WB Ashbridge & the Prism Cells continued

*(See this Story for your recap in screenshots below at end of post)

Leaving from DC is always such a nightmare; that airport was the worst of airports but the Winifred Brook Ashbridge foundation had paid for Daphne’s flight and they booked her in business class so, Daphne was allowing herself to luxuriate in the comfort of spacious seating and a few glasses of mimosa to ease the residual tension that still lingered leaving from where she was coming from RR Washington had left its slimy film upon her and the Orange medicinal helped.

For a moment a flash of the hunting lodge came before her inner visuals recalling so many miserable days feeling trapped on that barren property, her only friendly companionship was one of the several dogs who liked to follow her around, but even the dogs had all been prepared for in case of the property owner’s demise. 

What wild luck this foundation wanted her help! 

And Winifred Brook Ashbridge’s, no less!

Who says that obsessions can’t pay off? All her hours spent in chat group discussions correcting other fans about literary details of the story and the author on the website had come to their attention. That is —when the main frame motherboard for the website which also contained all of all the author’s cited publishing notes and references crashed and with it all the information. 

At first, Daphne was a little embarrassed to mention how much she herself had as far as detailed research. When she hinted that there were boxes in a temperature controlled unit that she rented just for her WBA research—well, it was at that point (though through emails still, but) they were clearly desperate to convince her they wanted to make it worth her while and prompted a phone call from them with the discussion of a salary and a rent free apartment on the foundation’s property to keep her near the work.

What they needed was to completely rebuild not just the website but, as all the years of detailed research was now lost even the foundation itself no longer had any reliable resources for referencing WB Ashbridge—and they were the definitive foundation!

How many boxes exactly? Oh dear! Well, they spared no expenses for the crates and were being flown with their own special temperature controlled shipping freight company, which was set to arrive just slightly before her own arrival. 

Had she stopped to ask herself how long this job was to last for? Had they even mentioned this? Daphne had been far too excited to stop ….to think ….that question. 

Whoops. 

Well, for now it was a gig.

And it got her out of being jobless and homeless—and it was her favorite subject so, for now, she decided to look at it as an exciting new adventure which is what Ashbridge’s books were all about; having an open mind about taking a (reasonable and well planned) chance (as the book’s wizard liked to point out before each adventure) into the unknown which always somehow wound up involving time travel in some small or big way.

Time travel. 

As though the layers of time could be traversed….

     and now ad she looked out the airplane window into the clouds, this made her think about time …. it made her think of her Tolkien dream but it also made her think about parts of her own life she wished she could travel back to. Maybe fix some things ….that she got wrong 

It made her think now about things she forgot for many many years ….like the wicked man with the polished mahogany valet where he hung up his leather belts and ….would beat her 

No, was that a dream? She had forgotten …. It was so so long ago and she was only about five ….but it was there in the dark recesses of her memories.

She leaned her head into the glass window as she stared into nothingness….and what happened next? After she left the yellow house? 

She never looked back and she never thought about that house or that wicked man with the belts or that life ever again. It was the day Father came. Nobody said he was coming. It was after the last belting and the illness that followed. Father arrived one day—but she didn’t know him as ‘Father’ before then. But he came one day and knelt down to her; he said,

“I’m taking you far away from here and that man is never going to hurt you again.”

It was the mimosa. 

She normally didn’t like to drink. It brought back memories she thought she’d long snuffed out.

But after they left she never had to think about that place or that man because everything got better then. 

Her mind went back to those happier better days at the Evans affluent home in the heart of New York City ….her mind went back there now to those beautiful memories in her childhood with Father and the day he first got her; even as it brought tears now to her eyes, she was glad of them just now.