Always there were incidental glitches which put the trip back a week or so. Her job wouldn't allow her to schedule her time off until other workers came back from theirs. So she saw that she could find out more about that amulet and the area she was going to. Might as well, it was going to be weeks.
She quit putting off her gym visits, as she knew she was going to need to be in shape. Five days a week kept her working at the gym on her way home. At night, she searched the Internet for any information she could find.
Weekends were at the local museums and looking up ethnologists, as well as antiquarians who could tell her anything about the jewelry. Most turned up blanks. She did get some leads in looking up the area's address, but few people had ever seen anything like that jewelry - and none of these actually knew anything about it's origin. Except one.
It took all Saturday to get there. He lived in an actual government-abandoned lighthouse on the coast. Well, it used to be the coast until it silted in and grew over.
The nearby town was a shadow of its former self, with more empty lots than buildings. There was a local hotel, which was more of a bed-and-breakfast, which suited Doreen just fine. Comfortable antique beds and they'd added bathrooms and modern conveniences. She'd called ahead for a reservation, so when she rolled up well after dark, she was able to check in simply. They'd even kept dinner for her and warmed it up. Since the nearest fast-food place was nearly a half-hour away on twisty, unknown roads, she wasn't inclined to go out for pizza - and the hospitality made her feel really at home. Like visiting her own aunt's home.
The owners didn't know much about this Dr. Fitzhughes. Seems he kept to himself. Bought that lighthouse for a song and spend far more fixing it up. Kept to himself, mostly. Sometimes people had seen him up on top, sitting in a deck chair for hours in the same position. Other tales of lights going on and off at odd hours of the night, as well as unusual glowing lights which seemed to move around the lighthouse in different patterns.
Of course, the lighthouse had long been rumored to be haunted, long before the doctor bought it. There were tales of suicides committed there, and ghosts of ships captains or their crew who blamed the lighthouse master for their wrecks off the coast. Some historians tried to spend the night there to study it for restoration, but left in the wee hours their first night and went straight back to New York or wherever, without even stopping by to pick up packages left for their expected three-week stay.
Little grew next to the shore side of the lighthouse, but the growth on the sea-side was abundant. And the worst repairs had to be made on the shore side as well, while the worst weather happened on the sea side, so you'd expect the wear would be there.
Finally, all the stories she could dredge out of her hosts were exhausted, as everyone was. So Doreen bid the owners good night and went up the creaking stairs to her room. It took little effort to drop into bed. The room was so small that her bed and nightstand took nearly the entire space, leaving only room for a chest at the end of the bed which her suitcase laid on.
Sleep came quickly, but stayed fitfully, interrupted with various dreams about phantoms in lighthouses who played poker around a table in its kitchen and a ghostly couple who chased themselves up and down its tall stairs. Meanwhile, she also had a vision of the mysterious doctor who sat in a deck chair at it's top, looking out to see with his feet propped on the railing and smoking a long clay pipe like a ship's captain - completely oblivious to the specters which would chase each other around the gallery where he sat.
These dreams came and went, returning much the same as before, but with more details. Soon, she knew the names of the poker players and the chasing couple. But the most disturbing part was finding that her external vision of the doctor seated on the gallery placed her several feet from the lighthouse. Once she looked down, she began falling - and wound up in bed, awake and shaking.
Even though it was still dark, she resolved not to go back to sleep again. She turned on the light and fished out one of the old books she found at one of those antiquarian shops which described the valley she was going to. Unfortunately, it seems to be more fantasy than factual reporting. The writing style was early 1800's, which made for slow going as she read the words on the browned pages. The smell of fine dust and old books put her in the mood for this sleuthing.
The tales in this book told of people who lived there for extremely long periods of time, and were perhaps immortal. That is, if they never left the valley itself. Those that left as youth lived normal lifespans, but those who were old in terms of the outer-world's time would age quickly the further they traveled from that valley. There was one report of a single person who would admit being several hundred years old and traveled the world as a guest of many different country's royal families, but always wore an amulet around his neck and dressed in very common clothing as he had in his own valley. His many stories left his hosts impressed enough to pay for his various excursions to their historical museums, as well as recommending him to their relatives in different countries.
One interesting point is that wherever he went, there was no war or hostilities. And trade increased as well as bumper crops and good weather. This legend continued to say that it was this exact reason which made him so popular in Europe. He finally left the Continent when his following became too great, for rumors of miracle healing started circulating. This forced him to leave on passage to the frontier America's by sailing ship. At this point, he simply disappeared, which the book's author attributed to the lack of sophisticated communication and publishing in Colonial America. It was speculated that he might have finally reached his end after he went to visit the savage aborigines further inland.
The next chapter covered the valley itself, which was nondescript. It told of a failed Spanish settlement which lay in ruins because the locals would only work when they wanted and could not be forced into labor. While there were many names for this area, it was commonly known as the Valley of Fools, which can be translated into many polite and less-polite meanings. The native word for this area only translated to "home" or "heart". Even the idea of a central village was new to those people, who considered all they needed for trade was a clearing and needed nothing outside from outside that valley.
Of course, this segued into some dialectical nuances the village had from other areas, which were mostly revolving around their philosophical approach to the world around them. The author hypothesized that the area's situation was so unique that it was a near paradise and so they needed nothing else. However, he tended to discount this, as historically such situations lead to overpopulation and excesses in local government which ultimately lead to its collapse. And the lack of written records before and after the Spanish tended to force trust in the verbal traditions, which were unreliable to most historians.
At this point the book became dry, the day was becoming brighter, and aroma's of breakfast were wafting up the stairs. Doreen put the book away and dressed for her trip to the lighthouse.