Dr. Davidson's Office, Davidson-Anders Clinic, 4th and High Street, South Port, New Jersey...
The constant ticking of the faraway wall clock had been quite unseemly amid the lingering quiet that had filled the office of one Dr. Michael Brentwood Byron Davidson, he'd merely gone by Dr. Davidson to his patients and Brent to his friends and acquaintances. He had never given much thought as to why his mother had given him such a long name, not since the days he'd spent his boyhood pondering what fate had meant for him behind the high walls of his foster mother's humble abode and by humble, it was anything but given the grandeur of an old estate property which had been back out in the backwoods of Georgia somewhere, the direction of the place had far elided the now grown man who had been doing his best to ponder the next course of action as his dark brown eyes went from peeking behind his square dark-framed glasses to toward his rather at ease patient who'd been lying on the sofa beside him as he scribbled away at his notes about their latest session of sorts.
The patient had been just another run-of-the-mill face, but a regular one by the name of Patrick Homey. He'd been in construction for most of his life, long past middle age despite his apparent crisis and tendency to blame his parents for his poor life choices. The soft sound of pattering rain had been just the element Dr. Davidson had needed when making use of his environment to effectively hypnotize the man on the sofa beside him, being a licensed shrink and hypnotist had been more or less the good doctor's calling as far as he'd been concerned and had taken to it like a duck to water when he'd entered medical school and graduated with some of the top peers of his class, him being third among them.
He might have been better had he applied himself but he wasn't in the least the speech-giving type and didn't want to make too much of a big deal out of his newfound skills. He'd settled for just enough, and gotten a bit better out of it as a result. A comfortable modest living and a new lease on life, helping those who couldn't understand how to help themselves. His chosen career path had been the direct result of his own rather tragic past when news about the welfare of one of his late foster brothers had reached him while he'd still been in medical school.
The call came on a dark and rainy night not but three weeks into his term. His younger foster brother, Skyler Milton Moorehouse was dead, and despite the skimping on the details, it had been enough to shake the soon-to-be good doctor to his very core. Skyler had been one of the three youngest of his six foster brothers who had all come to stay at the old Aswell estate and the closest to the second oldest of the bunch Flynn Henley Myers who had a long-standing hate-filled rivalry with Brent behind closed doors, Skyler took to Brent, but they never really got on much outside of when they'd been around everyone else. After him in terms of youth had been a boy named Corey Patrick Venituri, dumped off by his family due to a lack of resources to care for him, Sherman Cameron Hillard was the newest arrival but not the youngest, Peter "Petey" Howard Porter had that honor but before him had been none other than a pudgy lad by the name of Terry Gene Colfax.
Terry and Brent got on famously and it had been a bit difficult not to seeing as they had arrived at the Aswell estate at the same time on the same day and met just outside the thick black steel gate that loomed about the main portion of the massive and relatively eerie property.
Terry had been an effeminate sort of boy from the moment Brent met him, with chubby pale cheeks, short blond hair, and terrified baby blue eyes. Unlike most of the boys that arrived at Aswell, he had immediately earned the ire of the entire staff, the infamously cruel manservant Virgil Seers, and the Lady of the manor Veronica Aswell-Abernathy herself.
Of all the boys that had been placed at Aswell, Terry had been Brent's favorite foster brother and he'd been Terry's as well. Many a fight had taken place between Brent and Flynn when it came to the older boy's harsh treatment of Terry and the other younger boys prompting an out war on most occasions. Most of the time the boys sided with Brent, aside from Skylar who had always sided with Flynn.
Despite this, Brent had no ill will toward his foster brothers and wished them all the best the day he left for medical school, and aside from running into a fully grown Terry some time later, he had never looked back. Dr. Davidson snapped out of his memory flash and finally turned his attention to awakening his patient. The session had been drawing to a close and he'd been feeling the effects of an early morning the later it had gotten.
His wife of twelve years Cassandra had been home slaving away to get dinner started along with their two sons Connor and Patrick so he'd been looking forward to closing up shop for the day and the rain had not made being out in the cold any more fun than usual.
"Alright Mr. Capree just take a few deep breaths and when you open your eyes you will feel refreshed and at ease with all you have told me," said Dr. Davidson,
The near bald and chubby man had opened his dark eyes and blinked a few times after taking a deep breath as his shink suggested. He seemed to have been more at ease than when he walked into the office and less anal about the rain having put a damper on his work schedule.
"Wow...I said it before and I'll say it again, you do great work Doc," he said in a rather pleased tone than when he first arrived. "Glad I came to see you when I did...felt like nothing was going right at first...you're a real lifesaver you know that?"
Dr. Davidson sighed.
"Just all part of my job," he said rather modestly. "Now remember your next appointment isn't scheduled until next Tuesday, If anything comes up I'll let my assistant Janice let you know until then..." continued Davidson.
"Until then." agreed the patient before turning and walking out the door only to see a strange kind of fancy black envelope on the floor before stepping out. He swiftly bent to pick it up and handed it to Dr. Davidson. "Secret admirer Doc?"
Dr. Davidson sighed as he took the strange-looking fancy black envelope from his patient and carefully looked it over, it had not been any type of stationary or casing he'd recognize let alone use himself, it screamed "pompous asshole" and "I have old money" at the same time.
"Catch you next session Bill," said Dr. Davidson making it clear that he didn't want an audience when he opened the mysterious envelope.
The construction worker sighed in disappointment and then headed on his merry way knowing there wouldn't be much reveal behind all the mystery, at least not until his next session. Dr. Davidson closed the door behind his patient and headed toward his desk where he fished out a silver letter opener and got to work inspecting the strange black envelope.
He'd been impressed with the elegant stationery and equally taken with the wording of it knowing for the first time since it arrived why it had come. The words had given him the indication that his foster mother had now finally departed the cruel world she'd made for herself at Aswell and invited him to her funeral as well as will reading. He had not spoken to or of Lady Aswell-Abernathy in years, her disapproval of marrying the first young waitress he'd inadvertently gotten pregnant while still attending medical school had been largely relayed.
She had told him she'd cut him off from her vast and aged fortune and he never looked back falling more and more in love with the idea of being a regular man with a family far away from the likes of her and her cruel money than ever before and now, here she was inviting him back into the fold from beyond the grave. He'd been curious about her death, she'd been the only mother he'd had since his own had perished along with his father, whom he had been told were both good people, in a rather tragic car accident and he'd been bounced from foster home to foster home until he landed on her doorstep and only left to attend medical school.
As much as he had despised her cruel and twisted method of rearing boys like him and his foster brothers, he had known that in all the world no one had wanted him or them aside from her and she'd opened her home to them, the least he could do despite their differences was to see her off to her final rest even if he didn't expect to get much from her vast will aside from a bedpan for his actions in displeasing her, at the very least he could see about his remaining brothers and what she'd left behind for them.
With that, Dr. Davidson had made up his mind to travel back to Old Welle Georgia, and to Aswell estate to lay the old crone to rest. He had not told his wife much about his past nor his upbringing under the Aswell roof but he had informed her that his "mother" had not approved of his dealings with her and she'd been all too happy to go on as if Mrs. Aswell-Abernathy had never existed in the first place.
She never met his boys and he had been more than thankful to God that she never would given the horrors Brent and his six brothers had endured under her iron fist and watchful gaze. He'd been proud he had given his boys the life he didn't have at their age, a home and safe environment full of love and understanding, they'd no nothing of the horrors he'd suffered along with his other foster brothers at the hands of the wicked and cruel Lady Aswell Abernathy and he'd make damn sure of it.
Several Years Prior.....