12:10 AM, Dining Room
"Our best course of action would be to split up and start looking for any hints as to what happened," Mari had suggested. "I won't say to make sure you're in a large group, because that would limit our ability to search everywhere, but please make sure you know who is supposed to be in your group so you don't lose anyone."
They had all split off, going their separate ways. Several had gone to the library, which Daniel supposed was understandable. It was a haunted library, after all. Daniel had visited it himself a few times.
But he wouldn't be going anywhere. Not yet, at least. He figured someone needed to keep watch in the dining room, just to make sure the changeling didn't think of doubling back and hiding out.
Also, it was nice getting to just sit and do nothing for a bit after everything that had happened. He could rest, keep an eye out for the changeling, and then help everyone sort through their findings once they returned. This would be good.
A few minutes later, Daniel was ready to admit that this was not good. Nobody had returned yet. The changeling hadn't shown up. And sitting in the dining room like this was getting really, really boring.
So he decided to take stock of his surroundings. This was the site of everything that had happened before Strix's disappearance, after all. Maybe she had left something behind other than the note.
In general, the dining room was, well, an ordinary dining room. A long table and sixteen chairs took up most of the space, and doors opened to both the hallway and the kitchen. The beverages still sat on the table, though some had spilled and Marissa's cup had shattered. Strix's place was still empty, save for the note that was now lying there for anyone to reread.
The space beneath the table was mostly clean as well. A few drips of green liquid- probably Addie's bubble tea- had reached the floor, but there didn't seem to be any clues as to Strix's disappearance.
Daniel began to stand up, but was rudely reminded that he was still under the table when his head hit its wooden surface. Grumbling under his breath, he backed out to see that Abigail and Nini had returned from their venture into the kitchen.
"Did you guys find anything in there?" he asked. The two girls exchanged glances before both nodding. "What was it?"
"Well..." Nini hesitated. "It's kind of weird, but..."
12:10 AM, Kitchen
Okay, so maybe Nini just kind of wanted a snack. That didn't make searching the kitchen any less important! There could be something interesting in there. An interesting snack.
What she and Abigail found when they stepped inside was, in fact, interesting. And if you wanted to be technical, it could be called a snack.
The counters were covered in food of all shapes and sizes. Baskets of fruit and vegetables sat next to a crate of fish roughly the size of a small child. A pot on the stove had some sort of soup in it, though it seemed to have cooled down in the hour since everyone had fallen unconscious. Crates of meat were shoved under the counter, and the kitchen table was laden with all sorts of dishes- salad, pasta, some sort of green sauce, cherry pie (she may have snuck a taste), and an entire turkey.
She turned to Abigail, who was presently rooting through the fridge. "This is way more food than anyone would need for a tea party. Even if there were thirteen of us."
Abigail nodded. "It's not just those. The fridge is full of stuff that's never been opened. Fruit, meat, three gallons of milk- and it's not just the fridge. The cupboards are full, too. She's got like five loaves of bread in there. And the freezer has so much stuff in it I can barely pull it open."
"Huh." What does it all mean? Why does she need so much food? Was she expecting guests? An army of them? Or...
"Was she planning for us to stay longer?" both girls said at the same time.
"Still doesn't explain why she made so much food at the start, though," Abigail continued. "Between all this, she had about three meals ready by the time we all showed up. I get that there were a lot of us, but we'd all already eaten, right? Why would she feel like she needed to have all this prepared before the party even started?"
Nini nodded. "Maybe we should report back to the dining room. It'd be good to have more people trying to figure things out. But..." She turned back to the table. "Maybe we should have some of this food first? Keep it from going to waste?"
A few minutes later, the girls reemerged into the dining room, leaving behind noticeably less food than there was when they entered the kitchen.
12:10 AM, Library
"Okay." Lynn turned around to take stock of who was in her group. "Who here has been to the library here before?" Only Holland raised their hand. "Okay. Good to know. The rest of you should listen up, this place can be a little dangerous if you don't know how it works."
"First of all, you need to leave your phones there." Lynn gestured to a table near the library door, where her own phone already sat. "The same goes for any other electronic devices you might have on you: watches, videogame consoles, anything. If you don't know, it's safer to leave it."
"What happens if you do bring something in?" Marissa asked, setting her cellphone on the table.
"Most modern technology doesn't work in the library," Lynn explained. "Usually it'll start working again as soon as you bring it out, but there is a chance it'd take a lot longer to get back to normal, or even never work properly again."
"Huh. So is it, like, lit by candlelight or something?" Addie asked, and both Lynn and Holland nodded. "Woah."
"That's not it, though," Holland added. "The shelves in there basically form a maze, and they move around, too. Usually if you move something out of place, it stays like that, but wherever you moved it to won't necessarily stay in the same part of the library. It's really easy to get lost or end up going in circles."
Lynn nodded. "Exactly. So I suggest we go in in pairs. I'm thinking Holland and Addie, and myself and Marissa. Is that okay with everyone?" Everyone nodded.
"It's good with me," Holland said, then paused. "...We are going to tell them about the ghosts, right?"
"Right." Lynn turned back to the whole group. "The library has seven different ghosts in it. Actually, it might have more, but we just haven't seen them because they don't wear glasses- that's the only part of them you can see. Generally, they're not going to hurt you, but there are a couple you need to watch out for. If you see triangular glasses, that particular ghost prefers to be left alone. Same for rectangles or smaller circles. Oval glasses belong to one of the more helpful ghosts, but she can be a little... much." Lynn's expression turned grimmer. "And if you ever see a monocle, you run. You run and you do not look back."
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Marissa gulped. "Um... is it too late to go to the kitchen instead? It seemed a bit... safer. More friendly."
"Come on, you'll be fine. You're with me, and I know this place like the back of my hand." Lynn grinned. "Besides, the library is big. We might not run into any ghosts, much less old monocle-face."
"Right." Marissa wasn't fully convinced, but she still followed Lynn into the library with the others.
The inside of the library was... breathtaking. Bookshelves lined the walls, reaching up to a ceiling Marissa couldn't see. Floating candles hovered between the shelves, occasionally moving around as if browsing for a book. Ladders and walkways spanned the gaps between bookshelves, leading to yet more openings in the shelves higher up. As the group walked between a pair of bookshelves that formed a "hall" just wide enough to accommodate them all, some of the shelves pulled apart to reveal a new path leading deeper into the library, illuminated by yet more floating candles. Lynn led them to the end of the "hall" and turned to address the rest once more.
"We'll split up here." She gestured to a pair of openings in the shelves. "Marissa and I will take the left path, and Holland and Addie can take the right. We'll meet up here in... does half an hour sound good?" The group nodded. "All right." Lynn motioned for Marissa to follow her, and the two made their way down a narrow, winding path. The candles drifted out of the way to allow the girls to walk unobstructed, settling back into place once they had passed.
"So," Marissa said to break the silence, "what sort of thing are we looking for in here?"
Lynn shrugged. "There's all kinds of things there might be. If Strix uncovered a secret of this house, she probably found it in a book. It might still be out. We could also find one of the more helpful ghosts, ask them if they know what might have happened." Then she grinned. "Or we could just find some cool mysteries in here! Strix told me nobody knows everything that's in this place. If we search long enough, we're bound to find something new."
"I guess so." Marissa scanned the shelves. There didn't seem to be much of a system to where the books were placed- thick fantasy novels leaned up against books on dinosaurs and demon-summoning and dusty volumes written in languages she'd never seen before. Then again, maybe it was hard to impose such organization on a library whose shelves were constantly in motion. "How do you find anything in here?"
"Depends on what you want to find." Lynn grabbed onto a ladder and motioned for Marissa to follow her up. "Ghosts five and six look after the books, but number four is the one in charge of the library's layout. If you want to find something, you'd be best off looking for one of them- oh, or number two. She knows a lot about this place, too."
"Oh. Do the ghosts have names, or just numbers?"
"They have both. I think they think it's more professional to go by numbers, but a couple are fine with either." Lynn hopped off the ladder onto a walkway. "Come on. I wanna see if there's something over here."
There certainly was something over there. Around a corner, the narrow paths of bookshelves opened up into a room resembling a science lab, with a pile of books lying on one table and a vial of something green and bubbling on another. A pair of square-framed glasses appeared to be hovering in midair above the books.
"Oh, hey. Speak of the devil." At Lynn's words, the glasses turned to face the duo. "Hey, Steve. Did you by any chance see Strix come through here recently?"
The glasses shook side-to-side, as if their invisible owner was shaking their head. A piece of paper and a pen floated up from near the books, and after scribbling something down, the ghost turned the paper to face the visitors. No, sorry. Haven't been paying attention recently. Working on a new bomb.
"Aren't you supposed to not be doing that?" Lynn asked. The ghost did not respond. "Anyway, any idea who might have? Or who knows what she was working on?" This did elicit a response, with the ghost grabbing another piece of paper and writing down a message for much longer than before.
5 and 6 were restocking books yesterday. Probably Strix's. They're both on the other side right now, you can't get there from here. 2 might know but haven't seen her. 1 definitely knows but haven't seen him. Sorry I couldn't help. Do you want to know how the bomb went after I test it?
Lynn laughed. "Sure. Do you think you could open a passage closer to where the others are?" The glasses nodded. "I'll stop by later, okay?" The glasses nodded again, and an empty doorway opened up on the other wall of the lab, bookshelves and candles shifting behind it. Lynn waved to the ghost as she and Marissa stepped through.
"So... that was one of the ghosts, right?" Marissa asked. Lynn nodded. "And they..."
"Steven," Lynn explained. "Ghost number four. They're in charge of moving the passageways around, sometimes. And they like blowing stuff up."
Marissa nodded. "Right. That makes sense. So now we look for another ghost?"
"Exactly. See, you're getting the hang of things now." Lynn grinned. "Come on, we should be quick. If we wait too long, the bookshelves might move again and cut us off from the ghosts."
The pair hurried down the passage of bookshelves, candles flying out of the way as they went. It's a shame they were in such a hurry, really. If they'd been slower, they might have caught the glint of a monocle hovering over a walkway just above their heads.
12:10 AM, Second Floor
"I suppose this is where we part ways," Mari said as she, Azrin, Kaiya, and Skit stood on the staircase leading from the ground floor to the northeast tower. "We should try to be brief. Do you think you can all make it back here by twelve-thirty?" The others nodded. "Good." She and Azrin stepped off the stairs, leaving the others to continue their climb.
"Do you know how to reach the southwest tower?" Mari asked. Azrin shook her head. "I suppose it's a good thing you're not alone here, then. The second floor is... tricky." She pushed open a door to reveal a small, empty, rectangular room with a door on each wall, then motioned for Azrin to follow her inside.
"Each door leads to a different place," Mari explained. "The door to our right would take you to where you want to be. The door ahead takes you to where you need to be. The door behind us leads back to the stairs we just left, and that one-" she pointed to the door on the left- "will take you to the southwest- are you paying attention?" During her explanation, Azrin had turned away from her and was pulling open the door on their right.
"Come on, I want to know what's in here!" Azrin poked her head through the doorway. "Woah!" She dashed inside the room, leaving Mari no choice but to follow her through, shutting the door behind her.
The room appeared to be some sort of armory, with weapons of all kinds lining the walls and a suit of armor exactly Azrin's size in one corner. Azrin picked up a dagger and sheath, putting it on so the knife hung at her hip.
"Do you expect to need a weapon where you're going?" Mari asked. Azrin's only response was to shrug and grin.
"I suppose as long as you're happy." Mari pulled open the door she'd just exited to reveal that it now opened onto another staircase leading upward. "Go on, then. Just remember to be back within twenty minutes." Azrin nodded and rushed through the door. Mari closed it behind her.
Now that that's taken care of... Mari headed to the door in front of her, which would take her to where she 'needed' to be. How unspecific. Though it's probably my best bet right now.
The door opened into a large, comfortable-looking sitting room. Chairs, sofas, and tables lined the walls, and a piano sat next to one of the room's four doors. The general effect was similar to that of the hallway downstairs. Really, the only difference was a small pile of electronic devices sitting on one table. Is this meant to tell me I need to relax? That is the opposite of what I need right now? Shutting the door behind her, Mari strode across the room and opened the door on the other side. An identical room lay ahead, down to the arrangement of the cell phones on the table.
Mari shut the door. Clearly, this place was not going to be much help. The second floor hadn't been this judgmental in the past, but she supposed it wasn't impossible that it might have an attitude it simply hadn't shown her yet. If it does... this is an awfully poor time for it to show it. I need to find what happened to Strix! Or at least to figure out who's been replaced!
She wheeled around to the right side of the room. I want to find Strix. I want to find Strix. I want to- When she reached the door, she pulled it open to reveal... a dining hall.
This dining hall, however, was completely different from the one in Aleshe Manor. Instead of wood, the floor and walls were made of white marble, and golden dishes laden with food almost too perfect to exist covered nearly every inch of the table. One chair- the one occupying the same place that Strix had sat in, Mari realized- was pulled away from the table, and a slip of paper sat on it. She rushed over, took the paper, and began to read.
Dear esteemed guests- I am sorry, but it appears something has decided to interfere- The note was an exact copy of the one Strix had left in the dining hall. In fact, Mari would be willing to bet that if she were to look at the two side-by-side, every line would perfectly mirror its counterpart in the other.
Well. A whole bunch of good that does me. Mari folded the note to pocket it anyway- maybe there was some sort of hidden clue that would be found when more people were looking at it- and in doing so, noticed a few words on the back that hadn't been present on the original note.
Liminal space + liminal time. Ask no. -1.
Well. Maybe this hadn't been such a bust after all.