brief time since she has not had tutoring up to the point I came.
I bid you all good evening once again.

I find myself with some time this morning to write.

I met with the masters of the house last night, though I can't rightly say if they are the masters or not...I was questioned by more than one of who my employer is and it was an embarassing thing to realize that...I don't know.

I only answered the ad asking for a housemaid, warning that I was to be the only staff, but naming a fair and generous wage, room and board, and one afternoon free a week.

It is curious how there was no proper name listed for who I was to see, only the address. And Lord, this place is so far removed from London, I thought that I should never get here! I can't say that, no matter how odd the house is, that I have not been treated unlikely. It was a better sight to spend an evening in service to those who ask nicely than those who simply demand. Not that Sir Treves ever demanded...but I've spent my time on unsavory posts before, believe you me.

I haven't met the acquaintance of everyone yet. Only a kind gentlemen by the name of Watson, a gentleman who liked to stare and very rudely though it's no place of mine to point that out, a couple of ladies, a doctor who is so very familiar--and knew about the murder that..well, it bears no thinking--, and a handful of others. One never left the kitchen...odd, that.

The place is a mess! I don't know as it's been cleaned in years! And I find myself tiptoeing down the halls, like if I tread a bit too hard, I might disturb something that won't bear disturbing. I spent the entire night in my bed and staring at my ceiling, convincing myself every moment that I heard him coming to finish me off for seeing his fa--

No, I won't think about it.

It'll be time to shift myself soon.

Until later.

Well...hello, everyone. I am Doctor John Seward of London. Known as Jack to a few of my friends. I am a doctor of medicine, as well as a psychoanalyst and the head of a fairly prestigious asylum. I studied under Professor Abraham Van Helsing of Amsterdam, for those of you who may have heard of him. As a matter of fact, I was just returning from a visit to him when I found myself here quite by accident...well, that's really enough of my going on now. A pleasure to meet you all, I presume, and shound you wish my service in any way, please do not hesitate to ask.

I had the nightmare again.

It hadn't come to me in so long. I'd thought to myself that it was gone and was glad for it. But it crept upon me, after all this time, and now I can't get back to sleep.

I dare not light a candle. If Sully wakes, she'll throw a fuss and likely wake Martin. Then it'll be wages docked again and I can't bear that. So the moon makes a decent light for my writing.

I used to love the moon. Martin has always scolded that I'm not to sit in the window and that passerby seeing one of the Master's maids making a cake of herself in the sill is not to be borne. But I never listened...

Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have seen what I did that one night.

I'm looking down on the street, right now, as I write, at that exact spot. If I imagined hard enough, I could still see that kind-faced gentleman lying there, broken and bleeding. I think I see him now...

Now I'm cold, so cold. Like I was that night. One moment warm and wrapped in my shawl, the next my skin crawling with ice and my throat burning from holding in the screams. I know that I've seen things and many that a woman, not even a maid, shouldn't, but nothing like that.

Why do I sit here and even think about it? Why do I let my mind revisit it over and over and over? I feel horrified, frightened, sickened and disgusted by what I saw that night. And yet I am sickened most over the fact that I sat, still as a statue, in the windowsill of my little room, and watched and couldn't look away.

Never before have I written this...or told another soul. And I know that this little notebook and pen will keep my secrets. No one expects a scullery maid to know proper reading and writing. But that secret is this:

I never fainted.

I lied. Because the shame was too great that I simply sat there and watched.

I feel disgusted now at myself.

And scared.

Had he seen me? Did he know that I bore witness to the death of that sweet-faced old gentleman?

I don't know.

Sully's rolling over and mumbling in her sleep. I'd best go before she starts making those ugly faces at me and telling me to get my silly arse to bed.

Keep my secrets, journal, as insignificant as they are.

*a young man, not much more than twenty years of age, enters and looks around curiously, if a bit nervously*

*speaking softly, as if he does not wish to disturb anyone* I'm sorry but... this does not appear to be the Opera House. Can someone tell me where I am? *a bashful smile* Forgive me, I am the Vicomte de Chagny. Perhaps my brother, Philippe, is here? *looks hopeful that he might know someone here, at least*