“Oh ho, but you’re forgetting something!” Xiao Li butted in, looking up at Anna. “The whole cordial was used, but we can’t be sure Mathilde had all of it. My guess is this! Nour was at dinner with you all, right? So who’s to say Nour didn’t slip some sleepy juice into Kefilwe’s drink?”
“If she was under a painkiller’s influence, then it would explain why she slept so heavily as to miss her two bedmates leaving,” Lupe agreed.
“Nour?” Kefilwe whispered. Once again, her eyes welled up with tears. “I was really tired last night. You didn’t hurt me, right? You wouldn’t do that to me?”
“I would never hurt you, Kefilwe,” Nour said immediately, voice more impassioned than they had been for most of the investigation. “If nothing else, please know that. Know that I could never hurt you. I would do anything to-”
“But they do not deny it,” Faith cut in.
“Hold your tongue!” Nour snarled at Faith.
Budi held up his hands. “Let’s all calm down. There’s no need to fight now, I think we have almost everything solved. Then we can go rest, have a nice drink, and everything will be better tomorrow.”
“If Nour and Mathilde are gone, everything won’t be better tomorrow!” Kefilwe wailed.
Conversation was cut off by the soft clicking sound of someone in heels walking towards the room. Ah, and looking at the new and sudden tenseness in Anna’s shoulders, Devorah knew that it meant the host was coming. The investigation had come to its conclusion, and it was time for the jurors to vote.
In all honesty, Devorah was a bit surprised that the host was coming so soon. Kefilwe crying, Nour finally trying to find any defense, this made for good entertainment. Why cut it short?
Either way, as expected, the host of this macabre dinner party entered through the door Anna and Devorah were standing by. Once again, the host was dressed as extravagantly as a doll meant for display. Instead of the plain red dress Devorah had last seen her in, this time the bell of the skirt was decorated. In black shadows, the silhouette of a church rose up to her hip, mounted bell at the top of the spire frozen in motion. The bright white outline of angels resting in the windows stood in stark contrast to the dark background. And at the bottom of the skirt, just below her knees, was a series of ruffles shaped not unlike tombstones.
Despite herself, Devorah was impressed by the design of the skirt. Clearly it was inspired by Mathilde and her death. The real question was- was the skirt a rush job? Or did the host have a full series of skirts pre-made, each one tailored to the possibility of another of the cast being murdered? And Mathilde naturally lent herself to elegance, of course. The stained glass, the modesty of her order, the solemnity of old Christian cemeteries… It was perfect for a haunted doll.
Though she was much smaller than most of the people in the room, the doll commanded presence. The conversation was paused, if only for a few moments, before Kefilwe stood up.
“Please,” she begged, voice ragged and face an awful gray, “not yet. Please, not yet. Just give us a little more time, I promise! There has to have been some misunderstanding, right? Maybe, maybe this was all an accident, like Loowa. No one has to get hurt again. Please! Please…” Kefilwe’s voice trailed off into sobs, and Devorah found that Brad had begun to cry with her. Some of the others, like Gabriel and Xoco, had also begun to shift in their seats, clearly uncomfortable.
“You know the rules, Kefilwe,” Tiberius said gruffly. “Murder cannot go unpunished.”
“It might not have even been Nour!” Kefilwe pleaded. “It could have been someone else, anyone else! Please…”
“I wish it wasn’t like this, too, please trust that,” Lupe said. “But we have no control here- or what little control we have now is over what we do next.” She turned to look at Nour, who had remained silent. “Nour, do you have anything to say? Do you want to plead your case, unearth anything else?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“There is no reason to,” Nour said. “It is a foregone conclusion. I know my fate. I hold no resentment for you and yours.”
The host clapped her hands together. “Excellent! So we’ll call an end to the investigation here. As per tradition, we will go one by one. Everyone will say the name of whoever they would like to accuse of the murder. At the conclusion of this period, the murderer will be punished. Now! Let’s start!”
The room was mostly silent, aside from the soft sounds of crying. Being the first accuser was always difficult, even when the conclusion was obvious, like this one was. Nour had practically already confessed! But being first… It was like being the one to sign their death warrant.
Devorah had never been the first to offer a name in any investigation she had taken part in.
Finally, Lupe spoke up. “I truly am sorry, but. Nour. Until this, you were a great comrade and excellent physician.” And to her credit, she did genuinely look as sorry as she claimed to be.
“Nour,” Tiberius said simply, following after Lupe.
Sushruta sighed. “I wish it had not come to this. Nour.”
Faith shrugged. “I had a feeling something like this would happen. What good is a doctor who never spills a little blood? Nour, of course.”
Budi was next. “Nour.”
“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Xoco said with a bittersweet smile. “Nour. We will not forget you.”
“Sorry, Nour,” Xiao Li said. “We all play the game, but sometimes we lose.”
“Nour,” the catgirl nodded.
Anna quickly followed up. “I cast my vote for Nour.”
“Thank you for everything, doc,” Gabriel said, “but I gotta trust everyone here. Nour.”
“Yeah,” Jacob seconded. “You were really cool, but you uh. Shouldn’t have murdered Mathilde. So Nour.”
Georgie snorted out a small laugh, then let her face turn serious. “Doctor Bird, you did everything you could. But Jacob’s right. Maybe next time, don’t murder someone, yeah? Nour.”
Brad looked at Georgie, then Kefilwe, and finally at Nour. “I hate this,” he said under his breath. “But you shouldn’t have hurt Mathilde. Nour.”
And finally, it was just Kefilwe and Nour. Neither said anything.
The host rolled her eyes, then finally, someone spoke up.
It was Nour.
“There’s no need for Kefilwe to vote. It was me. I cast in my own name to be punished as you see fit. I know I deserve it.”
“Nour,” Kefilwe sobbed.
“That’ll count!” The host cheered. “And congrats to you all! You found the murderer! Yay!”
Devorah could confidently say that there was no jovial mood in the room, no faces uplifted by the cheers and congratulations. Even when Devorah snuck a look over at the other ghosts, they too were solemn.
Devorah could feel her heart sink for a different reason. Soon, everyone would disperse. She would be pulled along with Jacob. There would be no guarantee that she would see Anna again any time soon.
And what if Anna was hurt? What if she was the next target of a murder plot? Devorah couldn’t protect her like this. Devorah couldn’t do anything.
She was useless. Useless and stupid and a waste of nanobots and…
Oh. She had accidentally activated her charge.
With a scream of frustration, Devorah pounded her fists on the wall. The sound resounded through the quiet room and shook the surface of the wall ever so slightly. Fuck! Fuck those stupid, useless emotions! What was even the point of having them in this state?
She slammed both fists into the wall again. The resulting thud was even louder, pleasing some long suppressed animalistic thing hiding in the back of Devorah’s brain.
“D-Did you hear that?” Someone over by the table stuttered out. Devorah didn’t care enough to turn and identify them.
“I did,” someone else responded in a hushed tone.
“Do you… Do you think it’s maybe Mathilde?”
“I hate this stupid haunted house!” Even through her haze of anger and whatever other feelings she didn’t care to analyze, Devorah could recognize that as Georgie’s voice.
Another voice spoke. “If it is Mathilde, perhaps she’s thanking us for bringing justice to her murderer.”
Devorah let herself fall against the wall. She slid down like a stupid, dry oversized slug. The resulting position was one that would have been absolute murder on her spine, had Devorah still been in possession of one. You really never knew what you missed until it was gone.
Spines, being able to touch things without having to get extremely emotive first, being able to just. Talk to Anna.
No, Devorah would have known that she would miss talking to Anna.
She chanced rolling her head to look at Anna. No neck bones really made looking at things a lot easier.
Anna was pale enough to join Devorah in death.