The scraping of swords being drawn rang out.

“D-didn’t you say the banshee wouldn’t — couldn’t come out during the day?” the errand boy asked, his short sword shaking.

“They can’t,” Lusa said, his voice impressively even, holding a long dagger.

“I suppose that scary voice was just my imagination, then,” Fola said drily.

“There are very few specters that can appear during the day. And we don’t need to worry about those.”

“They’re very weak?” the errand boy asked hopefully.

“The opposite. The Feathered Dragons would’ve arrived at a city of undead. Could anyone tell where the voice came from?”

The voice had seemed to come from everywhere, echoing despite the plush carpeting.

“Upstairs,” Fola replied confidently.

Valerie tried to keep from looking surprised. Had the voice come from a single direction? Maybe mice had better hearing.

“Good ear. You two, stay behind me, side by side. Up the stairs.”

Without waiting for confirmation, Lusa strode up to the second floor.

Hadn’t he said if they confirmed it was a banshee, they’d fall back and contact his party? His confidence in his prior knowledge was putting them in a dangerous situation. Why’d they agree to put a stranger in charge? Because the barely post-pubescent boy idolized him?

If his decisions put them in danger, would they have time to withdraw?

“Elro…” she muttered as they went up the stairs.

The mouse, paws tightly clutching the collar of her coat, didn’t respond. His head pivoted as though he were staring at something on the stairs as they went past.

“Elro?” she whispered. “Did you notice something?”

“It’s nothing.”

Despite his words, the mouse was still, as if deep in thought.

“My good priestess, any ideas?” Lusa asked in a sing-song manner as though this were a weekend date at the mall.

At the top of the stairs, two hallways extended, lined with rooms whose doors were firmly shut. One hall ran toward the side of the mansion, and the other ran through the center like a spine.

These interior walls and doors had no signs of wear, their disuse only visible in the layer of dust coating every horizontal surface.

“It was far away,” the mouse priestess responded. “I...I’m not sure.”

“Choose.” Lusa’s voice left no room for argument. “Your guess is better than any of ours.”

“I think…” Fola closed her eyes for a moment and then pointed down the central hallway. Her hand was steady. “That way.”

Lusa beckoned them onward, lowering himself into a semi-crouch and advancing down the hall slowly in a crab-like shuffle.

Her eyes were drawn to the blade of his shortsword. It had an iridescent sheen to it, beautiful yet repulsive, like a glistening layer of oil on a river at sunset.

“Keep your eyes peeled.”

“For what?” Val asked, taking her eyes off the iridescent sword. “Ghosts?”

“Anything out of the ordinary. I’ll watch the front. You all check the rooms we’re passing. Shout if you notice anything.”

It was difficult to walk forward without looking. Could they really rely on this dandy? What was ordinary about any of this? He claimed to be knowledgeable, but so far his knowledge hadn’t helped much.

The ghost had taken him by surprise, she was sure. He pretended to be confident, but she’d noticed the widening of his eyes, the vanishing of his ever-present smirk, the silencing of his idle remarks. It’d been brief, but he hadn’t expected to encounter anything.

Now it was unknown territory for all of them.

At least he was in front. If he wanted to barrel ahead, he could take the role of the canary in the coal mine.

Glancing forward every few seconds, Val scanned the rooms they passed. How could they check for anything? All the doors were shut. As if a ghost that could float through doors would leave any sign of its passing. could leave traces. A streak in the dust as through from a gust of wind? Did the symbol on this door mean something? Did the eyes of one of the soldiers in this tapestry follow them as they passed it? What about the threadbareness of this section of the carpet?

“Anything?” Lusa asked.

Anything, anything, anything.

“Isn’t it rather warm?” Elro remarked.

“What?” Lusa kept his eyes forward.

“For an abandoned house, it’s rather warm. I don’t remember feeling a draft since we entered.”

“We’re in an interior hallway,” Fola pointed out. “Maybe it’s draftier at the edges.”

“What are you talking about? Stay focused!” It was impressive how the adventurer could remand them without looking back. Valerie suspected she’d be unable to resist the urge. “Check the doors! We’re looking for a room — ah, never mind. It’s this one.”

Lusa stopped and stared at the second to last room on the left.

“How do you know?” the errand boy asked.

“No dust.” He pointed at the doorknob, which shone as though recently polished. His smirk had returned triumphantly. “Still think it’s a banshee? What kind of banshee needs to turn doorknobs?”

Nobody had a response for that.

The adventurer placed one gloved hand on the doorknob. It turned with a soft click. He glanced back at them.

“Stay low.”

“Wait! Give us a moment — ”

Ignoring the errand boy’s nervous cry, the adventurer shoved the door open and rushed in.

He stopped just far enough into the room that Valerie and the errand boy could enter behind him.

Holding her sword carefully pointed away from the others — it was starting to feel comfortable, holding this sword — her eyes scanned every nook and cranny for an ethereal murderer.

The room was long and narrow, stretching from the door to a lone window at the far end. It was a little girl’s room. A nightstand with a stub of a candle by the door, then a child’s bed with perfectly made baby blue sheets. A wire mobile shaped like a horse made hung from the ceiling and twisted slowly back and forth. A dresser by the bed, an adult-sized rocking chair, shelves with toys on them, and other things by the window that Valerie couldn’t be bothered to examine because something had grabbed her attention.

The chair was rocking on its own, creaking wood against wood.

The reddish sunlight, the little that made it through the window at the far end of the room, no longer felt as warm and supportive as when they’d first entered the house. The chair’s long, twisting shadow seemed to draw patterns in red on the floor. As she stared at them, the patterns seemed to almost form eerily smiling faces. She hoped it was just her imagination.

“Wh-what if the ghost’s in the chair?”

This errand boy said the wrong things at the worst times.

Lusa scoffed and approached it.

That was one way to find out.

“Wait!” The errand boy was frantic, probably thinking that his idol might die in front of his eyes. “It could be dangerous!”

Ignoring his fan, Lusa grabbed the chair until it stopped rocking. After he stepped back, it remained still.

The shadows, now motionless, formed no discernible pattern.

“Someone must’ve bumped it when we came in. Or it could’ve been the wind from opening the door.”

There was no way one of them had touched it. The rocking chair was far from the door. And air alone couldn’t have made it rock that much.

The errand boy exhaled in relief. “Thank the Light.”

“Something’s still wrong,” Fola said. “There’s no dust in this room. But it doesn’t feel lived in. The bed is perfectly made. I’d be willing to be those drawers are all empty. It’s odd, almost as if... ”

“Someone’s preserving this room,” Valerie concluded. “Someone or something.”

“Did Veck have a little sister who died?” Lusa asked out of the blue.

“Why?” Fola asked back.

“Specters are made from resentment. Even the non-hostile ones.”

“So you admit it’s a specter!” Fola shouted.

“No, I still think it’s impossible. But when it comes to monsters, a good adventurer keeps an open mind. Or rather, an adventurer who wants to continue living.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He just didn’t want to admit to being wrong.

“Why can’t you admit to being wrong?”

Val wanted to cheer on the little mouse.

“I may not be right, but I’m not wrong. It’s not a specter. And if it is, it can’t harm us during the day.”

“Never heard of Veck having a little sister,” Elro said. “But if he did, and something happened, they could’ve covered it up. The family liked their privacy, and they were rich enough to keep it.”

“I could tell by the distance from the gate to the front door.”

They were bickering and making jokes in a ghost’s room. One that was clearly hostile and had already killed somebody. Despite the fact that it was still day…

The chair was rocking itself again. When had it resumed again?

Was it just her imagination or was it rocking more…vigorously? On each rock, it tilted further, faster.

“If you all are done — ” Valerie started.

“We said if we found something,” the errand boy said timidly, “we’d leave and come back with a larger group.”

“If we found a banshee. This is not a banshee! There’s plenty of daylight left. So — ”

“Who cares!” How could they not notice the chair? “The chair — ”

The rocking chair threw itself forward and crashed against the wall.

“EEEEEEEEEK!” The errand boy’s sword clattered on the ground. “Th-th-the w-window!”

They all knew what he meant, as they were already staring in that direction.

“What in Aver’s name…”

There was the image of a woman in the window as if stained in the glass. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. A hat was drawn low over her head, which was tilted forward, enough to cover her eyes. Only her shoulders and up were visible as if she were standing outside the window, looking in, except they were on the second floor.

There was something wrong with her face, the little that was visible. Her nose was placed too low, or maybe her mouth was a little too wide.

“Lusa?”

“I have no idea what that is.”

For some reason, despite wanting to hear that, she wished he’d answered differently.

“A ghost!” Fola shouted.

“Stop with the specters! I’ve already told you, if it’s a specter, it’s harmless right now!” Lusa spoke very quickly. “So stop worrying about things that can’t hurt us and think of things that can!”

Elro was quick on the uptake. “A demon?”

“Could be. Or perhaps a fae. Actually, that might be right. That lines up surprisingly well. What kind of fae would live in an abandoned house? Or demon, for that matter. Either way, they’re intelligent and rarely hostile unprovoked, so we should be able to communicate with it.”

Lusa sheathed his sword.

“What are you doing?!”

“Communicating. You’re a priestess, right? Whatever Skills you have, get them ready.”

“May Myrna take this stupid adventurer’s soul!”

Lusa held his hands up and took a step toward the window.

“Hello. Can you understand me? I just want to talk.”

The woman in the window’s mouth opened. Her teeth were sharp, like a shark’s.

“See?” Lusa said with his usual smugness. “Now we can ask her what she’s doing here.”

“She’s not talking,” Elro said.

Her mouth continued to open, wider and wider. It was definitely too wide now.

“Maybe she can’t talk because she’s trapped in the window,” Lusa proposed.

That made no sense. If she couldn’t talk now, then how had she spoken to them earlier?

“I don’t think she’s trying to talk,” Valerie said.

Her mouth now encompassed nearly the entire visible half of her face.

“Shit!” Lusa spun around and shoved Valerie. “Back up! Out of the room — ”

Pain assaulted Valerie’s ears. It felt as though the scream bypassed whatever mechanism her ears used to hear and drove knives into her skull. It had been...a few days since she’d felt this kind of pain.

She found herself on one knee.

The other two were in worse shape. The boy was twitching on the ground in a fetal position, hands over his ears. It looked painful, but at least he wasn’t crying out, and he was conscious. Lusa, who’d been close to the window, looked as though he was out cold.

She rolled her shoulders as she stood. They felt oddly light.

Elro!

She froze. Had she stepped on him? How many steps had she taken since she’d stood up? When had he fallen off her shoulder? Had he gotten injured in the fall? They needed to make baskets, like baby carriers, to carry the mice around in. Wasn’t it tiring to have to cling to her coat all the time? What if the boy had fallen on top of Elro?

The sensation of grabby little feet scampering up her leg brought her relief.

To think the sensation of a mouse running up her leg would bring her relief.

The mouse tapped on her shoulder to get her attention and pointed. Why didn’t he just — ?

Ah, they were still deafened. No wonder something had felt off.

Elro was pointing at Lusa. No, not the adventurer. The window.

The window at the end of the room was as clear as though a window washer had come by this morning. It carried a full rectangular beam of reddish light into the room with no shadows save for the cross of its grille.

The ghost was gone.

The rocking chair, next to Lusa, was still. The mobile over the bed still turned slightly, but that seemed natural. There was no sign of where the ghost had gone.

They weren’t welcome here. That much was clear.

She checked on the boy again. Now that she’d realized that her hearing was still out, and it was probably the same for all of them. It was slowly returning, a dull buzz growing into an unsettlingly loud ringing that she tried to ignore. The boy was, in fact, crying out. She just couldn’t hear him. It made sense that he’d been more affected by the scream. He was young, and he’d been closer to the window.

She started to ask him if he was okay, and then remembered that she couldn’t even hear herself. Instead, she gave him a rough shake, dodging the brief flail of his arms before he looked around frantically and remembered who she was.

They needed to leave.

More shoulder taps. What was it now? Elro pointed at the window again.

A shock ran through her body. Again? But there was nothing — ah, this time he was, in fact, pointing at Lusa. Or, actually, not Lusa, but at the mouse crawling on his face.

Right. There had been a fifth member in their group.

She ran over, scooped up the other mouse, and half dragged the boy out of the room, who seemed unwilling to leave his idol behind. Kind, but if the Feathered Dragons were as great as their reputation, surely the veteran adventurer would encourage them to save themselves and come back for him later. She might be able to drag the man out into the hallway, but the only way they were getting him down the stairs would be via gravity. Recently, her new position at the Order of Light had given her ample opportunity to carry limp bodies, and she judged that any fantasy the boy had of carrying his idol to safety was impossible.

As soon as they reached the top of the stairs, Elro tapped on her shoulder to stop. Rather forceful taps, too.

Surely he, too, didn’t have fantasies of carrying that man out? It might be a sensitive topic, but as much as she respected the mouse, it didn’t seem fair for somebody who wouldn’t be contributing much to the carrying to partake in the decision of whether to carry. In fact, Valerie was already carrying both of the mice.

She looked around, but there was no sign of the ghost. All the doors remained shut. There was no movement anywhere, no reflective surfaces that might harbor it, no dancing shadows indicating its presence. The mansion seemed simply an abandoned mansion again.

On the other side, Fola, too, began tapping. Her intent was clear because Valerie wanted the same thing. They both wanted to leave as fast as possible.

The boy looked at her with a clear expression of “why did we stop?”

Elro shook his head, though, and began motioning furiously to Fola.

It seemed stupid to argue in a haunted mansion when they couldn’t communicate. They wouldn’t be able to hear if the ghost warned them again. But it looked as though Valerie would have to apologize to the priestess mouse. As much as she shared her sentiment, she trusted Elro.

If it turned out that he wanted to go pick up Lusa, she promised to run straight down the stairs.

When it became clear that Valerie wasn’t moving, Fola began motioning back at Elro. He seemed to be asking her to do something, and she clearly thought it could wait until they were outside. After some very heated motions, Fola threw her hands up and motioned for Valerie to stand next to the boy.

A moment later, a cool and distinctly foreign sensation ran through her face, like what she imagined a mint-flavored gum commercial felt like, and then the ringing in her ears stopped.

“Better?” Fola asked.

Valerie touched her ears. A healing Skill? It was almost unfairly convenient. She had to get one as soon as possible.

“Much,” Elro said.

“Wow,” the boy said. “Thank you! By Aver, that hurt.”

“Great. Now, can we leave? I don’t see why this couldn’t have waited until we were outside.”

“No. There’s something off.”

“Yeah, we almost died to a banshee!”

“Lusa was adamant it wasn’t a banshee.”

“And look at him now!”

“Banshees can’t appear during the day. He was certain.”

“Put two and two together! That’s the only reason we’re still alive! If it were at night, we’d probably be dead!”

“Maybe it’s a baby banshee,” the boy offered helpfully.

Or rather, completely unhelpfully. Why did it matter what that thing was? It was something they couldn’t handle, it had taken down their most experienced and capable member, and it wanted them out.

“There’s no such thing!” Fola sounded like she was reaching wits’ end.

“Elro,” Valerie interjected, “why are we discussing this here? We should at least go outside first.”

“Do you see that? On the stairs.”

“I don’t see what the point — ” Fola started.

“The stairs were dusty when we arrived. Unused, save for Fejries footprints, and a small track on the side. A track in the dust like one that would be made by mice going up and down the stairs.”

“What are you going on about? Kids dare each other to go into abandoned houses all the time.”

“Fola. I’ve been thinking about when I came to the Moon temple yesterday. I thought I’d run into you by happenstance, but you sought me out, didn’t you? When you asked me if anything interesting was going on, you already knew about this incident somehow. I remember thinking you were oddly insistent about helping out. I thought it was because of our old friendship.”

“Did that scream scramble your brain? Where is this coming from?”

“When the ghost spoke to us when we first entered, I couldn’t locate its source. Yet you were so confident the voice came from upstairs.”

Where was he going with this?

“You’re getting old. Valerie, is it? Let’s go. Once we leave the mansion, maybe he’ll return to normal.”

Valerie didn’t move. Was he trying to say — Fola had been playing them? It was true that at the bottom of the stairs, Valerie had felt that the voice came from everywhere. But she wasn’t certain. And if Fola was in on it, why had she led them to that room? She could’ve said nothing and they would’ve wandered around the mansion, blind. And Fola had seemed as surprised as the rest of them when the ghost had appeared in the window.

“We’re the same damn age.” There was anger in his voice. So, even Elro could get angry. “And if your hearing is so sensitive, how were you the least affected by the scream? You managed to run over to Lusa before I came to.”

At this, Fola fell silent.

If Fola were behind this, how could the tiny priestess kill the guard? It hadn’t been long since they’d met, but she didn’t seem like a murderer. Valerie’s mind raced as she tried to recall all of Fola’s actions with as much detail as she could muster.

“Not to mention, Lusa said he’d be fine against even a real banshee’s scream. How did he get knocked out while the rest of us were only briefly stunned?”

“He was close to the window — ”

“Fola, at Level 15, Myrnian priestesses can gain a Skill to put someone to sleep. Do you have it?”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re suggesting — ”

“Do you have it?”

“I’m not going to start listing out all my Skills because of your paranoia. And whether I have it or not — ”

“Do you have it?”

When Fola fell silent again, Valerie felt a shiver run down her spine, starting from her neck, where the mouse was currently tightly holding onto her coat. How would the mouse react if Valerie tried to grab her? She found herself wishing the mouse rode in baskets for the second time today but for entirely different reasons.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you didn’t lie.” Elro’s grip loosened on Valerie’s coat.

She wanted to say, Please don’t fight while my neck is between you.

“I don’t think you were affected by the scream at all. It purposefully avoided you. You ran over to Lusa to put him to sleep because you realized he would never believe the story about the banshee. Seems like he was right, from the beginning.

“Fola, even when we were kids, you always tried to do what you thought was right. Sometimes alone, sometimes in such a way that it ends up all twisted. Whatever happened to Fejries — that was an accident. I know you started this with good intentions. I can help you. I will help you. But you have to come clean right now. Tell me: what are you hiding in this mansion?”