"Well, you see... Wendy is my Ghost Story," Chelsey said, "When I was a kid, my family used to go camping in Yellowstone. My older brother, Andrew, would try to scare me with the story of the Wendigo, a creature that could shapeshift and hungered for human flesh. It would try to get close to you, pretending it was someone it wasn't. Then it would kill you. He'd go off in the woods and call out to me from the dark. Used to scare the hell out of me. So when I came here, my Ghost Story was a shapeshifting wendigo; who we call Wendy."

Wendy gave a little wave.

An awkward silence fell over the room. It was impossible, right? Wendy was normal—well, mostly normal. She maybe had a few odd quirks, but she certainly was not like Undertow. This had to be some sort of prank. They were hazing him. Henry laughed. The others didn't, with the notable exception of Wendy.

"It really is funny, isn't it! When we first started this, I killed them all the time," Wendy said through her laughter, "I was so good at it. I'd snag one of them and take their place. Then I would kill all the others from the inside. Slowly, I turned them against each other. All their paranoia made them fall apart. Sometimes, I could get them to kill each other. That was always hilarious. Believe me, their faces when they realized they killed the real thing and not me were always priceless. Eventually, I got bored of the killing and the betrayal. I decided I liked the infiltration and hanging out part way better, so here we are," Wendy explained.

"She's not wrong. When Chelsey first came, we'd already built this place. We were thriving until Wendy came. She changed everything. She played by different rules than the others. She could be one of us," Mark said.

"This is a good one. I know you're messing with me. I mean, come on. She's clearly Chelsey's sister. I'm not that gullible. Did y'all like practice this?" Henry asked.

"No Henry. It's no prank. I promise," Chelsey said.

"I can prove it," Wendy said with a mischievous smile.

Then, without further provocation, she transformed. Her skin began to bubble, almost like a pot of boiling water. Her arms twisted and snapped in a way that looked painful. Yet Wendy showed no sign of pain. If anything, the look on her half-human face was gleeful. Her blonde hair fell away, replaced by a shorter, darker male hairline. The bubbling effect on her body slowed and then stopped.

Henry was left staring at a perfect copy of his own body. His nose and eyes were the same, as was his hair. Even the few freckles he had were mirrored perfectly on Wendy's new face.

"Holy shit!" Henry said as he stared down his doppelganger, "That's crazy."

"Pretty good, right," Wendy said in a voice that sounded just like his own.

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"Now, that's settled. Wendy, you can go back," Mark said.

Wendy's skin rippled again. She shrank, and her hair grew longer. Soon, she looked the same as she had before. That truly was a frightening ability. Henry could understand how she had so effortlessly picked them apart. He wasn't sure he could spot the difference between his own reflection and her copy.

"How did you guys end up like this?" Henry asked.

"What? In the cave? Or in Paradise? Pretty sure we already said it was the Dickhead," Stevey asked.

"No, I mean, how did one of the Ghost Stories wind up living with you?"

"It was convenient. It removed one of our greatest threats with no effort from us," Grace explained, "Look, we didn't believe her at first when she told us she didn't want to kill us anymore. I know I thought it was some kind of trick. The ghost stories kill us after all. That's their purpose, but she never did hurt us again."

"There was that one time," Stevey said with a quick smile for Wendy.

"That doesn't count," Wendy said with a surprisingly serious look, "It wasn't my fault you idiots approached the wall. I told you not to. I did, didn't I, Chelsey?"

"You did, Wendy. No one blames you for that," Chelsey answered.

"What wall?" Henry Asked.

"The one that surrounds this whole place. Don't worry about that for now. We'll have Stevey take you to see during the grocery run tomorrow," Mark said, "Now back on topic. You'll need to know how to kill the ghost stories if you want to go on the grocery run," Mark answered.

"You can kill them?" Henry asked.

The whole idea seemed insane. Undertow already appeared dead to Henry. It's jaw was broken completely, and he looked like a rotting corpse. Yet it continued to move and kill as if death hadn't even phased it. How could you kill something that was already dead?

"You can kill them… sort of," Mark explained, "They work like us. You can kill one, and they'll die. However, when the clock strikes 12:01 PM the next day, they'll just pop back up like they never left."

"That's how everything works here," Grace added.

"Today, we'll start with the knight since you'll be hitting Londontown with Stevey tomorrow. You're in luck. He's the easiest to kill," Mark said.

"How's that?" Henry asked, "I thought Grace said he could walk through walls. If he can walk through solid objects, how do you kill it with one?"

"Well, it's true that the knight is incredibly hard to damage using conventional means," Mark admitted, "We do have some unconventional ways of killing him. His soul, or whatever it is Ghost Stories have, is always bound to an object. It varies in appearance, but it's always old, something from the Knights' own time period. Trust me, one look at it, and you'll know. Destroy it, and the Knight ceases to exist. Easy. Well, easier than the others anyway."

"If you're going to go faffing around in London Town, the first step is always killing the Knight. Unless you want a nasty surprise stabbing you in the arse," Stevey added.

"Alright, I get the idea. How do you find the object? Assuming Londontown is the same size as Brightshore, how could you possibly find it before the Knight found you?" Henry asked.

"Actually, Londontown is quite a bit bigger than Brightshore," Chelsey said.

"She's right. Luckily, the object always appears in one building. Inside are the ruins of an old castle outside of the city. So you only have to search one building."

"It's not a castle; it's a church," Stevey corrected.

"Well, the damned thing looks like a castle," Mark retorted.

Stevey nodded in agreement.

"Fair enough."

The more they explained their methods, the more Henry was unsure if he was up to the task. It was a lot, and they all seemed so nonchalant about it. He supposed that made sense. They had been doing this for years.

One way or another, tomorrow Henry was going to have to go to Londontown.