Transcript of McGillicuddy and Murder's Pawn Shop

Season 1

Episode 1

Pilot

August 22nd, 1921.

I did not find anything at the pawn shop.                     

Alas.

August 23rd, 1921.

Worked today. It was dull as doldrums. Typed. Typed. Typed. Did not go to pawn shop.

August 24, 1921.

Wanted to go to pawn shop all day today. It was rainy and gray. My hat melted.

Typed some more.

Did not go to pawn shop.

August 25, 1921.

What is the point of keeping a diary when nothing happens?

August 26, 1921.

I nearly threw a book at Mr. Levy today, just so I would have something to write about.

Did not throw book. Nothing happened.

I must go to the pawn shop tomorrow.

August 27, 1921.

I went to the pawn shop today. Feel much better about everything.

Since you are a diary and don’t know anything about pawn shops, I will have to explain this one to you. Even if you had a seen an ordinary pawn shop, diary, you would not understand this one.

It is called McGillicuddy and Murder’s pawn shop, and it’s like nothing else you’ve ever seen.

It’s not just a small dark room, with things gathering dust. It doesn’t have the glass counters and sour faced owner that you typically expect.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s pawn shop is three stories tall, in an old brick building on East 68th street. The sidewalk outside is bustling, but when you step inside, you feel as though you’ve been trapped in time, like you’ve stepped into one of your grandfather’s bottled ships.

I love the feeling. I feel like something eerie is going to happen to me every time I step inside.

When I am feeling blue, and when I want to throw Mr. Levy, my boss, straight out the window, I go to the pawn shop. I can’t afford the strange green globe lamps or bronze statues, and a tiny bit of gray lace won’t do the trick, but I am looking for something in McGillicuddy and Murder’s pawn shop. I want to take some of the feeling home with me. I’ll know the right object when I see it.

I want something weird to carry around with me in my pocket. I want to look at it at work, to bring some mystery into my life while I type. And type. And type.

August 28, 1921.

The strangest thing happened in McGillicuddy and Murder’s today.

I was browsing their collection of gloves, pink ones and mulberry colored ones, and one pair that was emerald green and glistening like lizard skin. And then just like that, a man popped out from behind the hat rack.

I do mean popped. He wasn’t there one minute, and all of a sudden, there he was. To be fair, I was a bit dazzled by a pair of gloves with real peacock feathers all over them, but I can’t see how I missed him. Unless he was crouching in the fur coats, he appeared out of nowhere.

He looked just as startled to see me as I was to see him.

He had curly black hair, and these colossal hazel eyes. The green in his eyes was so bright it almost reached out and smacked you in the face. He wore a dark suit and one of those newsboy caps—you know—and his suit didn’t quite fit. It was rather appealing.

Besides all that, he was appallingly handsome. I mean he looked like a British lord and I almost got down on one knee and proposed to him right then and there.

He looked at me as though… as though I was a little bit dangerous. The feeling gave me a pleasant shiver all over. He said, “Excuse me,” in this quiet delicious voice, and then he was gone.

I am now hunting two things in McGillicuddy and Murder’s, and I daresay I don’t have enough money for either one of them.

August 29, 1921.

Where does McGillicuddy and Murder’s get their merchandise? I don’t think women have ever worn peacock feather gloves.

August 30, 1921.

I started looking more thoughtfully at the pawn shop today. Some of the things I found completely defied reason.

There was a red coat with gold buttons, and it looked like a British uniform from the Revolutionary War. But it was clearly for a woman, with flared hips and a dramatic collar. I tried to read the tag, but there wasn’t any tag, just some name written in ink on the lining. And it wasn’t even a real name. It said, Minerva Sweeney Wren.

No one is named Minerva Sweeney Wren.

I’ve also started to question the wealth of the place. They’re got nothing but curiosities and things of grandeur. There’s a dark red piano in one corner, and I found a lizard in a jar the other day. It looks like they raided a scientist’s shop, and a theater, and a castle in the 1300s. They’ve got nothing ordinary, like the bicycle or bed sheets a poor family might have traded in for food.

August 31, 1921

Who the dickens has the last name of Murder, anyway?

September 1, 1921

I had a dream last night. A most peculiar dream. The flavor of it has stayed with me all day, the way the taste of a Coca Cola stays on your tongue.

I dreamt about the young man from the pawn shop, the one I keep hoping to see again. I dreamt that I was standing near the fountain downtown, and all of a sudden, he was there, too.

I was embarrassed, because for some reason in the dream, my nose had turned into a rutabaga. I dashed away from the fountain, into a quiet side street, and hoped he wouldn’t notice me.

But of course, because it was a dream, he came right after me. I stood flat against the wall and hoped he’d pass me but instead of looking at my rutabaga nose, he collapsed onto the pavement.

His coat had fallen open, and his shirt was bloody. I stooped and lifted him onto my lap, and it was all terribly romantic.

He’s got such a handsome face. He did in my dream, anyway. He looked pained, and he labored for breath. Then he reached up and held the back of my head. He himself up a little.

He whispered in my ear, in that soft, low voice, “Don’t let them win.”

And then—he died!

September 2, 1921.

I’d hoped my dream was a sign, that I’d see the young man again in the pawn shop, but no luck so far. I waited around yesterday, and today I plucked up the nerve to ask if they employed any young men, but I got all flustered and turned pink.

They said they didn’t employ any young men, no.

I’ll probably never see him again, but since my life seems to be made up of tragedy and boredom, that sounds about right.

Pretty soon, McGillcuddy and Murder’s is going to think I’m shop-lifting. Why else would I visit them so much?

September 3, 1921

I found it today. After all this time of searching, and hoping, and poking  around, I found my little piece of McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

I have to confess, I’m completely terrified of it.

It’s small piece of china, and I do mean a piece. It’s a broken chip of something, about the size of a silver dollar. You can’t see a pattern of anything on it expect for… well, except for a bright blue human eye.

I saw it in the corner by the checkout counter. It was just lying there by the golden bracelets, and I felt like it was looking at me. I mean, actually looking at me, like it had moved just before my eyes fell on it.

I asked the old man behind the counter how much it was. He came around and looked at it. He picked it up, and a strange smile spread across his face. He seemed to love the old broken eye, and that made me feel a little less nervous about it.

He told me it was free, that it had broken off of something. He said I could have it.

Free is exactly the sort of price I’m looking for. He dropped it into my hand, and I felt the strangest sense of dread. It was worse than when my Aunt Charlotte told me my parents were dead, or when Henry Hubert proposed and I knew I was going to have to say no.

I stared down at the eye, and I felt like something dangerous and magical was going to happen if I took it home.

Needless to say, it’s sitting on my bathroom sink.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode one, Pilot, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren on Patreon.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 2, The Eyes that Glowed in the Dark.

Episode 2

The Eyes that Glowed in the Dark

September 4, 1921.

Last night, there was a thunderstorm.

I woke up to a loud BOOM of thunder, and I sat up in bed.

I felt singed with electricity, all over, like the lightning had struck me and zapped me awake. I decided to visit la salle de bain, now that I was alert. So I got up. I walked across my apartment in my nightgown, got cold feet, and opened the bathroom door.

My tiny china eye was sitting on the left side of the bathroom sink.

I can’t be sure, but I don’t think that’s where I left it.

I think I left it on the right side.

It sounds perfectly ridiculous, getting all particular about what side of your sink you left broken dishes on.

But I’m sure I left it on the right side.

How did it get on the left side? Unless I was visited by a very neurotic thief, I’ve got no explanation.

I’m tempted to bake myself a cake and sit there, gnoshing, in the hopes that I’ll see my specter eyeball go floating through the air.

Can you imagine?

I’ve probably made the whole thing up. It’s too much to hope for that something weird could be happening to me. Maybe I got up in my sleep and moved it, just so I’d have a story to tell.

September 5, 1921.

I feel funny today.

I hope I’m not catching anything serious. If I don’t feel better by tomorrow, I’m going to see the doctor.

September 6, 1921.

I feel terrible this morning. My symptoms are hard to put into words, but I feel like there’s something wrong with my blood. Like it’s turned to ice, or a vapor, or… something that isn’t right.

I don’t have a headache, nausea, or a fever. I just feel like something is eating me up from the inside.

Going to see the doctor after work today. Will write again later.

It’s later, and I’ve seen the doctor. He said there wasn’t a single thing wrong with me, that I was in perfect health.

I think doctors are a perfect waste of time.

Oh, well. Maybe it was something I ate.

September 7, 1921.

It’s five o’clock in the morning.

I’m sitting at the train station, wrapped in my coat, hoping most of these men on their way to work will leave me alone. I’ve settled into a corner and I’ve wrapped myself up in newspapers, so I’ll look homeless. People never bother homeless people.

I’ve been writing as fast as I can, but now I’m too scared to write what comes next.

Dear diary,

My apartment is haunted.

I woke up at four o’ clock in the morning, and I couldn’t fall back asleep. I decided to get up and check the eye, just to see if it’s been playing ring around the rosie with me again. I went into the bathroom, and the eye was right where I’d left it. I stumbled over in the dark and picked it up. But when I looked up into the mirror, there was something behind me.

Something with eyes that glowed in the dark.

I screamed right away, of course, and shot out of the bathroom like a Bat out of Hades, but I can still see those eyes. They were human irises. They glowed pale blue, with a tiny hole in the middle where the pupil would be. That was all I saw in the mirror. Just… eyes.

There was nothing in the bathroom when I turned around and looked.

Perhaps this thing, whatever it is, is the opposite of a vampire. Vampires can’t see their reflection. Maybe this thing only shows up in mirrors.

Well, as you can imagine, I’m never setting foot in my apartment again. I’ve come to the train station to wait things out before work. After work is over today, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I wonder, am I going mad? Is that why my blood feels so funny?

I used to say that typing all day would make me go mad, but it’s not funny anymore. I feel scared. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe there isn’t something wrong with me—maybe it’s real.

Maybe it’s the eye, my little piece of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. Maybe the piece of china is haunted.

I did say I wanted an adventure.

September 8, 1921.

Spent the night with friends. I wouldn’t tell them why I was scared to go back into my apartment, and they’re convinced it was just a large black spider. Honestly!

Although to be honest, I probably would have spent the night somewhere else, if I’d found a large black spider.

Anyway.

I stopped in at McGillicuddy and Murder’s today. I asked about the china eye I’d taken. But it was a different employee today, and she said she didn’t know anything about the eye. I stood there gawking, wanting to blurt questions about hauntings and demons, but I don’t want to get carted off to the loony bin. It’s bad enough that I hang out in a peculiar pawn shop every day.

I gave her my card, and I said, “Please tell me where the eye came from. I’d very much like to know.”

She sniffed, like she thought I wanted to buy the rest of piece and couldn’t afford it. Where did the eye come from, I wonder? The piece of china is curved slightly. It might have been from a bowl, a cup, an urn. Probably an urn, considering the size of an eye.

I can just see a pale white teacup, with a single human eye in the center. Can’t you just picture a group, wearing black capes, sitting around and sipping eye-ball tea?

I mean that the tea is served in eyeball teacups, not that the tea was steeped in human eyeballs. Blech.

But I wish I knew where my broken china eye came from. Maybe then I would understand what’s happening.

Still don’t know what to do about the apartment. I feel like everything’s been going wrong. Maybe I should have married Henry Hubert. Then at least I wouldn’t have to work. Mr. Levy has been as cross as can be, and I want to bring a frying pan to work, just to whap him over the face with.

To make matters worse, I cut myself this morning! I was slicing some toast for me and the girls, and my friend Susan, who owns the apartment, hasn’t got a proper bread knife. Well, the knife I was using slid, and I cut my finger. I had to rush into the bathroom and hold it over the sink. I pressed my hanky into the cut for five minutes, and it stopped bleeding. It’s all bandaged up now.

My finger throbs, my hanky is covered in dried blood, and I can’t even sleep in my own bed. Everything is awful.

I thought getting a little piece of McGillicuddy and Murder’s would be wonderful and exciting. Now I’m either going crazy, or something evil has slipped into my apartment, brought in because of my china eye.

I’ll probably return to my apartment, to find it overrun with ghouls and specters.

I can’t keep staying at Susan’s place. Maybe I should leave the eye at work and hope it starts haunting Mr. Levy instead.

September 9, 1921.

Does it count as September 9? It’s probably midnight, or a little before. It might still be September 8. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m sitting in the little living room of Susan’s apartment, scared to death.

I started sniffling in bed, because Susan has got a cat, so I reached into my bag for my hanky. I pulled it out, and it was glowing bright blue.

Take a minute to pause, dearest diary. My handkerchief was glowing blue.

What have I been saying?

My blood’s been feeling funny.

My blood’s been feeling funny ever since I brought home the glass eye.

I covered my handkerchief in my own blood.

I saw glowing eyes two nights ago in my own apartment.

But they weren’t phantasm eyes. They weren’t something behind me. My apartment is perfectly safe, and I can go back there anytime I wish.

My blood, and my eyes, have started to glow in the dark.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode two, the eyes that Glowed in the dark, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at Patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 3, The Old Man Vanishes

Episode 3

The Old Man Vanishes

September 9, 1921.

I am bound and determined to find out what’s wrong with me.

It’s not every day you wake up and realize you glow in the dark. Perhaps I can monetize this. Is it cheaper to use human blood instead of glow in the dark paint? I can give up a few pints of blood at a time and voila! Easy money.

Or would giving up pints of blood kill me? How many pints have blood have I got?

Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter. I am a freak and a monster, and I confess I feel rather giddy this morning.

What’s next? Will I learn how to ride broomsticks? Will I make the china cabinet levitate? Perhaps I will be able to change my appearance at will.

I am trying to keep my thoughts light, dearest diary, because anything else is a nightmare. I’d love to ride a broomstick, or be able to turn mice into pumpkins. What if it’s worse than that, though? What if I’m dying?

The friend of my cousin got horribly sick after working for the Radium Luminous Material Corporation. She used to paint the tiny dials on the glow in the dark watches, but she quit after she started to get sick. The company said there was nothing in her claims, but she was sure the job was killing her slowly.

Tiny things that glowed in the dark were poisoning her. Well, what if it’s the same for me? What if I’ve come in contact with something, and now my poisoned blood has started glowing like a Radium watch?

What if it’s worse than that? What if I’m turning into a ghoul? Something evil and spectral that lurks around rotting Egyptian tombs?

What if I’m doomed?

I’ve always been a dramatic person, but in this situation, I think I have every right to be. What’s happening to me? I’m going to wring it out of McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop if it’s the last thing I do.

Well, diary, it’s later, and I’ve been to McGillcuddy and Murder’s. Right now I’m curled up at home, in my own little apartment, with a cup of tea and a warm towel wrapped around my head. I’ve been worrying so much all day my head is throbbing.

I went to McGillicuddy and Murder’s after work. When I stepped inside, I didn’t get that pleasant, bottled-ship feeling that I usually do. I felt just terrified, like I was in a medieval castle, on my way to be executed.

I stepped up to the counter, and the old man still wasn’t there. It was the woman I’d already talked to. I knew she was no help, but I was determined to try anyway.

“Good evening,” I said. “When will the old man who works here be in?”

“The old man?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if we employ any old men.”

“Well, you do.”

She gave me the evil eye. She brought out a slim leather book and flipped through it.

“It looks like he’ll be in tomorrow,” she said.

“Wonderful!” I said, but I didn’t mean it. Tomorrow isn’t soon enough. “May I have his telephone number, too?”

“I can’t give you his information,” she said.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because. I can’t.”

This was the most intelligent argument I’d ever heard.

“It’s important,” I said.

“I’m sure it is,” she said.

I huffed. “Well, can you ask him to call me?” I said. “Give him a ring tonight and please, tell him it’s important. He can call me if he wants to.”

The woman looked at me, like she was sizing me up. Once again, I felt like a threat. It’s not as though I have a cannon strapped to my head. What exactly are these people afraid of?

“I suppose I can do that,” she said.

“Oh, good!”

She reached down and picked up another book, and then she brandished a pen.

“Name?” she said.

Oh, dear.

Have you noticed, diary, that I never sign my name? It’s not just an attempt to be jaunty and unfamiliar.

I turned to face the woman, heroism high in my heart.

“Melinda Maudie Merkle,” I said.

The crescendo of shame began. The woman scratched my name into the booklet. She didn’t pause when writing down, Merkle, but I turned vermilion.

Melinda is a beautiful name. It was my mother’s name, and I save it for special occasions. I go by Maude in every day life, even though my legal middle name is quite literally “Maudie”—my father was just that sort of person.

Maude is nice. I like Maude. But what I cannot forgive my parents for is bringing me into this world with the last name of Merkle, and then naming me with all Ms to top it off.

Honestly, when Henry Hubert proposed, I considered saying yes for three whole seconds, and do you know what the reason was? Melinda Maudie Hubert at least sounds better.

Once I’d given the woman my telephone number, there was nothing else to do.

I doubt she’ll even call the old man, and if she does, I doubt he’ll call me. Tomorrow is Saturday, however, and I intend to spend most of the day at the Pawn Shop. I have to find out what’s happening to me.

September 10, 1921.

It’s impossible. It’s completely impossible.

But it happened. I’m sure of it.

I went into McGillicuddy and Murder’s today. The old man was in, just standing there behind the front desk. I nearly strode right up to him and demanded to know why my eyes were glowing in the dark, but I  lost my nerve. All of a sudden, rotting away in an insane asylum seemed much more real to me.

Since I couldn’t bring the subject up outright, I wandered up to the front desk and began playing with the golden bracelets. The old man seemed bent on ignoring me.

Suddenly, I stood up. “Did you try to call me last night?” I said.

“I?” he said.

He was saying “I,” as in, “Me, myself, and I” but I heard “Eye”, like the one on my bathroom sink. I turned green.

“Why would I call you, my dear?” he said.

This was really too much.  He’d seemed to know all about the eye when he gave it to me, he’d touched it like he loved it. Then he’d given it to me like he’d wanted to pass on a curse. Didn’t he know about what it was doing to me?

“I love the china eye you gave me,” I said.

“Oh!” he said. Softly. He was most definitely being creepy and mysterious.

“Yes,” I said. “And I just wondered where it came from?”

He smiled at me. “You know, I’m not sure. I don’t know where it came from. I’m sorry, my dear.”

He was refusing to tell me anything. There was a strange look in his eyes, like was keeping something from me.

I was thwarted, but not for long. I devised a plan.

I wandered around the Pawn Shop. I found what I was looking for—a small back room. It was full of odd statues and trinkets, and there was no window. The only light came in through the propped open door.

I hurried back to the old man.

“Could you tell me the price of something, please?” I said.

“Bring it here and show me,” he said.

“Well, it’s rather heavy,” I said.

He got up. My heart started beating faster. The old man followed me to the small dark room. I pointed at a random statue near the back.

“It’s that one, there.”

As soon as he stepped into the room, I shut the door on us both!

We were in complete darkness now, and I waited for him to turn around.

“So sorry,” I said. “I kicked it accidentally. Can you help me get it open?”

I waited, but the old man said nothing. I waited.

I’ll tell you my idea, diary: my idea is that the old man has eyes that glow as brightly as my own. If he saw my eyes, and I saw his, he’d have to tell me what was going on.

But the old man said nothing. Finally I grew skiddish in the darkness, and I opened the door.

The old man was gone.

I stared, open-mouthed. I looked around the room for a hidden door. Unless he tiptoed lightly through mounds and mounds of tiny statues to reach a secret door, then he simply vanished into thin air.

Either I’m going crazy, or I’ve hit on something spectacular. The young man with the hazel eyes. He appeared out of nowhere, too.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode three, The Old Man Vanishes, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 4, The Man with the Color Changing Tie.

Episode Four

The Man with the Color Changing Tie

September 11, 1921.

My eyes are changing color.

I don’t just mean that they’ve started to glow in the dark. I mean they’re turning hazel.

They used to be gray, but the middle part is turning browinish, now, and there’s a distinct green rim around my irises.

I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my friends. They’re bound to notice, of course. Even Mr. Levy stopped today and looked at me, like he was sure something was wrong. He stared at my face, and then he said with a stammer,

“Have you… changed your hair?”

I think it’s the first time Mr. Levy has ever looked at my face.

“No,” I said innocently, and he went away confused. He’s sure something is different about my face. And he’s right. He’s just never noticed me before, so he can’t figure out what’s different now.

I’m stuck with changing eyeballs, the ability to write cryptic messages with my own bodily fluids, and no idea why.

After the old man vanished in McGillicuddy and Murder’s, he never reappeared. I half expected him to be right around the next corner, but I searched high and low throughout the pawn shop, and he was nowhere. He left the place completely unguarded! I could have walked out with anything I wanted.

I think his eyes do glow in the dark, and he was desperate that I not see them.

But why?

I don’t know where to turn next. I have a sneaking suspicion the old man will never return to McGillicuddy and Murder’s. Either that, or I’ll be barred from future entry. He knows I know something, and he’s determined to tell me nothing.

What did he do? Vanish into thin air? I think he must be a warlock.

In anycase, I don’t see the point in returning to the Pawn Shop. If he’d wanted me to know why my eyes were glowing in the dark, he could have just told me.

If there’s anyone who can help me now, it’s my knight in the shining newsboy cap. HE vanished into thin air, or rather, he appeared out of it! And his eyes are the same color as mine. I think he’s one of them—excuse me, one of us, whatever we are.

Did the old man have hazel eyes? Possibly. All I really noticed was the long gray beard, which is very uncommon, even in a man of his age. If his eyes were hazel too, then we’re all one and the same. I wonder, can I pop from place to place at will?

Well, diary, I just tried it, and no luck so far. Maybe I’m missing a magic spell.

September 12, 1921.

Diary, do you know who I was three weeks ago? I was a normal, upstanding girl. I worked for a respectable, boring, bland, mundane man named Mr. Levy, and I typed all day long. Apart from sore fingers, I had no problems. I made a good income and slept in a nice apartment and had normal friends and had even refused an offer of marriage.

Now?

I am sitting in the police station.

It’s all a mix-up, and I’m sure they’ll let me go soon, but what a tragedy I’ve befallen! My knees are all scraped up, and I’ve lost my handbag.

Some crook in a red tie stole it from me. I was walking home after work, and when I turned a corner, this man jumped out and snatched my bag. I screamed and clawed at him, but he was away like a flash.

Naturally, I ran after him. I dodged through people on the sidewalk, shrieking “Thief! Thief!” like some demented bird. I lost sight of him for a minute, turned a corner, and then I spied the back of his head. He stood beside a fruit stall, smelling a peach, acting like he hadn’t just been running away!

I lit into him, slapping the back of his coat and yelling and demanding he give back my bag. He turned around and—oh dear—his tie was yellow.

I’d been slapping the wrong man! My thief had gotten away, and the man in the yellow tie was so angry I ended up at the police station. I’m a cute little thing, and I can’t imagine they’d really keep me here overnight. Once I explained about the handbag, the policemen asked me more about the thief than about my misdirected assault and battery.

But isn’t that the limit? I keep thinking things can’t get any worse. And then I lose my handbag. Pretty soon I won’t have a job and I’ll be living in the alley behind my apartment.

I wouldn’t mind this adventure so much… if someone would just tell me WHAT is going ON!

September 13, 1921.

Things keep on getting weirder. The man with the yellow tie called on me at my apartment today, while I was at work. He left flowers with Mrs. Kubler, and I’m staring at them right now.

They’re yellow and pink and blue, and they look like a fairy postcard. They’re in a short little blue vase, and they burst out around the top of it like a ball. The fragrance is heavenly. The card says, Hector Renfield, and it’s got a phone number on it.

I wonder, have I attracted a suitor? He was mad as hornets when I hit him on the street. I suppose he found out about the handbag incident later, and feels bad about it.

Well, I’ll assume they’re apology flowers and leave it at that. I’d be too embarrassed to call and thank him, just in case he asked me out for dinner. He seemed at least fifteen years older than me, and I don’t think I want a marriage like that.

Look at me, jumping to marriage, just because I got some flowers.

They are very nice flowers though. So was his suit. He’s probably terribly rich. Maybe I can marry him and buy everything in McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

Do you know I miss that old pawn shop? I feel like my life’s one little window of goodness and adventure has been shut.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s doesn’t want me back. And now that something really weird, really remarkable, has happened to me, I’m not content to stroll around and look at statues anymore. I want the real thing. Real mystery. Real intrigue. Real passion. Real life! But I have no idea how to get started.

September 14, 1921.

Mr. Renfield called on me tonight.

I was just about to put on my slippers, read a book, eat peanuts, and enjoy the company of no one at all, when Mrs. Kubler knocked on my door.

“That gentleman is here again to see you, dear,” she said.

I jumped out of my skin. I had just enough time to powder my nose and reapply my rouge before he stepped in my door.

He wasn’t carrying flowers this time. He was carrying a book.

Mr. Renfield is a handsome man, almost six feet tall, with a thin little mustache. He wore a pinstriped suit, so clean it looked glossy. His tie was yellow, just like the other day when I attacked him.

“Ms. Merkle,” he said. “I hope this is a convenient hour for me to call.”

“Er…” I said. “Yes. Please, come in.”

Mrs. Kubler made rather a show of leaving the door open, so I knew she’d be keeping an eye on me. I felt safe enough.

“Won’t you… sit down?” I said.

He did. When he sat down on my sofa, I felt my heart go belly-up.

“Ms. Merkle, I have a confession to make,” he said.

I was sitting there and hating the sound of my own name, when all of a sudden, his tie changed colors right in front of my eyes. It went from yellow to red.

Never mind that this man could perform magic tricks with his tie. Never mind that something impossible had happened right before my eyes. I was focused on something else entirely.

I yelped, hit by a flash of insight.

“You stole my handbag!” I cried.

Mr. Renfield shrugged, in a mute apology.

“I needed your address.”

This fiend had snatched my handbag, then changed the color of his tie, then stood there looking at peaches! He’d known I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. I’d attacked the right man after all.

I stood, ready to stand and scream for Mrs. Kubler. Mr. Renfield stood too, and he opened the book.

The page revealed the drawing of an eye, just like the one on my piece of china.

“I know what’s happened to you,” Mr. Renfield said. “Please. I can explain everything.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode Four, The Man with the Color Changing Tie, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 5, The Night Enthusiasts.

Episode 5

The Night Enthusiasts
 

September 14, 1921, continued.

“I know what’s happened to you,” Mr. Renfield saud. ‘Please. I can explain everything.”

My hands started to shake. Here at last was the answer! I was going to find out what I was! Find out why my eyeballs had almost given me a heart-attack, when they made me look like a ghoul in my own bathroom mirror!

I would know why I was so strange, why I had started to change. I would know what my mission was, what the purpose of this transformation would be. Perhaps I’d pack my bags and sail to Peru, or India, or Egpyt, and live out my days as some magical woodland creature that deals in blessings and curses.

Mr. Renfield opened his mouth. I leaned forward on the couch.

“You’ll have to close the door,” he whispered. He glanced out into the hall, as if afraid someone was listening.

I know better than to let a strange man into my apartment without the door open, but I didn’t care anymore. I had to get answers.

I got up, and I shut the door.

“Quick,” I said. “Mrs. Kubler will have my hide if she catches this door shut. Hurry up and tell me.”

I vaulted back onto the couch. Mr. Renfield cleared his throat. I thought my blood vessels would burst from the suspense.

“You’re what’s known as a Magic Unusual,” Mr. Renfield said. “And the old man at McGillicuddy and Murder’s made you this way by giving you that china eye.”

A magic unsual. It has a lovely ring to it, doesn’t it? And that dastardly old man! Not even asking me first if I wanted to glow in the dark like a Halloween decoration!

“I guessed the eye was where it started,” I said. “But how? Is it some magic spell?”

“Sort of,” Mr. Renfield said. “McGillicuddy and Murder’s is a cryptic place. They’re dangerous over there. I’m incredibly grateful I got to you first. If they’d asked you to join their ranks—” He shuddered.  “Miss Merkle, please listen. There is something you must know.”

Suddenly, the lights went out. Mr. Renfield and I looked at each other, our eyes both glowing in the dark.

“Quick,” he said. “You’re not safe.”

I leapt to my feet. The room was dark, and all I could see was light spilling in from under the door. I heard loud footsteps on the other side. Someone pounded on my apartment door.

“Mrs. Kubler?” I said.

“Quiet!” Mr. Renfield barked.

The voice on the other side of the door was not Mrs. Kubler’s. It was a man’s voice. He shouted at us, then hammered on the door again.

In the darkness, Mr. Renfield snatched my hand and vaulted towards the window. He whisked the window open and clambered out onto the fire escape.

“Quickly!” he said.

I thought in a flash of all the things I wanted to pack but couldn’t. I wondered, in a flash, if this was all just some bizarre kidnapping scheme.

But Mr. Renfield’s eyes were glowing too, which meant he and I were one and the same. And the men on the other side of my apartment door didn’t exactly sound friendly. I clambered out the window, still wearing heels, and clanged down the fire escape.

When we reached solid ground, Mr. Renfield took my hand, and ran with me down the alley. My lungs were full of night air, and my heart pounded.  I felt so deliciously alive. How can terror be so wonderful?

“Do those men want to kill me?” I said.

“Worse,” Mr. Renfield said. “They want you to join their ranks.”

We burst out onto the wet, shimmering street, and Mr. Renfield hailed a taxi. A taxi sloshed up in a spray of reflected city lights, and I clambered in first. Renfield jumped in after me and slammed the taxi door.

“The Purgatory Club,” he said to the Taxi Driver. “Daniels and Fifth Street. Hurry!”

The taxi driver stepped on it, and I leaned back. My head swam. 

“What was—“ I started to say, but Renfield silenced me with a wave of his hand. He looked significantly at the taxi driver.

Secrets cannot be discussed in front of taxi drivers.  I’m a real adventurer, now. I ought to learn these things.

So we sat in silence. Rain pattered against the windows, and the taxi wove its way towards Daniels and Fifth. I’d never heard of the Purgatory Club, but I’m not much of a club girl.

The taxi came to a stop a few minutes later and Renfield got out. He paid the taxi driver while I stood there in the rain, feeling bedraggled and lost. My vanity got the better of me, and I hoped we weren’t about to set foot in the Purgatory Club, because I looked like a wet sheep.

Alas, my vanity was due for a punching, because we walked straight in.

I tugged at my skirt and flattened my hair, but no one even looked at me. The club was loud with music and foggy with smoke.

The walls were red, and glassware glittered all throughout the room. A girl at the back was earning her living in a very interesting way. Renfield didn’t even glance at the club, however. He strode towards a curtained alcove on our left.

The curtains were shut, and I was shocked and embarrassed when he tore the curtains apart, because there was a couple necking inside.

“Get out,” Renfield said to the couple.

The girl began to chatter and gripe at him, but the man only blushed and slunk away, taking the girl with him. When they were gone, Renfield beckoned to me, and I stepped inside with him. He shut the curtains.

The air smelled a little bit like incense. And if I’m being honest, like wet dog. It was not a majestic place to spend an evening. But. I suppose Purgatory wouldn’t be.

Renfield turned and faced me with grave eyes. “This is how you can reach us,” he said. “If we ever get separated again.”

He stepped up to a painting on the wall, and he spun it upside down. The woman in the painting looked at me with mournful, upside-down eyes, as if begging to be set right again.

Behind the painting, a small doorway opened. Renfield gestured to me, and I hurried into the darkness. He followed close behind me and shut the door.

Then we were alone in a musty smelling place. I felt tired, and I wondered when I was going to wake up from this dream that was starting to be rather a bother.

I found that I could see fairly well in the dark. Renfield slipped ahead of me and lead the way. A few twists and turns later, and lights began to glow in the walls, candles flickering behind green panes of glass. Roots hung down through a red brick ceiling. The air smelled chalky, and a little bit like iron.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he said.

On my left, A skull grinned out of the wall. Where were we? A tomb?

My heart began to beat a little faster.

I love danger. I love adventure. I love the unexpected and the bizarre. But I don’t love evil. I love defeating it, in theory anyway. I don’t know if I’ve ever defeated anything in my life, but I do not intend to prove a villain. I felt like I was walking into a witch’s lair, something sinister to read about, or even something exciting to fight against. But to join?

I didn’t know what this place was.

Was I becoming a creature of the night, now? Something a little bit wrong and twisted?

Did I not have any choice in the matter?

Renfield reached a door at the end of the corridor. He opened it, and a strange smell wafted towards me, like oranges and crisp fresh paper, and pine. It smelled like Christmas morning.

Renfield stepped into the room beyond, and I knew that when I followed, things would only get stranger.

I stepped into a large cave.

The sides of the cave were piled in oddities and wonders—much like the items in McGillicuddy and Murder’s. There were paintings, bird cages, and other strange things scattered across the floor, including a carousel horse, its mouth open in a scream.

In the center of the cave, a large black gazebo sat, purple lights shining around its rim. Inside the gazebo, twelve men and women sat, watching us with pale faces and unmoving eyes.

“Welcome,” Renfield said. “To the Society of Night Enthusiasts.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode Five, The Night Enthusiasts, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 6, Stranger than a Nightmare.

Episode 6

Stranger than a Nightmare

September 14, 1921, continued

I stood staring at the black gazebo, at the ring of purple lights. In the center of the gazebo, one of the people stood up and beckoned to me.

I didn’t move an inch. I stayed rooted to the ground, and I decided I hated adventures, and I hated china eyes, and I hated Renfield and this cave. The carousel horse on the floor looked like it was in pain.

I wanted an adventure to get away from the nightmare of my life, not make it worse.

“You said you wanted to know what’s happening to you,” Renfield said. “They’re waiting to tell you. They’re waiting to tell you what a magic unusual really is.”

I looked at Renfield. His face looked haggard and ugly in the half-light. I felt a shiver. I knew I couldn’t run. I could try, of course, but I doubted I’d get far. I had to walk across this cave and meet the strange faces underneath the gazebo, and whatever happened next, I’d have to face.

I can’t, I thought, I just can’t.

Imagine, diary, the worst disappoint you’ve ever suffered in your life. You’re a diary, so of course you don’t have any feelings, but try to imagine that you do. Picture that disappointment, diary. Multiply it. Feel it swell like the crashing waves of an ominous sea.

That is what I felt in this moment. The worst disappointment of my entire life.

I was not brave.

I expected to be brave. I expected to have the courage I needed, as soon as an adventure arrived. When I was a little girl, and I was afraid to walk down the cellar stairs, I would tell myself that if goblins really waited behind the barrels below, I’d magically be holding a sword when I met them. If the goblins were real, then anything could happen. If the impossible could happen in a bad way, then the impossible would happen in a good way. I might see goblins, but if I did, a sword would appear in my hands.

There wasn’t any sword. Not in real life. Here I was on the threshold of my adventure, and I didn’t have the stomach.

Nervous, and jittery, and feeling like the child no one wants to play with at school, I walked towards the black gazebo. The twelve people seated inside the gazebo stood up.

They weren’t dressed in large black cloaks, if that’s what you’re thinking. It seems like they should have been wearing capes, doesn’t it? They wore ordinary clothes, or almost ordinary. Most of them wore a bit of green or purple, but they predominantly wore black. I looked around the sea of faces, and who should I see on the left but newsboy-cap-man, my hazel-eyed friend from McGillicuddy and Murder’s?

I stared at him with my mouth open. He cocked his head slowly. He seemed to remember me, at least a little.

“Miss. Merkle?” said a small woman in the center.

I turned and looked at her. Her voice was wavering and thin, and her face stretched back into a chubby smile.

“Yes?” I said.

“Are you happy, Miss Merkle?” the small woman asked.

“Uh… no,” I said.

“Have you ever stood on the bottom of the sea, Miss Merkle?” the small woman said.

“No,” I said.

“Have you ever died, Miss Merkle?” the small woman said.

I stared at her. My heart thumped so fast I thought I would faint.

“No,” I said. “No, I have never died.”

“Good,” the small woman said. “Tonight, you will have the chance to answer yes to all three of those questions.”

Yes?

Yes, I am happy.

Yes, I have stood on the bottom of the sea?

Yes, I have died.

“We are the Night Enthusiasts, Miss Merkle,” the small woman said. “We thirst for blood. We search through tombs for life, and we embroider that life on the fabric of the world. We make more of our lives than we were originally given.”

My mouth was dry, so I merely nodded.

“Tonight, if you pass our test, you too, can become a Night Enthusiast,” the small woman said.

I glanced over the young man from McGillicuddy and Murder’s, the appallingly handsome one…..  and he looked down at the floor.

I turned back to the small woman. “Do I get a say?” I said.

My voice was small and scratchy.

The small woman smiled. She looked up at me, and she said, “Magic Unusuals are born, not made. Their powers can be unlocked by a gift, a gift from another Magic Unusual. Once the gift is given, and the powers are unlocked, then you are doomed to be a Magic Unusual for the rest of your life.”

I didn’t like the use of the word, doomed.

“You have been brought to us,” the small woman said. “You have been given a chance to join the ranks of the Night Enthusiasts. It’s an honor few receive, Miss Merkle. You will take our test. You will do as you are told. And if you pass, then you will become a member.”

“And if I don’t pass?” I said.

“Then you will die.”

Before I could respond to this spectacular declaration, the small woman folded her hands together, like school mistress preparing a lesson.

“Shall we begin?”

Members of the circle rose.

I found myself looking at the young man. He shifted in his seat, then looked at me, meaningfully.

He stood up. “You may have my seat, Miss Merkle.”

While The Night Enthusiasts began preparing something in the center of the gazebo, I slipped into the young man’s chair. He stood beside me, eyes facing forward. I waited, sure he was going to say something.

“My name is Noble James,” he said. “I’m sorry if you’re frightened.”

“Mr. James,” I said. “What’s the test? What happens? Is it hard?”

He glanced at me, then looked away. “It’s harder for some than for others.”

“What does becoming a Night Enthusiast do to you?” I said. “Will I… become different?”

He adjusted his newsboy cap, as if part of him wanted to hide underneath it. “A part of you has to die, in order to become a Night Enthusiast. That’s where—we get out powers from. Other Magic Unusuals get their powers differently, but the Night Enthusiasts are sure this is the best way.”

“There are other groups of Magic Unusuals?” I said.

He looked at me, concerned, and even sad. “You didn’t know?”

I’d known nothing, until Renfield showed up and tricked me into coming to this place. Who were those men who came to my apartment door? Had they really been my enemies?

Now I was here, and I had no choice. I was going to become a Night Enthusiast. I was going to kill part of myself. Somehow.

I turned away from Noble James, and I looked towards the center of the gazebo. The Night Enthusiasts had dragged in a large contraption. It looked like a copper tuba, and a lemonade cart, and the inside of a giant clock. It whirled and sputtered. A tank of bright green liquid glowed on the left side.

The small woman turned to me. “Your eyes have not yet changed color, Miss Merkle,” she said. “So you cannot teleport on your own. Instead, we will be feeding you some of this bright green liquid. It will take you to where we want you to go. When you arrive, you will have ten minutes to kill the creature you face. If you fail to kill it, you will die. If you succeed in killing it, you will join the ranks of glory, and become a Night Enthusiast.”

I swallowed. What was I going to do, punch her in the stomach and run?

Be brave, be brave! I told myself, but all those days of never killing my own spiders, and never saying no when other people wanted me to say yes, and never doing something when doing nothing was easier… had prepared me for a life of indolence. I wasn’t brave, because I’d never tried to be.

The small woman lifted a glass to my mouth. The inside frothed and bubbled with glowing green liquid.

“Drink,” she said.

The liquid touched my lips.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode Six, Stranger than a Nightmare, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 7, Death at the Bottom of the Sea

Episode 7

Death at the Bottom of the Sea

September 14, 1921, continued.

I stood in the black gazebo, and green light from the bubbling contraption made my hands look like witch’s fingers. The small woman pressed the drink against my lips.

“Drink,” she said.

I knew she’d force it down my throat in a minute, so I decided to drink it on my own. I always think it’s better to choose whenever you can, even when your choice is nothing but beastliness.

I drank the green liquid. It was foul, like gasoline. It didn’t burn my throat, though; it went down smoothly. I felt dizzy as soon as it hit my stomach, and my knees wobbled. I felt sure I was going to faint, and then I remembered—the potion wasn’t to make me pass out. It was to transport me.

Just like that, I left the black gazebo of The Night Enthusiasts. It was a welcome change. Instead of the dark, salty-smelling cave, I was in a… well, a dark… salty-smelling cave. But this one was on the bottom of the sea.

Water was being being kept out by another one of those devices. It whirred with copper cogs and wheels, and large blue glass bubbles glowed along its surface. I stood ankle deep in sea water, and the sides of the cave were rank with seaweed, but I could breathe.

A clear glass window was built into the side of the cave. I stepped up to it. I could see out into a world of dismal gray fish and pale sand. The fish flicked in formation, their drab sides reflecting the light.

I really was on the bottom of the sea.

I know that the sea goes down deep, too deep for light, but I wasn’t that far. I could still see a flicker of light. Daylight? It had been night in my city.  That meant I was nowhere near my side of the world.

I felt a little bit of courage rise. I didn’t want to die, not at my age, having never done much with my life. But what a way to die! At the bottom of the sea? In a mysterious cave? Halfway around the world!

“Well,” I said, and my voice echoed eerily in the chamber. “I’m not dead yet.”

At that moment, water began to pour into the cave. That infernal device was letting it in.

“No!” I said. “Stop! Desist! Stop that!”

I tried to plug the hole with both my hands, but it was no use. The weight of the entire ocean was on one side, and there was just me on the other. Water gushed through. The cave was quite small, and I’d drown in only a few minutes if the water didn’t stop.

I took back every thought I’d had about dying being adventurous. This wasn’t adventurous, this was ghastly. And it doesn’t matter that you’re halfway around the world when you’re suffocating to death.

“All right, what’s the test?” I shouted. “Come on!”

They’d probably forgotten to set it up, and now I was going to die, due to lack of planning.

At that moment, a beam of light flashed above my head, and a little creature landed on top of a glass bubble.

“Hello,” she said.

She had wings! She was a tiny pixie, or something like a pixie. She had a long nose, and long hair, and a long white dress. Everything about her was white, bright white, like a star.

“Hello!” I said. “Are you my test?”

“I’m afraid so,” she said.

“What do I do?” I said.

“You have to kill me, I’m afraid,” the small pixie said.

I stared at her, open mouthed. “I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “I don’t even kill spiders.”

“I’m not a spider,” the pixie said.

“No,” I said.

We stared at one another.

“I’m the test,” she said. “You have to kill me in order to become a Night Enthusiast.

“You’re a part of me?” I said. “The woman said I had to kill a part of myself. What part of me are you?”

“I’m not allowed to say,” the pixie said. “If I did, it wouldn’t be fair.”

I was thinking just the opposite, but I didn’t say anything.

“And once I kill you,” I said. ‘I never get you back?”

“That’s right.”

She could be anything. Sanity. Hope. Joy. Common Sense. Appreciation of Beauty. Dignity. Courage. Kindness.

How could I live the rest of my life without any of those things? Well, all right, I’d never had much common sense to begin with, but I doubted she was my common sense. The small woman had said Night Enthusiasts thirsted after blood. What if this pixie was, plain and simple, my sense of what was good?

Once I killed her, I might not understand what was wrong.

I had a keen mental image of myself, bending over a body with a bloody knife. Was it possible to commit horrible things, and to not care about them?

Was that my future if I joined The Night Enthusiasts?

I looked at the pixie. “What happens if I don’t kill you?” I said.

“Well,” the pixie said. “You haven’t learned to teleport on your own yet. In fact, you can’t, because your eyes haven’t completely changed color. So if you don’t kill me, the Night Enthusiasts won’t let you back, and you’ll drown in this cave.”

I stared at the pixie. What a rotten test! I had a friend once ask me, back in school, if I would kill a butterfly for a trip to Europe. She’d heard the question from a friend, and she thought it was ridiculous. Of course she’d kill the butterfly, she said. It was just a bug, and what was a bug compared to Europe?

And really, what was my sense of moral decency, compared to my life? Wouldn’t I rather live as a bit of a monster, instead of not living at all?

The problem was, I didn’t know what part of me the pixie represented. I didn’t much want to lose my moral compass, but what if I’d only lose my ability to feel toothaches?

I stepped up to the pixie. “I don’t have a weapon,” I said.

“No,” the pixie said.

“Am I supposed to… use a rock or something?” I said. I stared at her, and a deep ache grew in my chest. I felt like I’d be murdering my childhood self, my sense of all that was innocent and right in the world. I felt as if, once I killed this tiny fairy, I’d no longer jump up in excitement at the thought of an ice cream cone, or admire the way sunlight dappled a window. I’d lose my sense of life as it was supposed to be.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I said.

“There aren’t any rocks in this cave,” the pixie said, in answer to my first question. “You’ll have to use your hands.”

I opened my mouth to say something, and then I stopped. A sense of peace came over me.

“I wouldn’t kill the butterfly,” I said. “My friend said I was ridiculous, but I don’t think I could have enjoyed Paris or Prague when I’d done something merciless and selfish to get there. It’s only a butterfly, maybe, but it says something about me, and I don’t like what it says. I’m not going to kill you, little Pixie, whatever you are. I hope you aren’t fear or misery, or something I’d like to get rid of. Since I don’t know what you are, and since I don’t trust The Night Enthusiasts any farther than I could throw them, I’m going to let you live.”

I paused. “Of course, you’re going to die anyway, because I’m about to die. But it’s the principle of the thing.”

I sat down on the floor of the cave, right into the sea water. It was cold! It came almost to my shoulders, and I nearly stood back up again in a panic.

I looked over at the pixie. It was one thing to decide now that I wouldn’t kill her, but what would I do when the water was over my head? I’ve felt murderous when people wake me up too early in the morning. When I was dying, wouldn’t I snap the neck of a tiny pixie, just to stay alive?

People aren’t rational when they’re about to die. I didn’t know how much control I’d have over what I was about to do.

The water got closer and closer, until it trembled around my nose and mouth.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode Seven, Death at the Bottom of the Sea, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 8, Fresh Murder.

Episode 8

Fresh Murder

Sept 14, 1921, continued.

I sat in the cave at the bottom of the sea, ready to drown to death. The water bubbled around my nose and mouth. I’d been sitting down, in a dramatic show of accepting death, but as soon as the water reached my scalp, I stood up sputtering.

I was really starting to panic now. I’m claustrophobic, and the cave was filling in with water. It eddied around my waist.

The white pixie fluttered around my head. “There’s still time to kill me,” she said.

“No!” I exclaimed. “I made up my mind!”

My teeth were chattering. The cave smelled like salt and seaweed, and I began to grow nauseated.

“I wish I’d never come here,” I thought. “I wish I could go home.”

The water came to my chin. One more time, I considered killing the pixie. I considered becoming a broken, darkened thing, just for the chance to hold onto life a little longer.

It suddenly seemed stupid to deny myself life, just to maintain the moral high ground.

But the choice. The choice. That was what stalled me. They hadn’t given me a choice. This was some twisted game, some brutal manipulation.

Suddenly, I knew I would die. I knew I wasn’t going to kill the pixie, the piece of myself. I couldn’t let someone else direct my fate like that. I couldn’t live as a pawn. I had to die as myself.

The water gushed up under my chin. I stood on tiptoe. The cave was filling faster now. With a helpless gurgle, I was submerged.

I stood in the water, breath held, knowing things were about to get nasty. I had a few more moments of clear-headedness, before I would gulp for air, and gulp in water instead.

I wished for a place that wasn’t this, a safe space to die. I wished for a sunset, or a seaside bungalow, or what was still my favorite place on earth: a pawn shop.

In a wordless, tiny flutter, I wished for McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

I crashed down onto my knees, sopping wet and gulping for breath. But breath! I could breathe! I opened my eyes, and I wasn’t in the cave at the bottom of the sea. I was on the second floor of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.

I rolled onto my side, coughing and heaving. My dress was so wet, I lay in a puddle on the dark wood floor. After a few more minutes of heavy breathing, I shifted onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s was dark. It was closed for the night. I could hear automobiles pass on the street outside, but the pawn shop was deliciously quiet. I felt safe and soothed.

I got up onto my knees. I could guess what had happened. I had transitioned into a fully formed Magic Unusual, just as the water rose over my head. I could now teleport to anywhere I wanted, with a simple thought.

As soon as I realized that, I wished to be in my apartment.

The room was still dark, the door shut, the way Renfield and I had left it. The window to the fire escape was open.

Quickly, I grabbed my bag, stuffed this diary, a change of clothes, money, and a few toiletries inside. Then I wished for McGillicuddy and Murder’s once more, and I landed back in my old puddle.

I sat down. I held my bag against my knees and wondered what to do next.

Renfield and the Night Enthusiasts would come for me. They’d keep looking for me, until I was back in their power. I couldn’t go back to work for Mr. Levy and behave as though everything were normal. Everything was not normal.

I was a fugitive.

I was fugitive who could travel anywhere on earth.

I don’t know how The Night Enthusiasts expected to catch me, if I could just pop over to China and spend the rest of my days in the orient. If I could teleport to anywhere in the world, how would they know where to look?

But perhaps they anticipated my problem, and my problem was this: I needed to know more.

I was like a firework waiting to go off. Surely there were limitations to what I could do. What if there were also dangers, serious consequences? What if my organs melted if I teleported three times in the same day?

I needed to talk to another magic unusual, and the only other Magic Unusual I’d ever met was the old man from McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

I couldn’t go off and live in Paris until I’d spoken to the old man. First I had to find out what I was, and he was my only hope.

First things first, I found a quiet corner, behind a few racks of dresses, and I dragged a loveseat back there. I propped it up with pillows, found a nice quilt, and then got changed. I hung my wet dress up to dry, snuggled down on the loveseat, and began this diary entry.

It's about two hours later! I’ve written so much I think my hand is going to fall off. But I’m too wired to sleep, and I had to get it all out. This morning, my life was normal, but the dawn of September 15th, tomorrow, will bring a brand new world.

I still don’t know what to think, or what to do.

I don’t know if I can trust the old man.

I certainly couldn’t trust Renfield.

But I’m going to have to take my chances. I don’t understand why the old man teleported away from me, or why he refused to tell me anything about Magic Unusuals. Maybe he’s an old grump, and he wants to keep his magic to himself.

But Renfield said that Magic Unusuals unlock each other’s power. The old man recognized a Magic Unusual in me, and that’s why he gave me the eye. He made sure my powers broke free.

So why do it, and then not tell me anything?

Well, diary, I’m starting to get a headache, and my vision is blurry. If the Night Enthusiasts show up, they can just take me back into their clutches, as long as they let me sleep through it.

I hope I wake up before the Pawn Shop opens tomorrow.

September 15, 1921.

I did wake up before the Pawn Shop opened. Sort of. I heard voices on the first floor, and I woke up in a flash. Waking up quickly has never been my cup of tea, and I felt nauseated and ready to bite off someone’s head. I packed my dress from the night before, which had dried. I put my shoes back on, and then I just sat on the loveseat, heels together, ready for someone to get too close. If they did, I’d teleport.

It wasn’t Night Enthusiasts downstairs, just some Pawn Shop Employees. They were preparing to open for the day, and I grew painfully bored, waiting for 10 o’ clock when the Pawn Shop opened.

At about 10:15, I finally stood up. I decided to wander around and see if I could find the old man.

I walked downstairs, looking as innocent as possible. You can’t see the front door of the Pawn Shop from the counter, so really—any one employee who saw me should assume I came in the regular way.

The woman behind the counter was new, and I felt a pang of terror. What if the old man had quit, and she was his replacement? What if I’d never be able to find him?

My life was about to become inexpressibly lonely, unless I could find someone else like me. I wandered out into the street, to get a bit of fresh air, and to remind myself that people still existed, even if I wasn’t quite a part of their world anymore.

A newsboy caught my eye, a boy about eleven or twelve, waving one of his papers in the air.

“Murder! Murder! Read all about it! Young woman murders relative!”

Young women never murder people! I was intrigued! A line had formed around the boy, promising a long wait, but I spotted an abandoned paper on a bench. I went and picked it up.

YOUNG MURDERESS SHOCKS CITY, the headline proclaimed.

Underneath the headline was a picture of me.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode Eight, Fresh Murder, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 9, An Invitation.

Episode 9

An Invitation

September 15, 1921 continued

I stood on the sidewalk, completely baffled. The headlines were talking about a murder, a young murderess. And there was my face.

But I hadn’t killed anyone.

When I was a little girl, I fell down the stairs. I hurt myself rather a lot, but for the first few minutes, I just sat there. I didn’t feel any pain. I just couldn’t think straight. My knee was bleeding, but I wondered if I should get up and walk to the drug store anyway.

After the shock faded, I realized I couldn’t walk to the drug store with a knee dripping blood. And then, the pain set in. I spent the next hour yowling on the sofa.

I felt a little like that now. My brain didn’t work. I stared at the picture of my face, and I didn’t understand. What was I doing on the front page of the newspaper?

The first clear thought that came to me was, “Someone is going to recognize you.”

I coughed into my fist, to cover the lower half of my face, and to keep my head down. I hurried into an alley. Then I stood in a doorway, tucked out of sight, and felt my knees turn to jelly.

The Night Enthusiasts had power, that much was certain. They couldn’t find me with magical spells or anything like that. If they could, they would have done so already. They’d done the smartest thing possible in a tough situation: they’d made me a wanted woman. I might even be recognized in Europe after this. If they could get a fake story into the newspapers by morning, why couldn’t they make me wanted for murder, all around the world?

Sooner or later, I’d end up arrested. And then they would come.

I felt such a spike of anxiety, I almost threw up. I’d fallen into a trap, tangled with a group so ruthless they’d stoop to this.

Well, one thing was certain. I needed to keep my head down and my face out of sight. I looked up and down the alley, and then I wished for the back corner of McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

I landed neatly on my couch, and I sat there, quivering. I felt just like a rabbit that’s escaped a round of bullets. I needed to shiver in my burrow for a good hour before coming out for air.

Will write more later. For now, will shiver.

Well, diary, it’s later, and I’ve learned a thing or two about my new powers. I’ve got to be careful. I was lying on the sofa listening to the morning quiet of McGillicuddy and Murder’s, wishing for a pork bun from the shop on fifth avenue, when all of a sudden, I was on fifth avenue, standing in the noonday sun.

I was so scared I stood there like a sheep. I probably looked about ten years old. Hapless and timid. I couldn’t move a muscle, and when I got my brain back, I wished for McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

But I wouldn’t go. I shut my eyes and concentrated, wished for the exact spot I’d been a moment ago. I even tried to remember a blemish on the floor, just to make it extra specific. I would not teleport.

I was terrified. I was wanted for murder, and here I was standing in broad daylight, at a busy intersection. I finally covered my face with both hands, like a girl about to sneeze, and I dashed into an alley.

As soon as I was out of sight, I wished again. This time, I popped straight back into McGillicuddy and Murder’s, right where I wanted to be.

I have no one to explain teleportation to me, but I think I understand now what was happening. I can’t teleport if anyone is looking at me. In the same way, I suspect I can’t arrive anywhere if someone would see me.

I can teleport into a crowded area, just like I did the other day by accident, but I’ll land in a particular spot that no one is actually looking at at that particular moment.

That’s a relief—I can wish for Paris and be assured that wherever I end up, no one will see me land. There would be quite a few awkward questions, wouldn’t there?

It will get a bit tricky though if I want to get away—Suppose I’m running from the police? If they have their eyes on me for the whole chase, which they certainly would, then I’d have to let myself get arrested, just to teleport out of the cell.

I feel a bit better knowing my limitations. It makes my powers seem more real, somehow, now that I know the ways they won’t work. Instead of being magic, vague and impossible, it seems a little bit more like science.

Of course, it is magic. It’s magical, marvelous, explosive magic, and I’m still waiting to wake up and realize it hasn’t been real.

I wonder, do I want to wake up?

Get my old life back? No longer be on the lam? Go back to work for Mr. Levy and type all day and sleep alone in a tiny apartment and…. No.

I much prefer this.

Even though I’m not quite sure what “this” is yet.

September 16, 1921

I had a lovely day today. Being a fugitive is positively delicious.

I went to Paris. Yes, I did. I just wished for the Eiffel tower, and then I went sight-seeing all day, soaking up the French sunshine and eating patisserie. Tomorrow I think I might see the Taj Mahal.

Things will get a little tricky when I run out of money. Despite how ludicrously easy it would be to rob a bank, I don’t think I want to be that kind of fugitive. I’ll have to think of legitimate ways to earn money, without getting recognized.

It’s probably impossible, but I’ve been accomplishing the impossible quite a bit lately.

For now, I am back in McGillicuddy and Murder’s, because I still want to talk to the old man. He wasn’t in again today. I’m not sure what I should do, or if this waiting around for him is perfectly hopeless.

September 17, 1921

Dearest diary, my heart will not stop beating like a drum. I saw Noble James this afternoon, the kind young man who is nevertheless a Night Enthusiast.

And he saw me.

I was buying dinner from the corner store. I was in disguise. In the wee hours of the morning, I’d teleported to a wig shop, chosen a blonde wig, and left money on the counter. I’ve also got a pair of round spectacles. The disguise is good enough that I feel comfortable leaving McGillicuddy and Murder’s, for short lengths of time.

Well, I was in my disguise, waiting for a hot sandwich, when Noble James and a group of men entered the store. They all wore black, with slight accents of purple and green. Night Enthusiasts. Noble James looked up from the center of men, and he saw me.

He locked eyes with mine. I almost dropped my handbag. I felt my heart sink to my shoes, no—further than my shoes, into the basement—and I waited for all hell to descend.

I couldn’t teleport. Noble James was looking at me, and besides, half the people in the shop would notice. I stood rooted to the ground. The other Night Enthusiasts would look over and notice me in just a second, and even with my disguise, they’d recognize the girl they were hunting. Noble James had.

But instead of shouting and pointing at me, Noble James turned away from me and pointed to something down an aisle. The men looked there. I ran around the corner.

I stood for a moment among jars of food, paralyzed with shock.

I’d escaped. Noble James had diverted the attention of the other Night Enthusiasts and allowed me to get away.

Had he done it on purpose? He must have done it on purpose.

But why?

I looked left and right, ready to teleport back to McGillicuddy and Murder’s, when Noble James strode right past me.

He was alone. He grabbed my hand as he passed, and he tucked a slip of paper into my palm. Then he walked around the corner.

The coast was clear. I teleported, fists clenched, and arrived in McGillicuddy and Murder’s. I sat down on my hidden loveseat, and I unfolded the paper.

It said,

9 pm. The Iron Lion Bridge.  I’ll be alone.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode Nine, An Invitation, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 10, Blood.

Episode 10

Blood

September 17, 1921 continued

I stared down at the slip of paper from Noble James.

He wanted me to meet him at 9 pm at the Iron Lion Bridge.

I’m not very good at detecting lies and stratagems, so I sat with both my hands over my head, feet tucked together, heart racing, and I tried to figure it out. I felt like I was doing an arithmetic problem at school, only this time my life depended on the right answer.

What was the point of this? This note, this arranged meeting?

Did Noble James really want to speak to me privately? His note said he’d be alone.

Would he really be alone, or was this a trap?

My reasons for trusting him were slim to none. He’d been kind to me, and I was head over heels infatuated with him.

I had been head over heels infatuated with him. I wasn’t anymore. Let’s not get carried away.

Those were the only grounds for my trusting him.

He was a Night Enthusiast. Like all other Night Enthusiasts, his primary objective was to capture me. They were looking all over for me.

And yet he’d seen me, and he’d deflected attention away from me.

Why? Did he want to help me? Truly?

Or was it a ruse? Were the other Night Enthusiasts just playing along in the shop, so Noble James could win my trust?

Perhaps they’d feared that a public abduction wasn’t the best idea. Instead, they’d gotten Noble to slip me the note, and they planned to nab me tonight at 9 pm, when the Iron Lion bridge would be safe and cozy for their little crime.

I don’t know what to do. Should I show up?

It’s hard to be afraid of anything when you can teleport. I’ve been to Paris. I’ve proven that teleportation works no matter how far you want to go. All I had to do was learn the name of some tiny pub in Ireland, and I’d be safe and away in a twinkling if Noble James got too close.

My biggest worry is this: I still don’t know how a Magic Unsual’s powers work. What if there’s some kind of device or spell that lets Magic Unusuals track each other? If I get too close to Noble James, will he somehow know where I’m teleporting to next?

It’s a risk I don’t want to take.

But I’m also curious. What if Noble James really is a friend, an ally, and he wants to help me? I need help. I need things explained to me. I need friends. I’m going to shrivel up and die of loneliness in a month or two. What if meeting with him opens up new opportunities, new options?

I’m willing to risk a lot, just for the chance to have things explained.

Am I going to meet him?

I think I’ve already decided. I think I’m going to do it.

September 18, 1921.

Last night, I went to the Iron Lion Bridge to meet with Noble James.

The night was chilly and wet. I had goosebumps, and they wouldn’t go away.  I teleported near the bridge, and then I found a convenient tree. I watched the bridge from a distance. I couldn’t see Noble James, and it was 9:02 pm. Was he hiding, waiting for me to show up? Or had he decided not to show up?

Things began to feel more and more like a trap. I had an icy feeling all over, like something terrible was going to happen, but now that I’d come, I couldn’t walk away. This was my chance for adventure, and knowledge, and even if I landed in the belly of the beast, I had to take this risk.

I stepped out from behind the tree, and I strode towards the Iron Lion Bridge. There was no one in sight. The lights shimmered on the water, and a cold wind picked up and ruffled the collar of my coat.

It would serve me right if I stepped under the bridge and saw not Noble James, but the small woman, the head Night Enthusiast.

It’s a trap, I thought. My heart began to beat hard. It’s a trap.

I reached the bridge, and I stepped under it. It was dark down there, and I could barely see. I backed against the wall, so no one could sneak up behind me. A peculiar smell was in the air: a nasty, wet smell that I knew I’d smelled before. I couldn’t remember what it was, but it made me a little sick, and it made me uneasy.

I inched sideways down the bridge.

“Hello?” I called. “Talk to me if you’re here, I’m about to leave. You’re making me nervous.”

Nothing. I got a gut sense. If Noble James was here, he would have spoken. I felt sure of it, the way sometimes you know you’ve just picked up a cold. Noble James wasn’t here; he wasn’t hiding in the shadows. I checked my watch. It was 9:06. Either he was being very tardy, this was a trap, or he’d decided not to come.

Perhaps he’d been delayed. If he was meeting me behind the back of the Night Enthusiasts, he might have had some trouble getting away.

I decided I should try to wait, but with every minute I spent under the bridge, I felt my hairs rise further and further in alarm. I was like a cat, about to jump up and disappear.

The longer I waited, the stronger the smell grew. The scent was heavier to my left, and I took a few steps deeper under the bridge. I stooped. The ground was covered in something wet, something raw smelling.

I removed my glove, and I dipped my finger into the puddle. I brought my finger to my nose.

It was blood. Of course I knew the smell. I looked down, leaning so that light from a lamppost could hit the ground. The blood had pooled near my feet, and a trail was running off into the river.

I felt like a ghost rose up and wailed inside my chest. This was real. This was significant. This wasn’t the blood of some poor criminal, left here by coincidence. This was Noble Jame’s blood. I knew that, somehow.

The bible says that the life of the body is in the blood. I never quite understood that. Our life is in our blood. Did that just mean, if you lost enough blood, you’d die? We all know that.

Or was the meaning of that scripture deeper? Was some of our essence somehow entangled in our bloodstream?

Was I somehow holding a bit of Noble James, touching a wet blur of his soul?

I knew it was his blood. In a moment, I was sure, because as I rubbed the blood between my fingertips, the blood dried.

It started to glow.

This was the blood of a magic unusual. Apparently our blood didn’t glow when it was wet, but I could see my fingertip, faint blue and iridescent. 

I stood up.

Noble James had been wounded in this spot, then, presumably, teleported elsewhere.

Someone had attacked him. That meant they knew he was here, they didn’t like him, and they wanted to stop him.

And they’d be coming for me in just a moment.

I turned, wiping the last bit of Noble’s blood onto my hankie. I backed up against the bricks, heart thumping, and I pictured McGillicuddy and Murder’s. I tried to teleport.

I couldn’t teleport.

You see what this means, don’t you, diary?

I was being watched.

I looked down into the darkness of the bridge, so terrified my heart physically ached in my chest. I retreated out of the bridge slowly, my back against the wall, my hands grasping the bricks. I looked out into the night, where street lamps lit the side of the river.

All I had to do was get around the corner of the bridge, and I’d be out of sight of whoever was watching me. Then I could teleport. I could land safely at McGillicuddy and Murder’s and forget I ever took this stupid risk.

For a moment, I was so frightened of the unknown, I felt as though I’d vomit. I thought I heard a scratching sound from underneath the bridge. Whoever it was, whatever it was, it was getting closer.

I decided to make a run for it. I turned my back on whatever was under the bridge, and I ran. I shot towards the corner of the bridge as fast as I could.

I scrambled up the grassy slope, and then I made the mistake of looking back. I didn’t teleport instantly, the way I should have.

As I turned to look, someone seized my wrist. 

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode ten, Blood, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 11, Graveyard.

Episode 11

Graveyard

September 18, 1921, continued.

Diary, I’ve never been more frightened in my life.

I’d escaped the eerie darkness of the bridge, where Noble James’s blood lay spilled on the ground. I’d made it around the corner, where I should have been able to teleport safely. But someone reached out and snatched my hand.

I screamed.

It was a startled, bird-like little scream. It died in my throat. I looked at the face of my attacker, and it wasn’t an enemy at all. It was the little old man from McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

“You!” I exclaimed.

“Hush!” the old man said. “You’re not safe here!”

He patted my hand, still holding me by the wrist, and he drew a photograph out of his pocket.

“Look. See this room? I want you to imagine it. Now, quickly! Teleport with me!”

I stared down at the photograph in the old man’s hands. It was a room filled with whirring clocks, clocks with gears bigger than my head. I stared at him, stupefied, and he gripped my hand.

“Now!” he said.

The old man disappeared. I was terrified. I felt like I was falling.  Then I spun around. I realized I didn’t want to lose sight of the old man for anything in the world.

He had answers. And he’d finally found me!

I shut my eyes, imagined the strange room of clocks, and I teleported.

I landed in a stumble. I yelled. I felt someone grab my shoulders, and I heard the old man say, “There, there! You had a bit of a drop! That happens sometimes, when you don’t know a place very well.”

I looked up at him.

“Who are you?” I said.

“I?” he said. He blinked at me. “I am H.P. McGillicuddy. I should have thought that was obvious.”

“Why did you make me a Magic Unusual?” I said. I hugged my arms.

“Well, you already were a Magic Unusual, my dear,” he said. “I unlocked your powers, it’s true. I’m sorry that I didn’t stop and speak with you, that day in the Pawn Shop, when you cornered me. Your tactic was so aggressive…. I thought the Night Enthusiasts had gotten to you already.”

“You thought I was a Night Enthusiast?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the enemy of the Night Enthusiasts?” I said.

“Sadly,” Mr. McGillicuddy said, “they have chosen to make themselves the enemy of me.”

“Why do the Night Enthusiasts want me so badly?” I said.

“Because you have a rare power,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “All Magic Unsuals have the power to teleport. But some of us have extra powers as well. The powers are very random, highly unusual, in every person. Your skill would be highly valuable, and highly dangerous, in the hands of The Night Enthusiasts.”

“What’s my skill?” I said

“If I told you, you’d lose it,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “You’ll have to discover yourself, accidentally.”

“Oh,” I said. I was deeply disappointed.

“Once you know it, you can tell anyone you like,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “But you have to discover it all on your own.”

That was hardly convenient, but I ignored it. I needed to talk to Mr. McGillicuddy about what to do next.

“I’ve been hiding in McGillicuddy and Murder’s,” I said. “Waiting for you. The Night Enthusiasts are after me.”

“I know,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. His face was sad. At first I thought he simply felt bad for me, but then I realized it was something else. Mr. McGillicuddy had bad news for me.

“What’s why I’ve been avoiding you,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “The Night Enthusiasts are too close to you. If I help you, they could discover the secrets of what we’re doing at McGillicuddy and Murder’s. They could find me. We are like light and dark, the Night Enthusiasts and us. What they destroy, we heal. What they attack, we protect. They have no idea how to find me, or the center of our operations. I am working desperately on a way to include you, safely. But it’s more complicated than it seems. I can’t speak to you, be near you. If they catch us together, all is lost. And they’re hunting you too heavily.”

“So you’re not going to help me?” I said. “Please, Mr. McGillicuddy, I’m not a spy. I’m not working for them. You can trust me.”

He squinted into my face. “I believe you,” he said. “But you are one of many, and I’ll abandon the one to save the majority. I’m sorry, Miss Merkle. I can’t endanger the others.”

“How can you leave me? How can you afford to not protect me?”  I said. “I thought my powers were dangerous, if the Night Enthusiasts got ahold of me.”

“Oh, they are,” Mr McGillicuddy said. “Very. But you can protect yourself. Trust me, Miss Merkle, you are safer alone.”

But I don’t want to be alone, I almost blurted. I’ve been alone ever since my parents died, and I don’t want to be alone anymore.

“Miss Merkle,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “I am doing my best. I came after you tonight, after Noble James was attacked.”

“Did you stab him?” I said.

“Me?” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Of course not! Listen to me, Miss Merkle, we don’t have much time left. The chamber that you’re in right now is created by a special set of Magic Unsuals. They have the power to manipulate time. No time is passing out there. You and I will return to the world the split second that we left it. But these chambers last less than an hour, and ours is about to disappear. I want you to know, I am working to protect you from The Night Enthusiasts, I am trying to get you into our inner circle. In the meantime, you must stay away from them. Stay strong. You will be connected to us one day, but you have to wait.”

One of the clock dials heaved and clattered. Mr. McGillicuddy looked up at it.

“Goodbye, my dear,” he said.

“But Noble James!” I said. “Can I trust him?”

Mr. McGillicuddy shook his head, his eyes thunderous. “Noble James is a fool,” he said. “Stay away from him.”

I opened my mouth.

A small metal spring shot out of the wall, and one of the clock wheels collapsed.

Mr. McGillicuddy looked around.

“Listen to me, my dear,” he said, “There is a slim chance that the Night Enthusiasts cast a skull spell when you were under the bridge. They stabbed Noble, they may have laid a magic trap for you and I. A skull spell lets them see your next teleportation wish. If you wish for the zoo, they will see the word zoo written down by their machinery. If you wish for the hospital on 53rd street, they will see the words, hospital on 53rd street. Their spell only lasts for one teleportation, you’ll be clean after that. But I highly recommend wishing for “home” whatever that may mean to you. That way, they have a vague word. It teaches them nothing about your patterns, habits, or knowledge.”

“So, I should wish for home?” I said.

“Yes,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. One of the clocks fell off the wall, shattering with a loud gong. “And you should do it, now! Goodbye, my dear! If you would just… shut your eyes…”

I did. When I opened them, he’d disappeared.

“All right,” I said to myself. “Home. Go home, Maudie.”

I didn’t know what home really meant to me. Was it my apartment? Could it possibly be McGillicuddy and Murders, where I was currently staying? I closed my eyes and wished.

When I arrived, I found myself kneeling in damp grass. The wind was cool. A tree rustled somewhere nearby.

I opened my eyes. The landscape was dark. Gray. City lights twinkled on the horizon.

I was in a field of grass, surrounded by oblong stones. The moon shone down and lit the two stones in front of me.

Peter Alonso Merkle and Melinda Hepzibah Merkle.

The night was quiet. I felt a sense of stillness, a silence that connected me to the silent wooden coffins below.

I touched my father’s gravestone with two fingers, stroking the rounded edge. This was the man who’d loved me so dearly, loved me so at first sight, that he’d given me the middle name of Maudie, because only a pet name was good enough for me.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I curled up between the gravestones and lay there, looking up at the moon alone.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 11, Graveyard, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 12, Accidental Mischief.

Episode 12

Accidental Mischief

September 18, 1921, continued.

I left the graveyard and returned to McGillicuddy and Murder’s. I still felt raw and aching.

I sat down on the love seat, kicked off my heels, and unwrapped a sandwich I’d saved from earlier. I munched disconsolately.

I had no idea what to do next. Mr. McGillicuddy had said wait. He would contact me when he could, but for now, my only job was to stay away from the Night Enthusiasts.

Noble James had been stabbed. I wondered if he was dead.

Mr. McGillicuddy said Noble James is a fool. Stay away from him.

Did that mean Noble had meant to betray me? Hang it all and send everything to purgatory! Why couldn’t he just have been a nice young man? Why couldn’t we have met, over there by the coats, when I first saw him, and he was so handsome and royal and quiet and my heart fluttered helplessly.

A sandwich still in my hand, in a fit of romantic sorrow, I wandered out to the spot where I’d first met him.  I imagined him there, with his shy eyes and newsboy cap, and I spun on my heel.

“Wait, don’t go,” I said to the imaginary Noble James. “You’re very handsome. Would you like to have tea with me? Or dinner? Or something very refined?” I sighed, and I let my shoulders slump. “Or maybe just wander along the river and laugh at seagulls and eat peanuts?”

I sat down on the floor. It was the worst thing in the world that he wasn’t normal, and neither was I. Well, all right, I didn’t want to be Mr. Levy’s secretary anymore, but this Magic Unusual business was very isolating. Why did Noble James and I have to be caught up in the same weird conspiracies? Why did he have to be the enemy?

I sat up straight. What had he been doing in McGillicuddy and Murders that day? If he was a Night Enthusiast, had he been looking for Mr. McGillicuddy? To trap him? And hadn’t he found him? The man worked right here!

My head hurt.

I lay down on my back, feeling very sorry for myself. Why wasn’t I the kind of girl who got nice young men in newsboy caps? Why did Henry Hubert have to be the only one who ever proposed? I was the kind of girl who MET nice men in newsboy caps. Dear me, yes. And they thrilled my heartstrings.

And THEN, they turned out to be evil conspirators with magic powers.

I thought again of his blood, all over my fingers.

“Oh, please don’t be dead,” I whispered. “You’re such a nice young man. Even if you are part of an evil cult society.” I shut my eyes. “Please don’t be dead.”

I finished my sandwich, sadly, sitting on the floor. Then I was tired. Terribly, terribly tired. I wasn’t just tired from tonight. I was tired from the last six years of my life. I had an ache in me so deep I didn’t know what to do with it.

It is all very well to be magic. But it’s not very good to be magic, all alone.

September 19, 1921

Diary, I have ruined everything.

I am an idiot. Mr. McGillicuddy said, “Stay away from Noble James! He’s a fool! You can protect yourself!” he said, “You’re safer alone!” he said.

Well, I’ve gone and damned everything.

I think.

I had the funniest experience in the world today. I was waiting  in line for lunch. I wasn’t in Germany, or anything. I was just getting lunch from a place across town. I’m afraid to leave the city, in case Mr. McGillicuddy can’t find me ever again. My last thread of human connection is here, and I’m not going to break it for anything in the world.

So I wasn’t far. Just across town. Wearing a disguise. I was getting a soup and sandwich lunch, and feeling a bit nervous, because believe you me—my money is running rather thin. I said I didn’t want to rob banks. But I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I’ve been avoiding the papers and any mention of my murder case, because egads—it’s appalling to have your reputation ruined by a flock of criminals.

At least my life isn’t totally ruined. I don’t have too many people whose opinion I cared about. In other words, I didn’t lose much.  Just a few friends. But friends who would turn me in to the police if I showed up on their doorstep.

Getting lonely. I’m going to stop writing about this.

Anyway. My life. My life is ruined, and possibly the life of the young woman I was standing next to in line.

Did I implicate her in my murder scandal? No! It was worse than that. Can you imagine anything worse than being implicated in a murder scandal? Well, there is, and I did it.

I made her a magic unusual.

I didn’t do it on purpose! I was standing behind her in line, minding my own business, when she turned around. As soon as I saw her face, every hair on my arms stood up. Goosebumps! I didn’t know what was wrong. For a split second, I thought she was a Night Enthusiast, and my Magic Unusual senses were clueing me in.

But then I looked at her eyes, and I saw they were brown. Sweet, ordinary brown. She hadn’t a drop of magic in her. I looked around at the rest of the line for the trace of an eerie Night Enthusiast, but spotted none.

The girl went up to the counter for her soup. She fished around for change for several seconds, and everyone else in line began to fidget.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said in a stammering voice, to the man with the soup. “I’m afraid I’m lacking a nickel.”

“Oh, I’ve got one, please,” I said. I stepped up to her with a smile. WHY did I not just hand the nickle to the man with the soup?

No, I had to give the nickel to her, and that is what I did wrong.

The girl took the nickle with a smile, and I got the most peculiar feeling when I handed it over. I felt like my fingertips had frozen off.  I shivered from my head to my foot, and then felt warm, deliciously warm, like I’d just wrapped up in a warm towel.

I realized I was still staring at the girl, and she was still staring at me. Had she felt it, too? I had no idea what it was. She left with her soup, I paid for my soup and sandwich, and then I scurried out to a back alley, where I could teleport safely back to McGillicuddy and Murders. I’d become very cavalier with what I did with McGillicuddy and Murders, when I let hot soup smells waft through the second floor, and all that. No one ever came into McGillicuddy and Murders. I once saw an old woman looking at earrings. That was all. It’s always completely deserted, and completely safe, so I went back with my food.

I landed in my secret corner, listened for the sound of anyone on the second floor, and settled down comfortably when I was sure I was alone. I crunched the wax paper around my sandwich and sighed with contentment as I brought the soup to my lips.

Then, suddenly, in the peace and quiet, I let out a scream.

No, diary, I was not being attacked. I was perfectly safe.  It wasn’t a blood curdling scream—please don’t get the wrong idea. It was a scream of surprise and shock. A little yelp of regret.

I realized what had happened with that girl in the soup line.

She was a magic unusual, and I’d just unlocked her powers.

That’s why I’d felt the tingle of electricity from her, even though her eyes weren’t hazel. She hadn’t yet become one of us.

This seemed wrong to me. I had a twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach, as though I was part of a sick joke. Nickels should not make magic unusuals. It was too haphazard. It was ridiculous. Surely we had to do it deliberately, or something.

I guess not. I’d just doomed a girl to a life of confusion. I didn’t know how to reach Mr. McGillicuddy, to tell him to find her first. If the Night Enthusiasts found her, the way they’d found me, then she was doomed to the same cruel riddle I’d been forced to face on the bottom of the sea.

I could find her myself, of course. But what good would that do? I was wanted by the Night Enthusiasts, and finding her all by myself was like painting a target on her back.

But if I didn’t get to her first, surely the Night Enthusiasts would.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 12, Accidental Mischief, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 13, Melinda Merkle Strikes Again.

Episode 13

Melinda Merkle Strikes Again

September 20, 1921.

Dear diary,

Have you ever gone to the park to pester pigeons? Naturally, you have not, because you are a book, with a spine made of thread and glue. Unless, of course, I took you to the park and threw you at pigeons. Then, technically, you would be pestering pigeons.

Don’t worry, diary. I am not going to throw you at fat, gray birds.

My point is that I like to pester pigeons. It’s not terribly mean-spirited. I bring old bread crusts for them to enjoy, but then I try to hit as many pigeons in the head as I can. I usually miss, and even when I hit, they merely fluff a bit, look around, and then start eating.  It’s about as mean as being hit with a pillow. The pigeons don’t seem to mind, and it keeps me occupied.

Well, I was at the park pestering pigeons. I was in disguise, of course.  A man came and sat beside me. He unfolded his newspaper with pizzazz, and he jammed his nose into it. I glanced over, and my heart jumped into my throat.

The headline said,

HAS MELINDA MERKLE STRUCK AGAIN?

Did they have to go and mix my name into it? I wanted to punch the man reading the newspaper. In fact, I wanted to stride down to the Police station and set the record straight. I hadn’t murdered anyone. What kind of idiots were they?

I sat there, in a heated frenzy, until the man got up. Blessedly, he left his paper. I snatched it up and read the front page story.

In the end, it was all fluff. Some woman had gone missing and her uncle thought she might have been murdered, and the press was pinning the whole rumor on me. They didn’t have a leg to stand on; they just wanted to sell copies.

It didn’t matter, though. Soon there’d be a real live body (excuse me, a real dead body) and everyone would be sure I’d done it. I’d be a double murderer. I’d be wanted for life. I’d get the electric chair the second I was caught.

I pressed my fingers into my forehead. The Night Enthusiasts were playing psychological chess with me. I’d refused to join their little operation, because I didn’t want to give up my sense of right and wrong. Now, they were taking my life away from me. How much longer could I bear this loneliness and confusion, before I decided, hang it all, let’s kill a pixie, I want some friends!

I was not in a good place, diary. But if you think that tidbit about the paper and the pigeons is why I’m writing, you’re wrong. Something much more interesting happened.  It was nothing short of magic, and I took it as a sign.

The girl from the soup line, the one I’d accidentally turned into a Magic Unusual, went walking past.

At first I thought I was dreaming! I stared at her, my eyes bugging out of my head. What were the chances? That of all the people, in the entire city, she walked right past me when I was sitting on a park bench?

We weren’t even anywhere near the soup place! She had miraculously showed up near me once again.

My heart hammered, and I found it difficult to breathe. In some ways, I felt as though I should leap up and run after her. She was right here, and surely—this was my last chance. If this girl ended up in the hands of the Night Enthusiasts, I would be to blame for not shielding her when I had the chance.

Despite my inclination to run after her, shrieking, however, I stayed where I was. I still didn’t know if I should meddle. Alone, she might escape the notice of the Night Enthusiasts. Mr. McGillicuddy might get to her first.

With me, she would absolutely come to the attention of the Night Enthusiasts.

And I didn’t know what to do.

The girl walked on a little ways, then stopped and looked up at a tree. She seemed to be examining a bird’s nest.

Come on, Maudie, I said to myself. She’s even stopping. It’s like she’s waiting for you. You need to go tell her what you did. What she is. Explain how her eyes are going to start glowing in the bathroom mirror.

But I still couldn’t get up. It was the worst dilemma of my life. It’s one thing to risk your own life, but it’s entirely different to risk someone else’s.

I began to feel hot all over, certain I was going to blow it. The only problem was, I didn’t know what blowing it would be. I just knew that, whatever I did, it was going to be wrong. I could hardly breathe, let alone move.

And then, in some cosmic sign, the girl came back towards me. She flashed me a shy smile, then sat down on the other side of the bench.

“My feet hurt,” she said. She smiled again, a little awkward and shy, and took off her left shoe. She massaged her arch and stared at the pigeons.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t be so rude, but I didn’t say a word to her. How could I? I had a frog in my throat the size of grapefruit.

She kept glancing over at me, too, like she was waiting for me to say something. Finally, she said.

“Do you live around here?”

“Oh!” I said. “Sorry, no. I’m just visiting a friend.” My hands grew hot. Why was I lying? I’m a terrible liar. When I start lying, I fidget and my tongue swells to twice its normal size.

“Oh,” the girl said.

There was silence again.

“I’m Ariana,” she said. She offered me her hand. “The park is nice, isn’t it? I live near here.” She swung her left foot, then glanced over at me. “I’m sorry for staring, but have I met you before?”

I felt myself turn pink. “Well, now that you mention it,” I said. “I think maybe I was behind you in line yesterday. At the soup and sandwich place.”

“Oh!” the girl said, with a shrill note of pleasure in her voice. “That was you! You gave me a nickel!” She whipped out her handbag and started fishing around. “I’ll pay you back right here—how lucky!”

“Oh, you don’t have to pay me back,” I said.

“No!” she said. “It’s fate! And besides, a nickel will buy at least one ice cream soda, and I can’t just have you giving up an ice cream soda, can I?”

I grinned. I felt comfortable with her. Something about the way she moved—it was a little awkward and eager and relaxed all at once. She held up a shining nickel.

“There.”

She dropped it into my hand, smiling. I took it and slipped it into my own purse.

“Do you ever get lonely in the city?” she said. She stared out across the park. “I think it’s one of the loveliest and most devastating things about a city. You’re surrounded by people, but you know no one.” She burst into nervous laughter and sat up straighter. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I haven’t made any friends yet, and I know you’re nice.” She glanced at me. “You’re very easy to talk to, do you know that?”

I smiled. The truth was, I was enjoying her company as much as she was enjoying mine. It was like sunshine, or like diving into a cool, glassy-clear pool when you’re parched with thirst. It was so lovely to have a friend again.

“I’m sorry to be so personal,” she said. “But can you recommend a good doctor to me? My blood’s been feeling funny lately. Ever since yesterday. And I’ve been having funny dreams.”

I looked at her, and I saw myself, just a few weeks before. I’d been alone, but she didn’t have to be.

I decided.

To be honest, diary, I’m still not sure I made the right choice. I’m not a safe friend.

But I extended my hand. “Ariana,” I said. “My name is Maude Merkle, and I’m afraid I’ve got a funny story for you.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 13, Melinda Merkle Strikes Again, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 14, The Deadliest Spider.

Episode 14

The Deadliest Spider

September 20, 1921 continued.

I told Ariana all about Magic Unsuals. I told her why her blood was feeling funny, how her eyes would start glowing in the dark in the next few days. I told her about The Night Enthusiasts, and what had happened to me. I left out the fake murder, of course. I didn’t need her running up shrieking. 

The longer I talked, the more silent she became, and I felt sure that she thought I was mad. Soon, she’d get up and run away and that would be the end of it. At least I’d tried.

But when I’d finished, Ariana simply said, quietly, “Why should I believe you?”

I stared at her. I took a deep breath. “Well,” I said. “Look in the bathroom mirror tonight. If your eyes aren’t glowing in the dark by the end of the week, then you know I was lying to you.”

Ariana leaned back with a frown. She wasn’t running yet, which I decided was a good sign. I began to grow nervous, and I glanced over my shoulder. No one else was in the park. I couldn’t see any Night Enthusiasts lurking behind trees. But this felt too good to be true. I was waiting for something to come along and ruin it.

“I always knew I was different. I always wanted to be different.” Her eyes looked a little wild, and I felt like I was meeting a wolf or a hyena. She glanced at me. “This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Are there more of you? Is there a community? Or are we alone?”

“Well, there are the Night Enthusiasts,” I said.

“Yes, you told me about them,” she said. “But the good ones. Our people. Are there more of us?”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know how many. There’s Mr. McGillicuddy, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s, and others, but I’ve never met any of them. Mr. McGillicuddy is waiting until the Night Enthusiasts leave me alone, or he can find a safe way to include me. Until then, he’s keeping me at arms length.” I paused and looked up at the blue of the sky. “You should stay away from me. For a day or two. In case Mr. McGillicuddy finds you. Don’t trust anyone wearing all black, especially not if they’re wearing purple or green.”

“The Night Enthusiasts, you mean?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do you think Mr. McGillicuddy will find me?”

“Maybe,” I said. I sighed. “He didn’t find me.”

“But what about you?” Ariana said. “If I join Mr. McGillicuddy, won’t you be all alone?”

“Yes,” I said.

She frowned at me.

“But you’re not safe with me,” I said. “The Night Enthusiasts want some special magic power I have. I don’t know what the power is, yet,  but apparently it’s good.” I felt proud and terrible of this fact all at the same time. “The Night Enthusiasts won’t stop looking for me. If you can join Mr. McGillicuddy, you’ll be safe. You’ll have a home and a family, and I daresay there are classes and everything to help you understand what you are.”

“But you’ll be alone,” Ariana said.

“Yes,” I said.

She tilted her head and looked at me. “Why can’t I just stay with you? Right from the beginning?”

“Because… it’s not safe….”  I said.

“You’ve been fine,” she said. “You’ve been safe, all on your own. Maybe ten people couldn’t hide safely from the Night Enthusiasts, but I think two can. If one can. Why couldn’t we be a pair?” She took my hands, suddenly, impulsively. It was sweet. “You’ve been terribly lonely, Maude, haven’t you? I think Mr. McGillicuddy is a selfish old cow for not letting you join his ranks. I’m sorry, but I do. Maybe, if there were two of us, he’d see reason. He’d want to protect both of us, and he’d take the risk. He can ignore you, but he won’t be able to ignore the two of us as easily. And in the meantime? We can make our own way. We can hide out together. I’d much rather chart things out with another girl my own age, hiding in our own way, instead of meeting with a bunch of stuffy strangers. What if they’re all old men with beards?” She laughed. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair that you have to struggle through this alone. Why not do it with a friend?”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” I said.

“You’re not asking me,” she said. “I’m volunteering. Honestly. Can’t you see a volunteer when she’s waving under your nose? I’ll come and stay with you. You can teach me everything you know.”

“That’s not much,” I said. “And besides, I’m not staying in a real place. I’ve been camping out secretly in the Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s.”

Ariana’s eyes gleamed. “Now, see that sounds interesting. Is it spooky at night?”

“A little,” I said.

‘Good!” she said. “I bet my eyes will be glowing by tonight.”

I laughed. “I doubt it. Mine didn’t glow for four days.”

“That you know of,” Ariana said.

We decided she would walk with me to McGillicuddy and Murder’s, because she couldn’t teleport yet. I hoped no one pointed at me along the way and shouted, “Murderer! Murderer!” because I hadn’t told Ariana about the fake murders yet, and it would have made things awkward.

Ariana got up, and she linked her arm with mine. She looked around with an air of contentment. “Sometimes, you sit on a park bench because your feet hurt, and when you get up, your life has been utterly transformed.”

“Yes,” I said. “Hopefully for the better.”

“Most definitely,” she said.

We stopped at her apartment and packed a small bag of her things. I was nervous the entire time, and I felt strange. I kept looking at the tiny porcelain dogs, the books, the lace trim on her tables and thinking… this woman is a refugee. And I’ve made her one.

But Ariana is all brightness and excitement. We took the trolley across town and walked to McGillicuddy and Murders. We’ve made ourselves a nest on the third floor, behind a clock face that’s seven feet high. I’ll try to write again later, but for now, I’m going to talk to my new friend.

September 21, 1921

The eeriest thing happened last night.

There was a thunderstorm, and rain shook the roof of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. Ariana and I sat on a large red couch, beneath the light of a spindly lamp, and we ate caramels. The shadows around us flicked and shivered, and the strange Egyptians statues in the corner seemed to be leaning closer.

We were chatting about animals when it happened.

“Which is deadlier?” Ariana asked. “A spider or a wasp?”

“A wasp,” I said. “They hurt more.”

“To a human,” Ariana said. “I mean on the whole. As a species.”

“Well… still a wasp then.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a spider. Because a wasp is yellow and black and buzzes, and you know it’s coming. A web is invisible. All of a sudden, you’re lost.”

At that moment, the power went out.

The lamp behind Ariana and I snuffed out, and the entire Pawn Shop went dark. I looked across at her, and her eyes were glowing like two moons, eerie and white in the darkness.

I screamed.

“What?” she shouted.

“Your eyes!” I gasped. “Your eyes, I’m sorry. They’re glowing.”

“Oh,” she said, in a curious voice. “Are they glowing already?”

They were. Her transition into a Magic Unusual was moving so much more quickly than mine. By morning, her eyes would be hazel, peculiar with their green rim. She’d be able to teleport.

It was so fast. I should have been pleased about it. It could only help us that Ariana was mobile, fully developed. But the haste of her transition struck me as ominous. It felt wrong. Eerie. Like something had been twisted.

I felt like I was sitting across from a ghost. Once again, I was reminded of how eerie the eyes looked, floating alone in the black. I shivered. But I looked the same.

Her transition should have been good, but it felt like a bad sign. It felt rushed, agitated. It felt like the end was coming, soon, and the magic was rushing to help us prepare.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 14, The Deadliest Spider, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 15,Witch Hunt

Episode 15

Witch Hunt

September 24, 1921

Things have been absolutely lovely with Ariana.

I can’t tell you what it’s like to while away the evenings playing cards or swapping stories. We giggle quietly, or stifle our laughter in pillows. When it was just me, I always hid in the back corner, behind the coats, and I kept myself separate from the rest of the Pawn Shop. I didn’t explore. I wanted to feel tucked away, safe. Ariana is just the opposite. As soon as the Pawn Shop shuts down for the night, she wants to be out doing things. She wants to explore, and poke around, and make use of all the furniture.

And it’s finally fun. Imagine how boring and dismal it would be, no—creepy, even—to wander around with your trembling candle, alone, finding mummies in the corner. And yes, we really do have a mummy in the corner. Ariana and I found it last night. It’s just propped up next to a sarcophagus.  I don’t think it’s real, but it’s just as chilling.

We’re been finding the most interesting things.
 
 Just last night, after the power went out, we decided to go exploring, and I found a treasure chest filled with paper mache masks. They all had long noses with a wicked upwards tilt, and I felt like I’d stumbled across a stash of gremlin corpses. With Ariana there, it felt exciting and shivery. Alone, I would have been jumping out of my skin.

Everything is strange and new. This is the sort of life I was waiting for, when I first became a Magic Unusual. Finally, I have hope again.  Once things are sorted with The Night Enthusiasts, I’m going to have the most wonderful life. I already do. Ariana and I have plans to visit Ireland tomorrow, and we’re going to explore ancient ruins all afternoon.

I can’t help feeling like something is missing, but I don’t know what. I suppose it’s just certainty. Ariana and I are having a lovely time, but in our own way, we’re trapped on a deserted island. We can Swiss Family Robinson and make the best out of it, but until the big ship comes and we have the chance to go home, I’m going to be watching the horizon every other minute. Even with Ariana here, there’s a sense of transience to everything we do. We’re just waiting. Things have to change sooner or later, and we don’t know how they’ll change. And that’s frightening.

The good news is, McGillicuddy and Murder’s will probably entertain us until the day we die. There’s plenty to see.

Ariana is voracious. She wants to discover everything. A few nights ago, she spent two hours in one of the little rooms, looking at statues. Every time she found a funny one, she’d hold it up with a laugh, or ask me what I thought it meant. She’s always doing that. Asking questions, wanting to know more. It makes me wish I was more of a teacher. I barely know how being a Magic Unusual works myself! We’re really just the blind leading the blind over here.

September 25, 1921

I was all chipper spirits yesterday. How could I not be, with caramels melting on my tongue, and Ariana and I tucked into a cozy red and gold room on the first floor? We were enjoying everything. We were surrounded by Asian tapestries and statues, seated  on mounds of red cushions. Last night, the world was ours. McGillicuddy and Murder’s seemed safe. Interesting. The best place on earth.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Something strange happened tonight. We just got back from Ireland. Yes, we were in Ireland all afternoon! It’s hard not to feel like the Queen of the World when you can visit Ireland at will. We spent the day enjoying the salt tang of the sea, and after our feet hurt and our faces were flushed, Ariana flirted a little, and we had a remarkably lovely evening in a pub with two young Irishmen. We laughed and talked all night long, they bought us a delicious, hearty dinner, and I’ve now had more than my fair share of Irish beer. The fun of it! We didn’t break any hearts; they knew we were leaving that night, but were happy for our company anyway.

I would never have thought of reaching out to strangers as a cure for my loneliness. That was all Ariana. She made all four of us the best of friends in about ten minutes. I wish I was like that. I wonder why I’m not. We had a lovely time, and so did those boys. It started out as flirting, but it ended up being delightfully… human. I felt like their equal, which I seldom do with men. Were they special? Did they treat me differently? Or am I acting differently? Am I a different kind of woman now? One who’s taken seriously and treated like a peer?

Diary, I ramble. As wonderful as Ireland was, it has nothing to do with this entry. I’m writing about the strange thing that happened, after we got back.

We were both a little damp, and very tried. Truth be told, Ariana was a little tipsy. Buttered. We teleported onto the ground floor of McGillicuddy and Murder’s, into the silent blackness. Giggling quietly, we were about to head upstairs and go to bed.

When we heard voices.

Ariana froze, her amusement gone. She clutched my hand. I turned slowly. I couldn’t make out where the voices were coming from.  For a moment, I thought they were coming from the floor, and I had visions of secret dungeons beneath McGillicuddy and Murder’s. Then I realized the voices were coming from the street, and Ariana and I crept up to the window.

Outside in the street, men were clustered around a car. They stood on the running boards and hung onto the sides, like gangsters ready for a shoot-out. I thought they were gangsters for a minute. Then I saw them holding newspapers and about a hundred flashlights. Gangsters didn’t go flashing lights into buildings at 2 am; they’re a bit more subtle. These men were hunting someone down.

“Maudie….” Ariana said in a low voice. She ducked out of sight, beneath the window, and clawed at me until I joined her.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

“Those men are holding a newspaper,” Ariana said.

“So?”

“So, your name is in the headline.”

Oh, no. I covered my eyes with my hand. I hadn’t told Ariana about the murders yet. She and I had hit it off beautifully. She believed every word about the Night Enthusiasts. She knew Magic Unusuals were real, because she was one of them.

But I thought I was going to lose my dinner as I told her about the fake murders. Ariana sat very still, looking like she wanted to vomit. (Although that might have been the Irish stout.) She hiccuped once I was done, and stared off into the distance.

“Well,” she said. “The Night Enthusiasts are beasts. And apparently, Maudie, you’ve murdered someone else this afternoon.”

“What?” I hissed.

Ariana gestured furiously out the window. “That’s what the paper said. Melinda Merkle takes second life. Those men out there are thirsting for your blood.”

I didn’t ask Ariana if she wanted to come with me. I stood straight up and hurried for the staircase as quick as I could go. It occurred to me later that I could have just teleported, but magic powers do take some getting used to.

I was petrified. Those men out there were looking for me. I found the corner where Ariana and I had made our sleeping nest, and I buried myself under a blanket. Then, for good measure, I crawled under a table and buried my head in the floor.

It was like a witch hunt. They were searching the streets of the city for me. Egads, what was I supposed to have done this time? Murdered an orphanage?

I sat up, suddenly more angry than frightened. These blasted Night Enthusiasts were not going to get the best of me. I didn’t know what they wanted from me. I didn’t know what they wanted from the world! Something about power and blood. I recalled, vaguely, what the small woman had said,

“We are the Night Enthusiasts, Miss Merkle. We thirst for blood. We search through tombs for life, and we embroider that life on the fabric of the world. We make more of our lives than we were originally given.”

At that moment, Ariana entered the room. She flicked on the light, which was all right, because there weren’t any windows.

But she was staring at the floor like she’d seen a ghost. There, on our blankets, was a copy of tonight’s paper. Melinda Merkle Takes Second Life. Neither Ariana or I had put it there.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 15, Witch Hunt, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 16, The Lady in Disguise

Episode 16

The Lady in Disguise

September 25, 1921 continued

Ariana and I spent the next hour searching the Pawn Shop. We were sure we weren’t alone. We’d come back from Ireland, a perfectly lovely day in Ireland, only to dodge a crowd in the street that was trying to murder me, and come upstairs to find today’s newspaper laid out on our beds.

We searched the whole pawn shop from top to bottom. We didn’t find anyone. Ordinarily, Ariana is brighter, more optimistic than I am. But this time, she seemed just as chilled as I was. She opened a can of peaches, because she said she was hungry, and she sat nibbling a soft, slimy end of peach. I was nervous, so I ate one with her. The nectar got all over my fingers, and I felt better.

But how can you feel completely better after something like that? Diary, I felt sure we’d lost our only home. The presence of that paper had scared me to death.

It couldn’t be some bum who’d sneaked in here off the street. For one thing, bums don’t leave newspapers lying around. They stuff them into their jackets. It’s true. If I was a bum, I’d have a whole suit made out of newspapers. Personally, I consider it very practical of them. The point being, newspapers are a blessing when you need an extra winter coat. This one was crisp and unread, unruffled. Ergo, no bum.

The paper also had my name on it.

That’s what gets me. It wasn’t just an add, passive-aggressive hint from Management. Ooh, look, we found your hiding spot. Instead of calling the cops, we’re just going to leave today’s newspaper on your hidden beds and let you freak out until morning when we chuck you out. No, indeed. Management would have rolled up our bedding and… well, I was going to say tossed it outside, but all the bedding is from McGillicuddy and Murder’s, so they’d probably just put it back on the shelves.

So it was not a bum, and it was not management, and what I strongly suspect… it was someone who knows my name. Knows I, the fake murderer, am camped out behind this giant clock.

The thought fills me with dread. Why not just report me to the police? Why leave a newspaper? It almost seems like a warning from a friend

--here, you’re in danger, the police think you’ve killed yet again!

But what friend knows I’m here?

It could, of course, be Mr. McGillicuddy. It could even be Noble James, if he is a friend, and if he survived his stab wound. Perhaps they want me to know about the new fake murder, so they crept in here and left a copy.

But the newspapers’ presence doesn’t feel friendly. It’s terrible news, and it’s terrible news I would have learned on my own tomorrow. It feels less like a warning and more like a taunt.

And if it’s a taunt, then it means The Night Enthusiasts know I’m here, and they’re waiting. For some reason, they’re waiting, hovering over me like vultures, letting Ariana and I get acquainted when all along, they’re just waiting to spring forward and seize both of us. But in the meantime, they wanted to let me boil until I burst, like a frog. They’v dropped the paper to say… see? We know where you are. Here’s what we’re doing to you. Sit tight.

Diary, it’s a little bit later, and Ariana’s had an idea that soothed me. She pointed out that neither she nor I know very much about our magic powers, and what they do. Since it’s unlikely that the Night Enthusiasts could have found our nest and then neglected to strike, she thinks perhaps the paper magically appeared.

It’s true that I should know what’s happening to me, what the papers are saying. Perhaps the paper magically appeared when I needed it, through an unconscious summoning. Nothing like this has happened before, but there’s a first time for everything.

It’s a good thought. It’s a much better thought than the alternative, which is: Night Enthusiasts.

Well, diary, it’s almost four in the morning, and my head is throbbing. I’m going to go to bed. Ariana offered to keep watch, which I think is sweet, but I expect she’ll just nod off in a minute or two. The morning, if all goes well, will find us sound asleep right here.

September 26, 1921

I didn’t sleep through until morning. I woke up about an hour later, at about 5 in the morning. It was still dark outside, and I shifted onto my back. The room felt strangely empty. Ariana’s warmth and breathing were absent, so I patted the place where she usually lay. She wasn’t there. I smacked around for her with my hands, which would have been very unpleasant if she had been there, getting walloped by a half asleep Maudie. But Ariana wasn’t lying next to me.

Our hiding place suddenly felt chilly and moon-swept, and I got up. My head was reeling with sleep, but I needed to find Ariana immediately. Perhaps she was only in the bathroom, but I feared the worst, after that newspaper. I couldn’t bear the thought of her being taken away from me already.

I stumbled out from behind the clock face, and I hissed, “Ariana!”

She appeared just a few seconds later. She looked confused and concerned, her face lit blue from a weak moonbeam.

“Maudie, what--”

I couldn’t help it. I rushed for her and seized her with both arms. I picked her up off the ground in a fierce little hug.

“Maude!” she said breathlessly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you’d been taken, that something bad had happened.”

I felt Ariana wilt a little in my arms. She was touched. She froze for a minute, and then she hugged me back. Fiercely.

“Maude, I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am.” She paused. “I really am.”

“It’s all right!” I said.

She seemed crushed somehow. I rubbed her arms. “Come on! You just gave me a scare.”

Ariana smiled. She tilted her head, then looked back at the dark Pawn Shop.

“I thought I heard a noise, so I went to investigate. It’s just the drain pipe dripping. We’re right as rain.” I smiled. Ariana continued to look guilty and sad.

When we went back to bed, lying at right angles to each other, our pillows close, Ariana said to me, “Maude?”

“What?”

“You know I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had?”

“Oh?” I said, pleased.

I heard Ariana nod fervently in the dark. “I always kept to myself before. In some ways, people didn’t want to be friends with me. And I was all right with that. But I think… I think I didn’t understand what having a friend was really like. And I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” I said, with a grin.

“Oh, gosh, sorry, no! That’s not what I meant!” Ariana giggled. “I meant thank you.”

“I think, my dear,” I said. “You’ve spent too much of your life apologizing.”

“Haven’t we all?” she said.

That was last night. After the fearsome Ariana disappearance, we slept.

This morning after breakfast, which was biscuits and cold sardines (which I hate, but Ariana said they’d be practical) Ariana read the paper. All about me.

I hid in the next room. When she was finished, she called, “All right, you can come out now!”

My stomach had turned to jelly. I sincerely regretted the sardines.

I tiptoed in, and Ariana looked grave.

“What is it?” I said. “Just get it out. Tell me.”

“Well,” Ariana said. “It’s… well, it isn’t the murder that’s troubling me. It’s this bit here.”

“What bit?” I said. “Please, Ariana, for heaven’s sake, tell me.”

She squinted down at the paper, then read aloud in a trembling voice, “We have reason to believe that Melinda Merkle is living in the city, disguised. Please be on the lookout for women who match her picture, wearing glasses, wigs, and even false noses.” Ariana’s voice trailed off. “They’re tightening their noose around you, Maudie.”

I sat down, feeling my heart crash through the floor. So they were.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 16, The Lady in Disguise, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 17, Trapped.

Episode 17

Trapped

September 26, 1921 continued.

I sat beside Ariana as we continued to discuss the paper. The Night Enthusiasts were getting good. Besides having murdered two people, I was now reported to be living in the city, using disguises. Not only did this mean I couldn’t leave, but it also meant I had to be extra careful in McGillicuddy and Murder’s. If someone stumbled across Ariana and I, they’d see my face, and we could never hide out in the Pawn Shop again.

“What else?” I said.

Ariana folded the paper placidly.

“You’ve killed another person,” she said.

“Who was it this time?” I said. I paused. “Who was it the first time?”

I’d been avoiding my murders like the plague. I didn’t want to know anything about them. Which was cowardly, because I needed to be up to date on what the Night Enthusiasts were trying to do.

“Well, you killed an old woman the first time,” Ariana said. She tutted her tongue. “So shocking. For shame, Maude.”

I smiled, while feeling green. “Go on.”

“This last time,” Ariana said. “You killed a young man who was finishing his doctorate. And you cut off his thumb.”

“No!” I said.

“Yes!” Ariana said, taking a little too much pleasure in the gore. “They’re calling you a serial killer, now. A madwoman.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “I’m now going to be the subject of nursery rhymes and ghost stories.”

“Children will imagine you coming out of their closets at night,” Ariana said, with a nod.

“Ariana…” I said. “Ariana, these people aren’t actually dead, are they?”

She looked at me, gravely. “Well, you didn’t kill them Maudie.”

“Well, I know that. But are they really dead? I assumed the murders were fake, because the murderer was fake. But… are the Night Enthusiasts going around killing people?”

Ariana leaned forward and took my hand. “You’re not to blame, Maudie. You know you’re not.”

“If I’d said yes to their stupid riddle, on the bottom of the sea, then those two people would be alive right now.”

“Yes, and then the Night Enthusiasts would have you murder other people with your own two hands,” Ariana said, dryly. “Come on, cheer up! Maybe they were murdered anyway, by some random psychopath. Maybe the Night Enthusiasts are only pinning real murders on you, not murdering people fresh for your conviction.”

“Maybe,” I said glumly.

“Cheer up!” Ariana said again. “Today, we’re going to go exploring! This place has secrets, and you and I are going to discover them!”

I told Ariana that I shouldn’t go exploring during the day, that even pretending to be a customer wasn’t good enough now. I needed to get out of the city. I needed to hide until tonight.

Ariana glowered.

“Don’t make that face at me,” I said.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said. “I’m mad at the Night Enthusiasts. Honestly, who’s running that show? This is a mess. You would think they could stick to a single plot line, but NO.”

She sighed. I laughed at her, and then she laughed with me. We resolved to go to Iceland, since Ariana had a postcard in her pocket. I thought it was very strange that she had a postcard of Iceland, but it was lucky, because it meant we could both wish for the same location.

We arrived within two blinks of each other, and we stood on a beach in Iceland. Iceland is beautiful. When I was a little girl, I thought Iceland was the third North Pole, you know, with Penguins and seals and no human life. Then someone told me people lived on Iceland, and I assumed they were Eskimos. I daresay the average adult still thought Iceland was populated by penguins.

Beside me, Ariana took a deep gulp of the air. It was truly magnificent. It smelled of the sea, and it was a wilder fragrance than anything I’d smelled before. The greenery, and the sharp, sneezy scent of rock were all mixed in with the scent of the ocean, and I was enthralled.

“This is my favorite place in the entire world,” Ariana said, softly. She looked over at me, eyes vulnerable. “I dream of this place. When I hate myself and I hate my life, I come here.”

“You come here?” I said, with a laugh.

“Well, in my imagination, I mean,” she said. She tugged nervously on the tip of her nose, then laughed. “I suppose that makes me sound like an idiotic child.”

“You mean, this is your favorite spot in the world, and you’ve been able to teleport for days, and you’ve never been here?”

She blushed. “No, I have never been here before.”

I couldn’t imagine Ariana ever hating herself, and I said so.

“Well,” she said. “You know. Sometimes it’s hard.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be,” I said. I put my arm around her.

“You’d be surprised,” Ariana said.

“Pish.”

We spent the day in Iceland. We wandered around all day, enjoying the scenery, just talking to each other. It was hard to be afraid of what came next, when the world seemed still and beautiful and pristine. The threat of the Night Enthusiasts seemed to melt away, and it was just Ariana and I on the cusp of an adventure.

That night, late, we returned to McGillicuddy and Murder’s. The Pawn Shop was dark and silent. Ariana strode boldly up the staircase, back to our spot, but I had an eerie feeling.

This is going to sound strange, diary, but to me, the Pawn Shop smelled different. Have you ever drunk from a glass that you thought was your own, only to realize it was someone else’s? You know right away, too, because the taste is slightly different. That happened to me once with a glass of water. I picked up the glass of some boy at a high school party, and I drank his water instead of mine. Water tends to taste the same no matter where you go, and besides, I’d been drinking this water a moment before. But his glass tasted different.

I’m no scientist, but I assume that was the taste of his saliva. I’m used to my own, so I don’t notice it. But his was different, and I knew right away that I was holding the wrong glass.

Well. I felt like I was standing in the wrong Pawn Shop.

The smell was different. It was like our Pawn Shop had been tainted with the presence of someone else.

“Ariana!” I called softly.

She turned around, halfway up the stairs.

“You don’t have to be so quiet, you know, it’s—“

I cut her off. I hurried closer. “I think there’s someone else here,” I said.

She squinted at me. “Come on, Maude, don’t be so suspicious.”

“I can smell them,” I said.

Ariana looked at me like I was as crazy as a bat. She glanced upwards, listening. “You smell them?”

“Come on, let’s rent a hotel,” I said, the coward in me blooming to the surface.

Ariana glowered. “I’m sorry, you smelling someone isn’t a good enough reason for me.”

“The air feels different,” I said.

Ariana sighed. She looked me once over. “Well, let’s investigate,” she said.

She started climbing the stairs. “Are you still spooked about that paper?”

“Aren’t you?” I said.

“Not really,” she said. “I still think it was just magic. I think you summoned it accidentally.”

I wished I could summon her same peace of mind.

“Just help me look, all right?” I said.

Ariana and I began to explore the Pawn Shop. We didn’t have any lights with us, and that was a mistake. I’d never explored the Pawn Shop in the dark. I’d always explored during the day, before the whole Magic Unusual business, and Ariana and I had explored at night, but with candles and laughter and a feeling of safety. Ariana split apart from me on the second floor, and I had to walk past the large mummy alone. I felt like everything around me was moving.

Just when I was about to give up, because everything was giving me the creeps, I noticed a children’s train car hidden underneath a table.

I got down on my hands and knees and dragged it out. It was the size of a loaf of bread, made of wood, and brightly painted. A little man made out of wood frowned behind black bars.

The thing moved in my hands. I almost dropped it, until I realized it was wound up like a clock. You know how sometimes, when you pick up a music box, it starts to tinkle? I suppose this was the same thing.

The little man writhed and held up a little wooden sign. Help me, he said. I’m trapped.

I had the most disturbing feeling, like I was holding a real human soul in my hands.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 17, Trapped, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 18, Cracked Mirror.

Episode 18

Cracked Mirror

September 26, 1921 continued

I showed the peculiar little man to Ariana. She picked up the wooden train car and held it. The wooden man moved slowly from side to side. His wound-up movement was starting to slow. Lazily, helplessly, he waved his little wooden sign that said,

Help me, I’m trapped.

“That’s disgusting,” Ariana said. She handed the train car back to me.

I felt a shiver. I wondered if she felt it too: that this little wooden man wasn’t just a toy, that there was a human being inside of here somewhere, enchanted and trying to get out. But then Ariana kept talking,

“Why is this a toy?” she said. “What’s funny about that? About someone being trapped in a train car?” She pressed her fingertips against her eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I know I’m overreacting. I’m just viciously cranky and I want to go to bed.” She looked at the train car again. “I know it’s meant to be cute, like the man wandered into the circus and got locked in with the giraffes or something and now he can’t get out, and it serves him right for snooping, but… I don’t know. Something about it gives me the creeps.”

“I know,” I said.

“People always want to mock other people,” Ariana said. “People always want other people to be stupid, and inferior, and the butt of their jokes. China-men and Negroes and stupid little wooden men in train cars. That’s what I love about Magic Unusuals. It doesn’t matter who you are. Where you’ve come from. Everyone’s got brown eyes with a bit of green, even if green is impossible for them genetically. The color of our soul-windows all blends, and we’re all the same thing.” She stopped. She turned away.

That’s quite true, diary. Half of the people you’ve met already in this story are very much not Caucasian, although I shan’t tell you who. People are people, and I’m not sure it should make any difference.

“Ariana…”  I said.

“I’m sorry.” She was crying, actually crying.

“Ariana,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Maude, I hate this!” she said. “You’re so good! You’re so lovely! I had no idea that life could be like this before I met you. You’ve changed everything!”

“Ariana, darling, don’t cry. You’re all right!”

But she hadn’t finished. “I hate that little man because I feel the same way! I feel trapped! I feel stuck in one spot, in one way of living, and what if I don’t want it anymore? What if I want to be someone else?”

“You feel trapped because you’re here?” I said. “With me? You feel trapped because you’re in hiding with me?”

It was everything I was afraid of.

Ariana was silent for a very long time.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she said.

“Ariana, you’re allowed to regret this,” I said.

She barked out a laugh. “I don’t regret this, Maude. Being here with you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

It occurred to me then that I knew Ariana very little. I had no idea why she felt trapped, or hated her life, especially since she insisted I was the best part of it.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” I said. I rubbed her shoulders, soothingly, the way my mother used to.

She hiccuped. We laughed a little, and then we left the little man and his train car on the table. I decided now wasn’t the time to tell Ariana about my weird feeling, about the wooden man somehow being alive. I left him in his circus train car, under a bit of moonlight. He wiggled feebly, like a final wave.

Ariana and I searched the rest of McGillicuddy and Murder’s, but only halfheartedly. I had a funny feeling, like the trapped man hadn’t been here before tonight. Maybe his was the presence I’d felt. Maybe he was the new odor in McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

We didn’t find anything, and we decided to go to sleep for the night. I lay awake for a long time. Finally, I drew you out, diary, and I’ve been scribbling by the light of a streetlamp, just a few windows away from me and Ariana’s hiding spot.

I’m worried. I’m wondering if this is the right choice. Staying here at McGillicuddy and Murder’s. I want to be close in case Mr. McGillicuddy finds a place for us in the group. And to be honest, I can’t think of a single other place we could stay. I can’t rent hotels or apartments. I’m a wanted murderer. I suppose Ariana could rent an apartment somewhere, and I could just teleport into the living room. But she’s a magic unusual now, and I feel like anyone with an address is easier to track. We wouldn’t want the Night Enthusiasts to come knocking at our door.

We’ve been safe here. But something is closing in, and I’m not sure how much longer we can stay. The place is becoming ominous to me. The newspaper. The train car. The Pawn Shop has been a place of refuge, but now it’s beginning to feel like a trap.

I took a short break, diary, and I went over to the train car. That was an absolute mistake. The train car is even more disturbing when you’re all alone. I stared down at the tiny wooden face. It stared back at me, with droopy, deformed painted eyes. I felt like the train car was evil and twisted, and I felt like it was a message for me. That it belonged to me somehow.

I do feel that. I feel like the man in the train car was left here for me. I stroked the painted wood with my fingers and I whispered, “I wish you were free. Whoever you are.”

Who would lock a human soul inside a prison of wood?

The little man swayed feebly. It gave me the creeps. I put the train car back on the table and returned to this diary entry.

I think I’m going to sleep now. Best of luck, Melinda Maudie Merkle, with whatever tomorrow brings.

September 27, 1921

Ariana and I bickered good-naturedly this morning about where to go. I say we bickered good-naturedly, and we did: we had smiles on our faces, and we tossed pillows at each other as we folded up our bedding.

But there is a tension behind everything we do now. I wonder, can she feel it too? I feel like something is closing in on us. I feel like something is about to descend. We’re all smiles, and we’re faking being lighthearted, but really… it’s all denial. We’re both fighting hard to act all right. Because once we lose McGillicuddy and Murder’s, once we lose our link to Mr. McGillicuddy, I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Well, diary, the bickering wasn’t the worst part of the day. I’ve got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I think I might have realized what my secret Magic Unusual Power is.

You know. Mr. McGillicuddy told me that some Magic Unusuals have special skills, extra skills, and you can never tell what they’re going to be. Mine is valuable and the Night Enthusiasts want it.

Well, if my skill is what I think it is, I can understand why.

This morning, after another breakfast of tinned sardines, I went to go check on the train car again. It had become a kind of morbid fascination with me. You know how you want to know exactly where a wasp is, if there’s a wasp in the room? It was like that. I wanted to see what the train car had been up to, as though the little wooden man was going to get out from behind the bars, and run around like a mouse on the floor.

Well, he hadn’t been running around like a mouse.

When I reached the train car, it was gone. All that remained were shattered bits and pieces. Wooden wheels and splintered edges lay on the ground. The little wooden man was nowhere to be seen.

Behind the destruction, one of the mirrors in McGillicuddy and Murder’s had cracked into twenty different pieces. It looked like it had been stabbed or punched. Jagged lines gleamed outward from a central impact.

I put my hand over my nose and mouth, terrified.

I think I did this.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 18, Cracked Mirror, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 19, The Man From the Train Car.

Episode 19

The Man from the Train Car

September 27, 1921 continued

As soon as I saw the destruction of the train car, and the absence of the little wooden man, I ran to fetch Ariana.

“Maude!” she said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“It’s the train car,” I said.

She frowned at me. “That thing again…. Maude… what’s…”

I took her by the hand, because she wasn’t moving fast enough for me. I dragged her across the Pawn Shop, and we stopped in front of the demolished train car.

“No,” Ariana breathed.

She had to sit down. Her reaction was strong, and it frightened me, almost as if she knew something I didn’t. Ariana grasped my hand and looked down at the destruction.

“Where’s the little man?” she said.

“Not here.”

“Who did this?” Ariana said. She turned her face towards me, eyes scared. “Someone else was in the Pawn Shop last night, and they did this. We weren’t alone. And they stole the little wooden figurine.”

“Ariana,” I said. “I don’t think it was a wooden figurine.”

“What?”

“I think…” I said. “I think it was a real human soul. I think I let them go last night. I held the train car in my hands and I said, out loud, ‘I wish you were free’ because at the moment I did. If there really was a human being in there, how sick and cruel would that be? But now that person, whoever they are, is loose.”

Ariana squeezed her eyes shut. They stayed shut for a very long time. I wondered what she was thinking.

“Do you think they’re still in the pawn shop?” she whispered.

“They might be,” I whispered back.

She looked over at me accusingly. “How could you have let him out?”

“I think that’s it…” I said. “I think this is the power Mr. McGillicuddy said I had. He said he couldn’t tell me what my power was, that I had to discover it on my own. But I think I have discovered it. I think I can undo enchantments, just by talking to them.”

Ariana stared at me, her eyes grave. “That’s a very dangerous skill, Maude.”

“Yes,” I said.

Ariana put her chin in her hands. “No wonder the Night Enthusiasts want you so badly.”

At that moment, we heard a sound.

The Pawn Shop wasn’t due to open for another hour. We were supposed to be quite alone. But unless the mummy had decided to go for a stroll, then there was someone else in the Pawn Shop. We heard their footsteps on the stairs.

“Hide. Hide!” Ariana said.

We scrambled for cover. Ariana gestured to a large wooden wardrobe, and we climbed inside as silently as we could. She held the door and closed it slowly, leaving half an inch of light. A few minutes later, someone entered the room.

They were whistling. From the weight of the footsteps, I guessed it was a man. By now, I had my suspicions on who was strolling through our Pawn Shop, and I wanted to see.

Light came into the wardrobe from a tiny keyhole, and I squatted down so that my eyes were level with it. My view was not good, but I could see enough. The whistling man walked across the keyhole, and my stomach curdled at the sight.

It was a man, six feet tall, wearing a black coat. The coat had red horizontal stripes on it, and the man wore fingerless gloves and a top hat. He looked like a circus performer. He walked with a slight limp, but his shoulders were buoyant, as if he was happy.

I couldn’t see his face, but I mentally began to beg him to turn around. I needed to see his face. I would know, somehow, if this was the man from the train car if I saw his face.

Well, he turned around, and even Ariana could have told you who he was.

Half of his face was still made of wood.

From his scalp to the bottom of his left cheek, the man’s face was wooden. It was slightly carved, like the face of a Pinocchio, and you could see the spiraled grain of the wood.

He had a garish false eye that whirred around inside the wooden half of his face. The eye was painted with red eyeshadow and furry false eyelashes. It wasn’t even a human eye, it was the eye of a puppet. It spun sideways, mad, as if searching the room for Ariana and I.

I didn’t breathe. How could I breathe? The man continued to whistled, and then he struck the side of his head. The wooden eye snapped back into an upright position.

It blinked, right at me.

Whistling low, the man from the train car left our floor of McGillicuddy and Murders, and climbed to the floor above us.

“Ariana,” I whispered. “Did you see?”

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Ariana said, in a tone of dread. “Maude, we need to leave.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Do you think he’ll still be here when we get back?” she said.

I didn’t know why she was so afraid; unless she’d seen his eye.

“I think he’ll be here, or out in the street terrorizing everything with his wooden eye.”

“He has a wooden eye?” Ariana whispered.

All right, she hadn’t seen his monstrous physique. Why was she so frightened?

“He might not be an enemy,” I said.

She paused. “That’s true. I’m sorry, Maude. There’s just something about hiding in wardrobes that makes a person feel afraid. And I can’t help feeling… well, if he was trapped in that wooden train car… don’t you think he deserved it?”

I cast Ariana the evil eye from across the dark wardrobe. “No. I think he ran into the wrong people. Probably the Night Enthusiasts. And they didn’t like him, so they cursed him. Ariana, good people would never punish someone like that. Whoever he is, he got on the wrong side of the bad guys. Which probably makes him a good guy, or at the very least, a victim.” I paused. I was starting to feel ashamed of myself. Who was this man, that I was judging him so harshly? I wanted to run away from him, simply because his eyeball scared the living daylights out of me.

“Well, let’s go,” Ariana said. “Please.”

I nodded. “All right.”

“The park,” Ariana said. “Where we met. I need to talk to you.”

I felt suddenly concerned, but I agreed. We both teleported out of the wardrobe, and in a few seconds, we were both standing in the park. I hurried up to her.

“Ariana,” I said. “I can’t stay here. Why did you want to come here first?”

“Maude,” she said. “I’ve got to go somewhere. Alone. Just for this afternoon. Is that all right? I’m sorry. I’ll come back this evening.”

“Come back where?”

“Well,” she said. “Let’s go back to the pawn shop. If he’s still there, we’ll figure something out.”

I squinted at Ariana.

“I’m all right!” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ll explain later. Will you be all right for the day?”

“Of course I’ll be all right,” I said.

“Good,” she said. And she teleported.

I was left alone.

I went and sat on the bench, feeling restless. The truth was, I’d been meaning to try something for awhile. With Ariana, there’d always been someone there to talk me out of it. Well, now there was no one there to talk me out of it.

I wanted to try to find Noble James. I wanted to see if he was still alive.

One of the worst places in the city for me was probably a hospital. When you’re not supposed to be in a hospital, you get noticed. And I couldn’t afford to get noticed.

But still. It had been itching at me for days, and with Ariana gone, the temptation was too great.

The closest hospital to the Iron Lion Bridge, where Noble James had been stabbed, was St. Lukes. I took a deep breath, and I teleported there. As I teleported, I felt the words show up clearly in my mind. St Lukes.

I arrived on the sidewalk in front of the hospital. I stared up, and I wondered if I was making a terrible mistake.

Just then, a man brushed past me in the crowd and slipped a paper into my hand.

Startled, I looked up, but he disappeared into the sea of heads. I stood in the middle of the busy crowd, and I looked down at the note in my hand.

It said,

The Man from the Train Car is a Murderer. You must stay away.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 19, The Man from the Train Car of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 20, The Deathbed of Noble James.

Episode 20

The Deathbed of Noble James

September 27, 1921 continued

I stood in the crowd outside of St. Luke’s hospital, and I stared down at the note in my hand.

The Man from the Train Car is a Murderer. You must stay away.

I nearly sat down on the pavement. Someone had given me this note. Someone had known I was here. Who knew I was here? I’d been here one minute. St. Luke’s was one of the last places The Night Enthusiasts or Mr. McGillicuddy could expect me to arrive. Had someone cast a skull spell on me, when I left the park? I had heard the words, St. Luke’s hospital, very clearly in my head as I’d teleported. It was possible then, wasn’t it? Someone had cast the spell, and they’d heard my next location.

But who had known I was at the park? No one. There was no one near Ariana and I. No one could have cast a skull spell on me. 

I didn’t know how this note had ended up in my hands. It spooked me. Besides that, the message was chilling. The man from the train car was a murderer, was he?

Could I trust the note? Who had given it to me, and were they a liar?

I didn’t know, but I was scared. I felt that same sense again, that the world was tightening in around me. Something was coming. Time was running out. It had something to do with the man in the train car, and my powers, and Ariana and I, and possibly Noble James.

Noble James.

I wondered if he was here. If I’d been stabbed, I would have teleported to the nearest hospital. But I’m fairly new to this business. A professional like Noble James probably would have teleported to a hospital in another city, just to keep his enemies off his back.

Still. It was the only clue I had, my one shot in the dark.

I entered the hospital, and I considered simply asking at the front desk if Noble James was upstairs. But he might have left a false name. And the nurse might take one look at me, scream, and call the police.

I decided to sneak upstairs instead.

I followed a group of medical students up the steps, holding a notebook as thought I was somehow a part of their group. The hospital was busy, and no one questioned me. After the group of students reached the second floor, I paused and pretended to fix my shoe. They walked away from me, and I was left alone.

I paused in the middle of the white, clean hallway, not sure of where to go next. Less than a minute later, a nurse charged towards me, brisk and clipping in her high heels.

“Are you lost?” she said.

“Oh, yes,” I said. I put on my most innocent voice. “I think I took a wrong turn. I’m here looking for a friend. He was stabbed. Uh, well…. Ten days ago.”

The nurse blinked at me. “Name?”

“Uh, Noble James,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “He’s in ward 3. You’ll want to go that way. Ask again if you get lost.”

I paused, petrified. Oh, no no no. It was not supposed to be this easy. It was not supposed to be this easy. This was a trap. Something was wrong. Noble James was not supposed to be right here, in this hospital, having given his real name.

But I was here, and I was curious, and I felt a certain inevitability about this moment. Trap or not, someone had been expecting me, and I wanted to know what was going on.

It had been ten days since Nobel James was stabbed. I knew nothing about stab wounds, but I assumed they didn’t heal in ten days. He was probably sitting propped up in a bed somewhere, bandages across his abdomen, bored and waiting for his gut to grow back together.

I was sure he would be fine.

You can imagine my shock, then, when I asked for ward 3, and a nurse gestured to a sign that said, “Hospice.”

I spun. “No, no,” I said. “That’s not right. That can’t be right. He’s not dying.”

“Who?” she said. She picked up her list of patients.

“Noble James,” I said.

“Ah,” the nurse said. She looked up at me with a sad smile. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Yes, I’m afraid he is dying.  His wounds became infected. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Oh,” I said.

It felt less like a trap now.  Now it just felt like a giant tragedy, a mistake.

I stepped towards the door. “Are you sure you want to go in there?” the nurse said. “Normally we don’t…”

“I’m sure I want to go in,” I said. “Thank you.”

I stepped into the hospice ward, and I immediately hated the smell. It smelled like bile and rubbing alcohol.  

I looked timidly from bed to bed, and then I spotted Noble James by the window. He looked like he was made of glass. His eyes were shut. I hurried over, and I paused at the foot of his bed.

“Did you… know him well?”

I jumped. The nurse was behind me. She offered me a chair, and we set it down beside the bed.

“He was a friend,” I said.

The nurse left me alone, and I wondered what to do next.

I sat down and folded my hands. It really was Noble James. It wasn’t some manikin or total stranger. I watched him labor for breath, and I suddenly felt very foolish.

Had I come all this way because I was infatuated with him? I couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous. I didn’t know this man. I wished I had known him. But I didn’t.

Then he opened his eyes, and I knew I wasn’t there because of some crazy love-story. I was there because I needed to know why he’d asked to meet me at the Iron Lion Bridge. The desire to know surged through me the split second our eyes locked.

He frowned at me. “Who… Miss Merkle?”

“Hello,” I said.

He smiled and shut his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to find you,” I said. “After what happened at the bridge. You wanted to meet with me, and I wanted to know why, and I wanted to see if you were still alive.”

“Just barely,” Noble said, weakly with a hint of humor.

“Are you safe here?” I said. “Has anyone tried to attack you again?”

“My unique Magic Unusual power is not being found, when I don’t want to be found,” Noble said. “No one can reach me here if I don’t want them to.”

I paused. That meant he didn’t care if I met with him, and I took that as an encouraging sign.

“What happened?” I said. “Are you really dying?”

I felt terrible as soon as I said it. It was rude, somehow, to ask someone if they were dying.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing the doctors can do,” Noble said. “The knife that I was stabbed with was cursed. I should have been able to heal, but I can’t. There’s magic that’s keeping my body from properly mending.” He sighed. “And that’s it.”

“This is because of me,” I said.

“No,” he said. “This is because of me! I chose to meet with you.”

“I wish this hadn’t happened to you,” I said.

“Well, thank you very much,” Noble James said. He paused.

“Would you mind?” I said. “Meeting with me now? Telling me what you were going to tell me then?”

“Of course,” Noble said. He strained to sit up a little further. He grimaced with pain.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m a selfish beast. You shouldn’t have to talk when you’re like this.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Noble said. “I’ve been lying here for ten days wishing we’d met and talked. Now at least I’ll die satisfied.”

I leaned close to him. He looked up into my eyes with his beautiful, poetic hazel ones, the green showing brilliantly in contrast to his skin.

“You’re in danger,” Noble James said. “I know the plan of the Night Enthusiasts. They’ve switched agendas. Someone had to warn you. There’s—”

At that moment, I heard a low hiss from across the room.

I looked up.

An old man was staring at me from his hospital bed. He looked vicious. He pointed a long, crooked finger at me.

“Murderer…” the old man hissed.  “Murderer…”

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 20, The Deathbed of Noble James, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 21, The Murderers Meet.

Episode 21

Never Come Back

September 27, 1921 continued.

Well, diary, I was in an awful strait.

The old man in the hospice ward continued to hiss at me. I smiled at him, weakly. I hoped that a smile would demure him, make him be quite. Alas, no such luck.

“Murderer!” he said. His volume began to increase. “Murderer!”

“He recognizes me,” I said, low, to Noble James. “From the newspapers.”

Noble nodded. He glanced over at the old man.

“It’s all right,” he said to the old man. “You’re all right.”

It pained me to hear how weak Noble sounded. You could tell, he meant to sound warm and reassuring. But he only sounded husky and exhausted. He was dying, after all.

“Murderer!’ the old man began to screech. “Murderer!”

“Do you think you should leave?” Noble looked at me, concerned.

I bit my lip. If the nurse got a good look at me, after hearing shrieks of murderer, she’d probably put two and two together. If she realized who I was, then all was lost.

“Murderer!”

“I’ve got to go!” I said. “I’m sorry! And we were so close!”

Noble James looked up at me, pained.

“I’ll try to come back!” I said. “I’m sorry!”

“Be careful!” he said.

I got up and hurried out of the hospice ward. I ran into a nurse on my way out.

“Oh, good!” I said to her. “There’s an old man in there, he keeps shouting about a murderer. I think maybe you’d better take a look at him?”

The nurse gave me the evil eye for telling her how to do her job. She bustled into the hospice ward, and I dashed to the woman’s lavatory. As soon as I was behind the door, I teleported.

I teleported to a lake I’d visited once with my parents. Except it wasn’t a lake, now it was a quarry full of workers. I stared down, disappointed and disillusioned. My knees started to buckle, and I found a log and sat down.

I was feeling light-headed. In fairness to myself, I’d been through rather a lot lately.

Birds trilled above me. A mosquito settled on my arm, and I slapped it, vicious. There shouldn’t be mosquitoes in September.

Diary, I felt awful. What a thing to experience. Finding Noble James and then having our conversation broken off at the last minute. He’d gotten part of his message out of course, but it only made me feel worse. He said I was in danger. He said the Night Enthusiasts had changed their plan. What good did knowing that do me, if I didn’t know what the plan was?

It was almost worse, having gotten so close, only to be thwarted again. I wonder if I should try to return to the hospital today? Maybe the nurse hasn’t put two and two together. Maybe she tucked the old man in and assumed he was delusional.

I felt sort of bad about scaring a dying old man. But I didn’t do it on purpose.

Well, here I am, on this log, with a rather wet rump, wishing I knew what was going to happen next. I’ve had rather a lot to write about today, haven’t I? From the Train Car to Ariana wanting to leave, to Noble. And to think, I used to complain about not having enough to write about. It seems like ages ago, doesn’t it? A different person ago.

September 28, 1921

Dear Diary.

I finished that diary entry yesterday, and then I sat for almost an hour just watching men work in the quarry below. It was sad to hear the ping of metal tools, slowly grinding out the bones of my favorite lake. I felt dismal about everything, and ready to cry. It isn’t fair that Noble James is dying because of me. It isn’t fair that he never got to tell me what he wanted me to know. What he risked his life to let me know.

I wonder, is he an elaborate liar? Is he still, after all this time, working for the Night Enthusiasts, laying an elaborate trap for me? If he is a Night Enthusiast, hasn’t he lost part of his soul? And if he has lost part of his soul, how can he really be good? Can he be good? Aren’t I an idiot for trusting him at all?

I feel inexpressibly lost. I’m not the sort of person who can handle these things. I’m… I’m passive, and flighty, and I’ve got dead parents, and I’ve been too afraid to make anything of myself since their death. That’s me. Uncourageous. A dreamer. But a dreamer who doesn’t have the courage to make her dreams happen. I sit around and feel sorry for myself, but when the rubber meets the road, I sit. I always sit. I don’t get up and make a choice.

So you see the dramatic irony (is it dramatic irony? Oh, whatever) of me continuing to sit. I could have gotten up and gone back to the hospital. I could have run off in search of Ariana. I could even have gone down to the Night Enthusiasts’ lair and attempted to do battle.

I was less afraid of doing these individual things, and more afraid of the actual doing. Does that make sense? I was afraid to be. I wanted to sit quietly and forget that I existed, like the coward I am.

But, as fate would have it, there was nothing quiet about what happened next.

My diary, well, you, began to burn in my hands. I dropped you, startled, and stared in dismay at the curls of smoke that rose from your cover.

“It can’t be!” I murmured.

But there was no doubt about it: your cover was on fire. I stooped, determined to put you out, as all loyal journalers would do, when I realized it wasn’t your cover that was smoking. It was the china eye.

All this time, diary, I’ve assumed you knew: but you don’t have eyeballs, so perhaps you’ve been in the dark. I tucked my broken bit of china eye into your front cover. I didn’t want to leave it where it might get lost, or have it in my pocket all day, so I slipped it between the leather of your binding, and it’s been there ever since.

Well, now it was on fire. That was about right, for how my day was going.

I stooped and plucked it out with my hanky. It hopped into the grass and lay there smoking. As I stared, letters began to form on the back, in rather bad handwriting.

Ms. Merkle. Urgent. Meet me at the Iron Lion Bridge. Sincerely, HP McGillicuddy.

Oh, now things were getting interesting. I stared at the writing, until the letters cooled and remained black, disfiguring the surface of my china eye. I picked it up and tucked it back in your binding, and then I sat there for three seconds.

“Get up, Maude, you old lump,” I said. “You have an adventure to go on.”

I teleported to the Iron Lion Bridge, and I landed squarely underneath. I had bad memories of the underside of that bridge. It was daylight, and I could see just fine. There was no one waiting for me under the bridge, so I hurried out into the sun.

Mr. McGillicuddy stood on the brow of the hill, his eyes crazed with panic. He took one look at me, hurled a pocketwatch in my direction, and vanished.

“What?” I shouted.

The pocketwatch lay at my feet. I picked it up, thrust it into my pocket, and ran to the spot where Mr. McGillicuddy had stood.

“Mr. McGillicuddy!” I exclaimed. “Mr. McGillicuddy! What is the matter with you?”

For the life of me, I thought he’d thrown the pocketwatch at me in a rage. I kept expecting him to come back. But after five minutes ticked by, it became clear that he wasn’t going to. He’d left me with nothing by my curiosity and a pocketwatch.

I decided to open the watch, finally, and I was horrified when I did. I dropped the watch with a startled scream. Inside the watch’s face was the face of Mr. McGillicuddy, and he was shouting at me.

“You have been betrayed!” His watch-face eyes, frightened, looked into mine.  “You must leave the city at once! You must never come back!”

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 21, Never Come Back of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 22, The Murderers Meet.

Episode 22

The Murderers Meet

September 28, 1921 continued

I stared down at the watch. From inside the face, behind the delicate ticking hands, Mr. McGillicuddy continued to shout at me.

“You have been betrayed!” “You must leave the city at once! You must never come back!”

The phrase began to loop, and I realized that Mr. McGillicuddy had left this watch here as a message for me. He wasn’t miraculously contained inside this pocketwatch. It was pre-recorded somehow, almost like a movie, but with color and sound. I shut the watch, and his shouts faded with a click.

I sat down on the bank and watched the ugly, oily water of the river swim along. Behind me, children shouted in the park. A bird sang in the tree. How dare they behave as though everything was normal? Didn’t they know the world had been turned upside down?

Our ordinary days are always the worst day of someone else’s life. Our ordinary days might be the best day of someone else’s life, too, but I was in a dour mood, so I didn’t think about that. I’ve had these days before, where my world has ended, but everyone else’s just keeps spinning on. It’s the strangest thing in the world.

I held the pocketwatch, and I didn’t move. Remember what I said before about sitting? I was ready for a long, long sit. I was ready to turn into a statue, here on this river bank, because I didn’t want to take action.

I wouldn’t get to say goodbye to Ariana. I would never find out what Noble James had meant to tell me.

Noble James! Was he the cause of this disaster? Had I, in fact, walked into a trap, and now all was lost? Should I be in Russia at this very moment, training my bones for unendurable cold? When a master like Mr. McGillicuddy tells you to run, you ought to run.

But I didn’t want to. So instead of choosing between my heart and his wisdom, I sat.

I supposed you think me a great coward, diary. It’s all right. Go ahead. But this is my life’s biggest weakness. I doubt life so deeply that I’m afraid to venture into it.
 
 I was still sitting on the bank, still wasting precious time, still wondering if I should leave now and never come back, when a sudden longing for Ariana’s friendship came over me. I missed her. I knew then, that I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Even if it meant ending up in the hands of the Night Enthusiasts.
 
 I got up, feeling cheered. Knowing what you want to do, and then acting on it, is its own kind of medicine. My anxiety melted, and I felt a sense of peace. Mr. McGillicuddy would call me a fool, but I was going back to the Pawn Shop tonight. Perhaps I would run into the man from the train car, and perhaps he would murder me with his wooden puppet eye, but at least I would be able to say goodbye to Ariana.
 
I felt a strength in the pit of my stomach. People are what matter. People are what give you the courage to do things. I’d been without family or true friends for so long, I’d forgotten that.

I went to the most boring place on earth, a hole-in-the-wall lunch shop that all but shuts down after 4 pm, and I ate a sandwich and tried not to look too hard at my soup, and I sat. I had to wait until tonight, until the Pawn Shop closed, but then I would talk to Ariana, and in all likelihood, never come back.

It was too dangerous to visit Noble James. Not only because of the old man crying murder, but because of Mr. McGillicuddy’s message. If someone had betrayed me, I felt fairly certain it was Noble.

It was sad. I’d felt a connection to him. But I supposed I would never see him again.

After the lunch shop shut down at 8 pm, I wandered outside, took a deep breath, and teleported. I landed in the main lobby of McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

Standing right there, staring at me, was the man from the train car.

It felt like fate. I stayed where I was.

“Hello,” he said, in an odd voice. “You’re the one who let me out.”

I decided to be civil.

“I… how did you know it was me?”

And inside, my brain stammered, He’s a murderer, he’s a murderer, he’s a murderer.

“Oh, I can tell,” he said. “I…” he reached out and grasped the air. “I had a sort of sense…. Of your face… when I was being let out. It was wonderful.”

“Oh,” I said.

“So thank you,” he said. He grinned. His teeth protruded, and he looked like a fox.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“Hester Rathbone, but you can call me Wrath,” he said.  “What’s your name?”

“Maude Merkle,” I said. I felt like sitting down. “What are you doing here, Wrath?”

“Oh, I’ve been waiting for the people who put me in that train car,” he said.

“Are they coming here?” I said.

“They must be,” he said. “They don’t really want me out and about.”

“Wrath…” I said. “Why were you imprisoned in there?”

His face began to twitch. The wooden eye rolled, so fast it was a blur of color.

“Did you commit a crime?” I said. “Did you murder someone?”

Wrath looked up, his single human eye gleaming.

“Oh, I’m not a murderer,” he said. “But I will be. You spend three years in a little wooden box, and you don’t really like people anymore. I don’t really like people anymore.”

“Who imprisoned you?” I said.

“The Night Enthusiasts,” he said. “The Night Enthusiasts.”

“Why?” 

At that moment, he cocked his head. He sniffed.

“Someone’s coming.”

“How can you…”

“Shh! Shh! Secret skill. I know. I know someone is coming.” He suddenly seized me, so hard I’d have a ring of bruises around my arm. He drew me into a dark corner.

“Shh. Shh,” he said. “Let’s just stay here together, you and I.” I could hear his wooden eye clicking and rolling behind me. “Let’s see who it is!”

It was Ariana. She teleported into much the same spot that I had, landing in view of the entire pawn shop, by the front doors. She tucked her hair behind her ears, looking around.

“Maude,” she hissed. “Maudie. Are you in yet?”

I knew nothing about Wrath, except that he’d been imprisoned by the Night Enthusiasts, and that he claimed he hadn’t killed anyone. Technically, I had no reason to doubt him. I no reason to fear him. He said he wasn’t a murderer. But I felt sure, as his wooden eye rattled from side to side, that he was hunting Ariana. He was the predator, she was the tiny brown creature about to split open in blood and fur.

Trembling, I whispered to Wrath, “She’s all right, she’s my friend. She doesn’t mean us any harm.”

Wrath began to chuckle. Slowly and softly, in a way that made my blood feel wrong inside my veins.

“She wants to kill you, little one,” he said.

“Shut up,” I said. “I’ve had enough of this. Let go of me. If you want to go murder the Night Enthusiasts, be my guest. But leave my friend out of it.”

In response, Wrath let go of me. But he didn’t slip further into the shadows. He strode out, his black and red coat billowing softly. He removed his top hat and held it in the crook of his arm. He strode towards Ariana with a spring in his step. As soon as Ariana saw him, she paused, horror etched into her face. She recognized him. And I realized, with a sick feeling in my stomach, that she didn’t just recognize the man from the train car. She recognized Wrath, as a human man.

“Hello, Ariana,” Wrath said.

Ariana’s eyes flickered over to me. She took a breath, nostrils flaring. Then she swore.

I strode from the shadows.

“Ariana….” I said.

Wrath and Ariana both stared at each other. He was gleeful; she was defeated.

“Have you met?” I said.

“Oh, Ariana and I know each other very well,” Wrath said. “From before I ended up in that train car. Don’t we know each other, Ariana?”

She swerved her eyes away from his, looking sullen.

“How?” I said.

Ariana stared at me, and her eyes suddenly filled up with tears. She opened her mouth like she wanted to speak, and then she shut it.

“Didn’t you know?” Wrath said. “Ariana is a Night Enthusiast.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 22, The Murderer’s meet, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillccuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 23, The Murderers Meet.

Episode 23

Betrayed

September 28, 1921 continued.

“Didn’t you know?” Wrath said. “Ariana is a Night Enthusiast.”

I frowned. I looked over at her.

“Ariana, you didn’t run into anyone today, did you? You didn’t run into Renfield, or—” My throat closed up. I laced my hands together. I was starting to shake, starting to be unable to talk. “You didn’t accidentally… you didn’t deliberately… you didn’t run into any Night Enthusiasts today, did you?”

“Just the one in the mirror,” Wrath said.

“Shut up, Wrath,” Ariana said.

Her quick use of his name made my stomach cramp up.

“Ariana.” I said.

“I didn’t become a Night Enthusiast today, Maude,” she said.

We stared at each other.

“I made you a magic unusual,” I said. “Your eyes were brown when we met. They weren’t hazel. You didn’t have the green. You weren’t a Night Enthusiast. You weren’t even a magic unusual.”

Ariana stepped towards me softly. In the dim light, I could still make out the color of her eyes. They were brown.

“You can’t make someone a magic unusual by handing them a nickel, Maude,” she said. “You have to do it deliberately. That was all rigged. I can change my appearance at will, in small ways. That’s my special power. I changed my eyes so you wouldn’t know what I was, and I became your friend, and—” Ariana stopped. “And I really did become your friend. I’m sorry.”

The words of Mr. McGillicuddy crashed back into me, as well as the words of Noble James. The Night Enthusiasts had changed their plan, and I had been betrayed.

For days, they’d had no intention of capturing me. Of kidnapping me and dragging me back to their lair. They’d been spying.

“You wanted to get to Mr. McGillicuddy, didn’t you?” I said.

Ariana nodded. “We felt sure he’d try to contact you. Especially if he thought you had a vulnerable friend.”

“So I was bait?” I said.

“And a prize,” Ariana said. “We want you, too.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I said.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ariana said.

“Why?” I said. “Because you don’t deserve it? Because you do deserve it. You’re a Night Enthusiasts. What did you kill?”

“What?”

“What part of you is dead? What part of your soul is missing? Loyalty? Empathy?”

“It’s not empathy,” Ariana said.

“What happens now?” I said. “Now that you know Mr. McGillicuddy is never coming? Are you going to kill me? Are you going to lock me up in the Night Enthusiast’s cave?”

Ariana shot Wrath a venomous look. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“No,” I said “I suppose not.”

I had a half-mad, half-wooden man to thank for the fact that her plan was ruined.

“Ariana,” I said. “Mr. McGillicuddy said I should leave this city and never come back. I came back first because I didn’t want to leave you. But now I’m leaving somewhere you’ll never find me, and you’ll never see me again.”

Before she could stop me, I stepped behind a wardrobe and teleported. It was as simple as that. They could no longer see me, and I was free to go.

I landed outside the Vatican, because that was the only specific place, far away, that I’d been able to think of. I sat down on the cobblestones and bawled my eyes out.

Sitting here now, alone, writing this entry. There’s a grim inevitability to all of this. When my parents died, I felt like loneliness had worked itself into my bloodstream. That no matter what I did, on some level, I would always be deeply alone.

For a few days, I’d believed differently, and it was a trick of the Night Enthusiasts, and I don’t want to be anymore. I don’t want to be, or do, or think, or possibly write in this diary ever again.

September 29, 1921 continued.

Dry up, my little Maudie.

That’s what my father always said to me. Dry up, my little Maudie, and let’s see what we can do.

When you’re still a girl, and you lose your parents, you don’t know how to pick yourself up. They always did it for you. On some level, you believe that you will never pick yourself up again. They’re not there to show you how. So how can you do it all alone?

But I’m writing again, so you must imagine—things have picked up.

I wandered the Vatican, feeling lost and bewildered. The statues of the saints didn’t seem reassuring, up there, looking down at me. They would have if I’d been on vacation, like they were standing up there waiting to welcome me up to heaven after death. Hello, down there! Your parents are up here! You’ll be home again, someday!

But I was so far from home, from being reunited with anyone, that the saints all seemed to be staring awkwardly down at me, like they didn’t quite know what to do. I sat down on a bench and watched the pigeons waddle past, and I wondered if I’d find a life, or if I’d turn into a homeless old street urchin.

I was in the Vatican. Maybe I should become a nun.

I did not become a nun, or a pigeon nanny, or any of the other things fate might have been cruel enough to dole out. Instead of sinking into eternal apathy, I looked up at the sky and said a prayer.

“If I’m meant…” I said. “… to have a life again, to have a family again, to not be alone anymore…. Then please send a sign. Something really, really obvious. Because I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to find that life unless I know it’s out there.”

No more disappointments.

Well, the timing was impeccable. A troupe of Night Enthusiasts landed across the courtyard from me.

For a minute I just stared, stupefied. Then I spun around and hid behind the bench.

The Night Enthusiasts were some distance away; they hadn’t spotted me yet. I watched them as they spread out.

Ariana had cast a skull spell on me, the little minx.  They knew where I’d teleported to next. That was probably my fault for announcing that I was going to leave and never come back. I was envious of Ariana. All this time, she’d known how to cast skull spells, while I knew next to nothing. She was the one who’d cast the skull spell on me in the park. She’d sent the man to hand me the note about Wrath being a murderer. She wanted me to think he was a murderer, so I’d stay far away and never learn who she really was.

Well, I knew. And at that moment I spotted her in the courtyard. She’d come with her crew of Night Enthusiasts. They went left and right, but she just stood there. She let the other Night Enthusiasts disperse, and then, when it was just the two of us, she strode forward. She’d known where I was the whole time.

I stood up and faced her. I felt slimy and confused, because I loved this girl like a sister, and she’d turned out to be something completely different.

“I came back for you,” Ariana said.

“To put me in a cell somewhere,” I said.

“Well, yes,” Ariana said. “But also because I couldn’t let you leave. I really am your friend, Maude. I’m your enemy because I’m a Night Enthusiast, but as a person, I’m your friend.”

“You’re very good at lying to me, Ariana,” I said.

In response, she dashed across the courtyard and seized me in a hug. I hugged her back, not sure what else to do.  I was reminded of all the times she’d seemed torn or confused in the Pawn Shop, and I wondered if she really was my friend. She hadn’t expected to become one. But had she? And now we were on opposite sides of a subtle war, and friends or not, for the time being, she was choosing the war over me.

“We’re going to take you back to the cave,” Ariana said. “The Night Enthusiast Headquarters.”

“What if I escape you again?” I said.

“I already cast a skull spell on you,” Ariana said.  “If you leave from here, we’ll know where you’re headed next.”

“Not if I teleport six times in a row.”

Ariana held my hand. “Maude, please. Stay. Listen to me. I think you should come with us.”

“Give me one good reason.”

“I’ll give you ten!” Ariana began to talk, slowly, almost as if she was talking me down from a cliff edge. “When I was young, I had no one. I was lonely, like you. Then, I met the Night Enthusiasts.”

“And they were evil.”

“And they were evil,” Ariana nodded slowly. “That’s right.” Something felt odd about the way she was talking to me, like I was being lulled to sleep. Too late, I looked behind me.

The whole troupe of Night Enthusiasts had been sneaking up on me. I was surrounded.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 23, Betrayed of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue next week with episode 24, And Now We Wait.
 
 

 Episode 24
 
 And Now We Wait

September 29, 1921 continued.
 
 I looked left and right and turned in a circle. The Night Enthusiasts were all around me.

“I’m not taking my eyes off you, Maude,” Ariana said.

No one had seized me yet, but I was as good as trapped. I looked across at Ariana, and I felt suddenly full of infinity. I knew this moment was important, that this moment would change everything. I might have lived the rest of my life as a Magic Unusual alone. I might have become a hermit. But I didn’t, because I’d stayed and talked to Ariana.

I didn’t struggle as two of The Night Enthusiasts came up behind me and tied my hands behind my back. One brought a glowing vial out of his pocket. He uncorked it and shoved it between my lips. I pulled my head away, struggling.

“She’ll drink it on her own,” Ariana said. “What are you, thugs?”

Ariana smacked the Night Enthusiast, and she took the drink from him. She held it delicately, then stepped up to me and offered the drink. “It’s all right, Maude,” she said softly. “It will just take you back to the Night Enthusiast Headquarters.”

We locked eyes. I missed her, suddenly.

I didn’t have a choice about the drink, whether I had some or not. This all felt vaguely familiar, as I tipped my head gently back and let Ariana guide the drink down my throat.

Like the last time, the drink held some magic property, and it transported me against my will. An involuntary teleport. I landed in the cave, a few paces from the black gazebo.

Renfield was there. As soon as I arrived, he strode towards me. The other Night Enthusiasts began to arrive, popping into existence left and right. Ariana arrived. She hurried to my side and reached me just as Renfield did.

“Ah, Miss Merkle,” Renfield said. “So pleased you could finally join us.”

The small woman, the one who had spoken to me the last time I was here, strode forward.
 
 “Miss Merkle,” she said. “So pleased you could finally join us.”

“Maude,” Ariana said. “So pleased you could finally join us.”

The other members of the Night Enthusiasts all flocked around me, and they murmured the same phrase.

So pleased you could finally join us.

“But I won’t,” I said. I felt small and defiant at the same time. I folded my hands together.

The small woman smiled. “We will not force you this time, Melinda Maude Merkle. If you wish to join the ranks of the Night Enthusiasts, you may do so.”

“I don’t wish it,” I said. “I never will”

“Never is a strong word,” the small woman said.

“I never will,” I said.

“You do not understand life yet, Miss Merkle,” the small woman said. “You still have the mind of a child. You think that everything can be good and pure and without sorrow. In the real world, in the realm of adults, we kill small pieces of ourselves daily, that we might survive another year. You will not be violating some law of nature when you join the Night Enthusiasts. You will be doing what all humans must eventually do. Let go of a bit of their goodness. But you will do so with quick, painless precision, and you will find yourself a being of power.”

“I don’t want to be a being of power,” I said. “I don’t want to be a Night Enthusiast.”

The small woman stepped up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. It felt strangely violating.

“It is time to grow up, Melinda Maude Merkle,” the small woman said. “It is time to live in the real world.”

I stared at her.

“My answer is still no,” I said.

“We will wait,” the small woman said.

“And in the meantime?” I said.

“And in the meantime,” the small woman said. “I think your fate is to become a novelty. To join our plunder, here on the cave floor. Renfield, please escort Ms. Merkle to the cage, where she will no doubt rest comfortably, as a child that has not yet woken up.”

Renfield took me by the elbow. Remember, my hands are still tied, but he led me by the arm over to a cage.

I do mean a cage. It was a gigantic bird cage that probably could have housed an ostrich. They untied my hands, locked me inside, and here I sit.

It’s dark in this corner of the cave, and I’m surrounded by other oddities. I’m face to face with a glass-eyed owl even as we speak.

I’ve been here for hours. Maybe even half a day. Night Enthusiasts come and go. They brought me terrible food about an hour ago. I’ve been writing in you, diary, for the last hour, catching you up on everything that’s happened. I feel, in some ways, that this is the end. For right now, anyway. I’ve reached the end of an Act. I am the girl in the cage, but the girl who at least made the right choice. I wonder what that choice will cost me, and I wonder what will happen next.

I still have unresolved questions, and I don’t know what to think.

Who is Wrath? Who was he? Why was he a victim of the Night Enthusiasts, and does he really mean to murder them all in revenge? He might have been a good man once, but I don’t think he’s safe anymore. I think he’s completely mad, driven insane by being in that train car, and in an odd, metaphorical way, the wooden half of his face reflects it. In some ways, he’s still trapped in a box of wood, and I don’t know what he’s going to do next. But I don’t think it will be wise. And I don’t think it will be subtle. And I think it may hurt a lot of people. I feel responsible, leaving him unsupervised in the Pawn Shop. I hope Mr. McGillicuddy will find him and make things right.

Mr. McGillicuddy. I rather hate the man. He did his best, with the pocketwatch, and trying to save me in time… but there’s something wrong about him expecting immediate trust from me, when I barely knew him. I wish I knew more about his organization. I wish I knew about McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. Who is Murder? Where do all the novelties come from? The fake mummies and opera masks and marble balls three feet high? What is that place, and how is it connected to what Mr. McGillicuddy is trying to do?

Who is Noble James? Is he still dying in that hospital bed? Is he dead already? Part of me really believes he was my ally. Does that mean he ceased being a Night Enthusiast? Can you do that?

Can Ariana do that? Can she become herself again, the Ariana who never killed a piece of her soul?

I don’t know. I don’t know that it matters, either, because I’m in a cage, in a cave, and I’m waiting for the rest of my life to begin. I think they’ll have me take the test again, on the bottom of the sea. Once again, I’ll refuse to kill part of my soul. And then I’ll die. Or I’ll be locked up in this cage forever. There’s a plus side to dying, and that’s that at least I wouldn’t have to eat this food they keep giving me anymore.

The small woman said I could wait. Well, I’ve got her beat on that front. I’ve been waiting for my life to begin for so long, I can jolly well keep on waiting. I’m very good at waiting.

And I believe, at some point, I will be able to escape.

We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 24, And Now We Wait, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and support Minerva Sweeney Wren at patreon.com/sweeneywren.

This ends Season 1 of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. Season 2 of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue in April of 2019.

 
 McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop
 Season Two

Episode 1

Here We Are Again

October 1st, 1921

Well. It’s more comfortable than you might think, to be sitting in a cage. Not much has happened since I last wrote, diary. I am convinced that none of the Night Enthusiasts can cook. The food is appalling.

When I last wrote to you, I felt that things had ended. That I’d come to the end of an era. I still feel that. It’s only a day later, but from here forward, I’m in Act Two of my journey as a Magic Unusual.

Things are much the same as the last time I wrote. The Night Enthusiast’s cave is chilly. I can see the purple light of the gazebo glowing, spectral in the darkness. During the day, Night Enthusiasts come and go. They hand me abysmal porridge. At night, everything is so quiet I can hear myself think. I think I can hear the stones thinking, too.

The cage they left me in—the giant birdcage, you remember. The one big enough to fit an ostrich. Well, it wasn’t very comfortable at first, but then I learned I could stick my legs out through the bars, so I’m sitting like Miss Muffet having a pout, my legs stretched out in front of me. I fell asleep last night sitting up, and that worked all right, except that my toes got cold.

Things have been bearable, with the Night Enthusiasts, so far. For the most part. They ignore me, all but the small woman, the ringleader. She always passes me with a superior expression that makes me want to bash her nose in.

They’re just waiting. For me to get sick of being a pretty polly (brawwk). Today, they sent in reinforcements, and I’m rather steamed about it. Hence the diary entry.

The reinforcements were Ariana. Of course they were. I bristled at the sight of her, then glared as she sat down opposite me. She had the nerve to sit down cross-legged, relaxed, like we were twelve-year-olds on a picnic.

“Well,” Ariana said. “Here we are again.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said. Speaking of Miss Muffet having a pout.

“You and me,” she said. “Together.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ariana, if you think you can sit down here and act all sweet, and convince me that you and I are still friends—”

“We are still friends.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are.” She exhaled. “Maude, I’m your friend. I’ve always been your friend. I know that friends don’t lie. I know that friends don’t betray each other. But I really and truly became your friend, and think about it from my perspective. You aren’t a part of my family, yet. My wonderful family that makes so much sense, that changes the world in their own magical, marvelous way. I want you to become a Nigh Enthusiast. Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? And I know that the deception wasn’t fair to you, but I didn’t do it to hurt you. I did it because I want you here. On my side. Where things make sense.”

“Nice try,” I said.

“What do you mean nice try? I’m pouring my heart out over here.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” I said. “I’d prefer a nice rescue attempt, instead of some self-flattering preaching.”

Ariana growled at me, then sulked. “Maude.”

“No.”

With a sigh, she got up.

Honestly, the nerve of that woman. I think you never get mad at strangers, not really, the way you can get mad at people you love. When the man sitting next to you on the trolley is munching a bag of peanuts, you’re annoyed, but you excuse him for his bad manners because, ultimately, he’s not your problem. You’ll never see him again in another ten minutes. But when your brother or sister or spouse is sitting right next to you and munching a bag of peanuts in your ear, you want to strangle them sometimes. It’s cause for second-degree murder. Or is that first degree-murder? Anyway, you feel like you have cause for some degree of murder. 

It’s so much worse when someone you love is a pain. Or a Judas.

I glared at Ariana, feeling lonely in the pit of my stomach. I wished, for an instant, that I didn’t feel so frightfully alone in this cave. Or in the whole world. I don’t have Mr. McGillicuddy, not really. He did his best for me, and now I’m on my own. I didn’t run away, far far away, when he’d told me to, so my being a prisoner of the Night Enthusiasts is on my own head.

I don’t have Noble James, because by this time, I am quite sure Noble James is dead.

I just have Ariana, and she’s more of an enemy than a friend.

“Well,” she said. “If you change your mind. I’m here if you want to talk.”

We glowered at each other, like two sisters having a feud. Ariana left.

I got out you, diary, to vent. Now that I’ve finished griping about Ariana, the cave is strangely silent. Of course, caves are always silent in their own way, but this silence feels different. It’s like the darkness is holding its breath.

I wish I could get out of this cage. This whole situation is sort of giving me the creeps. Pretty soon I’m going to grow a long white beard, and then my bones will turn to dust.  Before that, I should probably try to escape. I should also try to escape before whatever’s lurking in this darkness descends and gobbles me up. 

Speaking of the darkness gobbling me up, I think I just heard something.

It’s probably just my imagination. That’s the problem with being locked in a giant cage. There’s not much to do, except let your imagination run rampant.

There. No. I definitely heard something.

Diary, I have the shivers.

There. Just now. I saw something.

I should probably stop writing, but I think if I let go of your pages I’ll go mad with fright. This way, at least I can feel like a brave reporter or explorer or something. Writing down what I see, as it happens.

What am I looking at, exactly?

It’s hard to tell, in the darkness. There’s a shape moving. In the shadows. It’s either a person bent over, or a very very large rat.

My question is, why are they hiding? The person. Or the very large rat.

A Night Enthusiast would stride proudly through the cave. Anyone who was here to rescue me would have said hello by now. This person (or very large rat) seems to be hiding from me. They don’t want to be found at all.

Diary, is it necessary to say that, by now, I’ve tucked my legs safely back inside the cage, safe from nibbling rat teeth?

Speaking of rats, this intruder is definitely human. I can see a head.

Oh my giddy aunt, they’re getting close. I can almost—

I apologize for that dreadful smear of ink, diary. The fact is, I broke off writing because I screamed.

It’s not a rat. In the darkness, as I stared into the misty-half light, a head reared itself and looked at me. It wasn’t a human head. Oh. No. It was half a human face, and half a wooden one. A furry puppet eye rolled and blinked at me.

After I finished screaming, I sucked in a breath.

“Wrath,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. He shuffled closer, still on his hands and knees. “It’s you. I didn’t know what you were. I thought maybe you were a guard dog.”

“No,” I said. “It’s me.”

Wrath crawled over and crouched outside my cage, grinning. “The Night Enthusiasts are awful, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I said.

“They’ve gone horribly wrong in the head,” Wrath said. “They see puppets everywhere. That’s why I’ve come here.”

“You’re here because they see puppets?” I said.

“I’m here to kill,” Wrath said. “To kill and kill and kill and kill.”

“Oh,” I said.

I don’t like the Night Enthusiasts much. In fact, I hate the Night Enthusiasts. But with Wrath’s breath smelling like old cheese right in front of me, I felt like I had a duty to humanity to sound some kind of alarm.

“How did you get in here?” I asked suddenly. If he could sneak in undetected, maybe I could sneak out! It was, of course, impossible for me to teleport. Don’t think I didn’t try that in my first ten seconds of being in the cage. I’m not sure what kind of magic binds me inside the cave, but I can’t get out through teleportation.

“I came in with powers and trinkets, and I’m here to steal their powers and trinkets,” Wrath said. “And then I’m going to kill every single one of them.”

“You’re here to kill the Night Enthusiasts?” I said. The subtext of that was, You’re not planning on killing me, are you?

“I’m here to kill the Night Enthusiasts,” Wrath said. “Starting with Ariana.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 1, Here We are Again, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure.  
 
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 2, Murder, Murder, Everywhere

Episode 2

Murder, Murder Everywhere

October 1st, 1921, continued

I felt every hair on my head turn white.

When Wrath said he was going to kill every one of the Night Enthusiasts, starting with Ariana, I felt ready to bend the bars of my cage and run out to find her. The rush of emotion surprised me. I felt ready to leap in front of a train.

She is my best friend, I suppose.

Drat. I don’t want Ariana to be my best friend anymore. But she is. Because I can’t stand the thought of her being harmed. In any way. My stomach clenches up, like a mother bear going on the attack.

“Oh,” I said, pleasantly, to Wrath. “Are you going to kill her tonight?”

“No,” he said. “First I have to steal some power from them. I have a plan. A long and complex plan. And it starts right here.”

I was about to beg Wrath to tell me how he’d gotten in. What magic did he use? Could I use it, too?

But before I could ask, Wrath grabbed hold of a wooden carousel horse, and he disappeared.

A red light filled the air, and a weird smell wafted towards me. At first, I thought he’d just teleported, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d just witnessed something else.

He’d grabbed hold of the carousel horse with both hands, very deliberately. We don’t need to be touching anything in order to teleport. Just thinking of our next destination.

So what was with the horse?

Besides that, teleports never left an odor. This one had. The air smelled scummy and metallic. Well, to be perfectly honest, it smelled like blood.

I wondered what Wrath had done. In the darkness, I looked around at the hundreds of strange objects strewn across the floor. The carousel horse. A chandelier. Two wooden monkeys holding one another by the arms.

This was the only thing that The Night Enthusiasts, and McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop seemed to have in common. Strange and beautiful objects. And not just one or two. Hundreds. A collection.

I leaned back, the gears of my brain spinning furiously. I felt alive. Electric. I felt that cozy, wiggle-your-toes kind of feeling that comes when you’re perfectly content. I was about to figure something out. Something important. I was about to have a revelation that taught me more about what it meant to be a magic unusual. All I had to do was watch and wait, and sooner or later, the Night Enthusiasts would give away the secret. They’d reveal their magic trick, accidentally. And I’d learn more about what it meant to be a Magic Unusual.

That’s all for now, diary. I will watch and wait.

October 2nd, 1921

Ariana came to see me first thing in the morning. I was very glad she did, because I needed to warn her.

“Good morning, Maude!” she said.

“You can skip the sugar-coating,” I said. “Wrath is trying to kill you.”

She blanched. “That... is a joke, right?”

“No,” I said. “He was here last night.”

Her eyes widened. “He was here?”

“Yes.”

Ariana spun around, in search of another Night Enthusiast. The small woman, the ringleader, was off in the corner, and Ariana hurried towards her.

I watched in amused silence. It was fun to see the Night Enthusiasts panic. I wanted Ariana to be safe, of course, but this bit was nothing but fun. The small woman ran one way, and Ariana ran another. Who is Wrath? They were acting absolutely petrified of him.

A minute later the small woman came dashing up to me.

“You said he was here?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“How did he get in?”

“I tried to ask him that, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

She ran her hands across her face. She looked wildly around. “Which object did he use? Which one?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said. Come on, Maude. Play it carefully and she might end up telling you something.

“The murder objects, the murder objects!” the small woman exclaimed. “Which one did he use?”

“I don’t know how to use a murder object,” I said, low.

She growled at me. “Before he teleported. What object was he touching?”

Now was my chance to lie and lead them on a wild goose chase. But for Ariana’s safety, I said, “The carousel horse.”

The small woman nodded. Then she grabbed the carousel horse with both hands, shut her eyes, and vanished.

Once again, there was a flash of red light. Once again, the odor of blood hung in the air.

I stared, stupefied. I felt a little bit chilled, down in the marrow of my bones.

Murder objects? What did that mean?

I didn’t get much of a chance to think more about it, because Ariana came skulking back.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, sulkily.

“Well, I might not like you very much,” I said. “But I don’t want you to die.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“It’s more than generous of me, yes.”

We stared at each other.

“He was really here?” she said. “And he said he wanted to kill me?”

“He said he was going to kill all of the Night Enthusiasts,” I said. “Starting with you.”

“Fiddlesticks.”

She was trying to sound blasé. But she wasn’t. I could tell.

“Ariana, he scares me,” I said.

“He scares me, too!” she said. “Never mind the madness and the furry puppet eyeball. He’s always scared me. He scared me before we put him in that train car.”

I paused, dislike festering in the pit of my stomach. “You did that?”

“Yes.”

I stared at her with newfound horror.

“You put him in that train car?”

Ariana looked miserable. “Just shut up about it, Maude, will you?”

She left me alone.

I waited for another hour, too antsy to write, too bored to do anything else. I stared at the ceiling, at the heaps of valuables that surrounded my cage. Were these all murder objects? What in the world did that mean? Murder objects, murder objects….

Diary, I can feel that I’m going to get out of this cage soon. This is Act 2, after all, and heroines don’t spend all of Act 2 sitting in cages. Assuming I am the heroine. I think I am.

You know that my Magic Unusual power is to break spells, simply by speaking against them. Well, I started to try it.

“I wish this cage were unlocked. I wish the enchantment that keeps me from teleporting was broken. I—”

I was cut off by the small woman returning. Coughing and covered in mud, she popped into existence right next to the carousel horse.

She strode over to me, anger in her eyes.

“Are you sure he was touching the horse? Were you lying to me?”

“I wasn’t lying to you,” I said.

The small woman dug her fingers into her hair. She’d always seemed sort of snide and in control; it was fascinating to see her at her wit’s end.

“What can he want in 1916?” she moaned. “What can he be looking for?”

I stared at her, completely bewildered. 1916? Was that the name of a hotel? The small woman strode off.

It soon became apparent that I would get no more peace and quiet. At first I was grateful to Wrath for at least making my life more interesting with his little murder plot, but now I’m irritated with him. After the hullabaloo died down, the cave emptied, except for three Night Enthusiasts who were left to guard the carousel horse. They're near me at all times now. They’re waiting for Wrath to get back. They’ve got guns. They seem tense.

When the small woman teleported back into the cave, with the flash of red light and the smell of blood, she’d returned to the exact same spot. And now the Night Enthusiasts are waiting for Wrath to return in the exact same spot, as though he has to return that way. That’s not like normal teleportation.

I wish I knew what this was all about. Smell of blood…. Murder objects… what, do you kill someone to make these teleportations possible? We don’t have to kill people for our other teleportations to work.

The small woman said, What can he want in 1916?

She couldn’t possibly have meant… 1916… as in, the year, could she? Do the objects let you travel in time? Is that why there are so many of them, strewn everywhere? Does each individual object lead to an individual place in time? Are they collected, so Magic Unusuals can travel to any point in time they wish to?

Hang on. I think I’ve just figured something out. You know how I keep wanting to know who the Murder, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is?

I think that place is filled with Murder Objects.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 2, Murder, Murder, Everywhere, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed.
 
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 3,  Gas Mask

Episode 3

Gas Mask

October 2nd, 1921, continued.

It’s a bit later, diary. I am bored stiff. As a matter of fact, all of me is stiff. My legs are stiff. My arms are stiff. Pardon me for being vulgar, but my tutu is the stiffest of all. Pretty soon I’m going to grow into this cage, I’m going to meld with it, and that will be the end of it. I’ll never get out.

The three Night Enthusiasts are still lounging around, waiting for Wrath to return. The wooden carousel horse, with its twisted expression of pain, looks up at them reproachfully.

At this point, the Night Enthusiasts have calmed down a bit. They were extremely tense for the first hour, as though Wrath was going to appear any moment. Now they’re getting bored. They’re sitting. One of them is lying down. I’m thinking of chucking bits of spit-paper into the nearest one’s hat. I’ve got nothing better to do.

I wasn’t doing a very good job of escaping before these three guards showed up, but now that they’re here, I’m doing even worse job.

I just tried teleporting again. I shut my eyes and wished for McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. I’ve done that before, of course. It doesn’t work. It isn’t possible to teleport. But I keep trying.

The thing is, I’m not entirely sure how my unique Magic Unusual power works. I can break spells just by speaking. Wonderful. So far so good. But is it that simple? What if there’s a particular phrasing I have to use? I released Wrath from his train car, but I don’t remember what I said exactly. That’s the only time I’ve ever broken a spell. What if it comes down to cadence, inflection, number of words used? How am I supposed to know how it works?

And there’s no one to teach me how to do it right, because I’m the only Magic Unusual in the world who has this power.

So, I keep trying things. Saying words over and over, in a different way, with different patterns, in case I can break the spell. There’s some kind of magic keeping me in this cage, or in the cave itself. If I can just break whatever spell the Night Enthusiasts used to trap me here, I can get out.

But they know about my power. They’ve known about it for some time. It’s why they want me on their side, so they can exploit it. If they knew about my power ahead of time, surely they were prepared? I think perhaps they found a way to block my power. Somehow. I wish I knew how they did it.

But. In case they didn’t block my power, I’m going to keep trying to teleport. I’ve been muttering under my breath for the last minute or two, and a few of The Night Enthusiasts have looked over, annoyed. Honestly, they’re treating me like a sheep in the zoo.

Diary, it’s a bit later, and if it’s possible to feel worse, then I do. The Night Enthusiast guards, bored, began to talk about things. Mostly stupid things like who’s winning at baseball and whether or not one of them, named Fred, is going to propose to the girl he likes. But then they started talking about… well…

“Did you hear about Noble James?” one asked.

“Noble James?”

“Yes.”

“He turned traitor, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know about that. All I heard was there was an accident. He was stabbed.”

“Was he?”

“Yes, but that was weeks ago. I mean, did you hear the new news.”

“What? No.”

“He’s dead.”

My heart plunged into my shoes. I shut my eyes. In a way, I’d known it already, but it felt awful to hear. Poor Noble.

That, on top of everything else, made me desperate to escape.

And then, all of a sudden, I got an idea.

Let me recount for you, my dearest diary, what I’ve been noticing so far about this cave.

One. None of the Night Enthusiasts have teleported out of it.

That’s quite true. It took me awhile to notice it, because we’ve all teleported into the cave. People arrive all the time. But when they leave, they take the door. Always. Unless they’re me, being force fed a potion, or Wrath and the small woman, using a murder object.

I think perhaps the cave has a spell blocking anyone from teleporting out directly. So far so good. That makes it a worthy prison. You can come but you can’t leave.

But I’ve seen two people leave, and that’s by using a murder object.

The cave’s spell doesn’t apply to murder objects. When you use a murder object, the cave lets you out.

Of course, it looks like you can’t get back any other way.  But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

First things first, I’m going to get my hands on a murder object.

October 3rd, 1921.

There were no murder objects within reach of my cage. Of course there weren’t. The Night Enthusiasts would have thought of that. But I spotted a tiny crystal ball, blue and green like the ocean, just out of my grasp.

My plan began to take shape.

“My back itches!” I wailed.

One of the Night Enthusiasts looked over at me in complete stupefaction.

I tried to be as whiny as possible. Which, let’s face it, is not very difficult for me.

“I can’t reach the itch,” I fussed. One of the Night Enthusiasts looked at me with a snide grin.

“I could probably reach it, sweetheart.”

Honestly. The nerve.

“Get me a stick or something,” I said. “Ow! Ooh!”

I fussed and dithered and made myself as annoying as possible, until one of them, with a groan, got up and handed me a pen from his jacket pocket.

“There,” he said. “Will that shut you up?”

“Yes,” I said. I took it meekly as he passed it through the bars. For show, I scratched my back.

He waited for me to return the pen. I grinned, impishly.

“Now I can draw pictures on my hands,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

“Hey!” he said.

“I’m bored in here,” I pouted. “It’s the least you can do.”

With a sign, he wandered back to the carousel horse. And I had what I wanted.

I waited for the Night Enthusiasts to grow bored and start talking again. Even better, they soon started a game of cards. Two of their backs were to me, so only one of them could see me. I shifted and yawned and wormed my way over to the left side of the cage. Then, with the pen extended in the tips of my fingers, I reached my hand through the bars.

Two things happened at once then. I hit the small crystal ball with my pen, and it rolled beautifully, obediently towards me.

The second thing that happened was that Wrath came back.

I was about to pick up the crystal ball, when The Night Enthusiasts suddenly shouted. One screeched as if he were in pain. Wrath, laughing hysterically, bounded into the cave.

Once more, the room was filled with the syrupy, metallic scent of blood. Wrath stood inside the circle of Night Enthusiasts, still laughing. They pointed their weapons at him. They shouted. Wrath held a large metal canister, as well as a leathery mass in his left hand.

“Put it down!” One of the Night Enthusiasts shouted. “Put it down!”

Wrath, with a grin, flopped the leathery thing onto his head. It was a mask. It had giant glass eyes like an insect.

Wrath turned a knob on his metal canister.  One of the Night Enthusiasts screamed.

Yellow fumes poured from the canister. It was gas. Wrath had gone into 1916 to bring back gas.

One of the Night Enthusiasts fired. The bullet struck Wrath, but he seemed to be unaffected.

“Sorry, boys! More wood than flesh, now!” Wrath looked over at me, light glinting in the mask’s giant, bulbous eyes. “I’d leave if I were you!” he said.

I snatched up the crystal ball, and I wished to get out. Anywhere.

With a lurch in the pit of my stomach, I left the cave of The Night Enthusiasts.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 3, Gas Mask, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren.   
 
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 4, Safe to Return

Episode 4

Safe to Return 

October 3rd , 1921, continued.

Oh, diary. The most frightful thing.

I’d just seized hold of the crystal ball and wished to be elsewhere. With that wish, I was transported, but I had no idea what to expect when I arrived. I had my theory, of course, that the murder object would take me back in time.

This proved to be the case. 

I stood in a dark, cold room with gray walls. A whistling sound echoed around me. In a flash, I spotted pale, smooth faces, staring at me, silvery in the light.

They were statues. Beautiful statues, perched on tombs.

I was in a crypt. 

My breath clouded in the air in front of me. Outside, twilight was falling, but a little light came in through a latticed window. 

I stood very still and tried not to touch anything. The floor and walls were like ice, but the chill seemed a little haunted, too. The way the statues stared at me… the crypt seemed lit with an other worldly light, blue and silver, and I questioned whether I was in the land of the living at all.

Then, curiosity of curiosities, I spotted the crystal orb. But it wasn’t in my hands. It was perched in the hands of a statue. I hadn’t put it there. 

I went up to touch it, and that was when a horrible feeling came over me. As if drawn to it, I touched the lid of a sarcophagus—or whatever they’re called—you know, the giant stone caskets inside of crypts—and I pushed it open. 

Inside the sarcophagus lay a girl. She was freshly dead. But she wasn’t sleeping peacefully in the stone coffin, which is how you’d expect a corpse to be laid out. She was curled up, on her side. And her hands were raw. 

I quickly touched her neck, to be sure she was really dead. But her body was stiff. And icy cold. 

Someone had shut her up in the sarcophagus, alive. 

I put my hand over my mouth. Murder objects. Murder. That crystal orb was connected to a murder, and I was looking right at it. 

I had to get out. I felt horrible for the girl, and also irrationally terrified that it was going to happen to me. I turned and found the door of the crypt. The door was iron. Frost melted against my skin when I touched the handle. I pushed, and it was unlocked, so I hurried outside.

I was in a graveyard at twilight. It was snowing. Soft, gentle feathers flurried down and brushed my face.

I felt rejuvenated by the snow. In the distance, bells began to toll. I took a deep breath, and my exhale clouded across the snowy landscape.

A village glittered nearby in the dusky light. From the look of the village, I’d landed somewhere in the 1800s. The beautiful, snowy, innocent 1800s, where a girl had just been shut alive inside a coffin.

I took off across the landscape, but my thoughts were on the tomb.

Who was that girl?

Did a Night Enthusiast kill her? Do magic unusuals have to create a murder object on purpose, with a murder? McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop also houses murder objects, and they don’t go around murdering people. I feel fairly certain of that. 

I don’t know how the whole murder object thing all works yet, but I know that I feel cold in the pit of my stomach, and when I go to sleep tonight, I’m going to cry tears for that girl. Even though she died a hundred years before I was born.

My feet grew cold in no time at all. Honestly, why is snow so wet? It doesn’t stay frozen. It just sort of… sinks into your shoes and makes your socks all slimy. I couldn’t wait to reach the village.

At the same time, I was in heaven. Imagine, sitting for days in a cage! A cage where you don’t even quite fit. I hadn’t lain down in a very long time, and I couldn’t wait. I was going to have my first proper sleep since I found out Ariana betrayed me.

The snowflakes were wonderful, like cooling kisses. I reached the village, and I stopped at the outskirt. I helped myself into a barn, said hello to a curmudgeon of a cow, and climbed up into the hay loft.

It’s very snug up here, if a bit itchy. The animals keep the place warm. I am wrapped in a blanket and buried in hay, and it’s pleasant to write by the light of the moon.

You know I told myself that I was going to nap. That I couldn’t wait to go to sleep. And yet you find me here, writing to you instead. Why am I doing that, diary?

I tried shutting my eyes. I tried listening to the drip drip drip of my socks as they hung up to dry. But as soon as I shut my eyes, I saw Wrath in that horrible gas mask, his bulbous eyes glinting.

More than that, I can hear those Night Enthusiasts screaming.

You heard the horror stories about the gas, of course. A weapon so torturous that they actually outlawed it. I think Wrath could have killed those Night Enthusiasts in a lot of different ways, but he wanted to use that one.

I’m mad at Wrath. Why shouldn’t I be? He had no idea that I’d sneaked that pen, that I was able to grab hold of a murder object. For all he knew, I was stuck there for life. His little quip about, you’d better leave… he was going to let me inhale poison, trapped in a cage, and he just didn’t care.

If it wasn’t for that fellow’s pen, I would be dead.

I guess I can keep that fellow’s pen.

I feel a little bit like I tasted the war. Not really, of course, not the way the nurses and soldiers did. But those deaths, witnessing the horror of gas… it’s scaring me. And Wrath just stood there. Is this what Act 2 of my adventure is going to be like? A war? Am I caught in the cross fire of something large and violent? I just saw three men die today.

Part of me wonders if I should go back. How long does gas stay in the air, especially in a cave? Will it still be killing people in three or four days? That sounds stupid, but gas is the modern height of science. It’s practically witchcraft. I don’t know what gas does.

If I was feeling brave, and resilient, and clever, I’d somehow find that perfect slot of time, when the gas dissipates, but the rest of the Night Enthusiasts haven’t returned to their cave yet. Then I’d sneak out and be free in the real world, instead of 1800s France, or wherever I am. (I should ask the cow if it speaks French.)

But I don’t know how to find that perfect time slot, so instead, I’m going to wait in this time period for a very long time. Weeks. Maybe months. Maybe. Finally, when the Night Enthusiasts have stopped looking for me, I’ll come back.

And then I’ll dash up the staircase into the real world, or at least, you know, the time frame I really belong in, and then what?

Can you see why a poor girl can’t get to sleep?

October 4th, 1921

Diary, that date is a lie. It’s probably 1818 in Brussels or something. I don’t know. So far, I haven’t been discovered in this barn. I sneaked down early and milked the cow (sorry farmer!) and that made a very nice breakfast. I’d never milked a cow, but my father used to tell me all about how to do it. I’m very pleased that I didn’t get kicked in the face.

I think this afternoon I’m going to teleport all around the world and see what it’s like in 1818.

Whew!

All right, well it isn’t 1818, it’s 1797, and people aren’t very nice to you when your skirt comes to the middle of your calf instead of to your boots. I didn’t have a very good day.

This barn is colder than it was last night. I’m hungry. I want to go home and suffer in 1921.

October 5th, 1921

Well, diary, I walked back to the crypt. My plan was to take a peek, just a peek, at the Night Enthusiast’s cave and see what was happening.

The walk was nice. It was snowing again. Once again, my boots soaked through, and my hands turned to raw, red, numbness. I was feeling chilly and alive.

I opened the door to the crypt, and Ariana was standing right there.

“Hello,” she said. She looked freezing. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to turn up.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 4, Safe to Return, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure. 

 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 5, The Ariana Trade

Episode 5

Dawn Mumungus

October 5th, 1921, continued.

I stared at Ariana in stupefaction. “What are you doing here?” I said.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“It’s not a stupid question,” I said.

“Well, I’m obviously here for you, Maude.”

“Yes, I got that, thank you. I mean what do you want with Maude? Why did you come to bother Maude? Was it to bring Maude a warm winter coat and a nice bowl of soup? Or was it to drag Maude back to the cave she just escaped from and make her eat gruel?”

Ariana’s eyes, to my surprise, filled with tears.

“Maude, Wrath killed three of our men,” she said.

I softened. “I know.”

“I thought you were dead,” Ariana whispered.

She stumbled up to me and seized me in a hug.

I hated Ariana so much in that moment, because I loved her enough to crush her ribs. She sniffled into my neck, and we held each other in a tight hug.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I’ll bear that in mind, Judas.”

Ariana groaned and pulled out of our hug. “We’ve been looking for you,” she said. “After we found them. You know. The ones who died from the gas. Wrath was gone, of course. And so were you. But we knew you couldn’t get out of your cage. And I found the pen and I figured you used a murder object. We all started looking, trying to find out which way you’d gone. They were all preoccupied with the objects right next to your cage, but this one, the crystal ball, had rolled five feet to the left. I found it. I came here after you, and I just had a sense. I’ve been waiting for about twelve hours.”

“And now you’re going to let me go,” I said.

“No,” Ariana said.

“Yeah, no, you really are,” I said. “I’m this close, Ariana. I’m not going back in that cage.”

“Maude, I need you on my side.”

“Yeah, well, I need you on my side,” I said. “But you don’t hear me whining about it.”

“Maude!”

“Ariana, I will punch you if I have to.”

She pulled out a gun.

“Oh, we are not friends,” I said.

“We are,” she said. “We’re just also enemies right now.”

With the gun still pointed at me, Ariana gestured to the crystal ball. I grabbed it, so mad steam was coming out of my ears. I returned in a flash to the cave of the Night Enthusiasts.

The smell of blood was all around me this time. I stepped back and coughed. Quite a few Night Enthusiasts were in the cave this time; they looked up as I entered. Ariana arrived a split second after me.

“You found her!” the small woman called to Ariana. “Good! Good! Maude, get back in your cage. Ariana, report to Smithers.”

“What’s going on?” Ariana asked.

“Wrath is coming back,” the small woman said. “He said he would surprise us tonight. Now, don’t stand there talking. Go report to Smithers. We have a lot of spell work to do.”

Ariana, tight-lipped, ran off to see Smithers. I stood there for a minute as the Night Enthusiasts rushed around me, wondering if the small woman seriously expected me to walk back into my cage.

So. They were expecting Wrath. He’d been busy, while I’d been away. The Night Enthusiasts were scared. Like ants moving in the darkness, they shivered and scurried all across the cave. I didn’t know what they were doing, but every group seemed to have a plan, an occupation.  They feared Wrath like the bubonic plague.

A man walked up to me, his black hat pulled low over his face.

“You really care about her, don’t you?” he said.

I turned. I screamed.

“Shh. Shh.” The man put his finger to his lips. He took me by the arm and led me towards my cage. Loudly, he said. “That’s it, back in the cage, no fussing.”

It was Wrath. The hat mostly concealed his wooden face and puppet eye, but even still, there must have been a spell working in his favor. He’d been running around with all the Night Enthusiasts, undetected. Then again, it was very dark in that cave.

“How did you get in here?” I said.

“Yes, they are very stupid, aren’t they?” Wrath said. “But I want to know, quite seriously, Maude. Does Ariana mean something to you?”

“Yes, she does,” I said.

“How much? Are you friends? Lovers? Cousins? Give an estimate of your affection.”

“Sisters,” I said. “I love her like a sister, despite the fact that she backstabbed me.”

“Sisters,” Wrath said. “All right, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Maude.”

He let go of me. We were halfway to the cage, and I swerved. Wrath walked one way, and I walked another. Keeping to the shadows, sidestepping through piles and piles of murder objects, I made my way to the door.

I was almost there, too, when Wrath ruined everything again.

He’d made his way to the center of the cave. Right beside the black gazebo, he set up shop. The cave suddenly exploded in a burst of fireworks. The Night Enthusiasts screamed. Purple pinwheels shrieked through the air, and all eyes turned to look at Wrath, who was now lit from below with a bright yellow light.

He removed the hat with a flourish. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hester Rathbone, but you can call me Wrath.”

Dead silence descended. I decided this would be a bad time to try to bolt for the door.

“I’m the fellow who got put into a train car three years ago,” Wrath said. “By you lot. And now I’m here to kill all of you. Unless of course, we can find some sort of compromise.”

Every Night Enthusiast stood perfectly still. I didn’t breathe. Then, from the darkness and the stillness, the small woman strode forward.

“Wrath,” she said. “You may not kill the Night Enthusiasts. You have to answer to me.”

“I’m afraid I only barely remember you,” Wrath said. “From when you murdered me. There was another fellow in charge when I got put into that train car.”

The small woman drew herself up to her full height. Which wasn’t very tall. But my stars, the way she held her shoulders, her spine so stiff. Even I was afraid of her, all the way in the corner.

“I am Dawn Mumungus,” she said. “I am the head of The Night Enthusiasts.”

Oh. All right. That was her name. Dawn Mumungus.

“Oh, hello, Dawn!” Wrath said. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“To get revenge,” Dawn said.

“That’s right,” Wrath said. “To get revenge. It’s going to be fun. Now I want you to think very carefully about me, Dawn. I might have been encased in wood for the last three years, but I could still think. And when you can think for three years, you get very, very good at magic. You’ve all been rushing around here for the last hour, when I was here with you all along. Now don’t you think you should be, at least a little bit, afraid of me?”

Dawn Mumungus watched Wrath in silence.

“And if you should be afraid of me,” Wrath said. “Then things don’t look very good for you, do they? I want to kill every single one of you. Like cockroaches. Squish. You should be very afraid.”

We didn’t know what Wrath was going to do. No one was moving. It was like he had a cannon aimed at all our heads. Maybe he did.

“The thing is,” Wrath said. “I love to stir things up, so why don’t we compromise? If you hand over one of your own, willingly, a life for mine, then I’ll consider that enough revenge. That’s justice, you see. You ruined my life intentionally. If you intentionally ruin the life of one of your own, then I’ll call it fair.”

“You’d let us trade one for many?” Dawn Mumungus said. “That’s right,” Wrath said. “I promise to spare the lives of every Night Enthusiast… if you let me murder Ariana.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 5, Dawn Mumungus, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed.
 
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 6, The Ariana Trade

Episode 6

The Ariana Trade.

October 5th, 1921, continued.

I stared in horrified silence at Wrath.

I wasn’t alone either. The rest of the Night Enthusiasts all stared in horrified silence at Wrath as well.

He’d just proposed to trade Ariana’s life for the lives of all the other Night Enthusiasts. He wouldn’t go around slaughtering them all; he’d let them live, as long as he got to murder Ariana.

This was the man who, five minutes before, had asked me how deep my affection for Ariana was. I’d told him I loved her like a sister. Which as everyone knows, is about as close as you can get to someone, without being a spouse. He asked me. I told him. Now, knowing how much I loved a particular Night Enthusiast, Wrath chose that particular Night Enthusiast to murder.

I was about to walk up and strangle him.

The hush that descended on the cave was something truly spectacular. Everyone watched in pained silence. Some of the Night Enthusiasts began to twitch and look around, and I knew they were thinking… maybe Ariana should take a hit for the good of them all. They were hoping she’d be dragged out of here screaming while they got to sit like fat cats for the rest of their lives.

I knew better, however. No leader, no matter how evil, would surrender one of their followers like a sacrificial lamb. They’d hold out. They’d fight. Wrath was in the Night Enthusiasts’s grasp: he was surrounded. This night would most likely end with Wrath lying in a bloody heap.

I was angry with Wrath. But I wasn’t worried. I had faith in Dawn Mumungus. Ariana would be all right.

I looked over at Ariana just then. Of all the tense energy in the room, hers was the worst. She stood ram rod straight, eyes fixed on Wrath and Dawn Mumungus. I felt as though, if anyone touched her, they’d get an electric shock so bad they’d shoot across the room.

“If we gave you Ariana’s life…” Dawn Mumungus said slowly. “You would leave us all in peace? Forever?”

“You have my word,” Wrath said.

“Done,” Dawn Mumungus said. “Take Ariana. Kill her however you wish. I just don’t want to see your face ever again.

The room changed. A murmur swept throughout the cave. Half of the Night Enthusiasts relaxed, relieved and elated that Dawn Mumungus had saved their lives so soon. The rest looked around, stupefied. Guilty and pleased, like a child who realizes the cookie jar is all his if he hurries.

Ariana spun around and looked at me. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking, all of what she was feeling, but I saw a bit of it in her eyes. She latched onto me. She was furious, ready to rip someone in half, I think, but she loved me. She had a look of revelation, like she knew she should have been trusting only me all along.

After a betrayal like that, Ariana was remarkably quick. She slowly changed her face.

You remember, diary, that Ariana’s special Magic Unusual power is to change her appearance at will? I’d only ever seen her change the color of her eyes, but she can do a lot more. She changed her face into someone else’s. A different girl. Then, her expression very carefully controlled, she walked towards me.

You have to understand, it was very dark in that cave. Most of the Night Enthusiast’s eyes were still fixed on Wrath, who had gone into a monologue about all the ways he wasn’t going to kill them. I thought it was a very strange time for Wrath to be talking his head off, but Wrath was a very strange man.

Ariana reached me, and without looking at me, she took my hand. I felt a film of magic glide across my face. Ariana had changed my appearance, too.  Then, together, disguised by her magic, we walked towards the door. The other Night Enthusiasts let us go. To them, we were two girls getting nervous and trying to leave. We weren’t the prisoner and the girl who was going to die against her will for all of them.

We opened the door at the back of the cave, and then we ran back through the eerie tunnel. It’s only been a few weeks since I traversed that tunnel, with its green glass and candlelight, but it felt like ages. For a moment, as I smelled the damp, I was old Maude. I was scared, shy, pathetic little Maude, following Renfield into a cave of Night Enthusiasts, not knowing what Night Enthusiasts were.

I felt suddenly giddy with how far I’ve come.

Ariana still held my hand, and she dragged me down the tunnel. I could hardly run fast enough for her taste. I felt all of her anger and fear in her hand: she was practically squeezing the life out of mine.

No Night Enthusiasts followed us. We soon reached the end of the tunnel, climbed the stairs, and came out into the private alcove of the nightclub.

No one was in the alcove, and the curtains were drawn. Ariana turned and looked at me.

“We can teleport now,” she said. “I’m going to Buckingham Bleeding Palace if you want to come with me.”

For a moment, I thought she was going to wait for me. It was clear that she wanted me to come with her. She wanted us to be fast friends again. She wanted to be able to trust at least one other person on the God-forsaken planet.

But then… she didn’t want to wait. I saw it flash through her eyes. She looked wounded. And she didn’t want to wait for me, in case I said no. In case I never wanted to see her again.

Of course I wanted to see her again. She teleported. And I teleported on her heels. To Buckingham Bleeding Palace. Because she might have been a little Judas, but she was still my Ariana, and I was going to see her through this next stage of life.

I teleported to Buckingham Palace, parenthesis, in general. When I stood outside the gate and peered in, feeling a little green, I noticed that Ariana was nowhere to be found. She’d probably teleported into the palace itself. That was idiotic. How was she supposed to know if I was out here?

There was nothing for it but to sit down. The afternoon had been rainy, apparently, because everything was wet. The fountain was glistening, and the flowers were bright and jeweled with moisture. I found a stone bench, sat in the wet, and took off my shoes. My feet hurt. Not too long ago, I’d been trudging through the snowy countryside of 1797.

About five minutes later, Ariana popped into view. She had the expression of a rat sniffing for food. Sort of hopeful and skulking.

I waved, a little sarcastically.

She came bounding over, joy in her eyes. “You did come,” she said. She seized me in a very awkward, very well-meant hug. “Come on, I’ve found a bedroom that’s all locked up. Not being used at the moment. We’ll teleport straight in.”

After Ariana drew me a crude visual sketch, I teleported with her into a locked bedroom of Buckingham Palace.

It was very frilly. There were a lot of roses everywhere. And gold. And lace.

Ariana sat down on a curved sofa, and looked at me with sheepish eyes.

“What do you say we steal food from the kitchens?”

“Ordinarily, I’d object,” I said. “But I’m hungry, and I’m tired, and I don’t really want to think right now.”

“I don’t want to think right now, either,” Ariana said. “I’ll go steal us food.”

“All right,” I said.

We were blatantly avoiding the issue at hand, but for once it felt very good to avoid the issue at hand. While Ariana was gone, I ran myself a bath and submerged everything but my head in fountains of bubbles. After living in McGillicuddy and Murders Pawn shop, then living in a cage, and then living in a barn, this bath was heaven on earth.

I was just admiring the glisten and sheen of the bubbles when Ariana knocked softly on the door.

“Maude?” she said. “When you’re out, I want to talk to you about something.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think I want to be a Night Enthusiast anymore.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 6, The Ariana Trade of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren. 
    
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 7, Mr. McGillicuddy Again

Episode 7

Mr. McGillicuddy Again

October 5th, 1921, continued.

When I got out of the bath, I wrapped my wet hair up in a towel. It was sort of unpleasant, after feeling so clean, to put on the same dirty clothes I’d been wearing before, but it couldn’t be helped. After dressing, I stepped cautiously back into the bedroom.

Ariana was seated on the floor in front of a roaring fire. She’d stolen quite a bit of food, all of which was laid out on a blanket. She hadn’t touched it yet, which I took as a gesture of good will.

“Hello,” she said. “Did you have a nice time?”

Her whole demeanor was awkward, on edge. I didn’t quite know what to say, but I sat down opposite her, crosslegged.

“Ariana….” I said slowly.

“Here,” she said. “Have a mushroom.”

She thrust a seasoned mushroom into my face.

“Ariana,” I said. “We need to talk about what happened.”

“No,” Ariana said. She popped the mushroom into her mouth. She hugged her knees and stared into the fire. “We need to talk about why you’re here.”

A sort of quietness passed between us.

“Because you asked me?” I said.

“Yes, but why did you come?”

“Because I care about you.”

“And that’s the problem,” Ariana said. “I’ve had awhile to think, while you were finishing your bath. I’ve got a lot going through me right now, Maude. I’m terrified that Wrath is going to break down that door any moment and slaughter me. After how quickly Madam Mumungus just handed me over, like a rabbit to be chopped up and boiled for dinner, I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. And I’m wondering why the hell I gave up my life for those people, if this is how much I mean to them. But that’s not important. That’s my problem. That can wait. The problem for you and I… is you. You shouldn’t be here. You should have laughed in my face, spat in my face, and walked away.”

“Yes, I probably should have,” I said.

We stared at each other.

“So you’re going to leave?” Ariana said.

“No,” I said.

“You’re being a martyr,” Ariana said. “You’re being unkind to yourself, by being too kind to me. I know you want to be there for me, and that’s jolly for you, but you need to stop. I have so much roiling inside of me I think I might go commit my own murder. Maybe I’ll go kill Wrath. Maybe I’ll go get killed by Wrath. But I should be on my own, because that’s what I deserve.”

“If you’re trying to get me to abandon you,” I said, “It won’t work.”

“Listen to me!” Ariana said. “I am trying to get you to do the right thing. You are sweet and kind and too trusting and too charming, and that’s why people like me stab you in the back. In every fiber of my being, I want you to stay with me, because I am more alone than I’ve ever been in my entire life. But you should not be friends anymore with the girl who betrayed you. I used you. It was unacceptable, and I’m going to leave now and never come back. I’m not going to tell you where I’m going.”

“Ariana, you’re forgetting one thing,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“I forgive you.”

Ariana looked at me, her eyes large and sad. “Really?” she said.

I hadn’t really meant it until this moment. But I did forgive her. Forgiving is not the same as trusting, and Ariana still needed to earn my trust back. But she had just lost her family, and Night Enthusiast or not, she needed me. And, what was just as important, I didn’t think that being her friend would endanger me. Not anymore.

Forgiveness is a very intimate thing, when it’s done properly, and the tension diffused between Ariana and I. She gave me a hug around the neck, and we sat close to each other, eating dinner.

“I can’t believe she did that…” Ariana murmured.

“Who?” I said. “Dawn Mumungus?”

“Madam Mumungus, yes,” Ariana said. “I can’t ever go back there, Maude. I can’t believe it. I still can’t believe it, but I can’t. I’m not a Night Enthusiast. Or at least… I am still a Night Enthusiast. Do you stop being Catholic if your priest stabs you in the back with a bread knife?”

“Probably depends on the person,” I said.

“I don’t think I can stop being a Night Enthusiast, even if I wanted to,” Ariana said. “I… killed a part of myself, you know. My soul is different, now. But I don’t think I can go back there. With them.”

“You still have an altered soul,” I said. “But you don’t work for them anymore? Is that maybe a good way of putting it?”

“Yes,” Ariana said. “Because how can I work for anyone who would betray me like that?”

I was immensely pleased. All of a sudden, faster than I ever could have hoped, Ariana was no longer my enemy. At least, she was no longer working with my enemies. I didn’t know what the future held for us, or how much her soul was truly damaged, but I didn’t have to worry about her dragging me back to the Night Enthusiasts lair anymore, and it felt like Christmas morning.

“So,” Ariana said. “Now what?”

“Now what?” I said. “Now we go to bed. That mattress looks quite fluffy, and I haven’t slept in a bed in weeks.”

Before retiring, diary, for a nice slumber in Buckingham Bleeding Palace, I’ve written all these many pages to catch you up. You’re getting quite fat. Plump with ink and scruffy with well-loved pages. And that’s just as you should be.
 
 

October 6th, 1921,

Oh, it was so exquisite to wake up in a real bed. I’d forgotten what it felt like to not be sore in the morning.

Ariana wanted to steal breakfast the same way that she’d stolen dinner, but I refused. I said we could buy something from a shop. We fixed our hair and very graciously made the bed, and then we teleported out of our secret room in Buckingham Palace. Why didn’t we get caught that whole time? I have no idea. Did the servants hear us? Probably. Did they think someone was having an affair and decided the door was locked so it was none of their business? Possibly. Either way, we made it out just fine, and we stopped and got eel pies for breakfast. Not really my thing. Very oily.

“Well?” Ariana said. “Where to?”

In some ways, things felt perfectly normal with Ariana, the way they were before. In other ways, everything felt strained and hesitant.

“Where else?” I said. “The place where it all began. The wonderful place, the magical place, the one and only McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.”

Ariana grinned. “Why there?”

“Because we have to find Mr. McGillicuddy,” I said. “I am fed up. I am finished. That man is going to let us into his magic unusual club if it’s the last thing he does.”

“Do you know where to find Mr. McGillicuddy?” Ariana said.

“No,” I said. “But I’m starting to have an idea. And the Pawn Shop is the best place to start, because his name is on the sign.”

Without further ado, Ariana and I teleported to McGillicuddy and Murders.

My stomach flopped as soon as we arrived.

Do you know it felt like coming home? The smell is so unusual. Normally when you smell the scent of home, you think of pies cooling in the kitchen or dried flowers or the smell of old paste beneath the wallpaper. But I smelled old stone, and old books, and dusty, ancient mahogany. It felt just right.

It was early morning. Birds trilled outside the window, and misty sunlight came in through the windows. Needless to say, it was quiet and shut up. No customers yet. Ariana sat down, and I began to pace.

“Mr. McGillicuddy!” I said. “Mr. McGillicuddy, Ariana and I are here to see you. You know. Ariana. The Night Enthusiast. She’s not with them anymore, and I’m not in their cage anymore, and I demand you show yourself and finally help us out.”

There were three ticks of silence, and then all of a sudden, Mr. McGillicuddy arrived.

I heard a gentle bang upstairs, and then--he teleported right in front of us.

“Sssh!” he said. ‘Not here!”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 7, Mr. McGillicuddy Again of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure. 
    
 McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 8, Secret Hideout

Episode 8

Secret Hideout

October 6th, 1921 continued.

‘Not here!” Mr. McGillicuddy said. He stood a few feet in front of us, next to a giant obsidian statue. It was so odd to see him again.

“Not here!” he said again.

“We need your help,” I said.

“Come back next week!” he squeaked.

He put his finger to his lips, looking miffed, and then he teleported away.

I blinked, unsure of what had just happened. Then it all settled in. Mr. McGillicuddy was afraid of us, afraid of who we might have tailing us. Once again, he wasn’t willing to stick his neck out. Once again, he was going to let us fend for ourselves.

Not on my watch. I was fed up. I was sick and tired of being left on my own by Mr. McGillicuddy. To his credit, the man had helped me. He’d met me by the Iron Lion Bridge, he’d warned me a few times. He wanted to be cautious. I understood that. I respected that. But I think, ultimately, he was being a coward, and I wasn’t going to let my life dangle out in the open anymore.

I was like an orphan out in the snow with a terribly high fever.  It was true, if Mr. McGillicuddy let me into his nice, snug cottage, I might infect him and his family. He didn’t have to open the door and let me in. It was usually what you did, if someone was in danger of dying, unless you were a terribly squeamish person. I had a feeling Mr. McGillicuddy was that terribly squeamish person. He wasn’t going to let me in. But I was sick of freezing to death, and I’d reached the point where I was going to kick the door down.

So I did. I turned and faced Ariana.

“Ariana, my dear,” I said.

“Maude, my understanding wench.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “Follow me.” And then, because I was feeling snide, I said, “And don’t tell the Night Enthusiasts about it.”

“That was low!” Ariana said, as we hurried up the stairs.

“But you deserve it,” I said.

“Is this my life now?” Ariana said. “Being pestered forever about handing you over to them?”

“You’re a Night Enthusiast,” I said. “About to enter a camp of Non-Night Enthusiasts. You will be surrounded by ex-enemies. Every minute, you’ll be aware that you are something that they’re not, and that your identity is centered in opposing them.” I paused and looked back at her. “I don’t know where you stand, Ariana. Where you honestly stand. So I make mean jokes about it, because I’m uncomfortable. I’m sorry. I won’t do it anymore.”

“Forgiven,” Ariana said. “And shut up about me being A Night Enthusiast. I want to forget.”

So did I. Did I mention that the orphan freezing in the snow with a terribly high fever also had a venomous viper in her pocket?

We reached the second floor, and we stood right by the coats. I recognized a few of the treasures I used to pore over—peacock feather gloves, odd red coats that had Minerva Sweeney Wren written in the lining.

This was the same spot I’d first met Noble James. Do you remember, diary? He seemed to appear out of thin air, and we were both startled. We looked at each other, and I fell madly into infatuation. I felt chilled now, I mean I got absolute goosebumps, thinking that he was dead.

But that moment. That meeting. I’ve had two theories skimming around in my brain for some time now, and here they are.

Noble James tried to help me, and in the end, he was stabbed to death by Night Enthusiasts. Why would he help me, and why would he work against them? I think he turned on his crew. I think he started spying for Mr. McGillicuddy and working secretly against the Night Enthusiasts. Risky, yes, but that’s my suspicion. Because otherwise, I can’t explain why a Night Enthusiast would be casually popping up in McGillicuddy and Murders Pawn Shop.

So far so good. That’s one of my theories: that Noble James was betraying the Night Enthusiasts and working for Mr. McGillicuddy on the sly. That explains why I saw Noble in the pawn shop.

Here’s the other half of my theory.

Noble James hadn’t merely stumbled out of the coats. He’d teleported, but not in the usual way. I think… and this was my hope… that Noble James had been using a murder object.

I don’t recall smelling any blood, but… I don’t know. Maybe I missed it. Because, the thing is… if I was a highly skilled magic unusual, I wouldn’t teleport straight onto the second floor. Not while the Pawn Shop was open. I’d risk running into cute little Melinda Maudie Merkles, and then where would I be?

But maybe Noble James didn’t have a choice. Maybe he couldn’t teleport into a nice dark closet, because the murder object he was using was out in the open.

Why was he using a murder object? This is where it gets good.

My theory, from top to bottom, from start to finish… is that Mr. McGillicuddy, and his crew of magic unusuals, have a secret hideout. Just like the Night Enthusiasts. This secret hideout is where all the good magic unusuals live. And the secret hideout isn’t located in the pawn shop. Not technically. The secret hideout is hidden back in time, and it can only be accessed by a murder object.

And… if the murder object hadn’t been moved since Nobel James used it… then Ariana and I were standing right beside it.

“Start picking things up,” I said. “See if they’re a murder object.”

“Maude, you daft idiot,” Ariana said. “Everything in this pawn shop is a murder object.”

“What?” I said. “Everything?”

I’d already suspected that the Pawn Shop was filled with Murder objects. Hence McGillicuddy and Murders. But I’d also assumed some of the objects were a cover. You know. Mixed in with the murder objects for appearance’s sake.

“Yes. Everything.”

“What?” I said. “You mean all of these things were… I mean… murders… and…”

“They were all in the room when someone was murdered,” Ariana said. “That doesn’t mean they came off a corpse’s back. Not all of them. When someone is murdered, then anything in that room becomes a murder object. Any magic unusual can use it to return to the scene of the crime.”

I had questions. So many questions. I suddenly felt a little bit green, being connected to something so ghastly. It suddenly felt like everything was about murder, that the core of being a magic unusual was murder. Did we kill these people? Why was our power connected to death? To an unnatural, horrible death?

I wanted to know, but I didn’t have time. I turned to Ariana and made a joke.

“So everything in here in a murder object?” I said. 

“Yes.”

“So that dust bunny is a murder object?”

She paused, knowing she’d been defeated. “…Yes.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, good. Go try the dust bunny first.”

Ariana snorted, and we looked around at the objects nearby.

How did we pick one? If everything we touched could lead us back in time, then it would be essentially impossible to pick the right one. Too many options.  Because my guess was that the object wouldn’t take us straight to the Magic Unusual hideout; We’d have to walk six blocks to get there, or something. The possibilities were endless, so it would be impossible to choose.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ariana said.

I felt like my head was going to explode. This could take months. So much for kicking down Mr. McGillicuddy’s door.

“Um…” I stepped behind a rack of coats. I could hardly remember that day when Noble James first appeared, but, if my fading memory served me correctly, he’d sort of tumbled out from behind this coat rack.

And, if I ran a rare and unusual pawn shop, with my secret hideout hidden somewhere inside, I wouldn’t choose something valuable to be the murder object. I wouldn’t choose something that could be placed in a pocket or handbag. I would choose something dusty, and in the corner, and not worth the attentions of a kleptomaniac.

I stepped behind the coat rack, and there was nothing there. I paused for a moment, disgruntled, until I spotted it.

A nail jutted out from the wall, crooked and black. The wood around it had been worn smooth and glossy. This nail was touched, very often.

“You said anything could be a murder object?” I said to Ariana. “Anything at all?”

“As long as it was present in the room, during the murder,” Ariana said. “Yes.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “I think I’ve found it.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 8, Secret Hideout of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed.   
      
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 9, Trap Door

Episode 9

Trap Door

October 6th , 1921 continued.

It was a sheer stroke of genius, when you thought about it. I had to hand it to Mr. McGillicuddy. It was a hidden hideout like none other.

The Night Enthusiasts don’t do a very good job of hiding themselves. They just take a secret doorway down to a cave. Then again, the Night Enthusiasts are the aggressors. So they can afford to hide poorly.

Mr. McGillicuddy knew he had to hide his magic unusuals very carefully, and he had the foresight to choose a murder object, which was clever enough. A hideout hidden in time? Very difficult to find.

And then, Mr. McGillicuddy took this murder object, and he placed it in a giant pawn shop, a pawn shop stuffed from floor to ceiling with odd and fascinating murder objects. And then, he made the real murder object a nail, and he hammered it straight into the wall.

All in all, it was brilliant, and it was next to impossible to find. Of course, I’d found it. But no Night Enthusiast had found it yet.

Apart from the one I was about to lead into it. I felt dizzy all of a sudden, and sort of like an idiot.

“You don’t know where Mr. McGillicuddy’s hideout is, do you?” I asked Ariana.

She snorted. “Goodness. If I’d figured that out, I would have been everyone’s hero. What do you think I was doing all that time, while you and I were hiding out in the pawn shop?”

“Stabbing me in the back,” I said.

“Besides that,” she said cheerfully. “The Night Enthusiasts, and I, were also hoping Mr. McGillicuddy would show you and I the hideout. That he wouldn’t suspect me and let us both in. The Night Enthusiasts have been trying to get their hands on his hideout for decades.”

I turned and looked at her solemnly. “Ariana, I’m going to find McGillicuddy’s hideout. I’m going to meet those people and join their side. I’m going to find my magic unusual family. I’m also not going to leave you out in the cold, where Wrath can find you and murder you. But I don’t know how these Magic Unusuals will feel about me dragging a Night Enthusiast into their lair.”

Ariana sighed and looked at the ceiling, like she was trying not to appear as hurt as she was. “So?” she said.

“So they might tie you up and put you in a cage,” I said. “They may never let you leave again.”

“I’m not a Night Enthusiast anymore,” Ariana said. “I don’t work for them.”

“All right,” I said. “I’m just warning you. This isn’t going to be easy for you.”

“I’ll come with you, Maude,” Ariana said. “I don’t want to be alone, and even if Mr. McGillicuddy nails me to the wall by my ear, I’d rather come with you.” She added, low, “It’s about time I tried the good side.”

Ariana was right. The good side probably wouldn’t trade her life at a moment’s notice. They also weren’t going to nail her ear to the wall, but I figured she knew that already.

“All right,” I said. “Do you swear it? Because I know where their hideout is.”

“Wait, how long have you known?” Ariana said.

“I just figured it out.”

She gave me the evil eye. “How come you weren’t working for me all those weeks? I tried so hard.”

“Because I am a good person. Do you swear you won’t reveal the location? To anyone?”

“Maude—” She took my hand, like she was going to shake it. “I solemnly swear that I will never reveal the location of McGillicuddy’s hideout to any Night Enthusiast, even under torture. And if I do reveal it, you personally will have to come and kill me.”

“Har har,” I said.

We shook on it. Ariana had promised, although I wasn’t sure how much her promises were worth. At any rate, what’s done was about to be done. I was going to enter the hideout. And I was going to send Ariana ahead of me.

“You go first,” I said. “Grab that nail. That’s how you get in.”

She looked at me, confused, then spotted the nail in the wall.

“No,” she said. “No.” She leaned closer. “That is BRILLIANT. Aug.”

“You first,” I said, again.

Ariana looked all around the Pawn Shop. She might not have been a Night Enthusiast anymore, but she must have still treasured this moment. To be entering your old enemy’s lair, unawares… it was the sort of thing that curdled the blood, in the most delicious way.

Ariana grabbed hold of the nail, and teleported.

I felt a hush descend over the pawn shop. I took in this moment. After weeks of loneliness, after having no idea how to reach Mr. McGillicuddy, I was about to find him. Assuming my hunch was right. I thought about all those nights, feeling so alone, feeling so separate from the rest of the Magic Unusuals. Could the entrance to the hideout have been here, all along? Had they watched us? Did they know we were hiding in the Pawn Shop? We’d been so close, and yet so far, for so many weeks. It was like finding out there was a castle in your own backyard.

I grabbed the nail, pinching it between my fingers, like it would anchor me to this moment. Then I teleported.

Ariana was right there, but no one else was. As exciting as it would have been to teleport straight into a mess hall full of magic unusuals, we didn’t. We stood in a plain, boxy room. The walls were rough, unadorned wood. The floor was old and damaged, but it had been beautifully made once. I smelled cinnamon and cedar wood.

There was no body, at least not I could see. Whoever had been murdered here wasn’t lying in a heap for all to see. That made sense. I doubted the magic unusuals wanted to see a corpse every time they entered the hideout. But the room wasn’t plain, and it wasn’t devoid of grisly features. Across the wall in red paint, someone had smeared,

DEATH TO ALL MICE.

I do mean Mice. M-I-C-E. For a minute, I was about to burst into laughter, imagining that the murder that gave this room its power was a tiny gray mouse that had died in a trap.  Something told me that this wasn’t the murder scene of a mouse, however.  I didn’t know what MICE were, or why someone wanted them dead, but I guessed that they were human, and one of them had died in this room.

“Now what?” Ariana said. She turned to me.

“Uh…” I said. “It should be beyond here.”

I stepped up to the only door in the room, and I cracked it open. It led outside, into a blustery night.

It was a beautiful evening. I recognized where we were. We were in the very same city, in the old brewery district. I stood on the threshold of a large brown brick building. A brewery, I think. The air was blue and misty with twilight, and golden lanterns glowed across the street. The street was all brewery on this side, and all beautiful, wooden mansions on the other. The mansions were painted in soft shades of blue and dark pink, and old fashioned metal lanterns glowed on the porches.

I took a breath. It was lovely. I smelled green things, and horse dung, and sweet sawdust. I hadn’t known the city could smell so much like a farm.

“I think we might be in the 1850s,” I said to Ariana.

“Better squat so your skirt looks longer,” Ariana said. “Or you’ll get arrested.”

Stupid skirt. I’d had quite enough of that already, thank you. Me and my shockingly attractive ankles.

“Do you see anything that might point us in the right direction?” I said. “A secret symbol or a…”

I suddenly had another flash of insight. If I were hiding a secret base, I wouldn’t let anyone walk outside. Not in their 1920s garb. Not in front of a bunch of mansions.

I turned back inside. There were no other doors in the room. There wasn’t even any furniture. Then I spotted what I was looking for. Another nail, hammered into the far corner of the floor. It wasn’t much, but as soon as I noticed the nail, I noticed slits in the wood around it that formed the shape of a trap door.

We were almost there.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 9, Trap Door of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren. 

 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 10,  Prisoners of the Estate Room

Episode 10

Prisoners of the Estate Room

October 6th, 1921, continued

I squatted on the floor and looked down. I wasn’t wrong. A trap door was there, hidden in the curvature of the wood. I could feel cool air wafting up. Something was below this. Of course, there were several things it could be. A tomb. A pantry. A secret stash of booze, although this was the 1850s and alcohol hadn’t been illegal back then.

It could be the hiding spot of a few neighborhood tomboys. It could be an amphitheater for grisly sock puppets. It could be a underground lake, full of zombies or pirate corpses.  It could be a pagan ritual site for leprechauns.

But I knew it wasn’t any of those things. I felt fairly certain it was a secret basement entrance to a group of people from the 1920s called Magic Unusuals, who all had eyes that glowed in the dark.

I tugged at the nail, and the trap door rose. “Brilliant,” Ariana said, and I took a deep breath. As the trap door lifted, the smell of rose, and mahogany, and rich sea salt rose to meet me. It smelled like an old mansion, built on a sea cliff. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and opened the trap door the rest of the way.

“Why are your eyes shut?” Ariana said.

“Because I want it to be there so badly,” I said.

“Go ahead and look,” Ariana said.

I opened my eyes. I found myself looking down at a staircase built of stone, with letters carved into its blue-green surface.

You are entering the secret home of magic unusuals, the letters said. Enter at your own risk.

I felt quiet and elated all at the same time. Enthusiasm eventually won, and I stood up with a squeal.

“You go down first,” I said. “Just ahead of me.”

“Why?” Ariana said, in a slightly sour tone. She knew why. She just wanted to hear me say it.

“So you can’t run back to the Night Enthusiasts,” I said. “And trade this information for your life.”

Ariana exhaled, and she went down ahead of me. I sort of wished I didn’t have to follow her. It was my first time seeing the place, and I wanted to soak up the experience by going first.

But I followed Ariana down the staircase. The further down we went, the darker it became. There were no lights at the bottom. To top it off, I’d shut the trap door on my descent, and we could barely see. Then, all of a sudden, in the darkness, we heard laughter.

It wasn’t eerie, right beside you in the dark laughter. It was muffled, coming from one room away.

My head shot towards the sound. It sounded natural, homey. The fact that someone was laughing, and we were out here in the dark, made me feel bad. They had no idea we were coming. They were going to panic.

Ariana looked over at me, and her eyes glowed bright blue. My stomach clenched at the sight. I felt like I was hiding in the shadows with a wraith.

“Where’s the door?” Ariana whispered, and then I just decided to jump in with both feet.

“Hello?” I called. “It’s Melinda Maudie Merkle. I’m a magic unusual and I…er… come in peace.”

BAM.

We heard a single loud noise in the other room, and then everything went completely silent. I held my breath. Three seconds of silence ticked before Ariana hissed, “What did you do?”

I looked around. I couldn’t see a thing. There seemed to be even less light than before, if that were possible.

“They’re going to stab us in the dark,” Ariana said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said. I wished she’d stop talking. I couldn’t hear anything, and I wanted to be able to hear even the faintest scratches.

Then, all of a sudden, I heard a voice shout, right in front of me,

“Now!”

Lights snapped on. Arms reached out and grabbed Ariana and I. I yelped and struggled. We were surrounded. Fifteen or twenty magic unusuals had teleported into the corridor with us, and now everything was brightly lit. Someone held my arms firmly behind my back. Ariana was being constrained in the same way. A young man stepped forward, one side of his face lit in the light of a lantern.

“What did you say your name was?” he said.

He was staring at me, boring into me with his eyes. I stared right back.

“Melinda Maudie Merkle,” I said.

Some of the tension in the room diffused.

“What, the murderer?” a girl said, cheerfully.

“Oh, Maude,” the young man said. “All right. I know who you are. Noble James was—”

There was an awkward pause.

“Never mind Noble James,” a girl said. “We trust you, Maude, you’re all right. I mean, I suppose you’re all right. We’ll have to keep you in the estate room until Mr. McGillicuddy explains how you got here. No one was told you were coming.”

“I may have…. Sneaked in,” I said. “I figured out how to find the entrance, on my own.”

A few of them cast me suspicious glances.

“Estate room, then, I think,” the young man said. “I’m sorry, Maude, but we just can’t be too careful. You understand.”

“I do,” I said.

There was another awkward silence, during which every pair of eyes slid slowly onto Ariana.

“And who is this?” the young man said.

“Ah….” I said. “That… is a Night Enthusiast.”

Whoever was holding my arms behind my back tightened their grip. Some of the magic unusuals hissed and gasped. Ariana didn’t help matters much. She glared at all of them like a tiger.

“Put them in the estate room,” the young man said. “Now! And blindfold the Night Enthusiast, for God’s sake.”

“Should we blindfold her, too?” said a girl’s voice, behind me.

The young man looked at me, eyes sharp. “You know what? Yes. Get out a blindfold.”

Someone handed the young man a handkerchief, and he stepped up to me. He placed the blindfold over my eyes.

“I don’t know what you were thinking, coming here like this,” the young man said. “But I think you’re absolutely mad.”

With a sharp tug, he knotted the blindfold, and I could no longer see.

And with that, Ariana and I were ushered, blindfolded, to the estate room.

What happened after that? I have no idea.

Well, I know that they removed our blindfolds and locked us in here. The reason I don’t know what happens next is that I’m currently living it. I’m camped out on the floor, scribbling away. Ariana is pacing like a tiger in front of me, and it’s driving me absolutely batty. I’ve caught you up, diary, but I have no idea what happens next.

The estate room is very interesting. I haven’t seen any other part of this underground lair, but I like the look of this room. It’s got rich, deep green wallpaper. There’s a dark, gleaming table in the center of the room, and high bookshelves. The bookshelves are inlaid with mirrors, and things are gleaming and reflecting all around the room, in a peaceful, gloomy sort of way.

It smells like old carpet and moss and…. cedar.

They’ve left us water, in a crystal pitcher, and two crystal goblets. There’s no food, so at least they aren’t planning on leaving us in here overnight.

I do wonder what Mr. McGillicuddy is going to do with me, when he finds us here.

Let us recap, diary, since I am in a contemplative mood.

I am now more or less sure what murder objects are. They are anything that was present at the scene of a murder. Magic unusuals can use them to return to the scene of a crime. How that magic works exactly, I don’t know. Timelines are also complicated. Ariana tried to explain it to me, but I don’t know if it will ever make complete sense. It’s too much to wrap the human noggin around. When someone uses a murder object for the first time, time unlocks and starts moving forward, inside the murder object. Time has been progressing inside this secret basement for years. When we arrive now, it’s years after the murder was first committed, because magic unusuals have been inside the murder object moving time forward. It seems a bit daunting to understand, but Ariana said you get used to it.

Murder objects. They are fascinating. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is filled from floor to ceiling with them. No wonder the place gave me such a beautiful, whimsical feeling. Every object in it was an object of power. With a story. With a sadness.

Wrath is still at large. I wonder if he accepted the Ariana trade? She’s gone now, so did he say no to the trade after all? It’s hard to murder a girl who’s missing, so it hardly seems like a fair wager. Is her life in danger? Or has Wrath forgotten all about us?

Who are these people, these pawn shop magic unusuals who locked Ariana and I up? And, can we ever be friends?

I am not sure, but I remain forever yours, Maude.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 10, Prisoners of the Estate Room of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure. 
      
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 11, Questions and Plans
 
 
  

Episode 11

Questions and Plans

October 7th, 1921.

Well, I had a good sleep.

And by that, I mean I woke up on scratchy green carpet with a crick in my neck. Honestly, diary. Why am I cursed when it comes to sleeping in a bed? I sleep in cages and barns and then get one night in Buckingham palace, and then I spend the night on the floor. And it smells a little bit like mothballs. And crypt. 

Ariana tried to sleep on the table, because she said the floor was too scratchy. But I thought that made her look like a pagan sacrifice in the making. She finally gave up and slept upright in a chair. Needless to say, neither of us slept very well.

Before we went to bed, one of the Magic Unusuals came in around nine o’ clock and brought us sandwiches. She said, “Sorry, but Mr. McGillicuddy won’t be back until later, and we can’t let you out until then.”

I said I understood. Ariana sulked. But what else was there to do? I ate a sandwich. 

They were good, too. Full of beef and cucumber. 

That was all last night. At this point, I’m getting terribly bored. I wonder when Mr. McGillicuddy will be back, or if he went on a tour of France and won’t return until next year. 

I think I might try hammering on the door, and begging someone to talk to me.

Well, diary, it’s later. Much later, actually.

I tried listening at the door, but that was fairly boring. I heard people pass and greet each other cheerfully in the halls. I heard water run through pipes and doors slam. The Night Enthusiasts meet only occasionally in a cave. They seem to live separate lives, only gathering for rituals and cult meetings. These Magic Unusuals all seem to live here, like an underground boarding school for adult Magic Unusuals. It’s a charming prospect, but there’s only so much of it you can listen to, before you become more stir crazy than ever. 

Finally, when I was ready to start doing butterfly loop knots with Ariana’s hair, someone came in.

It was the young man from last night, the one who insisted we get locked in here. In good lighting, I saw that he was about nineteen years old. He carried himself very somberly. He was lean and had a large nose.

“I’m sorry that this is taking so long,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” I said.

“Do mention it,” Ariana said.

The young man cast Ariana a hostile glance.

“Pardon me, but I wasn’t talking to you.”

Ariana glared at him.

“We’ll be sending more food shortly,” the young man said to me. “My name is Rupert. I’m sorry that I can’t be of more assistance, but there’s protocol. I’m sure Mr. McGillicuddy will release you when he arrives. But until then, I’m going to keep things as they should be.”

“Why do you trust Maude so much?” Ariana said.

The young man’s lip stiffened, and he stared at the wall.

“Are you just going to act like I’m invisible?” Ariana said.

“The Night Enthusiasts killed my friend, and I’ll never forgive you,” Rupert said. “I don’t respect, speak to, or tolerate Night Enthusiasts. You’re lucky that you’re here at all.”

Ariana lay back in her chair and shut her eyes, furious.

I wanted to know who the Night Enthusiasts had killed, but I’d just met Rupert, and it didn’t seem appropriate to ask.

“You said you knew who I was,” I said. “Last night.”

“Well, yes,” Rupert said. “Assuming you are who you say you are, then you’re Maude Merkle, the one the Night Enthusiasts set up as a murderer.  That was quite the scandal down here, with us. We were shocked that even the Night Enthusiasts would do something like that. They killed real people, you know. For no reason, expect to hang your name on the crimes. We were outraged. There was even a conspiracy down here, to go and fetch you, expressly against Mr. McGillicuddy’s wishes. I was not part of that conspiracy, but I did sympathize with you.”

I made a mental note, to find out who had been a part of that conspiracy, and go befriend them. 

“So, anyway, Maude, if there’s anything I can do to make this waiting game easier on you…”

“There is,” I said.

“Yes?” he said. “What would you like?”

“What would I like?” I said. “I want to learn how to cast a skull spell. I want to know exactly who Noble James was. I want to know why he stopped working for The Night Enthusiasts and starting working secretly for Mr. McGillicuddy.” I paused, and I cast an awkward glance at Ariana. “I want to know how he regained the part of his soul that he killed, if he did regain it. I want to know how he became good again.” Ariana stared fixedly at the ceiling. “I want to know who you all are, and what you call yourselves. Day Enthusiasts? Light Enthusiasts?”

Rupert smirked. 

“I want to know what it is you do, and what makes you different from the Night Enthusiasts, and when that rift began. I want to know what part of themselves Night Enthusiasts kill, if you know the answer to that.”

This time, it was Ariana’s turn to cast an awkward glance at me. 

“That’s too many questions,” Rupert said. “But once you’re free to move about the Basement, we’ll teach you how to cast skull spells. And everything else. It may seem daunting at first, but there aren’t many spells you can cast as magic unusual. They tend to revolve around teleportation only. Most people have a unique magic unusual power, and that’s how we specialize and really get things done. Otherwise, you can teleport, can skull spells... not much else. And if you don’t mind,” he said, casting a cruel glance at Ariana, “I’d rather not talk about Noble James just now.”

“All right,” I said.

“But as to what we’re called?” Rupert said. “We’re not so pretentious that we have a name. Not officially. We say, “I belong to the Pawn Shop.’ You know. If someone were to ask you, ‘Oh, are you a Night Enthusiast?” you’d say, “No, I belong to the Pawn Shop.”

I liked it.     

“Do you have an initiation ceremony?” I said. “Something dangerous on the bottom of the sea?”

“What do you think we are, a cult? Rupert said. “You belong to the Pawn Shop if you want to. And if you’re willing to keep all the bits of your soul alive. We’re not the only good crew of Magic Unsuals out there. And the Night Enthusiasts aren’t the only crew of bad magic unusuals out there. Magic Unusuals are all over the world. Some communities are better than others. Personally, I think we’re the best of the best. But in this part of the world, we’re the ones in conflict with each other. The Night Enthusiasts, and the ones that belong to the Pawn Shop. We’d be happy to mind our own business, but someone has to keep the Night Enthusiasts in line. The Night Enthusiasts are more dangerous than most groups. And they can do more magic than we can. Because… well, because they do things they shouldn’t to get that power.” There was an awkward pause. “I’m sorry, do you need anything else? More food? Water?”

“Some blankets and books might be nice,” I said.

“I’ll see to it,” Rupert said. He nodded to me, ignored Ariana, and ducked out.

I heard him lock the door, and then I heard him say, “What’s that?”

I shuffled closer and laid my ear against the wood. A girl was talking to Rupert in low tones outside.

“You know you shouldn’t,” the girl said.

“Shouldn’t what?”  Rupert snapped.

“It’s dangerous having her here,” the girl said. ‘I think we should tell her to leave.”

“Mr. McGillicuddy never intended to throw her out,” Rupert said. “He intended to get her here, eventually, when it was safe. Well, she’s here. This is what he wanted, in the long run. He’s not going to kick her out. She’s one of us.”

“It’s not safe to have her here, and you know it,” the girl said.

They weren’t talking about Ariana, they were talking about me. I’m not used to being the center of attention, and I keep forgetting how dangerous and important I could be, if I chose. A magic unusual who can break spells and curses with a single spoken wish?

Not that I know what I’m doing yet. I couldn’t get out of that Night Enthusiast cage. But sooner or later, I’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

Does that thought give you the shivers, diary? It does me.

Suddenly, in the hallway outside, someone new joined the conversation.

“Mr. McGillicuddy is here,” a boy said. “And he’s mad.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 11, Questions and Plans of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed.    
        
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 12, Magic Unusuals, Dead and Gone

Episode 12

Magic Unusuals, Dead and Gone

October 7th 1921, continued

Diary, I feel like waxing philosophically.

Do you know what the worst thing about being a Magic Unusual is? It’s the sense that you’re not quite human anymore.

Now, before I became a Magic Unusual, I always felt like I wasn’t quite human. My head had stars in it, and I never thought the way anyone else did. I felt things, saw things, wished for things that seemed too peculiar for an ordinary person. Take me and the Pawn Shop. I was drawn to it. Because I’m odd.

But back then… I relished the idea of not quite being human, because it was a joke. I had fairy blood in me, I would say. I was part pixie. I belonged to another world, not this one, and it was fun to think about.

Then it all became terribly real. It doused me in cold water, the idea that I was in fact unique. And with that idea came joy. But also terror.

Because if you’re not quite human anymore, then who do you belong to? Hobgoblins and ghouls? Their images line the pages of my fairytale books, and I can’t curl up with them anymore than I can curl up with the moon. The worst thing about being a magic unusual is that sense that you’ve been abandoned by humanity. And until that moment, you never knew how precious humanity was.

Diary, today I greet you as a girl who no longer feels that way.

Mr. McGillicuddy came. I expected him to charge into the estate room, rail at me, spew at Ariana, panic and fuss and make a scene and interrogate us both. Instead, he didn’t come into the estate room at all. He talked in low tones to Rupert in a nearby room. I could hear them talking, but not what they said.

Then, after several minutes, Mr. McGillicuddy came around to the estate room. But he still didn’t come in. He unlocked the door and stuck his head in and said, “Yes, that’s Maude.”

Then he shut the door again.

Ariana and I sat together on the end of the table, and by the time Rupert returned to tell us our fate, we were holding hands, terrified of the answer. Rupert stepped into the room and cleared his throat and said,

“Maude, you’re free to live in The Secret Basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. You’re free to leave the estate room, and ask for classes, and find a bedroom of your own.” He turned to Ariana and said, “Night Enthusiast… you have the protection of Mr. McGillicuddy. He wants you to stay here, until we know what Wrath is going to do. However, if you remain here, he requests that you stay in a locked room. We have one ready and prearranged.”

“Locked room like what?” Ariana said. “Locked room like this?”

“No,” Rupert said. “It has a bed, and underground window, and access to the library.”

“Why weren’t we staying in there already?” Ariana said.

Rupert turned to me. “Maude, if you’d like to leave.”

“What about Ariana?” I said.

“Her room will be ready in fifteen minutes,” Rupert said. “You can visit her whenever you wish.”

I looked at Ariana. She shrugged. “One of us may as well go free,” she said. “I’ll see you later?”

“Of course,” I said.

She gave me a real smile as I was led out. The second my feet crossed the threshold, my heart started fluttering. So this was what it looked like out here! The walls were dark wood paneling, almost black in places. Red curtains hung here and there, and hundreds of pictures lined the walls. The most appealing thing, for me, was the way the hallway led off in six different directions from the place I stood. I could see into a large living area, where a few magic unusuals played cards, seated on dark pink couches. I could also see a staircase going up, and a staircase going down. From the look of it, this place promised a hundred small rooms, a billion nooks and crannies.

“Do I have a room?” I said to Rupert, as he locked the door.

“I already told you, you’re free to find one,” he said.

“But… what does that mean?” I said

Rupert handed me a small copper rectangle. My name was etched onto the surface. Melinda Maudie Merkle.

“Well, the place is pretty extensive,” Rupert said. “We lose track of all the rooms. If you find a spot you like, and there isn’t a name on the door, go ahead and claim it.”

Even they didn’t know how many rooms were in this place? I was going to love it here. 

“Thank you,” I said.

“Chin chin,” Rupert said. He walked off.

Now I was free. He’d left me perfectly alone to do whatever I wished. Perhaps I ought to have looked for Mr. McGillicuddy, or gone and introduced myself to all the other magic unusuals here. But I wanted to be alone, and I wanted to explore, so I clutched my copper nameplate, and I took the staircase going up.

The Secret Basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is exactly what would happen if someone bought everything from the pawn shop, and used it to furnish a beautiful old mansion. An old mansion, that is, that mostly consisted of hallways. Doors were scattered everywhere. A few had name plates on them, and those I left alone, but anything unclaimed I flung wide open.

I didn’t understand this place, or how it worked, but I was mesmerized. Every room was completely unique: cluttered with beauty and whimsy. One room was nothing but leather bound books. Another was made of glass, and it looked out on the rolling, cold waves of Norway.

It was just an extension of the Pawn Shop. The secret part of it. The home part of it.

I grew so excited I started running. I could still hear laughter echoing from the center of the secret basement, but I felt deliciously alone and secretive as I flitted from room to room.

I passed by two rooms that were too pink, and one that was too mustard-colored, but really, I was ignoring those rooms because I still felt too close to the others. I wanted my room to be up and away, like the secret corner of a secret attic. Near everyone, and yet far enough away to be entirely mine.

I had just climbed another small staircase, ascending into cinnamon-scented darkness, when I found something that frightened me.

Noble James was staring at me out of the wall. Except it wasn’t Noble James. It was a portrait of him, done in oil paint. His eyes looked sad. Poetical. Once again I thought he looked like a British Lord. Someone regal and lonely who wrote poetry on soggy river banks.

The oil painting was framed in a dark red cloth. Two candles burned on either side of it. I stepped closer, reverent. On a small plaque was written,

In Loving Memory of Noble James, killed while masquerading as a Night Enthusiast, in the service of his fellow man. He belonged to the Pawn Shop.

I stared, transfixed. Noble James had never been a Night Enthusiast. He’d been a spy.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 12, Magic Unusuals Dead and Gone of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren.   
        
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 13, Wrath Returns

Episode 13

Wrath Returns

October 7th, 1921, continued

I’m not sure why the revelation floored me so much, diary. But it did.

Noble James had never been a Night Enthusiast. He’d been a good man all along. He’d always belonged to the Pawn Shop. He’d been stabbed by the Night Enthusiasts because they’d found out what he was.

Why did they find out what he was? Because of me. Noble James had been undercover, successfully and brilliantly masquerading as a Night Enthusiast, discovering secret plans and sending valuable information over to the pawn shop. He’d probably worked for years on getting that position. It was dangerous, and delicate, and then he’d gone and ruined it for me.

I wasn’t worth that. I wasn’t worth Noble James risking discovery. He’d wanted to help me, because I was alone and being pinned for murder. So he’d reached out to me, but the Night Enthusiasts had caught him. It explained so many things. Who had stabbed him that night under the bridge and why. I suddenly understood who he was.

Two thoughts sprang to my mind. The first filled me with stupefaction. Night Enthusiasts kill a part of their soul. How had Noble James accomplished that? Had he really killed part of himself? That was quite the act of dedication. Or had he managed to trick the Night Enthusiasts somehow?

On the heels of that thought, the second thought came crashing down on me. Ariana. I still held out hope that she could be normal again. Healed. Repaired. Made whole. That whatever she’d killed in that cave under the sea could be restored to her. I’d always looked to Noble James as an example, proof that what was wrong could be made right. Noble James had been a Night Enthusiast. He’d seen the light. He’d reformed. He was proof that Ariana could cease to be a villain.

But now that hope was gone. Noble James had belonged to the Pawn Shop since the beginning.

I felt desolate, but I decided not to despair too quickly. Ariana might still recover her lost soul bits one day.

I tiptoed out of that hallway to find another corridor. I didn’t want a bedroom that was haunted by the oil painting of Noble James.

A few hallways later, I found exactly what I was looking for. It was a quiet, dark little room with a high latticed window. The window looked out onto a twilit manor in Britain or Germany… The view was nothing but leafy green trees, and I could see one corner of an ancient stone house. People moved in the windows. It was better than the motion pictures.

There was a large sofa, big enough to turn into a bed. The room was full of floating shelves and blue glass orbs. When I tapped on the glass of one orb, it lit up.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “This will do nicely.”

I walked outside and laid my nameplate against the wood of the door. It adhered itself to the wood for me. And just like that, I had a bedroom.

After that, I went back and joined the other magic unusuals, to see about meeting people.

Meeting people Yes. Things were a bit awkward at first, as you can imagine. I mean, I’m not just a new magic unusual. I brought Ariana. I broke in, when I wasn’t supposed to. These people have had fights about me for the last few weeks, about whether or not I should be admitted at all. I’m the stuff of legend!

I sat down on the couch, in the living room area, and I just looked around the room, hoping and praying someone would speak to me. There was a group over by the fireplace, and they just stared at me. I honestly never encountered anything like that before in my life. It wasn’t cruel or malicious. It wasn’t kind either. They just didn’t acknowledge my existence. I wasn’t one of them, therefore I did not exist.

But then, a pack of other magic unusuals entered, and they brightened up at the sight of me.

They invited me to join them for dinner, which we had in a beautiful old dining room, full of black wood and peacock feathers. The food was good, and I decided I wanted to volunteer to help in the kitchen from time to time. We had a roast chicken and baked sweet potatoes, and someone made a blueberry pie.

I felt much better about things after that.

After dinner, I climbed back up to my room, and what do you suppose I found next door to it?

A bathroom. But not just any bathroom. Everything inside of it is black, which sounds miserable and dark, but it isn’t. Tiny black tiles cover the floor and half of the wall, and they shimmer in tones of green. There’s a huge claw-footed tub, and an iron wreathed window that looks out on a starry sky. The whole room smells like juniper.

When you step inside, music starts playing. It completely had me creeped at first, but then I realized that the music came from a few peculiar objects in the room. When one object goes silent, another one starts up. The music was beautiful, and emotional, and a little bit haunting. The perfect place to take a bath.

I took a bath, of course. The water smelled like tropical fruit, and it stayed foamy. The room was lit with black candelabras, and everything felt clean and quiet and shining. Add to that that I was up in the far recesses of the secret basement. It feels like I discovered a room that no one else knows about.

Baths make me contemplative, especially when there’s haunting music. Do you know the thought I had? So hard to write about, so peculiar to explain?

I am who I want to be.

I am. I don’t know what to do about it. I wanted to be a girl who had adventures, who discovered unusual places, who lived an unusual life. I wanted a community. I wanted a story. I wanted to know that I belonged somewhere, that I had something to fight for.

And now I do! And do you know what? I don’t know how to cope with that. I always assumed that I would be different on the inside when things changed outwardly for me. But deep down, I still feel like a coward. I still feel stupid and afraid of my own life and a little bit… yellow. Like down in the depths of me, I’m the wrong color. I thought finding this life would make me the right color on the inside. But I still feel a little bit… like the color of earwax.

Well, at least one thing is positive, and that’s that things feel damn near perfect on the outside. What a life I’ve stumbled into! Now if I can only convince myself that I deserve it, then all will be well.

Diary, do you know where I am right now? I am curled up in my new bed with damp hair, nestled under an enormous comforter, feeling like the Queen of Sheba. And now to bed, and now to bed! I will write again in the morning.

October 8th, 1921.

Good morning, diary:

Let me see. What are our plans for the day? Eggs. Definitely eggs. Learning how to cast a few magic unusual spells? I should say so. Finding out which ones of the magic unusuals here wanted to go abduct me when I was lost and on my own, expressly against the wishes of Mr. McGillicuddy? Befriending them will definitely be a part of our day.

The things I’m most excited about this morning are—

Diary, I’ve got to come back, I’m sorry. They’re shouting downstairs. Something about Wrath. I think he’s done something horrible.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 13, Wrath Returns of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure.     
        
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 14, Train Cars Again.

Episode 14

Train Cars Again

October 10th, 1921.

There were only rumors. We waited the whole day in an agony of suspense. I started to make friends but I’ll have to tell about them later, there isn’t time.

Mr. McGillicuddy finally returned. We congregated in the living room. Have you ever been by the water late at night, and you leave a bit of food out in the open? If you sit very still, rats start coming. They creep out. And more rats than you ever thought existed are suddenly scrabbling for the food. They were there all along, in nooks and rocks and crevices, but you had no idea. It’s eerie. You were surrounded, and you didn’t know it. 

I felt like that now. I had no idea so many magic unusuals lived here, in the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. I’d seen maybe fifteen of them. Well, there were at least fifty. All different ages, from eighteen to eighty. We congregated, and we all stared with blanched faces, looking at Mr. McGillicuddy. He stood very still by the fireplace.

“Oh, hello, Maude,” he said. He nodded to me. “How are you assimilating?”

He looked tired, but kind. I was grateful for the kindness. I had endangered his crew. But he seemed resigned to me now, more or less relieved that I was here at last. 

“Fine, thank you,” I murmured. I hated the feeling of every eye in the room looking at me. 

Mr. McGillcuddy cleared his throat. “Well, you’re all here now, no thanks to those of you who can’t take news calmly, and insist on shrieking and running from room to room.” Mr. McGillicuddy glared at select magic unusuals. “What you’ve heard is true. Hester Rathbone is back, and he’s… well, Maude, you’ve seen him more recently than I have.” He looked at me. All of a sudden, every pair of eyes was back on me. 

I exhaled slowly.  

“Uh…. Hester Rathbone is calling himself Wrath,” I said. “He killed three Night Enthusiasts in front of me, using gas that he acquired by going back in time to a battlefield of the Great War. He’s partially made of wood now. He’s very… mad. He wants to kill all the Night Enthusiasts. Last I heard, he was willing to kill Ariana, the girl we have hidden here, in exchange for all their lives, but then Ariana and I escaped. I have no idea what his plan is, if he still intends to kill her, or if he’s moved on to something else.”

“At this point, I think he’s moved on to something else,” Mr. McGillicuddy said dryly. “Wrath has taken five Night Enthusiasts, including the leader, Dawn Mumungus, and he’s put them inside of murder objects.”

I paused. Everyone else seemed to know what this was. They were horrified by it. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Rupert caught my confused expression, and he came closer. He started to mumble to me, under his breath, 

“Putting someone’s soul inside a murder object is when—”

Mr. McGillicuddy cut him off. 

“Rupert, why are you mumbling?”

Rupert stood up very straight. “I’m sorry, Sir, I only thought it was unfair that Maude didn’t know what that meant.”

Mr. McGillicuddy sighed. “Yes. Well. I suppose we ought to explain. 

“It’s a horrible form of magic. Only a Night Enthusiast would stoop to a spell like that. It ruins souls. It destroys minds. It locks a human’s soul and flesh into a murder object. They’re trapped inside. That’s what the train car was, the train car that Wrath was imprisoned in for three years. It was a child’s toy, present at a murder scene. The Night Enthusiasts caught Hester and bound him into that murder object. Now, he’s done the same to them.” 

“Can they be broken out of it?” I said.

Mr. McGillicuddy narrowed his eyes at me.

“Normally,” he said. “Spells such as those can’t be broken. They’re a death sentence. A very cruel one. There have only been eight recorded instances, in all of magic unusual history, where a human soul was locked into a murder object. In time, seven of those eight souls departed, consumed by the object. Wrath is the only one to ever survive.”

The way Mr. McGillicuddy looked at me made my flesh creep.

“I’m the only one who can get them out?” I said. 

“Yes,” Mr. McGillicuddy said.

The magic unusuals all began to talk at once. I heard snatches of conversation. “What will we do with them afterwards?” “Is it too late? Will they still have their minds?” 

Thank goodness no one was saying, “They’re evil, let’s just leave them in there.”

No matter how twisted the Night Enthusiasts might be, no of us wanted to see another human being lost to a fate like that. 

“Will you get them out, Maude?” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Are you willing?”

“Well, of course I’m willing,” I said. “I just don’t know if I know how.”

“You used your power to release Wrath.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how my power works.”

“If you’re referring to why your power hasn’t worked on certain things,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “It’s because not everything is a spell. You couldn’t say ‘I wish to escape from the Night Enthusiasts cave’ because that teleportation barrier isn’t a spell. It was someone’s magic unusual power. A Night Enthusiast, long ago, used their unique magic unusual power to create that barrier. You can’t combat magic unusual powers. My unique magic unusual power is borrowing doors. That’s why there are so many rooms in this basement. When I collect a door, the door’s history turns into a room. I only have to attach the door to some hinges, and the room appears, filled with beautiful things. It’s rather addictive, as you can imagine. But you could never remove one of my rooms with your wish, because your power cannot break other powers. It can only break spells.”

‘So I can say, ‘I wish’ to any spell, and it will break?” I said. 

“That is correct,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. 

“Can I say it now?”

“You have to be near the spell, physically, for it to work,” Mr. McGillicuddy said.

“So all I have to do is reach the Night Enthusiasts who are trapped inside murder objects, and break the spell?”

Mr. McGillicuddy suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Once you reach them, things should be fairly simple,” he said. “Assuming the Night Enthusiasts have the decency to let you walk free afterwards. The only problem is…”

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

“Wrath is holding them hostage,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “He’s guarding the murder objects so they can’t be stolen. He is hiding out in the Night Enthusiast’s own cave. He wants to lure the remaining Night Enthusiasts to himself, so he can kill them. He thinks the Night Enthusiasts will come to rescue their leaders. In that, I think he is mistaken. I think the Night Enthusiasts will never set foot in their cave again, as long as Wrath is standing in it.

“Wrath is no longer one of us. He has done things that someone who belongs to the Pawn Shop would never do. He needs to be stopped. He is now our highest priority, our most important mission. Maude, we will be bending all our skills towards getting Wrath out of the Night Enthusiasts cave. He won’t be easy to trick, and he will be impossible to remove by force. If we attack, he could kill dozens of us before we killed him, and I will not have that. We will have to remove him through wit and trickery. That is the only way I will agree to. Once we’ve gotten him out, your job will be to sneak in and break the spell. We’ll only be able to remove him, I think, for one or two minutes at most.”

“How will I get in undetected?” I said. “If there’s only one entrance, he’ll see me going in when he’s going out. He knows I have the power to release them, he won’t let me pass. Unless I should teleport?”

“I am afraid that Dawn Mumungus personally and singlehandedly controls who teleports into the cave,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “With magic of her own. Since she is currently made of wood, that way is shut. You cannot teleport into the cave.

“I have heard, however, that there is a second, secret entrance to the Night Enthusiast cave. A kind of priests’ hole that can be accessed in times of emergency. If you can gain access to it, if you can find a secret way down into the cave, then you will be able to watch and wait for the very instant that we get Wrath out. You can break the spell and return to the priests hole within that window of time. I don’t know how to find that secret entrance. I doubt Wrath knows that it exists. Discovering it will be up to you.”

“All right,” I said.

“We will begin at once,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Maude, I suggest you start hunting down the secret entrance immediately.”

“Mr. McGillicuddy?” I said. “What are the murder objects? The ones the Night Enthusiasts are trapped in?”

“Ah,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Toy train cars. Wrath has made new train cars for them.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 14, Train Cars Again, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed. 
  
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 15, Well Met, Dear Ghost

Episode 15

Well Met, Dear Ghost

October 10th, 1921 continued.

After that, we all dispersed. Magic unusuals ran right and left, while Mr. McGillicuddy stood in the center and looked at his watch. He muttered something into it. Sending a message to someone, perhaps? He’d scared the living daylights out of me with his message a few days ago. Perhaps someone else was about to see a magical recording of Mr. McGillicuddy, his face like a moving picture inside a watch.

“Mr. McGillicuddy,” I said. I stepped up to him.

“Yes, Maude?” He clicked the watch shut.

“How long do we have?”

“Oh,” Mr. McGillcuddy said. “We’re probably already too late. For no damage to occur to them, that is. I don’t really know. Do I wish we could rescue them right this minute? Yes. We will be flying from one idea to the next until we get this right, but I don’t think we’ll hit on the right idea tonight. And once we have the idea, we’ll have to arrange its execution. I think you have at least twenty-four hours, my dear. Hopefully not much longer than that.”

“I will find the secret entrance before then,” I said. “I swear it.”

Mr. McGillicuddy smiled, in a patronizing kind of way. I wonder if he found me too eager.

“You’d best hurry,” he said.

I stepped to a corner of the room and rubbed my arms. I wasn’t going to sleep for awhile, that was certain. I pinched the tip of my nose and stared into the light of a candle, to help myself wake up.

“Think, Maude,” I said. “you dizzy-headed fish. Where would you start finding a secret entrance to the Night Enthusiast’s cave?”

Ariana, of course.

I asked to gain access to her room, and I was let inside. The girl in charge of the key locked the door behind me, but she did send me in with a plate of cookies.

Ariana’s prison was a larger room, red and pink, with tones of russet and gold. Like most of Mr. McGillicuddy’s borrowed doors, this door had created a room with windows. The view was magnificent. Whirls of snow and dark chattering trees.

“Ah, you’ve brought cookies,” Ariana said. “Is that to bribe me?”

“Yes,” I said. I went and sat down on her bed. “How are you so far?”

“Feeling like a girl trapped in a train car,” she said.

“Now’s not really the time to make jokes about that,” I said. I explained what had happened, and that I needed to know about the secret entrance.

“My head is spinning,” Ariana said. She pressed her fingertips into her temples. “But whichever side I’m on, I want you to get them out of those train cars.” She looked up at me, her eyes earnest. “I wish I knew where the secret entrance is. But I don’t.”

“You don’t?” I said. I had twenty-four hours, and Ariana was my only lead.

“No, but I have a very slight clue,” she said. She popped a cookie into her mouth and started chewing. “I once saw Madam Mumungus in the old Oslow Cemetery. She looked secretive and grumpy, so I hid behind a tree and didn’t let her see me. There are no Mumunguses buried in Oslow Cemetery, and trust me, I would have noticed a tombstone with a last name like that.”

“What did she do?” I said.

“Well, that’s just it, she was leaving,” Ariana said. “So I didn’t get to see what she’d been up to. But Oslow Cemetery isn’t far from The Purgatory Lounge. If you ask me, I bet there’s a secret entrance hidden inside one of the crypts.”

I got up. “Thank you! I’ll start there.”

I got up, put a cookie in my pocket, and then stood there awkwardly.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Maude,” Ariana said. “It’s ….better.”

“You’re sure you’re not bored?” I said.

“Oh, I’m bored,” she said. “But it’s still better than the life I had before I met you. I’ll work something out.” She gave me a quick hug. “Off you go then.”

I nodded. I wished I was bringing her with me.

I left Ariana’s room and made my way to the entrance of the secret basement. Mr. McGillicuddy and some of the other Magic Unusuals were in the living room bent over maps and papers. I left them to their planning, and I slipped up the staircase.

It felt strange to be leaving again so soon. I pushed open the trap door, and I once again entered that strange room, saw the red lettering, DEATH TO ALL MICE. After a little searching, I located the nail, and I gripped it. With a gentle tug of teleportation, I found myself once again in McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

The Pawn Shop no longer felt empty. It felt like the gentle, beautiful shell that housed everything I’d been looking for.

I’d been past Oslow Cemetery before, so I shut my eyes and imagined the spot. I teleported outside the gates, into a cold wind. I felt bitten into, like the night was a sulking ferret that wanted to get me back.

I looked left and right, and then teleported directly inside the cemetery. There’s something peaceful about a graveyard at night. In the past it would have also been terribly spooky, but I’m the ghost now. My eyes glow in the dark, and I can vanish any time I wish. It’s hard to be afraid of anything when you can disappear in a split second.

I wandered up and down, feeling cold and lost. And purposeless. What was I supposed to do, walk up to every crypt and knock on the door? I took back my previous thought about graveyards no longer being spooky. Knocking on someone’s sepulcher was something entirely different. I could envision a harrow-faced, blue, glowing, gloomy old man coming to the door and staring at me with the eyeballs of hell.

I selected a crypt at random and walked towards it. What if this was a complete waste of my time? What if I searched all night until my fingers were numb, and this cemetery had nothing to do with the secret entrance to the Night Enthusiast cave? What if Ariana had been pulling my leg, mad at me, mad at the Night Enthusiasts, ready to send me on a wild goose chase to get revenge on all of us?

I was feeling frustrated already, when I stepped up to the crypt, and saw something inside.

It was a light. A small puff of orange light. For a moment, I thought it was the eye of the evil dead, winking at me, and then I realized it was a match being struck. Ghosts don’t strike matches. Someone was inside that crypt, lighting a ciggy.

I froze, not sure what to do next. Had they seen me? I could see into the crypt through a small glass window, and whoever was inside could probably see out. Was it too dark, or could they see me? Was the moon out? Oh, never mind, my eyes glowed in the dark. They’d seen me.

They also appeared to have dropped their match.

I shut my eyes and waited. I wasn’t sure what to do next. If it was a Night Enthusiast in there, would they retreat into the secret entrance? I was acting ridiculous! It was probably some street urchin wanting a private smoke. There were no glowing—

Oh! Nevermind. There were the eyes.

I felt, in a strange way, like I was looking into a mystic mirror. Beyond the iron framework of the door, eyes like mine glowed back at me.

Finally, I decided I’d had enough indecision. I grabbed the cold handle of the crypt door and tugged. I stepped into the stale air beyond and said,

“Who are you?”

There was a startled silence. I could hear the other person breathing. Based on how tall they were, I guessed they were a man.

Then, the other Magic Unusual lit their match again and tipped the flame into a candle. Our faces were suddenly illuminated.

“Oh,” the man said. “Maude.”

I stared. I gaped. My heart did somersaults, and I felt the thrill anyone feels when they come face to face with a ghost.

The person in the crypt with me was Noble James.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 15, Well Met, Dear Ghost, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren. 
  
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 16, An Unexpected Twirl

 Episode 16

An Unexpected Twirl

October 10th, 1921, continued.

Noble James was alive. Staring at me.

I was still gaping. It wasn’t very suave. I had had quite the crush on Noble James once. I say once. It was only a few weeks ago. In that time span, I’d realized he was evil, realized he was trying to help me, he died, and then I realized he’d been good all along. And now he was alive again. Staring at me.

I assumed he was alive. He might have been a ghost. He seemed solid. And he smelled like mint!

All that to say, I wish I could have acted suave. Because not too many days ago, the sight of him would have made my heart go pitta pat. I wanted to be dashing. Charming. As it was, my heart did go pitta pat, but only because a dead man was standing in front of me.

“Well,” Noble James said.

“Hello,” I said. And then, very eloquently, I added, “I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I am dead,” Noble James said. “As far as everyone else is concerned.”

I very nearly poked him in the arm, to see if he was solid.

“You’re a ghost?” I said.

He smiled. He was laughing at me. But in a nice way.

“No, I’m not,” he said. “And that’s thanks to you.”

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“That day in the hospital,” he said. “I was lying there dying. You probably remember. I couldn’t heal from my wounds, because the Night Enthusiasts had cursed the knife that stabbed me. My wounds wouldn’t heal, because of a spell. You said you wished it hadn’t happened to me. And then, it hadn’t. You broke the spell on the knife and I healed. I got up off that bed within twenty-four hours.”

“But everyone thinks you’re dead,” I said.

“That’s because I want them to think I’m dead,” he said. “I was undercover for almost a year, pretending to be a Night Enthusiast. Now, the Night Enthusiasts know I wasn’t one of them. And I’d like to keep my skin. Also, you can go pretty much anywhere and do pretty much anything when you’re dead. No one is expecting you.”

“But there’s an oil painting of your dead carcass in the basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s,” I said.

“Is there?” Noble said. “I’m rather flattered.”

“So everyone thinks you’re dead?” I said.

“Everyone.”

“Even the Pawn Shop?” I said.

“Even the Pawn Shop,” he said.

I cracked a sly smile. “So I ruined your plan.”

He grinned. “Yes, you are trouble, aren’t you? I guess I won’t be able to let you out of my sight. I can’t have you revealing my secret to anyone.”

“Well, if I’m going to stay in your sight,” I said. “Then you’re going to have to change your plans to my plans.”

I told him about the train cars. About the 24 hour deadline, and how I needed to find the secret entrance before then. Noble looked very grim.

“I knew Wrath once,” he said softly, and that was it.

“I’m hoping this is where you say, ‘I know where the secret entrance is. Come along now. I’ll take you.” I said.

“Sorry,” Noble said. “The secret entrance was reserved for the elite, the most important Night Enthusiasts. Dawn Mumungus knew about it. Maybe two others. That’s it. Most Night Enthusiasts only knew it as a rumor. The fact that McGillicuddy knows about it at all is due to me.  I still haven’t been able to find it.”

“That fact that you were looking for a year and still haven’t found it doesn’t bode well for my twenty-four hours,” I said.

And let’s face it. My twenty-four hours were dwindling.

“But you at least have my year’s worth of experience on your side now,” Noble James said. “I’ll help you start looking.”

“Is the secret entrance here by any chance?” I said. “Ariana said that she saw Dawn Mumungus here once, near a crypt.”

“Ariana saw Madam Mumungus entering this crypt,” Noble said. “But not for the secret entrance, I’m afraid. The secret entrance, I know for sure, is physical. It’s not reached by teleportation or through a murder object. In my year of looking I learned that much. The entrance is near the Night Enthusiast cave. It leads directly into it through a series of passages.”

“You’re sure there’s no trap door in here?” I said.

“Sorry,” Noble said. “No.”

“Completely sure?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what’s this crypt?” I said.

“It leads to the Night Enthusiast prison,” Noble said.

I paused. A feeling of dread settled over me. “The Night Enthusiasts have a prison?”

“Yes.”

He paused. Noble James wasn’t much of a talker. I wanted details.

“But they locked me in a bird cage,” I said.

“And you’re lucky,” Noble said. “They put you there because they wanted you to join. The prison is for their enemies, people they want taken out of the equation. If they ever get their hands on Mr. McGillicuddy, that’s where he’ll go. It’s where Wrath was, in his train car, for a very long time.”

“Do you know who put Wrath in McGillicuddy and Murder’s?” I said. “The wooden train car wasn’t there for more than a few days. It was like someone wanted me to find it, wanted me to release him.

“I don’t know who put him there,” Noble said. “But it had to have been a Night Enthusiast. No one else would have had access to the prison.”

“But why would a Night Enthusiast want Wrath released?” I said. “He’s been murdering Night Enthusiasts left and right. He’s not exactly a commodity.”

“It’s a mystery,” Noble said. “And probably one with a troubling answer. But as for our secret entrance, no, it isn’t here. I know this goes to the prison and nowhere else.”

“Were you about to enter the prison?” I said.

“No,” Noble said. “I was leaving it. I was in the prison because I was hiding. Damp and filthy cells are the perfect spot to hide a murder object, and yourself within that murder object, for a few days while you establish your death.” He squinted at me. “It was all so perfectly arranged. My hiding was nearly flawless. I considered myself untraceable. And yet, here you are. You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’d been sent here to meet me.”

“By who?”

“Night Enthusiasts.”

“Surely not.”

We smiled at each other.

“I am on the good side, I assure you,” I said.

“You know, I believe you,” he said. “You fought the Night Enthusiasts tooth and nail. I doubt they would have gotten you on their side.”

“They didn’t,” I said. “I think the planets just aligned. I need your help, and here you are.”

“So we’re adventure companions,” Noble said. “Good. I think I know how to start looking for that secret entrance. But it isn’t going to be quick. And it’s not exactly safe.”

“Not really what I want to hear,” I said.

“Sorry. But I still think we can find it in twenty-four hours. If we’re lucky.”

Noble opened the door to the crypt. Together, we stepped out into the chill. We walked briskly through the graveyard. He patted his front shirt pocket, as though looking for something.

“Do you know Soapstress corner?” Noble said.

“Yes,” I said. “I think.”

“Meet me there in two minutes,” Noble said. “I’ve got to go grab something.”

“All right,” I said.

He smiled and disappeared. I felt giddy, and nervous. I teleported to Soapstress corner, which worked out all right, and then I stood there, holding my arms. 

And then, unexpectedly, I twirled.

Why did I twirl? I had no idea. Night Enthusiasts were trapped in wooden train cars. Wrath was on the loose, being his miserable evil self. Ariana was in bleak conditions, unsure of where she stood, and stuck in prison until she figured it out.

And yet I twirled. Like a ten-year-old girl attending a private dandelion dance in the woods.

Something was in the air.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 16, An Unxpected Twirl, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure. 
  
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 17, Merkle the Murderess.
 
 

 
 

Episode 17

Merkle the Murderess

October 10th, 1921 continued.

After my unexpected twirl, Noble James arrived a few minutes later.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wanted to stop by my place and get this.” He strode towards me, smiling. He held up a photograph.

It was a nice clean shot of Dawn Mumumgus. Suddenly, I realized that Dawn Mumumgus may have been an actress once, or may still have been an actress. In the photo, she wore fake flowers in her hair, and had heavily painted eyes. She had that austere, savage look that actresses are sometimes able to pull off. She looked quite beautiful.

“Why do you have a photograph of Dawn Mumungus?” I said.

“So we can ask inside restaurants and clubs about her!” Noble said. He started walking briskly. “If the secret entrance is near here, then someone may have seen her from time to time. Maybe going into a doorway, or always heading towards an alley. This is my idea. We can circle all around the Purgatory Club until someone recognizes her photo.”

“Yes, but why do you have a photo of Dawn Mumungus,” I said. “You said you got it from your apartment.”

Noble opened his mouth, and then shut it again. “Weeell, I’ve got photos of most the leaders in my apartment.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you’re completely infatuated with her?”

Noble gave me a look that would have withered lesser women. He said, very sulkily, “Yes, I’m completely in love with Madam Mumungus.”

“Do you say goodnight to her photograph?” I said.

“Ugh.”

We laughed a little, and then we entered the first open establishment, a small, dirty café that was clearly serving liquor in its teacups.

“How can I help you?” the man behind the counter said.

“We were just wondering if you’d seen this woman,” Noble said.

The man glanced at the photograph.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “That’s Dawn. She’s got a small office in the back here. Uses part of our courtyard for something.”

Surely not. Surely we weren’t getting our answer so soon. It was heavenly.

Then the man glanced at me. “And we… what did you say your names were?”

“We didn’t,” Noble said.

Noble glanced at me, and then I swear every hair on his head stood up. He realized it at the same time I did. In unison, our eyes swiveled.

And then I spotted it, pinned to the wall near the door. KEEP YOUR EYES OUT FOR THIS MURDERESS. MELINDA MERKLE, KILLER OF MANY.

Honestly. I’ve never hated my name more than when I see it in print. Merkle. A lot of girls dream of being rescued from poverty or boredom by their future husband. I don’t need to be rescued from anything, with the possible exception of my last name. Of course, if his last name is even worse than Merkle, we can talk about it.

But now wasn’t the time to complain about my name. Now was time to teleport and get out.

The only problem with that was the little man from behind the counter, who kept staring at me. You can’t teleport when someone is looking at you. So Noble and I were stuck right where we were, because his eyes were glued to us.

“Winnie!” the man called. “Go and lock the door! Go and lock the door now, I meant it!” He glared at me. “I know who you are. I know exactly who you are. And you’re not going anywhere.”

At this point, other members of the café had begun to stare. Some of the bigger men looked eager, like they were hoping for a fight. Two women gawked at us, too interested to do anything but clutch their cups and stare.

“I’m going to call the police,” the little man said. And he did. We waited.

At least Noble didn’t say anything idiotic like, “No no, there’s been a misunderstanding” or “she’s my cousin from Burbank and she only looks like Melinda Merkle.” Everyone in that café knew who I was, and there was no sense in lying about it. Instead, Noble just stepped close to me and muttered,

“I’m thinking.”

So was I. “Act like you don’t know me,” I said.

“Why?” he said.

“Just do it.”

“Oh, all right!” I snapped to the occupants of the café. “I’m Melinda Merkle. So what? You’re all idiots. You know how many people never recognize me? Well, bully for you.” I turned and faced Noble, jabbed my finger at him. “And you. Who did you think I was? Did you really believe that stupid story about me looking for my lost aunt? You’re quite the prodigy, aren’t you?”

“You’re the killer? You’re Melinda Merkle?” Noble said, doing his best to look both innocent and jilted.

“Yes,” I said.

“The police are coming!” the little man said. He slammed down the phone’s receiver.

Noble murmured, just to me, “I think I can create a distraction long enough for you to get behind the counter and teleport.”

The last thing I needed were tales of me being a modern witch as well as a murderess. “No, I’ll wait until I’m in a cell,” I said.

“You’re willing to let it get that far?” Noble said, surprised.

My twenty-four hour deadline was looking bleak.

“I think I have to let it get that far,” I said. “Maybe they’ll leave me alone in the back of the paddywagon.”

“Just go now!”

But no. I didn’t want to risk it. If I left Noble behind in the mess, he might get arrested in my place. And even if he got out, by teleportation or lying, his face would be marked with my murders forever. He needed a clean slate. I had to give it to him.

“No, I have to do it this way,” I said. “But you should go.”

He shook his head. I had to admire Noble through all of this. He stuck by me, resolutely. He didn’t have a self-flattering air of martyrdom or heroism about it, either. Some men can be very brave, but you can see their chests puffing up the whole time, like their ultimate motive is their ego. Noble was just doing what he thought he had to do, matter-of-factly. Which was, be Noble.

I’m sorry for that pun, diary. I couldn’t resist.

“Don’t try any funny business!” the little man hollered at us. Noble resumed looking at me with a mixture of awe and betrayal, playing the part of the poor duped innocent bystander.

“And put your hands on your head while you’re at it!” one of the men said. He stood up. Several of the other men stood up with him.

I hoped this wasn’t about to get ugly. I clamped my hands down on my head and scowled at the room, trying to look evil but nevertheless not threatening. I wanted them all to sit down again.

I couldn’t believe our luck. It was like something out of fiction. The man had recognized Dawn Mumungus immediately. Her secret entrance was behind this very café. We had found it, on our first try. And now, I was being carted off to prison.

This was why the Night Enthusiasts had done this to me. They had made it impossible for me to live a normal life, to even work for the Pawn Shop, without getting stopped and arrested. They had completely crippled my existence.

I had to get rid of these murder charges. When, or how, I had no idea, but I was going to get rid of them.

But that was a long term project. My immediate need was to get behind this café and look for the secret entrance. And I couldn’t do that if I was in prison. And Noble couldn’t go ahead without me. He didn’t have the power to release the train car victims.

“Can you draw a picture for me?” I whispered to Noble. “Of the secret entrance, if you can find it? That may be enough for me to teleport straight there, after I get arrested. It would save time.”

Noble nodded. He glanced towards the back entrance.

“I think I’m going to be sick!” Noble suddenly called out. “Oh, Oh, I think I’m going to be sick!”

“Go to the washroom, you idiot!” the little man exclaimed. Instead, Noble rushed for the back door. He was gone for almost two minutes. I began to be hopeful.

Then, he came back. He looked grim.

“It’s no good,” Noble whispered, speaking as he walked past me. “The door won’t let me through. You have to be a Night Enthusiast to get inside.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 17, Merkle the Murderess, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed. 
    
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 18, Prison Break.

Episode 18
 
 Prison Break

October 10th, 1921 continued.

“What?” I said.

You had to be Night Enthusiast to get into the secret entrance? I was flummoxed, but Noble walked right past me before he had a chance to explain. He couldn’t stay near me and have a conversation. He had to pretend he didn’t know me, that he was scared of me. He kept walking. I groaned and watched him go.

To hear that little teaser of horrible news, and wait. It was infuriating. We couldn’t get through the doorway! What were we supposed to do? Become Night Enthusiasts? For a moment, I very seriously considered giving up. The Night Enthusiast leaders would just have to stay inside wooden train cars forever.

But of course that wouldn’t do. I couldn’t leave them there. Even if I had to run out in plain sight of Wrath, I’d still try to set them free. But we needed that secret passage. If Wrath saw me at all, he’d know what was coming. He knew I had the power to undo his spell. He’d shoot me before I walked three feet. Vaguely I rehearsed schemes in my mind, of me being rolled into the cave inside a barrel, or tucked into a coffin. Or maybe I could go in wearing a bubonic plague mask. It was all no good. How could everyone else get into the cave without arousing suspicion? Our plan barely worked with the secret passage. In my mind’s eye, it seemed to fall apart in my hands the moment the secret passage failed.

If we couldn’t enter the secret entrance, then all was lost. But we weren’t Night Enthusiasts. I couldn’t see a way around that. I wanted to ask Noble what he had done before. He’d tricked the Night Enthusiasts into thinking he was one of them. He’d never killed part of his soul, but they believed that he had. How had he done that? And could he do the same thing now?

I was making plaintive eyes at him, desperate for some more information, any kind of good news. I wanted to know if he had a plan, anything. But at that moment, the police arrived.

The police! Oh, being arrested is the worst. I’d never had any sympathy for criminals before. There’s always that far-away supercilious sense of… Oh, they deserved it. But being arrested is awful, and it shouldn’t happen to anyone. I know we need to lock real criminals up, but we should do it by somehow managing to never arrest them. Everyone stares at you like you’re an animal, and the police are rough, and all I can say is, I was grateful I was a girl, because I think they might have hit me if I wasn’t. Police are supposed to be knights in shining armor, coming to our rescue, but I think they’re just angry, tired people who want to let off steam. Humanity can be such a grumbling mess.

Well, I was escorted into the back of the paddywagon, and news of my arrest must have spread like well, speaking of the bubonic plague. People ran after the police car. They pointed. I’d had some vague hope of teleporting out of the back of the car, but of course I couldn’t. Police officers stared at me all the way there. Not to mention, I was being stared at through the windows. For some reason, I’d been picturing the sort of wooden van you put stray dogs into. But I was a person. So I had to sit in the back of a police car. There would be no teleporting until I was left alone in a cell.

I knotted and unknotted my hands all the way to the police station, and I told myself over and over that you can’t kill someone without a trial, and I wasn’t about to be taken straight to the electric chair, which, as you probably know, diary, is that rather new form of torturous death that doesn’t always work the first time. 

I didn’t even know if they would kill me. Maybe they’d send me to a mental institution. I pictured padded cells and gibbering, horrible housemates.

“Calm down!” I told myself. “You can teleport! You can get out of anything.”

But what if I was under twenty-four hour surveillance for the next ten years? I couldn’t teleport if they kept looking at me. But I could escape. No matter what. Everyone blinks.

Even so, diary, magical powers or no, it was pretty frightening to finally be arrested. I felt a pang for my old life, for my public image being dragged so disgracefully through the muck. When we rolled up to the police station, I was shaking, and I couldn’t stop.

They escorted me upstairs into —yes, oh, heavens, yes—a private cell. They locked me in and walked away. The only trouble was, the guard across the hall kept staring at me. I couldn’t get out quite yet. But at least there were no burly-armed miscreants in here with me.

I stepped up to the far wall and looked out the window. There were real, honest-to goodness bars in the window, and I clutched them and looked out mournfully, feeling a tad dramatic. As I looked out and surveyed the scene, there, down on the street, was Noble James. He paced back and forth on the sidewalk. I stuck my arm out through the bars and started to wave. He still didn’t look up. He just stalked up and down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. I felt like an idiot for waving at him, my arm like an eager snake sticking out of the bars, but I didn’t know how else to attract his attention. I was afraid if I yelled the guard from across the hall would come over and shout at me.

Noble finally looked up, and his face brightened. I pulled my arm back through the bars and smiled at him.

He gestured. He pointed at himself and then at me, looking hopeful. I frowned for a second, but as he continued to gesture, I realized he meant, Is the coast clear? Can I teleport up there?

I glanced behind me. The guard was still there, looking at me with a sour and somewhat creepy expression. I turned back to Noble and gestured an emphatic “No.”

Then Noble started gesturing something very complicated, and I started to laugh. We must have looked ridiculous. Me, up in the prison cell window, him down on the sidewalk, energetically making motions so complicated they didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.

Then, I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned and looked. The guard had gotten up to walk down the hall. I felt satisfied, delighted, the way you do when you finish a good meal. I teleported down to the sidewalk, next to Noble.

“Hi,” I said.

“Come on,” he said. “We should probably get out of here.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go to my apartment. We can talk there. Uh, here’s a picture.”

I glanced down at a snapshot of Noble’s apartment, so I would know where to teleport to. I felt absolutely giddy. Diary, have you ever been arrested, glared at, stuck in a cell, and then teleported straight out onto the sidewalk? I was looking up at my cell from below, an impossibly magic girl.  

We had problems, of course. The entire city was about to be thirsting for my blood. A prison break that was impossible to explain? I would be hailed as a bogeyman for the next century. I was the stuff of legend.

Noble teleported, and I teleported right after him. We arrived in his apartment. The lights were out. It smelled like mint and pipe tobacco.

He turned on a lamp, and we sat on a small brown sofa together. We talked hurriedly in low voices.

“We’ve got roughly twenty hours, yes?” Noble said.

“Something like that,” I said.

“The way I see it,” he said, “We have two problems. We can’t get through the Night Enthusiast’s secret entrance. And. You’re going to be wanted everywhere. You won’t be able to show your face. The second we show up near the café and try to get into the secret entrance, someone is going to try to arrest you again.”

“I’ll wear a giant gray beard,” I said. “That’s the least of our troubles. How will we get through that entrance?”

“Well, it so happens,” Noble said. “I know a man who can kill part of your soul for twenty-four hours.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 18, Prison Break, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren. 
    
 McGilicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 19,  The Magician

Episode Nineteen 

The Magician 
 
 

October 10th, 1921 continued. 

Dearest diary, you cannot imagine the shock I felt. 

Here was our answer. Perfect. Available. Immediate.  

But how twisted. How frightening. 

Noble knew someone who could kill part of our souls for twenty-four hours. That was all we needed. We could become temporary Night Enthusiasts, and we could enter the secret passage, and we could rescue the train car prisoners.  

But I was scared. Of course I was scared.  

“But how?” I said. “Is it safe?” 

“Well, I’ve done it twice before,” Noble said. “And my soul came back just fine both times. It’s not a spell or something that can go wrong. It’s someone’s unique magic unusual power. It’s an old man who lives in Germany. For a fee, he will use his power on anyone who asks. It’s very secretive, and the Night Enthusiasts have no idea he exists. He removed a portion of my soul twice, once when I first joined the Night Enthusiasts, and once when they started to get suspicious. They have equipment that knows whether or not someone’s soul is whole or not. I passed their test both times. And within twenty-four hours, my soul returned.” 

“How do the Night Enthusiasts not know about him?” I said. 

“Well, he isn’t a magic unusual to them,” Noble said. “He’s barely a magic unusual to himself. He thinks he’s the only magic person in the world, and he doesn’t like being told otherwise. He realized once, a long time ago, that he could help people stop feeling things by simply wishing it for them. He can make people duller. Make people care less. And some people will pay, over and over again, to have bits of them removed. It only lasts for a day, but they keep coming back.” 

“So he think he’s a magician?” I said.  

“Well, technically, you’re a magician, too,” Noble James said. “But yes. He thinks he’s something old fashioned and impossible. He’s set himself up as some kind of soothsayer, and even if the Night Enthusiasts did hear about him, they’d consider him some kind of charlatan. He acts like a charlatan. But it works. And he doesn’t care who pays him.” 

I shivered. I wondered how it would feel to have part of my soul removed.  “All right, well, let’s go.” 

“If you’re willing,” Noble said. 

“As long as you promise that it comes back,” I said.  

“It does,” he said.  He smiled sadly at me.  

“Before we do this,” I said. “I have to check. I have to make sure this secret entrance isn’t just blocked by a spell. I’m not going all the way to Germany and undergoing a magical surgery for nothing. If the barrier on the secret entrance is a spell, I can break it with a word. But if some magic unusual out there has the power to block doorways based on select criteria, then I suppose we’re going to Europe.” 

“I suppose,” Noble said. “But do you really think you should be teleporting back to that area? You mentioned something about a gray beard.” 

“Yes,” I said. “Do you happen to have a large gray beard?” 

“Do you know,” Noble said. “It’s surprisingly difficult to get a fake beard. Or hair dye. Or a wig.” 

“Well, I partially stole a wig last time I needed one,” I said. “but I think you’re right. There really isn’t time. I’ll wrap my head in a towel or something.” 

Noble got up and began to throw things at me. I mean that quite literally. It startled me quite a bit, because he’s so quiet and reserved, and then I realized he was trying to make me laugh. He tossed me a muffin from his kitchen, which I caught beautifully, and then he dashed around grabbing a few more things. He brought me a dark pink silk scarf and tiny, grandmother spectacles. 

I wrapped my hair up in the turban, and looked rather fetching. And eccentric. Especially once I put on the glasses. With a muffin in my pocket, I teleported back to the secret entrance, and Noble came with me.   

I didn’t teleport right onto the scene in question, simply because I hadn’t seen it yet and couldn’t. I aimed for the café instead, and arrived right outside it. Clearing my throat and walking briskly, I came around behind the café. There was a little yard, muddy and grassy. Noble stood there, waiting for me. 

“It’s just here,” he said. He gestured at a rusty door. It seemed to lead inside an old stone shed.  

I hurried up to the door, glancing over my shoulder. Already, someone in the café was looking quizzically out the window at us. We didn’t have much time at all.  

“I think we should have disguised you, too,” I said to Noble.  

Noble turned his back to the window, and I reached the threshold of the door.  

“I wish this spell would break, and Noble James and I would be able to pass as we are,” I said.  

I stepped forward and opened the door. It opened easily, and I looked down at mossy stone steps. I strode forward, but an invisible force inside the doorway shoved me back. A tiny curl of paper fluttered down. I stooped and picked the paper up. It said, Get Away, Enemy of the Night. 

“So it’s not a spell,” I said. I turned to Noble. “I can’t break it.” 

Behind us, someone shouted in the café. I looked over and groaned. Fingers were being pointed at us. They recognized us.  

“We’d better get to Germany,” Noble said. He hurried behind the shed, out of sight, and I hurried after him. No one could see us at the moment. As long as we could teleport before the occupants of the café came running out at us, we were all right. Noble rifled around in his pockets, pulled out a snapshot of a cozy German street, and showed it to me. With the location in my mind, we teleported.  

During the war, we’d… I don’t know. We’d been told to think that Germany was somehow evil. But arriving here now, it made me sad. It was war-torn, worse than what I was used to. It made me miserable to think of living on a street like this. It was like it hadn’t quiet recovered from a wound. A few buildings still lay, gutted, not rebuilt yet. There was trash and filth, like everyone was just too tired to pick it up. 

At the same time, the street seemed ordinary. As a young woman, I’d thought the Germans must be some kind of troll. You know. Not human. They killed and caused needless suffering, and of course it was all their fault. They were the enemy. I expected Germans to have little pointed ears or something. But they didn’t. The people walking past Noble and I looked like people. Because they were people. I felt like I was in my own city, looking at people who might start speaking English any second.  

That surprised me, in a way. That the old enemy was just as human as I was. 

I turned and looked at Noble. 

“Now what?” I said. 

“He’s through here,” Noble said. He pointed at a narrow little building with no door. A brown cloth hung in front of the entrance. We stepped inside and found ourselves in a narrow shop front. It smelled like old glue and dusty wood. A comforting smell. The walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were mostly bare. No one was behind the desk. Noble stepped up and rang a little silver bell.  

We waited. Noble glanced at me, his hands in his pockets. 

“I should warn you…” he said. “It doesn’t feel very nice.” 

“It hurts to have it removed?” I said. 

“It doesn’t feel nice afterwards,” Noble said. “When it’s gone.” 

At that moment, a frightful looking little man appeared.  

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 19, The Magician, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure.   
     
McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 20,  The Twenty-Four Hour Death 
 
 
 

Episode 20,  

The Twenty-Four Hour Death 

October 10th, 1921, continued 

I felt my whole body seize up. I’m surprised my skin didn’t shrivel up like a raisin. I couldn’t look away from the frightful looking little man, because part of me felt as though he wasn’t real. He was made of wax, surely, and he would melt before my eyes sooner than he would speak and prove himself to be a normal human. 

But he wasn’t wax. He was real. He was a real person with dull, moist eyes that looked like glass inside their sockets. His skin was puffed and taut, and a little yellowed. He looked like a corpse that had started to go south for the winter. Nothing about him looked real. Even his hair looked like it was made of flax. 

“Mr. Muntz,” Noble said. “My name is Noble James, do you remember me?” 

“No,” Mr. Muntz said. “I don’t.” 

“Well, I’ve come here twice before,” Noble said. “And I’ve brought a friend this time. And we’d both like to pay for your service.” 

Mr. Muntz snorted. “Come inside,” he said. 

He spoke English well, with only a slight accent. He held open the door. Noble went into the back room first, and I followed. 

My stomach sloshed as soon as we stepped inside. The smell wasn’t good. I’ve never smelled the flesh of dried up lizards, but I imagined it smelled something like this. Or maybe I was smelling the dried snakeskin that was pinned to the wall. 

The walls were black, the curtains were black, and the skulls of dead things lined shelves all around the room. It wasn’t beautiful or neatly arranged, either. It was a haphazard mess of decay. 

I thought about what Noble had said, about how Muntz acted like a charlatan. Here were all the gimmicks and tricks of his trade, the haunt and the spectacle. They didn’t make me feel any easier about what we were about to undergo. 

“Sit.” Mr. Muntz said. “You have money?” 

We did not sit. The chairs also seemed to be in a state of decay. Noble pulled out his wallet and handed Mr. Muntz quite a bit of money. Mr. Muntz didn’t seem to care about the money being foreign. He took it and seemed satisfied, and that’s when I realized Noble had paid for me as well. 

For a split second I felt like a girl on a date, being paid for by her suitor, and it made me feel awkward. I wanted to pay Noble back. It was almost more intimate, more suggestive, because of the secrecy of what we were doing. 

“I’ll pay you back,” I said to Noble. 

“When you can,” he said. “No rush.” 

Mr. Muntz began to rifle through a pile of black stones on the mantel. He picked one up and eyed it. He clearly didn’t know we were magic unusuals. He seemed to be preparing his charlatan act, his fake show of magic. 

“You must sit,” he said to me. 

So, I sat. I took a look at the chair before making contact with it, however. It was black and threadbare, with a brown stain in the center. On closer inspection, the brown stain was just the material wearing away, and despite looking dreadful, the glossy black upholstery was clean. When I sat, however, it didn’t feel clean. I felt like the darkness of the chair was going to cover me like soot. It was all in my head, but it made me feel dirty. 

“I shall begin,” Mr. Muntz said. I got the feeling that he was going to do this to me whether I wanted it or not, now that he’d been paid.  

 “What part of us dies?” I said to Noble. He seemed to sense that I was nervous, and he stepped closer. It made me feel better, having a friend nearby. 

“Empathy,” he said. “It’s... more complex than that, but that’s most of what gets taken away.” 

“Empathy?” I said. 

“Our ability to feel for others, for the world, and more importantly, for ourselves. Murdering our empathy dulls the pain. We stop caring. We stop seeing people as human glories, and instead we start to see them as human refuse. We no longer revere, we disdain. It hurts too much to care. The Night Enthusiasts remove their empathy. This… procedure removes empathy as well.” 

I thought of Ariana. Her selfishness made a bit more sense, now. 

“So I won’t care about anyone?” I said. “For twenty-four hours?” 

“Oh, you’ll still care,” Noble said. “Just not as much. The soul-murder dulls you. It inhibits empathy. It doesn’t completely remove it. You’ll feel… cranky.” 

I smiled. He smiled back. Mr. Muntz gave us a glare. I sensed that he was used to another kind of customer, one that wanted spectacle and creep. We were disrupting the spectacle and creep.  

Mr. Muntz began to mutter nonsense words under his breath in a wild voice, and I rolled my eyes. I gripped the edge of the chair and waited for it to be over. 

Then, all of a sudden, it was. He was still in the middle of his spiel, his charade, but I’d felt that little bit of my soul leave me.  

I felt light.  

The stress and anxiety of a hundred different colors had faded to gray. My soul was bleached. Chalky. I was removed from myself, and I suddenly realized how exhausted I was. 

It didn’t feel good. Not quite. I didn’t feel a rush of joy, a rich pleasure, a connection to the world around me. I’d lost my ability to feel those things. I’d lost my ability to feel.  And that was what was wonderful.  

The pain stopped. The pain, I guess you might say, of loving people. I felt the weight of the Great War, my parent’s death, Ariana’s betrayal, my loneliness, all leave me. I was empty inside. My grief no longer hurt, because I no longer felt it. 

Mr. Muntz finished his act, and I stood up, like someone in a dream. Noble sat down and underwent the same procedure. I looked around the room, feeling strangely disconnected from myself. All I could think was what a relief it was. I had been so stupid before. So blind. So childish. This was the best way. This was the only way to live your life and still get things done. This was the only way to get through life in one piece. 

Of course, I realized how ridiculous that thought was as soon as I had it. I couldn’t exactly get through life in one piece if I wasn’t in one piece to begin with. But this way, this partially damaged way, would prevent future damage. It was perfect.  

Mr. Muntz finished with Noble, and then he clunked down the skunk skull he’d been using in his fake ritual.  

“All right, you’re finished, get out,” he said. 

Noble stood up, and he hurried out of the back room without waiting for me. I followed. We stood side by side in the shop front.  

Noble was different. He seemed skeptical. Unsure of me. He bristled a little bit, and I bristled a little bit, and we stood and regarded each other for a moment.  

“It will pass,” he said. 

“I feel like I’ve got a hangover,” I said. “Like I’m ready to snap at everyone for no good reason.” 

“We should go to the secret entrance,” he said. 

“Yes,” I said. 

We glanced at each other, and then we teleported. We arrived right outside the Night Enthusiast’s secret entrance, in the backyard of the café. 

The only trouble was, the place was a madhouse. People shouted on the street. I heard footsteps dashing about inside the café. Boys were running and calling on the other side of the fence. Noble and I had only been gone for about ten minutes. Melinda Merkle, the murderess, had been spotted here ten minutes before. Now everyone was trying to find her. Trying to find me.  

As long as Noble and I could rush down into the secret passage before we were spotted, we’d be all right. If we were spotted, however, things would get difficult. The person would probably keep staring at us, never take their eyes off us. We wouldn’t be able to teleport, and I doubt the secret entrance would let us enter when a non-magic-unusual was watching. 

Noble opened the door and dashed into the secret passage. So far so good. But then, before I had a chance, a girl behind me let out a scream.  

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 20, The Twenty Four Hour Death, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed. 
     
McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 21,  There Rust and Let Me Die 

Episode 21

There Rust and Let Me Die 

October 10, 1921, continued 

Noble opened the door and dashed into the secret passage. So far so good. But then, before I had a chance, a girl behind me let out a scream.  

I knew I’d been spotted. I spun around and looked at her. She was about fifteen. Her boots were muddy. She stared at me like I had the plague, too petrified to move. 

I laughed. 

I did. I laughed at her stupid, scared little face. I was so angry and bitter and it felt so good to have someone to grind under my heel. 

And then I frightened myself, because I’d never been that mean-spirited in my life.  

Come on, Maude, a voice at the back of my head said. You’ll be done with this soon. Just go do what you have to do, and then you’ll get your soul back, and you’ll feel like yourself again. 

The girl rushed off, presumably to tell someone I was here. I didn’t waste a second. I hurried into the shed and shut the door behind me. 

Before, when I’d tried to get into this secret passage, I’d felt an invisible barrier. It had felt almost like colliding with a giant spider web. Now, I whisked in easily. The doorway had detected my lack of soul and let me pass. 

I tumbled down dark, stone steps. I soon reached an underground hallway that led downwards at a steep incline. There were no candles or gloomy portraits here. It felt like a sewer. It dripped like a sewer. It even smelled like a sewer.  

As I hurried on, I heard Noble in front of me. He hadn’t waited for me, but we were both too cranky to care about his not being a good adventure companion. I reached him, and he nodded to me. 

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “I feel even less like myself when I’m with you.” 

That vaguely offended me, because I felt a little bit more like myself when I was with him. 

We came to the end of the hallway and found ourselves face to face with a rust colored door. A smoky pane of glass rested in the center, and I peered out. I could see into The Night Enthusiast cave.  I could see Wrath. He paced inside the gazebo, the wooden train cars lined up around him.   

I knew the area of the cave that I was looking out from, and to an inside observer, there was nothing here, no doorway or furniture or anything. My guess was that the other side of this door was cleverly disguised as part of the cave wall, and that a slab of fake stone would open on a hinge when we went out.  

Noble and I waited. I had no way of contacting Mr. McGillicuddy, and I wished I did. There was nothing to do except watch, and wait, and hope they would provide our diversion soon.  

I watched Wrath. He paced back and forth in the semi-darkness. Now and again, he paused and crouched beside the tiny wooden train cars. He chuckled and peered into them. He spoke to them. Then he started pacing again. 

I was tired and my feet hurt. Noble and I took turns standing watch. We waited for what seemed like hours. 

“I wonder if he ever sleeps,” Noble said softly.  

I glanced up at him. Noble seemed as spooked by Wrath as I was. The man was half wooden, and had that changed him? Was he now no longer human? Did he need to sleep at all? Was he a man? Was Hester Rathbone even in there, or were we dealing with a deranged puppet that wore Hester Rathbone’s face? 

All of a sudden, Noble jolted. He beckoned to me. I stood up. We peered through the window together and saw Wrath staring, intently, at the main entrance.  

All this time, I’d had no idea what Mr. McGillicuddy was going to do, to get Wrath out of this cave. Now I knew. It felt a chill creep down my arms. Someone was singing. Noble and I could barely hear it, but it held Wrath transfixed. He stumbled towards the main entrance, like someone caught in a dream.  

The song was sung by a woman, and it hummed and throbbed in my bloodstream, casting a haunted tone over everything we were about to do.  

Wrath reached the door. He opened it and stepped into the hall beyond, seeking the source of the music.  

Noble and I had a minute. We had to move quickly.  

Noble thrust open the door, and I rushed out. I ran as fast I could towards the black gazebo, towards the wooden train cars. I reached them, my stomach fluttering.  

After that, time seemed to slow down. 

I noticed the train cars. I noticed every detail. There were five of them, each one a little bit different. With a shudder, I wondered how Wrath had obtained these train cars. They were murder objects, so they’d been in the presence of a murder. But how often were wooden toys witness to a crime scene? 

Had he, perhaps, created the murder himself? 

Each train car was a little bit twisted, disjointed, not quite whole. It made me think that Wrath had had them specially made. They were crafted in tones of purple and black. One had tall, sharp angles that made it look like the hunched wings of Dracula. Another was shaped like a coffin. Inside each one, a little wooden person stood.  

One looked white, and crooked, and it leaned out of its window in defeat. Another was splotched in red, and I wondered if the Night Enthusiast had been stabbed before his imprisonment.  

I could see the figure of Dawn Mumungus, her painted face smeared like a ruined doll, standing locked inside the largest train car. She stood, slumped, holding a little wooden sign that said: 

I Will Kill Again 

Was it Wrath’s message? Or was it hers? A promise that she would kill Wrath once she was released? That she would kill others? 

When Wrath had been imprisoned in his train car, his sign had been a plea for help. It had been his words on the sign, not the words of the Night Enthusiasts who imprisoned him. I could only assume that this was the final, most important message Dawn Mumungus wished to pass on, her epitaph. That she would rise again, and she would kill. She would return in order to kill, to continue to feast on the theft of human life.  

As much as I could have felt pity for Dawn Mumungus, for the other Night Enthusiasts, I thought instead of the ostrich cage they’d left me in. I thought of the way they’d ruined my life with the false murder charges, and for what? So they could get my magic unusual power on their side? I thought of the bodies that Melinda Merkle had supposedly left in her wake, bodies that the Night Enthusiasts had created themselves. They’d gone on a killing spree, slaughtering innocent strangers, an old woman and a young man, in their quest to pull me to their side.  

These Night Enthusiasts didn’t deserve to live. Dawn Mumungus was mocking me to my face. She was holding a sign that promised she would continue to kill and ruin lives if I let her out of this train car. 

Well, I wasn’t going to let her out. I was going to let rot in agony. 

This moment, this one-minute chance, and it all came down to me. The ones who belonged to the Pawn Shop had all agreed. I had agreed. We were going to set them free. 

Mr. McGillicuddy had struggled for hours to achieve this distraction. It was my only chance, the last flicker of hope for these wooden souls. 

And I turned my back on them and walked away. 

A line from Romeo and Juliet sprang to mind. I’m not sure why. O Happy dagger, Juliet says. She stabs herself and finishes, There rust and let me die.  

Melinda Maudie Merkle with a whole soul would never choose this. But Maude with half a soul had chosen this. I would kill who I had been for this decision. Here let me rust and let me die. I was not going to let them out. I had the keys to heaven, to deliverance, and I was going to leave them in hell.  

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 21, There rust and let me die, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Visit Minervasweeneywren.com to see photographs of the real McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop, and learn how you can support the show, keep it advertisement free, and explore more stories by Minerva Sweeney Wren.   
     
McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 22, The Burden of a Living Soul 

Episode 22 

The Burden of a Living Soul 
 

October 10th, 1921 continued 

After that, after I chose to leave the Night Enthusiasts locked in their train cars, everything happened very quickly. 

I returned to the secret entrance. I had just shut the door when Wrath returned. He was alone. He looked furious. He strode towards the gazebo, fuming, and he picked up a train car. He flung it across the room. It cracked, rolled, and rattled, but it didn’t split in half. Wrath went over and picked it up. He shouted at the little wooden man inside. Then he slumped suddenly, and he carried the train car back to sit with the others. 

He sat down and buried his head in his hands. I watched him for a moment. Suddenly he looked up and grinned, and he pushed a train car over with his finger, like a little boy.  

I turned away. For the first time, I really faced Noble, who had been watching the entire time. 

“What happened?” he said. “Did you run out of time?’ 
“No,” I said. 

“What do you mean, no?” 

“I left them there,” I said. I started to cry, and I didn’t entirely know why. 

“After all of that?” Noble said. “You changed your mind?” 

“I think they deserve it,” I said.  

“I should be angry,” Noble said. “But I’m not, really. I think I’ll be angry when I wake up.” 

I glared at him. “Oh, shut up.” 

Noble glared right back. Then, together, we left the secret passage. As soon as I was up inside the shed, I teleported. I didn’t know where Noble was going and I didn’t care. He wanted everyone to think he was dead. Well, he could go hide out and have done with it. 

I teleported to McGillicuddy and Murder’s, and I found the rusty nail that led to the secret basement. I teleported through it into the DEATH TO ALL MICE room, and then I hurried down the trap door. 

No one else was back yet. Of the few magic unusuals who had stayed behind, most were off doing something, nowhere in sight. I ran into one girl. She looked at me, hopeful. I didn’t say a word and stormed towards my bedroom. 

I felt like an eight-year-old having a temper tantrum. My whole soul was itchy, and it was making me furious.  

I shut and locked the door and even considered removing my nameplate so no one could find me. I cried and hissed into my pillow, overwhelmed by a guilt I couldn’t understand. 

Finally, I grew tired. I’d been awake for a very long time, and I wanted rest. I took off my shoes and curled up on my bed. I buried myself in a blanket, tucking it up to my chin so I could hide from the world. Then, I fell asleep. 

When I woke up, I didn’t feel any better. Twenty-four hours was a very long time to wait for your soul to return. I tiptoed up to my door and listened. No one was outside. No one was hammering on my door, demanding that I leave, because I’d just betrayed humanity and all its best ideals. By now, they knew, but they left me alone. So I left them alone. I spent the day brooding. I thought about writing to you, diary, but I didn’t want to. 

I went to bed again, and by the time I woke up, my soul was back. I threw up, and then I cried and then I sat down to write to you. It is so brutal to feel again. To care again. I cried for the Night Enthusiasts who I left imprisoned, but I mostly cried for me, because getting my whole heart back has been like getting hit with a thousand bricks. But I’m still so glad it's here.  
 
I’ve been writing for so long I think my muscles have turned into rubber. I was going to wax eloquently about how I feel, about all of this, about myself, but I’m tired. I want to be finished for now. 

October 11th, 1921. 

Time to wax eloquently, diary. Things have changed. 

When I first woke up, I was horrified. I felt like I’d committed a murder, and essentially, I had. Not just a murder, but several, grisly, indescribably cruel ones. I thought my soul was going to rip in half. I ignored the feeling as long as I wrote to you about everything that had happened, but then it had to come out, and I had to feel it.  

I understood the Night Enthusiasts, more than I ever had. I had committed an atrocity while under the influence of a ruined soul. I no longer hated the Night Enthusiasts. I no longer feared them. I had been them, and that made all the difference.  

For a moment, that had been me. That, I think, is the real nightmare of committing a murder. Suddenly realizing who you are, what you’re capable of. 

But there’s a key difference between a murderer and me. For a murderer, it’s too late. They can never wash the blood off their hands.  

I still had a chance.  

I left my bedroom and went quietly down to the living room. A few of the magic unusuals gave me sad smiles in the hallway. That’s when I realized, they didn’t know. They thought I’d failed, that the mission had gone badly. They had no idea I’d ruined things on purpose.  

I found Mr. McGillicuddy. He was seated in the living room, wearing spectacles, scribbling in a notebook. He looked up. 

“Maude,” he said. 

“I left them there,” I said. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I left them,” I said. “It’s a long story. But I am going to go back and set things right.” 

“I am working on another tactic,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “But it may not work, and it will be several days before we can execute it.” 

I nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go for walk.” 

Mr. McGillicuddy nodded to me, and I left the Pawn Shop. I returned to 1921. Not knowing where else to look for Noble James, I returned to the crypt where I’d found him. I was in luck. He was right there, eating an apple and sitting on the floor. 

When I arrived, he scrambled up.  He stepped right up to me and hugged me, which I wasn’t expecting. I hugged him around the neck for a moment. 

“I was hoping you’d show up here,” he said. “Are you all right?” 

“I feel like I woke up to find my soul nothing but lumps and bruises.” 

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you. I should have been clearer about how awful it is. About how awful it feels when it comes back.” 

“Awful but good,” I said. 

Noble nodded. “It’s my fault. Completely and entirely. I wasn’t thinking straight. Of course you chose to leave them in there, when you had a fractured soul. It was a stupid idea on my part.” 

“Noble, I could have pulled through,” I said. “And anyway, I made the decision to remove my soul, just as much as you.” 

“I just wish we hadn’t failed,” Noble said.  

“Oh, no,” I said. “We haven’t failed yet. Last time was the safe way. The way that left me alive. This way might leave me alive, too, but it also might not. I’ve let those Night Enthusiasts rot in train cars long enough. I am going back into the Night Enthusiast cave right now, and even if Wrath shoots me, I am going to release them.” 

“Does Mr. McGillicuddy know you’re doing this?” Noble said. 

“Oh, he has no idea,” I said.  

“You’re going now?” Noble said. 

“Right now.” 

“And you have a plan?” Noble said. 

“No plan,” I said. “Just doing what I know I need to do.” 

I was not going to rust and die in what I had done. I was going to undo it.   

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 22, The Burden of a Living Soul, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure.    
     
McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 23, Wrath Confronted 

Episode 23 

Wrath Confronted 

October 11th, 1921 continued 

There are a few reactions Noble might have had to my declaration. I said, “I’m going to go get myself killed by confronting a mad man with a puppet face, in an attempt to undo the evils I have done.” Noble might have responded with, “That is stupid.” He might also have responded with, “I won’t let you.” Instead, he did neither. He said, 

“Well, if you’re going to go, then I’m coming, too.” 

“What if I don’t want you to come?” I said. 

“You don’t want me to come?” he said. 

“No, I do want you to come,” I said. “I mean what if things end badly for you and it’s all my fault?” 

“I’ll take the credit if things end badly for me,” he said. “Besides, if you go alone, who will you have to drag out your bruised and bleeding corpse?” 

“Oh, you're too kind.” 

I stepped outside the crypt and Noble followed. The cold wind stung my cheeks. 

“I’m not risking this with a damaged soul again,” I said. “We’ll go in the ordinary way. Down through the purgatory club.” 

Noble nodded. And with that, we teleported. We landed inside the purgatory club, in the back alcove. We turned the painting upside down and scurried into the secret tunnel underground. My heart was thumping. Nothing seemed real yet. I’d made this decision, thrust myself into it head first. It was like leaping into the sea, and deciding you’d learn how to swim along the way. 

Before I had time to blink or breathe, or so it seemed, we reached the door that led into the Night Enthusiast cave. I was shivering. Noble looked back at me. 

“You look like you could use a good scare,” he said. 

“The opposite of that, I think,” I said. 

“No,” Noble said. “A good scare is like a shot of bourbon. It steadies you. Gets your adrenaline going.” 

“Would you like to pop out from behind the corner and give me a scream?” I said. 

Noble grinned. “No, I think you’d better just go in.” 

“What will you do?” I said. 

“I’ve got a gun,” Noble said. “And I’m going to come in after you. If you can, turn him around, so his back is to this door. That way, if things go badly, I can shoot without him seeing me.” 

“He can’t be shot, you know,” I said. 

“He can be shot,” Noble said. “He just can’t be shot everywhere.” 

I nodded. I didn’t want to think about this. I didn’t want to plan. I didn’t want to edit it too much in my head, because I was afraid that would make me give up. So I pushed open the door and strode in. 

“Hello, Wrath!” I said. It was no good keeping quiet. He would see me either way. 

Wrath turned around and looked at me. At first, his face was all puzzlement. Then slowly, a grin spread from ear to ear. 

“I know why you’re here,” he said. 

“No, you don’t,” I said. “I’m here because of what you did with Ariana. I wanted to talk to you about it. About your trade for Ariana’s life.” 

I strode towards him as fast as I could. My heart beat like the wings of a little bird inside my chest. I couldn’t help feeling like I was about to face a monster. Not the man Wrath, but the diseased puppet that was locked up inside of his flesh and blood. 

“The Ariana Trade?” Wrath said. 

“Yes,” I said. I reached him. I stepped into the gazebo, and I sat down on the table that he’d set the train cars on. He turned to face me, and he turned his back to the door. 

“You were unnecessarily cruel,” I said. “And it made me angry. You asked me if I loved Ariana, I said yes, and then you picked her deliberately as bait.” 

Smiling, Wrath shook his head. “Stupid. You really can’t see it? My plan is to kill every Night Enthusiast. It always has been. But I like you, Maude. I am indebted to you. You set me free. You said you loved Ariana, so I decided that she would be the one Night Enthusiast I let go. Choosing her for my trade insured that her own people, her own kith and kin, would betray her and throw her to the dogs. Who would stay after something like that? I never planned on killing her. I planned on killing all of them but her. I was kicking her out, for you.” 

Wrath stared into my eyes. His left eye whirled inside his head, rattling around like a tiny rabid animal, but his human eye stared straight into mine. He was telling the truth. He had been merciful to Ariana. It was genius, and unexpected. 

“Oh,” I said. 

“And stop beating around the bush,” Wrath said. “We both know why you’re really here. You don’t like what I’ve done. You don’t think it’s just.” He leaned forward. “But I tell you it is just. It’s exactly just. It’s an eye for an eye.” He slapped the wooden side of his face. “These are the ones who put me in my train car. And now they’re all where they belong!” 

I looked down at the floor. “What about Ariana?” 

“Ariana?” 

“She said she put you in the train car, too.” 

Wrath snorted. “She was a coffee girl. You think she had anything to do with my imprisonment? Ariana was the one who brought me my last meal the day I died. She stood to the side and blubbered the whole time they were doing it. She was there, but she was sorry.” 

I looked away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Noble, who had sneaked into the cave by this time. He was near us, a little to the left, and his gun was drawn.  

“I know you don’t like it,” Wrath said. “But I don’t care if you don’t like it.” 

“I’m going to set them free, Wrath,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Noble wince. I wasn’t exactly being cryptic, was I?  

“Go ahead,” Wrath said. 

I paused. This surprised me.  

“Go ahead?” I said. 

“Yes.” 

“What will you do if I do?” 

“Absolutely nothing.” 

I stared Wrath in the eyes. He grinned slowly. I turned to face the train cars, and I said, “I wish you were all free.” 

Then I waited.  

I waited for my words to work, for the prisoners in the train cars to break free. But nothing happened. For a terrible moment, I thought my powers were gone, that I could no longer break any spells. 

Wrath started laughing. “You see? It takes awhile!” 

Of course. He hadn’t suddenly leapt out of his train car, when I’d released him. It had happened sometime during the night. Good grief. This might take hours. 

“Are you going to stand here and wait?” Wrath said. “Because when they come out of their train cars, I’m just going to put them right back in.” 

“I won’t let you,” I said. 

Wrath snatched me by both shoulders. “Oh yes. You will!” 

“Hester!”  

From behind us, Noble shouted Wrath’s real name. Wrath set me down slowly and turned around. 

“Oh,” Wrath said. “Hello, Noble.” 

“Hester, leave her alone,” Noble said.  

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Wrath said. “I think you’d better leave, Noble James.” 

“This isn’t you,” Noble said. “You don’t want to do this. The man I knew would never do this.” 

“But that’s just it!” Wrath tapped the wooden side of his face. “I am doing it! So where does that leave us? Either I am not really doing it, or I am not myself. And which do you think is true? If I’m not Hester Rathbone, then where did Hester Rathbone go?” He snarled. “I’ll tell you where Hester Rathbone went. He died in a toy made of wood. And do you know what I’m going to do to you, if you don’t get out of here right now? I’m going to put you each into your own train cars.” 

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 22, Wrath Confronted, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you wish you were a magic unusual, fear not. When you subscribe to or review this podcast, you perform a magical deed by making it far more attractive to potential listeners. You can also gain magical powers by becoming a $1 patron at patreon.com.sweeneywren. Results are not guaranteed. 
     
McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 2 episode 24, Death to All Mice 

Episode 24 

Death to All Mice 

October 11, 1921, continued. 

I hadn’t been terrified of dying when I entered the Night Enthusiasts’ cave to confront Wrath. Scared, yes. Terrified, no. But when he mentioned putting Noble and I into train cars, I was terrified. It was the perfect threat, because there was no solution. If I was gone, no one would be able to deliver any of us. Death changed suddenly into eternal damnation.  

I didn’t know what the process was like, being put into a wooden train car, but I guessed it was quick. Wrath had done it to five Night Enthusiasts, and they must not have been able to put up much of a fight.  

Wrath picked up a wooden train car and eyed me keenly. 

“What do you think, Maude?” he said. “Do you want to be bunk mates with Dawn Mumungus for all eternity?” 

I needed a rescue. Behind me, Noble, despite the fact that he had a gun, still hadn’t shot, and I knew why. He’d only have a handful of bullets in that gun. Wrath was half made of wood, and it was impossible to know where to aim to hit flesh. Most importantly, there was the very real chance that Noble would hit me instead.  

So instead of hoping for a miracle bullet to save the day, I took things into my own hands, and created my own rescue as best I could. I shouted the first thing that popped into my head.  

“Death to all mice!” The words from the wall, in the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. “Death to all mice!” 

I meant the words as a distraction. Something to confuse Wrath while Noble got a little bit closer. I had no idea they would do what they did.  

At the sound of the phrase, shouted in the darkness of the Night Enthusiast cave, six figures appeared. They wore opera masks with long noses. No, bird beaks. They were plague masks. I had just been joking about plague masks and now they were standing in front of me. Long, sharp beaks and huge bulbous eyes. The figures wore capes as well. They stared at Wrath, Noble, and I in total silence. We stared back. 

No one should have been able to teleport into this cave. What were they? 

“We were summoned?” the bird nearest to us spoke.  

“We just wanted to get out of here alive,” I said.  

“You may go,” the bird said to me. “We have been hoping that Wrath would summon us for some time.” 

Wrath looked petrified, but the figures all bowed to him, like he was worthy of respect. I was still staring when Noble touched my shoulder. My wits sprang back into my body, and Noble and I rushed out of the cave.  

“What were they?” I gasped, as Noble and I dashed down the tunnel. 

“I have never seen them before,” he said. “I thought you knew. You summoned them.” 

“I just yelled the first weird thing that came into my head,” I said. 

Noble looked back over his shoulder. “Well, whatever they are, they seem to think Wrath is wonderful. And that probably means they’re not.” 

We reached the end of the tunnel and scurried up the stairs, desperate to get up into the purgatory club where we could teleport.  

“Where did you hear that phrase anyway?” Noble said. “Death to all mice?” 

“What are you talking about?” I said. “It’s the red paint in the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. The room with the trap door. It’s on the walls. Did you never read it?” 

“Maude,” Noble said. “There is no writing on those walls.” 
 
 
Well, diary, I think it’s time to panic and hide under a blanket, which is precisely what I’m doing. Tomorrow will bring new adventures, but tonight, I am curled up with you in the living room of Mcgillicuddy and Murder’s secret basement, about to play a game of acting charades with some soon-to-be-friends of mine.  

Noble is still in hiding. I had to tell Mr. McGillicuddy the whole story, pretending that Noble wasn't a part of it.  

Mr. McGillicuddy, when he heard my story, took a group of Magic Unusuals over to the Night Enthusiast cave. Mr. McGillicuddy was still unwilling to risk Magic Unusual lives for Night Enthusiasts, and he didn’t want it to turn into a skirmish, but they thought they would at least go and see if there was something they could do. They found the trains cars abandoned, with Wrath nowhere in sight. The Death to All Mice figures were gone, and Mr. McGillicuddy thinks that they took Wrath with them. 

Did Wrath go willingly? He left the train cars behind. Either the Death to All Mice took Wrath against his will, or they suddenly offered him something so much better than the train cars that he abandoned his previous plan. I’m honestly not sure which is worse.  

The good news is? We grabbed the train cars. The Night Enthusiasts hadn’t yet emerged. We locked them securely in a very nice prison that is, of course, nowhere near here. We don’t want the Night Enthusiasts discovering our hideout. We know where there’s is, they have no idea where ours is, and we want to keep it that way. We are going to try to negotiate a truce once they emerge. We also want to be sure they’re still sane and safe to release. We don’t want to set another Wrath loose on humanity.  

The game of acting charades is about to begin, and someone is cooking food for the party. I can smell it. All in all, spirits are very high. People feel like celebrating. Ariana is not permitted out here with us, but as time goes on, maybe I can convince the others to let her join in. I have more empathy for her than I ever have before, and if there’s a way to get her soul back, then I’m going to. For now, she’s safe, and if Wrath was telling me the truth, then I’m indebted to him for the fact that Ariana is no longer on The Night Enthusiast side. 

I still have questions. Of course I do. Questions seem to be my lot in life. 

What do the Night Enthusiasts want me for? They seem to have some awful scheme up their sleeves, and I don’t know what it is. I have no idea what their larger purpose is. They need me to break a spell. I think it’s high time I found out what that spell is.  
 
I can see writing on the walls of McGillicuddy and Murder’s, and no one else can see them. DEATH TO ALL MICE. Noble had no idea what those beings with the plague masks were. Mr. McGillicuddy, if he knows, made no explanation to me.  

What have I stumbled into? And could it possibly be worse than The Night Enthusiasts themselves? 

If I’m the only one who can see the phrase, Death to All Mice, then do those beings have something specifically to do with me? 

I have a lot to figure out. I have a lot to do. Currently, the streets are swarming with people hungry for my blood, or hungry, at the very least, for me to be put behind bars. If I’m to live an effective life as a magic unusual, I am going to have to find a way to end these false accusations. Whatever it takes, I will find a way. 

Diary, it is the eleventh of October. I bought you in August. I first inked your pages on August 22nd. That is less than three months. Now look at me.  

It is glorious to be alive, it is glorious to be myself, and it is glorious that things will be dangerous tomorrow.  
 

I remain eternally, and devotedly yours, Maude.  
 
We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 2, episode 24, Death to All Mice, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider taking a moment to share it with your friends. A social media share, facebook tag, or in person recommendation do more to market this audiodrama than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. Visit MinervaSweeneyWren.com to share the story with other people in need of an adventure.    
     
This concludes Season 2 of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. Season 3 of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will premier in January of 2020. 

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 3, Episode 1

Don’t Try to Summon the Plague Mask Thingies

October 13th, 1921

Things feel more real than they used to.

Is that an odd thing to say, diary? Well, I am a very odd person. If you haven’t figured that out by now, then you really have no business being my diary. It should have been perfectly obvious at this point. My soul-splats are all over you.

But things do feel more real. It’s strange, living inside magic. What I mean to say is, magic used to be this far-off thing. It was a whisper. You sort of wanted it, hoped you could get inside of it, but then it went away. You didn’t believe in it, not really.

Well, now I’m totally within it, and it’s much warmer than I expected. It’s easier. It’s simpler. You would think that, now that I’m magical being who can teleport anywhere in the world, break spells with a single word, well, you would think things would feel strange and electric all the time. But they don’t. Things feel quite comfy now. I guess I have accepted the glorious as commonplace, but in a nice way. I guess I have decided that I deserve this. Part of my imposter syndrome is going away.

Here's an example of what I mean. This morning, I woke up. My room is peculiar from head to foot, and little green glass lamps floated all around me as I got dressed. Then I went downstairs, and some nice fellow named Matthew John had made breakfast for the entire group, so I piled a pink and cream china plate with sausages and some fluffy scrambled eggs, and a large cheese and onion biscuit, and I ate in front of the grate with a girl named Scotland and another girl named Octavia, while sitting on the floor.

Then after breakfast I went to Mr. McGillicuddy’s study, which is filled with small reptile skeletons and huge shimmering butterflies and lots of old, delicious smelling books. He handed me a sheet of paper, which was full of the latest news on Wrath.

And it was so ordinary. To walk into that odd room and accept that piece of paper about a deranged puppet man, who’d just been spirited away by a group of weird, plague-mask birds. And I simply accepted it. Ho hum. How kind and calm and delightful. Ho hum.

What an amazing life I have. Although, I have to confess, diary, one thing about me hasn’t changed one bit. I am still a procrastinator. I have that sheet about Wrath sitting at my elbow, but I’m writing to you instead.

And REALLY it’s high time I wrote to you, isn’t it? It’s been two whole days. You have things to be caught up on. You are very important.

But I’m also procrastinating because I don’t know what to do about this list of facts on Wrath. It’s some names of people he used to know, his skills, his past missions. Back when he belonged to the Pawn Shop. Before the Night Enthusiasts put him in that train car and made him go mad.

Mr. McGillicuddy somewhat tasked me with the job of finding out where Wrath has gone. The Death to All Mice monsters took Wrath away somewhere. It’s been two days, and we haven’t been able to find a trace of him.

That’s my mission right now. (I have missions! Isn’t it glorious?) To find out what happened to Wrath.

Mr. McGillicuddy was concerned, to say the least, when he heard that I was the only one who could see the words on the wall. DEATH TO ALL MICE. He and I went up there as soon as I told him, and he took a magic lantern. (It’s supposed to reveal spells. Very useful magical item, created by Magic Unusual who lives on the East Coast.) Mr. McGillicuddy couldn’t see anything, even with the lantern. I told him what I saw, pointed out the placement of the letters and everything, ran my fingers down the paint. Nothing. It was the most uncanny thing. I felt like he was pulling my leg. The painted words are so real to me. I can touch them. I can feel the paint. I can see each individual splatter as the red letters bleed down, like a message inked in blood. Mr. McGillicuddy can’t see a thing. It’s like we’re on different sides of the same dimension.

It’s very eerie, and it creeps me out, that I’m the only one who can see the letters. Mr. McGillicuddy pointed out that I might have two magic unusual powers, and one of them is seeing hidden letters, but I doubt it. The last person who had two magic unusual powers was a woman who lived in Japan two hundred years ago.

I don’t think it’s a second magic unusual power. I think it has something to do with the DEATH TO ALL MICE beings. They knew of Wrath, and they wanted to be summoned by him. I wonder, are they watching me too?

It’s a little bit later, diary, and I’ve gone to see Ariana. I don’t know whether to be cheered or horribly depressed. I’m cheered because Ariana is my dearest nut of a friend, and it was so nice to have someone to speak to about the Wrath dilemma. I’m horribly depressed because...well, our meeting went something like this.

I knocked on the door. Ariana answered by saying,

“You know that I’m locked in here, right? I can’t open the door.”

“It’s me,” I called. “Can I come in?”

“Ask the guard.”

“I mean are you in the nude or something?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“For crying out loud, Ariana.”

The guard let me in. Ariana was not in the nude. In fact, she looked rather shabby, like she'd slept in her dress without putting on pajamas.

“Hello,” Ariana said.

I felt squeamish. I felt like I’d doomed her to this, somehow: this mundanity, this useless life. She appeared to me, in that moment, like someone losing all their blood slowly. She was getting weaker and weaker, and more and more gray in her complexion. I felt like I’d dealt the stab wound that was doing this to her, and now I had the gall to stride in for a chat.

“You look foul,” I said.

“Maude,” Ariana said. “You’re supposed to be the nice one. I’m supposed to be the blunt one. How dare you.”

“Well, I’m taking lessons from the master,” I said. “If you’re so blunt, maybe that’s the best way to reach you. You do look foul. You look like you slept in a ship’s hold.”

“With rats and bilge water and all of that?”

“Exactly.”

Ariana flopped backwards onto the bed. I came and lay down next to her, on my side. She looked at me, wistful.

“I don’t really see the point, Maude. Why should I get dressed? Or undressed? Or bathe? I don’t see anyone. No one sees me. We brush our hair and iron our clothes and don’t stink so that people hug us and make friends with us. We look nice so people don’t judge us. But I’m not going to go to the department store. I’m not going on any dates. I’m not doing anything. You’re literally the only person who’s walked across my threshold since I’ve been here, and I don’t even know when you’ll show up.”

Ouch.

“Ariana,” I said. “It’s only been a few days. I’m going to try to work something out...”

“It doesn’t matter how many days it’s been,” Ariana said. “You don’t understand. I’m biting my nails. There’s nothing to do. I’m cooped up. One minute feels like five and one hour feels like five, and I’m going on weeks in this place. It’s dim, and these windows aren’t real, and all I can think of is how I’ll be here for weeks. Months. Maybe the rest of my life.” She reached across the bed and tugged at the end of my nose. “And then I think about how, even if I wanted to leave, even if I wanted to go back to the Night Enthusiasts, Mr. McGillicuddy wouldn’t let me. And then I hate you and everyone else.”

I shut my eyes. “I’m going to do something about this, I swear.”
“What did you come in here for?” Ariana said.

My eyes snapped open. “To talk about Wrath. Do you want to talk about Wrath now? Will that help take your mind off things?”

Ariana stared at the ceiling. “I've already told you everything I know about Wrath.”

“I don’t want new information,” I said. “I want to throw ideas at you. Brainstorm. You know.”

“Why can’t you chat with one of one your Pawn Shop friends?” Ariana said.

“Because they all expect me to be the razzling dazzling magic unusual with the rare and amazing power who beat Wrath with her own sheer will. I don’t have friends here, yet, Ariana. I mean, I do, but they’re game friends. Dinner friends. They’re not life friends. They haven’t lived through anything with me. I want to talk to you because you're my favorite person here.”

Ariana partially rolled closer to face me. “I’m your favorite person here?”

“Of course, stupid.”

“Hmm.”

I paused for a minute, then stared into her eyes. I’ve always felt a kind of closeness to Ariana, like we’re connected in a way that other people aren’t. I feel like I know her, deeper down.

“Ariana,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“So?” Ariana said.

“So it’s my job to find out what happened to Wrath. But... Mr. McGillicuddy keeps saying, find out what happened to Wrath. Find out where he’s going. Find out what he’s doing next. Find out what he’s doing with the Death to All Mice birds.”

“And you don’t know where to start?” Ariana said.

“I do know where to start,” I whispered. “That’s the trouble.”

Ariana propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me quizzically.

“I have to find the Death to All Mice birds myself,” I said. “I have to summon them.”

“Summon them?” Ariana said. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“I have to question them,” I said. “Notice more things about them, get closer. I need to observe them, and, if possible, simply ask them what they did with Wrath.”

“But Maude,” Ariana said. “They could be cadavers. They could be mad. They could be mad cadavers.”

“They could be anything,” I said. “And whatever they are, they’re a huge mystery. And I feel fairly certain they’re evil. Every time I think about them, I feel like my soul has been covered in mold.”

“Death to all mice...” Ariana mused. “What does that even mean, anyway?”

“Death to all cowards?” I said. “Death to all pests?”

“Hm,” Ariana said.

We lay side by side on the bed in silence. Suddenly, Ariana got up. “I feel gross,” she said. “I’m suddenly aware of how crumply my dress is. I’m going to get changed.”

I stared at the ceiling while she took off her dress and changed into a fresh one.

“Cute garters,” I said, when she came back.

“Aren’t they?” Ariana said. “It’s a pity I don’t have anyone to look at them but you.”

We giggled, and then lapsed into silence again. 

“Ariana, I am going to get you out of this,” I said.

“How?” Ariana said, with a wry smile.

“Well...” I choked up inside. I wasn’t sure why this next bit was so hard to say. “I’m going to try to find a way to return your soul.”

Ariana, to my dismay, snorted. “Oh, Maude,” she said. “You blind sheep.”

“Ariana,” I said.

“My soul isn’t sleeping,” Ariana said. “It isn’t neglected or bruised or hiding under a rock. It is dead. I killed it. I went to that chamber under the sea, same as you. I saw a small white rabbit and I killed it with a rock. It was horrible. But I did it. It is dead. Its blood ran all over me.”

“Why did you do it?” I asked softly.

“I wanted power,” Ariana said. “I wanted magic. I wanted to escape the mundane.”

“But you didn’t know about the Pawn Shop,” I said. “When the Night Enthusiasts convinced you to join.”

“No,” Ariana said. “But I wasn’t tricked or forced, Maude. I wanted to become a Night Enthusiast.”

“You didn't know you had options,” I said. “That isn’t right.”

“Well, it happened,” Ariana said. “It is what it is.”

“But...” I said. I searched for the proper way to say it. “The colors are gone.”

“What?” Ariana said. “Don’t get poetical on me, Maude, for heaven’s sake.”

“I’ve had my soul removed, too,” I said. “Temporarily. The colors are gone. Things feel drab. There’s no trust, in life or in goodness or anything like that.”

Ariana said, in a quiet voice, “You still have that?”

“Yes!” I said.

“Mm,” she said. “Well, good for you.” She patted my hand, in a tense way, in a way that told me she wanted me out of her room. “But there’s no way to get my soul back, Maude. What’s done is done. I’ve lost a limb. It’s over, so don’t bring it up.”

I realized I would need to keep my thoughts secret from Ariana in the future. I didn’t blame her for being snappish. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant subject.

“So are you going to summon the Death to All Mice Birds?” Ariana said. “Have a little chat?”

“Don’t make fun,” I said.

“Will you, though?” Ariana said.

I paused. “Yes,” I said. “I will.”

“Well!” Ariana said. I could tell she was still irritated with me. “Don’t do it in here. I don’t fancy them knowing my home address.”

It was a good point. Maybe it wasn’t best to summon them down here, in our secret base.

“Off you go, then,” Ariana said.

So, like I said, diary, I left feeling oddly cheered and horribly depressed at the same time. I don’t believe Ariana’s soul is gone for good. I think there’s a way to get it back. I have no idea how, but I’m going to do quite a bit of digging. In the meantime, I am going to try to summon the plague mask thingies.

(later)

Diary. Good gosh.

So I went to go summon the Death to All Mice Birds. You know. Like you do. I went back to 1921, to the Pawn Shop (since, you probably remember, the secret base is located within a murder object and therefore back in time) Well, anyway, I was back in 1921, and I went outside and walked to the park. I stood under the shade of a tree and then realized that that didn’t make any sense, because everyone in the park would see the bird, so I teleported to the cemetery. I slipped into a crypt, shut the door, and then tried to remember what on earth I’d done last time.

All I’d done to summon the Beings was say, “Death to All Mice” multiple times aloud. I couldn’t remember how many times, however. Had it been two? Three?

Just checked in your pages, diary. As I recorded it, it was twice. But was that exactly what happened? I’ve already made idiotic records in your pages... remember the time I got a pen from the Night Enthusiast who was guarding my ostrich cage? I used the pen to roll a murder object towards me and escape to France, just in time to not be killed by Wrath’s poison gas. Well I never mentioned that the Night Enthusiasts confiscated my pen (because clearly, I’m going to stab a guard in the neck with my fountain pen) and all I had at the time was the broken end of a pencil.

Honestly. Honestly, diary. How do I miss these things? I would lose my head if it wasn’t on my neck.

But that all goes to show that some of my records are idiotic. I am the cream of the crop where lunacy is concerned, and I’m quite proud of it. But I digress. I decided to start with two and move up to three.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Death to all Mice!” I exclaimed. “Death to all mice!”

Do you ever feel silly shouting into a silent room, diary? I felt very silly. I opened my eyes, wondering if the crypt was about to get very crowded with birdies.

“Death to all mice!” I said again.

Nothing happened. I started to wonder. Was this space too small? Could they not all fit? So I walked outside and said it again.

Nothing. No weird birds. No plague masks. I keep calling them birds, they’re probably human. It’s those beaks. Those plague mask beaks.

Anyway, I felt all shivery. Diseased, even. I felt so scared, like I’d scratched the surface of hell and gotten it under my fingernails. I was relieved that they hadn’t shown up, to tell the truth. Maybe Wrath is gone. Maybe he’s never coming back to this reality. Maybe it’s all over. Maybe I don’t need to summon the Death to All Mice thingies, and it doesn’t matter that it didn’t work.

Well, I returned to the Secret Basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop, but the place was in an uproar. I don’t mean a loud uproar, with people shouting. I mean that I knew instantly that things were... off. I saw Rupert go dashing past, and then a second later, Scotland tore down the hall carrying a medical bag.

That medical bag scared me. Medical bags always scare me, because of the epidemic that killed my parents. The way the doctor came that night, carrying that bag. I knew there were sharp things in it. Doctors have always scared me, because they cut up human bodies like some sort of madman. They slit skin and pull at muscle and it’s all for our own good, but there’s something ghastly about a human soul, lying there bleeding and wounded and moaning, because someone kind slit into them on purpose.

Well, anyway, it scared me at the time. Because my parents were dying of influenza and I was sick with it, and the doctor came to our house. That little bag. It was a little crusty. The leather was old. I remember I was getting better, and the doctor told me so, and I thought, all right, then. We’re all going to be fine. My parents were in separate rooms. I was so foggy, so sick, but I remember that bag. I remember wishing that my parents were in the room with me, because I was afraid he was going to take something sharp and nasty out of the bag and I wouldn’t be able to stop him, because I was so sick. And I wanted my mother. I wanted my father, smelling of pipe tobacco, to talk in his calm, even voice to the doctor, and then make a quiet joke that was so understated, it would take the doctor 3 seconds to realize that it had been a joke. And then my father and the doctor would laugh, and I would know that everything was all right, and he’d take the doctor out of my bedroom and away from me. And my mother would sit down beside me, smelling of soft rose perfume and linen, and she’d hold my hand, Her fingers would be dry and calloused and so smooth and comforting against my skin. And I’d said, “Mamsie, I’m scared,” and she’d said, “Stop being scared. It’s my job to worry about you. You don’t have to worry about yourself.” And I’d fall asleep like that, because I could never be scared when she was in the room.

I wished for them, to be there, in that moment when I was alone with the doctor. I wished for them, and I fell asleep imagining them there with me. And I never saw them again.

So anyway, I don’t like the look of doctor’s bags. Scotland is a doctor and she’s very good at it—we've had several conversations since I moved into the secret basement—but I still don’t like seeing doctor’s bags. And when she came past carrying that one... well, I pictured someone lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor and it wasn’t a fun prospect.

Mr. McGillicuddy appeared, then. “Maude!” he said. 

“What’s going on?” I said. Something clearly was. Mr. McGillicuddy, to my surprise, hurried past me up the stairs, out of the secret basement. “Dawn Mumungus is having a fit,” he said.

“Dawn Mumungus?” I said.

The leader of the Night Enthusiasts? She was currently our prisoner, locked up in a secret prison location. She and all the other Night Enthusiasts I freed from their train cars. I hadn’t seen her since she was a tiny wooden thing, standing in a wooden train car. The train cars had been taken to our secret prison base, and then the Night Enthusiasts inside them had been released. I’d broken the spell, but the spell took a long time to complete itself. I wondered, with a shiver, if Dawn Mumungus had any wooden bits, the way that Wrath was now made partially of wood.

“She’s having a fit?” I said. My brain was whirling. “Do you mean she’s angry?”

“No,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “I mean she’s coughing up wood and having seizures. I’m afraid it’s going to happen to the rest of them. Scotland, have you got your bag? Good. For heaven’s sake, let’s go.”

“Maude,” Scotland said. “You’d better come, too.”

“Me?” I said.

“You set them free,” Scotland said. “You might want to try breaking the spell again, in case there are layers.”

Layers! I was shocked. Floored. I felt my heart stutter. Could the spell be broken in layers?

If it could, it meant that Wrath could be restored from his partial-puppet state. If I could find him.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 1, Don't Try to Summon the Plague Mask Thingies, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Friends of the Pawn Shop, are you hearing an ad right now for Bartholomew Bilius’s all in one toe cream, wart remover, and toothpaste? You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please remember to share this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 2: The Barking of the Mad.

Season 3, Episode 2

The Barking of the Mad

Scotland, Mr. McGillicuddy, and I left the Secret Basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. We arrived in the Pawn Shop, and I was struck by how peaceful it was. It was a beautiful day outside—I could see copper leaves glowing against the window glass, and bright sun slanted across the floorboards. The second floor of the Pawn Shop, however, was completely deserted.

“Mr. McGillicuddy,” I said, as the three of us hurried across the room, “how come no one ever comes snooping? Why don’t you have fussy, rich customers you can’t get rid of?”

“Maude,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Most people are not curious. The ones that are can usually be turned away by exorbitant prices and rude employees. You were the only one I was never able to get rid of.”

“Well, bully for you,” I said placidly.

I followed Mr. McGillicuddy and Scotland at a partial jog, over to a stone gryphon. The gryphon had glass eyes, and Mr. McGillicuddy removed one of them. He reached inside the eye socket and removed a sewing pin.

“Ah!” he said. “Here we are!”

“That’s the murder object?” I said.

“This is where we keep our secret prison, yes,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Inside this pin.”

Mr. McGillicuddy laid the pin down on the table, touched it with his fingertips, and then teleported. Instantly, the air filled with the subtle stink of blood.

“Augh!”  I said.

“Riveting, isn’t it?” Scotland said. She touched the pin. “That’s murder objects for you. You can’t get away from the stink of decay.”

“But I thought the Pawn Shop found a way to get rid of that bloody smell,” I said. “I never smell anything when we teleport into the Secret Basement.”

“Oh, well, we’ve aired that murder object out,” Scotland said. “Repeated use. It clears the smell away eventually. This prison, well, I don’t think anyone’s used it in five years. Apart from when we put them all in here, of course.” Scotland tapped the pin. “You coming?”

“I am,” I said. “Go ahead.”

Scotland disappeared, and the bloody smell intensified. My feeling of uneasiness increased—we'd opened the eye of a mythical beast, scooped out a pin, and now the air stank of blood. Where were we going? What would it be like? I’d seen ordinary prisons (I had been locked up in one, in fact) but I wondered what a Magic Unusual prison would be like. I snatched hold of the pin and teleported after Scotland.

I arrived, and I felt strangely like I was underground. A soft humming sound filled the walls, and I felt like I was deep down somewhere, buried in the depths of the earth. I listened for the sound of Dawn Mumungus having a fit, but things seemed to be calm at the moment. Mr. McGillicuddy seemed tense, but not in a panic.

The room was fascinating, and I fell a little bit in love with it. It was high ceilinged, with corridors that led off into dark recesses. It was well lit, and copper chains and green paper lanterns hung from the ceiling in abundance. Prison cells, with beautiful copper metalwork, stood two high, like we were in a zoo. The cells were large and comfortable and seemed to contain beds. I felt like I’d walked into a mystical underground city. The air smelled like lilac.

“Who was murdered in this place?” I whispered to Scotland.

“Well, no one was murdered here when it looked like this,” Scotland said. “This is a cave. We’ve boarded it up and built this here. It’s quite inaccessible. Quite lethal, too, if you tried to escape. Too many twists and turns in the cave. Too many pits. There’s no way in and out now except through murder objects.”

“Speaking of the murder object,” I said. “Where is it?”

“It always shows up here,” Mr. McGillicuddy said.

The pin, bright and sparkling, was sticking out of a tassel that dangled from a lantern.

“Well,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. He hurried towards one of the cells. “Welcome to prison.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Yes, well!” Scotland said. “We have to be civilized. No rats and bread and water or anything.”

“Dawn?” Mr. McGillicuddy called. “Dawn? Are you feeling all right?”

For the first time, I really noticed the people behind the copper metalwork. It was all of the Night Enthusiasts I set free from the train cars. They wore their dark clothes, tinged in lime green or purple, and they paced. I felt a sudden chill. I felt like I was in a zoo. A human zoo, under the earth. And it wasn’t... don’t misunderstand me... it wasn’t that we were cruel to lock them up. This was probably the nicest prison in the world, and they needed to be locked up. I felt like I was in a human zoo, and I felt disturbed by it, because I felt like the Night Enthusiasts had become animals. Gone mad. The way they paced, shot their heads towards us... One gripped the bars and started to howl—actually howl—like a wolf. I felt my spine go straight and all my hairs stand up.

“Dawn?” Mr. McGillicuddy stopped outside one of the cells.

“I moved her, McGillicuddy,” a woman said.

I spun around, surprised. An older woman wearing a gray dress, with about a thousand keys hanging from her belt, stood behind us and smiled.

“Ah, Livinia,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Is she all right?”

“The fits stopped two minutes ago,” Livinia said. “But I think they might start up again. I’m glad you’re here. Especially you, Scotland.”

“Naturally,” Scotland said.

“I moved her to the large cell,” Livinia said. “There are restraints in there. I didn’t know what else to do—I didn’t want her hurting herself. She’s right around the corner here.”

Livinia moved briskly around the corner, reaching for one of the thousand keys.

“Do you stay down here with them?” I asked Livinia, as we hurried towards Dawn Mumungus. “All the time?”

“Well, normally,” Livinia said. “I’m very happily situated back at the secret basement. When this crew arrived, however, someone needed to keep an eye on them. I’m happy to be the jailer for as long as we have need of it.”

“And it’s just you?” I said. I felt a little stupid asking. I didn’t want to insult Livinia—God knew a woman couldn’t be a jailer in the ordinary world, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of it. It was just that there were five of them. What if they broke a spell and broke free all at once?

“Freeze,” Livinia said.

All of a sudden, I couldn’t move. I felt confused. I tried to move again, and I physically couldn’t. I was frozen in position, like a child playing statues.

“And unfreeze,” Livinia said.

I could move again, suddenly. I felt like I was dreaming, the way you sometimes can’t run in your sleep.

“Your magic unusualpower is immobilizing people,” I said.

“Aren’t I useful?” Livinia said. “There are few things that could make me a better jailer.”

“You’d be good in a fight, too,” Scotland said.

“And I was,” Livinia said. “When I was younger. I remember once, when we were trying to uncover the lost treasure of Palmer--”

Livinia stopped herself. We’d reached Dawn Mumungus’s cell. Livinia unlocked the door, which looked like it was made of copper lace, and we all walked in.

Dawn Mumungus sat on the bed. She glared at all of us.

“Hello, Dawn!” Scotland snapped open her medical bag. “How are you feeling?”

Dawn Mumungus. I used to refer to her as The Small Woman, do you remember? She’s about forty, diminutive, with heavily lidded eyes that were currently painted purple. Her eyes are like sharp, winged things. They’re black and crackling, and you feel like she could snuff you out if she breathed too heavily. She could have looked small and unimposing on her prison cell cot, but she looked like a tiny goddess, one that was only tolerating our presence.

“Can you make me stop vomiting wood chips?” Dawn Mumungus said dryly.

“Well, I can’t,” Scotland said. “I’m just here to check for other damages. Did you vomit up liquid with the wood? How does your throat feel? Are you dehydrated?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Dawn Mumungus said.

“I would, thanks,” Scotland said.

“Here’s where you say, ‘if you’re going to be like that, I’m not going to treat you.’”

“Actually,” Scotland said cheerfully, “I’m a doctor. I’m going to treat you whether you’re behaving or not, because you may be injured. I’m not below having Livinia immobilize you first, however.”

Dawn Mumungus pouted. She sulkily opened her mouth to let Scotland look inside. Once Scotland finished checking her throat, Dawn Mumungus said,

“I bet you love this. The leaders of your enemy. All behind bars. Think you’re going to bring down the Night Enthusiasts, do you?”

“It had occurred to us,” Mr. McGillicuddy said.

“Thought you’d slip Wrath a little commission on the side, did you?” Dawn said. “Have him put all your enemies into murder objects?”

“Dawn,” I said. “Clearly you’re a little touched in the head. I was the one who set you free.”

Dawn scowled.

“Well, your throat is fine,” Scotland said. “No abrasions or swelling. Drink this please, and tell me if you feel any pain.”

Dawn Mumungus took a glass of water from Scotland and drank it. I felt a little like a girl, playacting being a grown up with these professionals, but I had just as much right to be here as they did. I decided to do my part and stop being squeamish.

“I wish that the leftover damage from this spell would be undone,” I said. “I wish that you would no longer vomit up wood, that you would have no wooden pieces, that the affects of your time in the train car will be entirely undone.”

Dawn looked at me with a startled expression, as though I was just babbling well-wishes, then seemed to realize what I was doing. She stared at the ceiling.

“I really loathe your kind,” she said after a minute. “Why can’t we just be enemies and have done with it?”

“Now, now,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Just let us know if it worked.”

“Oh, I see,” Dawn said. “I’m your experiment. You want to know if Wrath can be returned to the precious state of Hester Wrathbone. Hester was such a nice man, wasn’t he? A little artistic, maybe, the sort of friend you tolerated at parties because of all his enthusiasm for things no one else cared about, but a nice man. He’s not a nice man anymore, is he? And you want to know if he can be put back?”

“We’re curious,” Mr. McGillicuddy said.

“Hmm,” Dawn said. She leaned forward and looked at me. “If I were you, Ms. Merkle, I’d leave Wrath alone. Do you know why? Because you can heal his body but you can’t heal his soul, and it’s better for a man like that to be easy to spot from a distance. It’s better that his madness be marked. If you have a mad dog barking, at least you know where the mad dog is.”

“You think I should leave him with a furry puppet eyeball?” I said.

“Yes,” Dawn Mumungus said, “Because he has a furry puppet mind.”

Scotland snapped her medical bag shut. “Well, that’s all I can do for you at present. Maude is the real healer in this case. Your throat looks all right. Make sure you keep drinking water. Tell us, Dawn, if your fits return. We’re very interested to know if Maude can wish healing.”

“If I stop having fits,” Dawn said. “It doesn’t mean she had anything to do with it. It might simply mean that the last of the train car is out of me.”

“True,” Scotland said. “But let us know either way, won’t you?”

“I’d be delighted,” Dawn said.

We left her cell and walked back to the main area of the underground prison. I wondered if my words had done any good, if she was cured now from the wooden side effects of that train car. I rubbed my arms and felt vaguely dizzy. I thought of what she’d said about Wrath, that I would never be able to cure Wrath’s mind. That that fuzzy puppet eyeball would keep whizzing around in his brain, even if I made him look like everybody else.

“That woman always makes me feel nettly,” Scotland said. “Come on, let’s go drink cocoa or something. Or hot echinacea tea.”

“She has a point,” Mr. McGillicuddy said, as he reached for the pin. “We have the Night Enthusiast leaders.” Mr. McGillicuddy sounded like he was far away, like he hadn’t stopped thinking about this particular fact since Dawn had mentioned it. It sounded as though it had been playing loops in his mind, and now he was breaking from his reverie just enough to bring us into it. “We have their leaders. We’ve never had anything like this before, not since the Pawn Shop started fighting against the Night Enthusiasts.”

Mr. McGillicuddy grabbed the pin and disappeared. With quick, blood-scented pops, Scotland and I went after him.

Mr. McGillicuddy continued our conversation in McGillicuddy and Murder’s, as though we hadn’t just passed through time and space.

“I never wanted to fight the Night Enthusiasts,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “I just wanted to collect doors and make a life and then they had to show up in my city, and it was someone’s job to stop them, so it ended up being me, and now here we all are. But what if we could get rid of them? Disband them once and for all? And we could all live in peace in this city and not worry about what was going on in the rest of the world?”

I smiled. There was something sort of sweet, and honestly a little bit irritating, about Mr. McGillicuddy and his desire to just do nothing. I felt suddenly as though we’d interrupted him from a life of carving wooden figurines.

“I think it would be excellent to disband the Night Enthusiasts once and for all,” I said. “But aren’t they just going to grow another head? I mean, won’t they just appoint new leaders?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “If we’re going to defeat them, we have to act now. And I’m not sure what to do yet. Things are still... brimming. But I think we have an advantage right now that we’ve never had before. That’s my point. I think we might have been given an opportunity to end the Night Enthusiasts, rather than just fight them endlessly for the next one thousand years. We need to think. I am not sure what to do yet. But we have a shot now.”

“Those leaders might know things that none of the other Night Enthusiasts do,” I said. “Like that secret entrance that I found, to break into the Night Enthusiast cave from a back way? Only the leaders knew how to find it, or that it was even there. We might have secrets locked up in our jail, because we have their minds locked up. There might be important passwords and locations that are now inaccessible to the rest of the Night Enthusiast crew.”

“Good!” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Good! And we can use that. We must try to use that. This is what I’m talking about! We need time to think. We may be able to do something extraordinary here, but we need to plan.”

“Do you think they’ll attack us?” Scotland said. “The rest of the Night Enthusiasts?”

Mr. McGillicuddy looked at us, with an expression that said he was about to turn green. “Well, my dear, this is precisely why I haven’t given this much thought until this moment. I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t like thinking about what might come next.”

“Do they know how to attack us?” I said to Scotland. “Have they any idea how to get into the secret basement, even half a clue?”

“Nothing,” Scotland said. “We guard it with our lives. But I have to say... it’d be a good idea to keep an eye on your little friend, Maude. Tighter than ever, because if she found a way to escape....”

I felt crushed. I had been gathering steam to suggest that Ariana be allowed out into the drawing room with us in the evenings. But now this was a bit of a trump card. Ariana escaping could be the death of us. I knew she wouldn’t betray us. But they didn’t. And it was too much of a gamble, letting her so near the gate.

“I’ll be stationing guards throughout the Pawn Shop as well,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “We should be performing regular spells to check for any unknown presence.”

You realize, diary, that while we were having this conversation, we were moving through the second floor of the Pawn Shop, ready to enter the murder object and head back to the secret basement. I found the back of my neck creeping. I wondered if we were being watched right now. Did the Night Enthusiasts care that we had their leaders? Or were they secretly relieved that the bad parents had gone away?

“We don’t want anyone to see us entering the secret basement,” Mr. McGillicuddy finished.

“I think a simple solution to that, McGillicuddy,” Scotland said. “Is just to not leave the secret base for some time.”

“You are right.” Mr. McGillicuddy nodded. Then suddenly, he spun on his heel. He returned to the stone gryphon and rotated its eye. He pulled out the pin, the pin in which all the Night Enthusiasts were kept.

“I think I’ll be keeping this with us,” he whispered.

It’s never good when your leaders become terrified. It gives you an uneasy feeling. I suddenly realized I was being quarantined and had no say in the matter.

“Mr. McGillicuddy,” I said. “If we hole ourselves in, if we decide right here and now that no one is leaving the secret basement for weeks, or even months, while we try to hide from the Night Enthusiasts... how will I find out what happened to Wrath?”

Mr. McGillicuddy’s lips quivered. He looked almost reproachful, as though I’d created this dilemma myself to vex him.

“Maude,” he said. “The Pawn Shop comes first. Everyone who belongs to the Pawn Shop comes first. Now, this is my fault for not deciding what to do earlier. I should have been thinking this through. But Dawn Mumungus is right, we have power over them. And Scotland is right, we’re in danger, and they might attack us, and we need to hide.”

I wondered if Mr. McGillicuddy was starting to slip in his old age, taking so long to make a decision so important.

“So I can’t go after Wrath?” I said.

“Wrath will have to wait,” Mr. McGillicuddy said.

This is not the first time Mr. McGillicuddy’s fear has stopped me. I decided I didn’t want to argue. Not here and now, anyway. And in the end, maybe he’s right. Maybe the best thing we can do is stay hidden from the Night Enthusiasts. Lock ourselves away, immobilize ourselves for months. At least that way, in theory, we can’t be attacked by our enemies. But I can’t help feeling uneasy. I think the Death to All Mice birds might be a different kind of threat, something much worse. And I think it’s wrong to not start investigating them.

Well, diary, I’m back in my room. I’m honestly not sure what to do next. I have my feet up in slippers, and there’s something sacrilegious about having your feet up in slippers when adventure is afoot. The word has gone out, throughout the secret basement—no leaving! We’re quarantined! We’re all going to become little Arianas in a sense, unable to leave the Pawn Shop’s Secret Basement.

That’s sort of depressing. I’m going to go eat cheese.

October 14th, 1921

Diary. I had gotten up to eat cheese, when last I left you. Well, I didn’t eat cheese. I did something stupid.

I went out into the hallway, and there, burned into the wood of the walls, was the glowing drawing of an eye.

An eye!

Now, diary, you know I have a thing with eyes. If not for the broken piece of china with a bright blue eye, I would still be writing about how boring it is to type all day for Mr. Levy, and that would be it. I would scarcely be three pages into you, and now look at you! It all started because of that blue eye staring up at me, and because my eyes started glowing in the dark.

Well, this was something else entirely, and I was intrigued. Because it was still an eye.

And here’s where I was stupid.

I should have gone in search of someone else. I should have said, “Hello, Octavia, how are you, can you tell me about glowing eyes that appear in walls?” And then I would have known what this eye was, and what it does, before I did something stupid.

But I didn’t go find Octavia, diary. I didn’t go find Mr. McGillicuddy.

I walked up to this glowing, spectral, magical thing in the wall, which I had no idea about, and no reason to trust, and I touched it.

Just a little poke. And then I was transported to a murderous cave where everything smelled like blood.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 2, The Barking of the Mad, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Friends of the Pawn Shop, are you hearing an ad right now for Great Jeshaphat’s Great Greedy Gut Tonic? (Bubbles to soothe even the worst of tummyrumbles?) You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, Episode 3: Maskwell, the Underground City

Season 3, Episode 3

Maskwell, The Underground City

October, 14th, 1921 continued

Maskwell the Undergound City. It has an eerie ring to it, doesn’t it? Just saying the name makes my hairs sort of stand on end and my flesh creep. I get tingles. Imagine then, what suddenly arriving there did.

I landed on my hands and knees on cold stone. I noticed instantly that my skirt was wet around my knees. I squatted, lifting my head and looking around, and my mouth dropped open.

I was not in my world. I could sense that. I wasn’t in a cave on Earth, or if I was, this cave had never belonged to the humans. It belonged to something deep under the earth, something with fangs on its soul that lived and breathed in ancient rites. I could feel it in the air, I could feel it in my breath. I was an alien here. These walls belonged to something else.

The cave led off into three tunnels from where I crouched. There were large mounds of ragged stone tumbling into the paths. Beyond the mounds of ragged stone, a thin light hung in the air. It came from an onion shaped lantern glowing in the ceiling. The lantern didn’t look like a thing made by human hands. It looked like a curled-up worm.

A little to the left of me, a giant mask sat propped against the wall. It was red, with large round eye holes and a large round mouth. It looked perpetually shocked, or scared, or screaming, but in a weirdly comical way. I stood up. I walked to the mask, because it was the only thing in the cave that looked created. I touched it. It was made of wood, painted with old, crumbling paint.

I peered into the open mouth. There was nothing behind it. Just stone.

I was very much in shock, diary.  I couldn’t think straight. I wanted to hide behind the mask. I sensed that I was an alien, that I didn’t belong here, and I wanted to get out. Only then did it occur to me to look for another glowing eye symbol. Perhaps it would act as a portal and take me back.

I looked behind me, and there was nothing there. I really started to panic then. It’s one thing to be lost in a cave. It’s another to feel that you’ve been washed up, like a piece of driftwood, on the shores of an alien land, where no human being has every breathed, and no human being will ever breathe again. It was the most profound sense of isolation, like I’d been turned inside out.

Despair reared its ugly head, until:

“Great Jehasaphat,” I said. “I can teleport.”

I shook myself, shocked that it had taken me so long to remember that I wasn’t a human, I was a magic unusual. I could do things. I shut my eyes and pictured the pawn shop.

My fingers and toes went cold. I opened my eyes, and my breath frosted, just once, in the air of the cave.

“I can’t teleport,” I said.

I hadn’t been able to teleport in the Night Enthusiast’s cave, diary, but that had felt different. Like I was bumping up against a thin, warm spell, almost like thudding repeatedly into the side of an elephant. This felt different. This felt as though I couldn’t teleport because I was simply too far away, like a radio that can’t get a signal.

I sat down. My blood filled with warm, animated plans—I would keep exploring. I would hunt for a new eye symbol and hope that it took me back to my world. I would take one of these three tunnels. I would keep walking and walking, and eventually, I would find something. This place wasn’t devoid of life; there were masks on the walls.

But first, I sat. I was dizzy with shock, and I knew I needed a minute. I felt like I was dreaming. Like I’d punctured something in the fabric of the world, and in the process, bloated my heart with steam. I felt pressured, uncomfortable, filled with a feeling of, above all else, if you can believe it, embarrassment. I felt I had no one but myself to blame for this. And honestly, that was the truth. Curiosity had definitely killed the cat... but I had yet to see if satisfaction was going to bring her back.

I gave myself as much time as I needed, which was probably about ten to twelve minutes. I got very cold. My knees were still wet from whatever I’d knelt in when I arrived. I came out of the shock enough that I started to investigate the wetness.

You remember, when I first teleported into the cave, I said that it smelled like blood?

Well, it did. That was what the wet stuff was.

But it was cold blood. It’s hard to imagine blood being cold. It’s either hot, or warm and sticky, or dry. It’s rarely icy cold but still thin and liquid.

I had this moment of wondering if the blood was mine, if I’d smashed my kneecaps somehow, and then I remembered that I’d been walking around just fine a minute ago. I crawled down the cave floor and found the puddle again. It was icy cold, but fresh. It was a little thinner than blood I was used to, but it had that same sugary, copper smell.

I followed the trail of blood with my eyes, and I suddenly realized that the blood that wasn’t really blood. It was coming from mushrooms—twisted, ribbon-like masses that grew on the sides of the cave. They were bleeding down in trickles.

Blood mushrooms. I suddenly had a horrible, pinched feeling, like my whole body had been crammed inside a jewelry box. What if I was somehow at the end of the human race, a thousand years into the future, and humanity had evolved into scummy, bleeding cave mushrooms?

Honestly. I think that’s what we deserve sometimes.

But then I remembered the mask, and I realized that someone intelligent had to be here, no matter where I was. I stood up, dried my fingertips on my skirt, and walked forward.

The shock was gone. Thank goodness. I hate feeling like I’m inside a bubble. I took the path to the left, because I decided that, if it didn’t go anywhere, I’d come back and continue down the other paths, in the same direction that one reads a book.

The tunnel smelled scummy and dark. I wished I had brought someone with me. I had a queasy feeling that this was all somehow a dream. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a song. It was low and eerie, and it trembled on the cave walls.

My hairs stood up, straight as a cat’s tail. I grimaced. But once the surprise wore away, I was oddly relieved. Someone was singing. That was good. There were people here, of some kind anyway. And the song.... reminded me of Noble James, although I wasn’t sure why.

I took off at a jog towards the sound. It was starting to get darker... the light behind me was fading. Then, I turned a corner, towards the sound, and things became bright again.

In a well-lit, narrow corridor, I saw a man sitting, perched on a tall brown stone. He looked like a man from a strange book of nursery rhymes. He had dark hair and long fingers, and he sat perched on the stone like someone perched on the end of the moon. One of his long legs dangled off the stone, ending in a short boot.

He wore a top hat. He wore a black and red striped coat. It was Wrath.

He was still singing. His eyes were shut, but I could still see the long lashes of his puppet eye, laid like tiny wings against the wood of his face.

And that’s when I realized what the song was. It was the same tune that had allured Wrath out of the Night Enthusiast cave, when Noble and I had come to rescue the train car prisoners. I had been amazed at the time that a simple song could allure him from the train cars. He’d seemed like someone in a trance. I studied him now, not sure what to say or do.

“Wrath!” I said.

Wrath’s mouth dropped open. He looked over at me, stunned. He didn’t move a single muscle on his face for almost a minute. He looked like he had no idea what to do with me, either.

And then suddenly,

“A human!” he cried. He got up in a swift movement, hopping down from his rock and landing with a bounce that knocked his hat askew. And then, to my surprise, he threw his arms around my neck and hugged me.

I stumbled back, completely shocked. Wrath took a step back.

“How did you get here?” he said.

“You didn’t summon me?” I said.

“Me?” he said. “I don’t think I summoned you.”

Suddenly, with horrible clarity, I realized something about where I was.

“Wrath,” I said. “If you’re here... is this the Headquarters of the Death to All Mice?”

Like a little boy, Wrath swallowed and nodded his head.

Oh, no. Oh, no diary. The headquarters. No wonder it didn’t feel human. Oh no! It didn’t feel human! That meant they weren’t people in masks! They were things! Actual things that went around and...

I got so scared I turned green.

“Are you all right?” Wrath said. “You turned green.”

“Are they evil?” I said. “I mean, have they hurt you? Are they keeping you here against your will?”

Wrath shook his head. “They don’t hurt me. They brought me here.”

“Did you go willingly?” I said.

“Well, that’s the thing, Maude,” Wrath said. “They arrived. They looked at me with their shiny eyes, looking out of their hooked, bird-beak masks. I felt a surge of madness and wanted to go with them.” He tapped the side of his wooden face. “What I can’t figure out, however, if whether or not I wanted to go with them of my own accord. I can’t tell my madness from their madness. Is the puppet creature in me desperate to stay with these things, or are the things desperate for me to stay with them? Did they muddle my mind? I can’t tell.”

I felt a shiver. “But you didn’t summon me here,” I said.

“Not that I know of,” he said.

“It was a glowing eye, drawn into the wood,” I said.

“Never seen it before,” Wrath said.

“All right,” I said. “But if you didn’t summon me, then chances are, they did?”

Wrath shook his head. “Oh, Maude,” he said. “I don’t think that’s possible. You see, the only reason I’m allowed here is because I’m not wholly human anymore. The Whiskalits don’t abide humans. Humans aren’t allowed in this cave at all.”

“Is that what they’re called?” I said. I had a funny, rumbling feeling in my stomach. “The Whiskalits?”

“Yes,” Wrath said, “The Death to All Mice birds. That’s their creed. Death to All Mice. But they’re called Whiskalits.”

“What does that mean?” I said. “Death to all mice?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Wrath said. “I think they’re barking mad.”

I sat down, right on the cold stone of the cave floor. Wrath was not my first choice for the last human face I’d ever seen.

“But they must have summoned me,” I said. “Someone did. Something opened the portal.”

“Well, it wasn’t the Whiskalits,” Wrath said. “The Whiskalits would grind you into powder if they knew you were here. No unauthorized humans.”

Grind me into powder. Oh, diary. I wanted to be home in my own little bed.

“What should I do?” I said. “Do you know how I can get back?”

Wrath came and sat beside me on the ground. He picked up my hand and squeezed it tightly. “My dear, dear girl...” he said. “If I could leave whenever I wanted, I would have left already.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I get scared at night.”

“What should I do?” I said again. At this point, I wasn’t expecting Wrath to answer me. I just didn’t know, and I kept stammering about it out loud. What was I supposed to do?

“They’ll really grind me into powder if they catch me here?” I said.

“Yes,” Wrath said. “But they probably won’t catch you. No one’s in the nearest district if you want to come with me.”

“District?” I said.

“Yes,” Wrath said. “You can pick an apartment.”

In a haze, I got up after Wrath and followed him down the cave tunnel.

We stepped out of the tunnel and into a room so wide I felt a brush of wind. My mouth dropped open

It was a city. A weird, weird city. There was no sky, only an endlessly high cave roof. The buildings were light brown stone, with uneven complexions, like a termite mound. The buildings reminded me of stalagmites, skinny and the top and wide at the base, a little bit wriggly and uneven, but with onion domes and bubble rooms that jutted off from the side. The buildings were beautiful, too, with red windowpanes and Italian balconies. There were hundreds of windows. Thousands of windows. They glowed, milky golden, in the dimness of the cave. The buildings looked so warm inside. Golden and glowing and civilized.

“Welcome to Maskwell,” Wrath said. “Maskwell, the Underground City.”

Maskwell the Underground City. I felt all the hairs on my arms stand up.

“It’s enormous,” I breathed.

“They like having space,” Wrath whispered.

“How large is this place?” I said.

“Oh, this is only one of the districts,” Wrath said.

“Only one?” I said. “How many Whiskalits are there?”

“Twelve,” Wrath said.

I was sure I’d heard him wrong. I tore my eyes away from the city and looked at him. “Twelve... hundred?”

“No,” Wrath said. “Twelve. As in, a baker’s dozen minus one.”

“Total?”

“Yes. They are the only beings that live in this world.”

“And there are twelve of them? How big is this city?”

“About as big as New York,” Wrath said.

I looked back at the city again. I could see the end of the cave walls. This wasn’t as big as New York. It was true, I thought I could see a high, silvery room in the distance, with a giant fountain in the middle, and the city might have continued past it... but this was not the size of New York.

“There are other rooms?” I said. “Full of buildings?”

“Hundreds,” Wrath said.

My gaze swept the city again. It was ready, expectant. Clean. Perfect.

“And the lights are always on?” I said.

“Always,” Wrath said. “Unless they’re coming.”

“They arrive in the dark?” I said.

“They always arrive in the dark,” Wrath said.

I stared at the twinkling lights, willing them to stay lit.

“How long has it been since they stayed in this city?” I said.

“District,” Wrath corrected me in a dreamy voice.

“How long has it been since they stayed here?” I said.

“Well, I’ve only been living here a few days,” Wrath said. “But I think it’s been about a hundred years.”

I started down the path, into the basin that held the city. I felt like I was in a dream world, a museum display. Every building looked like it was ready for you, bright and inviting, as though someone had stepped away a moment before.

“You can hide here for now,” Wrath said. “I meet with them, every morning, in another district. They don’t come here, which is why I live here. There’s plenty of space. They like their space.”

“You meet with them every morning?” I said.

“Yes,” Wrath said. “They have a plan for me. They like to talk to me about it, make it sound all shiny.”

“What is it?” I said.

“That’s a secret.”

“Are you going to say yes to their plan?”

“I don’t know yet,” Wrath said. “I haven’t decided how insane I really am.”

I nodded, feeling a little bit sick.

“You live here?” I said.

“Yes,” Wrath said. He pointed at a building far away, near the silver fountain. “I live in that one. There are nice pens.”

“Well, good,” I said. “Wrath, if you don’t mind, I’d like to pick a building and stay there for a little while. You’re not going to tell the Whiskalits I’m here, are you?”

Wrath gulped and looked ill. “Never,” he said.

I needed a moment. I needed to feel as green as spinach. The buildings looked nice enough. And Wrath said none of the Whiskalits had been here for about a hundred years.

“I’ll see you later,” Wrath said.

And I hoped that wasn’t true. Not in the sense that Wrath would be my regular, “I’ll see you later!” over and over... the last semi-human I’d ever lay eyes on, until the day I died.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I muttered to myself. “You can get out of anything, you always have.”

Even if I had to find the Whiskalits magic room (assuming they had one) and plunge my hands deep into a cosmic goop, I’d get out of here somehow. I just had to be creative.

I opened the door of one of the first buildings and felt soothed. 

It was beautiful. And that, I think is one of my first clues about the Whiskalits. Decadent, unused beauty. No corpses or entrails. No skulls or creep. Just more luxury than they could ever use. Silent, and waiting, and empty.

Because the building was so slender, the rooms were by nature small. A delicate staircase spiraled up along the back wall of the room. A table set with flowers and Germanic wooden chairs filled the first floor. I climbed the staircase to the second floor, then the third, then the fourth. I passed a library and a large bathroom with black and white tiles and a copper tub. With every ascending step, I felt like I was getting farther away from the Whiskalits and closer to something tucked away. Hidden and safe.

The fourth floor was a bedroom. Its ceiling was smaller in circumference than its floor. The walls were a little lopsided. With how smooth and bright the floor was, and how charming the little cream four poster bed, I felt like I was in a whimsical children’s illustration.

I was tired. I wanted to sleep. Actually, I wanted to cry, but I wanted to sleep first. Was I going to curl up in the warm little bed? No, I was not. I could just imagine waking up in the middle of the night to find that the golden candles had all snuffed out and a thing in a plague mask was leaning over my bed.

I made a nest under the bed, which is quite clean, and quite high. I have enough headspace to be comfortable. And.... even if the lights go out... what’s to say they’d pick this house? This bed? What’s to say they’d look under it?

Diary, I wish I could say that I was writing this entry from the warm, safe bubbles of a bath in McGillicuddy and Murder’s Secret Basement, but I’m not. I’m under the bed in Maskwell, The Underground City, and it’s only an hour since I talked to Wrath.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. If you never hear from me again, it’s because my withered hand is frozen around this stubby pencil and I’m quite corpsified.

Oh, gosh! Why do I let myself think these things! How do you not go mad when the only thing standing between you and madness is you? What can you choose? How can you bolster yourself?

Diary, I just felt something funny.

There it is again.

I’m listening, but nothing has changed. You had better believe I checked, but none of the candles have blown out. But something is—there. I felt it again. It’s like tiny pinpricks, down in the depths of my stomach. I almost feel like I’m sensing the faintest hint of an earthquake.

Oh, diary. Diary, dear. I just got out from under the bed and peeped through the glass of the window. The lights here are still lit, but they’re starting to go out in the distance. They just went out again. That row. Footstep by footstep, the lights are blinking out.

They arrive in the dark.

I can’t see them, but I know they’re coming. In their long cloaks, with their plague masks. Large, bulbous eyes and long, hooked beaks. The lights are going out at a soft, even pace, as the Whiskalits walk closer.

I wonder, should I run?

A purple smoke is moving up the street. Billowing, snaking, like slow fireworks that are curling closer. They’re announcing themselves. They’re announcing themselves to no one.

Unless they’re announcing themselves to me.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 3, Maskwell, The Underground City, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Friends of the Pawn Shop, are you hearing an ad right now for Forgettable Frogs? Frogs that fit in your hand, frogs that... wait, what was this advertisement for again? Oh wait, you’re not hearing an advertisement. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in-person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, Episode 4: Number Thirteen

Season 3, Episode 4

Number 13

October 15th, 1921

Diary, I did what any sensible person would do, when a fast approaching troupe of Plague Mask monsters was coming their way.

I hid under the bed.

I told myself that they wouldn’t pick this building. There were hundreds in this district. Why would it be this one? This one was nearly at the edge, close to the tunnels that led back to that weird mask with the gaping eyes. The odds, of one of the twelve Whiskalits, choosing the same building I had come to hide in, were very slim.

Unless of course, they were coming here expressly for me. They could probably smell me. They had probably seen me in their murky crystal balls. Or whatever they used.

I settled myself under the bed, hidden by the bed skirt, and I tucked my toes in. I had to pray that it was all chance or that, if they did know I was here, they wouldn’t be able to find me.

I have never been more afraid in my life. I honestly haven’t been. It felt like a nightmare, with weird shimmering eyes that I couldn’t get away from. I had walked into a bad dream. This wasn’t even my world anymore. It didn’t play by the same rules. In my world there are people, places to go. If a man is after you, you can hide in a closet and he might not know you’re there. Anything could be possible here. Everything was magic. I was the only familiar, sane thing in this entire world.

I felt clammy. I felt like a civil war solider about to have her leg removed. I needed to bite a bullet, because there was no anesthesia for this. I gripped you, diary, as hard as I could. It was just you and me in this world. You were the only thing, separate from myself, that smacked of normalcy. I gripped you so hard I got tiny crescent moon dents on the front cover.

Within a few minutes, the moment I’d been dreading arrived. The lights went out.

They had entered the city, completely. If the lights were out here, it meant that their footsteps were right outside my door. This really was like a bad dream, with its whimsical, uneven walls. The way that these things had to arrive in the dark. You can’t have a bad dream in the light. They couldn’t move from place to place without snuffing out the lights.

In the darkness under the bed, I shut my eyes and listened. I tried not to breathe. I waited for the sound of the door to open below me, for footsteps to creak up the stairs. I didn’t hear anything. I started to breathe a little more easily.

Suddenly the light returned, green.

I gasped. Out loud. I couldn’t help it. It was a good thing those creatures weren’t here, standing over the bed, or they would have heard me. It was just such a shock. The room filled with green light, like the ghost of Christmas past had just appeared. Filmy, ethereal, noxious green light hummed behind the bed skirt, glowing through it.

I took this to mean that one of the Whiskalits had chosen this bed and that I was shortly to die. I confess diary, that I got tears in my eyes. I was scared enough to cry, the emotion so strong it leaked out of me. I’ve never cried from being scared before. At least I managed to be quiet while I was at it!

But after about half an hour, no footsteps sounded on the stairs. Nothing had entered this house. I began to pluck up my courage. If nothing else, I just wanted to know.

Shifting slightly, as quietly as I could, I slid out from under the bed. The first thing I did was look at the bed, in case Whiskalits were so quiet one had somehow entered and was now lying asleep, in a plague mask and a stocking cap, on the bed.

Nothing was there. My heartrate had increased just at the thought of seeing a Whiskalit, however. I was jelly all over. The candles in the window were now burning green, like the eyes of a ghost. The flames were sickly and somehow dimmer than usual light. I crept to the window and peered out, past the glare of the flames.

The whole city was transformed, green. The windows now glowed like specters. I was mesmerized. I felt a not-unpleasant thrill, and just for a moment, this adventure started being fun again.

I strained my eyes for the sign of a Whiskalit. The city was dark, hard to see in, but I thought I saw a blur of movement in the distance. Then, a door to one of the larger buildings opened, and green light spilled out. I saw a small man with an awkward stance stumble out. That was Wrath, wearing his black and red striped coat. Two Whiskalits stood in the doorway, in their large cloaks, and let him out. They nodded to him, slow and reverent, in their odd masks.

I watched Wrath. The Whiskalits shut the door and he was left alone in the street. He stared up at the building for a moment, then traipsed down the street. I leaned forward and watched him, lips pinched in excitement. I prayed he wouldn’t wander off the beaten track. I watched him zigzag through the city (thank goodness I was on the fourth floor and could see far) and then he opened a door of one of the buildings in the distance.

I memorized its spot, the particular slant of its roof. When Wrath didn’t immediately come out, I took it that that was where Wrath had made his home.

I went down the stairs in a flurry. I paused outside the door, peeped through the window glass, and then stepped outside. The air... there was something in the air. I’d never experienced anything like it. It was chilled, but it also felt like… I don’t know. Like the air had been singed, like lightning had just struck. I felt like I was smelling nightmare. But there was something bewitching, even pleasant about this. Because I was in a nightmare, but the monsters didn’t know that I was here.

I like snooping. It’s one of my greatest joys in life.

So, snooping through the Whiskalits’ world without their knowledge, it gave me a shivery feeling I enjoyed. I dashed out into the head, head down, praying that I would be able to find Wrath’s building once I set out into the streets. I angled far away from the building that housed the Whiskalits (praying, of course, that it housed all twelve of them, and that two or three weren’t out for a stroll.) In a few minutes, I had dodged down several crooked streets, passing latticed shop windows that glowed with a haunted green light. Like a deserted town that was waiting to bite you on the neck.

I found Wrath’s building. It wasn’t hard at all. As soon as I did, I stood on the front step and got a bad case of the clammy hands. Supposing he had visitors?

But I had to try something, and this was my best shot. I tried the door, and it was unlocked. It swung open, delicately, and I poked my head in.

“Wrath?” I said.

This was a bigger building than the one I’d chosen. I slipped inside and shut the door behind me.

The room was dark, and Wrath was nowhere in sight. I found the staircase and climbed it to the second level, creaking all the way. I was quite apprehensive.

“Wrath?” I said again.

I heard a sputtering in the corner, and something broke.

“Dear GOD,” Wrath said. “I thought you were a Whiskalit.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, moving into the room. “Are there any Whiskalits around?”

“No,” Wrath said. “I came to get away from them.”

I came and helped him pick up the broken pieces of the vase that had tumbled into heavy clay chunks. When I’d finished, I sat down on the floor. Wrath stood there, hunched over, puffing in and out like a fish.

“Wrath,” I said. “Where is the Whiskalit’s magic room?”

Wrath’s wooden puppet eye rattled suddenly. “Why do you want to know that?” he said in a dangerous voice.

“I want to get out of here, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I said.

“But…” Wrath said.

“Do you know where it is? I assume they have one?”

“They do have one,” Wrath said. “And going there is the most dangerous and terrible thing I can think of. It’s their epicenter! Why would you go there! I’m afraid to even think about it!”

“Well, I know where they are, don’t you see? Where’s their magic room?”

“Herrrrrrrmmmmmmmm…” Wrath said.

“Wrath,” I said. “I know where the wasp is. It’s safe to put my hand in the fruit bowl. Now’s my shot. Tell me how to get there.”

Wrath ran his hands down his face, groaning. When he let go, his wooden eye bounced a little.

“You go past the fountain,” he said. “Turn left. It’s a weird room, full of bells and whistles. It’s near here. It’s where I meet them every morning.”

“How long is it until morning?” I said.

“About an hour.”

Damn!

“Just that?” I said.

“Well, yes,” Wrath said. “Although they might meet me here in the morning. In their current house.”

“Did they say how long they’d be in this district?” I said.

“Just until the meeting,” Wrath said. “They told me it’s time to decide. They told me I need to make a move. They’re getting pushy.”

They were moving on from the district after this meeting, which was happening in an hour. This was my only shot to snoop in their magic room, knowing they wouldn’t be there.

“How long does it take to get to the magic room?”

“About twenty minutes,” Wrath said.

Forty minutes. I could do a lot with forty minutes. Couldn’t I?

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

“Good luck,” Wrath said. “I really do wish you the best. But if they find you and torture you, I’m going to swear I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Thanks, Wrath,” I said.

“I’m being transparent with you,” he said. “Just so you’re not shocked later.”

Grumbling, I left Wrath without a formal goodbye and dashed down the stairs. “Left at the fountain, left at the fountain…” I muttered.

I almost didn’t care if any Whiskalits saw me at this point. I wanted time. I kept low and avoided the more visible streets, but I ran all the way to the end of the district, where the cave wall opened into the fountain room.

It was majestic. It really was. The room was tinged in silver, and the fountain sprayed upwards, going almost a mile into the air. I actually stopped in my tracks and stared up at it, then remembered that I was on a mission. Beauty can sometimes distract me, utterly.

I took the left turn, and my heart was hammering in my chest. I felt like I’d had too much coffee on an empty stomach—I was jittery and a little bit sick, and I felt slightly disconnected from my own body and brain. Not the best of places to be when it’s time to go snooping in a strange creature’s secret lair.

I ran down the tunnel, and I felt the wind of the cave along my ears and throat. The air was sharp, tangy, salty with a hint of the sea. I felt like I was about to rush into something, the way you feel when you’re rushing up a sand dune waiting for that first glimpse of turquoise sea.

I reached the end of the tunnel, and I found myself suddenly in a dark room. It smelled like dust. I found that strange, since the rest of the cave is so perfect, and waiting, and enchanted to always be clean and neat and ready. This was used. It smelled rather shabby and dirty.

I tried to teleport again. I felt a soft thud in my stomach, but nothing happened. My throat closed up; I was scared. I fear, more than anything else, loneliness. I didn’t want to die alone, and that can be a challenging thing to be afraid of when you’re alone in a cave world surrounded by creepy bird people.

“All right, Maude,” I said. “I know you better than anyone. You don’t need someone else to do this for you. I know you are scared. I know you are having a panic attack. I know that you feel so disconnected from your body that you are going to levitate off the floor. But you are not going to stay in that head fog of fear. You are going to come down. You are going to get into your limbs. You are going to move, and take action. You have forty minutes. You are going to see if there is anything here you can use. You are not a child anymore, and no one else has to do this for you. You can do it. You.”

I’ve mentioned, diary, that I can feel quite lethargic, like I am going to hide and never come out, sometimes when I’m afraid. I feel too... small. Like I am a shrimp person, standing inside my own stomach, unable to reach anything. Well, lately I haven’t been feeling that way. I’ve been feeling a bit more alive, a bit more surrounded by allies, a bit braver and sharper and more ferocious. But now... the enormity of my problems had increased. Perhaps this new Maude had been growing a bit, but the size of my foe had swelled, and I felt shrimp-like again. Small and squeaking. There is a voice in me that pulls back and shuts down like a turtle. I couldn’t afford to shut down right now. Small and squeaking Maude would have to do.

I looked around the room. Smoky, soot stained lamps hung from the ceiling, their shades made out of shabby red fabric. The chains they hung on were old and rusted, and they swung slightly, like a giant had just bumped through the room a minute ago. There was a soft creak creak creak of the chain, like a mouse squeaking in the corner.

I first looked around the room for gigantic door frames that conveniently led back to a warm bakery filled with muffins. Alas, there were no such doorways, so I looked around for something else to rifle through. There were plenty of books, but the thought of sitting down trying to learn a ghastly spell in forty minutes did not appeal to me, you daren’t say. There was a large copper basin on one table, and I stood on tiptoe and peeped into it, hoping it would be a portal you could jump through headfirst.

I didn’t know what I was looking for or what I was going to do, until I got a brainwave. A real brainwave, a really good brainwave. These Death to All Mice birds, these Whiskalits... supposing they had a murder object lying around? It wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility, and if they did, I could get back into my world. The wrong time, of course, but being on Planet Earth sounded much, much better than being stuck here. There were always things I could do.

I began to dash around the room touching things, like a girl who can’t decide which flower she’s going to pluck. My fingers danced from this to that, hoping with each thing that I would be suddenly whisked somewhere with a whooshing feeling in my navel. I had covered nearly all of the room, in only about five minutes, when I heard a cackling sound behind me.

I was outraged. I had forty minutes, and here I’d been, accomplishing things in under ten, when all of a sudden, something had the audacity to show up now.

It was a horrible sound, too. A mad, disjointed cackle. It was loud, and unexpected, and it echoed on the walls of the room. It set my teeth on edge, like a vibration had hummed sharply into my bones.

I whirled around to face the thing, whatever it was. My heart was in my throat.

I thought for a minute that maybe I’d imagined it, because nothing was there. It was just darkness and silence behind me, and the quiet swinging of the lantern chains. I walked around the table, as fast as I could, to see what had cackled at me. I thought it was something short that was hidden behind the table that I couldn’t see. Some sort of little goblin, squatting and hugging its knees.

But there was nothing there. My heart began to come down, out of my ears, and I wondered if I’d imagined it completely. My blood was still thrumming with fright when it happened again.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. The loud, loud cackling reverberated off the walls, and this time I saw what it was. It was a large glass frog, squat and melted looking, that sat on the far table. Most of the time, the glass frog looked like a gray, indistinct lump, but when it cackled, it lit up with green light and you could see the bulbous eyes and the sneer of its face. The noise came from inside it.

I was confused, because this was a lump of glass, not a monster that could hurt me, and my fear-fogged brain didn’t understand why it was cackling at all. Then something in the depths of me said, You need to hide. You need to hide now. So without really knowing why I was doing it, I ducked under a shelf, crawled and squirmed behind a large glass barrel, and lay down on my side. I shifted a barrel from the back to the front to better hide myself. Then I lay there, out of breath, wondering why I was acting like a child at a Halloween party.

A mere 30 seconds later, something entered the room. I say something. I say something because I couldn't see what it was, because I was hiding behind large glass barrels with my knees tucked in. But I knew what it was. I could feel it. It was the Whiskalits. And anyway, logic told me that it was the Whiskalits. They were the only beings here. 

Oh, diary. The intensity of my fear cannot be described. I felt like I was going to sneeze. Is that a funny thing to say, that I was going to sneeze? Because it wasn't dust. It was a weird, almost psychological feeling. My whole face was tingling, centered in my nasal cavity. Something in my skull was thrumming at the presence of the Whiskalits. I felt a pressure, like something in my nose was about to snap or pop. I breathed very carefully through my nose and tried not to sneeze.

They brushed into the room on soft footsteps. Their long, tattered gray cloaks swished. I was rather startled to see boots. Somehow, I thought they would have nasty, clawed bird feet.

I told my heart to come down out of my throat but it was no use. I didn't even know what I feared. Death was one thing, but this was something more. This was a grisly, drawn-out death, with things that looked like phantoms. I remembered, suddenly, my fear of doctors. Plague Masks meant doctors once, in a hopeless time. I was surrounded by ancient doctors who wanted to kill me slowly. 

"Brethren," one of the Whiskalits said. At the sound of his voice, my heart spiked. I'd known they were here, but hearing them talk was ten times worse. “We have nearly convinced the human to join us.”

“I don’t see why we need another member,” another one said.

“You wouldn’t, Twelve,” a Whiskalit said. “You don’t want to be usurped.”

“I wouldn’t be usurped,” Twelve said. “I’m tired of being the lowest man here. Thirteen, if we got him, would be the lowest man. I just don’t think we need anyone else.”

“There will be more power if we have thirteen members!”

“We don’t need thirteen members! I don’t like the human! He’s part puppet!”

“He has madness and pain surging through him! He is exactly what we need to be our thirteenth member!”

“We don’t need a thirteenth member made partially out of wood!”

“He summoned us,” a Whiskalit said. “We were hoping he would summon us, and then he did. He called us into the cave where he committed atrocities. That is a sign.”

“I still do not think we need him! We do not need thirteen!”

“I remember,” another Whiskalit said. “When our number was three.”

The tallest Whiskalit, one with a purple plague mask with uneven eyes, strode forward. “Things were better when there were thirteen of us,” he said. “Whiskalit Zero—"

“May She Rest in Peace,” the Whiskalits all murmured together.

“—Was the first Whiskalit, the original Whiskalit One, before she was killed, and we all shifted ranks. I was once Whiskalit Two. I have seen us since the beginning! Things were better when there were thirteen of us, before she died!”

“Things were better because we had a good leader then!”

I felt a wave of fear go over me like a hot curling iron. But I also felt intrigued. A Whiskalit had died. Been killed. It meant they weren’t invincible. I wondered what would happen if I jumped out and stabbed one with a hot poker?   

They all lapsed into a sullen silence, until suddenly, one of them said,

“Brethren?”

“What is it, Seven?”

“I smell a human.”

“You smell Wrath. His grubbiness is all over your hands.”

“No,” the Whiskalit said, and I felt every hair on my arms stand slowly up. “I smell a human girl.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 4, Number Thirteen, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Ladies and gentlemen, do you have ghosts in your house? Well let me introduce you to Vic’s Vaporizer, a surefire way to rid your house of any ghost. Do you--?

Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement for Vic’s Vaporizer right now? You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 5: The Origin of the China Eye

Season 3, Episode 5

The Origin of the China Eye

October 15th, 1921, continued.

Oh, diary. I did not think. I did not breathe.

“I smell a human girl,” the Whiskalit repeated.

I saw my whole life flash before my eyes. This was it. This was the end. This was the part where I said, tata, life, it was nice knowing you! Did I know, when I was a little girl, skipping down the lane and sucking on a peppermint stick, that my death was going to be in an alien cave, killed by horrible plague mask creatures?

I wanted to think that I could be brave and fight back, but the idea was ridiculous. There were twelve of them. And I had no weapon. And my best trait, my ability to teleport, didn’t work.

What can I do? I thought. Is there anything I can do?

My best option, at the moment, seemed to be to freeze. 

So I froze. I lay on my side and stared as intently as I could at the knees of the Whiskalits, begging them to not come any closer. 

"You smell a human girl?" one said.

My blood began to pound. I heard the soft scrape-scrape of the Whiskalit's feet as one walked towards me. I heard sniffing. Sniff. Sniff. My heartbeat seemed to slow, like an ominous drum in the pit of my stomach. 

"I think you are mistaken, Seven," a Whiskalit said. 

Oh, yes. Seven. You're very much mistaken. Please go away. 

"I am not," Seven said. "I think--"

And he surged suddenly towards me. 

I jerked, instinctively. My skin went hot all over. And then the sniffing began to descend. Sniff. Sniff. I saw the tip of a bird beak. And then, with a swoop, both glittering eyes were staring at me.

I didn't move.

"I see you," the Whiskalit said.

"Come out into the light! Come out, mouse!"

They moved the barrels. So courteous of them. I slid my legs out, and jelly-like, stood. 

"What are you doing in our domain?"

This was it. The worst had happened. The best thing I could hope for was that Wrath had been wrong about them, and they were about to offer me tea and cookies, and we would sit down for a nice chat regarding the eccentricities of our species.

I stood there, and I did feel like a mouse. I felt small and squeaking. Shabby and dirty. I felt like prey. I felt like they were all staring at me, taking their time, waiting to pounce.

“I don’t know how I got here,” I said.

“You don’t?” the Whiskalits said.

“I don’t,” I said. “I touched a golden eye, and all of a sudden I was here.”

“A golden eye?”

“An eye?”

“We do not use eyes!” the Whiskalit responded in outrage. “We detest eyes.”

“Well, that’s very interesting,” I said. I needed a plan. I wasn’t going to give up yet. I needed some kind of way out, some idea.

What I needed was a murder object, because my heart told me they would work, even down here. But I didn’t have a murder object. I made a promise to myself to start carrying one always in my pocket, to get out of these dastardly situations in the future, assuming I got out of this one in the first place.

I was a fool to imagine that there would be a murder object lying around on the Whiskalit’s tables and benches. I had touched nearly everything here. You are not a murder object diary, and I cannot use you! Besides, I don’t think that things in pockets count, so even if someone gurgled to death in front of me, I doubt you would ever become a murder object.

I had nothing. Nothing at all. No way to get back. No way to get away from the plague mask doctors who were going to kill me.

“I know that you’re startled to see me here,” I said. “But I’m not an enemy really. I find you fascinating.” I edged into the center of the group, to get as far away as possible from their gloved hands. “I wish you no ill will.”

And then, all of a sudden diary, I had it.

I was sure I had it.  Whiskalits didn’t like eyes. That was odd, but it had started the gears of my brain spinning. I need a murder object. I didn’t have anything with me. No buttons. Not you. What I needed was something, anything, from McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop, because I knew now that everything in the Pawn Shop was a murder object. If I had anything from that place, I should be able to use it to get somewhere else.

Have you figured it out, diary? Do you realize now what I had in my possession all along?

“I am so interested in you,” I said. “That I’ve even been taking notes and—and writing poems about you, here in this diary!”

I drew you out of my pocket, diary, and held you in both hands. “I’ll show you, look!”

There was silence from the Whiskalits. They stared at me with glittering, cold eyes. They didn’t even move. Didn’t even cock their heads. For a moment, I had the impression that they were all dead. Suspended and staring at me, like corpses hovering an inch above the ground. There was a carelessness in their limbs, they seemed to bob and sway—I felt like, if I looked into those eyes for another second, I would go mad.

I fumbled at your spine, diary. Tried to slide my fingers into your leather backing. My heart rate increased, and I felt like the Whiskalits were getting closer, zooming in on me, their bulbous eyes getting larger—

“But for the time being,” I said to the Whiskalits, “I am sure you want me out of your presence, so allow me to just—” And then I got it. I slid my broken china eye out of your leather spine. “Go.”

Imagine how silly I would have felt if that hadn’t worked.

But it did work. Whoosh.  

The eye was a murder object. I had been right, and I can’t believe I’d never thought of it before.  I had never had so much fun teleporting, never in my life. I felt like a kid on a carnival ride. The weird whipping feeling in the bit of my stomach felt like flying on a swing.

I tumbled to earth found myself in a sweet, white and black and blue kitchen, with a black and white checkered floor.  I smelled butternut squash. I smelled butter. I smelled human life, and I’d never been happier to be alive, and in my own world. Never.

I looked around then, and I was faced with the awful truth that this was in fact a murder object. A man was lying dead on the tiles to the left of me. He was wearing a dinner jacket, in the style of about 1914. His left leg was crumpled, and for a moment, I thought maybe he’d just passed out drunk, sprawled out on the floor. There was a dewy, frumpled look to his clothes. He looked like he’s been partying. His cumberbund had come undone and was lying on the floor.

I stooped. “Are you all right?” I whispered.

But I was being ridiculous. The man was dead. That was the whole point—my eye was a murder object and here was my murder.

I rolled him over, gingerly. I wanted to check for blood. There was no blood, and I realized that he must have been poisoned. A teacup lay broken underneath him. Given his state, I would have expected it to be a champagne flute or a wine glass, but it was a teacup, and coffee had been spilled everyone. Someone had been trying to sober him up. His shirt was drenched with brown, dark coffee.

My eyes quickly moved away from his stained front, however, and instead moved to the shatter teacup on the floor. It was pale and white, thick for a teacup. But the design. It was a white cup. With a single bright blue eye staring out of the center.

The way the teacup had broken—well, it had smashed perfectly. The eye was left intact, on its own.

I picked it up. It was my china eye exactly. The same grooves, the same edges. I had at last found out where my china eye had come from. And it hadn’t been part of a face. It had been a single, staring eye on the surface of a teacup.

I did an odd thing, then, diary. I put the new china eye in my pocket.

I felt a wave of comfort wash over me suddenly. The Whiskalits couldn’t follow. I had taken the murder object with me, tucked in your spine, dearest diary. I was completely safe. I was stuck in the wrong time, but I was completely safe.

That felt good, for the moment. It allowed me to calm down. I had time, suddenly. Plenty of time. I could figure out what to do next, without the pressure of being ground into powder.

Just as I was wondering what to do next, the kitchen door swung open and a woman walked in.

She blinked at me. I blinked at her. She had a kind face and dark hair. Her eyes swept to the body on the floor, then back to me.

“Is it John?” she said, in a quiet voice.

“I don’t know who it is,” I said. I got to my feet, feeling shaky. “My name is Melinda Maudie Merkle, and I’ve just used an old murder object.”

I blinked suddenly. This woman might have no idea what I was talking about. She probably didn’t. Did I have any reason to believe she was a magic unusual?

But to my relief, she didn’t seem shocked by the words. She left the doorway and moved further into the kitchen. As she passed, I heard lighthearted laughter coming from another room. There was a party here, a gathering of some kind.

She strode across the room on short high heels, then squatted. She looked at the man’s face.

“It is John,” she said. She gazed at his face, sorrowful. “We knew they were coming for him, but we didn’t think it would be tonight.” She looked up at me. “Are you one of the new group? Those Night Enthusiasts?”

“I have a soul,” I said.

She frowned. She didn’t understand.

“I can prove I’m from the future,” I said. “Here.” I held out the new china eye, and I showed her my original. They lay in my hands, one in each palm, like my hands were staring up at her.

“Oh, I see,” she murmured. She nodded. “What time are you from?”

“1921.”

“So not long.” She stared down at the teacup. “I’m sorry it got smashed. I like that set. I realize that’s a strange thing to be thinking about, but I’m in shock. We knew he was going to die soon, he’s been mad, mucking about with the Night Enthusiasts, making them angry… but I didn’t think it would happen tonight.” She looked up and offered her hand. “My name is Mara. I… I have to tell the others now. Will you come with me?”

I nodded. Like a woman in a trance, Mara left the kitchen and headed into a parlor. I felt incredibly strange walking after her, especially since my fashion suddenly seemed a bit daring. I wondered if they think I was a prostitute.

There were seven people in the parlor. Men and women in their thirties. They were drinking coffee out of the same set of china. Blue eyes stared out of their cups. My gaze swept the group, and suddenly, my stomach dropped into the floor. One of the men was Wrath.

Wrath. He was smiling, grinning to one side, with a twinkle in his eyes. He looked young and smart and put together. He had a human face. He was quite handsome without the puppet eye. He looked like someone you would trust to the end of the earth, someone you knew would come through for you.

 As soon as Mara and I entered, the conversation ceased. To have a complete stranger walk into your parlor is one thing, but to have your friend look as pale as death alongside her is another. Wrath rose.

“Mara?” he said.

“Hester,” she said. “Elizabeth, Alanzo… John. John is dead.”

Mara finally sat down and started to sob. At first I thought her reaction had been strange, maybe even suspicious, but I realized then it said more about her character than anything else. She was one of those people (and I think I am sometimes like this too) that, when faced with a crisis, she is calm. As calm as the eye of a hurricane. The more traumatic the scene in front of her, the more quiet and iron-like she becomes.

Now that other people were facing John’s death, however, Mara seemed to find space to break. I sat down at the end of one of the sofas, feeling strange. My heart and soul seemed to recognize this time. The colors, the smells in the air… I was out there somewhere. Maybe even six or seven blocks away. If the Night Enthusiasts were here, it meant this was my same city. Little teenage Maude was off somewhere having a giggle. The thought made me a bit dizzy.

And Wrath! Hester. I should call him Hester. Hester was right here, and he had no idea what was going to happen to him.

Most of the group got up and went into the other room. I could heard them murmuring. One of them cried aloud, just once, as if the weight of what had just happened had finally hit them. Mara stayed in the room with me. After a minute of sobbing, she quieted. She poured herself a cup of coffee with shaking hands and took a sip.

“Would you like any coffee?” she said.

“Please don’t worry about me,” I said.

Mara pressed her hand against her nose and mouth. “He just got here. He was drunk. We told him to drink some coffee and keep quiet in the kitchen until he was ready to talk. He had just been at a party with that new group that’s making us all nervous, the Night Enthusiasts.” She looked at me sharply. “You know of the Night Enthusiasts. Are they still around in 1921?”

“Yes,” I said. “How much do you know about them now?”

“Nothing,” she said. “They’re new, and I hated their leader in school. He was always mean to me as a boy. Well, they say they’re going to bend the bounds of magic, and they’ve been very aggressive. Recruiting with a zeal that makes me nervous. John rather liked the look of them and he was going over to a new party they were having, to check them out. He just wanted to know more.” She started to cry again suddenly. “I don’t know why he’s dead.”

Mara seemed certain that the coffee hadn't been poisoned. She was drinking it. I suddenly wanted to take it away from her. I didn't know a lot about poisons, but I didn't think they took long at all. The man had died in this kitchen. Had he really been poisoned by a Night Enthusiast? Could a poison have taken that long to set? Possibly. Perhaps it was a magic poison, magically delayed. Such a thing could exist. Or had he been poisoned by someone here? Had the entire pot of coffee been poisoned?

"Mara..." I said.

"Why did you come here?" she said. She wiped her eyes. It wasn't accusatory. "Did you need help with something? How did you get that eye?"

I decided to drop the coffee for now. "I..." I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling in a plea for help. There was so much to start with, all at once. "Do you know anything about the Death to All Mice Whiskalits?"

"The what?" she exclaimed.

I sighed. "It's alright, no one has." Except for me, and my uncanny ability to see the phrase DEATH TO ALL MICE written on the wall when no one else could. "Have you... do you have any means of getting to the future?" I said.

Mara leaned forward, intrigued. So I told her everything. I left out Wrath, but I told her about the Death to All Mice cave, and my need to get back to 1921.

She leaned back. “I don’t…. have a way to get into the future. But I think you could get into your own timeline from here, since you should be able to use this technique to return to your time of origin.”

“What is it?” I said.

She stood up. “It’s my magic unusual power. It feels really useless to me, since all it can do is create a teleportation, which we can all do already. But the drawing might take you into the future. I enchant jelly. If you draw the symbol of an eye with it on the wall, you can touch the symbol to be transported. You have to think of the place you want to go to while you draw the eye.”

“That was how I got to the cave of the Whiskalits,” I said. “A drawing of an eye.”

“I know,” Mara said. “I find that interesting.” She stood up, but my insides squirmed, and I stood up, too.

“Can I speak to Hester before I leave?” I said.

She looked at me, stunned. "You know Hester? Why on earth didn't you say anything?"

"It's complicated," I said. "I know him from the future.”

"Oh, of course," she said. "I'm not thinking straight. Why say anything if he doesn't know who you are?" She paused, and then a dark look came over her eyes. "We... he has a wife in the future? Do you know me?"

I didn't say anything.

"Hester and I are engaged," Mara said. "Do you not know me?"

"I know Hester very little," I said. "I wouldn't have met you in the future."

"Oh," she said. A weight seemed to be lifted from her chest. "Well, very well, then. I'll call him in. Hester!"

Hester entered, looking a bit suave and devilish. He swept Mara's hand up and kissed it. "You holding up all right?"

"Don't flirt with me," Mara said. "John's dead."

Hester’s face fell and he nodded. He sat down on the sofa. “What’s going on?” He looked towards me with a smile.

“Hester,” I said. “I’m from the future, and I feel it’s my duty to warn you. You should stay away from the Night Enthusiasts. Completely. In about two or three years, you’re going to be put inside a murder object by them. It’s going to make you go mad. You’ll be the first person to ever be released from one, and you’ll live, but you’ll be changed. Don’t go near the Night Enthusiasts.”

I got dizzy for a moment. A nasty I’m-going-to-be-sick-dizzy. I felt like I’d just been spun around very fast. I looked towards Hester, to see how he’d taken the news of his one day being Wrath, but he was sitting down on the couch again. “What’s going on?” He looked towards me again with a smile, the exact same way he’d smiled before.

I tried to tell him again. Again I felt dizzy and seem to go a few seconds back in time.

“What’s going on?” Hester said for a third time.

“I… I’m trying to warn you,” I stammered.

“Ah!” Hester said.

“I thought you said you were a magic unusual,” Mara said.

“I am,” I said. “But not for more than a few months.”

“Oh,” Mara said. “But you can’t warn us about anything. We cannot change past events when we use murder objects. We can’t. There’s a magic that binds things in place.”

I stared at Hester, and I felt sick. “Very well,” I said. “It’s nothing to stress about. You’ll find out on your own soon, and everything will be okay.”

“We appreciate you trying,” Hester said. He smiled and left Mara and I alone.

“I’ll try that portal spell now, if you don’t mind,” I said.

She nodded. She returned with a small jar full of golden, glowing liquid. She handed it to me. “I can make lots more,” she said. “You can keep this. It’s just oil and fragrance. I enchant it myself.”

I took the jar from her.

“Where should I draw the symbol?” I said.

“Just here on the wall.”

I uncorked it and dipped my finger in. There must have been some magic in the jelly, guiding me, because when I drew the eye, it looked exactly like the eye that had lured me into Whiskalit’s realm.

“Remember that the next time you use that china eye you got, as a murder object, you’ll come to this moment,” Mara said. “You opened the timeline inside your murder object. When you use it next, you’ll find yourself here.”

“Might be useful,” I said.

“Yes,” she said drily. “I half expect to see you pop up in the next thirty seconds.”

“You’ve been an incredible help,” I said.

“Don’t mention it.”

So, I reached out and touched the portal with both fingers. I had enchanted it to take me back the Pawn Shop, right when I’d left 1921, but all I could do was hope that this would work, that this wouldn’t leave me in worse trouble than I was already in.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 5, The Origin of the China Eye, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Have you ever wished you could make your enemies be quiet? Well. The new magic formula from SPSPC allows you to whisk your acquaintances into a cocoon, when they are shouting on public transit, so everyone can finish their commute in peace. To release your acquaintances from this cocoon—Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement right not for Enemy Swooping Cocoons?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 5: The Origin of the China Eye

Season 3, Episode 6

Something Savage This Way Comes

October 15th, 1921 continued

Well, diary, as I was saying, I touched the portal. If all went well, and the symbol I’d drawn with Mara’s ointment could take me to a different time, then I was about to end up in McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.

My fingers got a little sticky from touching the symbol I’d drawn. It glowed golden. I felt a whisk in the pit of my stomach, and I was transported.

I recognized the smell at once. I was on the dusty third floor of the Pawn Shop, behind a huge stone mask. I took a deep breath and dusted off my knees.

I dashed out from behind the stone mask, only to come face to face with a fussy old woman.

“Good heavens!” she squawked. “You scared me to death!”

I was just as shocked to see her. I stammered out an apology and ran from the room.

No, no, no! That wasn’t right! The Pawn Shop never had outside visitors anymore. Was I still stuck in 1916? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a non-magic unusual actually shopping in the Pawn Shop. It never happened. At least, very rarely. And people never made it to the third floor. It was a lot of stairs. Usually they got overwhelmed by the first floor and left.

I couldn’t remember what the woman had been wearing. Although, to be fair, most older women didn’t like the fashion changes and stuck with what they knew. Had she been wearing 1916 garb? Aug! I wish I knew!

What time was I in? Was I in the Pawn Shop of 1921, or was I in the Pawn Shop of 1916? As fascinating as it would have been to meet everyone who belonged to the Pawn Shop five years ago, I didn’t want to talk to that Mr. McGillicuddy. I wanted to talk to the current Mr. McGillicuddy, and I wanted to talk to him now.

Out of breath, I hurried to the second floor, to the nail in the wall. I needed to find out as soon as possible where I was. If I was still in 1916, then I had no idea what I would do. I would probably just have to start my life all over again, painstakingly avoiding my five-years-younger self and moving to a different city. I could pick up my adventure where I’d left off, a much older Maude who probably wouldn’t remember anyone’s names.

I reached the second floor. I found the nail that led to the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop, and I squeezed it as soon as I found it. I had fitful visions of the wall looking totally different, of the nail being a different color, of everything being wrong and this still being 1916, but in a flash, I’d entered the murder object, and I hurried down the stairs into the secret base.

As soon as I entered, I heard chatter and smelled cloves and oranges. Octavia appeared almost at once.

“Maude!” Octavia said.

“You know me?” I cried. I threw my arms around her neck. Octavia squeaked and patted my arms. Octavia is one of my new friends, and I love her like the dickens, but I’d never loved her more. I was so elated to see her. The portal had worked! The symbol of the eye could take you into your original timeline. That was new. That was magic unusual technology I’d never heard of before.

“Maude, Maude! Why are you panicking? Should I be panicking?”

“No!” I said. “Oh, Octavia, I’ve just been stuck in 1916. I was in an absolute dither. It is 1921, isn’t it? October?”

“Yes, yes!” Octavia said. “Maude, I just saw you half an hour ago. In the kitchen. When you left with half the cheese. What happened?”

“I was stuck in a murder object,” I said. “It’s a long story. I couldn’t teleport out of the murder object because I didn’t teleport in from 1921. It’s very complicated. My head is spinning.”

“What?” she squawked. “Where have you been? What happened?”

“To hell and back, my dear,” I said. I heaved a breath. I looked around. “Where is Mr. McGillicuddy?”

“Gone,” Octavia said. “He heard a rumor of a magic unusual in Sweden who might have a cure for Wrath’s madness. It’s a long shot, and I don’t think he was very confident about it. But he left about ten minutes ago, and he told us not to expect him back for three days.”

“Three days!” I said. I leaned against the wall.

Mr. McGillicuddy had gone in search of a cure for Wrath. That was excellent in the long run. But it meant that in the short run, I couldn’t tell him what I’d just found.

I bit my lip. Mr. McGillicuddy wouldn’t have anyone to cure if we didn’t rescue Wrath from the cave of the Whiskalits. Wrath couldn’t teleport out. And, as I’d heard the Whiskalits discussing, they wanted to make Wrath their thirteenth member. They wanted to turn him into a plague mask bird.

I shivered. I wondered what that entailed. Going from human into a Whiskalit. Of course, I’d never seen a Whiskalit without its mask on.

“Octavia,” I said. “I have something I need to do. I have someone I need to rescue. There’s no time to wait for Mr. McGillicuddy to come back. I need to act now. This person might be in danger, and they might not have a lot of time.”

“What do you need?” Octavia asked.

“Would you come with me?” I said. “I don’t want to go back alone. I need to bring people I trust.”

“I’ll come,” Octavia said.

“It’s not safe,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Octavia said. “This is what we do. We go conquer the unconquerable. Honestly, I’ve been a bit bored lately. When do you want to leave? Shall I go get my hat?”

I laughed. “Hold on for an hour, I think. There’s someone I want to talk to before we go. And Scotland. Ask Scotland if she’s willing to come. I trust her and I wouldn’t hate having a medic.”

“A medic?” Octavia said. “That bad, is it?”

“I found the Death to All Mice beings,” I said. “They’re called Whiskalits. They live in this cave that’s… I don’t even know if it’s in our world. It felt like I was on a different planet. I couldn’t teleport out of it. But I figured out how to escape, and I think I can get us back into the cave. I think this jelly will work.”

“Hang on,” Octavia said. “Jelly? You have magic jelly?”

“I have magic jelly,” I said. “I’ll explain how it works later. But keep in mind… we… we might all muster forces and get ready to enter the cave and then realize that my magic jelly doesn’t work, but I want to be prepared in case the portal does work. Will you ask Scotland? But tell her it’s dangerous. Tell her it’s the Whiskalits and that getting out of there is difficult.”

“But we can get out?” Octavia said.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll make sure everyone has some magic jelly and a personal murder object before we go in, though. Can’t be too careful. That way, if we get split up, everyone can still make it out.”

“Oh, goody,” Octavia said. “I always wanted some magic jelly. Is it mint flavored?”

Diary, I was rather wishing that the name “magic jelly” wasn’t about to become the official title for Mara’s invention, but I was pretty sure it was. Magic jelly. Magic jelly. Oh, well, I may as well get used to it.

“Meet you back here in an hour?” I said.

“Yes,” Octavia said. “And I’ll gather pocket sized murder objects.”

“Bless you,” I said.

Octavia dashed off, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I stood there for about a minute and a half, feeling dizzy, and tired, and not sure I had it in me.

I finally moved. The first thing I did was run to the kitchen and grab a ham sandwich and a copious amount of potato salad. I ate half the sandwich on my way to the front door. Then I held the potato salad in one hand and the ham sandwich in another hand, and I left the secret basement. As soon as I was out (still eating enthusiastically, I might add) I teleported to the cemetery where I’d last found Noble James.

It was a beautiful day. Sort of peaceful and gray. I felt a compulsion to lie down in the wet leaves and stare up at the sky and just feel things for about three hours. I wondered if other people felt that way--the wish to just eject themselves from life for a little bit. I used to have nothing to do, nothing to care about, and now I had so much it was coming out of my ears. It would be so nice to simply pause and forget about everything except for the cold stickiness of rain. Even now, living my best life, I sometimes wish I could stop being myself.

Not forever, of course. Just for a little bit. It's so exhausting to be alive, isn't it, diary? So rewarding. But ye gods. Sometimes you just need to lie under a tree and forget your own name.

But I digress. I was at the cemetery to find Noble James, if I could. As much as I would have loved to hide under a tree, I did not have the time. I hurried to the crypt where I'd first run into him, and I hoped against hope that he'd left some kind of sign for me, some way to find him again. But did Noble James want me to be able to find him? He was pretending to be dead. He didn't even want Mr. McGillicuddy to know he was alive. He wanted to vanish. The chances of him leaving any kind of message for me were slim. Just because I knew his secret didn't mean we got to gather regularly for toast and kippers. He had probably absconded, and I would never see him again.

Well. Maybe I'd see him again in about four years. But I wished I could see him now.

I opened the door of the crypt. The handle was cold, and it pricked me. The chill shot up the veins of my arm, and I felt the temperature of my blood change. I shivered, and I felt like something evil and ugly was watching my back. I looked behind me, but I didn't see anything moving in the cemetery. Certainly just my overactive imagination, then. 

I stepped into the crypt, and I realized why I must have felt so shivery. This crypt led down into the Night Enthusiasts' prison. That must be why I had the creeps. I'd almost forgotten that little detail. One of these days I was going to forget something really important and wind up dead. 

Why on earth would Noble hang around the entrance to the Night Enthusiast prison? He wanted the Night Enthusiasts to believe, absolutely, that he was dead. He didn't want to accidentally run into one. I was being ridiculous. There was no way he would have left a message here for me. We'd gone on one adventure together, and it had been wonderful. But he had to go his own way, now.

I found myself getting... sad. Wistful. I found myself wanting to spin on my heel and sigh and then write sad poetry for an hour. Did I... did I still have the swoons for Noble James? The very idea made me feel silly. 

Still. He did have that poetic, quiet air about him. It was enough to drive a girl mad, really. And he was an excellent adventure companion. All women should drag their men onto adventures before they decide about matrimony.

All the same, as delightful and funny as falling in love would have been, I felt something holding me back. Almost as if I had feelings for somebody else. Maybe those feelings were for me. Maybe I had fallen head over heels for myself and didn't want to break up the party. I don't know. 

At any rate, I was sad. I'd felt connected to Noble, deeply, and I hated to think of him being gone, beyond my call. I prepared to step into the crypt, to take a look around and just in case check for secret messages from Noble. Before I did, I looked over my shoulder. 

I wanted to make sure no one would see me going into the crypt. So I quickly scanned the cemetery. And I saw a person. There was someone there. There hadn't been, a moment before. My skin crawled. Was I being followed? Had the person been hiding behind a tree, seconds before?

I squinted. It was a small woman, dressed in purple, with a round face. From here, she seemed to be wearing fairly striking eye makeup. Like her eyes were hooded and dark.

I twitched, and I had a premonition. It looked like Dawn Mumungus. 

It wasn’t possible of course. Dawn Mumungus, the leader of the Night Enthusiasts, was locked up in our prison. There was no way she had escaped. If she had escaped, she wouldn't be stupid enough to stand in a graveyard and let me stare at her. 

The more I stared at this strange woman, however, the more I felt like it must be Dawn. I could feel it, in the hollow of my bones. It looked like her exactly, from this distance. And why was she just standing there, staring back at me? 

I picked up my skirts and ran across the cemetery. I expected Dawn to run away or teleport. But she didn't. She just stood there, staring, as if she couldn't even see me. I stumbled to a halt halfway there and panted. Why wasn't she running? Was she in some kind of trance? Why was she standing there like a dead china doll?

I realized I could teleport right beside her, before she had a chance to zap out of the cemetery. I reached her side in a flash, and I grabbed her hard by the wrist so she couldn't teleport away from me. 

But as soon as I touched her, I knew that something was wrong. This wasn't Dawn Mumungus. This wasn't even a human being.

Her skin was cold. Her flesh was... soft. Almost the same as human muscle, but ever so slightly softer, to where everything felt uncanny. That slight difference in the feel of the flesh was worse than touching something liquid or stone, something shockingly different than what I expected. The difference was just barely there. My fingers sunk in further than they should have. I felt like I'd touched a dead, rotting rat, and I jerked my hand away. 

But it was Dawn Mumungus. Now that I was standing right in front of her, I could see it was her. Perfectly. She stared at me out of dull eyes.

"Dawn?" I said.

She didn't say a word. She didn't try to teleport, either.

"What... what are you?" I said. 

She continued to stare. I found myself walking to look behind he, as though I would see a mechanism, as though she was a wind-up toy with gears like a clock. I walked around her, slowly, but she slowly circled, too. She kept looking at me. She moved around so that no matter where I went, she had her eyes on my face.

It became like a kind of grisly game. I wondered if she was hiding something behind her back. I ran, like a child at the playground, trying to dodge until I could see the back of her neck. She moved faster too. So fast. I realized she could move as fast as she wanted to, lethargic disposition none the less.

"You're not Dawn Mumungus, are you?" I said. "What are you?" 

The thing stared at me.

I didn’t know what to do. Mr. McGillicuddy was out of town. Could I take this thing captive? It moved like something with incredible strength. If we got into a fist fight, it would win.

Still. If it was evil, and not human, and wore the face of Dawn Mumungus, I didn’t want it wandering around on its own.

“Will you come with me?” I said to the thing. I took a few steps back. I felt like I was luring a sheep with a handful of hay.

The thing watched me.

“Come on, a little closer,” I said. “Come follow me, that’s it.”

The thing took a step closer to me. I should have been elated, because my plan was working, but I was scared out of my wits. I suddenly felt like I was being chased.

“That’s it,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “Come follow me.”

My plan was to lure it into the crypt and then leave it there. A flimsy plan, to be sure, because I didn’t know if this thing could teleport like a magic unusual or not. But still. If I penned it in like a chicken, ran back to the secret base for some reinforcements, and then came back, it might still be there. And then we could take it to our prison and find out what it was.

What if… what was it, though? Imagine bringing an animal into your home only to realize it had a deadly disease. This thing could be anything. It could, in theory, do anything to us. What if it could melt a human’s bones just by looking at them?

Honestly my imagination runs away with me sometimes. But I was suddenly scared to trap it. What if it infected us all somehow? What if we shouldn’t go anywhere near it?

Just as I was wondering, the thing vanished.

I screamed. I actually did. Right out loud in the middle of the cemetery. It had scared me to death. I felt like it had rushed me, teleported behind me, teleported right into me.

I spun around, but the thing was nowhere. It had left. Like a magic unusual, it could teleport.

Wonderful. Now it could teleport right beside me in the middle of the night. Just what I needed.

Of course, it couldn’t actually teleport beside me, not unless it found a way into the murder object that hid our secret base. But yech. I think I’m going to skittish forever.

I strode back towards the crypt feeling shaken. I was filled to the brim with burning questions. What was that thing I’d just seen? I felt like it was an evil omen. As if I needed anything new to worry about.

I had several burning questions now. Namely, who had drawn that eye symbol into the wall? Someone had lured me into the cave of the Whiskalits on purpose. I had stumbled across the eye symbol and been transported. I felt fairly certain now that that eye was drawn with Mara’s magic jelly. Who had put it on the wall of the secret basement for me to find? How had it gotten there? Who had wanted me to discover that cave?

Full of questions, as seems to be my lot in life, I opened the door to the crypt and stepped back inside. I was still shaken and not paying close attention to my surroundings, but I suddenly noticed something in the far corner.

It was a small skull, probably from a skunk or an opossum. Most people entering this crypt would probably think that the animal had just died in here and ignore the skull, but the skull reminded me of something. It reminded me of the magic unusual from Germany who had removed my and Noble’s souls for twenty-four hours.

I wondered if Noble had left it here for me, as a clue. I strode across the crypt, swept up the skull, and sure enough, there was a small slip of paper tucked inside the bowl of the skull.

I felt giddy. Noble had left me a clue! He wanted me to be able to find him! I was so relieved. I’d wanted so badly to have him on this adventure. For one thing, he owned a gun, which was useful. For another, he’d already risked a lot for me, and the honest truth was that I trusted him more than anyone else in the world.

I didn’t want to let him go. I wanted to solve this Whiskalit adventure with him. Feeling buoyant, expectant, at the chance to find him again, I plucked the note out of the skull and unfolded it.

As soon as I read the words, my heart sank.

Dear Maude, the note said. I’m praying that you find this because I am in danger, and I need your help. Please look for a second note from me, at the corner of the house where we went to see our friend with all the skulls. Hurry if you can. I hope I’m not dead by the time you find me. Noble James.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 6, Something Savage This Way Comes, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Friends, your troubles are over. Obviously all your life you’ve been wanting a Giant. Rubber. Duck to hang your hat on. Obviously, because then the giant rubber duck would look like it was wearing your hat. I am pleased to tell you that—Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement right now for Giant Rubber Duck HatStands?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 7: The Way to Hell

Season 3, Episode 7

The Way to Hell

October 15th, 1921 continued

I stood in the middle of crypt and quivered. I cupped the opossum skull in one hand and read Noble James’s letter again, just to be sure I had it right.

Dear Maude, I’m praying that you find this because I am in danger, and I need your help. Please look for a second note from me, at the corner of the house where we went to see our friend with all the skulls. Hurry if you can. I hope I’m not dead by the time you find me. Noble James.

There were two possibilities, of course. One was that Noble James had not written this letter. Someone else had, and they wanted to trick me. Trap me. The Night Enthusiasts wanted to grab me and hold me hostage.

The other possibility was that Noble had in fact written this letter, and that he was in fact in danger. I found this more likely. Namely, because no one but me technically knew that Noble James was still alive. Also, the letter was instructing me to teleport right outside of Mr. Muntz’s shop in Germany. Only Noble and I knew that we had been there together. Only Noble and I knew of Mr. Muntz in the first place.

Whether it was a trap or not, of course I was going to go. I felt a prickle of stress run down my skin. I wanted nothing more than to rush to the cave and get Wrath away from the Whiskalits. I was worried that he was going to agree to become their thirteenth member. I was also worried that they were going to force it on him.

“Come on, Maude,” I said out loud to myself. “They’re not going to make him a Whiskalit in the next five minutes. They were still bickering about whether they wanted Wrath at all when you heard them talking. He has at least twenty-four hours.”

I heaved a sigh. I hoped that was true. I felt pinched, reckless, like I wanted to rescue Wrath right that second, and the stress of it ate away at me. Nevertheless, something even more important had just come up. Wrath could wait. He probably had several days. Noble, on the other hand… what if I was already too late? What if I got there and he was dead?

I had had quite enough of Noble James being dead, let me tell you. I was more than tired of Noble James being dead. He had better not have finally managed it.  

Gripping the note, I teleported first to the Eiffel Tower, then to a beach in Iceland. It was a crazy precaution, but, given that I’d just teleported out of the Night Enthusiast prison’s front parlor, I decided it was a good precaution. In case this was a trick, and a Night Enthusiast was on hand to cast a skull spell on me, I wanted to take them elsewhere.

Satisfied that no one could trace me now, I teleported to Mr. Muntz’s shop. Ye Gods, it was cold. I shivered. What had the note said? The corner of the house.

I walked to the right corner, hoping no one in the street would be too curious about what I was doing. I scanned the bricks. Sure enough, there was a small gap in the mortar, and a letter was rolled up inside. I whisked it out. It felt like a ciggy, tightly rolled and crisp white. I unrolled it as fast as I could and read it.

Maude! The letter said. Noble had included an exclamation point after my name, which I thought was rather sweet. Bless you. I really am going to owe you one. Raster, one of the Night Enthusiasts who wants me dead, knows that I’m alive. He entered the murder object I was hiding in and nearly shot me through the skull. I don’t know how he found my murder object but that doesn’t matter now. We fought and I escaped, and I’ve come here to Germany to hide again. I’m hidden inside the bell of Mr. Muntz’s shop. It’s a murder object, but I don’t think Muntz even knows that. Please come in after me. I’m afraid that Raster is going to find me here as well. He must have developed some trick for finding me, even when I’m inside a murder object. It’s only a matter of time.

I need help getting properly hidden. Two magic unusuals can do more than one magic unusual. There are extra spells and tricks, and I need your assistance getting out of Raster’s line of sight. I hope you find this note. Noble.

I heaved a breath. Well, this was something, wasn’t it! Raster, Raster, Raster, what a pickle you’ve put my friend in. I supposed the Night Enthusiasts had nothing better to do at the moment than wait for their leaders to escape and go around persecuting Noble James. They must be furious that he’d infiltrated their secrets, pretended to be one of them. It was not good that they knew he was living. Being dead is an excellent hiding spot. Now he didn’t have that anymore.

I hoped he was still alive. I hoped he was doing all right. I put the note into my pocket, strode into Mr. Muntz’s shop, and looked around. The creepy charlatan was nowhere in sight. I was grateful for that. Honestly I’d had no idea I would be back here so soon.

I stepped right up to the bell, touched it with the tip of my finger, and entered the murder object.

As soon as I teleported, I felt like sneezing. I blinked and saw where I was. I was in a hotel, somewhere exotic by the look of the plants and décor. Perhaps in India, at the turn of the century. The place milled with people. Well-dressed staff rushed to and fro with luggage and carts of silver food dishes. I was nearly whisked into kingdom come by a bellboy with a rack of suitcases.

I stepped to the side, aware that I was wearing the wrong fashion for this era. I wondered who had died here. Had someone been shot in the front room of this hotel? I could see the little golden bells, just like the murder object I’d used, up at the front desk. Mr. Muntz had clearly acquired one of them.

Since Noble was inside the murder object, he’d started moving time forward. Whoever had died had clearly been carted away and the blood scrubbed off. You would never know it for a murder scene now. I wondered if Noble had arrived seconds after the spurt of blood.

Noble. Where was the man? I ducked off the carpeted walkways, into the sitting area of the lobby. Men were drinking tea and reading papers, and one glanced up at me disapprovingly. I do confess I rolled my eyes. I had better things to worry about than whether or not this man thought I was peculiarly dressed.

Just then, I spotted Noble. My heart rushed up in relief. He’d gotten a job as a bell boy. Very, very clever. That meant he had meals and currency and a place to sleep while he hid inside this murder object. He was currently answering a question for a well-dressed couple. I stood and waited, itching to talk to him, while the woman adjusted her fur ruff. The couple walked away, and Noble turned and saw me.

The look of relief on his face was priceless. He sidled towards me, and said in a low, flirtatious voice,

“May I help you with anything, madam?”

I sighed and smiled into his eyes. “Well, yes, you can,” I said. “I’m afraid that all the men here think that I’m a prostitute due to the nature of my short skirts.”

Noble snorted a laugh and looked down at the carpet. “May I entice you into a broom closet?” he said.

“Sir,” I said. “Despite appearances, I am not looking for any liaisons in broom closets.”

“Stop making me laugh,” Noble said. “It’s unseemly for bell boys to be laughing at cute young women.”

Oh! Noble James thought I was cute. Well, I was cute. But he’d noticed. I was all right with that.

I smirked. “Right, well, where can we talk?”

“A broom closet,” Noble said. “I wasn’t joking.”

He extended his arm, as if showing me the way to something. I walked with him around the corner, and he quickly whisked us both into a stuffy little closet under the stairs.

“Well!” Noble said. “Thank God you got here! That didn’t take you long at all.”

“I’m afraid I have an ulterior motive,” I said. “I was looking for you because I need help.”

“Because adventure is breathing down your neck again,” Noble said. “Is that it?”

“Exactly,” I said.

“You are a marvel,” Noble James said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“What’s going on?” Noble said.

“Wrath,” I said. “I’ve found him, and I need help rescuing him from a very complex pickle.”

“Right,” Noble James said.

“But first we’re going to solve your problem,” I said. “What do you need?”

“Well,” Noble said. “I could keep hiding here. You could grab the golden bell from Mr. Muntz’s shop with me still hidden inside and then you could keep it in your pocket.”

“I could indeed,” I said.

“But I don’t like that plan,” Noble said. “Because I think Raster has developed a way to track me, even through murder objects. Which means that he would find you eventually and probably try to kill you.”

“I can just keep teleporting away from him,” I said. 

“Don’t love that plan,” Noble said. “As I’ve mentioned. We could also hide the bell inside a second murder object, then hide that murder object inside the secret base, putting a total of three layers between me and Raster.”

“That’s not a bad plan,” I said. “Then I could visit you whenever I wanted and bring you food.”

“Sure,” Noble said. “But the problem with that is, I worry that Raster’s magic will eventually break through. And then, I’ve compromised not just your safety but the secrecy of our entire operation. We cannot let them find the base.”

“It’s probably too many layers,” I said. “I don’t think he’d be able to find you. Besides, what if this new magic he has can find anyone even they’re hidden in a murder object? What if Raster is going to use it to track all of us straight to the secret base?”

Noble nodded. “The thing is,” he said. “Raster has some of my blood. From when he stabbed me that time under the bridge. I think that might be how he’s doing it.”

“Hmm,” I said. “I’m still going to add capturing Raster and putting him in prison to my to-do list, though.”

“Not a bad plan,” Noble said. “But see… we can’t control whether or not Raster breaks into the Pawn Shop on his own. We can control whether or not I try to hide there and lead him there myself. Those were my only two ideas, and I don’t like either one of them. I was hoping you had a better plan.”

“We need to put you somewhere Raster can’t access,” I said. “Murder objects aren’t good enough. We need to hide you somewhere magic unusuals can’t normally access. Can we set up some kind of barrier? The Night Enthusiasts kept us out of their secret tunnel because we had whole souls. Could we do the opposite? Could we create a hiding spot that you can’t enter with a damaged soul?”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Noble said. “If there’s a magic unusual out there who has that power, they would be difficult to find in time.”

I nodded. “Right. Time is rather pinched. What if…” I paused. Suddenly, I got it.

“Oh, Noble,” I said.

“What?” he said.

“Oh, wow,” I said.

“I don’t love your tone,” he said.

“Hm?” I said.

“Your tone,” he said. “You sound sort of simultaneously amazed and terrified, which means that you’ve found a solution but the solution is ghastly.”

“That’s exactly right,” I said.

“What is it?” Noble said.

“It’s where were going,” I said. “We can kill two birds with one stone. If you come help me on my adventure, then I’ll have automatically gotten you where you can hide. But it isn’t safe.”

“Where is it?” Noble said.

“It’s the cave where the Plague Mask birds live,” I said. “They’re called Whiskalits. They have an entire city in this cave off our world somewhere. I think it’s off our world, because you cannot teleport in or out. But you can get in, I think, using a magic symbol. I’ve done it once before. And you can use murder objects to get out of their world.”

“But the danger,” Noble said. “Is that I would be constantly hiding from these things?”

I nodded. “When they approach, the lights go out, so you would always know that they were coming. Their world is huge, as well, and I think you could hide somewhere for a year without them ever coming near you. But I worry that they can smell humans. I worry that they’ll catch on and update their magic and make it impossible for you to leave. It’s a horrible place, Noble. It’s like a dank hell of luxurious isolation.”

“A dank hell of luxurious isolation?” Noble said.

“Yes.”

“But in theory, if I saw them coming and I used a murder object, I would be able to escape?”

“Yes,” I said. “Unless they change their magic.”

Noble tilted his head back. “And it’s those plague mask things that live there?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Euh,” he said. “But Raster couldn’t get in?”

“No magic unusual can get in without the magic symbol,” I said. “And I think I’m the only one in 1921 who knows about them.”

I shivered then, thinking about Mara. She and Wrath had been engaged. She had been on the side of good. If she was still alive and well, why didn’t the Pawn Shop know about her symbols, about her unique magic unusual power? I would need to track down what had happened to her when I had a minute to spare.

“So Raster wouldn’t be able to find me,” Noble said. “But the Death to All Mice Birds might?”

“If you decided to hide there,” I said, “The first thing I would do after getting Wrath back is to find Raster and put him in prison. Then I’d come get you and you could return to the normal world.”

“Assuming Raster hadn’t passed on his neat little trick to the rest of the Night Enthusiasts,” Noble said.

“I’ll solve this for you,” I said. “I swear. I will make it safe for you to live in the regular world.”

Noble nodded. “I know you will. And I will need you to. I can’t rescue myself when I’m hiding. I would need you to solve it, Maude.”

“I can,” I said. “I really believe I can.”

“But for now,” Noble said. “All I can do is hide. And I think your place is the right solution. I think I should hide in the cave.”

I swallowed and nodded. “It would buy us a little time.”

“It would,” Noble said. “So! Let’s get out of this broom closet, and let’s go the cave and go get Wrath.”

“That’s the other thing,” I said. “I was going to bring Octavia and Scotland along, too. A few more soldiers in case things go wrong. But I realize you might not want anyone else in on the secret. Of you, you know, being alive.”

Noble thought for a minute. “I trust Octavia and Scotland,” he said. “It’s honestly better, at this point, that a few others know about me. They can also help stop Raster once we’ve gotten Wrath back.”

“And, Noble?” I said. “I was also thinking of asking Ariana to come.”

He cocked his head. “Really?”

“She’s… she’s not in a good place. She wanted to leave the Night Enthusiasts and join the side of good but all we’ve done is punish her. She’s trapped and miserable. If she comes on this adventure, she can’t escape. She wouldn’t be able to leave the Whiskalit world. But she would be able to help and be a part of something. I think it would be good.”

Noble nodded. “Do you think it’s worth the risk?”

“She’s someone else I have to rescue,” I said.

He sighed. “If you think you can trust her,” he said. “Then I trust you. I’m all right with her knowing.”

I nodded. “I think she needs to be given a chance, someone to be. I think this would help her spirits immensely.”

Noble nodded. “Then we return to the base, fetch Octavia, Scotland, and Ariana, and go to the Whiskalit world?”

I nodded. “You stay here. In this hotel. I’m going to steal Mr. Muntz’s bell and take it to Ariana’s room. We’ll all leave from there.”

“All right,” Noble said.

“Give me half an hour,” I said. “I’ll go fetch you when it’s time.”

He shook my hand. “Thank you, Maude,” he said. “I can never thank you enough.”

“Thank me,” I said, “when Raster is in prison and you haven’t been gobbled up by Whiskalits.”

Noble shuddered. “Ugh,” he said.

Well, diary, I left Noble, snatched the bell from Mr. Muntz’s shop, and teleported back to the Pawn Shop. As soon as I had hurried down into the secret basement, I found Octavia and Scotland waiting for me.

“We’ve collected pocket-sized murder objects,” Octavia said. “We’re ready to go. As well as tiny jam jars for you to share your magic jelly.”

“Good,” I said. “Let’s teleport out of Ariana’s room.”

I quickly explained my plan to them. They looked at each other uneasily.

“I don’t like it, Maude,” Octavia said. “If I’m being honest, I don’t like it.”

“She has changed,” I said. “We won’t give her her own jelly or murder object. She’ll have to stay by me in order to get out of the Whiskalit cave. She won’t be able to get out on her own.”

Scotland nodded. “No, I like this plan. It’s a risk, but you have to take risks when you’re helping friends. Let’s head to Ariana’s room, set up the portal, and see if it works.”

“I have one more surprise for you,” I said, fingering the bell in my pocket.

“You do?” Octavia said.

“Yes,” I squeaked. “You’ll see when we get there.”

We made our way to Ariana’s room. We told the guard that we were headed in for a visit and would probably be with Ariana for awhile. The guard let us in cheerfully. Ariana jumped at the sight of us.

“What’s going on?” she said, as the door shut.

“Ariana,” I said. “There’s a lot to explain. But we’re about to rescue Wrath from an alien cave, and we want you to come along as part of the team.”

Her expression changed so much it just about broke my heart. “Really?” she said. “You want me to come?”

“Yes,” I said. “But… and please understand… because you know where the secret base is, we can’t risk you escaping. I trust you, but I… you’re still a prisoner, and…” I hated every second of this. “We’re not going to give you a method of escaping the cave yourself. You’ll have to stick with one of us in order to get out. You can’t teleport out of the cave naturally.”

Araina’s eyes darkened, but she nodded along thoughtfully. “I see,” she said. “Well, I don’t love it, but I understand. I know you need to do what you need to do. I’m willing.” She reached out and took my hand. I felt a zap of electricity from her, and my heart jumped. I was reminded of the time I passed a nickel to her, in line at the sandwich shop. I’d thought I’d felt something strange at that first contact of our fingers, and at the time, I’d thought it was because I was making her a magic unusual. Of course I wasn’t. She had been both a magic unusual and a Night Enthusiast for years. But maybe there was something electric between Ariana and I, something that happened sometimes when we touched.

“You’re all right with it?” I said.

“I want to go on this adventure with you, Maude,” she said. “Let’s go.”

I breathed a sight of relief. “One more thing to do then…” I said.

I went and fetched Noble from inside the murder object. When he returned with me, both Octavia and Scotland screamed. We had to rush to the door to assure the guard that we were fine. Once the shock was over with, everyone was thrilled to see Noble. He shook hands and hugged and briefly explained why he was pretending to be dead.

“Well,” Scotland said. “This day can’t get any stranger.”

“It’s about to, I’m afraid,” I said.

Hoping that it worked, I got out my magic jelly. I passed some extra globs to everyone but Ariana, and then I drew a symbol of an eye on the wall. I concentrated on the Whiskalit cave as I drew. The symbol started to glow, golden.

“Well,” I said. “If it works, follow me.”

I touched the symbol. With a whisk, I was transported, and I found myself in a familiar, dank world.

It worked. We had made it into the Whiskalit cave.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 7, The Way to Hell, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Is your life plagued with vampires? Do they pop up at every corner? Do they appear constantly in the grocery store, stealing the last box of Weetabix? Do they drain the life out of every social gathering? Literally? Well. The good news is, there’s a cure for all those pesky vampires—Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement right now for Vampire Pest Control?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, Episode 8: Mice in a Jar

Season 3, Episode 8

Mice in a Jar

October 15th, 1921 continued

As soon as I entered the Whiskalit’s cave, Noble appeared behind me. After him came Ariana, Scotland, and Octavia. We found ourselves in the same corridor that I’d entered last time. The cave walls were dark and dank. I spotted the strange staring mask in the corner.

Scotland stepped forward and sniffed. “Smells like blood. Does it smell like blood to you?”

“It’s the mushrooms,” I said.

“Blood mushrooms?” Scotland said. “Mm, a vampire’s delicacy.”

Ariana hugged herself and looked around. Her eyes looked a little bit wild. I couldn’t tell if it was fear of the cave or a hunger for adventure. She looked a little bit like a wolf.

Octavia looked like she was going to faint.

“Are you all right, darling?” I asked.

“Oh, you know me,” she said. “I panic for the first thirty seconds and then I’m more ferocious than any of you.”

Noble was the only one who seemed utterly calm. I thought that was brave of him, considering he might be about to live here. He took a few steps down the corridor and stopped in front of the mask.

“Does the whole place look like this?” he said. “Just a cave?”

“No,” I said. “It’s actually quite civilized. I’ll show you. Come on.”

I took them down the way Wrath had taken me. I hoped to run into Wrath again. Maybe he took strolls down this corridor. Maybe we’d find him here, in the empty stone, and we wouldn’t have to venture into that strangely luxurious city, into that waste of wealth and decadence.

We didn’t find Wrath. I led the others out of the tunnels and into Maskwell, the Underground City.

“It’s bigger than this,” I said. “It goes on and on, in sections. Wrath said it was as big as New York.”

“I sort of love it,” Octavia said, as we all stood in the entrance and stared. “It’s like… a termite’s story book.”

The lights were on. Thank goodness. They were yellow and welcoming, not green and ghastly the way they were when the Whiskalits were present. I suddenly realized that the Whiskalits had designed this world to look beautiful and welcoming when they weren’t present. They were like children setting up sand castles at the beach so they could knock them down. They didn’t want the beautiful lights. They wanted to destroy them.

I was lost in disturbed thought when Noble put his hand on my shoulder.

“Is it safe to go down there?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I turned to the group. “Everyone, if the lights go out, use your murder object immediately. Ariana, stay by me, we’ll use the same one. From there, use a magic portal to get back to 1921.”

“If the lights go out, it means they’re coming?” Scotland said.

“Yes,” I said. “They always arrive in the dark. If the lights are green, they’re already present, and you should run.”

“Is it possible to move from section to section and avoid them?” Noble said. “If the lights went out, couldn’t you just sneak away until you found a section of the city where the lights were lit?”

“In theory,” I said.

I felt twitchy. I didn’t want Noble to sneak past those things. I was going to be worried about him being devoured by Plague Mask birds every second of the day.

“What do we do next?” Ariana said. “We’re trying to find Wrath?”

“Yes…” I said. I put my fist to my lips and thought.

“And you said this place was as big as New York?” Noble said.

“Yes,” I said.

“We could split into groups,” Noble said.

“Oh,” Octavia said. “Please no. I’m sorry, but no. I don’t want to get separated. What if something terrible happens and one group never returns and we never find out what happened?”

There was a silence.

“Well, when you put it that way,” Noble said, attempting a grin.

“We’ll stick together,” Ariana said. She looped her arm through Octavia’s. “Is there a way to systematically search?”

I stared into the distance, and I felt a bit green. Where was Wrath now? Would we never find him, but instead run into thirteen plague mask creatures and know the worst had happened? Would we find him dead? What had happened to him after I left? I’d assumed the Whiskalits would be angry at me and leave Wrath out of it, but what if they found him and questioned him about the other human who had made it into their world? What if they murdered him? What if I’d gotten Wrath into trouble because I’d been spotted?

I shivered and decided that the best thing I could do was just find Wrath. That was the only place I could start. If he needed saving or medical attention, whatever had happened to him, I had to find him first.

Diary, I also have to confess that I was worried about… the rest of us as well. When it came to Wrath. I felt a deep sympathy for him. Every once in awhile his humanity shone through, beyond his wooden puppet eye. And besides, I’d just met the real Wrath a few hours before. I knew what he was like now, before he’d gone mad. I wanted to save that man.

But I also knew that that man was unhinged, and what was he going to do to us? He’d confessed to me that he was tempted, somewhat, by the Whiskalit’s offer. He was tempted by the idea of… becoming one of these things. I did not know yet exactly what Death to All Mice meant, but I had my suspicions that the Whiskalits wanted humanity dead. Parts of us, anyway. They seemed like demons, things that worked in the shadows, masterminds behind something… long term. Some sort of strange, cultish plan. If the Whiskalits were here to murder or maim, then… well, I had a fear that Wrath wanted to be a part of it. The Whiskalits loved the murdering and maiming that Wrath had already done. I think the madman in Wrath loved the murdering and maiming he had done. I thought of Mara, and how the man she was engaged to had gone back in time to 1916 to inflict horrific, cackling suffering onto men he barely knew. How does misfortune do this to us? How does it just keep growing?

“Maude?” Noble said.

I broke out of my reverie.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Where to?” Ariana said.

I stared out across the city. This was an impossible task. Wrath could be asleep in a bed in any one of these thousands of houses. The same was true of every other district of the city we found. Mathematically speaking, this was not the task of an afternoon.

“We have to find some way to draw him out,” I said.

“Draw him out?” Octavia said.

“We could open every building, and maybe we should,” I said. “But I think we’ve got to be a bit more strategic than that.”

“Hm?” Octavia said.

I turned and faced them. “Correct me if you think this is a terrible idea, but I think we need to exhaust every section of city before we move on to the next one. We can see the walls of this district. We know where it ends. Before we keep walking, we need to make sure that Wrath isn’t in one of these buildings.”

“Agreed,” Noble said.

“Easier said than done,” Ariana said.

“I have a plan,” I said. “Don’t… don’t laugh, all right?”

Five minutes later, we walked in a group through the streets of the city. We started at the edges, and our plan was to slowly spiral inward, until we’d walked past every house. We sang. Very, very loudly. We started with Old King Wenceslas but realized that we didn’t know the words, so we switched to “I’m That Syncopated Boogie Boo,” which was one of my favorite Halloween songs when I was younger. Octavia got a bit carried away and started gesturing. We were all laughing. I found that so funny. That we could be here, in this much danger, and still laugh at each other.

Honestly, I felt like I was several years younger. It was so frightening to be here, but as long as the lights were lit, we could make as much noise as we wanted. I felt like it was Halloween, and we were being a bit bad, making lighthearted trouble. It is almost Halloween, diary. We are about fifteen days away. I wonder if something absolutely horrible is going to happen on Halloween. This seems to be a sort of Halloween adventure.

Our plan, was, of course, to shock Wrath into coming outside to see what was going on. And he would, of course. When you think you are the only human alone on a world, any sound of shouts and singing, especially when the lights are lit and you know it’s not the Whiskalits… well, of course you’re going to venture forth to find out what’s going on. You’re desperate to see someone. I knew that Wrath would come out to see us, like we were Christmas Carolers. I also knew that he’d hear us. The cave was so quiet and echoing, he would probably hear us from the opposite end.

We had walked along for about five minutes, and I was quite honestly having fun. I wondered if we’d get lucky, and Wrath would still be in this district, and he’d hear us and come running, and right around the next corner we’d see him—

We walked around the next corner. And we saw him.

Wrath was standing right there. But I was simultaneously mesmerized and horrified because he was no longer a puppet.

I put my hand to my mouth. The rest of the group stopped singing as well, and we slowly shuffled to a halt. Wrath was about thirty yards ahead of us and difficult to see clearly. It was so plainly him, however. He was dressed in a nice suit, of a few years prior. Not his wild red and black coat. His hair was neatly combed. His eyes were huge and sad, but mostly dull. I had just met the human Wrath a few hours before in Mara’s parlor, but I was shocked all over again to see him in his human state, without the furry eyelashes and wooden face.

It was mesmerizing to see Wrath in his human state, but it was also horrifying. It meant that he had undergone some kind of transformation. The only thing I could think of was that he had agreed to become a Whiskalit. Why he was not wearing the plague mask, I don’t know. But this was not Wrath as I’d met him last. He had been changed, and the only people in this world with the power to change someone were Whiskalits.

I found myself becoming sad. It had been my job, ultimately, to free Wrath. I had attempted to reverse the curse, the wooden features, on Dawn Mumungus. So far we had no idea if that had worked or would have worked, but it had been my hope to restore the flesh and blood to Wrath and erase what had been done to him, both physically and psychologically, with a wish. Now I saw that it had already been done, and it had been done by creatures with dark, wicked power. More power than I had. And, I believed, it had been done at a cost.

I left the group and I ran closer to Wrath.

“Wrath!” I called out. “What happened?”

He turned his head slowly, almost mechanically towards me. He stared at me out of dull eyes. I felt like I was meeting Wrath’s younger brother, not his true self, because this person looked much too clean and neat and new to be the Wrath I knew.

He didn’t speak or change expression. Heaving from breath, I stopped in front of him and said,

“Wrath. What did the Whiskalits do? How are you human again?”

He stared at me.

“Wrath!” I said.

The rest of the group came up behind me. I sensed them give each other nervous glances behind my back.

“Wrath, say something to me,” I said. “What happened?”

He didn’t move. I suddenly had a flash of insight. I reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist. Once again my fingers sank into soft, strange flesh. This wasn’t Wrath. This was one of those things. It had been created in his image, but in the image of Hester Wrathbone, not the image of Wrath the Mad.

“It’s not him,” I said to the others. I let go of the thing’s wrist. “This isn’t Wrath. This is like that thing I found in the graveyard.”

“Graveyard?” Noble said.

I opened my mouth. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t told any of them. Noble’s predicament had driven everything else from my mind. I explained how I’d seen Dawn Mumungus’s doppelganger, and how she’d teleported away from me, impossible to chase after.

“But… what is it?” Octavia said.

The Wrath-lookalike continued to stare at us. We stared back. There was something… off about its skin. Sort of sallow and puffed.

“You’ve never seen anything like it before?” I said. “I was hoping one of you would know what it was.”

“Maybe it’s an evil omen,” Ariana said softly.

We stared. Noble cleared his throat.

“Ariana?” I said. “Is this some kind of Night Enthusiast trick that we don’t know about? Have you seen anything like this before?”

Ariana shook her head slowly. “It could be a Night Enthusiast’s accomplishment. They murder and rip at souls because it brings them more power. So they might have been able to do something like this. The Pawn Shop people certainly would not have been able to. You have to do dark things to get power like this.” She stepped forward and peered at the thing, like it was a stuffed specimen at the zoo. “I wonder what the point of it is. What does it do?”

“I have no idea,” I said. But I found it funny that it was modeled after Hester, and not Wrath. Dawn Mumungus’s doppelganger had simply looked like Dawn Mumunugus. But this doppelganger, I felt, was some kind of clue. There was a difference between this and the current man.

“Is it an evil omen?” Octavia said.

“I doubt it,” I said. “I think it’s more of a clue.”

All of a sudden, the thing moved away from us. It jerked, ever so slightly, and then stood still.

“What’s it doing?” Noble said.

The thing looked confused. It shifted two inches to the left, jerked slightly, and then looked—if possible—even a little perturbed. It moved again. Twitch. It moved again. Twitch.

“I think—oh, my stars,” I said. “Great Jehosphat. Merciful heavens. My giddy aunt.”

“Have you quite finished, Maude?” Ariana said.

“He’s trying to teleport,” I said.

The group paused as this sank in. I stared at the thing in fascination. I hadn’t been able to study the Dawn Mumungus doppelganger because it had run away from me. This one had somehow ended up in the Whiskalits world, but it could not get out of it.

“It’s trapped here with us,” I said.

“That means we can keep it long enough to learn what it is,” Noble said.

“Yes,” Octavia said. “But how?”

“It does look a bit cadaverous,” Ariana said. “Maybe you can just cut it open.”

I cocked my head. Ariana, if I wasn’t mistaken, was just trying to make Octavia squirm, but she had a point. I didn’t want to hurt this thing, I didn’t know what the ethics of that were, but we had no idea what it was. It could have been made of whipped cream. Metal. We could open its veins to find a glittering dust of magic symbols. Knowing more about it would not be a bad thing.

“I do happen to have a medical bag,” Scotland said.

“You’re actually going to cut it open?” Noble said.

“I’m not going to cut out its heart,” Scotland said. “But there are delicate tests I can do, most of them non-invasive, to determine was it is. Check its eyes. Its salvia. Pulse. Skin. Hair. Is this man-made? Does it reek of magic? Is it something else?”

Noble seemed twitchy. He glanced to the left. “Do we have… do we have time for this?”

I sighed. Wrath was a top priority right now. We didn’t know what kind of danger he was in. Seeing this thing, thinking that it was Wrath, already beyond hope—it had put me on edge. I was starting to feel sick and suspicious and I desperately wanted to just find Wrath and get out of here.

However, once we found Wrath, we would have to leave at once. We didn’t know if he would come willingly. We would need to get off the Whiskalit world before he had a chance to fight us and run off. Since I couldn’t think of a single way to get this doppelganger off world with us, leaving Maskwell the Underground City meant leaving the doppelganger behind.

“It won’t be able to use a murder object,” I said. “The thing. It won’t be able to use a murder object. You have to willingly teleport into one, and I don’t know if it would know how.”

“We could try it,” Noble said.

Scotland held up her finger. “Buh-buh-buh…. Not yet. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. We don’t want to see if it can use the back door, only to watch it go loping off into the distance.”

“My point is,” I said. “Even if it can come with us, as soon as we teleport out, it’s going to teleport somewhere else. It’s going to get away from us. The only place we can study it is here in the Whiskalit world. We have to study it before we find Wrath. Once we find Wrath we have to run.”

Noble still looked perturbed. “How long will it take, do you think?”

“Oh, a minute or two,” Scotland said. “I can take samples. We should get it into a house somewhere, though. Maybe it will sit down willingly in a chair.”

“I doubt it,” Noble said.

We realized that if we hemmed the thing in and walked slowly in a general direction, we could herd the doppelganger wherever we wanted. We took it towards the closest house, a large tower with a bright blue door and crooked windows. The lights were on onside. That wasn’t unusual, because all the lights were lit throughout the city, but for a split second, I thought I saw a shadow whisk across the windowpane. I told myself I was just imagining things.

Scotland stepped up to the door and snapped open her medical bag.

“I think this will be brief,” she said. “Noble, will you come in last, in case our friend here wishes to run?”

But before Noble could answer, the door whisked open. Someone was inside the house. Someone was already here.

We looked towards the doorway, and we were greeted by the huge staring eyes of a plague mask.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 8, Mice in a Jar, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Listeners, we know that it is not an easy world for people who love poetry. There you are, walking along, your nose dipping through the verse of Tennyson, when all of a sudden, you run into a pole. It is a dangerous world, when you have something interesting in your brain. The solution to this problem is, of course, a pair of boots that—Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement right now for Pole-Maneuvering-Boots?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 9: The Plague Mask Speaks

Season 3, Episode 9

The Plague Mask Speaks

October 15th, 1921 continued

Oh, diary. I turned green. From head to foot. Here we were, scared out of our wits anyway, because we were in the Whiskalit world. To make matters worse, we'd just found a cadaver that looked like Hester Rathbone, the man Wrath was before he entered the train car and went mad. And THEN to make everything truly hellish, as we were about to take Hester Rathbone the cadaver into a Whiskalit house, a thing with a plague mask opened the door.

My heart stopped. It really did. I stared into those glassy, huge eyes, and I felt sure the Whiskalit was about to murder us all. I felt the group around me freeze up in terror. Octavia audibly gasped. 

But then, my pulse resumed. The lights were still lit. How could this be a Whiskalit? They arrived in the dark and when they did, the lights went a corpse-y green. The lights here were still warm and yellow. Just as I realized this, the plague mask creature pulled off its mask, and I found myself staring at the rumpled hair of Wrath.

"Oh, hello, Maude!" he said.

"Wrath!" I cried.

"Yes!" Wrath said. "Hello! Do come in. Won't you?" 

He reached out and shook my hand. Then his eyes swept the group. "And you've brought friends! Why did you bring friends, Maude, you--"

Just then, Wrath's eyes alighted on his doppelganger. He turned very pale. He dropped the plague mask on the floor, and then, as though we'd offended him, he marched off and disappeared up a staircase.

"Well," Scotland said, after an awkward pause. "We found Wrath. Bully for us. Let's take a look at the cadaver and then get the hell out of here."

The rest of them herded the cadaver into the living room, and Scotland popped open her medical bag. I heard her say, "say ahh." Instead of joining the others, however, I walked to the foot of the stairs and stared up them.

I wondered what Wrath had been doing with that plague mask. He'd been playing with it. Had he murdered a Whiskalit and taken its mask? Had he found a large box of masks unattended? Or had the Whiskalits given it to him, as some kind of gift?

"Wrath?" I called softly.

"You should go after him, Maude," Noble said. Noble stood with his back to the front door, hands spread across the wood, as though he'd keep the Whiskalits out by force. 

I nodded. Wrath must be scared to death, seeing his Doppelganger like that. Besides, we wanted him on our side. I needed to see if he was willing to leave the Whiskalit cave forever, or if he was developing a penchant for saying, "Death to all mice!" Rawr! 

Just as I'd put my first foot up on the stairs, I heard Ariana say,

"There's something that I want to check outside. Octavia, will you come with me?"

I could feel the room freeze, go a little awkward. No one trusted Ariana completely, but no one wanted to be blunt enough to say, "Why the hell do you want to go back out there?"

"Uh, why me?" Octavia asked timidly. 

"Well, I'd go alone," Ariana said. "But since you all seem to want to keep an eye on me, I thought I'd ask someone to go. Maude and Scotland are both busy, and I figure Noble needs to stay in case the cadaver wants to start moving."

So far, the Hester Rathbone doppelganger was sitting perfectly still, letting Scotland poke around in his mouth with a swab.

"Why do you want to go at all?" Noble asked quietly. 

"I saw something out there. On the ground. When we were walking past singing. I thought I was imagining things at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I want to go back and check."

"What do you think you saw?" Noble said.

"Well," Ariana said. "I thought I saw a severed human hand."

I felt my stomach turn. Octavia winced and said, "Ick."

"And I want to see what it really was," Ariana said. "If it was a hand, it would be some kind of clue, wouldn't it?"

I glanced at Noble. "I do kind of want to know if there's a disembodied hand out there. It would mean something. I don't know what it would mean, but it would mean something."

"How far away was it?" Octavia said to Ariana. "How long do you think it will take to get there?"

"About five minutes," Ariana said. "I remember how to get back there. We just have to look and see if it really existed."

"All right, I'll go," Octavia said. "Everybody, get your murder objects ready. I want to get out of here the moment we get back."

Noble and I exchanged a glance. He, of course, would not be coming back with us. The more I thought about plague masks and severed hands, the less I thought I should let him hide here.

"We'll be back in a jiff!" Ariana said. 

The two of them linked arms and headed back out into the Whiskalit world. When I glanced back at Scotland and the cadaver, I noticed that Scotland's hands were shaking. 

"Scotland!" I said. "Are you all right?"

"I've just got a bad feeling," Scotland said. "Go on upstairs and talk to Wrath."

I left Scotland and Noble downstairs and climbed the staircase. I had a bad feeling, too. Scotland's hands were shaking and my stomach was shaking. It was probably the mention of the severed hand, but I couldn't help feeling like we were walking into a trap. 

I found Wrath at the top of the stairs. The room was incredibly small, circular, only about eight feet in diameter. A small bed was tucked against the wall, and Wrath sat on it, staring out the window. His hands dangled. He looked dejected. 

“Why did you bring that thing in here?” he whispered.

I moved closer, like someone trying not to startle a bird. “Do you know what that thing is?” I said.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “Know what it is? It’s me. It’s me before I went into that thing.”

I sat beside him on the bed, timidly. “I know, Wrath,” I said. “At least, I know that it looks like you. We don’t know where it came from. Do you know where it came from?”

He snorted. “No. Don’t know the damndest thing about it, except that it looks like me.”

“So you’ve never seen anything like it before?” I said.

“Never,” Wrath said. “I assumed the Whiskalits made it. Didn’t they? Didn’t they make it to remind me that I used to be whole once, and now I’m not, and I might as well join them.”

I held out my hand. Wrath took it. It was funny how I could feel so much empathy for him, so much kindness. This man had murdered people in front of me. He’d nearly killed me. But I felt that he wasn’t gone completely. Whatever had taken hold of him hadn’t destroyed him yet. The man I’d met in Mara’s living room had been… worth saving. All people were worth saving. Still, I thought it strange that I could care about him so much, considering what he’d done.

“Wrath, you’re going to be all right,” I said.

He snorted. He looked sullenly away from me. “I’m going to become a Whiskalit,” he said.

Oh. “Do you want to become a Whiskalit?” I said. 

“No,” he said. “But I’m stuck here, aren’t I?”

“Wrath,” I said. “Let’s just pretend that I can get you out of here.” Wrath, in his insanity, clearly hadn’t noticed that I’d left and then come back with friends. He hadn’t put things together. “Let’s pretend you can leave. Whenever you want. Would you do it if you could?”

He looked at me, his one human eye wide. “But they’d never let go. They’d keep looking for me, always.”

Ooh. What a horrid thought. Whiskalits coming after us wherever we tried to hide Wrath, like plague mask ghosts floating through the walls. “Wrath,” I said. “I don’t think they’d make you join against your will. When I overhead them earlier, they were fighting. They aren’t even agreed as to whether they want you to join.”

“You overheard them earlier?” Wrath said, surprised.

“Yes,” I said. That brought up another question. “Did they come after you? Ask you about me? They didn’t hurt you at all, did they?”

Wrath shook his head. “No, they want me to like them. No, they didn’t mention a thing.”

“All right, then,” I said. “Wrath, we can leave. I figured out a way to do it. If you come downstairs, as soon as Ariana and Octavia come back, we can get out of here.”

Wrath stood up. He opened and shut his mouth so fast it made popping noises. “We can leave?” he said. “Oh Maude I wish I’d never come to this dreadful God forsaken fish bowl.”

I refrained from asking Wrath where the fish were. “Yes, we can leave,” I said. “Come on downstairs. And I really do think the Whiskalits will leave you alone. They thought you summoned them in the first place. Once you leave… well, I doubt they want an unwilling member.”

“We shall see,” Wrath said in a hollow voice.

Wrath and I got up and went down the staircase. When we entered the living room, Noble was still by the door. Scotland was packing up her medical bag, and the cadaver was still sitting there, expressionless.

Wrath looked at it and shuddered.

“They’re not back yet?” I said.

“No, not yet,” Noble said.

“We may as well get the murder objects out now,” Scotland said. “Get ready for departure, as they say.”

We began to putter around, lay the murder objects out on the table. Wrath stood in the corner of the room, like he was afraid his doppelganger would bite him. After we’d been waiting another few minutes, a frantic knock sounded on the door.

Scotland and I glanced at each other. The knock was so urgent.

“Maybe they’re just spooked,” Scotland said. “They think it’s creepy out there and they want to get back inside.”

Or maybe they’d found a severed hand. Or maybe the Whiskalits were coming. Well, if the Whiskalits were, we still had time to teleport out of here. We were fine.  

Noble whisked open the door. Octavia stood there. Her face was screwed up; she looked like she might cry.

“Ariana’s gone,” she said. Her voice sounded funny. “She’s gone, she ran off.”

“What?” Noble exclaimed.

“She ran off!” Octavia said. “And she didn’t take my murder object, I checked my pocket. I don’t know what she wants. I don’t know what she’s trying to do.”

Ariana was gone. Ariana was gone? Why would she do that?

“We have to go after her,” Noble said.

“No,” Octavia said. “I chased her for three minutes. She was faster than me. She got away. She left the district. She took one of the tunnels, and I don’t remember which one. It would take days to find her. Days!”

I suddenly myself sitting on the ground. My head rang. I felt like I might be sick.

“She tricked you,” I said. “She ran off on purpose. She went outside with you just to trick us.”

Octavia shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean… she might have. She might have known we wouldn’t have let her go alone. But I think maybe she just got scared.”

I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. Ariana didn’t get scared. She was the most logical, clear-headed person I knew. If she’d run off, it was a plan.

“We have to go after her,” I said again.

“What did I just tell you?” Octavia said. “We may never find her again! We should just go home!”

Octavia must have been scared to tears.

“Octavia, we can’t… you know we can’t…” I said.

“It’s all right,” Noble said. “You should go back. All of you. I’ll stay behind, and I’ll look for Ariana.”

“Noble,” I said.

“Maude, it’s all right,” Noble said. “This will give me something to do. And it will help, knowing that there’s another human being here. I will find her, I will calm her down, and both of us will return to the Pawn Shop’s secret basement when I do. It’s going to be fine.”

“Oh, Noble,” I said. I didn’t want to leave her here! Alone in this terrible place. What was she thinking? This didn’t make sense. It did not make sense. Why would Ariana run off when she had no hope of getting out? Did she know something I didn’t know? Or had she just panicked? Had she decided she’d rather be here, free, than imprisoned in the pawn shop?

Something was wrong, and I was dreading realizing what was really going on.

“You’re sure she had no murder object?” I said. We counted. We laid the murder objects out on the table, as well as the bottles of magic jelly. Ariana had nothing.

Fear drummed in the pit of my stomach. I felt like this was an evil omen.

“Go back, Maude,” Noble said. “Go back, Scotland. Octavia. Take the cadaver with you, if you can.” He turned to Wrath, who was still silent in the corner. “Hester, you go, too. We need to get you out of here, fast. Assuming you’re willing to go?”

Wrath licked his lips. “Don’t stay here,” he said. “Don’t.”

Noble shook his head. “I’m going to.”

“They’ll find you,” Wrath hissed.

I felt a chill. “We’re going home,” I said. “Noble, find Ariana. As soon as I get back to the pawn shop, I’m going to start working on your problem. Raster was able to track you somehow, but I’m going to find out how he did it, and put a stop to it. I’m going to try to undo it with a wish, of course, but I’m also going to find out exactly what he did, so I’m certain it’s undone. Then I’m going to come back and find you. You’ll be able to come back, soon. Everything will be fine.”

Wrath shook his head. “You’re going to come back and find him? You will never find each other again. Don’t you know how large this place is? You will never find each other again.”

I felt cold to the marrow my bones. Should I be saying goodbye? Would I never see him again as long as I lived? Ariana either?

“Noble, come back to the pawn shop in a week if I haven’t come for you,” I said.

“I will,” he said.

Things felt muffled after that. We hurried. Scotland held onto the cadaver to see if she could take it with her. We all teleported into separate murder objects, to avoid crowding, but Wrath came with me. I didn’t trust him not to run off. We both teleported, and we found ourselves in a beautiful, sunny, butterfly-filled meadow, with a dead man at our feet. The murderer stood a few paces away, holding a bloody knife.

“Auugh!” I cried.

The murderer turned as white as a sheet. I think he thought he was seeing ghosts, or demons, or witches appear out of thin air to punish him. I’m sure Wrath’s puppet eyeball didn’t help.

The murderer screamed and ran away. I’m sure penance was hot in his bloodstream, but it was too late. The dead man was a mass of blood. The blades of grass were flecked with it. I knelt in front of the dead man, rolled him over to check his wounds.

“Oh Maude, for heaven’s sake!” Wrath said. “This is a murder object. It’s not a someone-felt-ill object. That man is dead. If he wasn’t dead, we wouldn’t be here. The object wouldn’t have power if he hadn’t died.”

I felt shaken. I still wanted to check his pulse and scream bloody murder, but I knew Wrath was right. This was over, for him. I got shakily to my feet. Judging by the man’s clothes, this murder had happened almost a thousand years ago. It would have been ancient history if I didn’t have blood under my fingernails.

“We saw the murderer!” I cried. Wrath grabbed me by the elbow and towed me to a line of trees.

“Yes, yes,” Wrath said. “And he had a very bloody knife.”

“But we saw the murderer! That doesn’t usually happen!” I squeaked.

“Yes, well, sometimes it does,” Wrath said. “You never know with murder objects. They bring you within half an hour of when the victim died. Looks like this time we got lucky. We got here about four seconds after the fact.”

“Oh, Wrath,” I said.

“Oh, Maude, stop crying,” Wrath said. “The man’s already dead!”

Wrath let me over to the treeline, and then sat down next to a stone. “What are you waiting for?” he said. “Draw the symbol!”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again. I knelt and drew a symbol of an eye in magic jelly. Wrath and I touched it together, and then we teleported to the lobby of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. He was taken to the same place as me, since I had drawn the symbol myself and I controlled the destination.

We arrived within a few seconds of Octavia and Scotland and the doppelganger. For a moment, I found myself looking around for Noble and Ariana, then shivered. They were not coming back. At least not today.

The doppelganger looked around, sniffed, and then vanished.

“Ah,” Scotland said. “The doppelganger didn’t want to come to prison, I see.”

“Glad to be rid of it,” Wrath said.

The four of us climbed the stairs and approached the nail in the wall, the murder object that would lead us down into the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. I remembered Mr. McGillicuddy’s warning then, that we should have all stayed quarantined and hidden inside the base, in case the Night Enthusiasts were watching. What if one was behind a coat rack right now, licking their chops and hoping to follow us down into our secret lair?

“Let’s look around,” I said, when we were about fifteen feet from the nail. “Wrath, you understand that you’re sworn to secrecy and may be comfortably imprisoned once you get into our base, right? You’re not a Night Enthusiast but I’m not sure you’re a friend of the Pawn Shop.”

“Oh, I’m dangerous and mad,” Wrath said. “I understand. But do give me biscuits once I’m settled, won’t you?”

I nodded, absent-minded. The four of us split up, walked carefully through the space, and checked for hiding Night Enthusiasts. When we regrouped, Scotland shook her head.

“Nobody,” she said.

“You’re being paranoid, Maude,” Octavia said. “Let’s just get down there.”

“All right,” I said, nice and loud. “I’ll just grab the glove, then, and we’ll step behind this coat rack for added privacy.”

I grabbed a peacock feather glove. With any luck, if a Night Enthusiast had escaped our notice and was watching, they might think the glove was the murder object. It took a bit of detective work to realize it was the nail anyway.

So, we teleported down there. As we stood in the wooden entrance room, I eyed Wrath, to see if he could see the lettering on the wall that said, DEATH TO ALL MICE. He didn’t even blink. Didn’t look at it. Damn! It was still just me! Why could only I see the lettering?

We went downstairs. Rupert appeared and immediately took charge of Wrath in his blustery way. Wrath was promised biscuits and a plush prison cell, which he agreed to cheerfully. I think he is just thrilled ot be away from the Whiskalits. I retreated to my room. I am bone tired. And cold. And worried.

It’s late, diary. Or, honestly, I don’t know what time it is. I know that I feel like I’ve been awake for days. If not centuries. Oh merciful heavens I just want to sleep for the rest of my life. All right, I’m getting whiny. No one wants a whiny Maude. Well, except for me. I love whining. But I bid you farewell. I will write again soon.

October 17th, 1921

Aha. Oh, diary. Oh, God.

I woke up in my bed and everything felt normal. I brushed my teeth, got dressed, and went to the kitchen. When I got there, Scotland was on the floor with her hands tied behind her back. She had a gag in. She looked at me with wild eyes, and my stomach thrummed with terror. I stumbled backwards into the living room, and sixteen people from the pawn shop, including Mr. McGillicuddy, were bound and gagged.

In the hallway, I heard voices. “That’s two more. This place has too many rooms. It’s like hunting prairie dogs.”

I jumped into a closet as fast as I could. Breath hot and quick, I crouched down and peered through the keyhole. Two men in pinstriped suits, with purple ties, dragged Rupert and a woman named Susan into the living room.

The Night Enthusiasts. They’d found us.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 9, The Plague Mask Speaks, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Ad. Ad. Very annoying ad. Such a terribly annoying ad. Ad ad ad.

—Hang on. Are you hearing an annoying advertisement right now?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, Episode 10: Too Many Night Enthusiasts Spoil the Kitchen

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 3, Episode 10

Too Many Night Enthusiasts Spoil the Kitchen

October 17th, 1921 continued.

Diary, I think it was the worst thing I could possibly imagine. I stood inside the closet, temporarily hidden from view, and I felt my heart pound, like it’s never pounded before in my life.

The Night Enthusiasts were in our living room. They were in our living room. The secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s pawn Shop had been infiltrated.

I couldn’t think straight. I honestly couldn’t. I pressed my hand against my nose and mouth and took deep breaths. All I knew was that I was scared. There was a kind of animalistic fear all through me. I felt like I’d been invaded, like something was crawling under the surface of my skin. Then through the panic, a thought came to me: They haven’t found me yet.

First things first, I needed to get out of here. At first glance, diary, that sounds like a very cowardly thing. Me running off while my friends were tied up all over the secret basement. But if any Night Enthusiast got ahold of me, we would all be friends tied up in the basement, and all as equally useless.

My only hope of helping them later was getting away now. I stood behind the door, my mind still fogged with shock, and I waited for silence on the other side of the door.

While I waited for the Night Enthusiasts to vacate the living room, my mind spun over how they had possibly found us.

Mr. McGillicuddy must have been right. We should never have left the Pawn Shop. We should have stayed quarantined for months. I should never have left. Was this all my fault? I’d gone in and out and in and out after being expressly told not to. Someone must have followed us here that last time. They’d been spying.

Either that, or whatever magic Raster, the Night Enthusiast, had been using to track Noble, he’d started applying to the rest of us. Whether it was through my negligence, and a simple spy in the corner, or whether it was due to a new form of magic, we’d been found. We’d spent years keeping this place a secret. So much time and work had gone into keeping this place safe and good. Oh, Mr. McGillicuddy’s beautiful doors! They had better not trash this place. That was all I had to say. My room! And that black bathroom I was so obsessed with.

Someone had to get the Night Enthusiasts out of here. This was our home. We’d been safe. Now the worst had happened.

This… diary, I felt my stomach shrink as soon as I thought it. This could be the end of us. I’d pictured the war between the night Enthusiasts and the members of the Pawn Shop as something that went on for decades. If anyone won, it would obviously be us.

But this… this looked a lot like them winning. Would they kill us? What would they do with us?

I squeezed my hands into fists and listened again. The living room sounded more hectic than ever. I’d been waiting for an empty moment, some slot of time where the Night Enthusiasts were scattered throughout the secret basement. Nowhere near me. But it didn’t sound as though they were going to leave the living room anymore. More of them were gathering. And I was stuck in this closet.

“Is this all of them?” a Night Enthusiast panted.

“Half of them escaped,” another Night Enthusiast growled.

“That’s what happens when you charge in, snarling, and start grabbing people!” another Night Enthusiast said. “We should have come back when everyone was asleep.”

“We still did well,” another Night Enthusiast said. “We captured almost fifty of them. That’s not bad.”

“And we got the old man. He was coming back from some mission. Perfect timing, if you ask me.”

I felt icy. Ugh! I felt a stab of empathy. Mr. McGillicuddy! Oh! He’d been investigating a way to cure Wrath. I wondered if he’d found a solution, only to be taken prisoner. And he had the tiny pin that housed our prison hidden somewhere. Did he have it in his pocket? Had he concealed it somewhere in the secret basement? The Night Enthusiasts would torture him. They would torture him to find out. And he was just an old man. And he hadn’t asked to be a leader in the first place. I found myself wanting to burst out of the closet and yell, “Oiy! I’m the leader! Torture me!” If someone was going to be punished on everyone’s behalf, it should be someone who had chosen it with all their heart and soul, someone young and ferocious. This didn’t seem fair to Mr. McGillicuddy. I wondered if I could get him out somehow, right now. Of course, if I rescued him, the Night Enthusiasts would turn and torture someone else. Would they put anyone into train cars? Damn! I felt as though a herd of poisonous buffalos had just stampeded through my life! In a matter of minutes, everything was in shambles.

And, assuming the Night Enthusiasts got the pin away from Mr. McGillicuddy, they would enter the murder object, find our secret dungeon, find the Night Enthusiast leaders. Dawn would be free again. Our situations would be completely reversed. Their leader free and our leader in chains.

Oh, damn damn damn! They knew about the base! I still hadn’t gotten over it.  This was the end of something. And I was one of the few people still free. At least Ariana and Noble weren’t here. Neither one of them should end up in the hands of Night Enthusiasts. They’d both angered the Night Enthusiasts very deeply by learning their secrets and then leaving the fold.

I listened to the sounds in the living room get louder.

“There are probably more of them hiding,” one of the Night Enthusiasts said. “We got all the ones that were sitting comfortably in the open. Now start looking under beds. In cupboards. If they’re here, we’ll drag them out.”

Oooh. If they’re in closets four feet away, we’ll drag them out. He may as well have said that. I was done for.

I tried teleporting, and I suddenly realized that I couldn’t. I racked my brain, but I couldn’t remember if anyone had ever teleported out of the secret basement before. We always walked out and used the murder object, so we could teleport around in 1921. Now, as I tried to teleport out, I found that I couldn’t do it. Was that a rule, that I was forgetting? An added measure of security—no teleporting in or out—or was this something that the Night Enthusiasts had just added? To keep all of us hidden mice from squeaking free?

Whichever it was, I was done for. I was right in front them, barely concealed behind a piece of wood. I would soon be bound and gagged like all the rest of them. And, if you remember, diary: the Night Enthusiasts were very keen to get ahold of me. I was the girl who could break spells with a wish. I was a very valuable addition, and they had pinned an awful lot of murders on me already. All that work shouldn’t go to waste. No, as soon as they had their hands on Melinda Maudie Merkle, they were going to go to great lengths to ensure I never got away again.

I had to get out of this closet. But how?

I leaned against the wall, my head and shoulders buried in a stuffy fur coat. I squeezed my eyes shut. If there was a murder object in this closet somewhere, I should be able to use it. And of course I did have one. I still had the china eye. Not only the one that was tucked into your spine, diary, but also the fresh one. I still had it in my pocket.

You remember that when I’d knelt beside the dead man, the one who’d smashed the teacup into tiny bits, I’d taken the broken piece of china and put it in my pocket. I had my eye in your spine, and I had the original, the fresher version, in my pocket. I wasn’t sure which one to use, but I knew that either way, the china eye would take me right back to when I’d last left Mara. Poor Mara. She was probably going to see a lot of me.

Mara. I needed to find out what had happened to her in 1921. Was she still around? Could she help Wrath? They had been engaged. But I didn’t have time to think about that now. I needed to teleport out. And fast.

I put my hand into my pocket, to use the china eye, but it wasn’t there. Mara’s bottle of magic jelly was there, but the china eye wasn’t. I spread my fingers, checked the furthest edges of the pocket. Still, it wasn’t there. I felt a small stab of panic. I checked my other pocket. Still nothing. I felt a larger stab of panic. Finally, I drew you out, diary, and I checked inside your spine.

The china eye was gone.

I went into a full on panic, and I assume you don’t blame me one bit. Not only could I not escape this closet, my china eye was gone. It was the thing that had made me a magic unusual. Losing it felt like some kind of evil omen. I felt bereft. Who was I without my little china eye? How would my eyes possibly keep glowing in the dark, now that my murder object was gone?

I leaned against the closet wall, and I felt like everything was over. Night Enthusiasts in my basement. My china eye missing. I felt like I’d stumbled into the wrong life. No, no, you have the wrong Maude!

Well, I’m not sure what would have happened to me, if not for… well, you’ll see what happens.

Heavy footsteps tromped toward the closet door. I heard a Night Enthusiast say, “Hey, anybody in this closet? Haha!” And then the doorhandle started to turn!

I leaned backwards into the stuffy fur coat, and I shut my eyes, and I willed, with everything in my being, to be anything but here.

The closet went strangely quiet. I waited for the doorknob to open, but when nothing happened, I cracked my eye open. I was still in the dark closet, but… the light coming from under the door seemed different. It was also colder. Had I magically wished all the Night Enthusiasts out of the secret basement somehow? Then I realized I was smelling something tangy and foul.

I held my breath, then tentatively opened the door. I was in an old mansion. The woodwork was painted. The room was cold, like the fire hadn’t been lit in weeks.

Oh, for crying out loud, diary—the coat had been a murder object all along! The stuffy black fur coat. It had transported me to… wherever this was. I stepped out of the closet. I didn’t know where I was, but for now, I needed to get further into this era. If the Night Enthusiasts decided to start checking murder objects for hiding magic unusuals, I couldn’t be close by.

If the Night Enthusiasts had any sense, they would perform tests, and then pile every murder object they found in the secret basement into a locked room. That way, if we tried to come back, we’d be a prisoner either way.

Thankfully for me, I had Mara’s jelly still in my pocket. If it worked the same way it had last time, I would be able to get back into 1921 whenever I wished from inside this murder object. I wouldn’t have to dodge any Night Enthusiasts by going back the regular way. As soon as I wished to go back to 1921, I could.

The trouble was, diary, I didn’t wish. Perhaps that sounds calloused when my friends were in such distress, but it wasn’t smart to return to 1921 just yet. I was a wanted murderess. I was a wanted magic unusual. Both the regular world and my world wanted me behind bars. And I couldn’t think of a single place to hide. Everything had been infiltrated by the Night Enthusiasts. Noble’s apartment wasn’t safe. If I tried to hide with old friends they would probably turn me in. I also had no plan, and until I had a plan, it wouldn’t help anyone for me to be in 1921.

First things first, I decided to find out where I was. I crept out of the closet and looked around the room. It was a dining room. Very nice. Chilly. I wondered, with a creepy feeling, if there would be a body nearby. Nothing was lying around, however. There was no blood on the walls or anything. I realized that this murder object had probably been entered before, many years ago, perhaps. Time had been moved forward inside of it. The body had probably been gone for a few days. Even weeks.

I continued to explore I crept out into the hall and listened. It was dead quiet. I felt like I was inside the rest bones of something. I crept down the hall and opened another door. The chairs in here were covered with white sheets. Hm. A vacant home, perhaps? I thought of the murder. Perhaps the family had absconded in grief. Not a pleasant prospect.

I crept down to the front hall of the house, and this too was boarded up. It whistled with silence. I peeped through the window, got a good mental image of the alley, and then teleported into it. Then I walked around to the front of the house. On the street, I saw a horse and carriage go past. The men were wearing silly hats. It looked like it was about 1890. Maybe 1895. I’m not a good judge.

I stared up at the outside of the mansion. It was huge. Dark. A little creepy. It was in fine condition and only looked to have been abandoned for a few weeks. The lower windows were boarded up, but the paint on the house was still crisp. The molding was painted in blues and yellows, and the whole thing was painted charcoal gray.

A sign in the front window said, For Sale. Contact the Offices of Wallas and Threed.

“Hm,” I said.

Diary, don’t tell on me. I know it’s wicked. But I teleported back inside the house and began to snoop around. A found a beautiful vase still left on its shelf. I found a gilded music box, too. I pocketed them, and then I teleported to New York. I walked until my feet hurt, found a good Pawn Shop, and pawned the things. Then, with money in hand, I bought a gown that belonged in 1890, put it on, and teleported back to the mansion.

Why, I am sure you are wondering, diary, did I teleport back to that house? Why not hide in the New York of the 1890s? Well, besides the smell, I didn’t want to be in New York. I would have been impossible to find in New York. And I wanted to be found.

I didn’t know what city this mansion was in, but it didn’t matter. The air was chilly, so I knew I was somewhere in the north. Wearing my new dress, I walked through the town (which wasn’t extensively large—it appeared to just be main street and a few offshoots) until I found the offices of Wallas and Threed. I stepped up and let myself in. The door jangled, and a clerk looked up at me. He was young, with a pen tucked behind his ear, and he eyed me in confusion.

“Yes, I’d like to rent the mansion across town,” I said.

The clerk stood up. He stood up so quickly he almost knocked his head on the lamp that hung above him.

“Uh, yes, Miss,” he said. “Yes, Ma’am. Won’t you wait right there? I will fetch Mr. Threed at once.”

I waited in the front room while the clerk went to get Mr. Threed. A minute later, an older man in spectacles came forward. He wore a tweed jacket and a high collar. He smiled and bent his head.

“Good afternoon, Madam,” he said. “How might I help you?”

“Yes, I would like to rent or buy the mansion across town,” I said. “Your sign was in the window?”

“The… the mansion on third and Clark, my dear?” Mr. Threed said.

‘Yes,” I said. “That’s the one.”

I could tell Mr. Threed was looking me up and down, as if checking to see if I was weak frail and cuckoo.

“Oh, of course, madam, of course,” he said. “However, the sum for renting such a house would be…” and then he delicately leaned forward and wrote a price down on a sheet of paper. I could tell he expected me to gawk, stammer, and walk away. It was a lot of money. Although honestly the price wasn’t bad. I wondered if that was the 1890s being cheaper than 1921, or the murder, or both.

“That will be fine,” I said. “Do you want a down payment?”

Mr. Threed seemed to relax. I knew that at first he’d thought I was nutty woman who had no idea what she was doing. Perhaps a housewife, out for a wander, who thought houses were free?

“Yes, Madam!” he said. He seemed significantly cheered. “A down payment of the first month’s rent.”

“Due when?” I said.

“Due now,” he said, “if you’d like to claim it.”

“I will give you ten percent now of the first month’s rent now,” I said. “And one hundred percent in three days if I still like the house. That’s ten percent you get now, either way, and 110% total if I decide to stay. Is that agreeable to you?”

Mr. Threed glanced at his clerk, and then wetted his lips.

“Well,” he said. “Allow me to consult with Mr. Wallas.”

With that, Mr. Threed disappeared back into his office. I stood there while the clerk awkwardly stared at Mr. Threed’s door.

Finally, the clerk moved towards me. He spoke in a hushed voice.

“Mrs. Um. Miss… You want to buy the house across town that’s for sale?”

“Yes?” I said. I was enjoying his secretive tone. He seemed to be scared to tell me something and I couldn’t wait.

“That house,” the clerk said. “Well, I don’t… I’m sorry, but with you being a lady and seeming so sweet and everything… I want you to know. That house is haunted.”

“Haunted?” I said.

“Yes.”

“That’s a pretty rumor,” I said. “Why do people think it’s haunted?”

“Oh, ma’am,” the clerk said. “They don’t think it’s haunted. They know it’s haunted.”

“Really?” I said.

“Ma’am, I can tell that you don’t believe me,” the clerk said. “And I don’t blame you. But we haven’t been able to lease this home for months. A man—” He lowered his voice again. “A man was murdered there three months ago. We’ve tried six families. No one in town will take it anymore. I assume you’re an outsider?”

“I don’t care whether or not the house is haunted,” I said.

“Ma’am,” the clerk said. “Please try to believe me. I have seen things. Myself. Something lives in that house.” He lowered his voice. “I’ve heard wailing.”

That was the moment I felt scared. All this time I’d assumed the only haunting was magic unusuals popping out of closets. But wailing? What if it really was haunted? Cursed? Dangerous? I was too new to the magic unusual world. Magic existed. Did ghosts exist, too?

At that moment, Mr. Threep came back out of his office. “Madam,” he said. “I’ve thought it over. You can pay the ten percent now and see what you think of the place.”

Mr. Threep, I see, had decided some money was better than none. He didn’t expect me to stay.

“Excellent!” I said. “I will take it!”

I could only hope I wasn’t about to deal with a real ghost.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 10, Too Many Night Enthusiasts Spoil the Kitchen, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Sometimes, you just want everything in your life to be green. Everything. Your hair. Your nose. Your dishes. Your curtains. Your dishsoap. Your dog. Your eyeballs. Green is so soothing. Like grass. And trees. And spring days. Don’t you wish everything in your life from head to foot was green, green, green? Well. With this new can of sprayable Absynthe —Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement for Sprayable Absynthe right now?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 11: Haunted House

Season 3

Episode 11

Haunted House

October 17th, 1921 continued.

Well, diary, just like that, I paid Mr. Threep ten percent of the first month’s rent (which I still had from pawning the goods) and the house was mine. For three days.

It was twilight as I returned. A terrible time to approach a potentially haunted house. The sky was dark and glowering, and the house seemed darker than it had been. Then again, I suppose a lit window would have been worse. I hadn’t turned on the lights.

Mr. Threep had given me a key, and so I unlocked the front door. The door creaked on its hinges and wailed as I entered. I shut it and locked it behind me. I knew Mr. Threep thought I was going to return to a comfortable apartment and investigate this house in my spare time. But not at all. I was going to sleep here.

I think the dust made a hushing sound as it moved across the floor. I glanced up into the darkness of the stairway, and I felt like something was watching me. I held my breath. Then I told myself to stop being silly. If something was watching me, then it was probably a Night Enthusiast or a robber and I should be dealing with them head on instead of cowering at the foot of the stairs. The house seemed suddenly so huge, however. Who knew what was happening all the way up on the third floor?

I decided to light a few lamps, to make the place seem cheerier, but then I realized they would all be gas and I didn’t have a match. So, I teleported back into the dining room, the room with the coat closet, where I’d entered.

I arrived and nearly died—something huge and dark was in the closet staring at me, and then I realized it was just the coat. I wished I had a light, but the pale glow coming in through the windows would have to do.

I settled myself opposite the wall and took out Mara’s jelly. I had used this stuff before to perform small miracles, and I hoped it would work again. As far as Mara knew, it simply allowed you to teleport. But I’d discovered that I could teleport into the future, by concentrating on 1921 as I drew the symbol. My hope was that Mara’s magic jelly came with a few more options as well. I tried this. I tried that. To my joy, my plan worked.

Then I took a deep breath, stepped into the closet, and then used the coat to teleport.

I entered the closet of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop, and to my relief, the door was shut again. The coat had been left in the closet. If the Night Enthusiasts intended to round up murder objects, they hadn’t done it, yet.

I paused and listened. It was several hours later, now. I’d spent a lot of time pawning stolen goods and renting houses. From the sound of things, the Night Enthusiasts had finished tying up my friends and leaving them in the living room. It sounded quiet out there.

I bit my lip. I hoped that the secret basement hadn’t been deserted already. What if everyone had already been dragged off somewhere? For my plan to work, I needed everyone to still be here.

I turned the doorknob slowly. Oh so slowly. And then I opened the door a faint crack.

The living room was dark, but there were bodies huddled on the floor. It was my fellow Pawn Shop Enthusiasts, still tied up, but asleep. In the corner, I saw the dark, pacing form of a Night Enthusiast.

I took a deep breath. Not quite the scenario I was hoping for. They were being guarded. But if I could only get my plot set up. The first question was—how to avoid the Night Enthusiast who was guarding my living room? I stood in the closet for several minutes, feeling like my breathing was as loud as an ox, while I thought. What to do, what to do… augh! If only I could teleport away from him! This was too frustrating for words. Then suddenly, I realized I’d only tried to teleport out of the secret basement, not across the secret basement. In my mind, I pictured the teleportation barrier as, well, a barrier. Like a giant bowl that had been set down on top of us. But what if we could teleport around inside the bowl?

I tried it.

And it worked. I was so startled I nearly yelped. I found myself back in my old room, and then I let out a fussy moan because I missed this room already and was going to miss it more. Then I sat down on the bed and breathed deeply. I could teleport across the pawn shop. This was excellent news. I hadn’t known that I could, but my guess was that the other pawn shop magic unusuals did know that they could. Perhaps, as they lay huddled together on the living room floor, they were concocting plans? In theory, of course, they could teleport back and forth and back and forth until the Night Enthusiasts got so annoyed with chasing them that they devised a spell to prevent teleporting across the secret basement. My friends were wise, and they’d probably chosen to keep the teleportation a secret from the Night Enthusiasts. I mean, maybe the Night Enthusiasts knew. Maybe they were watching We Who Belonged to the Pawn Shop to make sure no one was missing. But if I was a Night Enthusiast, I don’t think I’d expect my prisoner, who had been bound and gagged for hours, to suddenly vanish. I would have assumed, at this point, that it wasn’t possible for them to teleport. I would expect them to act like scared sheep and bolt, if bolting had been an option in the first place.

But it was possible, and they could get out of the living room. Only to another area of the secret basement, but that was all I needed. With Mara’s magic jelly in my pocket, I took a deep breath and began the plan.

I slipped out into the hallway, and I began to draw eyes. I drew eyes and drew eyes and drew eyes, carefully designing each one to work the way I needed it to. The closer I got to the main area of the secret basement, the more I began to hear footsteps, muffled conversations. The Night Enthusiasts were still very much here.

Just to be safe, I teleported to different hallways and drew symbols there as well. Then, teleporting near the living room, I let out a god-forsaken howl.

It worked. The Night Enthusiast guarding the prisoners came running. I found it funny that he didn’t teleport, but then again, he didn’t know his way around down here, so teleporting to the exact right place to catch me would have been difficult. He had to choose between six or seven hallways that the noise might have come from. Sometimes, even we magic unusuals have to rely on our ears and internal sense of direction.

With a crack, I teleported as soon as I heard him start to run. I teleported into the living room, and to my relief, no Night Enthusiasts were in sight. For a few seconds, I had the Magic Unusuals to myself.

Thankfully, the howl had woken most of them. They blinked and looked around, a bit scared.

“Hello!” I whispered quickly. “It’s Maude. You can teleport across the basement, but I assumed you knew that already. Teleport to the east hallway. There are eye symbols on the walls, and they glow. Touch one. You’ll get out. The Night Enthusiasts can’t use the symbols so as soon as you do it, you’ll be safe.”

This was what I’d learned about the eye symbols I could draw, by practicing in my haunted house. It was possible to prevent certain people from using the symbols. I’d drawn one symbol that only Night Enthusiasts could use, and surprise! I couldn’t use it. So, I had to infer that I create a portal only accessibly by members of the Pawn Shop. We could keep the Night Enthusiasts out.

I finished my speech. I rather expected the pawn shoppers to stare, or wait for an opportune time, but they began to disappear like popcorn kernels.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that works.”

I was about to teleport too, when I remembered one loose end I’d left hanging. I opened the closet door, put on the coat, and teleported that way, instead.

I am still unsure, diary, about taking murder objects with you. Typically, we touch murder objects and leave them where they are. When I teleported in the Whiskalits cave, however, I took the china eye with me because I had brought it into their world on my person, so it had left on my person. Does your head hurt? Mine hurts. All this to say, I wrapped that coat around me and teleported with it on, and the hope was that I would take the murder object with me, out of the pawn shop and into the haunted house, where the Night Enthusiasts wouldn’t be able to touch it.

When I teleported into the closet, I realized it had worked, because I was still wearing the coat. So one could take murder objects with them. Then I realized why we never did, because by removing the murder object and taking it with you, you were erasing your chance of getting back. I wondered how many magic unusuals throughout history had used that method to escape, never to be seen in their own time again.

Well, it was not something to take lightly, that was for sure, but it was the right move for us. I had taken the coat. That meant the Night Enthusiasts couldn’t follow us. We were hidden. And, for the most part, I’d gotten all the imprisoned magic unusuals who belonged to the pawn shop.

All around me, I could hear Magic Unusuals popping into the haunted house. I was sure they’d be as scared as rabbits. And come to think of it, they’d be hopping like rabbits, too! They were still tied up. And gagged. I had a group of hopping, gagged magic unusuals on my hands.

I burst out of the closet and began to untie people. They all calmed down at the sight of me.

"Maude!" Scotland exclaimed. "What is this place?"

As soon as one magic unusual was untied, they began to untie everyone else. Within a few minutes, we were all standing free. My haunted house seemed less threatening when filled with people. Especially loud ones who were all shouting at me at once.

As soon as I could, I calmed everyone down and explained what was going on. How the Night Enthusiasts couldn't follow us, and how, once we were ready, we could return to 1921 to get back the Pawn Shop. 

"So we're safe?" Rupert said.

"Safe as houses," I said. I decided now was not the time to mention that this house might be haunted. After all, what was the point in scaring everyone? All the rumors about this house being haunted were almost certainly not true. 

"Maude, you're a marvel!" Scotland said. She sat down and huffed out a breath. 

I looked around the group. Octavia wasn't here. Nor was Wrath. Or Mr. McGillicuddy.

"Do you know who got away?" I said to Scotland.

She sighed. "Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath are in custody. I think they took them to the Night Enthusiast prison. And I have no idea, I mean no idea, how to get there."

"Oh, jolly day!" I said. "It so happens that I do. We can get them out in a few hours, if we're lucky. Were they the only two who were taken prisoner?"

"As far as I know," Scotland said. "It was only those two."

"No Octavia?" I said.

Scotland shook her head. "As far as I know, she got away with the others. About half of us escaped."
"How can we get them back?" I said. "Get them here?"

"Do we need to?" Rupert said. "They're on the run. They're probably all right."

Hm, Rupert had a point. Those of us who’d escaped weren’t in any immediate danger.

"Still," Scotland said. "They have powers we don’t have, information we don’t have. We’re all pieces of a puzzle. If we could reunite the group, we’d understand who's missing. What if someone else was taken prisoner and we don't get them out in time, because we don't know that the Night Enthusiasts have them?"

I suddenly realized that everyone was staring at me, expecting me to make a decision. Was this because I'd rented a house?

“Yes,” I said. “I think we should get them here. Who has any ideas?”

People began to squabble. They were hungry and tired, stressed, and probably had sore wrists from being tied up. No one was in a wonderful mood. Ideas were floated back and forth, but based on what we knew, and the resources at hand, we decided to have a girl named Ira write a large message on the floor of the Pawn Shop, right by the entrance to the secret basement. Ira’s unique magic unusual power was to write a message that not everyone could see. She could leave details, as well as a glowing eye symbol that led straight here.

“What if none of them go back to the Pawn Shop?” Rupert said.

“Well, a lot of them were gone on missions,” Scotland said. “Very few managed to get up the stairs and out when the Night Enthusiasts attacked. They’ll return home expecting everything to be normal.”

“And then come here,” Ira said cheerfully. Ira was about eighteen and extremely pleased with herself.

“Yes!” I said.

While the others began to explore the house, looking for bedding and beds and couches to nap on, I showed Ira how to craft a portal. She disappeared, back into the Pawn Shop, and a burly fellow named Hubert went with her as a bodyguard. If all went well, they’d be back in about five minutes.

“Ah! The Pawn Shop!” Rupert said. He and Scotland and Matthew John were still hanging around. He looked wistfully at the portal. “I wish she could bring back the banana crème pie I left in the ice box!”

I laughed. Then I said, a bit daringly, “I could go get it.”

Rupert squinted at me. “You’re serious.”

“Well, no,” I said. “Well, maybe. But don’t you see? We can go back. We can go back any time. We can teleport into the secret basement and snatch anything we’ve forgotten, then use a portal to come here. They won’t be able to follow.”

“They’ll prevent it eventually,” Scotland said. “They’ll stop our ability to teleport across the secret basement, they’ll hack the eyes out of the woodwork so we have no way to get back.”

“They’ll stand there with loaded guns,” Rupert said. “If they have any sense. If we’re spotted, we’re dead.”

“Maude has something, though,” Matthew John said. “It’s risky, but it’s there. We haven’t lost our home. We just have to be extremely careful if we return to it. But it’s in our back pocket. It’s an option.”

“It makes me feel incredibly relieved. To know that it’s not completely closed off.”

After that, we lapsed into silence. We were all thinking about our home, snatched from us by our enemies. They’d found our secret. They had Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath in custody. I felt like something worse was coming, like this was only the beginning. All this time I’d taken it for granted that we would someday defeat the Night Enthusiast. Now I felt suddenly like we were on a slope, slipping rapidly towards destruction. Perhaps we would be a blip in Magic Unusual history, the sad little attempt to stop the Night Enthusiasts that never went anywhere at all.

“How do you think it happened?” Rupert whispered. My stomach turned. I felt guilty about this. I was worried that I’d caused it. Hadn’t I been the one breaking quarantine over and over? Had one of the Night Enthusiasts followed me in? It seemed strange to think that we’d keep them out for years, and now suddenly they managed to spy on us and follow us in. To be honest, I was worried it was something else. Something we’d overlooked. That the Night Enthusiasts had a secret weapon that we didn’t know about.

October 18th, 1921

Diary! It’s been a day. A lot has changed here since then. Let me get started with the basics. To start, we’ve added another ten Magic Unusuals to our number. Most of them are Pawn Shoppers who were simply returning home and saw the message. But one was one of the Magic Unusuals who escaped the Night Enthusiasts by bursting up the stairs and out of the secret basement.

His name is Corinth, and he remembers every person who escaped with him. Everyone who got up the stairs. Octavia wasn’t one of them.

“So Octavia was a prisoner, too?” I said. “The NEs have Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath and Octavia.”

Scotland bit her lip. “Maude, I don’t think they do.”

“Well, where else would she be?”

We were interrupted by the bleat of a goat. I flew towards the sound.

“Did the goat get out of the bathtub again?” I cried. “If we ruin this house with goat urine you know we’re going to have to pay more money on it.”

My fellow Magic Unusuals, after a good nap, had taken it upon themselves to get us food and money. Someone was milking a goat in the bathtub, having teleported to the goat, nabbed the goat, and teleported back with the goat. Before they’d started milking the goat, however, the goat had galloped free and left us a present in the front parlor. Thankfully, the marble floor mopped up cleanly, but I was in terror of what would happen if the goat left another gift on the wooden floors.

I dashed up the stairs. “No more goats, for heaven’s sake! Just milk the goat where you found it!” I burst into the bathroom and found a fellow milking the goat inside the bathtub. I huffed out a breath.

“I can’t milk it where I found it,” the fellow said. “The farmer would have seen me.”

“Oh, gosh,” I said. “Well, then teleport into an abandoned field to milk it, not here.”

“That’s a good idea!” the fellow said cheerfully. “I’ll do that next time.”

Gahk! I left the bathroom in a tizzy.

Despite our goat problem, the house was starting to smell lovely. It wasn’t home, but it was a good temporary base. At this point, everyone had been assigned a corner and some bedding, and the house was filled with tiny dormitories. The smell of beef and onions wafted up from the kitchen, as six or seven of us had volunteered to prepare meals. 

All in all, things were going well. We have most of our number here. Except Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath and Octavia. That’s the other thing that’s gone horribly wrong. They moved the prison. The Night Enthusiasts. When I went to the crypt with some of the others, the crypt had been destroyed, and after an hour of searching we knew that the murder object that led down into their prison was gone.

So. For now, they are in danger, and we don’t know how to get them back.  

I made my way back to Scotland, to finish our conversation, when I smelled something funny in the air. Seaweed. It was a clammy, damp smell. I looked around to see where it was coming from, and that’s when I noticed fog, low and lethargic, pooling out from underneath a door. I opened the door, but the fog vanished.

I raced back to Scotland. About ten of us had gathered in the main hall, at the foot of the stairs. I reached Scotland, out of breath. At that moment, the lights went out. I felt a chill.

“Damn!” someone cried. “Did they forget to pay the gas company?”

Nope. Wasn’t a gas company. Something smelled like blood.

I turned to Scotland and whispered,

“Scotland. Scotland, er… ghosts are just a myth, right? Ghosts don’t exist?”

“Maude,” Scotland said. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course ghosts don’t exist. They’re a—”

At that moment, a ghost appeared.

It rose out of the floor, slowly, at the top of the staircase. It writhed slowly out of the ground, glowing pale turquoise and clawing at its arms with it hands. It had eyes that bled and face melting like candlewax. It looked at me with dark, savage eyes and screamed.

On top of everything else, we had ghosts.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 11, Haunted House, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Are you plagued by Jabberwocks with eyes of flame? Do they come whiffling through your Tolgey Wood? What you need is a weapon that will snicker-snack, and —Hang on. Are you hearing an advertisement for Vorpal Swords right now?

You are not. Do you know why? Because this podcast is free, and always will be. This podcast is advertisement free, and always will be. However, there is a unique opportunity awaiting you if you become a $1 patron. Minerva Sweeney Wren hopes to start a second podcast called The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn, where, instead of merely listening each week, you will solve real puzzles and make real choices that determine the outcome of the tale. Think of it as an enormous collaborative story-telling adventure.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop will continue with Season 3, episode 12: Your Right to Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins

Season 3

Episode 12

Your Right to Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins

October 18th, 1921 continued

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Who could? Who would? The ghost wailed again, its nose melting down into its chin. It was the only source of light in the darkness, and our eyes were drawn to it. We couldn’t look away.

Ghosts! The house was haunted.

The apparition screamed again, and when it did, my blood froze. I couldn’t look away. Fear beaded on my skin like sweat. The ghost was terrifying. It held me in its scream, like it had become the whole world.

But it was only a ghost. Just a ghost. After everything we’d been through, in a way, ghosts seemed like nothing. We’d found a Whiskalit cave, cadavers, a madman with a puppet eyeball. So what if this house was haunted? Boo hoo! We’d find another house. We’d ignore this ghost. We’d leave. We’d perform a simple exorcism. Why should we be worried about this ghost?

But I couldn’t shake the feeling I had, that this was something complex. Something more than just a single ghost that wanted to wail at us. I felt icy, like we’d just tapped into an invisible Labyrinth. More things would come out of this. I could feel it. They’d well upwards from this possession.

At that moment, the ghost decided we weren’t scared out of our wits enough, so it made everything worse.

“Melinda Maudie Merkle!” the ghost hissed.

Oh, damn. Damn damn damn.

“What?” I said. I squeezed my fists into balls. My voice squeaked, but I wanted to protect my crew. I wanted to see what the ghost wanted. The ghost was probably just doing a roll-call. It had spotted me, and in its omniscient ghost way, it was probably just naming me. The way you stumble across a turtle on the path around the pond and say, “Oh, look! A turtle!”

“Melinda Maudie Merkle!” the ghost said. “We have waited five years for you to arrive!”

Oh hell.

Pardon all the profanity, diary, but… piffle. The ghost stared at me.

“You must return us to our bodies, Melinda Maudie Merkle!” the ghost cried. “You must return us all to our bodies!”

I turned green. The ghost was melting and so was I, on the inside. Return them to their bodies? What was that supposed to mean? Was I doomed to raise an army of undead?

“What?” I said.

“Return us!” the ghost cried. And with that, it disappeared.

We all stood in the darkness for a minute, afraid to breathe. Finally, the lights popped back on. The gas lamps returned to their usual flicker, and we all heaved a sigh of relief.

One of the girls, Christiana, came barging into the foyer. “Why where all the lights out?” she said.

Her chipper demeanor was appalling.

“We just saw a ghost,” Rupert gulped.

“What?” Christiana shrieked.

After that, we all began to talk at once. Scotland rounded on me.

“Maude!” Scotland exclaimed. “How do you do it? There’s no such thing as Death to All Mice Beings. No one’s ever heard of them before. And then, all of sudden, you turn up, and there they are! And you can see writing on the wall that no one else can see! And now, when thousands of generations of Magic Unusuals have been quite sure that ghosts and hauntings don’t exist, you go and find yourself a ghost and a haunting.”

“What was that?” I said.

“A ghost and a haunting,” Scotland said.

“Oh, thanks,” I said. “I mean, have you ever seen anything like that before? Help me, Scotland, I’ve only been a magic unusual for about 3 months.”

“I have never seen anything like that before in my life,” Scotland said. “It might be a trick. Some kind of optical illusion to get you to do something. A visual trap. Like a three-dimensional film. But my skin is still tingling. I think that was a ghost.” Scotland walked away, shaking her head. “Ghost. A ghost! And we just settled in here.”

I dashed off by myself to think. Of course I wanted everyone to calm down and be happy, but I needed space of my own to calm down and be happy first. I could only hope my crew would stay hidden in this house, instead of revolting because of the haunting. Scotland was right. We’d only just gotten settled!

I sat in a corner of the attic, hidden by a heavy velvet curtain, nibbling on the end of a pencil. Gray light came in through the tiny window, and I felt safe and quiet and sheltered. Perfect for thinking. Mentally, I ran through all the things I had yet to do.

I needed to retrieve my china eye. Somehow it had been taken from me, and I needed to get it back. Where had it gone? How and why had it disappeared? That needed answering. I wanted my china eye back, hang it all. Also—I needed it as a murder object. For one thing, I needed to get more magic jelly from Mara. The stuff was damned useful. For another, I wanted to know who had killed that man, John, and who betrayed Wrath and put him in that train car. Their origin story was right there in front of me, and I didn’t want to lose it.

For another, I needed to find out what had happened to Mara in the first place.

Secondly, I was still a wanted criminal. Something told me I would need to move around in 1921 quite soon, and now that the pawn shop had been taken hostage and I had no home base, clearing my name was crucial. I needed to get the police off my back, so that I only had one group thirsting after my arrest. I needed Merkle the Murderess to be forgotten.

Thirdly. Noble. Noble and Ariana. They were still in the cave of the Whiskalits. I needed to get them back. Before I could bring Noble back safely, however, I had to find out how the Night Enthusiasts were tracking him at all.

Fourthly, my house was haunted. And the ghosts wanted something from me. They wanted me to return them to their bodies. Speaking of bodies, I also had inexplicable cadavers running around. This kettle of fish was getting ludicrously out of hand.

Still. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was connected, somehow. The Whiskalits. The Night Enthusiasts. The ghosts. The cadavers. They were threads of the same story. My mystery. It was up to me to piece them together.

My last problem was, of course, the prisoners. Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy and Octavia had been nabbed by the Night Enthusiasts and were in their prison. They were probably being tortured and we needed to get them out of there now. But we had no idea where the prison was, now.

I’d tried teleporting into the Night Enthusiast prison, of course. I didn’t even budge when I tried. To teleport anywhere, you have to be able to picture it in your mind. Since the location was a mystery, I couldn’t get myself there. It was too vague. I’d also tried drawing an eye. That, too, failed to work. Even Mara’s jelly had its limits. It couldn’t take you to a vague location. You had to know exactly where you were going.

These were all my problems. I had many. Many things to juggle, many threads to follow through this murky forest of… murder. I thought of all these things, and I tried to decide which was of the absolute most importance.

Of course it was rescuing the prisoners. Everything else could wait a few days or even months, in theory, but the prisoners could not wait. They were my top priority, and I got to ignore everything else for now and focus solely on them. Cheered by my mental dusting, I got up and tucked my pencil behind my ear. I scurried back downstairs, and I ran into a whole herd of magic unusuals who were discussing the haunting.

“You’re not all going to leave in a mutiny, are you?” I said to Matthew John.

“Oh, no, we’re very excited about the ghost!” Matthew John said. “We’re intrigued. We like it. Ghosts can’t hurt people, can they? Probably not. And anyway, there are a lot of us. It’s hard to be scared of ghosts when there are so many of us. But anyway, we think a good old fashioned haunting gives this place character.”

I could tell that not every Magic Unusual shared Matthew John’s enthusiasm, but the conversations I overhead were about trapping the ghost, keeping watch at night for the ghost, etc. They weren’t planning on bailing on our secret fort. That was good. One less thing for me to worry about.

I told Scotland I would be gone for a bit, and I rushed off to attend to the business at hand.

In order to rescue my prisoners, I had to find out where the Night Enthusiasts had moved their prison. To do that, I would have to do some spying. I could start with the Night Enthusiast’s cave, or I could start with the secret basement of the Pawn Shop. I wanted to start with the secret basement. I wanted to know what the Night Enthusiasts had done with the place, and in case I overhead them discussing their spoils of war, I wanted to nab those spoils of war back from under their noses. Perhaps they’d broken a safe in Mr. McGillicuddy’s study and found a rare and ancient book full of secret spells? I don’t know. But if they had anything good, I wanted to keep it out of their grubby little paws.

Really, I just wanted to see if our home was all right. So I went there first. 

I used an eye symbol to teleport into the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder's Pawn Shop. The blessed thing about Mara's jelly was that the creator of the symbol controlled the teleportation, and it appeared, as long as I had been in the time period, I could travel from time to time without a murder object. For example, I've never been in 1300s France. I don't think I could use Mara's jelly to get myself there. I'm certain I could never project myself forward into 2021. But since I have been in our 1800s secret basement, and I have been in my haunted house, I was able to move seamlessly from one to the other. Simply having existed in a time, at any point, allowed me to teleport myself there. Very handy. 

I deliberately returned to a broom closet in the kitchen area of the secret basement. Oh, that smell. I felt homesick, and I’ve only lived there for a few weeks! When I arrived, things were quiet, but I could hear the soft thrum of dialogue in the distance. The Night Enthusiasts were still in my home, and I didn’t blame them. If I got a hold of the Night Enthusiast cave, I would have combed every inch of it.

I crept out and looked around. It felt strange to be back. I felt like I was playing a game. You know, when you’re a child, and all your friends are hidden somewhere under cushions, and you’re all sneaking around pretending to be cops and robbers, spying, sneaking, lunging! I was in my home, creeping about. It felt like a game.

I turned the corner and listened. The conversation was a bit louder here, but I still couldn’t make out the words. I poked my head down the hall and decided to risk it. Perhaps I could creep a bit closer.

I was about to make my move, when I heard a sound behind me. I split. I dashed down a different hallway and ducked behind a curtain. Except it wasn’t a curtain. It was a cloth door, and when I found myself on the other side, I found myself in a room.

The room wasn’t all that special. It was nice. It was one of the libraries. What made the room special was the person in it.

It was Ariana.

“Ariana!” I cried.

Before she spoke, I thought perhaps it was another one of those cadavers. But then she did speak, and I knew it was really Ariana.

“Maude,” Ariana said.

“How did you get out of the cave?” I said. “You ran off. You didn’t have any jelly. You didn’t have any murder object. How did you get away from the Whiskalits?”

In a flash, I realized it. I’d been such an idiot. When Ariana had run off in the Whiskalit cave, and Octavia had come back. I should have seen it immediately. 

 “You lying little creep,” I said.

“Harsh words,” Ariana said. “But then again, I did take your fort away from you.”

“You can change your appearance,” I said. “I’d forgotten. It’s how you changed the color of your eyes, when you tricked me into befriending you. It’s how you got us out of the NE cave when they were looking for you, when Wrath was making his speech. You can make yourself look like anyone. It wasn’t Octavia who came back and told us that Ariana had run off. It was you. You took her clothes and made yourself look like her, and you told us that Ariana had escaped. What did you do to Octavia? Is she dead?”

“Good god, I didn’t kill her,” Ariana said. “I just left her in a house, knocked out and stuffed under the bed. I’m sure she’s fine by now. A little scared probably, but fine.”

“Does she have a murder object and jelly?” I said.

“No,” Ariana said. 

“She can’t get out!” I said. “If she doesn’t find Noble then she could be stuck in that world for the rest of her life!”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ariana said. “I saw my chance and I took it.”

“Oh, I could just murder you!” I cried.

“That’s the spirit,” Ariana said dryly.

“You went back to them,” I said. “You went back to them completely, you sold us. You sold me.”

“Yes,” Ariana said. “I was bored.”

“You were bored?” I said.

“I was trapped. My life had been taken away from me. I never should have come here with you.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You escaped. You got free. But then, instead of going your way, you decided to go to the people who made me a wanted murderess and almost killed you, and you told them.”

“A girl needs friends of some kind,” Ariana said.

“They’re not your friends,” I said. “They would have killed you. They planned to kill you. They planned to give you to Wrath, so he could snap your neck, so they could walk free. They would have traded you without a second thought.”

“Of course they would have,” Ariana said. “That’s how their world works. I wasn’t important, so I was a good trade. Now I am important. I’m back in the Night Enthusiast circle, but I hold all the power. I’m the one who brought them this information. I’m the one who has more information, more ideas, up her sleeve. They’re taking order from me now, do you know that? I’m the third leader of the Night Enthusiasts. I’m the new Dawn Mumungus.”

“Ariana, you swore to me,” I said. “When we were going in for the first time forever, when we found the secret basement together. You said, I solemnly swear that I will never reveal the location of McGillicuddy’s hideout to any Night Enthusiast, even under torture.”

“Actually, it gets worse,” Ariana said. “I said that if I did reveal it, you personally would have to come and kill me.”

We stared at each other.

“Ariana!” I said.

“This is how the story goes, Maude,” Ariana said.

Twice. It had happened twice. I realized in that moment that I loved her. I loved her completely. I loved her. It was why I tried to keep her in my life. But if keeping her in my life was resulting in actual physical danger to both me and my friends… then I shouldn’t have done it. I should have dropped Ariana like a hot potato. The balance of that was crippling. Loving her but protecting myself? How would I ever navigate through this? It would take a lifetime to figure it out!

“I have the right to be free,” Ariana said.

“Ariana,” I said. “Your Right to Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins. I want you to be happy but I want you to leave my destruction out of it. I could be dead right now. Or tortured. Do you even care about that?”

“Of course I care,” Ariana said.

“You’ve done this before,” I said. “You’re going to do this again. How stupid am I? How stupid do I have to be? I just want to help you.”

“Look, my life is none of your business,” Ariana said. “And I know you’ve done this before, and I’ve told you to stop. You get too wrapped up in whether or not I end up okay.”

“I think I get too wrapped up in whether or not you end up with me,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

After a pause, she said, “Why did you come here?”

“You moved the prison. I want to get Mr. McGillicuddy out. And Wrath. I know you have them imprisoned there. You can have my secret basement, I’ll have to give you that, but you can’t have Mr. McGillicuddy’s sanity. You can’t have what’s left of Wrath’s.”

“I don’t need them,” Ariana said. “Did you hear me, when I said before that I’m the new Dawn Mumungus?”

“I’m not exactly going to give you a card that says Congrats on the Promotion,” I said.

“No,” she said. “But my point is… I’m calling the shots. And to be honest, I don’t want the Night Enthusiasts to have Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. They’ll torture them for information. But I want the only source of information to be me. I need them to rely on me. If you promise to do it quietly, I’ll tell you where we’ve hidden the Night Enthusiast prison.”

“You would do that?” I said.

“It’s in the theater where Dawn Mumungus works,” Ariana said. “It’s in the statue of the angel with the bleeding eye.”

“Ariana,” I said. “Is that really where it is?”

“I don’t know,” she spat. “Can you trust me?”

Ariana left. I leaned against the wall. Could I trust her? Could I dare risk my life by following her clue? Then again, with Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath in custody, could I afford not to?

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 3, Episode 12, Your Right to Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved.

Do you wish that this wasn’t the final episode of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop, Season 3? Do you wish that you had something ghastly and heartwarming to listen to at least once a month? Do you wish there were more adventures where this one came from?

Hang on? Are you hearing an advertisement right now? Well, yes, actually. I’m cheating. Once I have 200 patrons, I will begin a second audio drama. You know. The dark and decrepit planet of spinn. You’ve been hearing about it for six months. Imagine all the creep and thrill and ghostliness I can muster, and now apply that to a strange and ancient race of aliens, who leave Indiana Jones puzzles in the walls, who might be dead but can still bite. Through the eyes of 3 explorers, we would traverse that adventure together. I would leave you puzzles and difficult, difficult choices to make. You would make them. I would write the next episode based off your votes. Episodes would be 45 minutes long and air once a month.

For more information, please go to patreon.com/sweeneywren. Please consider sharing this podcast with your friends. A post on the audio drama subreddit, an in person recommendation, or a social media share do more to market this podcast than anything Minerva Sweeney Wren can do on her own. She relies on you. This concludes Season 3 of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. Season 4 will premier in October of 2020.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4

Episode 1

The Statue of the Angel with the Bleeding Eye

October 18th, 1921

Diary, I am not very good at facing things head on, so I went and hid in a closet.

I confess I cried a little bit. My spirit felt upside down and lost in a distant jungle. About 3000 things were happening at once – ghosts, Noble James and Octavia lost in the Whiskalit world, Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath in the custody of the Night Enthusiasts… and now this. Ariana had betrayed us and invaded the secret basement of MMPS, and to top it off, well….

Was in love with her? In love with a lady? I didn’t want to think about it, it made me dizzy.

Shall we go over my and Ariana’s last conversation one more time? Of course we shall.

The doomed conversation starts with Ariana saying, “Did you hear me, when I said before that I’m the new Dawn Mumungus?” (Ugh)

Then I go on to say, “I’m not exactly going to give you a card that says Congrats on the Promotion.” (That was clever, I like that line)

“No,” Ariana goes on. “But my point is… I’m calling the shots. And to be honest, I don’t want the Night Enthusiasts to have Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. (hmm) They’ll torture them for information. But I want the only source of information to be me. I need them to rely on me. If you promise to do it quietly, I’ll tell you where we’ve hidden the Night Enthusiast prison.”

Diary, that gives me a shiver in the depths of my stomach.

“You would do that?” I’d said.

“It’s in the theater where Dawn Mumungus works,” Ariana said. “It’s in the statue of the angel with the bleeding eye.”

“Ariana,” I said. “Is that really where it is?”

“I don’t know,” And she repeats this phrase, again and again, into my heart. “Can you trust me?”

So there I was, crying in a closet of the secret basement of MMPS, too frightened to get up and leave.

Diary, I am so so so afraid that I’m in love with her, and the terror of that makes me sick.

I told myself, as I sat there huddled in the dark, that I was a crazy person, that I didn’t love a woman what was I talking about, I’d gone mad in the shock of the moment. She was my friend, absolutely, and seeing her here as my enemy, the person who had betrayed my Pawn Shop and made us all outcasts… well, it blew my emotions out of proportion.

At the end of the day, this is why I am so anxious, ready to vomit, and also spinning with a kind of far-off euphoria. I am in love with a woman. It’s 1921. I don’t know whether I’m supposed to hate myself for that or not.

I don’t have time to deal with strange internal revelations on top of everything else that is happening to me. I mean for crying out loud, half an hour ago a ghost appeared in front of me and told me I had to return all the ghosts to their bodies. Bleugh. Then I come to the Secret Basement of the Pawn Shop to sneak around, despite it having been recently conquered by Night Enthusiasts, and I run unto Ariana. The new leader, apparently, while Dawn Mumungus is locked up in our prison.

I knew that I had to get out of the Secret Basement. In another minute, a Night Enthusiast would open this closet door in search of some cheese, and then where would I be? My hands shaking, I drew the symbol of an eye on the wall with Mara’s magic jelly, touched it, and teleported back into the haunted house.

When I arrived, things smelled like buttered toast. I stood in a narrow, dark wood hallway, and from that vantage point, six or seven doors opened and people milled this way or darted that way. The house was so full. There were people everywhere. People, everywhere, and I might be the very thing I’d always been taught was evil and perverted, and I didn’t know what to do, and oh for heaven’s sake, why did there have to be so many people?

This would never do. I had to get away from all the people. I turned and fled up a back staircase, and on my way, I ran into Rupert.

“Hello, Maude!” Rupert said cheerfully. “I’ve been checking the house for other indications of ghosts. It’s very fascinating, don’t you think? That the house is haunted. I think there’s probably a scientific explanation somewhere—”

Rupert can sometimes be obtuse, but he isn’t heartless. He finally realized that I was the color of a swamp.

“Maude!” he gasped. “Are you all right? You look awful. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” We both paused and looked at each other. Rupert started sniggering, as if he couldn’t help it. Suddenly, even though I hadn’t intended to, I started laughing too. I let out a giant peal like the bleat of a goat, and then I sat down on the steps. Rupert sat down next to me, and we laughed off some of the terror and stress of the last twenty-four hours.

I haven’t spent eons of time with Rupert yet, but I suddenly realized he was exactly who I needed. Pedantic and loyal and logical to a fault.

“Rupert,” I said. “Can you fetch Scotland and meet me in the attic? I have something I need to discuss.”

“Just us two?” Rupert said with a frown. Then he seemed to realize that he was being welcomed into a secret. He beamed, then started vibrating like an eager bumble bee. “I’ll fetch her right now. And I say, do you need anything? You still look ill?”

“Water, maybe?” I said. “But I can get some from a tap in the bathroom.”

Rupert shook his head. “No, I’ll get you some. Go to the attic. Scotland and I will be there at once.”

I grinned quietly to myself as Rupert walked away. Then, quivering inside, I climbed the staircase and made my way to the attic.

As I climbed, Ariana’s face kept popping into my head and heart. So did my own. So did Noble’s. I felt dizzy with too many life revelations, and to make it worse, I didn’t want to have any life revelations right now. I found them improper and pushy when I was just trying to have a straightforward adventure.

It must have taken Rupert about ten minutes to find Scotland, fetch me a glass of water (he also brought me an apple) and come up to the attic, but it felt like thirty seconds. I could have married Scotland in that moment, because she didn’t even speak to me, she just knelt in front of me and checked my pulse with a quiet expression.

“Are you feeling better, Maude?” she said, after she’d peeped into my eyeballs.

“Yes,” I said. “But I can’t think straight. I need both of you to help me sort something. I’m all emotions from here to the moon and I can’t be logical right now.”

I do believe Rupert straightened his collar.

“Tell us what happened,” Scotland said.

So, I did. I explained how Ariana had tricked us and left Octavia, lost and alone, in the cave of the Whiskalists. I explained how Ariana was the new leader, and how she wanted the Night Enthusiasts to be dependent on her. Or, so she claimed. She claimed she wanted us to rescue Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy so that all the information, all the insight into the Secret Basement and the Pawn Shoppers would have to come through Ariana’s expertise alone.

“So… I’m very emotional,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Maude,” Scotland said, “I don’t have patience for people who apologize for being human. You’re completely all right, you’ve had a shock.”

Hm, yes, and Scotland only knew about one of the shocks.

“Do you think we should try it?” I said. “I know that time is of the essence and I’m paralyzed by the pressure of that. We need to get Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy out as soon as possible. I just can’t ascertain whether or not this is a trap. Is she lying to me?”

“It is perplexing,” Rupert said.

“I agree,” Scotland said. “This could be the perfect way to trap you, Maude. I mean, if Ariana wants to get into the good graces of the Night Enthusiasts and be a leader they all revere, well, then, handing over Melinda Maudie Merkle, the magic unusual who can break spells with a single wish… they’d be in her debt forever.”

“If she wanted me,” I said. I paused. My mouth felt dry, and my heart thumped. “If she wanted to just hand me over to them, then why not scream when I appeared in front of her in the secret basement, why not cast a spell on me in that moment?”

Scotland breathed out. “What I don’t know is whether half of her heart is still friends with you. She took over your secret basement, but she let you go when she found you in it, and she seems to want to give you your leader back. It sounds to me like she might be confused, guilty, and if she is, then we need to act now before she changes her mind.”

“Here’s what I think,” Rupert said. “I think we should go to the Statue of the Angel with the Bleeding eye. You, me, and Scotland. Even if it is a trap, I think we owe it to Mr. McGillicuddy to try.”

Scotland held up her hand. “Risking everything like that isn’t a good idea. Risking Maude, especially, isn’t a good idea.”

Rupert turned to me decisively. “Maude, Stay behind. I’ll go.”

“I am most definitely going if anyone is,” I said. I exhaled. “Besides. We have the magic jelly. Even if they capture us, we can draw a symbol of an eye on the wall and get out. We have something they don’t have, that they don’t even understand how to use. We have a portal to anywhere.”

“So does Ariana,” Rupert said.

I froze. “Oh my God,” I said. “You’re right.”

Ariana still had a small bottle of magic jelly from when she was masquerading as Octavia in the Whiskalit cave. She knew how the jelly worked. That meant she could now shuttle herself, murder object or not, to any place in time where she’d already been.

It was only a matter of time before she learned, somehow, what year our haunted house was hidden in. From there, if she managed to learn the address, she could pop herself into our living room, murder object or not. She could bring the entire Night Enthusiast clan with her.

“Friends,” I said. “We have got to get that jelly back from Ariana.”

Scotland tapped her fingers along her throat, restlessly. “How?”

I exhaled. “I don’t know, but there is no way in heaven or hell we can let the new leader of the Night Enthusiasts keep that stuff. It’s unparalleled power.”

“It might be part of how she impressed the Night Enthusiasts enough to appoint her as leader,” Scotland said.

“That and brutally betraying our secret base into their hands,” Rupert said.

I knotted my hands, still in a daze and unsure of what to do next.

“I agree we should get the magic jelly back from Ariana,” Scotland said. “But I think if we are going to risk going to the statue of the angel, we need to do that first. All we can focus on right now is rescuing Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. Once they’re safe home, we can make the rest of our plans.”

“I agree,” I said. “But if we run into Ariana on the way, I give you permission to smack her on the head with a broom.”

Scotland and I stood up. I felt like I hadn’t slept in a million years.

“So we are going to do it?” Rupert said. “We’re going to take Ariana’s word for it?”

She had betrayed me before, she would betray me again, and yet, I was desperate to know. Like Scotland, I felt this gamble was worth it. As strange as it was to say it, I had a gut level of trust that even Ariana would not betray me this far.

The Ariana I knew and loved was perfectly capable of stealing the secret basement and infiltrating our hideout. It was nasty, but it was in her realm of possibility. An Ariana, however, who trapped me, tied me up, and handed me over to enemies who would kill me or enslave me… I know it’s dangerous diary, but I wanted to know. Not in a filmy, queasy, wishy-washy, desperately yearning way either. I wasn’t mooning over the possibility that Ariana still had a scrap of decency left in her heart. This was simply a scientific experiment that might blow up in my face. Ariana letting me rescue Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy from the Night Enthusiast prison would say something profound about who she really was, about how she ultimately felt about me. I wanted to know what would happen.

“I want to risk it,” I said. “I think it’s probably heads one way, tails the other, but I don’t think both sides are heads.”

“I’m coming,” Scotland said. “Of course. You’ll want a medic, and not everyone knows about the magic jelly.”

“I didn’t know,” Rupert said. “I inferred it all from your story.”

“Well, now that you know the secret of the magic jelly, Rupert,” I said. “We may as well give you your own jar and invite you along.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have one of the other fellows?” Rupert said. “Someone good in a fight?”

“No, I want people who are good at running away and surviving today,” I said. “Which includes myself.”

Rupert laughed. I turned to Scotland. “Ariana said the statue of the angel is in Dawn Mumungus’s theater. Do we know the name of her theater?”

“I do,” Scotland said, “And I have a photo in my teleportation book.”

Apparently, the Pawn Shop kept a close eye on the Night Enthusiasts and all their possible locations. Scotland drew a smell leatherbound postcard album out of her pocket and flipped to a grainy photo of an old theater.

“It’s here,” Scotland said. She picked up a lantern from the attic shelf, then tucked her medical bag under her other arm. “Shall we go?”

We teleported into the theater.

It was dark. Quiet. After midnight at least, or perhaps two o’ clock in the morning. There was a kind of nighttime cast to the air, like we were smelling air that no one had smelled before. The middle of the night always feels untrodden to me. I felt that now. Theaters are nighttime places, so for this one to be empty, it had to be the witching hours.

I felt floorboards under my feet, wooden and hollow. We were on the stage. I smelled dust and velvet and sawdust. Theaters are beautiful places. If I’d been talented enough to get into one, maybe I would have hidden there all my life instead of poking about in pawn shops.

Scotland lit a match, and I saw her face light up in a blur of yellow. She tucked the match into her lantern, then shut the lantern door. Rupert, Scotland and I stood on the dark stage, amidst a medieval set. Perhaps they were doing King Lear. I glanced out into the gray, murky audience and I felt like the backs of all the chairs were huge, eggy heads, ugly little Humpty Dumpties, watching us in sour silence.

“Now then,” Scotland said. “Everyone be on your guard; they might be around.”

I nodded. I glanced at the Humpty Dumpty chairs one more time just to be sure they weren’t making faces.

We walked around the set, into the hush of backstage. A heavy quiet came from the curtains. I felt like they were wings, covering us. The fly gallery trembled with tiny ropes like tiny bones, stretching up out of sight. 

“As soon as you see it, let’s go,” Scotland said. She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t have a good feeling about this place.”

In the light of Scotland’s lantern, I stepped off by myself. Into the darkness between two curtains, I walked past the prop table and into the hush beyond it. I could barely see, but I came face to face with her. The angel with the bleeding eye.

The statue was white, with drooping wings that coiled around her bare feet. Her expression was sad, hesitant, and one of her marble eyes had been gauged out and replaced with a small beaded purse. Red glass beads were embroidered onto the purse in strands, like the tentacles of an anemone. Several of them hung down out of the eye socket, making it look like it was bleeding.

I sucked in a breath. It was time now. Would we touch this statue and be transported into the Night Enthusiast prison? Would a gang of NEs be waiting for us when we did? Or, would we touch this angel only to have nothing happen—proof that Ariana had played a cruel joke, and a crueler punchline was on its way towards us?

“Rupert,” I whispered. “Scotland. I found it.”

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 2

Blood and Remorse

October 18th, 1921 continued

I stood face to face with the statue of the angel with the bleeding eyes, and I reached out and touched her gingerly with my fingers. She looked serene and hesitant. That eye, though. The tiny red beads glinted in the light of Scotland’s lantern, and the glisten made them look like something foul from an operating table.

Scotland and Rupert hurried up behind me.

“You found it?” Scotland said. “Good. Let’s go in.”

“I’m rethinking everything,” Rupert said. “I don’t think we should use this murder object. I don’t think we should try to enter the Night Enthusiast prison as just the three of us. I think we should bring about sixty of us with clubs and pistols.”

“You know we agreed to sneak, Rupert,” Scotland said.

“Did we?” Rupert said. “Did we ever agree to sneak? We just sort of left. What about the clubs and pistols?”

“Our prison is guarded by one person,” Scotland said. “With magic, there’s very little need for more than one guard. Unless Ariana is tricking Maude, the three of us should be more than enough match for whatever is waiting down there.”

Rupert huffed. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Scotland said. “I also say time is of the essence. Let’s go.”

I think Scotland knew that if we waited to discuss it, Rupert might hem and haw in terror forever. Additionally, the longer we waited outside this statue, the greater the odds of a Night Enthusiast catching us hanging around. Scotland touched the statue, and with a zap, teleported into the murder object.

“You next,” I said to Rupert.

“Maude,” Rupert said. “Are you really Maude? Or are you Ariana pretending to be Maude, and you’re going to shuffle all of us one by one into a lava filled pit? Are you just changing your face to look like Maude?”

“That’s a disturbing thought,” I said. “But it’s really me. Ariana wouldn’t know that you sometimes sing When My Baby Smiles at Me in the shower.”

“Oh, God,” Rupert said, overcome with embarrassment.

“That’s that spirit,” I said. “Now in you pop.”

Rupert tapped the statue and immediately teleported inside. I followed him a second later.

Rupert had put the image of lava pits into my mind, so I felt ill at ease to arrive and find we were in some kind of jungle. Well, sort of. We were inside a building, a warehouse of some kind by the look of the brick walls and the high honeycomb windows. But the air steamed with moisture, and birds shrieked, and huge vines hung from the ceiling like snakes. The vines were hundreds of feet long, coiling and thick, and they tangled around each other like a web.

Scotland and Rupert stood next to me, also looking around. There was no sign of a Night Enthusiast guard anywhere. To our left was a solid brick wall, no doors or windows, so the only way forward was into the vines.

“No guard,” Rupert said. “That’s good.”

“Yes and no,” I whispered. I stepped closer to one of the vines.

“What do you mean?” Rupert said.

“Well,” I said with a sigh. “It might mean something else is guarding this place.”

I tapped one of the vines with my finger. Instantly, six or seven mouths flamed to life, like a hibiscus blossom, and snapped for my flesh. I stepped back.

“Did you get bitten?” Rupert hissed. He stared at the vines like he was going to be sick.

“No,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure they got me just by spitting at me.”

“Let me look,” Scotland said.

“I was mostly being dramatic,” I said. I held out my arm for her to see.

“And that’s fine,” Scotland said. “But the mouths may cast a light mist of poison every time they open.” Scotland squinted at my forearm. “You’re not breaking out into a rash yet. Let me know if you start feeling sick.”

“I will,” I said dazedly. Of all the threats I was expecting to face, man eating plants had not been one of them.

“What if this isn’t the prison?” Rupert said. “What if this is just an execution chamber?”

“Lovely thought,” Scotland said. She looked around and sniffed. “I see pipes, though. See? There in the wall. If I’m not mistaken, I also smell coal burning. Both those things to me suggest that someone lives here, permanently, and it’s not just a stomping ground for plants and carcasses.”

“Don’t say the word carcass right now, if you wouldn’t mind,” Rupert said.

“Corpse, then,” Scotland said. Rupert shot her a dirty look. “No, I think this is the prison. I think the vines keep unwanted visitors out. They’re being foolish if they think they can keep magic unusuals out, however,” Scotland said briskly. “Maude, get on my shoulders, would you? We’re going to identify the next clean spot of ground.”

Rupert helped give me a boost onto Scotland’s shoulder, where I sat and perched my hand to my forehead like a sea captain of old. I did my best to see through the vines to see if there was an open patch of ground somewhere ahead, and there appeared to be a tunnel at the far end of the warehouse.

“Rupert,” I said. “Do you want to climb up next? I think I see a tunnel but I want a second opinion.”

“I’m not a gymnasium,” Scotland said.

“Yes, but we all have to see it or we won’t be able to teleport into it,” I said.

“We could use an eye symbol.”

“I’d rather save the jelly. Scotland, you and I can stand side by side and Rupert can balance for a moment, pushing up on our shoulders.”

We did, and Rupert hopped back down after a few seconds. “It is a tunnel,” he said. “Looks dark and murky.”

“Now, let me take a look,” Scotland said.

“Do you want a boost?” Rupert said.

“No, that’s all right,” Scotland said.

She set down her medical bag and the lantern, backed up, and took a flying jump at the wall. She hit the wall squarely with both feet, about halfway up, and somehow, before she fell, she pushed herself back upright. She now had a higher advantage than either Rupert or I had. A second later, she crashed back down and landed on both feet, but with a wobble.

“Ow,” she said.

“Are you hurt?” Rupert said.

Scotland lifted her left foot. The heel had broken off the bottom of her shoe.

“Only my shoes and my dignity,” Scotland said. “No, it’s all right, I’ll go barefoot. High heels. Damndest most useless thing ever invented.”

Scotland angrily tossed her shoes into her medical bag, then snapped it shut. She stood there in her stockinged feet and looked a little less austere and more like a duck.

“Shall we?”

With three consecutive pops, we teleported from one side of vines to the other, into the dark tunnel. As soon as we arrived, I got a bad feeling, because there was a bad smell. It smelled like metal, and harsh soap, and bloody meat that’s been sitting out in the sun too long.

Scotland lifted the lantern and peered into the depths. The tunnel went downwards at a slant. As we passed into the darkness, I began to notice circular rooms on either side of the passage. They were sealed with barred doors, and all of them were empty, but I nudged Rupert.

“Do you think these are the cells?” I muttered to him, as Scotland walked on in front. “Do you think Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath will be in one of the cells up ahead?”

“Let’s hope so,” Rupert said. “But something tells me it isn’t going to be that easy.”

The further down the tunnel we got, the more nervous I became. I’m not usually claustrophobic, diary, but something about the weight of the earth above us and the heavy damp of the bricks behind us and all around us…. It made me squeamish. I nearly jumped out of my skin when, a few paces ahead, we heard a moan.

Scotland stopped in her tracks. “Who’s there?” she hissed.

The person moaned again.

“Are we going to help them?” Rupert said.

“It could be a trap!” Scotland exclaimed.

“Well, let’s shed a little light on them and find out, shall we?” I murmured.

Gingerly, I slipped the lantern from between Scotland’s fingers and stepped forward. The beam of light swung and illuminated a man hunched over in a cell.

He didn’t look good. His coat was filled with burn holes, and his hands, which clutched his dark hair, were covered in blood. Not the smooth slime of someone else’s blood either; his skin was ragged with small cuts, some fresh and some old, and tones of yellow and brown from healing skin mixed with the bright red in his hands.

His torso was slashed with thick lines of red as well, lines that I didn’t understand until I realized his coat was striped. Black and red horizontal stripes. It was Wrath.

One down, one to go.

“Wrath!” I said.

I stepped up to the bars of his cell. Wrath winced, like there was a fly buzzing around his ear, and then he twitched again. He looked up in confusion. When he saw me standing there, his mouth dropped open.

“Are you injured?” I said. “Badly, I mean?”

“Maude,” Wrath said. He stared at me very seriously. “You’ve the devil, aren’t you? You are the actual devil. No matter where I go, no matter where I find myself, just when I think I’m past human hope, you appear, suddenly, like you’re haphazardly looking around for a picnic.”

“No picnics here, I’m afraid.” I drew the symbol of an eye in magic jelly on the wall.

“You can’t teleport into this cell, you know,” Wrath said.

“No, but I can walk in,” I said. I touched the eye and reappeared on the other side of the bars. Scotland and Rupert followed suit.

“Ooh,” Wrath said.

“Where is Mr. McGillicuddy, Wrath?” Rupert asked.

“He’s down in the prison. Through the trap door,” Wrath said. “He isn’t in the tunnel.”

Scotland stepped forward, and the light of the lantern swung, bright, into Wrath’s vision. Wrath covered his eyes and fussed. “Ow.”

Scotland stooped and immediately glanced at Wrath’s wrist. “That looks bad,” she said. “How long is the cut?”

“Which cut?”

“The cut on your arm.”

“I have a cut on my arm?”

“Wrath, please take off your coat.”

Wrath sat there staring for so long Scotland grabbed his sleeve and ripped it up to the elbow. I winced. His arm was hideous. Blood and yellow bruises wrapped around thick black burn marks.

“They tried to burn me but,” Wrath chuckled. “It was half wood and it just, you know… scorched.”

I realized he was right and the wound wasn’t as bad as it looked. The black patches were where the wood in his forearm had blackened. Someone had tattooed his flesh with a hot iron.

Scotland snapped open her medical bag and immediately began to dab things onto Wrath, touch him, pull up his pants leg or his sleeve to check for wounds, poke into this mouth.

“Stop touching me like that,” Wrath snapped. “It isn’t decent.”

“Doctor,” Scotland said, as if this single word explained everything.

“Look here,” Wrath said. “You can’t go around touching me willy nilly. I have a wife.”

“No, you haven’t,” Scotland said, briskly wiping some of the blood off Wrath’s face to check the cut underneath.

“Yes, I have,” Wrath said, piqued. “Her name is Mara.”

Scotland nodded like this was a made-up fact, muttered by a delusional Wrath, but my stomach wobbled.

“Well, tell Mara I had to prod you like a prize pig until I find out what shape you’re in. If you’re bleeding from too many holes, I’m going to have to send you home with Rupert at once instead of keeping you around while we search for Mr. McGillicuddy.”

“I’m not too bad,” Wrath said. “Wood doesn’t bleed much.”

For the first time, Scotland softened, ever so slightly.

“Did you give them any information, Wrath?” Scotland said. “When they tortured you, did you tell them anything?”

“Oh, I told them lots,” Wrath said. He grinned up at me, and for a second, my stomach went sick. Scotland’s gaze flew to mine. Wrath continued. “I told them that Mr. McGillicuddy was a circus performer in a past life, who went by the name of Sneaky Tim, and when he wasn’t juggling, he would sneak behind all the members of the audience and clip their hair off with a pair of shears.”

“But….” Rupert stammered. “That isn’t true, Wrath.”

“Well, obviously,” Wrath said. “But I went into great detail about how he gave men bald patches on the back of their heads. I also told them that the ones who belong to the pawn shop are currently flying around the Ukraine in the 1680s in a giant air balloon that’s being mistaken for the second coming of Attila the Hun.”

“What,” I said.

“And I told them that you, Maude,” Wrath said. “Aren’t really a human at all, that you’re an ancient tree spirit dressed up in a skirt, and that you have the bad habit of showing up at parties and honking at everyone if they speak ill of women-kind.”

Sounded like a great pastime, to be honest. “But Wrath,” I spluttered. “They didn’t believe any of that, did they?”

“Of course not,” Wrath said.

“Did you tell them anything real?” Scotland said. “Anything at all that they can use against us?”

Wrath suddenly looked the most sane he’d ever looked. He arched his eyebrow at Scotland. “Madam, what the hell do you think I was doing up here, and why the hell do you think I look like this, if I told them anything they actually wanted to hear?”

Scotland nodded. “All right.”

“Is Mr. McGillicuddy in the same shape as you?” Scotland asked. I could tell what she was thinking. If an old man had sustained injuries like this, he was likely not going to make it.

“No, they haven’t taken him up to be tortured yet,” Wrath said. ‘They’re not feeding him, and he isn’t well, but I kept promising the juiciest of secrets. Which, to be fair, I gave them. Especially the one about me and Dawn Mumungus’s love child that is paper thin and likes to haunt people’s ovens.”

“Wrath,” I said. “You said Mr. McGillicuddy is downstairs? Through a trap door?”

“Yes,” Wrath said. “But he’s being guarded by three guards. And the trap door is in the middle of the vines. You’ll have to clear a path to get there.”

I blanched. “But how?”

Wrath shook his head. “Oh, just take a little of my blood on a hankie. The vines hate blood. They move away from it.”

“Someone should stay with Wrath,” Scotland said. She and Rupert both looked at me wistfully, like neither of them quite had the courage to chat with a madman.

“I’ll stay, of course,” I said. “Just clear the vines and hurry back.”

Scotland and Rupert used some magic jelly to exit straight to the mouth of the tunnel. As soon as Wrath and I were left alone, he sighed and began to vent.

“Oh, Maude,” Wrath said. Apparently he was in the mood to wax philosophical. “Maude, Maude, Maude. I’ve come so far. I’ve done so little. I let you bully me into being nice again. I once killed three men with gas from the Great War! It was ingenious! It was heinous! I was on my way to bloodshed, revenge, and then you had to summon those Whiskalit things and put a stop to it.”

“You could have joined the Whiskalits, Wrath,” I said. “You know they were hoping you would. They were very impressed with your murders, Wrath. They didn’t want you to be nice at all.”

“Yes, but you see…” Wrath tapped the end of my nose sadly, like he was drunk. “They wanted me to murder everyone. I only wanted to murder the Night Enthusiast. I’m a very particular kind of murderer, Maude, there has to be a point. I wanted to kill one person for every day of life I should have had, and I wanted to kill the people responsible for the train car, because otherwise why would it feel good?”

“The Whiskalits wanted you to murder everyone?” I ventured. Wrath, if he knew it, had never revealed the Whiskalit’s deeper purpose to me.  

“Well, the mice,” Wrath said.

“The Mice?”

“Yes, the mice. You know. Death to All Mice. That’s their catchphrase. That’s how you summon them.”

“Who are the mice?” I said.

“Anyone you can hate,” Wrath said. “Anyone you can despise until they’re less than human. That’s the point. Everyone is a mouse to someone. The Whiskalits just like to stir the fires until a bomb goes off in someone else’s face.”

I was sickened and confused, but at that moment, Rupert arrived again.

“We think we’ve done it,” he said. “The vines really do hate blood.”

“Yes, well they’re remorse vines,” Wrath said. “They’re a breed of vines and actual human remorse. They think they want to bite you but once they do, they feel terrible about it and recoil.”

Rupert just stared at Wrath like he didn’t know what to say. Then he turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said. “If there really are three guards waiting for us under the trap door, then we will need all the help we can get.”

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 3

God and the Devil in Love

October 18th, 1921 continued

Rupert, Wrath, and I used the symbol of the eye to teleport out of the cell and directly to mouth of the tunnel. When we arrived, the vines in front of us swayed and trembled, miserable at the sight of Wrath.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t stay back in the cell?” I asked Rupert.

“Once we got all the way through the vines,” Rupert said. “Scotland decided it would be better to have you and Wrath wait at the entrance, rather than back in the cell. That way, if danger springs up, you can get up and out without waiting for us.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you three behind,” I said.

“This is nonsense,” Wrath said. “I know where the guards sit. I know the underground prison. I’m going to come with you.”

“You’re going to come with us?” Rupert exclaimed. “Through the vines?”

“Well, naturally, if I’m going to reach the trap door,” Wrath said.

“But!” Rupert spluttered. “If you were just going to come with us, why did you make Scotland and I fend off an army on man-eating vines with only some blood on a handkerchief! They nearly nipped my shoulder a bunch of times! You’re as bloody as all get out! If you were going to come, you could have just walked in front!”

“Oh, no,” Wrath said pleasantly. “It’s a pity I didn’t think of that before.”

Rupert glared at Wrath, and I tried not to laugh.

“Rupert, I’m so glad you’re all right. Wrath, are you sure you want to come? What if you pass out along the way and we have to drag you?”

“Then you can roll me onto an eye symbol and teleport me out,” Wrath said.

“I don’t think they work that way,” I said.

“I want to come,” Wrath said. “I’m not leaving until Mr. McGillicuddy comes with us.”

Rupert nodded. “All right, well… walk in front, will you?” Scotland is keeping the vines at bay around the trap door.”

Wrath stepped out into the maze of vines and sure enough, they curled away as he approached, backing up a distance of twenty feet. Within a few strides, we could see Scotland ahead, crouched on the trap door with the bloody handkerchief beside her. She was busily drawing on the ground with her finger.

We hurried up to her. She looked up in surprise at all the vines. They curled so far backwards it felt like we were in a conservatory dome, now.

“Wrath,” Scotland said. “Why didn’t you suggest this before?”

“I didn’t think of it,” Wrath said, with a twinkle in his eye. Then he added, “Neither did you.”

Scotland arched an eyebrow. “Fair. Are you coming down?”

“I am,” Wrath said.

“Is he going to pass out?” I asked.

Wrath glared at me.

Scotland stood up. “No, his wounds aren’t that bad. Burns, yes. Blood loss, no. But we do need to hurry, for every reason imaginable. Let’s go down. Maude, before we go, I want you to know that I was experimenting with the magic jelly, and for whatever reason, we can’t use the eye symbols to teleport straight out of here. We’ll have to use the front door and exit using the murder object like traditionalists.”

“I wish the spell that keeps us from using the eyes would break,” I said.

Scotland, seeing what I was up to, tapped the eye again. Still nothing. She looked up at me in dismay.

“Alll right,” I said.

I was disturbed. The eye symbols, so far, had never had a limit. They’d recsued me from unknown time and space in the world of the Whiskalits. This meant—and I do think I’m thinking this through logically—that the Night Enthusiastss at least at one point had known about Mara’s eye symbols, because they’d made their prison proof against them. Not when it came from moving from place to place within the prison, of course, but they’d somehow blocked this type of magic from getting anyone out. It meant the magic jelly had limitations, and it made me worry that Ariana would soon find a way to keep us out of everything.

At least today, when we escaped, we would still be able to use the front door.

“Down we go,” Wrath sang, and with that, we opened the trap door.

It was a three-foot drop to an iron staircase. I dropped first, expecting to be shot at, but the dim hallway in front of me was empty.

“All clear so far,” I hissed.

Scotland dropped down next, and as she did, Wrath whispered. “Are you sure Maude? They’re normally right there.”

“No guards yet,” I said.

That was a bad sign. What were they doing, getting coffee at the same time? Escorting Mr. McGillicuddy somewhere?

Rupert, Scotland, and Wrath soon joined me in the lower hallway. We crept forward as quickly as we could.

“He’s in cell sixteen,” Wrath said.

“Are there any other prisoners in here we should be setting free while we’re at it?” I said.

“No,” Wrath said. “The Night Enthusiasts don’t keep prisoners around for very long.”

I shivered as I continued. If things went poorly with me, I could end up here. And I wouldn’t be able to use wishes or an eye symbol to escape.

As we walked, I waited for guards to appear, but I saw no one. The hallways echoed, empty.

Suddenly,

“Ooh,” Wrath said, and tumbled. Rupert caught him just in time and yanked Wrath’s arm over his shoulder.

“Lean on me,” Rupert said tensely to Wrath. “And don’t pass out.”

A minute later, we found Mr. McGillicuddy’s cell. He lay on a cot, not asleep but not lucid either. We made our way inside and Scotland hefted Mr. McGillicuddy up, supporting his arm around her neck.

“… You don’t suppose,” I said, looking at Scotland. “That not only did Ariana tell us the location of the prison, she also somehow made sure all the guards would be gone?”

Scotland shook her head. “I fear that much generosity surpasses my suspension of disbelief, Maude. I’m still waiting for a sinister explanation.”

We drew a symbol of an eye in Mr. McGillicuddy’s cell, then used it to teleport straight to the front door. From there, we teleported back out through the statue of the angel with the bleeding eye, finding ourselves once more on the quiet and dusty stage.

“Lean on me, Mr. McGillicuddy,” Scotland said. “That’s it.”

My heart thumped, high in my chest. I glanced around the dark theater. I was the only one not supporting a prisoner. As I glanced back into the wings. I saw a human shape, the swirl of a plain brown skirt as someone stepped back into the shadows. Their shoulders were hunched, sullen.

“Scotland,” I said. “Go back with Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. I’ll meet the four of your there soon, I promise.”

“Maude,” Scotland said. She stared at me in dismay. “Are you sure?”

“Completely,” I said. The inside of my mouth felt dry again. My heart seemed to have changed from heartbeats into an endless guitar string quiver.

“Maude,” Rupert said. Wrath groaned into his shoulder. “Whatever you’re about to do, don’t do it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I need to.”

Scotland and Rupert looked at each other, uneasy.

“They’re in pain!” I snapped. “Just go!”

“Take the lantern at least,” Scotland said, and she fairly shoved it at me.

With a regretful glance back at me, Scotland and Rupert teleported with Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. Suddenly, they were gone. Suddenly, I was alone in the theater, and their presence was like a dream, and I wondered what was going to happen to me next.

I reached into my pocket and wanted to grab hold of something, perhaps subconsciously I wanted a pistol, but all I had was a stubby pencil, so I gripped that. Once again I found myself wishing for my china eye, the thing that had made me a magic unusual, but it had vanished without an explanation. I wanted to get it back, but it was at the end of a long list of disasters I needed to solve.

First on the list was speaking to the person in the shadows.

I scurried closer to the curtain gap where I’d saw the figure watching, holding the lantern as I went. It cast a spinning circle of light around my feet. As my footsteps drew nearer, I heard the person shuffle back. Not a magic unusual then? A magic unusual would just be able to teleport away if they didn’t want me to see them.

I popped my head around and squinted into the darkness. Ariana’s features were half lit by the light of my lantern.

“Hello,” she said.

I blinked at her. I didn’t know what to say, so all I said was, “Why didn’t you teleport away just now?”

“Well, you’re not going to shoot me, are you?” she said.

“Never,” I said. We stared at each other, like children deciding if they could made friends with a stranger at the park. “Are you going to turn me in to the Night Enthusiasts?”

“Why would I?” Ariana said. “I let them go, didn’t I?”

I stared at her, my heart swelling and throbbing like it was sick. “Did you? Did you really? Is there another twist somewhere?”

“They’re really free,” Ariana said.

I wanted to hug her suddenly, and I knew that that didn’t make sense. I think I was overwhelmed by the fact that she really had let them go. It meant she wasn’t sure who she was yet, that there was still a chance she might not be my enemy forever.

We stood there awkwardly, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a burly Night Enthusiast to come out of the shadows, snarl, handcuff me, and say, Surpriise.

Into the silence, Ariana suddenly muttered,

“Did you mean what you said before? About wanting to end up with me?”

It was out.

Now was not the time to become a selfish turtle, to curl into myself and pretend that I was normal and proper and what everyone else wanted me to be. I was mad, improper, bright, and perhaps sinful. I hadn’t worked all of that out yet.

“I was never friends with a magic unusual before you,” I said. “I’ve also never been in love with a woman before you, but I am. I mean, I’ve never been in love before at all, so I’m not sure how in love with you, but I think…”

“It’s all right, Maude,” Ariana said. “I know what you’re trying to tell me. I’ve been attracted to women all my life.”

“You have?” I said.

I felt funny, pushy, like even admitting this out loud was too much, like it would clang in someone’s ears, make them say ugh. Not again. Eew. Too much. Leave me alone, I don’t want to hear about this. Feel what you want but leave me out of it. Please leave this out of the story.

I can’t leave it out. It is completely true. It is the most true thing I have ever written, of myself, of my real reality, of the pieces of myself that filter down into this narrative. When I started this adventure, I was depressed and whimsical and squeamish, and now… I have found that I am brave, surrounded by community, but more than anything, I am a bisexual woman.

How could I keep it out of these pages when it is so true and personal, when Ariana was one of many clues that first brought it to my attention.

“I did mean it,” I said. “I’ve known I liked boys all my life, but apparently I can fall in love with women, too. Is that a real thing? I mean, does that even happen?”

“Yes, silly,” Ariana said. “It’s called being bisexual.”

“Oh,” I said.

She stared at me, her face twisted. She seemed like she was about to say something tender, and then she flinched. She said instead,

“Do you ever feel like you and I are God and the Devil, and that we accidentally fell in love?”

I laughed. “I don’t think either of us is quite that two dimensional, Ariana.”

“Still,” she said. “We’re at war now. We stand for completely different things. Am I right in thinking you’ve become the leader, more or less, of your little rag-taggle band? And I’ve become the leader of the Night Enthusiasts. We’re destined to clash. You know when I swore to never reveal the location of the secret basement, you said you’d kill me if I told. Do you ever wonder if that’s what all of this is leading up to? You and me, a final fight, where one of us gets stabbed and holds the other one blubbering as they die?”

I shivered. “I’m not going to stab you.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m going to stab you.”

“No, my own little Devil,” I said. “I’m determined that this story is going to end very differently, so check back in with me next year.”

Our gazes hardened.

“I’m getting angry again,” Ariana said. “I shouldn’t do this you know, fraternize with you, it makes me feel week. It makes me weak. I should be bringing you to them on a silver platter.”

“I suppose I ought to go, then,” I said.

“Yes,” Ariana said.

I stepped away from her, as if I needed to walk away before teleporting. I wanted to announce my departure, give her one last chance to stab me in the back.

“Maude?” Ariana said.

“Yes?” I said.

“Don’t try to find me again. Don’t come near me again. Take the Ones Who Belong to the Pawn Shop and hide in another time. Don’t try to dominate 1921 again. Take yourselves out of harm’s way, because the Night Enthusiasts have won. It’s our world now, our timeline. If you want to survive somewhere where you’re out of my way, be my guest. But if you inconvenience us at all anymore… well, come on. Don’t be stupid. We’re clearly stronger and you’ll get squashed. Don’t do it. Don’t risk it. No one wants you getting killed.”

“Hm,” I said.

“This is the only warning I’ll give you,” Ariana said. “It’s over. We’ve won. We got your leader and we got your base. Do your followers the only favor you have left and leave them wherever you’ve hidden them. I’m not malicious and I’m not vindictive. I won’t come after you all, if you leave us alone.”

“And?” I said. “What are you going to do with the world, now that you’ve gotten it? If I’m not allowed to take back 1921, what will you do with 1921 now that you’ve got it?”

“It’s none of your business,” Ariana said. “That’s the whole point. It isn’t your world and it isn’t your time anymore. Stay out of it, and I won’t have to stab you in the back.”

Ariana was an irritating clown fish. I’d always prided myself as a girl on not having terrible taste in men, but apparently I had terrible taste in women.

“And if I don’t?” I said.

“I got your leader once and I can do it again, and this time I’ll kill them,” Ariana said. I wasn’t sure if she was referring to me or Mr. McGillicuddy.

I stepped away from her. “Got it,” I said. “Leave you alone, never come back, or me and my friends will die.”

“Precisely,” Ariana said. “You’re no good for me.”

“I think it’s the other way around, love,” I said.

“I mean you’re no good for my ambition, Melinda Maudie Merkle,” Ariana said. “Now get lost.”

I snorted. I watched as Ariana teleported out of the theater, and as soon as she vanished, I grinned.

I’ve been studying skull spells in my spare time, diary. You know skull spells. It’s how a magic unusual can trace the next teleportation location of someone else. You can cast a skull spell just by pointing your pinky finger in the direction of the person’s mind and thinking, Rubadore.

I know it doesn’t make any sense but I didn’t write it. (hehe)

I knew I’d cast the skull spell correctly before Ariana left. That meant wherever she was headed, I now had that location written down in a small notebook at home. I could follow. Ariana had told me to leave her alone, but too bad. I had to get the magic jelly back from her to prevent her from using it, and I had to find a way to rescue Noble James. That meant finding Raster. That meant a little infiltration into wherever the Night Enthusiasts were staying now.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 4

The Gorrisby Hotel

October 19th, 1921

After my chat with Ariana, I returned to the Haunted House where all my magic unusual friends were hiding.

For one thing, the skull spell that I’d cast on Ariana wouldn’t pop information straight into my brain. The spell wrote the subject’s teleportation location down on a piece of paper. Very handy well-trained magic unusuals knew to keep these pieces of paper on their person, so they couldn’t keep up the chase!

I was not handy nor well trained, so I had to go home. My notebook was lying under my pillow somewhere, or possibly behind a potted plant.

Besides. I didn’t know what the paper would say, or what the location would imply. I wanted to do some research before I followed. Of course it would be a crying shame if Ariana had simply teleported to the corner store to buy some groceries, but I feel like, after a confrontation like that, she would want to return to some kind of home base.

When I returned to the haunted house, Scotland just about smacked me on the ear. She was flying out of an upper room, with a bowl of bloody bandages in her hands, and she ran into me in the hallway.

“Oh so you did get back in one piece,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I had someone to talk to.”

Scotland gave me a dirty look. “Fine, I won’t ask. I can feel something brewing within you, Ms. Melinda Merkle, but we all have our secrets, especially as young people. Did it go well, whatever it was? Are you all right?”

“Very well,” I said. “I’ll tell you more later. Do you need any help?” I glanced down at the bloody bandages.

“No,” Scotland said. ‘You’ve done your bit. Go and rest now.”

“You don’t look like you’re resting,” I said.

“Darling, when I became a doctor I knew I was giving up a good night’s sleep forever. The whole world is falling apart at the seams and I’m one of the few people who knows how to stitch flesh and blood back together again. I’ll be all right. And I have more than enough assistants, so please: take your rest now, you’ve earned it.”

I nodded at Scotland, thanked her, and then went in search of my notebook.

I had left it under my pillow, along with you, diary, ad a few other key items. I found myself looking wistfully for my china eye, as though it would turn up after all, as though it wasn’t inexplicably and ominously missing.

But it was not concealed behind the folds of my pillowcase, so I stopped messing about and opened my magic unusual notebook, with Rupert had given me back when he started teaching me spells.

Sure enough, the skull spell had worked, and it had cast a beautiful, luminous blue ink on the blank page of my notebook. Surrounded by a strange art nouvea design, the words The Gorrisby Hotel filled the middle of the page.

The Gorrisby Hotel.

Diary, sometimes names give me the shivers. Sometimes I get goosebumps all the way up my arm. This name did something peculiar: it only gave me a half dose of goosebumps, but a whole dose of mad cat curiosity. I felt like an adolescent girl, suddenly overcome with a desire to explore a fabled haunted house.

I sat back and thought hard. Ariana, if she had any sense, might have expected me to cast a skull spell. If that was true, this location was likely a sham, a stopping point before she went on to her real one. Then again, Ariana expected me to be a bit green and flighty. Perhaps she didn’t think me capable of casting skull spells yet, or perhaps she was so sure of her own magnificence, the power of her threat, that she hadn’t dreamed I’d snub my nose at her so soon. Go away and never come back, she’d said, and a second later I’d frolicked after her.

The Gorrisby Hotel could be a true location. I knew for a fact that the NEs didn’t live in their cave, their meeting place. They didn’t have the same network of community that we had in the pawn shop. The Gorrisby Hotel could be where Ariana was living and staying right now. If that was true, I might be able to wander into her room and pinch the magic jelly when she wasn’t even there.

I wanted to ask around right then and there to see if anyone had heard of The Gorrisby Hotel, but I decided against it. Scotland was right. I needed sleep. Besides, for the first time since the NEs had invaded our secret basement, we were all safe. Everyone, except for a few Pawn Shoppers who were out on the run, was here in the haunted house. No one was a prisoner of the NEs. For the first time since disaster had struck, we could all take a nap and know that everything was going to be fine.

I journaled for what felt like a thousand years, until my fingers were inky and tired and I felt calm. It would have been impossible to fall asleep in broad daylight, after the fear of everything that had just happened, but once I’d written it all down and gotten it out of my system, I felt light. Soothed. Like a cloud that had just cried out all her rain. I put my head down on my pillow and slept like a rock until the next morning.

As soon as I was awake again, I got up and washed my face, said good morning the other magic unseals, and was handed a plate of boiled cabbage. I’m not sure why were having boiled cabbage for breakfast but it wasn’t really my job to complain so I ate it. Then I went straight to the upper room where Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy were resting.

When I arrived, the room was filled with sunlight, and one of the older women sat between both beds, tranquilly reading a book. Mr. McGillicuddy and Wrath were both asleep, tucked into pristinely white sheets. The older woman put her finger to her lips when I entered, so I tiptoed up the beds.

Wrath was sound asleep and snoring. I was shocked to see that Scotland, somehow, had humanized Wrath’s puppet eye a little bit. She’d trimmed those ugly, feathery lashes, and she’d scrubbed the bright paint off the lid. It was now a plain wooden eye with lashes the length of his real ones. I knew it would still be horrible, perhaps more so, when he opened his eyes and the wooden eye continued to rattle around, but for now it was nice to see him snoozing and to see him look more like Hester than like Wrath. His skin was clean and bandaged all over. I felt deeply encouraged by the sight of Wrath cared for and tucked in, and I couldn’t have told you exactly why.

Mr. McGillicuddy was likewise asleep, but more fitfully. I worried about him. When he had been taken prisoner by the Night Enthusiasts, he had just returned from a mission. He’d been investigating ways to cure Wrath once and for all, if such a thing were possible. I wondered if he would wake up soon and tell us what he’d learned, assuming he’d learned anything at all.

“Has he woken up yet?” I whispered to the nurse. “Since we brought him back?”

She shook her head, then smiled at me in a way that was both encouraging and pitying. I wondered what would happen if Mr. McGillicuddy never woke back up again.

I left the sick room, and I went in search of someone who could tell me more about The Gorrisby Hotel. As I crept down a narrow back staircase, the walls covered in black and blue flowered wallpaper, I ran into a ghost.

At first I thought my eyes were just getting blurry, because a long long stem of pale blue light was rising out of the wooden step in front of me. Then my skin began to get cold. Then the sunlight seemed to fade, and time seemed to slow down, and suddenly I was face to face with a turquoise phantom with fingers as long as rulers. I think the ghost was feeling mean and had decided to come up through the floor fingers first, because he knew that would be the creepiest.

“You must return us to our bodies, Melinda Merkle,” the ghost said.

I rubbed the goosebumps off my arms and stamped my foot.

“Not now,” I said.

“Our bodies….”

“And what are your bodies?” I said. “Where are your bodies? Do you have any idea how many things I’m investigating right now? Please leave us alone for now and for heaven’s sake don’t try anything in the middle of the night, but I promise I’ll get to you when I have time.”

“You must return us,” the ghost said. “You must find our bodies yourself. We cannot tell you the secret of our fleshly forms.”

“Just… no,” I said to the ghost. “No. I don’t have time for you right now. I know you’re connected to everything else. I can feel it. I know that you’re somehow inexplicably connected the Whiskalits and the Night Enthusiasts and Wrath and this whole adventure, but right now, you seem like some perfectly illogical and overdone ghosts, and the next thing on my to-do list is rescuing Noble James from a cave full of insane bird creatures in plague masks, and I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings, but they are much scarier than you are.”

“I am not meant to be scary,” the ghost said, and with that it disappeared.

Well. Maybe I’d offended it. At any rate, it was gone for now. The good news was, the ghosts appeared to only want to talk to me. They hadn’t shown up for anyone else yet; they’d stayed out of the soup pots and everything. The bad news was, the ghosts only wanted to talk to me. I was going to sleep with a pillow over my head surrounded by other people, lest they invite themselves in for a chat at three o clock in the morning.

Still shuddering from my ghost encounter, but still feeling right about my decision to ignore them for now, I made my way to the front hall, where I ran into Matthew John.

“Maude!” Matthew John cried. He stepped right up to me and hugged me. Matthew John was the size of a grizzly bear, and yet gave very gentle hugs. “Are you all right? Rupert gave us the most amazing account of your adventures rescuing Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. Did you get a good sleep? You must be exhausted.”

“I slept beautifully, thank you,” I said. Suddenly I squinted at him. “Matthew John, I’m in need of some information. Do you know things? How long have you been a magic unusual?”

“Oh, I’ve known I was a magic unusual since the age of nine,” Matthew John said. “It’s why I’m so cheerful.”

I grinned. “Well, excellent, I’m in need of an expert. I’ll spare you the details but I need to go after one of the Night Enthusiasts. Not to fight them with a spear or anything, I just need to pinch something and then come back. It won’t take long and it shouldn’t be dangerous, but… well, I cast a skull spell and the location I got was the Gorrsiby Hotel.”

“The Gorrisby Hotel?” Matthew John said. He wrinkled his nose. “I know the place. Have you ever passed it? It’s on Ashland, tucked behind some of the taller buildings. Its gray, dark, sooty. Almost… a purpley kind of gray, like a bruise, if you pass it at twilight. It’s crumbling and some of the windows are shuttered, and it’s covered in purple ivy, but believe it or not it still is open for business. Or so the sign says. It’s always given me the creeps. Apparently a serial killer was born there, about fifty years ago. It used to be a hospital, but it was shut down because the doctors were caught operating on people who didn’t need to be operated on, just to make money.”

“How horrible,” I breathed.

For some reason, I felt like a dark presence stood behind me and whispered, “Death to All Mice,” into my ear.

“That’s all I know about the Gorrsiby Hotel, Maude, I’m sorry,” Matthew John said.

“That’s a lot, Matthew John!” I exclaimed. “I feel like I just popped open an Encyclopedia.”

Matthew John seemed pleased.

“Are you going now?” he said. “Do you want anyone to come with you?”

I paused. “No. I think I’ve got to go alone. The idea is to be sneaky and get in and out without being noticed by anyone. The fewer the better.”

“Oh,” Matthew John said. “I can disguise you.”

I perked up. “Really? That would be a huge help! Is that your magic unusual power? Being able to disguise people?”

“No,” Matthew John said. “Just my talent. I work in the theater.”

“Not the same one as Dawn Mumungus?” I said.

“No,” Matthew John said. “I’m not that lucky.”

“Matthew John!” I said.

“She might be a terrible person, Maude,” Matthew John said. “But she’s a brilliant performer. She gives me chills.”

“She won’t be performing any time soon,” I said. “She’s locked away in our magic unusual prison.”

Matthew John shook her head. “I don’t understand why theater wasn’t enough for her.”

With that, Matthew John pulled me by the hand over to a chair.

Half an hour later, Matthew John had given me a different face. He’d taken his makeup box, fitted me with an auburn wig, changed my eyebrows, changed the shape of my nose with a bit of putty, and changed the shape of my face with some kind of supernatural makeup trick.

“Golly!” I cried. When he showed me my own face in the mirror, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I was breathtaken I didn’t look like Maude anymore, but I looked like a real person. I would have passed myself by on the train platform without a second glance. “Matthew John, I feel like Sherlock Holmes!”

“Do you like it?” Matthew John said, thrilled.

“You should be teaching people this!” I cried. “We could have a whole team of disguise artists, to prepare people before missions.”

It occurred to me then that the Magic Unusuals could be just as powerful as the Night Enthusiasts, perhaps, if we could only get ourselves better organized.

“No one ever really asked me before,” Matthew John said sheepishly. “Just remember not to scratch your face and you should be all set.”

“I’m off!” I said. I jumped up out of the chair. “I should be back within half an hour unless something goes wrong. Send someone after me in about two hours if I still haven’t returned.”

“To the Gorrisby hotel?” Matthew John said.

“Yes indeed,” I said.

“Good luck, Maude,” Matthew John said. “And bless you for your energy and enthusiasm.”

“I wasn’t aware that I had extra amounts of energy and enthusiasm,” I said.

“That’s what you bright souls always say,” Matthew John said. “Get back safely!”

With that, I stepped into a private corner and drew an eye symbol that would take me straight to 1921, on Ashland Rd. From there, it would only be a short walk to The Gorrisby Hotel.

When I arrived, it was chilly. The wind was wet and chattering, and leaves tumbled past. For a moment, I almost turned up my collar, to avoid nasty stares from passerby, when I realized I didn’t look anything like Melinda Merkle the murderess. I was free to stroll about in 1921 again, and I was suddenly overcome by an urge to go to the park.

I decided to walk north first, to see what I could see, and within ten minutes, I had found the Gorrisby Hotel. Matthew John was right. It was a miserable building, like someone had painted it with drab colors on purpose, to make it more at home with Halloween. It seemed quiet and shrunken on the busy street, like it was sucking all the energy into itself.

Since I’d never been inside, I couldn’t teleport straight in, so I walked up the crumbling walk and pushed open the rotting front door.

The smell of mold hit my nose. I looked around. The front room did have a front desk, for a hotel concierge, but no one was there. The bell has a spiderweb on it, and brown spots from the ceiling had since dripped onto an open book and dried, so it was clear no one sat at this desk very often.

The building, however, didn’t feel deserted. I could smell coffee, hear a radio going, as well as conversations and creaking floors.

Since no one had greeted my entrance, this was my chance to whisk upstairs. The last thing I needed was to talk to someone who questioned my being here. No one would believe me if I said I wanted a room. I needed to get in and get out.

Just as I was about to trundle up the steps, someone came down. I panicked, and I whisked myself into the front desk and hid under the counter. I bumped noses with a cobweb, scratched my nose furiously, and prayed I didn’t sneeze.

“That’s why we should be working on this now, I tell you!” came a male voice. “We have some of Mr. McGillicuddy’s blood! That means I can track him to anywhere on the planet, no matter what year they’re hiding in!”

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 5

Vials of Blood that Glow in the Dark

October 19th, 1921 continued

Yeep!

The last thing I wanted was to be caught by the two men arguing in the lobby of the Gorrisby Hotel, so I pinched my nose, prayed the tingle in my nose would go away, and that I wouldn’t sneeze and doom myself to death.

Meanwhile, I edged further under the counter, out of sight, and I pricked up my ears with rabbit-like precision. I had to hear the rest of this conversation!

“That’s why we should be working on this now, I tell you!” a male voice had just said. “We have some of Mr. McGillicuddy’s blood! That means I can track him to anywhere on the planet, no matter what year they’re hiding in!”

“Look, this is all a theory,” came a voice that sounded strangely familiar.

“It isn’t just a theory!” the first voice snapped. “I used Noble James’ blood to find him inside a murder object! And then in the next murder object he tried to hide in. I didn’t just find him, I found him in time. I traced him anywhere.”

Ah. So I was listening to Raster. I got goosebumps. Sometimes my luck is rotten, but sometimes it’s positively literary. I suddenly remembered the voice of the man he was arguing with as well, it was Renfield, the sneeze of a human being who had tricked me into the Night Enthusiast cave for the very first time.

“You keep claiming that,” Renfield said. “But it all sounds like rot to me. So you claim you found Noble James inside of two separate murder objects—well then, where is Noble James? And why can’t you find him now?”

Raster hissed, irritated. “I’ve told you, something’s gone wrong. Now the magic is saying that Noble James isn’t in our world, past present or future. It’s telling me he’s off the planet.”

“So it doesn’t work,” Renfield said.

“How about,” Raster said. “Instead of arguing about why Noble James appears suddenly to be hiding on the planet Mars, we instead act pragmatically and use my magic again, on a subject we know we can trace. I have Mr. McGillicuddy’s blood, from when he was in our prison. They stole him back, but we can get him again in five minutes. Wherever they’re hiding now, and I don’t care where it is, I can cast this spell to find them.”

“So see if you can do it,” Renfield said. “Then come to me and Ariana. Don’t jabber at me without proof. I tell you I want to see a photograph of Mr. McGillicuddy with his bandages on before we decide to do anything so drastic.”

“Idiot!” Raster said. “We have to be ready. All of us. We have to get our army together. We have to leave at the same time. Wherever I find out they’re hiding, we have to be ready to jump there at once.”

“Well, where are they hiding?” Renfield asked.

“I haven’t tried it yet.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because it’s expensive. And! If they’re on the move, we’ll want to head to their location as soon as the results come in. I’m telling you, put in a good word for me to Ariana. This blood thing works. Whatever murder object they’re hiding in, we’ll be able to find it.”

“I don’t think Ariana will listen to you,” Renfield said, opening the door.

“Oh?” Their voices grew fainter as they stepped outside. “Why not?”

“Because she’s keen on that Merkle girl.”

“Ugh.”

“How did we ever….”

At that point, their voices faded, and I was left feeling slapped. My chest ached, like I’d just taken a bullet, and I sort of wanted to suck my thumb or pet a dog, or sit on the edge of a dock and pity myself for about eight hours.

“Hurry up, Maude,” was all I said to myself in the end. “His room is empty.”

I got up, and I hurried up the staircase. I was pretty sure I was going to get a rash from the carpet I’d been sitting on but that didn’t matter now. I creaked my way up the damp smelling stairs, and I ran into a little old woman at the top. She glowered at me and slammed her door, but I saw that her eyes were green, not hazel, so she wasn’t a magic unusual. This building wasn’t all Night Enthusiasts then. Perhaps only Ariana and Raster lived here, and Renfield was just coming by for a visit.

I walked down the hall as fast as I could, and I read the nameplates on the doors. Each hotel room had a nameplate, which told me that this place was more of an apartment building than a hotel now. I wondered who would choose to live here on purpose, and then I remembered that Ariana did. Well. I already knew she made terrible decisions. I wondered if she’d lived her a long time, if this was what she’d come home to, before she started tricking me and spending the night in McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.

I reached the end of the hallway, and I spotted the name RASTER on a nameplate. I stood there for an extra twenty seconds, my fingers hovering above the doorknob, afraid to turn it. What if someone else was in his room? What if that wasn’t Raster I’d heard downstairs, and Raster was in here, sitting on his bed, and he’d chop my head off as soon as I poked my head inside?

I finally decided to get over myself and open the door, but of course it was locked. In the end, that was an encouraging sign. It meant Raster wasn’t planning on coming back in the next five minutes. Then again, in a building this sour, perhaps even your neighbors would burgle you if you left your door unlocked. Since I couldn’t walk in, I peeped through the keyhole, took a gander of the room, and teleported inside.

The room was blessedly empty. To my surprise, it wasn’t too ugly either: the wallpaper was dark purple with black stripes and flowers, and the bed was clean and neat. This room didn’t smell like mold. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary lying around, so I went straight to the closet. Here I had better luck. Raster didn’t have his clothes hung up, he had a closet full of crystals and skulls and heavy slashes of black ointment, and three tiny vials full of dried blood.

I held my breath. I sensed a dark energy coming from the objects, like I’d stumbled into the lair of an old fashioned witch. The vials glowed softly, too. Magic unusual blood, then. Why is there something so evil about meddling with nature/ getting in the way of the natural order of things? Something feels wrong and ominous about witchcraft, but perhaps that’s because it all has to do with death. I mean think about it. Witches didn’t make potions out of light or pollen or spring water. It was all the liver of a toad and skulls and blood and hair and things you can usually only get if you’ve mutilated and killed.

On that note, the Night Enthusiasts do get their power from mutilation. They gain added spell power by murdering their empathy, to become Night Enthusiasts. They handicap their own souls on purpose to get a boost in magic.

Perhaps that’s how everyone does it. The Night Enthusiasts. The Whiskalits. Perhaps the Whiskalits say death to all mice, kill the mice, and from the power from all those deaths, they can create an opulent world too lavish for them to ever make use of. What a horrible thought. What a pointless nightmare.

Well, anyway, I stared down at Raster’s magic spell, and I couldn’t make any sense of it. What I could make sense of, however, was the fact that three vials of dried blood were neatly labeled and sitting in a row. One had mere flakes of blood in it. That one was labeled Noble James, and I realized Raster must have collected the dried blood one scratch at a time from the dagger that he’d used to stab Noble under the bridge.

The other vials were full, cloudy with dark red, shimmering with soft luminescence. They were labeled Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy. I thought it was curious that Raster wasn’t just as keen to trace Wrath as Mr. McGillicuddy. Did he think we’d left Wrath in a gutter somewhere? Perhaps he assumed Wrath would have run away from us. Either way, I couldn’t have him tracing Wrath either. With shaking fingers, I took all three vials and put them in my pocket. If Raster didn’t have the blood, he couldn’t perform the spell. We were safe from him, as long as I had all the blood and he had none. I suddenly began to worry that he would go back to Wrath’s prison cell and scrape the blood off the walls. Maybe I would have to send a team of Magic unusuals back to the Night Enthusiast prison with a bucket of soap and some brushes.

Now that I had the vials of blood, I didn’t want to stay in Raster’s room a minute longer. I shut the closet door and teleported back into the hallway. So far my mission had been a brilliant one. I’d stopped Raster’s ability to trace Noble James, which meant that I could move on to one of my biggest worries – rescuing Noble and Octavia from the Whiskalit cave. If Raster couldn’t find Noble anymore then he was free to hide with the rest of us.

I felt cheered, suddenly. I felt like I was unravelling my problems as quickly as they came at me. That was, of course, a sign that something was about to go horribly wrong.

I walked down to the other end of the hallway. There, I found a nameplate for Ariana, like I was in Wonderland and things were going just so. I was finding all the doorways and characters that I was supposed to. This time when I tried the door it was unlocked, but Ariana wasn’t anywhere inside.

The room was gloomy. It made me sad. When I’d introduced myself to her at the park all those weeks ago, she’d taken me to someone else’s house, to trick me into thinking that she lived somewhere normal. I realized now it had just been the random house of some old woman. It had put images in my mind of cleanliness, care, lace doilies, and a sense of calm. In reality, Ariana’s room seemed to be the abode of someone who hated themselves. Everything smelled stale. The bed was unmade. She threw her things on top of the bureau instead of folding them and putting them inside.

I began to go through her pockets, which felt strangely like an invasion of her privacy. Possibly because it was. Suddenly, I recognized Octavia’s dress, the one Ariana had stolen for her disguise back in the Whiskalit cave. I checked the pockets. My hands closed around a small thimble, which was a murder object, and the vial of magic jelly. I took the vial out and looked at it. It was nearly full. Not quite, but nearly. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn’t any missing. Besides, it was still in the pocket. Ariana hadn’t been using this. Either she was being sloppy in the extreme, or she figured the safest hiding spot was in her dirty laundry, or she felt guilty about taking advantage of my gift. It was second time Ariana had done something stupid and passive when it came to defeating the Pawn Shop. She wanted to be leader, but her heart wasn’t in it. It wouldn’t be long before the Night Enthusiasts ate her alive.

I pocketed the magic jelly. I couldn’t believe my luck. First Raster’s blood vials and now this. I could do what Ariana wanted. I could hole up with my team of magic unusuals, and we could hide in the 1800s forever, and we could never live in our own world anymore. We could let the Night Enthusiasts have it.

Of course that was a miserable thought. Passively letting the world burn, while we hid in a time that wasn’t our own. We’re born when we’re born to make something of the world we live in, and Magic Unusuals are bound by magic to keep them from interfering with the past. We can show up and have conversations but we cant willingly alter events. Hiding in the past meant a life of nothingness, without purpose, without something to offer the world. For that alone, we deserved to make 1921 a better world.

“We’ve got to get organized,” I muttered to myself. “We have to find some way of finishing the Night Enthusiasts once and for all.”

Of course, we were a long way from organized. I suddenly realized that I was the de facto leader at the moment, something I tried not to think about because it didn’t make any sense. Diary, sometimes without meaning to, I bring people together, and then I look at myself in the mirror and think that I’m incapable. I’m a natural born leader who hates herself, perhaps. A terrible combination. But I had to own up to the fact that Mr. McGillicuddy was out of commission, that everyone looked up to me.

“What would you do if you believed you could, Melinda Maudie Merkle?” I muttered to myself. “What incredible changes would you make, if you weren’t so stressed about looking like a failure?”

It was a good question, but I distracted myself from answering it by leaving Ariana’s room. This is where I did something I probably shouldn’t have done. I should have teleported straight out of the Gorrisby Hotel and never come back, but I’d had such good luck in Raster and Ariana’s rooms that I wanted to see what else I could find. I left Ariana’s room the natural way, by turning the doorknob, and when I stepped into the hall, I began to examining the other nameplates.

The other names meant nothing to me, but I began to itch with curiosity about them. How many other Night Enthusiasts lived in this building? Many? No more than two? What else might I find, be able to pick pocket, if I scurried into a few more rooms?

I idly tapped my fingers against a doorknob, thinking of prying again, when something sharp and heavy hit me in the forearm.

“Ouch!” I yelped.

I whirled around, ready for a full on battle with NEs, only to find the little old woman scowling at me. She’d just thrown a broken jam jar at me! A jam jar! That was already broken! The glass edge had sliced me royally open on the forearm, and I was drooling blood.

“What on earth!” I roared.

“You’re the police ain’t you,” the old woman said. “We don’t like police. Police should get away from here.”

“If I was the police, what on earth are you doing assaulting an officer?” I cried. “If I was the police, I could get you arrested!”

“You can’t do nothing because you’re only a girl,” the old woman said. She paused. “You’re not the police?”

My arm was drooling hot red stuff. I grabbed my hankie and mopped it up, then pressed the cloth into the dent in my skin. Cleaning up the blood gave me time to think up a decent lie.

“I’m here with a charity,” I said. “I think these are unsafe living conditions.” This was all perfectly true. “I’m here to investigate the building and interview some of the residents.”

“Well we hate charity even more than the police!” This woman seemed very happy to speak for the entire building. “Git! Git. We don’t need charity. Look at this gorgeous hotel. It’s spankers. Get out of my hallway.”

I was done. If this woman was going to eye me for the rest of my snooping and continue to hurl jam jars at me, then it was time to go. I glanced down at the jam jar in dismay, and only then did I realize that some of my blood had dripped into the carpet.

“Git!”

“All right!” I snapped.

The old woman watched me all the way out of the building. She followed me down the stairs and stood in the doorway. When I finally reached an alley, out of sight, I groaned and teleported.

I sat down on a bench in a public park and wrapped up the wound so it wouldn’t get all over my clothes. Then I put my head in my hands and had a full on panic attack.

I told myself it wasn’t enough. There was no way the blood could be used to trace me. Raster hadn’t seen that bloodstain. Only the old woman had. The old woman wasn’t a magic unusual, which I knew because her eyes weren’t right. The blood had mingled with the purple of the carpet, it was barely visible. Most importantly, I didn’t even look like Melinda Maudie Merkle. I looked like some random lady with a lot more nose. 

“It would be worse to go back,” I told myself. “It would be worse to go back. I would be putting myself in much greater danger by showing up there again, especially when Raster is about to find his vials missing. The blood on the carpet means nothing. They’ll never connect it to me.”

At least, diary, that is what I told myself.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 6

This Way to Find the Bodies

October 19th, 1921 continued

Well, diary, I returned to the haunted house, with my tail slunk low between my legs. I was miserable. I had Ariana’s magic jelly, so hurray for that. I had the three vials of blood raster had been using to trace Noble James and so good on that, too. I had also, however, left a large dollop of my own blood in the carpet of the hallway, in a building that probably hadn’t been cleaned since March. If raster somehow realized it was my blood… he’d be able to trace us all the way here. I’m sure there were plenty of other murder objects from this house that Raster and locate and use, if he supernaturally discovered our location.

“I think I might have to be a fugitive forever,” I muttered.

Dizzy and ill with worry, I wandered into the front parlor. Scotland was on the stairs, smoking a pipe.

“Maude?” she said. She removed the pipe from between her teeth. “You look spooked. What happened?” Suddenly she noticed the blood on my forearm. She sprang up. I heard her mutter, “Why is everyone always bleeding?”

She stepped up to me and untied my hankie, squinting at the gash underneath.

I told her briefly what had happened. I explained about Raster’s ability to find people if he had their blood.

“It’s… fine, right?” I said. “It’s all fine? Isn’t it fine? I don’t have to do anything? It doesn’t matter about the blood because….”

“Maude, you’re not thinking straight,” Scotland said. “You’re procrastinating out of terror. Don’t do that. Take action. Or rather, send someone else. I think you should stay put and not show your face there again, but I would send a few people at once. They should clean up Wrath’s prison cell, and they should clean your blood up off the floor. We don’t want to be traceable. This is worth quite a bit of effort. We need to hide and stay safe while we recuperate and come up with a plan, and we should be paranoid in our attempt to keep this haunted house a secret.”

“You’re right, of course,” I murmured.

What kind of a leader was I? I was doing it again. I have a fear of taking action, of living in the real world and getting up and doing things. I was letting my fear of action get in the way again.

“What should I do?” I murmured to Scotland. I was a long way away from being trustworthy or even sensible. There was a scared child ruling my brain sometimes. That scared me.

“Sit down,” Scotland said. “I’ll explain how to get into Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy’s cells. I’ll send someone your way in a moment, tell them where your blood is and how to get there to clean it, all right?”

I nodded. I went and sat down on a couch feeling like an old sock.

I journaled for a bit. The cleaning came and went. Some of our best and sneakiest zapped their way into the Night Enthusiast prison with express instructions from Scotland and Rupert, cleaned up the blood, and got out. Another went straight to get my blood. She did one better than cleaning it, she simply removed the entire patch of carpet with a knife. I asked her if that wasn’t a little extreme and she just snorted.

So… the blood should be all cleaned up. The vials are locked up in a strong box. Ariana’s jelly is back on a shelf with the rest of it. I just wish… I didn’t feel so uneasy.  Everything should be in perfect shape now. We’re hidden as never before. I am going to go fetch Noble and Octavia right after dinner. I just wish I didn’t feel like the world was ending.

October 20th, 1921

Well diary, things continue to get more interesting. After a good meal and a strong cup of coffee, I went up to the attic to draw an eye symbol that would take me to the Whisaklit world.

I spent a good bit of time staring at it. I drew it on the floor, and then I stood above it, ready to step onto it, and my skin prickled. It was like I could hear an eerie choir, lulling me into an unknowable world. Once again I wondered where the words DEATH TO ALL MICE had even come from, and why only I could see the writing on the wall. If not for that writing, the Whiskalits never would have come to us. I summoned them accidentally in the NE cave by chanting death to all mice three times. In theory, I could summon them again, but for what purpose I can’t imagine. Is it possible to defeat beings like that? At least I got wrath away from them.

I realized I was doing it again. Thinking instead of living. I didn’t understand what the Whiskalit’s connection to me was, but for now, I had to find Noble. Noble and I had to find Octavia, who was probably scared to death. Now that it was safe to bring them back to our hiding space, I wanted to bring them home at once.

I stepped onto the eye symbol, and I was transported into the Whiskalit world.

Once again I was in awe of the strange feeling that filled me, that I was galaxies and millennias away from all human life. I breathed in the sharp metallic scent of the cave, and it felt strangely good. It was good to be away from people for a little bit, from their mess and their blood gathering, and from that nagging feeling that I wasn’t good enough to belong in their midst. Isolation is a double edged sword, because on one hand it can make you go mad, and on the other, it’s so soothing.

Since I knew the Whiskalit world a little from my past adventures there, I’d taken myself straight to the street where I’d last left Noble James. The candles in the crooked houses were honey colored, not green, so the Whiskalits were not nearby. I was so overcome with relief I sat down on the front step of a house and put my elbows on my knees.

It was so quiet. I loved the quiet. I tilted my eyes up to the ceiling of the cave, and I felt the chill of the damp cave air get into my mouth, fog against my taste buds with the tang of copper. I sniffed. Then I rubbed my arms and felt very small. If Noble James was nearby, then all was well. Nightmares whisked through my mind, of his having been taken prisoner, savagely murdered. I wanted to believe that I would walk through the front door of this cottage and Noble and Octavia would be sitting right there having a cup of tea. Things don’t work that way though.

I began to make my way around. I opened doors, stuck my head in, and hissed, “Hello! Noble! Octavia!”

I suppose I could have shouted but I was just so skittish. The world was so quiet, and the ceiling was so high, I felt like a bug.

Door by door, I made my way through the district. Each time I opened a door, I hoped for some sign of human existence, a knapsack perhaps or a tilted chair. Each cottage was in perfect shape, like a house in a museum.

After I’d walked about half an hour and my feet were starting to hurt, I heard a window slam open behind me. I whirled, visions of ghouls dancing through my head. It wasn’t ghouls. It was Noble.

He stuck his head out the window, his eyes bright, his face transformed by a gigantic grin. Noble James was thrilled to see me. Not just any old human, either. I could tell he was thrilled to see me. My heart perked up. I wanted to cry. I found my stomach fluttering again, and that made me feel queer. I liked him too. I liked them both at once, him and Ariana. I felt like an alien with two heads.

I dashed up to the front door of the cottage he was hiding in. I flung it open and shut it behind me. Noble clattered down the stairs like I’d just come home in time for the Christmas turkey.

“Maude!” he exclaimed, and flung his arms around me.

The feel of his skin, the pressure of his arms, was comforting. He was such a good soul. I suddenly remembered that I could be just fine, because there would be people like him in the world. I hugged him back, ferociously. I’m not sure when we’d phased from tipping our caps and calling each other “Ma’am” (you know what I mean!) to being on hugging terms, but it felt completely right. I think perhaps our greatest adventure of all was being human together in this alien world.

“Have you found Octavia yet?” I said. I stepped out of the hug.

“Octavia?” Noble said. He stared at me in confusion. “You mean Ariana, don’t you?”

I shook my head. I suddenly had to sit down. So I sat on the floor. Noble sat with me. “No, I mean Octavia.”

I explained to Noble everything that had happened. He was like a hermit. Not a single newspaper made its way up to this mountain retreat.

“Ariana changed her face to look like Octavia’s. She knocked her out and stole her dress. She came back with us pretending to be Octavia and Octavia is here. Without any murder object or any magic jelly or anything like that. She’s stranded, and I expect she’s scared to death. And. Ariana betrayed us. They have the secret basement. For now, at least.”

Noble slammed his fist into the table. “I can’t stand her! I can’t! Maude, it was an ill day when that woman crossed your path. I wish you’d give her up for life.”

That statement stirred my stomach. I found myself wondering why I gave her so much grace when I shouldn’t. What hold did she have on me? Did I think she was the only woman in the world who could fall in love with me? As though there was a shortage of adoration in the world and I had to take what I could get?

“Have you seen any sign of Octavia?” I asked.

“She hasn’t had any food,” Noble murmured. He looked at me, miserable. “Well, she won’t have gone far, Maude. Octavia is smart enough to stay put. I’ve been looking in the further caverns during the day for Ariana, because I was expecting someone on the run. Octavia has to be nearby. She’ll be easy to find, I’m sure.”

“Should we go look for her now?” I said.

“Yes!” Noble said. “Immediately. Here, let me grab my hat.”

Noble put on his truly bewitching Newsboy cap, and we were off. I felt like we were dashing out of our apartment to take a stroll to the park, when in reality we were leaving a  giant termite cottage that didn’t belong to us, about to stroll through an empty village.

We began to call for Octavia is low voices, and Noble opened all the doors on the left side of the street and I opened all the doors on the right.

“I take it,” Noble said, “that you have something new to tell me? Besides just Octavia, I mean.” He frowned down at my pockets. “I also happened to notice that you didn’t bring me any food.”

“I got your blood back from raster,” I said.

“You’re joking! Already? Good God, Maude.”

“Yes,” I said. “It was a bit like magic, wasn’t it? It’s a long story, but we’re safe from his spells now, and we’re hiding in a house in the 1800s. A haunted house. I’ve come to get you and Octiava and bring you both back.”

“And then we’ll be right as rain?” Noble said.

“Well, we’ll be right as rain apart from the Night Enthusiasts still invading the secret basement of the pawn shop, and apart from the ghosts.”

“Pesky ghosts,” Noble said. He still seemed chipper as all get out, and thrilled to see me. “This is wonderful news, Maude. As soon as we locate Octavia, we can go home.”

“Yes,” I said.

Noble paused. “You sound uneasy.”

“I am a little.”

“Why?”

“I feel nervous bringing you back. I feel nervous going back. I have this creepy crawly feeling that Raster is up to something else, that there’s a puzzle piece I’m missing. That no matter what we try he’s still going to be able to track us to the haunted house. And then what? We’ve been pushed out of our home, out of our own time. Where do we go next? Here? The Whiskalits will eat us for breakfast.”

Noble snorted.

“I can’t help feeling that is isn’t over,” I whispered.

“It’s over, Maude,” Noble said.

“It doesn’t feel over,” I murmured.

“It should be.”

We walked faster, as if to make up for the fact that our hearts were slowing down, contemplating. I checked another doorway and then joined Noble again in the middle of the road.

“And then what?” I said. “What are we going to do next, Noble James?”

Noble sighed. Then he looked at me, smiling with the corner of his mouth. “I know what will happen, Maude. And it won’t happen because anyone was feeling malicious or cowardly. It will just happen. We will stay in your haunted house forever. The Night Enthusiasts will take over 1921. Mr. McGillciuddy will collect more doors, we will fill the haunted house with them, and we will hide.”

“We wouldn’t,” I said. “There’s so much to do in our world. We have so much to do, still.”

Noble shook his head. “People are good, Maude, but they’re passive. Deeply, deeply passive. We do nothing when we should do. And I know Mr. McGillicuddy. He hides and watches life go past. He’d rather paint wooden figurines. If he stays our leader, then we’ll do as he does, and we’ll stay somewhere safe. Do you remember how he wouldn’t even let you into the secret basement when you first became a magic unusual because he was afraid you would lead the Night Enthusiasts to us?”

“I did, eventually,” I said.

“Yes,” Noble said, “But he’s been like that for years. His modus operandi is to cower, to keep us tucked away, safe. He’s never stepped in front of the group, not once, and said, here’s a problem no one’s ever done something about. We have magic. Let’s do something about it.”

“And you wish he had?” I said.

“I saw so much good when I was pretending to be a Night Enthusiast,” Noble said. “Not that they are good, and neither are their intentions, but their organization is breathtaking. They want. They want passionately and they take calculated steps to get there. I wish we could be so organized for the good of humanity, instead of for evil.”

“So do I,” I said.

“But doing that will take more than hopes,” Noble said. “Because of the Night Enthusiast it will also take toppling an empire, and empire with much stronger magic. I don’t know if we can get there.”

“How much stronger is their magic?” I said. “I mean really. I know they mutilate their souls to get more power, but can it really be that much?”

Noble gave me a look. “So much stronger, Maude. They can do incredible things.”

“And we can’t defeat them just because they have more magic? Because they’re better at spells than we are? That doesn’t mean we couldn’t win! We would just have to…. Strategize better.”

Noble smiled. “And how do we defeat them? Ultimately? What do we do?”

“I… put them all in prison.”

“All 237?”

“My God, there are that many?”

“Yes.”

“Ooh. Well, yes, we’ll get a bigger prison.”

“Are you prepared to kill them, Maude?”

I paused. “No, Noble, of course not.”

“They’re prepared to kill us,” Noble said. “I’m not sure how you can fight against that. I can’t think of any long-term solution that lets us win, because we will always been less ruthless than them. Perhaps Mr. McGillicuddy’s plan was right after all. Perhaps a simple life. Perhaps hiding. They’re the only ways to remain alive in the face of something like that.”

“Why is it so hard to belong to good and win?” I said.

“This has been the trauma and the problem of the human race since the beginning of time,” Noble said. “Goodness is gradual, evil is sudden, and so it often wins because people lack patience.”

I took a deep breath. “Truer words were never spoken.” I took a break from Noble, and I tried another doorway. “Octavia!”

I didn’t hear any response from Octavia, but I did suddenly notice a small wooden sign on the ground near my feet. A hand was carved into the sign, and a knobby old finger pointed straight left.

This Way, the sign said, To Find the Bodies.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 7

The Whiskalit Committee

October 20th, 1921 continued

Diary, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I think I must have bleated like a sheep, because Noble was by my side in an instant. He grabbed my arm.

“Meheheh!” I said, and pointed.

Noble read the sign, too. The wooden finger seemed snide in my opinion. It pointed straight into a black tunnel that we’d never explored before.

This Way, the sign said, To Find the Bodies.

“Ugh!” I said. Noble was right there, so I whirled around and hid my face in his chest. It was nice. Then I forgot about how nice Noble James’ chest felt and I just panicked again. It was horrible. It was disgusting. It was Halloween embodied.

“What does that mean?” I squeaked. “Bodies? What bodies?”

I suddenly turned around, as far away from Noble’s tweed blazer and I could get, and I dry heaved. I’d thought I was going to vomit. I’d suddenly pictured Octavia lying dead on a huge mound of bodies, and I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I hated the Whiskalits. I hated them.  They were wrong from start to finish.

Noble knelt and inspected the sign. “Find the bodies,” he muttered. He pressed his hand against his nose and mouth. “I don’t think this sign was here, yesterday, Maude. I walked through here I think.”

“I thought only the Whiskalits lived in this world,” I said. “Just the twelve Whiskalits.”

“That’s what Wrath told us,” Noble said. “He didn’t say anything about people who were dead.”

“I hate this.”

“Maude, I think….” Noble glanced towards the dark tunnel, took a step forward, then stopped. “I think we need to look at whatever it is. I think we need to know.”

My heart tremored. He was right, of course. If this was some sort of graveyard, and if Octavia had been killed, then this would be the place to look for her.

“All right,” I said. “I agree, I want to find out what this is.”

Something about it was ringing a bell, but I didn’t want to think about this too hard because of how ominous everything felt. Noble and I hurried across the silent cave to the dark tunnel opening. I wished we had a lantern, but we didn’t, so we just stepped inside. The floor was flat and polished, not rocky or jagged. As we ventured further, I began to see a pale green glow on the other side of the tunnel. So whenever we go to where we were going, there would be a source of light. We would be able to see the bodies, whatever that ended up meaning.

The tunnel’s air was thin and metallic, and the damp was so intense I felt like we were walking through a fog. The smell seemed to land on my tongue and taste of licorice.

I reached the end of the tunnel first and stepped through. The space beyond was dim, lit only with green light. The circular chamber was built of black stone, with many rows of obsidian benches looking down onto a central stage. It wasn’t a large room. It could have fit maybe 50 people.

At very first glance, the room was fine, if a bit ominous. On second glance, as my eyes adjusted to the room, I saw that we were ruined.

Oh, what were we thinking. Green light. The color of the Whiskalits. I should have known not to venture this way. The sign must have been a trap, honey for flies. They’d lured us straight to them.

Twenty figures in hoods and cloaked and plague masks sat silently on the benches. They were so black they nearly blended into the stone, but I could just make them out, staring at us. None of them moved. They just stared.

“Noble,” I whispered.

At the sound of my voice, the eyes of the plague masks lit up, bright green. The eye holes were small and round, and their eyes lit up the dark space like fireflies.

We were done for. They were here. I’d never seen their eyes glow green before, so obviously we were doomed.

I waited for them to speak, to strike, but a full minute passed. They didn’t move, not even a hair. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What are you waiting for?” I snapped.

Just then, one of the plague mask creatures stood up and whisked off its mask. It threw its cloak to the side and exclaimed cheerfully. “Oh, Maude! Noble! I thought it might be you! It’s so hard to see in these blasted masks!”

It was Octavia! She bounded down the steps towards us, grinning, and not looking at all like someone who hadn’t eaten or slept in two days. She seemed jolly.

I stared at the other Whiskalits and stammered. Why had Octavia been wearing one of their cloaks? Why was she acting so cheerful in front of them?

I must have looked like I thought the Whiskalits would swallow me whole, because Octavia snatched my hand and said, “Oh, Maude, calm down. They’re not real. I was scared to death the first time I walked down here, too, but they’re not real. They’re animatronic, isn’t it wonderful? Those are lightbulbs. Green lightbulbs. In their eyes.”

“They’re not actually Whiskalits?” Noble breathed. Judging by his tone of voice, he’d been just as scared as I was.

“No,” Octavia said. “They’re totally fake. Can’t see or hear a thing. Little puppets, really.”

“Octavia!” I cried. Now that I knew we weren’t about to be blasted to smithereens, I hugged her. “I’m so thrilled to see you! I was starting to think that you were dead!”

“You must have been scared to death,” Noble said. ‘I’m so sorry, I was looking for you in all the wrong places.”

“No, no, I’m not scared,” Octavia said. “I’m so sorry, you must have been worried sick. No I’ve been hiding in here. It’s nice. I like it. Of course I couldn’t get back but I knew someone would turn up soon, and this was so close to where I woke up, after that Ariana fiend bumped me on the head, I figured this was a good spot to stay put.”

“You stay here?” I said.

“Yes.”

“But what about eating?” I said. “And staying warm, and… why didn’t you just hide in one of the houses?”

“Oh, I’m getting to that,” Octavia said. “I’ve been eating plenty! It’s such a secure hiding spot, because all I had to do was displace one of the silly clockwork bodies and hide it under a bed out there, and now I hide under the cloak with the mask on. It’s very warm under the cloak. And the eyes light up when anyone speaks or makes a noise, so even if I’m sound asleep sitting up, I wake up and know to be on my guard.”

“But you have food?”

“Yes,” Octavia said. “It’s really nice, actually, there’s a magic gourd over there that lays a full table of food for you if you shake it. I assume the Whiskalits have feasts in here sometimes. It seems to be some sort of assembly hall.”

“But you haven’t seen the Whiskalits?” Noble said. “They haven’t shown up yet?”

“Oh, no, I have seen the Whiskalits,” Octavia said. “They come here every day.”

“They come here?”

“Yes, that’s the main reason I hide here. I’ve been listening to all their meetings. They come through that blue door over there, so Noble, you wouldn’t see the lights go out in your district. They stay for about two hours and gripe about things, but I think I understand a lot more about them and what they’re trying to do.”

“Octavia,” I said. “I could kiss you.”

“Please do,” Octavia said. “I’m so sorry you were both frightened. I’m in perfect shape. Are either of you hungry? The gourd is right over there.”

“Can… we steal the gourd?” Noble said.

Octavia giggled. “Well, I’d hate for them to realize I’ve been here. They’re completely oblivious of me pretending to be one of their yes men.”

“Yes men?”

“The cloaked clockwork.” Octavia gestured.

“So these must be the bodies,” Noble said. He walked up to hooded figure and poked it. It rattled backwards a few inches. He pressed his hand to his forehead and heaved a sigh of relief. “I won’t lie, that sign had me scared to death. I was expecting a graveyard. The bodies are just wheels and gears and masks. Props.”

“Uh,” I said. I wondered who on earth had put that sign there, directing us to Octavia and to these wind-up Whiskalits.

“What’s the point of these, Octavia?” Noble said.

Octavia turned to face the collection of staring masks. “Or so I say,” she said, in an obvious impersonation of a Whiskalit. At the sound of the phrase, “Or so I say,” the animatronic monsters jiggled, bubbled, and twitched, and rasped in unison.

“And so say all of us!”

“Unbelievable,” Noble said. He stared at the masks in fascination. “Artificial approval.”

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Octavia said. She picked up her cloak. “I suppose, now that you’re here and I can actually leave this place, it’s time to replace the clockwork fellow I supplanted and bid this cloak farewell.” She patted the cloak, almost affectionately.

“We have no reason to stay,” Noble said. “Maude defeated Raster, so I can head home with both of you.”

“Oh good!” Octavia cried. She threw her hand over her heart. “I’m so glad we don’t have to leave anyone here! It will be like leaving this place once and for all, forever, and ever, and forgetting that it exists.”

“I suppose you’re not about to hit on an incredible secret, Octavia?” Noble said. “No reason to stay for one more Whiskalit meeting?”

“No, I know loads,” Octavia said. “And I’m done being brave, I want to go home.”

“Let’s go,” I said. I wished I had Octavia’s same sense of… closure. She could leave this cave and never think of it again, but I felt oddly bound to these Death to All Mice creatures, as if I had the power to defeat them somehow. I also wanted to know why signs popped up unbidden, or whether the Whiskalits would be content to leave Wrath alone forever.

One thing was certain, however, it was time to go now, get settled in the haunted house, and let our only remaining problem be the Night Enthusiasts and some ghosts who wanted to get stuck back into their bodies. I wondered with maudlin curiosity if these animatronic bodies would do.

“Shall we all go get the clockwork fellow from under the bed?” Octavia said.

“Well you’ll have to come because we don’t know where it is,” Noble said. ‘But don’t you think someone should stay here with the cloak on in case they come back?”

“Ooh,” Octavia said. ‘Yes, they might appear to have a meeting, and they do notice if their approval isn’t as robust as it should be. Noble or Maude, would either of you be willing to stay behind with the cloak on? Just until we get the body back. I hate to think of them dashing out in pursuit of us. Or knowing that I know what I know. I have visions of them coming for me in the night.” She shivered.

“I’ll sit in the cloak,” I said. ‘I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” Octavia said. “It can get a bit dark and broody under there.”

“I’m more than willing,” I said. I was suddenly thrilled with Octavia for being this chipper and bold and relentless, all in the face of what she admitted was awful. Her bravado and cheer wasn’t fake either, which is honestly worse in my opinion. I hate to see someone faking joy, but she had a kind of glee in doing difficult things. She reminded me a bit of a golden retriever, rolling over for a belly rub after it just defeated a bear to save your life.

“Octavia?” I said. I’d suddenly thought of something. “When I was here last, the Whiskalits found me hiding under a table because they could smell me. In any times that they came here, did they look at you? Sniff around?”

“Well, the cloak is steeped in mothballs,” Octavia said. “Apparently that’s all you need to be scent-less to them. Plus I’m at the far back, and they always burn incense.”

Octavia didn’t seem phased by the fact that she could have easily been sniffed out and gobbled. I loved her for that, too. I decided I needed to hang out with Octavia more often. It would be nice to surround myself with someone even more fiercely optimistic than I am.

“So they won’t smell me if I hide up there?” I said.

“Not a bit of it.”

“All right!” I said. I grabbed the cloak and the mask. “Hurry back all right?”

“We should be able to go home in ten minutes!” Octavia said. “I’m so looking forward to having a but of soup! Come on, Noble!”

It suddenly hit me, like a punch to the stomach. Octavia didn’t know. She’d been sitting here for days, being brave, eating magic food brought to her by a gourd, sleeping in a black cloak and listening to Whiskalits, now on top of everything she had to hear that the secret basement was gone.

“Octavia,” I said. “Oh my word. I should have told you at once. It’s common knowledge to us now, we’re all used to it, but…”

Octavia’s face fell for the first time. “What?”

“The Night Enthusiasts have the secret basement. We’re hiding in a house, inside a murder object, and we’re safe, but the secret basement has been taken over. We just rescued Wrath and Mr. McGillicuddy from prison. When Ariana took your place, she didn’t just do it to escape being our prisoner anymore.  She did it to take information to the Night Enthusiasts and become their new leader.”

“Oh, Maude,” Octavia said. I thought she was disappointed in me, until she rushed up to me and gave me a hug. “Have anyone given you a proper cuddle since that happened? You must be devastated. You loved her and you trusted her and you hoped for her and then she betrayed you. What an ache.”

“Oh,” I said. My stomach went all wobbly and tears sprang into my eyes.

I stepped out of the hug because I was feeling rather bashful. “Thank you. Um. Noble, do you want to explain the rest to her on the way?”

“I don’t know that there’s much more to explain as long as I can still make soup,” Octavia said. “I can make soup, yes? If I can’t make soup I’m going to beat my fists and wail.”

“You can make soup!” I said.

“All good then!”

Octavia and Noble scurried out of the council chamber, leaving me alone in the dim blackness. I felt a shiver. Now that they were gone, I was suddenly completely convinced all over again that the clockwork Whiskalits were going to move.

I quickly put the cloak on and placed the mask over my face. I pulled up the hood and sat down where Octavia had been seated before. Then I waited. There was something soothing about waiting in perfect stillness. My best defense was to pretend I didn’t exist, and I felt invisible. All the same, every time a noise clicked nearby, I almost jumped out of my skin. If the Whiskalits showed up, I didn’t know what I would do. Hopefully not swoon. Good thing women don’t wear corsets anymore. At least, this woman doesn’t. I prefer breathing!

After a time, the green light in the eyehole of my mask went out. Then I was really in the dark, instead of just staring at green tinged plaster. I waited. A few more minutes went by. I knew Octavia and Noble would be back soon. I shut my eyes and tried to think about other things.

Suddenly, the green light turned back on. Someone had made a noise then, altering the automated approval that it was time to wake up and be attentive. I nearly sprang up and ripped the mask off my face, but instead, a gut sense held me perfectly still. Good thing too, because instead of the voices I loved, Octavia and Noble, I heard the rasping voices of the Whiskalits.

Oh no.

“I hate holding late meetings,” one of them said. “I was all ready to settle in with my cup of golden tea.”

“You know that this meeting is important, nine.”

“I just don’t see why we had to hold it now.”

“Because she summoned us to meet now, and we must obey when someone wants destruction. Or so say I.”

My flesh creeped as all the puppets whined, “And so say all of us.”

“Ah, here she comes now, brethren. Be on your best behavior.”

I heard a noise like a gun going off, and then a woman’s voice said, “Thank you for meeting me. I promise I’m going to make it worth your while.”

I knew that voice. It was Ariana.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 8

The Devil Makes a Deal

October 20th, 1921 continued

Oh, gosh, diary, I nearly choked on my own salvia. It’s a good thing I didn’t, because then I would have started hacking and wheezing, and clockwork statues with plague masks on aren’t supposed to do that. I managed to stay perfectly still, despite the fact that I was reeling.

Ariana was here. Ariana had used her magic jelly to come back to the Whiskalit cave and strike a deal with them. I hadn’t gotten all her magic jelly back. Of course I hadn’t. She must have moved a tiny bit to another jar. Damn! And now she was brazenly returning to the Whiskalit world. They were treating her courteously, expecting to create some kind of plan together.

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe how evil she was. This wasn’t the girl I knew. This wasn’t.

Maude, darling, my head said to me. You don’t know her. You’ve only known her for a few weeks. You’ve been lonely all your life. You were a quiet child with only parents for company and now they are dead, and you thought Ariana was one in a million, when in reality she was a rotten apple in an orchard full of better ones.

Not that I was really walking through the orchard of life taking bites out of all my friends, of course, but Ariana was not my last chance at love and friendship. Still, in spite of all of this, I had such a hard time just letting go and saying, “Damn you.” I wanted her to end up all right.

I realized I was in such hysterics I wasn’t listening to what they were saying. That would never do. I was here, and Ariana didn’t know it. I felt ruthless. Delicious. I was spying on her darkest plan. I was in the worst place in the world for her, and the best place in the world for me. I held my breath and listened. It was a bit hard to make out their words through the heavy plaster of the mask, especially because the Whiskalits had such a funny way of talking.

“So human,” one of the Whiskalits said. “You said you have a proposition for us.”

“You were quite bold,” said another Whiskalit. ‘Entering our world unbidden. You know we do not allow humans here, not unless we invite them.’

“As I said,” Ariana said. ‘I intend to make it worth your while. Please excuse me barging in last time, and thank you for agreeing to meet with me now.”

“I am not as convinced as my brethren,” said another Whiskalit. “Why did you enter our world like some kind of thief in the night? Is it good manners to show up at the dinner table instead of knocking on the front door? Why did you not summon us?

“I tried to summon you,” Ariana said. “I said Death to All Mice three times in a row. It didn’t work. I’m sorry.”

The Whiskalits snickered, as if Ariana was being stupid. “Did you do it in the dark?”

“Well…. No,” Ariana said. “I mean, not really. My lamp was on.”

“We only arrive in the dark.”

I shivered.

“I’ll know better next time I’m sorry,” Ariana said. “For now, thank you for letting me come to your world.”

“You are welcome,” The Whiskalit said.

“The way I see it,” Ariana said. “You want three things. You want Wrath, the half-human, to join you and become one of your members. Is that correct?”

The Whiskalits hissed and hemmed and hawed. “We did, but lately he has grown soft. He was so hesitant. And he hasn’t committed any murders. We worry that the rage in him is dying.”

“Well, if you want him,” Ariana said. “I can bring you Wrath. I have a friend who can trace him anywhere in time, or so he claimed to me a few days ago. If you want Wrath, I’ll find him for you.”

“You talk as if we could not bring Wrath here ourselves,” the Whiskalits said.

“You can’t,” Ariana said.

“What did you say?”

“You can’t,” Ariana said. “I know you can’t. I’m not trying to be rude, but it’s obvious you can’t leave this world unless you’re summoned. You can watch humans, make plans, want things, but until a human chants Death to All Mice and brings you to them, you’re doomed to hide in this cave.”

The Whiskalits hissed and jabbered. Finally, the voice of one broke through the group.

“Brethren, let us not fault her. She is correct. She has discovered our limitation.”

My heart jumped. If the world could ever forget the Whiskalits, forget the phrase Death to All Mice, they’d stay trapped here forever, unable to interfere in our world. They wouldn’t be dead, but they would be pointless.

“So,” Ariana said. “I can give you what you want. I know you want to be able to move around the human world, to do whatever it is you do. I’ll summon you, to wherever and whenever you want to go. I’ll let you play around in the human world for a bit. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“We want death to all mice,” a Whiskalit said. “Or so say I.”

“AND SO SAY ALL OF US.”

“Death to all mice,” Ariana said. “Of course.  And who are the mice? Who do you want dead?”

“Oh, we don’t care who the mice are,” the Whiskalits said.

“Yes, everyone is mice to us. All humans. Useless and dirty and squeaking and small. Pests. Making the kitchen of our life a royal hell.”

“So…” Ariana sounded taken aback. “Sorry, you’re trying to end the entire human race? You want to wipe out all of mankind?”

“Well… eventually, yes, but we enjoy…. How do I say it, brethren?”

“We are eagles, enjoying the hunt and enjoying playing with our food.”

“I see,” Ariana said. “You like the game.”

“It’s a very sophisticated game,” the Whiskalit said. “Death.”

“We like to kill one little group at a time. Here or there. We like to end the human race by category.”

“By category?”

“Oh, yes. The Inquisition? That was us. We get better and better as time goes on. Oh I see wonderful things in our future. Men with white hoods will summon us. A miserable, half insane painter will chant our name in German. We will wreck humanity, and we will watch it in awe as our power aids in the destruction of empathy.”

“That’s what you do?” Ariana said. “You just… watch people suffer?”

“Humanity is obsessed with the idea of Other,” a Whiskalit said. “It’s US versus THEM and THEY are never as human as WE are. Humans can’t kill other humans of course, not without a withering of the soul, a regret too deep to bear. But as soon as humans can trick themselves into thinking of the OTHERS as mice, feeble, pointless, not quite human mice… well, then they become easier to kill. We thrive on it. It is the foundation for our entire enterprise. Death to all Humans. No that would never do. But Death to All Mice? Humanity laps it up like poisoned milk.”

“I see,” Ariana said. “So… well, I’m confused. What can I really offer you then? What do you actually want?”

“This is how the system works, girl,” the Whiskalit said. “A human summons us. We give them power. Untold power. We help them sway the masses with their lies. We grant them luck. We grant them strength. We put our dark magic into their darkest attempts. Then, when they have reached their goal, well they die… and then they become one of us.”

“Become… one of you?” Ariana said.

“Oh yes,” a Whiskalit said. “A family feud was my specialty. Hundreds were dead by the time our two households ended it. Generations of mutilation and death, all to get revenge on the man I hated. It was glorious. Then I died in old age, just as the feud died, and I’d done so well in my destruction, I became a Whiskalit to never let the hatred die.”

“So… you never wanted Wrath,” Ariana said. “Not off the bat. You wanted him to do something horrible first, with your power. You wanted to use him to destroy part of the human race.”

“We thought he would be so good,” The Whiskalits said. “He wanted to slaughter all the Night Enthusiasts, but in ghastly ways that would breed more and more pain and suffering, cycles that wouldn’t stop for generations. I worry now that he isn’t going to slaughter all the Night Enthusiasts, at least not with our help. So we are willing to help you do the opposite. Would you like the slaughter the ones who belong to the pawn shop? We can do that. We can give you the power to murder them all. It will be ghastly. It will be through. They are the only ones who could possibly stop you. The magic unusuals, all around the world, they don’t care what you do in your little city. And if you find they do care, well, then you could just kill them, too. You could ensure that the only magical beings in the world were all Night Enthusiasts. Magic could become synonymous with dark magic. You could rule the world.”

Ariana paused so long, I wanted to rip the mask off my face and stare at her. How could she possibly respond to that?”

“Does it have to be slaughter?” she finally said. “Can you help me do other things? Can your magic be used for atrocities that don’t involve death?”

“It is Death to All Mice, human.”

“What about….” Ariana paused again. “What about a partial death?”

“A partial death?”

“Yes,” Ariana said. “I’ve got a proposition for you, but first you have to tell me whether or not you can. Are you only limited to death, or can you do anything?”

“Once summoned,” a Whiskalit said, “we can do anything. Whether we choose to do anything or not is our business. I tell you, we like death.”

“I am going to go home and think,” Ariana said. “When I’ve settled on a proposition, I’ll summon you again. Properly this time, in the dark. I’ll tell you my plan, and I promise you’ll like it.”

“So be it,” the Whiskalits said.

I waited in chilled silence as scuffling sounds filled the room. I kept imagining that they were coming closer to me, like giant ants, snuffling and searching, but eventually, the noises began to quiet. The green light in my eyes went out. Even then I didn’t want to move. I could picture the Whiskalits sitting in total silence, their masks on, just waiting. Like dead things resting in a tomb. Finally, however, I heard Octavia hiss,

“Maude! Are you still in there? It’s all right, they’ve gone!”

I whipped the mask off. I gulped for breath, only then fully realizing how stuffy it had been in there. I flung the cloak aside and shuddered.

“Did you just get back?” I said.

“No,” Octavia said. “We heard them. We’ve been waiting in the tunnel. But it’s all right, they’re gone now. Good thing you were waiting here, Maude, or they would have noticed the missing man!” Then she said lightly, “Did they talk about anything interesting?”

I gulped. “Here. Let’s get the body back up and then get out of here.”

“Maude?” Octavia said.

I got out of the way and Noble propped the clockwork body up. It was an ugly thing, made of moldy burlap and metal joints. I whisked the cloak around it while Octavia tied on the mask.

“Maude, you did hear something didn’t you,” she said.

“Noble?” I said. “You still have a murder object in your pocket, right? Of course you do. Let’s leave,” I said. “Now.”

“Maude, I’m sorry,” Noble said, “I’ve still got some things in a house. I don’t want to leave any trace of us, if I can. Can we grab those things and then get out of here?”

“Yes,” I said. I wrung my hands. “Let’s go.”

Shaking, I hurried back down the tunnel. Noble and Octavia followed me only a minute later. I think they’d stopped to check that the fake Whiskalit was fully in place. I paced outside one of the cottage I’d found Noble in, wild with what I’d just overheard. A moment later, Noble and Octavia rushed out of the tunnel, looking nearly as spooked as I was.

“Come on Maude, you have to tell us,” Noble said.

I nodded. I whisked into the cottage, so Noble could at least start grabbing his things while we spoke. I opened the cupboard and started checking for artifacts of Noble James, while Octavia watched me nervously and Noble rapidly shoved things into his pockets.

“I overheard Ariana,” I said. “That’s what I’m so paralyzed about. Ariana visited them. She wants to work with them. She said…” I stood staring, unable to continue.

“She said what, Maude?” Noble and Octavia sneaked under the table with me, like we were ready to steal a Thanksgiving feast.

“She was talking with them about murdering every magic unusual who wasn’t a Night Enthusiast,” I said. “At least in our city.”

“She wouldn’t,” Octavia breathed.

Noble ran his hand over his face. “Wouldn’t she?”

“It’s genocide,” I said. “There are very few people on this planet capable of that, let alone Ariana.”

“You don’t think she would,” Noble said.

“I don’t see how she could,” I said.

“You’re right, Maude, let’s go home,” Noble said. “And then I think we’d better find and capture Ariana at once.”

“Ooh, but we’re not going to murder her,” Octavia said. “How are we going to prevent her?”

“We could keep her in a lighted room for the rest of her life,” I said. “The Whiskalits can’t arrive in the light.”

With that, ashen and sour and sick with fear, we used the murder object to teleport out of the Whiskalit world, and from there, we used an eye symbol to go straight to the haunted house.

It was a funny thing when we arrived. We were sick to death with fear, on the cusp of a horrible urgency. We had to get Ariana, and fast, before she had the chance to work with the Whiskalits. When we arrived in the haunted house, however, everyone dropped what they were doing, screamed, and then burst into happy tears. Noble James had been dead, you see. Pretending to be dead to hide properly from the Night Enthusiasts. None of that seemed to matter now, since we were a household of people in the same sort of trouble. I hadn’t even realized it until we walked in the door. I wonder if Noble even had. He was resurrecting! Coming back from the dead as an incredible beacon of good news!

People rushed Noble and demanded answers. He stammered out what he could. Meanwhile, Octavia and I went in search of Scotland. We told her everything, in a rush. She pressed her lips together, furious, and then shook her head.

“This will take all of us, I think. Maude, draw a symbol that will take everyone back to 1921, best do it somewhere bizarre, like the alps or something, and then draw a return symbol. Send everyone. We all need to look for Ariana and try to bring her back. Groups of two, I think.” Then she studied me very carefully. “Does that sound all right to you? It’s what I’d suggest.”

“Why are you waiting for my approval?” I said.

“Because there is no way in hell I want to be the leader and the medic at the same time.”

“Well, don’t ask me to be the leader!” I said. ‘I’m not! Why not Noble? Or Octavia?”

“No, no, Noble is the priest, the philosopher. Octavia is…”

“What am I, please?” Octavia said.

Scotland laughed. “A pinhead!”

“Rude!”

“No, you’re not darling, you’re the gardener. We need you but your head is in the clouds.”

“Mm,” Octavia said.

“Still doesn’t mean it’s me,” I said.

“I wouldn’t run from it, Maude,” Scotland said. “There are precious few good leaders in the world.”

“I don’t want to lead anyone,” I said.

“Well, Scotland said. “Maybe you should think about why. And in the meantime, act like one, because I have too much to do, and Mr. McGillicuddy still hasn’t woken up.”

Scotland dashed away, and I looked back at Noble. He looked a little lost, and he gazed at me for help escaping the throng of people thrilled he wasn’t dead.

“Everyone,” I said. I cleared my throat. “Um, please listen.”

“QUIET!” Octavia shouted.

“Thank you,” I said.

A plethora of shining faces turned to look at me. I think they expected the explanation for why Noble wasn’t dead. Instead, I tried to explain our situation as quickly as I could.

“We all have to leave at once, I’m afraid. In groups of two. We must find and capture Ariana and bring her back here. She wants to team up and gain dark power from a group of monsters called the Whiskalits. We mustn’t give her the chance. I’m not… well, I’m not sure we can defeat something like that. If she makes it to the Whiskalits, I think all will be lost.”

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 9

I Was Normal, I was Good, I was Magic


October 20th, 1921 continued.

After I finished explaining to the Ones Who Belonged to the Pawn Shop the danger we were in, how Ariana might make a deal with the Whiskalits to kill us any minute, everyone disbanded. Everyone picked a partner like this was school and we were about to embark on arithmetic practice. People dashed upstairs or teleported this way and that gathering supplies. There was almost an air of panic, but I say almost. In the end it was an air of urgency. I was impressed and delighted by how well trained, how eager everyone seemed to be. No one was panicking or wailing. No one was balking in indecision. They knew what they had to do without being told, they had an idea of how they would find her and capture her without my having to tell them.

Of course I explained to everyone how to get the Night Enthusiast cave, how to get to the Gorrsiby Hotel, and a couple of magic unusuals were covering a table with all the pictures and postcards of places we could teleport to, places the Night Enthusiasts know or frequent, places she might turn up.

In the midst of all the panic, Noble James showed up behind me and said, “Would you like to be my partner?”

I turned and looked and him. “Hell, yes. Please.”

“Gorrisby Hotel?” he said.

“No, I think Todd and Honoria already claimed that one,” I said. “Which is good because they’re more aggressive than me. No, I… I have an idea of where to go. When you’re ready we can head there, after I let everyone out in the 1920s.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Noble said.

Diary, I was crabby. I felt rainy and gray from head to foot. I don’t mind rain, of course, it’s refreshing, but the days of endless gray are what I can’t stand. I felt like that now, like if I didn’t get a bit of sun I was going to scream and throw things. And not literal sun, of course—the sunlight of something good happening. The sunlight of things being friendly and fine and just right. It had been weeks. Everything was wrong. How could I take a break from disaster when disaster was all I found?

In another few minutes, the magic unusuals were ready to go. I drew the symbol of the eye so it would take everyone to an abandoned castle in Ireland where I’d gone exploring one day. I stepped through the eye first, and there I was in the fog and the early morning mist, in 1921. I drew a return symbol, one that could only be used by Pawn Shop Magic Unusuals, not Night Enthusiasts, one that would take the user back to the haunted house. Of course, I had to make it so Ariana could be brought through as well, so I left it open her just her. I told myself there was no way she would find the symbol all the way out here.

Group by group, magic unusuals popped into the ruined castle, looked around, and then teleported. Now that they were back in 1921, they could teleport to wherever they pleased. As I watched them vanish, not unlike a flock of colored birds taking off for the sky, I prayed one of them would find Ariana, and drag her sorry little caboose back to the haunted house.

Of course there are dozens of ways to bring a magic unusual somewhere, from putting them into a murder object (no) to chloroforming them (hm) to creating a barrier in the room they’re in to prevent them from teleporting, to shooting them in the head. The nonviolent methods, of course, are more complicated, but at the very least, everyone can start by staring Ariana down until she can’t teleport. You have probably noticed diary, and I do forget to mention it, that the Ones who belong to the pawn shop have set up a spell so they can teleport in front of each other. I mean, it’s damned inconvenient to make an entire room shut its eyes so you can get around. Ariana, however, had no such luxury, because she was not one of us. We could stare her down and never blink while we found a way to bind her next to us. To be honest, I didn’t know how I was going to bind her. I hoped Noble had an idea. I started to worry someone was just going to kill her with an axe or something. I probably should have told them not to murder her. I didn’t think any of our crew was that violent, but all the same.

Noble ambled up to me, while the magic unusuals continued to teleport in search of Ariana, quite literally teleporting for their lives.

“Shall we go?” Noble said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where are we headed?”

I felt lost, wistful. “There was this beach, in Iceland, where we went once. Ariana said it was one of her favorite places. If she has to go somewhere to decide whether or not she’s going to become a Whiskalit, I think she’d go there.”

“I haven’t been there,” Noble said. “So I can’t teleport.”

“It’s all right, I’ll use a symbol,” I said. “Although, I’m running out of jelly.”

“It’s all right,” Noble said. He handed me his vial. “Take mine.”

Noble and I walked down the hill, to somewhere where the other magic unusuals wouldn’t get this symbol confused with the return one. My fingers felt heavy as I drew it. I felt so old, and useless, and like I couldn’t do anything right.

Well, stop feeling like you can’t do anything right, Maude, and start doing something right. I told myself. This is your diary, after all. This story is all about you. You get to do whatever you want to do with it. Stop being paralyzed by the fear that someone else isn’t going to like it and just go…. Live it. Make stupid decisions. Be a mess, please. But please just go have fun.

And then, because I was in a lecturing mood, I added to myself, “And please stop procrastinating on the things you know you should be doing. I’m tired of you crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when you haven’t put in the work. From now on you are going to attack life. You are not just going to wait and see, hoping that your minimal effort will see you through. You are going to cross off every item, leave no stone unturned, do everything in your power. You are going to leave as little to chance as humanly possible, because you are going to be brave enough to believe that you can succeed.”

Was all of this just self-sabotaging? My inability to work the best possible outcome? I suddenly found myself excited about a new chance. Maybe this time I would finally get it right. Maybe this time I would finally be not just all right but radiant.

I thought I’d had enough chances in these blasted last few weeks to uncover the extent of Melinda Maudie Merkle, meet the woman I really was, but I saw now I could go much, much further, and it seemed to me that life was pushing me there whether I wanted it or not.

Well, it took a lot less time to feel all that than it did to write it all down, diary. Noble and I both touched the symbol of the eye, and we were transported to Iceland, to the very beach where Ariana and I used to go.

It was gray again. Beautifully gray. The old familiar feeling came over me, the desire to just become a rock and live the rest of my life not responsible for anything. I didn’t feel that as much today. In fact, I kept staring towards the waves, wishing I had a boat and I could ride them, get out into them, experience them.

I really wanted to live today. I wanted to experience things. It was a funny thought to have when we were maybe all about to die, but maybe it was death that made everything seem sharper and more important.

“Shall we walk?” Noble asked. He offered me his arm.

“Let’s,” I said. “She isn’t here yet. But I think it’s worth waiting an hour or two.”

We strolled along. The day was beautiful, heaving. I found myself growing melancholy and wistful and perhaps a bit sorry for myself.

“She loved it here,” I said.

Noble nodded. We walked along the pebbled shore, and I felt him glance at me, over and over again. I wondered what he was gearing up to ask me.

“What’s the draw, Maude?” Noble said. “If you don’t mind my asking?”

“No, it’s all right,” I said. I pressed my hands against my nose and mouth. I was not ready to tell Noble this. For one thing, I was ashamed of having fallen for someone so bad for me, like it showed an ugly stupid flaw in my character, like I was drawn to misery and shame instead of kindness and wholeness. For another thing, I… I mean how do you tell someone something like that? That I, a woman, was infatuated with another woman? I didn’t even have the language to describe what I was. More than anything, I could picture the sneer of dismay that would cross his face if he found out. “I don’t really know, Noble. I care about her too much. I think that she has to be for me, that she’s my salvation or I’m hers. I’m not really certain.”

“Let’s sit,” Noble said.

We sat down on a chalky white rock. I kept feeling like something was going to happen. The wind was colder than I thought it’d be, and my teeth were chattering. Noble put his arm around me.

“Is that all right?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I felt very small next to him, and I liked it. He was warm. I’d never been held by anyone before, which is a dreary thing to confess I suppose, but I could suddenly see what all the fuss was about.

“Maude,” Noble said. “I just wanted to say… well, I think you feel like you’re all alone in the world sometimes. Do you? I mean, sometimes I feel like you do and I just want you to know, it isn’t true. You’re not alone at all.”

“Oh?” I said.

I tilted my face up and looked into his. We were suddenly very close. He was suddenly much warmer. I felt like we’d locked into each other with a snap.

“No,” Noble whispered, “You’re not alone.”

And just like that, diary, he leaned in to kiss me.

I wanted to kiss him, don’t get me wrong, but I suddenly squeaked and drew away. Noble started. I started. Then we both awkwardly whisked to opposite sides of the rock. I put my hand over my mouth, my heart irritated that I hadn’t been kissed, my mind terrified of what he didn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” Noble said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to…”

“No, it’s all right,” I said. “I don’t mind, I just can’t kiss you. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Noble said.

I scooted to the center of the rock. Noble gingerly scooted back towards me, too.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Maude,” Noble said. He folded his hands and stared down at them for a moment, his forearms resting on his knees. “I need to know, and please just be honest with me. Is it because I’m black?”

“Noble,” I said. “Oh my God Noble never. I’ve…. Well, fine, all right. I’ve been dippy about you ever since I first saw you.”

Noble’s eyes perked up. “You have?”

“Yes!” I said. I pressed my hands into my face in embarrassment. “I thought you were the cat’s meow from the very first second.”

“Oh,” Noble said. “Well, if you… like me too, and you… then… um.. why can’t you? Kiss me I mean? Sorry.”

“No, it’s that…” I suddenly wanted to tell him. It was better than a kiss, to tell him this, to trust him enough. “Noble, I’m in a such a complicated place. I don’t like you any less, but I’ve realized in the last few days that I like someone else. At the same time. I like both of you.”

“Oh…” Noble said. “Um, who is he? Is it... Rupert?”

“God bless Rupert,” I said. “No it isn’t.”

“Good,” Noble said. “Because I have something important to tell you about Rupert, Maude. And Matthew John, for that matter. It isn’t Matthew John, is it?”

“No,” I said. “It’s Ariana.”

“Oh,” Noble said. “Oh. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, Maude. Darling.”

“Darling?”

“Sorry, I just…” Noble gave me a hug. Then he cupped the sides of my face and gazed into my eyes. “You know… you know you’re normal, right?”

I burst into tears. I hadn’t expected to burst into tears, diary, but I think I had been waiting to hear that since I was a little girl. That I wasn’t twisted and wrong, that I was quite acceptable just like this.

“I am?” I blubbered

“Oh, Maude, yes!” Noble said. “It’s very normal amongst magic unusuals. Not out in there in the rest of the world, is it, but you know we don’t play by the rest of the world’s rules. You and I never have. Maude.” He took my hand in both of his. “It’s a very good thing. You have an insight into the world that other people don’t. A special gift, an ability to see the beauty in everyone. You are connected to the whole world in a unique way. Don’t you think? Anyway, it’s very normal. It’s called being bisexual, and you’re not the only one in the Pawn Shop who is.”

“I’m not?” I said. I wasn’t? Dear God! “Who else is?”

“Well, Scotland for one,” Noble said.

“Scotland?” I gasped “Really?”

“Yes,” Noble said.

I suddenly felt about ten feet tall. A woman as wonderful as Scotland was the same way I was. I was normal I was good I was magic I was home I was whole and I could stay this way. I didn’t have to iron it out of myself with burn marks. I could court a girl magic unusual. Then I could turn around and court Noble. No one would bat an eyelash. They knew what I was. They understood what I was. They didn’t mind.

“I feel about a thousand years lighter,” I said.

“I’m sorry I went in for a kiss when you were dealing with all of this,” Noble said. “I understand perfectly now.”

“It’s really not that I would have minded the kiss,” I said.

“I sort of feel like we have kissed,” Noble said.

“So do I,” I said.

“Well,” Noble said. He stood up and smiled at me. “I think we should keep walking and looking for Ariana. But we can keep talking. We can talk as much as you like.”

He held down his hand and I took it. He pulled me up. “I have been quite vulnerable enough for one day, thank you. We can talk about it again in a week.”

“All right,” Noble said. “And Maude?”

“Hm?”

“I am proud of you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I said. “Now I’ve got the shivers all over again.” I sprang ahead of him back onto the pebbles. I hugged my arms around my chest and felt accosted by the beauty of everything: the cold tang of the salty air, the blur of blue and gray all around me. I felt like every color was shouting at me. My heart whirled.

Noble and I wandered and waited for several hours. We built a fire on the beach and wondered if Ariana would show up.

“How long do you think we should wait?” Noble said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Not much longer.”

I rubbed my arms and stared out into the distance. I wondered what was happening thousands of miles away, in our city, right now. I wondered if Ariana had already gone to the Whiskalit world.

“I think we should go,” I said.

“You sure?” Noble said.

“Yes,” I said. “I know this sounds arrogant but I might also try the park bench where we were first introduced. If anything is holding her back from slaughtering us all, it’s her feelings for me.”

Noble nodded. “Let’s go.”

“It’s the park with the statue of Abraham Lincoln,” I said. “The one by the sandwich stand.”

“I know it,” Noble said. “See you there in a few seconds.”

We both teleported. I arrived right at the bench where Ariana and I had first met. I saw Noble appear a few yards ahead. Ariana wasn’t there. I sat down on the bench, heavy, then suddenly sprang to my feet.

There it was again. The sign. The wooden sign from the Whiskalit world, but here it was in 1921, in the human world, pointing left. This way, the sign said, to find the bodies.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 10

The Other Noble

October 20th, 1921 continued

I jumped up from the bench in absolute terror. I rushed up to the sign and looked at it again. It pointed left. It said, This Way to Find the Bodies.

I shuddered all over again. Was Ariana somehow setting these up? I’d followed one sign only to find her half an hour later. I’d come here looking for her and found another sign.

No, that didn’t make any sense. Ariana wouldn’t do something like this, it was too vague for her. Honestly, it was very… it felt circus-y and strange. Like I was dealing with an insane old witch from a storybook, or a tiny elf who cackled and disappeared. What was this? Who was leaving this? The bodies. The bodies? This sign was so peculiar. Now that we were in the human world, I was a little less afraid of touching it, and I reached out and picked it up. It was a real wooden sign. It smelled like pecans. The wood was dappled, like it had been carved the old-fashioned way, and it was stained with a dark reddish brown polish.

It was quite… real. Tangible. It wasn’t hazy. It didn’t stink of magic. I felt like someone had dragged it out of their cellar. I finally stood up, still holding the sign, and that was when Noble reached me.

“What is…” He stopped in his tracks. “No.”

“It was just leaning against this tree,” I said.

“Pointing left?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

Once again I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to find the bodies, but Noble was right. Step one, investigate the sign, had been performed admirably by me. Step two, find the bodies or see what on earth this blasted sign was referring to, was now in motion.

Noble scurried left as fast as he could. I sort of wanted to drop the sign the way I might drop a disembodied hand, but I also didn’t want to let go of it. What if it could turn into a clue later on? Besides, I realized, it was also very clunky and I didn’t hate the idea of having a weapon in hand. So I clutched the grubby little thing and hurried after Noble.

We walked to the end of the park. It was starting to get dark. Twilight gray hung in the air. The shops along the street were shutting down for the night, locking their doors or shutting their awnings.

I thought about the sign. This way to find the bodies.

“Do you think we’re about to run into a huge collection of clockwork Whiskalits?” I said.

Noble shook his head and stood at the edge of the street, indecisive. “Maude, I think I’ve been an ass. I don’t think the clockwork Whiskalits were the bodies. This sign led us to them, but what if we missed the point? What if there was something else in that room, and we missed it? What if the bodies are something else?”

“And they’re also here in 1921, you mean?” I said.

“Precisely,” Noble said. “Here, let me see that sign for a second.”

I handed the sign to Noble, and when I did, I yelped. My hands were covered in a blue glow, like someone had painted me with glow in the dark paint.

“Oh, my God,” I said. I stared at the glow. “What is it?”

Noble pressed the sign to his nose and sniffed. “Is it blood? It can’t be magic unusual blood, the sign itself isn’t glowing. If it was painted in magic unusual blood, the whole thing would glow.”

“See if it comes off on your hands,” I said.

Noble checked his left hand. Nothing. He rubbed the top of the sign. His finger came off clean. “Maybe it takes a minute,” he said doubtfully, and we walked left across the street. I didn’t see any bodies anywhere nearby. We stopped as soon as we hit an alley.

Noble checked his hands again. “Still nothing!”

I stared down at my hands, at the blue and the shimmer. “It looks like blood,” I said. “I think I’ve only had magic unusual blood on my hands once, and as a matter of fact, I believe it was your blood. From under the bridge. But it’s got such a color, such a glow. I mean look at it. Look at the way you can still see the wrinkles in my hand, the veins. But it’s like gazing into the moon. I’ve never seen anything other than magic unusual blood that’s like this. Besides, doesn’t it smell like blood?” I sniffed. It was metallic, sour.

“The sign just smells like wood,” Noble said.

‘Not the sign, my hands.” Noble smelled then, then wrinkled his nose. “But how can it be blood? If it shows up on your hands but not on mine?”

“I wish I knew.”

“What if it’s…” Noble picked up my hand and held it. He stared at it like it was something from the bottom of the sea. “What if it’s some kind of omen? The sign is trying to tell you that you have the blood of magic unusuals on your hands, or that you will?”

“What a horrible thought,” I said.

“Not necessarily,” Noble said. “Not if these signs keep showing up to help you prevent it. Maybe it’s a warning. Find the bodies.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s not a warning. It’s a horrible trick. It’s like a train car. It’s a wooden mockery. Noble, what if everyone is about to die? What if this is somehow their blood and it’s all on my hands?”

Noble stared at me.

“I’m not dreaming this, am I?” I whispered.

Just then, we heard a crack. Both of us turned towards the sound, and Renfield the Night Enthusiasts stood there, in his pinstriped suit and a lime green tie.

“Ha!” He cried. He stared at me, eyes gleeful. “It does work!”

Noble and I stared at Renfield. I wondered if we should try to teleport, or stay where we were. After all, if we could tease Ariana’s whereabouts out of Renfield, it would be more than worth it.

I stared at Renfield and he stared at me. He was holding a funny kind of gun. It was copper, and full of bobbles and tubes and it whistled like a tea kettle at one end. Do you know what it reminded me of, diary? It reminded me of the huge machine the Night Enthusiasts had, the one with the bright green tank of water. They’d made me drink that green liquid, to get transported to the bottom of the sea, so I could kill part of my soul. I hadn’t, of course, but the gun reminded me of that contraption. As a matter of fact, there was a green tank of water on one end of the gun. Small, but there.

“Renfield,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I wouldn’t get cheeky if I were you,” Renfield said.

“Why not?”

“Melinda Maude Merkle,” Renfield said. “Raster has some of your blood.”

Blood. He had my blood. I hadn’t done enough. That afternoon when I spilled my blood next to Raster’s door. I’d left my blood outside the door of the man who could track me anywhere! What stupidity! My stomach crashed into the cobblestones. All this talk of glowing blood made me realize what I should have realized before. Some of the blood must have splashed. Some of the blood must have failed to get cleaned up. And then, in the dark, it wasn’t just the blood of some random charity woman. It was magic unusual blood. It glowed in the dark. No matter whose it was, at that point it was worth tracking.

Diary, sometimes my own stupidity impresses me. I’m so bad I’m a marvel. Then again, I’ve only been a magic unusual since September.

“It’s Maudie Merkle,” I said.

“What?”

“You said Maude,” I said. “It’s Maudie.”

I enjoyed seeing Renfield splutter. Sometimes it’s nice to be pedantic in the face of evil.

“What’s that you’ve got there, Renfield?” Noble said.

“This?” Renfield said. He gestured with the gun. “It’s a protection device. It means you can’t cast any spells on me while I’m holding it.”

“Really?” Noble said.

“You don’t believe me?” Renfield said. “Here, take a look.” He thrust the gun towards Noble. Noble was cautious and swerved as Renfield passed the gun, but the muzzle was pointed away from him. Noble took the gun and narrowed his eyes at it. “Impressive.”

“Adora,” Renfield whispered, with a dark gleam in his eyes.

In response to the muttered spell, the gun swerved in Nobles hands, spinning out of his grip. The gun pointed straight at Noble’s chest as it fell, and it fired. Magic had released the trigger.

A heavy green bullet, glowing like the tank of liquid, imbedded in Noble’s chest. It didn’t go in far. I could tell it had stayed near the surface of his skin because it glowed on the outside of his chest, through his shirt, like a demon grub that had burrowed into his skin.

“What did you…” Noble murmured. He staggered back. He touched his chest. Then just like that, his expression changed. I knew that expression.

“Noble,” I said. “Are you all right?”

Noble looked at me, cold. “Never better.”

The green light faded in his chest. There was no blood around the wound. Whatever that bullet had been, it wasn’t anything ordinary.

“All right, then, Noble James?” Renfield said.

“Like I said,” Noble said. “Never better. It is a relief, isn’t it?”

“Why do you think we do it?” Renfield said.

I took two steps back. It would be my turn next for the gun. No doubt Renfield had already cast a skull spell on me, ready for my next teleport. I had to be very careful, but I didn’t want to leave yet.

I knew the expression in Noble’s eyes because I’d met it before. I’d been it before. When we’d gone to Germany to have bits of our souls removed, to pass as Night Enthusiasts. We’d killed our empathy, for lack of a better word, for twenty-four hours. We’d gone cold and hollow and careless. We’d become bleached of our humanity. I knew that look, because Noble had just become a Night Enthusiast. And something told me this time it wasn’t temporary.

“He didn’t agree to this!” I screamed at Renfield. I started crying, hot tears rolling down my face. All my emotions were a blur. I wanted to run. I wanted to tug the bullet back out of Noble’s chest. I wanted to smash Renfield’s face in. Amidst the shock and hysteria and misery, two thoughts were very clear. One. I need to get out of here. Two. Noble James is gone forever.

I tried to tell myself that there was a way to get the soul back, once it had been removed. Once chunks had been hacked off with a butcher knife. Once someone wasn’t whole anymore. But that was a fantasy. A dream I’d had to bring Ariana back to me, a way to somehow make Ariana a good person. So far I’d discovered nothing to indicate that souls ever came back. Ariana had been right when she’d told me to forget it. The souls weren’t asleep. They weren’t patiently waiting in the wings. The bits of soul were dead. No human, not even magic unusuals, has the power of resurrection.

And I’d just watched it happen to Noble.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him that he hadn’t kissed me yet, and that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to have the friend I loved so much be dead and still walking around in front of me.

“Noble,” I said.

He shook his head. “It’s done, Maude. And honestly. You know I care about you, Maude. I really do. That hasn’t changed. It’s not like I want to hurt you or harm you. My personality hasn’t changed. I just…. Oh, you know how it goes. You’ve been here. It’s better this way, it’s so much better. Honestly, you deserve to feel this too. This freedom, this absence of caring.”

“You didn’t consent to this,” I said.

“No,” Noble said. “But neither will you.”

So far, Renfield and Noble had both been letting me talk. Now Noble finally moved for the gun, which still lay on the ground. I tried to teleport, but of course Renfield was looking at me. Damn! I tried again, hoping for a blink. This time Noble was looking at me, too, pointing the gun. As if to mock me, Renfield put his hand over his eyes, signaling that he couldn’t see me. I tried to teleport a third time, with only Noble staring at me, but of course I couldn’t. Noble was now a Night Enthusiast, and I couldn’t teleport in front of a Night Enthusiast.

Cursing, I started to run just as Noble pulled the trigger. I heard the bullet behind me, whistling like a bee. I turned a corner and I still heard the bullet. It should have sailed off into the bushes and died there, but it could trace me, follow me like an insect. I didn’t stop running, I knew it would hit me within seconds, but Noble hadn’t rounded the corner yet, so I teleported.

On instinct, I went to the first place my heart thought of: McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. It was dark. Of course this wasn’t a safe place. The Night Enthusiasts owned the secret basement now. No doubt they also had guards posted here and there about the Pawn Shop. To make matters worse, I’m sure Renfield had cast a skull spell on me and knew exactly where I was. I needed to head to six or seven different locations one after the other to be sure I’d lost him.

Then again, what was the point? Raster had my blood. They could find me anywhere.

“Oh, you lovely place,” I whispered, staring up at the ceiling of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. “What am I doing to do?”

That’s when I realized it. Raster couldn’t trace me anywhere.

“Damn it.”

I was tired of blood mushrooms and caves that smelled like Whiskalits. Shaking my head, I teleported out of the pawn shop, sorry to leave its peace and its musty wooden smell and that sense that I could hide curled up forever and listen to thunderstorms.

I teleported thrice more, then finally ended inside a closed general store. I left heaps of money on the counter and took as many food items as I could fit into a bag. With the bag crunkling in my arms, I sighed and teleported one more time, to a remote forest. I drew an eye symbol that only I could use, and I stepped through it into the Whiskalit world.

My heart nearly broke when I got there. The smell, the arch of the cave ceiling the emptiness. I felt engulfed. This was, of course, the only thing to do for now. I couldn’t devise a plan if raster or Renfield or another Night Enthusiast was constantly popping up being me with a gun. And speaking of guns, I was wrecked with worry. The Night Enthusiasts had a gun that could turn someone instantly, against their will, into Night Enthusiasts.

I sat down on a front step then, diary, and I bawled into my hands. Noble was gone. Noble was a Night Enthusiast. I cried for him, I cried for me, and I cried with worry about what to do next. Someone had to warn the other magic unusuals that this gun existed. The magic unusuals had to get back to the haunted house and stay there. But if I went to warn them, all I would do was tell Raster where to go next. He could trace my blood. If I went to the haunted house it would be lost forever, because the location would be revealed. If I went to the ruined castle, to the eye symbols I’d left, to warn them on their way back, then I would send the Night Enthusiasts straight to them. The Night Enthusiasts could mow they down, one after another, sending bullets that traced them across the Irish moors. We’d lose twenty, at least. I had to warn them but how could I warn them?

I couldn’t. I was helpless. The best thing I could do was hide here in this godforsaken world and make marmalade sandwiches and hope I didn’t die. My best plan was to do nothing, because nothing was what Maude did best.

Suddenly, I spoke out loud.

“No,” I said. I snarled it. As a matter of fact. I snarled down at my groceries. I glared at them, as if they’d implied I would hide in this place and nibble and fret. I scooped the grocery bag back into my arms.  I wasn’t out of options. I was going to overturn every stone. Who did I think I was? Was I that bad at dodging, teleporting? I was a wizard at teleporting! Perhaps I could come here to eat and sleep. Every waking minute, however, I was going to teleport across 1921. I was going to leave graffiti everywhere. I was going to find every magic unusual I could. And, if I found Ariana and had a chance to strangle her, so much the better.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 11

They Only Arrive in the Dark

October 20th, 1921 continued

Diary, I was flummoxed. I was miserable. I couldn’t believe our luck. Ariana might slaughter us all with supernatural powers any minute. If she didn’t, we would be shot by a gun that turned us into instant Night Enthusiast.

“It shouldn’t be possible.” I pressed my hands against my nose and mouth. “That kind of magic shouldn’t be possible.”

It was unheard of, outrageous, limitless. My mind spun. How had they accomplished it? It was terrifying.

Since I was still in the Whiskalit world, I thought about marching back to the council chamber of the Whiskalits, seeing if I could catch Ariana again. Maybe I’d jump out in front the Whiskalits and kidnaps her before their very eyes. It had sounded, however, like for this final request, Ariana would summon the Whiskalits into our world. They would leave the cave and meet with her, somewhere in 1921.

which was where I needed to be. I had to find a way to warn my fellow magic unusuals about the gun. To keep them from being... turned into Night Enthusiasts. Like Noble. Panic rose into my throat. What if they’d gotten some of the others already? What if Octavia, or Scotland, or…

I tried not to think about it. Ugh! How was I still standing here! Because Raster could track my blood, I couldn’t go straight to the haunted house to warn them, of course. But I needed to try as many other things as I could think of.

I drew another eye symbol that would take me back to 1921. I appeared in my world a second later, fully aware that Night Enthusiasts might pop to life around me any second.

I pressed my fingers to my lips and wondered what to do next. I could go back to Raster’s room, at the Gorrisby Hotel. Fight him tooth and nail for that vial of my blood. Raster would be a fool if he was still in the same place, after I’d gone there once and stolen his magic. But I was tired of hoping things turned out all right while I winced with my eyes shut. I teleported straight to the Gorrisby Hotel, right into Raster’s room to see if I could steal my blood back after all.

It was empty, of course. Cleaned out. On the wall, someone, probably Raster, had drawn a man sticking his tongue out. Really? There was no need to be that cheeky.

From there, I wasn’t sure where to go next. I popped from one location to the next so quickly I made my head spin. I hoped Raster was keeping track of my locations on a sheet of paper and that I’d just made him run out of room.

I went from place to place, of course, to see if I could spot a magic unusual. I went to all the places we’d discussed going to find Ariana. The Night Enthusiast cave. The Pawn Shop. All sorts of restaurants and tea rooms, all shut down for the night, of course, but not shut off to magic unusuals. I didn’t run into anyone. Well, I did run into a small man with a curled mustache. He was sitting outside one of the shops, having a cup of coffee. An owner perhaps. When he saw me wander into view, his eyes goggled.

“Aren’t you a murderer?” he gasped.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” was all I said. I stepped into the alley and vanished. Melinda the witch had struck again. Maybe one of these days I’d get around to clearing my name. Maybe I would become a Night Enthusiast against my will and continue my murder spree and make it a reality. Melinda Maudie Merkle, murdering someone! Can you imagine! But it was one gunshot away. One trip, one mistake, one poor decision. It could happen tonight. Tonight I might lose part of my humanity and never get it back.

In some of the places I teleported to, I left scribbled notes. Sometimes on sheets of paper that I stuck to the wall, sometimes on the walls themselves. In huge letters I wrote, with pencil from my pocket, THE NIGHT ENTHUSIASTS HAVE A GUN THAT CAN REMOVE YOUR SOUL IMMEDIATELY. GET OUT. I signed them all Merkle.

The notes were necessary, of course, and hopefully some of them would work, but I had to admit, staring at them, they were quite ominous. The pale penciled letters were skeletal and ghostly. I was getting rather good at this ominous clue leaving business. Maybe someday I would rival whoever was leaving those damned wooden signs about the bodies.

I went everywhere I could think of in 1921, diary. I never stared for more than a few minutes. Perhaps Raster had seen what I was up to and didn’t care to follow me at the moment, because no Night Enthusiasts came after me.

Finally, I decided to just sit down and think. I shoved my fingers into my hair and moaned a little, and I thought through what to do next. I was obsessed with doing, suddenly. I could hardly stop. I ran through all the possible dangers.

Noble was now a Night Enthusiast. No doubt, he would have told the Night Enthusiasts about the haunted house. Noble, however, had only been to the house briefly, and he’d only seen the inside. He didn’t know what year, what country, what city. They would still have a very hard time finding us on his insight alone.

The Night Enthusiasts now knew where our return symbol was, of course. Noble had been to the ruined castle. If he had any sense, he would take Renfield and the gun to that spot. That way, when the Mus arrived to head back to the haunted house, they could be shot.

Of course, there was only one gun. That limited the number of people who could be shot, especially if they were quick. And, Noble and Renfield couldn’t use the return symbol. Night Enthusiasts were barred from using it. They couldn’t get into the haunted house that way.

Of course, Ariana had magic jelly. I knew that now. As soon as she and Noble joined forces, he could use the magic jelly to draw an eye symbol and get back to the house because he had been there. In other words, it all came down to Ariana again. Not only did we have to find her, to keep her from making a deal with the Whiskalits, we had to find her to keep her away from Noble James.  

If all our magic unusuals were simply waiting in the haunted house right now, I would have risked going back. I would have brought Raster down on our heads, while we escaped quickly to a new location. No one was home, however. We were scattered like sheep. I couldn’t take away the only safe haven they had. I had to hope we caught Ariana, magic jelly in pocket, before anything worse happened.

I decided to go straight to the return symbol in Ireland. If Renfield had any brains, he and his gun would stand right in front of it. He’d shoot anyone who tried to get close. I teleported there in an instant, into the dark, dewy chill, and to my shock, no one was there.

I stood up on a ruined stone and looked around. I waited for a gunshot, for a flick of green light to rush towards me. Noble and Renfield weren’t hiding in the ruins. They weren’t around. I spun, my hand to my mouth. I frowned at the symbol. Why weren’t they here? Was Noble still struggling with guilt? Were they this stupid? Or did they know something I didn’t know?

I paced for another four or five minutes. No magic unusuals came to this spot. I gazed longingly at the return symbol, wishing for home and hot soup and a bubble bath. I hoped all of them were home somehow—safe from Raster, same from Renfield and that horrible gun.

There was one more place I hadn’t tried, so I decided to go there now. First, I left a note of course, pitched into the bricks beside the return symbol. THE NIGHT ENTHUSIASTS HAVE A GUN THAT CAN REMOVE YOUR SOUL. STAY HOME. And then I drew one more symbol, one that took me straight to the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.

Vaguely, I hoped to run into Noble and abduct him somehow. But the secret basement appeared to be empty. They’d knocked some furniture over and taken a lot of the beautiful things. But it seemed empty for now.

Oh, diary. What to do next? I sat down on a velvet chair and nibbled at my fingernails.

Of course! I reeled suddenly with an idea. I had to keep Ariana from making her final deal with the Whiskalits. If she did decide to use their help to kill all of the magic unusuals, then we were lost. I had to stop that deal from going through. I couldn’t find Ariana. Time was running out. What I could do, however, was summon the Whiskalits myself.

If they were talking to me, they couldn’t talk to her. I didn’t know what I would tell them to keep them in one spot with me, but it would buy time for all the magical unusuals who were out searching for her. I decided. I would summon the Whiskalits. I would talk their ears off. I would grant more time to Octavia, and Scotland, and everyone else trying to capture Ariana and take her back to the haunted house.

Because I wasn’t sure where else to go, I stepped into my old bedroom and shut the door. It was a small space, and I turned off all the blue lamps. I had to summon them in the dark, after all. They only arrived in the dark.

I filled my lungs with air and wondered if this was how I died. Finally, after all these weeks of far too much adventure, maybe this was how Melinda Maudie Merkle met her end.

I shut my eyes, so I would forget how disturbingly dark it was in this small space. I stomped my foot and chanted, “Death to All Mice! Death to all mice! Death to all mice!”

I felt a whisper in the room. My clothes ruffled. There were no sounds, no change in smell, no sense of otherness in the room. When I opened my eyes, however, there they were. All twelve of them. They stared at me with their glinting black eyes, their cloaks casting a kind of green haze in the air. They were a different kind of dark in the darkness of my room.

“You summoned us?” the one closest to me said.

“Yes,” I said. “My name is Melinda Maudie Merkle, and—”

“We know who you are,” one of the Whiskalits interrupted me. “How could we not know? You are the one who summoned us the first time, who gave us Wrath, who took him away from us. You’re the human girl we smelled in our world, the one who barely escaped.”

“Uh, yes,” I said. “That’s me. Melinda Maudie Merkle.”

Honestly, diary, I was saying anything that popped into my head to stall for time. Next I’d start reciting the Walrus and the Carpenter.

“What did you summon us for?”

“Yes, our time is very precious.”

“Surely you don’t want to make a deal with us?”

“I am so tired of human deals. You think you know what we want but your paltry minds cannot understand.”

“Let me try at least,” I said.

“Very well.”

I took a deep breath. I couldn’t stall forever. Someday I was going to have to tell them my reasoning for summoning them. I hoped that was fifty minutes from now. You wouldn’t mind, diary, would you? Listening to me make stuff up for forty minutes straight.

“I… I know that Ariana wants to make a deal with you,” I said. “But… my deal’s better. And um. You can’t do both deals at the same time. You’d have to agree to only go with mine.”

They laughed, softly, their voices like feathers ruffling. “Why should we agree to that?”

“Because my deal cancels out her deal,” I said. “My deal doesn’t make sense if you’ve already helped her kill us.” This was stupid. The Whiskalits wanted everybody dead. I could practically feel their glee at the idea of pitting us against each other. “So before you say yes to Ariana, hear my deal.”

I had no idea what deal I was about to make to them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have to, because the Whiskalits said,

“We have already made our deal with Ariana.”

My ears buzzed with the words. My mind went over them two or three times before I said, “You what?”

“We already made our deal with Ariana.”

“You…” I decided they were saying this to torture me, just to be mean, to make me panic. There was no way Ariana had made her deal with them yet. No, there was no way Ariana would make that deal at all. She wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t. Not like that. She was a rotten old apple but she wasn’t the devil. She wasn’t that cruel.

“Then…” I stammered. “You mean you made a deal with Ariana to help her kill all the magic unusuals? The ones who aren’t Night Enthusiasts?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And it’s… it’s official? It’s gone through? You really meant it?”

The Whiskalits were enjoying my misery. “Oh, yes. We struck our deal an hour ago. We gave her so much magic. Magic beyond her wildest dreams. She’s all set now, to do what she planned.”

My heart thudded. I wanted to get away, get out. I wanted to go somewhere their eyes weren’t staring at me. My mouth was dry with terror but I needed to know more about what Ariana had promised them, and what they had promised her.

“Then I suppose you’re going to kill me, right now,” I said. “Because that’s what she hired you for. To kill everybody like me.”

“We could kill you Melinda Maudie Merkle,” a Whiskalit said. “But we believe you’ll cause a lot more suffering before you are dead. We’d like to keep you alive, so you can continue with wars and fights and struggles.”

“Besides…” a Whiskalit said. “Our deal wasn’t to kill you.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, we made a strange compromise for Ariana. In the end, we think this plan will fulfill our mission just as well, if not better. Even if it does leave all the magic unusuals alive for now.”

My brain chattered along, frantic, wondering what they were talking about. They weren’t going to kill us? What had Ariana asked for then?

Suddenly, I realized it. I stared at the Whiskalits, cold. I was angry to the end of my boots.

“Get out,” I said.

“What?” the Whiskalits hissed.

“I said get out. Get out of my bedroom. Get out of my world. Take your ugly grubby stupidity out of my existence.”

The Whiskalits started to object. “You can’t—”

I growled at them so fiercely they took a step back. I picked up a bar of soap from my beside table and chucked it at them. “Get out! Get your stupid bird beaks out of here!”

Wincing and clearly offended, the Whiskalits vanished, no doubt returning to their cave. I sat down on my  bed and dug my fingers into my hair.

Ariana had known all along what she’d wanted to do. It was brilliant. I should have seen it coming, because it was something she was capable of. Murdering us all, I don’t think she would have been capable of that. Turning every magic unusual into a Night Enthusiast? It was brilliant. It was a partial death, a partial death to all mice. We the mice were going to have our souls cut in half, one by one, but keep on living. Now working for the Night Enthusiasts. Still alive, but not ourselves. Now working for power and ruin.

Ariana had gotten Whiskalit magic to make that gun. For all I knew she’d made fifty Night Enthusiasts by now, or had mixed magic into the rain. She was going to turn every magic unusual into a Night Enthusiast, and once we were turned, there would be no going back. 

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 4 Episode 12

All the Mice Are Dead


October 20th, 1921 continued

It seems inadequate to say that I was in despair. This was more than despair. Deeper, and also more complex. I hadn’t felt this desolate since I’d lost my parents. At the same time, I couldn’t despair fully, yet. It wasn’t over. Ariana hadn’t won. Most of us were still ourselves, still whole. We still belonged to the Pawn Shop. I had to get up and do something. I had to find a way to check in on everyone.

I got up, and my only course of action seemed obvious. I had to get my blood back from Raster. I had to. Only then could I make it to the haunted house to see who of our number was left.

I didn’t have a way of tracing Raster, so I did the only thing I could. I went back to the Gorrisby Hotel and pounded on the crabby old woman’s door.

Keep in mind it’s about two o clock in the morning so she was probably about to murder me. Didn’t care. She’d thrown a broken glass jar at me once, and this time I was ready.

“What is it?” she shrieked.

I pounded on the door again, then yelled. “I’ve got to know where Raster went! The man who used to live across the hall! I’ve got to know right now!”

A light turned on, I saw it flicker to life under the door. I heard her wheeze and curse and shuffle to the door. She cracked the door open.

“You,” she spat.

“I’m not a charity worker, I’m a wicked gangster,” I said. “And you’re going to listen to me. Where did Raster go? Did he say anything to you? When he moved? Where did he go?”

“You’re a gangster, are you? The old woman looked at me with new admiration. “Hmm, well let me tell you everything I know. He cleaned up quick one day and said he was going to live by the docks. That’s all I know. He said he needed fresh air and I told him he was idiotic.”

“Thanks very much,” I said.

“Always happy to help a gangster,” the old woman said with an admiring smile, and shut her door.

I teleported straight to the docks. Was Raster watching my progress? Did he know I was getting close? The docks, despite their odd smell, had a distinct advantage: not too many people lived here. It was mainly businesses and shipping warehouses. So, of course, being the middle of the night, few lights were lit. I spotted one light about fifty yards ahead, and I teleported to it. It was the second floor of a warehouse. I peeped inside, got a good look, and teleported right there—but it was only an electric lightbulb someone had left on. I went back out to the docks and spent another ten minutes looking. Finally, I spied a funny thing: a basement window, with light shining out, but the window had been covered in a black cloth. Only a sliver of light escaped.

Getting inside was as simple as getting on my knees and peeping into the room beyond. Honestly, why do Magic Unusuals not burgle EVERYTHING?

I teleported into the grubby basement. It was a boiler room that someone had turned into a living quarters. And by someone, I mean Raster, because he was sitting right there.

“How did you get here?” he gasped.

‘By looking,” I said.

‘But…” he spluttered. “You’re meant to be at Dawson’s Pub right now. You were there last.” Raster gestured helplessly at a funny contraption on the table in front of him. It looked like a telegraph machine, but one with a needle. The needle wrote in slow slow cursive one location at a time. I glanced over his list. He only had six locations written down so far.

I burst out laughing. “Oh, my God!” I cried.

“What’s so funny? Raster sneered.

“I’ve been to about one hundred locations since then!” I cried. “It’s going to take you weeks to catch up to my current progress.”

“It’s been going slower than usual!” Raster said. “It was quick at first. Renfield found you right away.” He glared at me, as if I owed it to him to be easier to find. “Have you been teleporting like a fiend? No wonder the poor machine is miserable.”

“It’s about to be more miserable,” I said.

I saw the vial of my blood sitting at the top of the telegraph machine, neatly tucked into a little crow’s nest of sorts. I knew it was my blood. I got a gut sense. I snatched the vial and teleported while raster yelped with dismay.

Then I thought of something else and teleported back. Raster was moaning and cursing. When I reappeared, he shrieked.

“You can’t just barge in here and steal things!” Raster yelled. “I wasn’t ready! I didn’t even have my gun!”

“Is this all my blood?” I said. I held up the vial.

“What?” he said.

“Is this all of it?”

“For now,” Raster snarled. “Hold still while I get some more.” He grabbed a knife.

That was enough for me. I teleported, confident now that I had all my blood back from. After all, if he’d had a second vial, he wouldn’t have been so distressed. I thrice more, just to cast off any skull spells, but Raster couldn’t track me anymore. I was feeling as light as air. I needed to get back to the haunted house, now.

I would have just drawn a symbol right then and then, but I was running out of jelly. I didn’t like to think about what would happen when I ran out. I needed the stuff. It didn’t grow on trees and I needed to preserve it. Once, I’d assumed I’d be able to pop back and forth to Mara, just by using my eye as a murder object. When my eye had disappeared, I’d lost my chance to find her again. There was also no sign of her in 1921, like she’d just vanished from history. I had to assume this was the last of my magic jelly. Once I used this up, there was no hopping from time to time with ease anymore. It would be back to the complexity and limitations of murder objects.

So naturally, my best course of action was to teleport back to the ruined castle. This time I was sure Noble or Renfield would be there with the gun. Yet when I arrived, still no one. What was Noble doing? Why weren’t they here?

I used the eye to head straight back to the haunted house, and to my dismay, when I arrived, it was completely empty.

All the lights should have been lit. There should have been a chatter of voices, a hubbub of hysteria, someone going around in a frenzy offering everyone biscuits. It was so silent.

“Hello?” I shouted. “Isn’t anyone back yet?”

It wasn’t possible, was it? Not so quickly. Noble and Ariana couldn’t have teamed so quickly. Then again, maybe they had. Maybe the Night Enthusiasts had shown up here already with their guns and started shooting. Maybe our magic unusuals were now scattered all over the world, hiding in this timeline, lost and unable to come back.

I charged up the staircase. I wanted to be optimistic. Maybe they just weren’t back yet. Maybe they were hiding in 1921, or had split up after seeing my notes. I had no reason to believe that the worst had happened. We were scattered, but we were going to be all right.

On my way up the stairs, I ran into another ghost.

It scared me to death, of course, but my nerves were already so shot it was just one more thing. I threw my hand up over my heart and then growled at the ghost.

“Maude,” the ghost said.

I shuddered. I never liked talking to the ghosts in this house, but this one was different somehow. It was hard to gender any of the ghosts but this one was smaller and had long dripping hair. The face was puffed, and the skin seemed to be melting on one side. As always, the ghost glowed turquoise. This one floated on its side near the ground, like it was struggling to stand up but lacked the strength.

“What is it?” I said.

I normally felt like I didn’t have time for these ghosts, but now it seemed prophetic that the only person I met in this house was one of them. I needed to take the time to talk to this one. Maybe the ghost had seen what happened.

“Where is everyone?” I asked the ghost. “Do you know?”

“Everyone is dead,” the ghost said. “Like me. Everyone is dead.”

I took this for a bit of ghost melodrama.

“What do you mean everyone is dead?” I said.

“The blood is on your hands,” the ghost said. “Magic unusual blood.”

I shuddered again. The ghost knew about the blood from the wooden sign, the blood that had gotten all over my hands. Noble and I had been discussing it right before he’d been shot, and I hadn’t thought about it since.

“Do you mean this is my fault?” I said. “Do you mean I’m going to murder people, what are you talking about?” 

The ghost seemed strangely familiar, in a way that made me uneasy. Their face. Of course they were dead, decaying, spectral… but something was familiar.

“You are the only one who can set things right,” the ghost said.

“Listen to me,” I said. “You watch the house. I need you to tell me what happened. Who came here? Have the Mus come back yet? Have any Night Enthusiasts arrived?”

“Find the bodies, Melinda Maudie Merkle.”

I was so frustrated I was going to scream. Well, and I was also going to scream because I was terrified. It was still a ghost.

“Don’t forget us. The house is empty now. We see that. The house is empty now. But you must not forget us Melinda Maudie Merkle. You are our last hope, and we are yours. We waited five years for you to arrive. We have waited five years in this house for you to arrive. Do not forget us. Do not leave us here, or you can never hope to save your soul.”

“Where are the others?” I pleaded with the ghost. “Tell me what happened to the others!”

With that, the ghost raised its pale, glowing finger and pointed. I turned and looked, and behind me in the dark hallway stood Mr. McGillicuddy. I whirled back on the ghost but the ghost was fading. Soon it was just Mr. McGillicuddy and I alone in the dark house.

He was dressed in a nightshirt, and his white beard made him look the ghost of father time.

“Mr. McGillicuddy!” I said. I rushed up to him and took his hand. I was so sure he was a specter. He was real, though. Warm. Human. It was really him. Something in his eyes had looked dead, though. Vacant. It haunted me. “Mr. McGillicuddy, you’re awake. We were worried you would never wake up again.”

“I didn’t wake up, Maude,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. He shook his head sadly. So he could speak. For a moment I’d been afraid that this wasn’t Mr. McGillicuddy, that it was one of the stranger cadavers, like the one I’d seen of Wrath and the one I’d seen of Dawn Mumungus. But it wasn’t a cadaver because they never spoke. This was the owner and proprietor of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. “The man I was before will never wake up again.”

I let go of his hand. The hallway seemed to whisper more, now, like something was coming out of the darkness towards me.

“Mr. McGillicuddy?”

Mr. McGillicuddy looked down at the floor, then lifted two misty eyes to me.

“I was so wrong, Maude,” Mr. McGillicuddy shook his head. “So wrong. All this time, I tried to stop them. I tried to stop the Night Enthusiasts. I thought it was so wicked, to silence the soul, to make a person love humanity less. All it does is make things easier. It makes things so much easier, Maude.” Mr. McGillicuddy’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t care about anyone. I don’t even care about myself. And since I don’t, nothing matters. And since nothing matters, this is the first time I haven’t been afraid in fifty years. I’m not afraid anymore, Maude. I’m not afraid of anything, isn’t it wonderful?”

I took a step back. “Mr. McGillicuddy, who came here? How many of you did they get?”

“How many?” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “How many, Maude? Why all of us. That was the point, wasn’t it? Everyone received a kind of supernatural message in your voice. Like a telephone call straight to their brain. You told them to come here at once, so naturally they did. Everyone congregated in the main hall, the way you’d told them to. My bed was even wheeled in, at your express instructions. Then, when every single one of us was gathered in that room, no one left behind except for you, a bomb of some kind went off. Oh, no no! Not a real bomb. Nothing to worry about. No one was harmed. We’ve never been better. But the bomb changed us. All of us, at once. We became Night Enthusiasts on the spot. It woke me up. It woke Wrath up. Wrath is now a Night Enthusiast, you know. He’s going to be a pickle, of course, but I supposed that’s how these things go. I hear we’re planning on doing the same with the other magic unusual groups in the world. Maude, don’t hide from these people anymore. It’s their greatest wish to change you into a Night Enthusiast, it always has been. I’m so sorry I told you to stay away from them, to keep your gift, your magic unusual power away from them. You shouldn’t. You should give it freely. They will hunt you to the ends of the earth, Maude. It’s only a matter of time before Scotland gives some bloody bandages of yours to Raster, I hear he has an ingenious little operation going. Don’t struggle, Maude, they’ll only find you. Just give in now.” Mr. McGillicuddy took a step towards me. “Become a Night Enthusiast.”

“Mr. McGillicuddy,” I said. I was blubbering, of course, blubbering like a small child. “I don’t know if anything can be done for you, for all of you, for you and Octavia and Noble and Scotland and even my own personal Satan Ariana. But if there’s anything that can be done I am going to do it.”

“Shh,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “Stop this nonsense. Just give in tonight, Maude. They’re hunting you now. They’re hunting you with everything in them, It’s only a matter of hours.”

Still blubbering, I teleported out of the haunted house. I went to the safest place my heart could think of, which was the cemetery where my parents were buried, but this was the late 1800s and they were still out there, alive, falling in love with each other perhaps, or at the very least falling in love with life. The thought gave me courage.

I knelt down in front of a tree. Where would I go? The Night Enthusiasts could get into the Whiskalit world now. It was still a safer place to hide, due to its size, but how long would it really be before a Whiskalit found me, or a Night Enthusiast did? It was safer, but it wasn’t safe. If only there was somewhere I could go where no one would ever, even find me, until I wanted to be found.

I tapped my finger into the last of Mara’s magic, ready to draw one more symbol.

“Please let this work,” I whispered. “My power is to break all spells with a wish. Well, if there are any spells in the fabric of the universe that would prevent me from doing this, I wish they were gone. I wish that, just this once at least, I would be able to make this work. I wish for this symbol to take me to a place where the Night Enthusiasts cannot find me, where Raster can’t track my blood. Somewhere I can hide while I figure out what to do. Somewhere where I can keep my humanity safe until I come up with a plan.”

Fingers trembling, I drew the eye symbol. I touched it, having no mental image of where it would take me. It shouldn’t have worked. It should have stayed a tiny two-dimensional drawing on the wall.

But it didn’t.

When I touched the eye symbol, I was whisked to somewhere else. I felt a thousand doors slam on my way out, in a manner of speaking. Of course I’d drawn the eye symbol so only I could use it, so when I stepped through it, it acted like a drawbridge sealing me off from the world I knew.

I landed in what looked like a perfectly ordinary human tower, in a perfectly ordinary Middle Ages. It was a beautiful tower. Roughhewn stone. A canopied bed, A roaring fireplace. Tall open windows that looked out into a turbulent moor.

The strangest thing about the tower, however, was the glow in the floor. And on the walls. Every inch of the place had been smeared in a thin layer of what looked like, well magic jelly. As if someone had used magic jelly to seal the rest of the world out. Everything glistened ever so slightly.

Suddenly, a shape by the window moved. I nearly jumped out of my skin. A woman was seated there, next to a loom. She stared at me inquisitively, and I recognized her face. It was Mara, the creator of the magic jelly, the woman who had disappeared, Wrath’s ex-fiancé.

It was Mara. I’d found Mara, alive and well and not a Night Enthusiast, hiding in a tower in the Middle Ages.

“My word,” Mara said. “You again.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed Season 4, Episode Twelve, All The Mice Are Dead, of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn shop. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is written and performed by Minerva Sweeney Wren, all rights reserved. Please subscribe, share it with your friends, and visit minervasweeneywren.com for more. The most impactful way to support McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop is to simply follow Minerva Sweeney Wren @megmccauleyink on Instagram and Twitter. Please consider giving a dollar a month at patreon.com/sweeneywren, to unlock the upcoming mystery: The Dark and Decrepit Planet of Spinn. All links are in the description of this episode.

This concludes Season 4 of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. The final season, Season 5, will air on August 22nd, 2021, the one-hundred-year anniversary of when Maude started writing in her diary.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 5

Episode 1

The Beginning of the End

October 22nd, 1921

What. On God’s Leprechaun green earth. Is happening.

Diary, I feel all aquiver. I feel it dancing from my heart to the ends of my fingers and I can hardly scribble fast enough. I am overwhelmed, in this moment.

Let me give you a little color on my surroundings. Two days have of course passed since the last time I wrote, although it feels like ages. It feels as much a stretch of time as if I’d popped suddenly from 1921 to the 1300s. (Oh, yes. I did do that.) But it feels like eons since last we spoke, like the passing of many ages of many men.

Have I started to talk like a knight of yore already? I’ve only been in the Middle Ages for two days. Zounds.

Anyway, diary, I was about to give you a picture of my surroundings, before I so rudely interrupted myself. I, Melinda Maudie Merkle, am perched in the wide, wide window of Mara’s tower room. It is getting close to sunset. The air is more silver, and there isn’t as much sun here. I can see it glowing on the trees on the horizon, but our garden below is already shrouded in shadow. The air is cool.  I see a dirt path, green hills, and a nearby forest. The village is just beyond the tuck of the hill, but until some sheep or travelers wander into view, for all we know, we are the last living creatures on earth.

Mara has been in this tower for six months. She has been missing from my world for five years, since 1916, but I supposed time is all relative if you’ve gone backwards. Maybe? I find the whole thing a bit confusing but there it is. For six months, Mara has lived in this tower. She has not left. She has food and supplies brought to her, and she houses herself on the top floor like a princess hermit.

It is almost like she began the legends. Women locked in towers. Rapunzel. She has even taken up loom work, to pay for her food, and the shimmering, exquisite fabric she produces reminds me of the lady of shallot. There she weaves by night and day, a magic web with colors gay…

The lady of shallot was trapped in a tower, of course, and of course, so are we.

Trapped. I don’t like to say it. I don’t like to think it. But I am trapped, diary. I itch. I long so much to be free and yet here I am in this small space, day after day, destined to not leave my walls because it isn’t safe out there.

We simply must not be found.

Diary, I know you’ve heard it all before, but I need to process. I need to lay the worst of my life out cleanly on your milky white pages and breathe. I need to see it all in solid, strong black. I need the little hollow places of the letters to stare up at me like a thousand eyes, and I need to make eye contact with all my woes. Let us wander then, into everything that is wrong. You are such a good listener, and it has been too long since we were friends. Let us continue again together.

Ariana made a deal with the Whiskalits, the plague mask birds. The Whiskalits wants all humans to live in terms of us versus them, so that someone else is always Other, Less than Human, and therefore easier to kill and abuse. Death to All Mice. It means, simply, that as long as we perceive someone as being a mouse, not as human as we are, we can hurt them. Death to all mice.

Well, their mantra was in Ariana’s blood a bit before this, I think, because she went straight to them and made a deal. She agreed to become a Whiskalit (even now as I write this, I can’t process that. I know it isn’t true. It can’t be true, that one day she is going to end up as one of those… birds.) but she agreed to become one of them, someday when she dies, in exchange for unparalleled power. She used that power to remove soul-pieces from every member of the Pawn Shop. Everyone is a Night Enthusiast now: cold, missing part of their humanity. Everyone is a Night Enthusiast.

Oh, think about that for a second with me and feel my pain. Octavia, with her bright eyes and silly grin. Scotland. Her power and precision and sharp wit no longer being used to heal but to harm. Rupert. Matthew John! So sweet and caring, both of them. I can’t imagine Matthew John being evil. I don’t think he even could. I just picture him hollow, void of everything that used to bring him joy, defenseless and confused because the Spark of Himself has been torn out. They are empty. All of them empty. Empty like the Night Enthusiasts, and nothing will stop them now from joining the Night Enthusiasts and carrying out all their missions.

What do the Night Enthusiasts want? Ultimately? What do they fight for? Perhaps they intend to rule the world. I do not know. When you are evil and have magic, what do you even strive for? What do you want? Wealth, pleasure, power? How quickly will it cease to mean anything?

I have magic and all I want to do is live in a quiet, gentle home and drink tea. And I know that when I am old my quiet life will have made me happy, right from the day I began it. And it is not hard to begin a quiet life. Anyone can begin. Anyone can start a good, quiet life tomorrow. Whereas the Night Enthusiasts will try and try, and at the end, when it is too late to do better, they will look down at the blood on their hands and realize they never won. They never fixed the hollow place inside. They never found what they spent their lives looking for. I pity them. The soul howl that would bring about. The aching, the screaming search for something to fix them, and they wasted every beautiful drop of their lives in search of a trick. They could have started young and been content for an entire life. They should have arranged a garden of beautiful stones instead of trying to conquer a mountain. But none of them will realize that until it is too late. It is horrible.

Be gentle, diary. Find small joys and start right now. All right I realize you’re only a leatherbound collection of creamy pages. But I so badly want you to find joy. I don’t want you to waste your time heading for mountains when a simple garden always has been, and always will be, the real answer.

Well, let us continue on this wander. All my friends are lost. Noble is lost. Wrath. Wrath is a Night Enthusiast, and he is already so far unhinged I am afraid.

I am hiding because Raster, the man who can track Magic Unusuals across time and murder objects, has some of my blood. I am sure he is trying to track me, through my blood, right now. How did he get my blood? He has Scotland now, and Scotland has plenty of bloody bandages from me. Diary, I just put my pen to my lip and nibbled for a moment. Can Scotland really change so much that she is willing to hunt me down and kill me, a few days after risking her life to help me? She is a doctor. How much of that identity can be snuffed out with a simple curse?

Still, perhaps they have no intention of killing me. Perhaps Ariana, my Satan, who we must admit is a little bit in love with me… perhaps she just wants me to become a Night Enthusiast and join her. So we can be together and live happily ever after while standing on our kingdom of disembodied heads.

I think that’s probably true. That they all think this is good for me. I remember when I lost a bit of my soul for twenty-four hours—I thought I had become enlightened. I thought it was the solution to human pain. Noble, when he was turned, urged me to join him. My friends probably think they are doing me a mercy. Scotland probably scrambled to hand my bloody bandages over to Raster, so I could be done with pain and join them in this new universe where nothing matters and therefore nothing hurts.

Well. I will keep on feeling, thank you very much. But I feel sure, whether they want to kill me or bless me, whatever their motive, everyone in trying to track me down.

That is where Mara comes in.

When Wrath was captured, and put into his train car, they came after Mara next. She escaped, and she has been hiding since. While most murder objects can eventually be broken into, Mara has created a strange world by using her magic jelly. You remember Mara’s unique magic unusual power, don’t you? It’s so silly, and I do always feel so silly for saying it. Magic jelly. But she can enchant liquids and glues and gelatinous substances to carry a strange kind of transportation power. When I draw eye symbols with her magic jelly, they take me to any place in any time. I had also found a way to block certain people from using them. Night Enthusiasts for example can’t use an eye symbol if I enchant it that when while drawing. The jelly can work like a door both ways, letting you through, but also keeping people from walking in. Well, Mara has found a way to use that same magic to protect herself. She found this tower, teleported with several gallons of paint, and she enchanted all of it. Then she painted the inside of the tower from top to bottom with enchanted the paint so that only she could see the tower. It is unfindable, even with Raster’s magic. It is a bubble of nonexistence.

And here’s where it gets funny. Mara enchanted it only a few days after I met her. Remember, I appeared in her apartment and there was a corpse and I picked up my china eye and Wrath was her fiancé but he was normal and didn’t look like a puppet AND—she gave me magic jelly and we agreed I’d come find her again if I needed help. Well, soon after, my china eye disappeared from my pocket, and no one has heard of Mara since.

It turns out within a few days of that night she came to this tower, and I was fresh on her mind. I was from her future. I knew things. So, when she enchanted the tower she made it unfindable for everyone in the world except for herself—and me.

Diary, I know you are dying to know more about the china eye and why Mara had to flee being put into a train car and what happened to her and Wrath that horrible night. I will get to it. It is fascinating and moving. For now, let’s stick with the most urgent of issues, the stories at hand.

And the story at hand is that I don’t know what to do. If I return to 1921 I will be found. Raster will see to it. The magic they have that can turn Magic Unusuals into Night Enthusiasts is swift and electric. No part of me will be able to dodge it. One wrong move and I’ll be lost.

I came here to think. To gather my wits and to hide. But I am faced with the endless gulf of my life. Where is the meaning in hiding forever? In being safe but without meaning? At the same, isn’t it foolish to march back into the regular world and get squashed by the Night Enthusiasts?

I have just checked the date, diary. We are only nine days out from Halloween.

Ooh. Halloween. Can you imagine if I finished you on Halloween? There’s something foreboding about that. Surely nothing good will happen in this whole horrible mess on the Night the Monsters walk.

You don’t have a lot of pages left, either, at least not at the proficient rate at which I scribble. Soon the story will end. And I wonder. Will it be happy? Will it mean anything at all? Will my pages suddenly go blank, forever and ever, leaving you to wonder what really happened to me? If I died or lost you in a stream?

Will my last entry be me as a Night Enthusiast, smiling and assuring you that this really was the best way after all?

How will it end? How can it possibly end well? I think it will have to end unresolved. With me waiting for a better outcome but not knowing if it will arrive. I can hardly stand the thought.

October 23rd, 1921

Diary, I know I finished that last entry rather abruptly. The fact was, I depressed myself. Then I riled myself. I snapped your pages shut and stood up.

Mara, in the corner, was working serenely at her loom. I walked over to her.

“What is it?” she said. Mara is a very quiet person. She has been clouded with grief for six months, and the knowledge I brought that Wrath escaped the train car, but is mad, was not easy. She spends much of her time sitting and feeling and working, and when I talk to her, she seems to have to pull herself out of a deep mist.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

She woke up a little bit at that. More of the Mara that I met that night—sharp and clever and quiet—met my eyes.

“You’re giving up?” she said.

“No,” I said. “This feels like giving up. For me, not for you. I need to get back out there.”

I had not found a life I got to participate in only to leave it behind. Not even the Night Enthusiasts could stop me from living.

“You can always come back,” Mara said. “If things get dangerous. You can come hide here again.”

That was true. I could return bloody and battered if my plans failed. If I made it back in time.

Ah. But then if Maude became a Night Enthusiast, I could come back with a gun.

“No,” I said. “If I leave, I have to leave for good. They might get me. I can’t be able to find you if they do.”

Mara paused. She could see the wisdom in this. She sat there, brittle. Like her bones were old and she’d forgotten how to use them. “I see,” she said.

“Do you have more magic jelly you can give me?” I asked.

Then she looked up with a smile. “Yes. I will give you three full jars. At least you will be able to travel with speed and precision.”

Then, just like that, my departure began. I’d arrived with nothing but the clothes on my back, but in a few minutes, I was packed, leaving with more than I’d come with. I was dressed in a new dress that Mara had woven and stitched. (It was still in the 1920s style—I wasn’t about to go gallivanting about in a medieval gown. Even though that would have been fun.) She also gave me a satchel, some food, socks, things I didn’t even need, but I could tell she wanted me to be safe. I packed the magic jelly in the satchel as well.

I paused, near the door. It was awkward. I’d decided so suddenly. And now it was time to go.

“Will you come with me?” I said.

Mara paused. “…No,” she said. “I think not. I think not yet. I think I need to stay in here awhile longer.”

It was her decision entirely. I knew what was right for me, and while I felt a pang, wishing on some level that Mara would escape, find a new world, explore, be more… I had to respect that she knew more about her situation than I did.  She would stay here. For now. Grief can need a cocoon. I just hoped she wouldn’t mistake the cocoon for home.

“Where are you going?” she said. “First? What will you do?”

“I’m… going to go to Brazil,” I said.

Mara sucked in a breath. “Brazil?” she murmured. Her eyes filmed over with fear.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re not going to see—” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid I am.”

Mara winced. She swallowed, shook her head. “I should not have told you about that, Maude.”

“On the contrary,” I said. “I think it’s the perfect option.”

“Wait,” she said.

I paused.

Mara walked across the room. She lifted the lid of a box on the fireplace mantle. She returned with a goose feather.

“This was enchanted by a friend of mine, before I came here,” she said.

She handed it to me.

“It’s not going to last you very long,” Mara said, “but break it open once you arrive in Brazil. You’ll be able to understand all languages, read all the writing. Don’t waste it. I don’t think it will hold out for more than an hour.”

“Thank you,” I said. I put the feather in the bag. “So much.”

“Be safe, Maude,” she said.

I nodded. “I will,” I said. But would I be safe? Wasn’t everything I was about to do the opposite of that?

I drew an eye symbol that would take me straight to Brazil in 1921. October 22nd. The exact timeline my body and brain were in. The place where my story picked back up.

I hugged Mara goodbye, twice, and right before I left, I said, “Please come out someday. Come out. Don’t stay here forever.”

She just nodded, and I didn’t know what that meant.

I touched the symbol and found myself in Brazil.

It was a beautiful city, the one I’d landed in. It reminded me a great deal of Chicago except that some of the trees were palm trees. The architecture was exquisite. Automobiles hurtled passed. I took a deep breath, then felt my stomach flipflop.

The magic jelly had taken me straight to the doorstep of where I needed to go. It was a small shop. Unassuming. Cloudy windows.

The sign over the shop door said, Corpses Reimagined.

Season 5

Episode 2

Corpses Reimagined

October 23rd, 1921 continued

Blergh. Diary, I stood outside the shop front in Brazil, the one with the sign hanging over the door that said, Corpses Reimagined. I felt oogly. I knew I needed to walk in. And I needed to hurry, because now that I was back in 1921 and not hidden in Mara’s tower, Raster could come after me any minute. But still. It is one thing to decide to leave a tower and feel the wind in your hair and think, I am free. Lookit me! I am back in the real world. But the joy of that feeling is somewhat dampened when you go straight to a place called Corpses Reimagined.

I turned the handle and stepped inside. The shop was dim and smelled of incense. I expected it to be a bit creepy and full of tiny skeletons, a bit like Mr. Muntz’s shop, but instead there were fresh flowers in a vase on the fireplace. The walls were painted dark blue. No one was in the shop, and there wasn’t a speck of furniture. It was just blue walls and flowers. I worried that maybe she’d moved out.

“Hello?” I called.

No answer. I began to shiver. If this didn’t work, I was done for. I realized that Mara had heard of this woman, and the unique magic unusual power that she possessed, back in 1916. Five years had passed. The sign was still above the shop, and that at least was encouraging, but what if she’d died years ago?

I couldn’t get back into Mara’s tower. This was my only plan for getting Raster off my back, and I didn’t know what I was going to do if it didn’t work.

I called out again and waited, but still nothing. I thought about leaving, fleeing, despairing. Then I decided to do everything in my power. I hadn’t tried breaking down the walls yet. I couldn’t leave until I’d at least tried that.

Then I realized I was being a fool. What, had two days sitting in a tower turned me into a damsel? I marched up to the fireplace and tapped the vase the flowers were in. To a magic unusual, a single object was as good as a door.

I found myself in a low, wooden carved house with many windows open to a garden. Pink and orange curtains fluttered in the wind. I looked around. It was like she had taken the scene of a murder from decades ago and put her own world inside of it, not unlike the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s. It was a comfortable living space, with books, furniture, paintings, sculptures, the fragrance of the garden, and at the back of the room, a—

AYGH! A coffin.

I looked twice. It was. It was a coffin. It was coffin right there. Corpses reimagined. Ugh yuck. Ick. Blegh.

The room was so silent, I decided to tiptoe forward. I assumed that I was on the right track, but I had not expected to feel like I was barging into a funeral. I crept as close to the coffin and I dared, and then I tilted my neck down ever so slightly so I could see.

A woman lay in the coffin. Clearly dead. There is a kind of waxy hollowness to corpses. Diary, I know I am being tongue in cheek and laughing at my fear of this coffin, but I have of course seen coffins. Two of them. My parents were put into the ground in two of them because of the Influenza outbreak. I felt a little flurry in my stomach, missing them. I stopped being scared of the woman in the coffin and instead simply thought of them. I will miss them always, but I want it to heal into a sad song, a kind wistfulness. Instead I feel this struggle, this agony of having never said goodbye. I am ready to kiss their hands and send them off on the ship they’re taking into their next adventure. I am ready to see them off, acknowledge that they are gone. But what if they died not knowing I was ready? What if they needed me to say goodbye?

Tender thoughts can spring up unbidden, but now was not the time to reflect, so I took this thought and folded it gently, tied it with a ribbon, and placed it in a scented drawer for later. Instead, I went back to being Maude on an adventure. I took a step back. Mara had explained to me what this Magic Unusual could do. Her name was Dolores, and her power might be the only thing in the world that could protect me from Raster. If this worked, it would also finally wrap up the inconvenience of everyone in 1921 thinking I had murdered loads of people. I would like to live my life not constantly being arrested and pointed at. It sounds peachy, doesn’t it? A basic human dignity.

I was wondering what to do, and why there was a coffin here, when a woman walked through the double glass doors on the left. It was the woman from the coffin.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it. I glanced down at the coffin. It was her exact same face! Identical! The same clothes!

“What?” she said. “Why are you surprised?”

She stepped into the room. This must be Dolores. I smoothed down my hair and my nerves and I stepped up to her.

“Maude Merkle,” I said. “I’m sorry for panicking. I just wasn’t expecting…”

“It’s my merchandise, isn’t it?” she said. “Same as any other store. You are here to buy something from me. Here it is displayed. I am demonstrating how remarkably accurate the corpses look.”

I glanced back and forth between them. For some reason, it was even creepier now. It made her feel dead more than it made the corpse feel alive.

She had created a corpse that looked exactly like her.

“And what are the side effects?” I said.

“I have been doing this every morning for twenty years,” she said. “There are no side effects.”

“All right,” I said. Diary, can you guess what was happening? “I’ll take an order. And. I’m going to need it quickly, if you can. How long does it take?”

“No more than five minutes,” she said. She studied me, “But are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she said.

“I’m sure,” I said.

She squinted at me. She had sharp eyebrows. “You know this isn’t easy,” she said. “And that there has to be a trade.”

I think this was the part Mara had been most nervous about. My unique magic unusual power is of course to break spells with a wish.

“I only barter for powers I have use for,” she said. “I’m not saying you get what you want. You have to be valuable to me if there’s going to be a trade. A man was here three weeks ago. He wanted a corpse but his magic unusual power was to summon goldfish out of nowhere. What am I going to do with a goldfish? Ridiculous!”

Have a pet, of course. I almost said so. But her eyebrows were thunderous. I felt cowed.  

“So I turned him down,” she said. “So don’t think you can just come in here and order. What can you give me if I do this for you?”

I quieted. This was where things got dangerous, potentially. “I can break any spell,” I said.

She blinked at me. Then she said, “You cannot.”

“I can.” I could tell why she didn’t believe me. It was almost too powerful of a skill. Too much to offer. But what could I do? I had to make this trade. This was my currency.

“Show me,” she said. “Prove it.”

Did she think she was going to weasel a free wish out of me?

“No,” I said. “Not unless you sign a document and receipt saying if the spell breaks, I’ll get my corpse.”

She shrugged. “I can agree to that.”

“What spell do you want me to break?” I said.

I wondered if we would have to travel to a new location. Would she have a spell sitting in this house that she wanted broken? Would she have to think about this for awhile, decide what she wanted? She hadn’t known until a few seconds ago what I could do. I assumed we would have to leave, sign a document, return.

Instead, she went straight over to her fireplace mantle and brought back a carved box.

“I know what I want,” she said.

“You do?”

“My grandmother’s magic unusual power is in this box,” she said. “She went to great lengths to have it removed from her body fifty years ago. She locked it up with a spell, so no one could make her use it, and so no one could ever use it again.”

I got goosebumps.

“I want her power,” Dolores said. “I want you to break the spell on this box so I can claim her power for my own.”

Oh, heavens to Betsy.

“I won’t do that unless I know what the power is,” I said. It could be horrible. Her grandmother had gone to such lengths to have it trapped for all eternity. What was I doing? Did I really have to do this? Did I really need this corpse?

Yes. Yes, I did. I had to have it. If I had any chance of surviving, of rescuing my friends, I needed a corpse from Dolores.

“It is not an evil power,” Dolores said. “It was only that people wanted to enslave her for use of it. She could summon anyone, in the flesh, pull them from time or space, if she held one of their hairs in her hand.”

Oh, Diary. What an incredible wish. I felt my breath still. To have a power like that. How incredible, to summon anyone to your side in an instant. That wish could be used for so much evil, too. Imagine if the Night Enthusiasts could have summoned me. I would have been lost a long time ago. There was no such thing as freedom if someone had a wish like that. I felt a kinship with Dolores’s dead grandmother. I have also been hunted for my power. The Night Enthusiasts want to enslave my wish. How strange that the more power you have, the more people want to control and box you in.

But Dolores grandmother sidestepped all of it! To take your only unique power and cut it out of you, then lock it in a box. It must have been a terrible burden.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Very powerful, isn’t it?”

“And what would you use it for?” I said. Dolores wasn’t an evil magic unusual. She wasn’t a Night Enthusiast. But it was so much power.

“It will simply give me power over my enemies,” she said. “I am not an evil woman.”

It wasn’t the most dangerous power in the world. I tried to weigh my choices. I either became a Night Enthusiast, or this woman got her grandmother’s power. I do think it was that simple. It was more her risk, in the end. Perhaps people would hunt her for this power, too.

When ethics are in the balance of a decision I can sometimes hem and haw for far too long. Weighing this. Thinking through that. Instead, I decided to simply go with my gut. I had a strong sense that if I broke this spell and released the dormant power, all would be well. I couldn’t explain why I felt this way. I just did. I decided to risk it.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll break the spell.”

Dolores brightened. “Wonderful,” she said.

She wrote up a business arrangement. We both signed it.

“If this works,” Dolores said. “I will create the best corpse I’ve ever created for you. I will even be in your debt.”

She handed me the box. I felt wordless, tremulous. It was a small, hand carved box. The weight was pleasant in my hands. It smelled of walnut. I knew the box wouldn’t open, but I tried to lift the lid just in case. It was locked all right, as if the seal was fake, and this was just a solid block of wood.

“I wish the spell keeping you sealed would be broken,” I said to the box.

I felt a small snick. So instantaneous. And now, no way of undoing it. I had to hope Dolores would use it well, because it was hers now.

Dolores unlocked the box, leaned over it. The smell of jasmine filled the air, and the muddy, sweet scent of a forest river. Within a moment, the smell was gone, and the box was empty.

I felt… uplifted. Like something kind and good, left from Dolores’ grandmother’s spirit had been in that box, and it had said hello.

Dolores stared down, as if she’d been expecting something more.

“Well,” she said. “We have opened the box. That is more than I’ve been able to do in a lifetime.” She smiled at me. “Thank you. My grandmother’s power is finally mine.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I was just glad the decision was over, too late to stress over. What was done was done.

“And now,” Dolores said. “Your potion. I will prepare the corpse for you.

“And this… works every time?” I murmured.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Without fail. You can trust my methods.”

I could tell she was eager for me to go, so she could test her new magic unusual power. I could also tell she wanted privacy before she did. She mixed a potion for me in the corner, crushing herbs and muttering things into the bottle. I knew that she was using her magic unusual power to do this, not a spell, so I wondered why the extra spells were necessary. Perhaps so she could transfer her power into me for a brief time.

A moment later she returned with a bottle. It was sealed with wax, and the liquid inside was still a little warm. She passed it to me, and I held the blue glass as tenderly as I would hold a rabbit, my heart thumping.

“Drink it a few moments before you want the corpse to appear,” she said. “The corpse will last for twenty-four hours and then disappear.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“You may go now,” she said.

I also took this to mean, please go.

“Before I go,” I said. “There’s something I have to ask you.” You didn’t think I’d forget to ask, diary, did you? “Have you ever worked with corpses that lasted longer than twenty-four hours? I have seen two corpses now. Very strange ones. I’m hoping you know more about what they are.”

She looked at me. “What are these corpses like?”

“Well, they walk, and…”

She laughed. “Well, then they are not corpses. Corpses don’t walk.”

“These are cadavers,” I said. “They have soft flesh and a strange smell, and they look exactly like their doppelganger. They don’t speak. And they can vanish. Teleport.”

She looked at me, disturbed. “I have been dealing with death magic for a very, very long time,” she said. “And I have never heard of anything like this. Are you sure they were doppelgangers? An extra body for someone already alive?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

“Hm,” she said. “My power splits a person’s identity into pieces, but only for twenty-four hours. A little tiny smidge of you will be lost when you drink that potion. But it will return to you once the corpse vanishes. If these cadavers have been walking around, moving, and existing for days and days? I think the personhood has been split. Parts of the human were left behind, somehow. As doppelgangers, walking and waiting. They are missing part of who they are.”

I felt chilled. So far, I had seen cadavers of both Wrath and Dawn Mumungus. And, now that I thought of it, Wrath’s cadaver had had his human face. No wood. No puppet eyeball. When had their personhood been split? Could it be fixed? Did the cadavers want something?

“Thank you so much for your help,” I said.

She nodded at the carved box. “Thank you so much for yours.”

I gripped the potion, and then I tapped the vase that sat on her living room table. A moment later, I was back in her shop. Sun streamed in. I shivered. No sign of the Night Enthusiasts. And after what I was about to do, they wouldn’t bother looking where I’d been.

I teleported straight to the alley behind McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. I pulled a scarf around my head, so my face wouldn’t be visible. I walked down the street. It was busy, today. People bustled past. Boys sold newspapers. I smelled an old familiar smell and suddenly got nostalgic. I remembered suddenly the inky sharpness of typewriter ribbons, the sore bones in my fingers. The battered, frizzy look I had every time I’d looked in a mirror. A life with no meaning. A girl so small, so timid. And I had been her such a short time ago. Wandering on her lunch breaks to McGillcuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. I had thirsted for the wild side of life. My heart throbbed. McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. It was just a shop. To everyone on this street, it was just a shop.

I drank the potion. Drained every last drop. Then I put the bottle in my pocket. I could feel it starting to work. I got the shivers.

Keeping my head down, so none of the pedestrians would recognize Merkle the Murderess, I stepped onto the front steps of the Pawn Shop. I waited. One, two, three…. Forty-seven…

Suddenly, so quickly it started me, my corpse tumbled down out of thin air. I stared down into the dead eyes of Melinda Maudie Merkle, and I felt so cold I was worried I’d never move again. My fake corpse, the one created by Dolores’ magic, lay crumped on the front steps for all to see.

I teleported. I was able to teleport, which mean that no one in the crowd had been looking at me at that exact moment. I arrived in an empty office building across the street, settled down in front of the window, and watched.

Down in the street, a man found me first. He knelt and touched my wrist. Then he stood up in alarm.

“She’s dead! It’s her! The murderess! She’s dead!”

Season 5

Episode 3

Melinda Maudie Merkle Is Dead (Sort Of)

October 23rd, 1921 continued

It was very creepy, diary. I mean honestly. I had to keep tapping myself on the arms to reassure myself I wasn’t a ghost. I sat in the upper window of an office, staring down into the street, where the seeming dead body of Melinda Maudie Merkle lay on the front steps of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop.

It was hard not to feel like this was the end, and I was floating over my body at the end of life. The more I watched, however, the more I felt grounded, and to tell you the truth, diary, I began to feel it was a little… funny!

People rushed around. The police were called. I knew it would be in all the papers. She had died of a mysterious cause. The case of the murderess was at last closed.

There was a bit of humorous drama in it, at the end of the day. I didn’t really think of that thing down there as a corpse, even though everyone else thought it was. There is a tragedy in a corpse, a true end of what was once living. I am very much alive, so I didn’t feel a sense of horror or pain at the sight of dead Maude in the street below. It almost felt like being ten again, playing with friends and pretending to faint. I was Juliet, experiencing a pretend death. No daggers in my future though, thank you. That sock puppet version of myself was disquieting, but not so much.

I put my chin in my hands and watched. For once, I felt no sense of urgency, no need to do anything. They were doing everything for me! I was accomplishing great things, just by watching my plan unfold! Honestly it was the most fascinating bit of theater I’d ever seen.

I thought about the next twenty-four hours. They would take the corpse to the morgue, probably. Perhaps do an autopsy? I didn’t know how quick they were about these things. Perhaps the fake corpse would vanish from the freezer before they were finished with it, and there would be more headlines, MERKLE THE MURDERESS—DEAD BODY STOLEN FROM MORGUE!

If that happened then the mystery of me would never end! What a frightful sensation it would be for decades. But. Whether I would end my time in the newspapers as a magic disappearing hat-trick corpse or not, no one would dispute that I was dead. The search for me would end. No one would be scanning the streets, desperate to bring me to justice. The case would be closed at last.

My death was irrefutable. I was watching at least thirty witnesses, and despite popular fiction opinion, a death is impossible to fake like this. There was no denying the reality of that corpse. I had done it. I could walk the streets again. I was no longer a murderess, because the fake murdering Maude was dead.

I now had one last thing to accomplish. This was my reason for collapsing in a corpsey swoon on the front steps of the Pawn Shop. I needed the attention of the public, but I also needed the attention of—

Someone stepped out of the Pawn Shop, no doubt to see what all the commotion was about. Oh, diary, my stomach flipped.

It was Noble.

His features looked slightly different. He looked… emptier, more tired, shallow, if that makes sense. A bit of a shell of Noble. Still. The newsboy cap. The way he held his shoulders. That handsome face. It was still him. This. This felt like looking at a dead body. Looking down at my fake corpse didn’t hurt. But this felt real. This felt disturbing, like I was looking at a dead body. I had known him. I loved him dearly. He’d wanted to kiss me and I’d been almost ready, and then he had been turned against his will.

Noble grumbled something to one of the pedestrians. They pointed down. He cleared his way to the crowd, to where Fake Maude lay dead. Noble looked down at me. He stared. 

And then—oh, diary. He staggered back.

I’d never seen him look so stricken. I felt a sharp rip that went from the top of my heart to the bottom. I ached and spilled. To understand, deep in your soul, that someone cares about you like that. Noble cared about me that much, that even under the fog and thinness of being a Night Enthusiast, it still hurt that I was dead. He looked like he’d been stabbed straight through the heart.

Night Enthusiasts aren’t supposed to care about anything. Their feelings are shallow. What a reaction then, from someone who wasn’t supposed to care.

I missed the old Noble James so much, so suddenly, I missed the real him so much, that I felt like I was bleeding.

Noble turned without a word and went back into the Pawn Shop. What would he tell them? That Maude had died on the front steps in a last attempt to defy them? Diary, I am all for defying, but I am also all for living. I folded my hands together, tight. I stared across the street and took a deep breath. Raster would stop hunting for me, now. Why track the blood of someone you know is in the ground?

As far as the entire world knew (well, apart from Mara and Dolores) Melinda Maudie Merkle was dead. I had done it.

Gradually, the scene below dissipated. Fake Maude was taken away. I sat in my window for a little while longer, leaning back and thinking.

I had focused so much on getting to this moment that I hardly knew what to do next. At last no one was tracking me. I could set about solving this terrible tragedy. The problem was, how to solve?

How do you return the souls of every magic unusual who is now a Night Enthusiast? Answer: you don’t. But if I couldn’t then I might as well despair. There had to be a way. Some way of solving this.

I decided to at least move to the next thing I did know how to do. I teleported to a theater. It was still the middle of the day, so the theater was locked up and quiet. Hushed and dusty, full of curtains and the whispers of old stories. I sat down at one of the vanities and borrowed someone’s equipment. On went a new face! I wasn’t very good at it. Matthew John had been much better. Still. I’d learned some tricks from him, and after about an hour of careful working, I had a different nose, different eye makeup, and a distracting bit of lipstick.

“Maude,” I said, looking at myself. “You minx.”

After that, I went rummaging in the wig room. I chose something at the far back that clearly wasn’t in use for the current show. Those were all downstairs with the makeup, so I wasn’t screwing over the current production. I fiddled and fitted until the wig was on nicely. I popped over into costumes to get a jacket and ruff and new shoes, an outfit that made me look older and glamorous, that also hid the dress from Mara, because of course Fake Maude had been wearing that dress too. With the coat buttoned (and October was getting very cold anyway) I looked utterly different. I left oodles of money in the costume room. Sorry, theater. God bless you and your tiny Tims.

Then I stopped by one final time in the makeup room to take a look at myself. Honestly. Who was that? I looked like a movie star. Maybe not as attractive but very fancy. I giggled.

I teleported from there to a restaurant where I sat down and ordered a meal and paid for it and ate it. I haven’t done that in months! It was pure magic, I’m telling you. At the restaurant, I sat down and wrote a lot in my diary, and that is where I am right now. Finishing up. Now I am staring at the last trail of inky words I put down, and I am wondering what to do. I wish I could read you like a book, diary. Take a peek. Well! What did I do next? How did I solve it? What did I make happen? But I am staring at you, and staring at soup, and I have no other ideas. I am free, but I don’t know where to go.

October 25th, 1921

After my soup staring and contemplation, I got up front the restaurant, diary. Isn’t it nice to know that I really did do something, because here I am, two days later, writing to you again?

Diary. I definitely did something.

Merkle the Murderess has passed into the footnotes of history. There weren’t any glaring headlines about my magic disappearing corpse, so I have passed quietly into invisibility. I can hardly believe it. I do feel clean. Like I have a fresh slate. Like I am starting over. Really, it feels triumphant in a deep, core way—because I have finally undone what the Night Enthusiasts tried to do to me. They acted as if they had total control of my life, as if they really did have the power to force me to do what they wanted. I have erased their nasty little game. I have undone its affects. It feels remarkable.

I hope Dolores is doing well with her grandmother’s wish. I have done very well with her potion.

Well, diary, back to the issues at hand. After I tucked you away in the restaurant, I ran my hand down your spine and started thinking about my china eye again. It is missing, you remember. It vanished one day from my pocket, and I have no idea why. I had hoped very much that Mara would have something to do with it. That maybe the china eye was with her, in her secret tower, that it had disappeared because she had taken the original smashed teacup out of human reach. You remember that my china eye came from a smashed teacup. It was broken under a man named John who died in Mara’s kitchen. I still don’t know why John was poisoned, but when I visited Mara back in 1916, by using my china eye as a murder object, the Night Enthusiasts were a brand-new organization. No one knew yet how dangerous they were, that they removed bits of their souls. John angered them somehow, and they killed him.

I wonder now, thinking about it, if John was the first casualty the Night Enthusiasts ever created. Was he their first murder? When I held my china eye in the palm of my hand, was I holding evidence of their first act of evil? Almost like, from the beginning, I was meant to be pitted against them. Perhaps their organization truly began, that night, with their first death. And I had the power to step into that moment.

It’s a chilling thought. All that being said, Mara did not have my china eye. Its disappearance remains a stubborn fact. I wonder what could have changed its existence? It’s almost as if—well, no. That’s too strange a thought. Too impossible to even write down.

Well, diary, the china eye had to wait. I mentally ran down my list of things to solve. China eye. No. Giving my friends the bits of their souls back? No. Too hard. I have no idea where to begin. Instead, I decided to start with the one thing I did have an idea about.

The cadavers.

Dolores had sparked some strong curiosity in me. She had mentioned the cadavers could be bits of someone’s identity that had been split off of them somehow, like the corpse she made for me. Let’s think about that for a moment, shall we? Wrath’s doppelganger was from before he was put into his train car. It has his human eyes and face.

Diary, I am brimming with theories. I don’t want to put anything down on paper just yet, but I have hope again. Hope for… a strange phenomenon. Let’s just say for now that I needed to find Wrath’s cadaver.

Just how I was going to find it, I had no idea. The thing could teleport. It could be anywhere. But I got up from the restaurant and stepped out into the night.

I stood in the foggy, dark street, feeling like a different person. I felt the peace of anonymity, the quiet of having nothing urgent to do. Of course, it is all urgent in the end. But I stood still for a moment and felt the whisper of the damp night around me, and I just stood. I stood and thought.

What has happened to me so far? What are some clues I could maybe follow into something more?

Suddenly, I clapped my hands down on top of my head. Ye Gods! Ye Gods. The signs. The little funny signs that said, This Way to Find the Bodies.

Noble and I had found one in the Whiskalit world. We’d found a second here in 1921, but I had forgotten all about it, because not long after that Noble has been shot and turned into a Night Enthusiast.

I felt certain the signs were for me, especially because whenever I touched the sign, my hands came away with dry Magic unusual blood. Glowing. Noble touched the sign with no affects. They signs are for me all right. But what is sending them, and what do they mean?

The first time we followed the sign it led us to the Whiskalit conference room and so we thought that was what it was about. Those clockwork Whiskalits, metal bodies, sitting in the dark. But the second time, it had led us through city streets. If we were meant to find something, we had never found it, because a Night Enthusiast had arrived and cut us off.

Had I missed what I was supposed to find both times? Perhaps beyond another door, perhaps if I’d waited longer, I would have found something in the Whiskalit world. Perhaps Noble and I had been one turn away from finding a body here in 1921. Perhaps the signs were leading me but I still had yet to see what they were leading me to.

I knew the cadavers could show up in the Whiskalit world. We’d found Wrath’s cadaver there. Perhaps I had been about to discover another. Perhaps the signs were referring to the cadavers.

Well, then, all I had to do was wait! Surely another cryptic sign was going to pop up and point me in the right direction? Someone somewhere was directing me. Whether for my good or evil I didn’t know, but I assumed, I would find another sign.

Drops of rain began to fall out of the sky. I tilted my face up and blinked, pleased by the cool springing of the rain. The wind chattered past, and I suddenly felt hope. I was going to do this right. I was going to find a way to do this. It was like I was curling back a corner of the future, catching a glimpse of how I was going to feel, and my stomach caught. Good things were coming. What a strange sensation to have, when everything was so bleak.

I didn’t want to head too far away, so I slipped into the downtown library for sleep. It was dark and ruffling, quiet with the fragrance of books. I took off the coat and crumpled it under my head, then lay down under a table on a rug.

For a long time, I just stared into the dark. Thinking. I felt like the books were thinking, and it was keeping me awake. There was a large clock ticking on the other side of the library, too, and the ticking was distracting. This moment was like a blank slate. As soon as I dropped any color onto it, I would change the look of it forever. How would I know what colors to choose when I didn’t even know what I was painting?

Suddenly, in the darkness, I began to see small drops of luminescence fall from the ceiling. At first I thought I was imagining it. It was like having fireflies trapped in my eyes, little glimmers of fantasy. I scooted out from under the table and blinked hard. No, it was real. It was really happening out there. It wasn’t just a trick of my vision.

It was like jellyfish glowing under the sea. It was—

It was like magic unusual blood. It had that same glow.

It was falling in steady drips from a crack in the ceiling. I got to my feet, a squall in my stomach. Magic unusual blood doesn’t glow until it’s dry. This was falling like liquid, but it did glow.

Oh, diary. I shivered. Something was leaking from the floor above this one. I had to go find out what it was.

Season 5

Episode 4

Blood in the Library

October 25th, 1921 continued

Well, there I was, diary standing in the dim quiet of the locked library, as beads of glowing liquid dripped steadily from the ceiling.

I shivered. I told myself it wasn’t blood, because magic unusual blood does not glow until after it’s dry. But still. Blood or not, this was magic. Dripping from the ceiling. Nothing else could glow like this, like a bit of night-time ocean witchcraft. It was mesmerizing, the slow drips. Like a waterfall of fireflies. I had come to this library to hide, to be unseen, and yet here magic was. Following me. My world was currently dripping from the rafters.

I took a deep, slow breath. Whatever this was, I clearly had to investigate it. I just wished I wasn’t alone. I had gotten used to having companions on my adventures. It would have been nice to have a hand to squeeze or a pair of eyes to look nervously into. But. That was why I was here. Trying. I was trying to get my friends back.

I crept across the soft darkness of the library. The floorboards seemed to creak and whisper and listen, now. Something else was here, so I felt like the whole library was watching me. I found a staircase, its steps painted clean and white, and I hung for a moment on the bottom step. I found myself wishing that my magic unusual power was to turn invisible.

I mounted the stairs. My breath began to come faster. When was I going to stop running into things I didn’t understand? It felt like every minute, I found something no one had ever heard of before. Words on the wall saying Death to All Mice. Words that only I could see. Signs that appeared out of nowhere and said, This Way to Find the Bodies.

The bodies. As I mounted the stairs, I pictured a cadaver, lying on the floor, pooled in phosphorescent blood, the weight of its gore cascading down through the floorboards.

I reached the top of the stairs, and there was a little door with a glass window. Beyond, a room full of desks and stacks of papers. The office for the library staff, then? I held my breath so as not to fog the glass, and I stepped up and peered in.

There was not a cadaver lying on the floor in a giant pool of glowing blood. What I did see, however, was even worse.

I say it wasn’t a cadaver because I instantly had a deep gut sense, an awareness, that this wasn’t one of the strange, bloated bodies. It wasn’t a doppelganger. What I was seeing on the ground in front of me, however, was Dawn Mumungus. Dead.

Diary, I think I stood in that doorway and stared for almost five minutes. I was in total shock. I wanted to run but I couldn’t really bring myself to move, either. I felt sorrow, for the end of a life. I felt confusion. I felt concern. Finally, I stepped into the room and stooped beside the body.   

Dawn Mumungus had been the leader of the Night Enthusiasts for several years. Ariana had recently claimed she’d taken her spot, that she, Ariana, was now the Night Enthusiast leader. At that time, however, Dawn had been locked up in our prison. She was not able to lead. Once all the magic unusuals were turned, however, I’m sure it was only a matter of hours before Dawn was set free. I presume she had been made the Night Enthusiast leader again, over Ariana.

And now she was lying dead on the floor. And there was a pool of blood, and it was glowing, and that shouldn’t have been right, diary. Liquid blood glowing. It broke the rules.

I finally registered the courage to touch Dawn’s wrist. I felt my gorge rise, not because I was touching her at last, but because of how the wrist felt. I said my gut sense had told me this was really her, not the doppelganger. Well, now I knew. The cadavers had cold, soft skin, flesh that sank too easily. Not human. With this corpse, I felt bone. Muscle. The tight angry little wrists of a woman who had clawed back for much of her existence. It was really her.

I set her wrist back gently. She was stiff. She had been dead for quite some time, bleeding ever since. I gripped my knees, kneeling on the floor, and wondered what had happened. The wound was in her back, because the blood hadn’t touched the front of her torso. I rolled her over gently just to be sure. A knife wound, I think, in the center of her back. I’m not Sherlock Holmes, diary. I can’t look at a phosphorescent mess of blood, a thin slash in her clothes, and say with certainty what the weapon was. But based on her garments and the amount of blood, as far as I knew, it had been a very deep knife wound. From behind. A murder then. So, who had murdered Dawn Mumungus in a library office, leaving her here as if they knew I would find her?

I don’t think anyone meant for me to find her, diary. I think it was just luck. Again. Rearing its head and saying hello to Melinda Maudie Merkle. Maybe I have a secret, second magic unusual power—accidentally turning up at the right place at the right time. I’m joking, of course. A second magic unusual power is essentially unheard of.

So who had killed Dawn Mumungus? Were things not going well in these new ranks of Night Enthusiasts? Had Dawn refused to go along with the new regime? Was this an execution? It would be like the Night Enthusiasts to have a formal execution but then leave the body behind for human plebians to clean up. What a nasty surprise this was going to be for the library staff. I thought about carting her off to spare someone the shock but ultimately decided I needed to leave her here because the blood would remain no matter what I did, creeping through the ceiling, and I wanted the police to at least see the crime scene undisturbed. Could they find the Night Enthusiast who had done this via fingerprints? It was a long shot, but maybe.

Speaking of fingerprints, I got out my handkerchief and made sure I hadn’t left any. I was very done with that part of my life, thank you.

Then I sat there and continued to stare at Dawn Mumungus, seated just on the edge of the pool of her glowing blood. She was a dark shape in the midst of the glow, almost a silhouette. What if Ariana had killed her? What if Ariana had gotten a taste for leadership, and when Dawn returned to usurp her, Ariana had decided to do away with the competition?

Leadership. Power. Did it corrupt everyone? Was there ever going to be such a thing as a good leader? Truly? We revere a lot of leaders, diary, but on the side I’m fairly convinced they’re still nasty.

I wondered if Ariana could really have stabbed someone. I also realized that she had made a deal with the Whiskalits, and at that point, what part of your soul is left for you to preserve? Why was Dawn Mumungus dead? I had no one to ask. No way to find out. I would have to wonder, for now.

I knew I had to leave the scene of the crime for now, so I decided to take a last look and notice as much as I could. Perhaps a detail would mean something to me later, the more I thought about it. Perhaps I could have some small clarity about this. I stood up and looked all around. I decided to risk turning on the light, just for a minute, so I could take it all in.

Diary, I’m sure you recognize the ominous tone in my voice. Are you worried that when I flip on the light, I am going to see someone standing in the corner of the room, watching me, the bloody knife still clutched in their fist? No. that’s not what the ominous tone of my voice is about. I have an ominous tone of voice because of…

The hat.

When I turned on the light, the body looked much as I expected it to. The crime scene was for the most part undisturbed, no toppled desk items or smeared blood. Lying just to the left, however, almost under one of the desks, was Dawn Mumungus’s hat.

It was a small, purple hat. I had seen it before, on both Dawn, and on the doppelganger cadaver, which is why I felt very sure it was her hat, and not the misplaced hat of a librarian. It wasn’t on her head, which was to be assumed after the struggle.

But diary. There were two of them. Two hats. 

The second hat lay about five feet away. I went and picked it up. My fingers trembled and I felt quite confused. It was precisely the same hat. It even had the same small stain in the corner.

Two hats. Two hats, and one body. And the body was the real Dawn Mumungus.

My stomach plunged, and I placed my hand against it. I squeezed with my fingers, as if my heart was about to fly out, if I didn’t hold it back. I fell backwards against a desk, gulping for air, and the lamp on the desk rattled from my impact. My heart was rushing in my ears, swimming about in my brain in semicircles, and I couldn’t do anything for a moment.

I had to go find Wrath.

It didn’t matter to me, for a moment, that Wrath was a Night Enthusiast now and probably bloodthirstily dangerous. It didn’t matter that I had just gone to such lengths to conceal my identity. I had to go find Hester Wrathbone and warn him. Save him. Do something.

I wasn’t sure, diary. How could I be sure when the only evidence I had was two hats. But I felt fairly certain that the doppelgangers were beginning to attack their other self.

I left the library in a quick pop of teleportation. Where I went, however, was another matter. I had no clear direction, and I couldn’t exactly show up in the Night Enthusiast cave, so I teleported to dark, luxurious, locked down gardens and began to stroll amongst the luscious creep. There were long shadows and whispering tree branches and the last of the autumn flowers bobbing in the moonlight. I paced down the path. I put my hands in my pockets and thought. I had to get to Wrath as soon as possible, but how to find him? Where would he be? Wrath the Night Enthusiast? What would he be doing?

I thought about Wrath, what I knew of him, and then I got a funny idea. I teleported to the apartment where Mara had lived. Of course, it was 5 years later now. I landed in a dark stuffy parlor that smelled of cigar smoke. I poked around from dark room to room, but there was no sign of Wrath. Drat. Then again, I supposed he wouldn’t just be sitting here if the unit was occupied.

I nibbled my lip, and then I decided to teleport down to the trainyard, to stroll around the train cars. No one would be there at this time of night. I could think in peace, and, train cars of course reminded me of Wrath. I went there, as if their presence would give me some kind of clue about where he was.

When I got there, the train yard was quiet. I knew that by day this place bustled with life, but the garbage and weeds and lack of beautification made it feel haunted. My footsteps crunched on tiny stones. I felt morbid.

I was thinking so hard about Wrath that it took me almost a minute to notice the man sitting inside an open train car. The door of the train car was wide open, it was empty inside, and he sat with his legs dangling over the edge. His shoulders were hunched and forlorn. His ankles were crossed, and he swung his legs slowly, not unlike a six-year-old child having a deep think.

I finally noticed the man. He hadn’t spotted me yet, I think. He wore a black coat with red stripes and a top hat.

It was not. It couldn’t possibly be! But it was. Wrath. Sitting right there. Great minds think alike, I suppose. We had both come to contemplate things among the train cars. Perhaps our minds were linked in a funny way. I had found him in a matter of minutes.

All this time I’d been focused on finding and warning him, but now I was suddenly terrified. What was I doing? He was an enemy now. Surely he would tell everyone I was alive? What was I doing? My heart was jumping too fast, leaping in to rescue him before considering what on earth I was doing.

He still hadn’t look at me. It was very dark, and I wondered if he could see me at all. He was lit well in the light of the moon, but I was still shrouded by the box cars.

I teleported behind his train car. I stood there, for a moment, out of sight, feeling—awkward. It’s hard to speak into total silence. I rubbed my fingertips together, squeezed my eyes shut, and then said, in my best weird voice, “Your doppelganger is coming to kill you! You must be on your guard!”

I was about to teleport away, hoping that had been enough, and that he wouldn’t guess Dead Maude was the one who’d warned him.

Instead, Wrath said morosely, “You can come out, Maude, I’ve already seen you.”

I didn’t budge. I had no idea what to do. Wrath was an enemy. What if he had a gun? When I didn’t come into view, Wrath said,

“Oh, Maude, for heaven’s sake!” Wrath said. “I would never hurt you. Not now, not ever. Do you think me becoming a Night Enthusiast changed that?”

I didn’t know if it could change him that much, but I knew I desperately wanted to believe Wrath was still Wrath. So I stepped out. He already knew I was alive. I wanted to at least have a chat to see if he was going to tell the others.

I peeped around the corner timidly. Wrath didn’t draw a magical Night Enthusiast-ifying gun. He just looked at me, his human eye watery with tears. The wooden eye had lost some of its paint and most of its furry lashes. It was mostly a gigantic wooden ball now, idle and staring.

“Hullo,” Wrath said hoarsely.

I just stood there. I felt as awkward as a hornet’s nest. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.

“Maude, stop acting like I’m going to hurt you,” Wrath said. He gazed disconsolately straight ahead.

I studied him. Wrath, for all his unpredictability, has never been a trickster. He doesn’t lie, and I didn’t know if he was good at it. The tears seemed genuine, though. And I missed him. So I gingerly went closer.

“Nice disguise,” Wrath said.

“Thank you,” I said.

He hadn’t turned me into a Night Enthusiast yet. I teleported up inside the train car, then timidly sat next to him. Then we both sat there. Swinging our legs. Quiet.

“They told me you were dead,” Wrath said. He looked over at me with a smile. “I’m glad to see you’re not.”

“Nope,” I said.

The silence ballooned. I glanced over at him. “Why aren’t you trying to turn me into a Night Enthusiast?” I murmured. “Or, have we not gotten to that part?”

Wrath made a small noise in this throat, like he’d been stabbed with a fork. “Maude, I’m not like other people. It didn’t do the same thing to me that it did to them. They’re all sure this is…” Wrath spat the words, disgusted and desperately sad. “The answer to life. They all think making you a Night Enthusiast would save you. They want to help you. Me? I’ve come through a life none of them can imagine. I would never turn you into a Night Enthusiast. Not ever.”

“You wouldn’t?” I said.

“The Night Enthusiasts ruined my mind,” he said. “They took my life. I can look at this from the other side. I know there that is nothing good here. I will never do this to you. They haven’t taken my will out of me. They took everything else, but I’m still me.” He tapped his head. “What’s left of me. And all that’s left of me knows… there is nothing good in them.”

I was quiet. I knew he still had more to say.

“It’s the worst nightmare imaginable,” Wrath said. “I have become what hurt me.”

“But you didn’t do it on purpose,” I said. “You didn’t choose this.”

“Small comforts,” Wrath said.

I had never seen him like this. He had no sparkle. His sparkle had only ever been madness, but he didn’t even have that anymore.

“Oh, Wrath,” I said.

He reached out and slipped his fingers into mine.

“Oh, Maude,” he said. “Will we always be ruined by things outside of our control?”

I squeezed his hand. Tears jumped into my eyes, and I took a desperate little breath, like a bird was rising out of my throat. Wrath was still here. He was… older than the others. Wiser. Different. The Night Enthusiasts taken his joy, but they hadn’t changed his mind.

I had a friend.

“Wrath,” I whispered. “Come with me.”

At that moment, in the dark haze at the other end of the train yard, Wrath’s doppelganger appeared.

Season 5

Episode 5

Hester Wrathbone Begins to Die

October 25th, 1921 continued

Wrath and I sat together in the train car, our fingers interlaced. My heart was absolutely full. He was crying. We were at a pinnacle of emotion, sloppy with ache and hope, and it was a bad time to be suddenly threatened by the existence of Wrath’s doppelganger.

A lot of things flashed through my mind, diary. First off was, I just got Wrath back. I was not about to lose him to a murdering cadaver. Wrath, despite being turned into a Night Enthusiast, still understood the difference between good and evil. He still cared about me. Was it because he had been brought to the brink of human suffering, he understood how much it hurt when other people take your power away, and now he refused to do the same? He had wanted to murder all the Night Enthusiasts, but that was revenge, and a bloody way of saying, no never again. You will not hurt anyone ever again. Murder isn’t the way I’d choose, but his plan had at least been to snuff out horrible people. Something in his soul refused to be shifted. He had lost his joy but somehow he was still Wrath. He refused to be one of them, even though they had made him one. He had remained.

Well, I was ready to fight to the fingernail to protect this Wrath who was still with me. That was one of the things I was thinking. The other things were that Dawn Mumungus was now lying dead on a library floor, with evidence that her doppelganger had been there. If this thing came any closer, I assumed it would also try to stick a knife into Wrath’s back. I glanced left and right. We didn’t have any weapons. We could just teleport, but wouldn’t it follow us? It seemed to know where Wrath was at all times. I suddenly remembered how it had appeared in the Whiskalit world. A world that should have been impossible for it to access. It was so drawn to Wrath that it could appear there. It had to be near him.

I breathed out slowly.

“Maude?” Wrath said. “You appear to be tense.”

“Yes,” I said. “I am tense. Remember when I warned you that your doppelganger was coming to attack you?”

“Yes?”

“Well,” I gestured, “There it is.”

Wrath looked out across the train yard. It was uncanny. The way the thing stood there and stared, totally still. Looking like him but a better part of him. One that wasn’t damaged. Remember, no part of Wrath’s doppelganger was made of wood.

It didn’t budge. It looked like a ghost. I began to grow suddenly and irrationally petrified. I was too close to the supernatural and it was making the hair on my arms stand up.

“What’s it doing there?”

Wrath glared at me. “Maude, I am insane. I am not stupid. Of course I remember. I also remember that we had no idea what it is or what it wants.”

“Well,” I said. “I think I might know more about what it wants.” The thing took one step closer, then stopped, utterly still. It was like it wanted us to think it hadn’t nudged forward. I clutched Wrath’s hand so hard I cut off both our circulation. “Dawn Mumungus’s doppelganger killed her. With a knife.”

“What?” Wrath breathed. He turned and looked at me, and for a moment, the bright look in his eyes was back. “Dawn Mumungus is dead?”

“Indeed,” I said.

Wrath stared at the doppelganger. It took another step closer. Wrath’s eyes widened, and a grin spread across his face. He looked absolutely elated.

“Oh, Maude,” he said. “A great evil has gone out of the world. Dawn Mumungus is dead?”

Normally, I don’t feel good about so much glee regarding death, but I could see where Wrath was coming from. I’d felt sorry for Dawn, as it is hard not to feel sorry for a dead body, but Wrath was spinning my perspective a bit. Was Dawn’s death a good thing? Not just a bizarre mystery, but an unexpected advantage? I felt lost, surrounded, like there was no way we could possibly win this war. Had we just had an unexpected victory? An evil has gone out of the world.

Oh, if only there was a way to do that without killing them. But Wrath was right. An evil had gone out of the world. I felt lighter.

“But now,” Wrath murmured, and he wetted his lips. He clasped our held hands with his right, so that now our fingers were all bundled together, gathered in mutual terror. I placed my hand on top of his. “Now, Maude, we have to deal with the doppelganger that is coming right towards us.”

We were like children, watching a terrifying moving picture show. The doppelganger advanced one step about every fifteen seconds now, pausing in between each step as if it had never moved at all.

“Do you suppose it has magic powers?” Wrath whispered.

“The other one used a knife,” I said.

“Do you suppose it’s listening?” Wrath said.

“Probably.”

The thing was only a few feet away. Then, to our surprise, it stopped. This time I think it meant to stop, because it widened its stance, and slowly stretched one arm forward.

I was terrified by the arm. I was sure it was about to point a finger of doom at Wrath. Stretch towards us an ill omen. Instead, the cadaver tilted its palm. Palm up, it stood there. Like it wanted Wrath to take its hand.

“What’s it doing, Maude?” Wrath said. At this point he was practically ducking behind me.

“I don’t know!” I hissed.

We waited. The cadaver waited. I began to grow almost bored. My spine was tense. My hands throbbed from clutching Wrath’s for so long. I shifted, unable to keep this pins and needles posture any longer. I was exhausted from waiting for this thing to spring.

“Maude,” Wrath said, after a while, letting go slowly of my hand, “Do you really think it’s going to attack me?”

I felt a bit silly now. The thing was passive. “What if it’s lulling you into a false sense of security?”

Wrath shifted slowly to the edge of the train car, like he was going to jump down. “You said the other one stabbed Dawn in the back? Or rather, than Dawn’s wound was from a knife in the back?”

“As far as I could tell,” I said.

“That’s interesting,” Wrath said. “That’s very very interesting.”

Wrath hopped down. I cupped my hands to my nose and mouth. I wasn’t going to tell him not to approach the cadaver, because it mystified me, too, but I was terrified. I wondered if I should jump down, too, be ready with a handy two by four if it came to it?

Wrath stepped up to the cadaver. He widened his stance precisely in the same way, until they were mirror images of each other: Wrath and the cadaver. Part puppet and all human man. Wrath lifted his arm in the same way, stretched out. He wrapped his hand in the cadaver’s hand.

And just like that, the cadaver vanished.

I yelped. Had it teleported? Why? Had it not expected Wrath to face it like that? Then Wrath turned around, and I suddenly realized what had happened to both him and Dawn Mumungus.

Wrath was different. Some of the wooden parts of him—were gone.

I jumped off the train car and raced up to him. I was going to stand across from him and ogle him oddly, but to my surprise, Wrath picked me right up off the ground. He was hugging me! Well, this was fun! Wrath set me down, and I continued to goggle.

“What?” he said. “What is it?”

“Your….”

He touched his face. His shoulders softened. It was such a gentle reaction to such an enormous moment of healing. Wrath took a deep breath and shut his eyes. The wood wasn’t all gone, diary, but his wooden eye? It was only half wood now. Half a human eye, half an iris, peeped at me when he met my gaze again.

“What happened?” I said, although I thought I knew.

“It was a bit of me,” Wrath said. “A bit of me that was missing. And now it’s back inside.” He seemed stunned. I would be.

I was in awe. My heart spun. Dawn hadn’t been killed by her doppelganger. A shudder ran through me. Dawn had seen her doppelganger, not trusted it, and stabbed it in the back. Then, when the doppelganger had reached out and touched her, she had absorbed it, and the wound had become her own.

What a strange and terrible way to die.

“But what?” I said. “How? It was a part of you that had been split away? Why?”

“I think,” Wrath said slowly, and he rolled his head from side to side, as if he was stretching after a very long nap. “I think it was when I was put into the train car.”

My mouth dropped open. Oh. Of course. It would have been a splitting, shrieking bit of magic. Horrible. And typically, impossible to put someone back together again afterwards. When I had released Wrath with a wish, a tiny bit of him had split into a different body. The cadaver had been wandering ever since Wrath was freed, trying to reunite with him. Perhaps it needed time to realize what it was doing.

And Dawn. Of course! That’s why there was a doppelganger of both Dawn and Wrath. It was one of the few things they had in common. The train cars. Dawn had been put into a train car, too, if only for a little bit of time. The cadavers. I’d solved one of my atrocious mysteries. I needed to sit down. My head reeled. I sat down on the ground but the sharp little stones were uncomfortable, so I was back on my feet again in a minute. I knew what the cadavers were. They were split identities left over from being rescued from a train car.

“Oh, Wrath,” I said, “How do you feel?”

I felt like I was looking at a different person. The coat and hat were the same. But his face was nearly human. He seemed, different, too. Quieter. More sane. I felt suddenly shy, like I didn’t know him. I also felt like something was wrong, but that was ridiculous. This was all good. It had to be.

“Feel?” Wrath said. “I…” He turned and smiled at me. It was such a warm smile. “I got that bit of my soul back. The part the Night Enthusiasts took out of me. I’m not a Night Enthusiast anymore. Enough of my… soul something…the thing they took… was still in this body. I’m not a Night Enthusiast anymore, Maude. I’m not one of them.”

It was incredible. I didn’t know what to say.

I knew that Wrath wanted to believe this was over, that he was well, that what the Night Enthusiasts had done to him had been undone. I think healing works like that a lot of the time. We decide we are well because we want to believe it, but in fact, we have just barely begun. There is a lot more good to achieve. Wrath felt like he had been restored, but I knew he had only been a little. But the little was enough, and it gave me courage. Monumental bad things had happened out of the blue. But could good ones happen, too? With no warning? Were the scales of the universe more in our favor than I’d supposed?

“I don’t really know what to say,” I said.

“Don’t say anything,” Wrath said. “Just pretend I’ve always been this Wrath. Let’s forget about the other Mes.”

I smiled. It tugged on my heart strings. He was so intoxicated by this glimpse of a better heart and brain. But I knew there was more. I also… still felt nervous.

Wrath and I decided to teleport together to Europe, where it was day, and we bought ice cream. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. He seemed transcendent. In shock.

“Now what?” I said. Then I jumped a little bit. “Shouldn’t we be warning the others? It wasn’t just Dawn that was put into a train car. There will be more cadavers.”

“So?” Wrath said.

“So, what if they attack themselves the way Dawn did and end up dead?”

“Melinda Maudie Merkle,” Wrath said. “I fail to see how this will be a problem.”

All right, so he hadn’t changed that much.

“I don’t want to save them, Maude,” he said. “So there’s no use looking at me like that.”

“Wrath, we should at least warn them what’s coming.”

“They treat me like a dog,” Wrath said. “They were the ones who did this to me and they can’t stand to look at it. That and I did try to murder them all with poisoned gas. But do you think I’m welcome there? They made me like them but they don’t want me. I haven’t exactly been invited to any of the social events.”

“But I am dead,” I said. “And if you pretend to be their ally for now, you can get information, walk through buildings without being hit on the head with a club. Things like that. You giving them information that will help them will make them trust you. Think how valuable it would be if they trusted you right now.” Pleading, cute. “We could do more. We could accomplish more.”

Wrath shook his head. “By now, Maude, their fate is their own. If they’re going to see their doppelganger and stab it, they probably already have.”

“Wrath,” I said. “For heaven’s sake just warn them.”

“They won’t believe me,” Wrath said.

“They will when they see your eye,” I said. “Besides. How long will it take? Five minutes? I will buy you another ice cream.”

“Will you?” Wrath said.

“Wrath, I never joke about ice cream,” I said.

“Eh,” Wrath said, and teleported in the greatest sulk that I have ever seen.

It was odd, for some reason, to see Wrath teleporting. I know I’ve teleported with him but to be honest, right now I can’t think of a time where I watched him leave and I stayed behind. I probably have. But it felt strangely human. Different for Wrath. When he was gone, I put my chin in my hands and stared down into the gentle reflecting surface of my empty ice cream dish. My heart hammered.

Diary, this was too easy. It was too much good, too soon, and without any warning, and I do not trust that. I had a suspicion brewing. A nervousness.

I wanted to believe that Wrath was fixed, but there was something different about Ariana’s spell, the magic that had turned everyone into Night Enthusiasts. Remember when Noble and I had changed into Night Enthusiasts for twenty-four hours, diary? We had been grouchy but still ourselves. I had made some terrible decisions, it was true, but here is a key difference. We had every intention of defeating the Night Enthusiasts. Our identity has remained intact. Was losing a small bit of our soul so powerful that we instantly agreed to become Night Enthusiasts? No. We had still belonged to the pawn shop. We’d lost soul pieces but we hadn’t immediately run with open arms to become Night Enthusiasts.

Well, when Noble was shot, that is exactly what he did. He became a Night Enthusiast heart and soul, at once. He switched sides. That to me, diary is a different bit of magic. Extra power. I think Ariana’s deal with the Whiskalits had not just removed soul pieces, but created a kind of reverential, supernatural allegiance. Part of my friend’s hearts were moved. They were in love with Night Enthusiasts. Like a horrible love spell.

It was different magic, I think. It was more powerful than just a removal. Something else had been put in.

Well, what if some of that same magic was still in Wrath? I had just sent him back to the Night Enthusiasts. What if I couldn’t really trust him? What if, despite his best intentions, they were still in his head?

Season 5

Episode 6

 The Shadow Creature Inside

October 25th, 1921 continued

I was very skittish, diary. So much had happened to me in the last half an hour that I didn’t quite know how to keep my head on straight. Wrath was changed. He had been touched by his doppelganger and absorbed a bit of his missing self. He was more human and less puppet now. He also claimed that he wasn’t a Night Enthusiast anymore, that the doppelganger had still had the missing soul pieces in it.

I knew that was impossible, that things were still lost, even if Wrath felt better than he had in a very long time. I was also worried that there had been more to Ariana’s magic. That a kind of instant loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts had been woven into the change. If that was true, then I think it must still be affecting Wrath.

He was mad. He was my friend. He had also been poisoned by Ariana’s spell. I had no idea what was going to happen next.

I felt idle and grumpy just sitting there stressing, so I popped you out and wrote furiously for about half an hour. I got the most recent adventures up to date, then nibbled on the end of my pen while I stared around the ice cream shop. Wrath still wasn’t back. How long did it take to warn other train car inhabitants that a cadaver was coming their way? I supposed he had to find them all individually. But what if he was telling them all that Maude Merkle wasn’t actually dead, that they should come this way?

While I sat there stressing, I also thought about what to do. I had ghosts in a haunted house that wanted their bodies back. I had friends with missing souls. I also had Whiskalits. The stupid, horrible Whiskalits. I wondered if they could be stopped. Ended. Would destroying them somehow destroy every spell they’d ever cast?

But how would you go about ending supernatural plague mask birds?

Wrath returned, and I gave a little jump. I confess I spent a good four seconds looking around, waiting for more Night Enthusiasts to pop into existence behind him.

“What are you looking at, Maude?” Wrath said. “I’m right here.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You warned the others?”

“Against my better judgment, yes. Now alas only Dawn Mumungus will die by her own hand.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone I was alive?” I said. I hope it sounded like a joke.

“I told everyone you had reincarnated into a fish,” Wrath said. “Wasn’t I supposed to?”

And, diary, that was all I’d got. What could I do? Go ask the Night Enthusiasts if Wrath had tattled? I would have to trust that all was well, but also keep an eye on him. Everything in me wanted to believe he was my friend, but, if you recall someone named Ariana, that has not always worked well for me.

We decided to take a stroll along the river bank, listening to the chatter of foreign languages and the murmur of the wind in the trees. I fancied a cup of coffee. My body wanted to go to bed, but it was sunny and bright, and I just wanted life and adventure. I began to see a glimpse of the life I could have once this adventure was over. All I needed to be happy was simple comfort, purpose, and friends. I had had my taste of community, and all I wanted out of life now was to sit back and enjoy being happy, like a plant that finally has enough sun.

“What do you think we do next?” Wrath said, stopping to peer at a booth of paintings.

“I’m lost,” I said. I was still distracted by his features. He was starting to make me think more and more of Hester, the man he had been before he’d gone mad. I thought of Mara. They’d been engaged. She knew about him. Did he deserve to know about her? Would it drive him frantic to know that she was still alive, but that she might never leave that tower, that he couldn’t get at her?

“Lost how?” Wrath said.

We continued walking.

“On what to do, of course.”

“Well, Maude,” Wrath said, “It’s really quite simple.”

“Oh, is it?” I said. “Please. Tell me. I can’t wait to hear how simple everything is.”

Wrath grinned. “You’ve done it in reverse. Think for a minute.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I said.

“You’ve done it in reverse. You changed sides for a day.”

“What!” I said. I stopped walking. Noble and I had become Night Enthusiasts for a day. We’d have our souls removed temporarily. “You don’t mean…”

“I don’t think I know anyone who can do it,” Wrath said. “Because I was in a train car for five years and I’m not really up to date on the scene, but let’s think about the possibilities, shall we? What if there is a magic unusual who can make an empathy potion? That’s what they took out of us, isn’t it? Empathy?”

“More or less,” I said.

“What if we can stick it back inside of someone by tricking them into having a drink?”

“Drinkable empathy?” I said.

“Exactly,” Wrath said.

I snorted. Then I giggled. It was preposterous.

“That isn’t going to work,” I said.

“Why not?” Wrath said, obviously offended.

“Because—” Well I couldn’t tell him about my suspicions, that part of the magic had been undying loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts. But that was why Wrath’s potion idea wouldn’t work. Because empathy or not, if you were still loyal to the Night Enthusiasts, you wouldn’t be my friend.

Still. The idea was starting to spin. Could we undo it temporarily? Was such a thing possible? It would be a bit like keeping tabs on a violent dog—if we didn’t give our friends the potion with regularity, they would dash off to tattle to the Night Enthusiasts. How would it really be worth it? To have a bit more help, a few more friends and brains on our side, but horribly dangerous enemies once the potion wore off. I mean, think about it. If we somehow succeeded in returning Noble to himself, befriended him, worked with him, but then he Mr Hyded again and ran back—he’d know our plans. Our strategies. That Wrath was a spy and I was alive. I missed my friends, but how could something temporary possibly be worth it?

Still. Something with tickling in my mind. Something that said, That’s almost it. You’ve almost got it. There’s something there. You just have to figure out what it is.

Wrath and I decided that our next move would be to set up a hideout somewhere. A new base. It could be much smaller this time, of course, no haunted houses necessary. We settled on a murder object that we hid in the mud on the banks of a river, in a forest so dense and empty we’d never be spotted teleporting to and from. The murder object led to a small house boat on a completely different river about a hundred years previous.

The house boat was small and snug. I had a bed berth at one end and Wrath had the other. The walls were painted blue with little golden flowers. The window trim was dark green. It was cozy and smelled of straw and summer afternoons. Wrath said he’d had the murder object (which was a small statue of a rabbit) in his pocket for some time. It was hard to imagine anything bad happening in this place.

“How cleaned up is this murder?” I said to Wrath, looking around the creaking boat with a bit of nerviness.

“Do you see any blood?” Wrath said.

“Yes, sure, there’s no more body,” I said. “But is this months after the murder? A few days? What if the deceased’s relatives show up wanting the boat back?”

“Then, we will give them the boat,” Wrath said. “Stop worrying. I am going to make crrrrrrepes.”

Wrath made crepes. He made about forty of them and stuffed the six we were willing to eat then and there with apples and cheese.

“Wrath,” I said. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“That’s what I did,” Wrath said. “I was a chef. What did you think I did before the train car, Maude? Wander around with weird hats on scowling at people?”

After I was full of crepe, twilight began to fall. Crickets made the river bank lush with sound. I listened to the gurgle and the crickets and I decided that the first thing I was going to do if we ever got this solved was rent a little river boat house and live all summer long on the water.

Wrath nestled down into his bed and rather quickly began to snore. I would be tired, too, if I was Wrath. I wasn’t ready to settle down to sleep yet, though. Smiling, I opened the creaking little door and stepped out onto the river bank.

I paced for awhile in the long grass, looking at the stars, but I knew they weren’t my stars. They were the stars of long ago and I simply had to see my own world. Anything else felt like hiding. I used the murder object to return to 1921 and then I wandered the streets. I knew my disguise was still all right.

I had to decide what to do. I sensed a revelation. It was in my brain somewhere. It made the back of my neck itch. I had a funny solution to all of this, a way to restore everything. I just couldn’t find it.

“Is there a way to kill the Whiskalits?” I muttered. What would happen if I teleported into their world and shot them? Could they be ended in the ordinary way? Was it all right to murder murderers? Monsters? By destroying them, could I somehow undo this spell, Ariana’s partial death?

Could I restore my friends to the life they were supposed to have? What was the point in having to live through being human if you weren’t even human? Human without humanity?

I paced the streets. Here it wasn’t quite twilight, although goodness knew my body had been ready for bed about ten hours ago. I couldn’t sleep yet. Not yet. I could feel the craziest idea. If only I could….

Suddenly, as I walked, I spotted someone that I knew. I knew it was just happenstance, but it made me feel… fated. Like with every turn of the page of my life, I was destined to see something impossible.

It was Ariana. Of course we both lived in the same city, but it was strange to see her here. I knew she wouldn’t recognize disguised Maude from this far away, so I stepped to the side of a tree and watched her.

She sat on the edge of the bridge, staring down into the water. My heart tightened, diary. I’ve come such a long way when it comes to how I feel about Ariana. I used to follow her about like a puppy because she was the only friend I had. I had been friendless and isolated for so long, I accepted anything. Anything! She seemed like the sun moon and stars because all I really wanted was to not be alone. But it has taken time with people who are really kind, really my friends, to show me how crooked she really was. There was always something… missing with her. Like part of her soul was snuffed out. Like there was a shadow creature inside of her, bent over, muttering, calculated and cruel, like her mind wasn’t human. Like her mind was made of metal and rust and hunger, and half her smiles were just a way to make me stay. She wanted me too, and she needed my friendship, but I don’t think she knows what friendship is. I think she thinks friendship is slavery.

So, diary, if you have been tearing your metaphorical hair out over me and Ariana (I am now imagining you with hair. A little book with a wig mop on top. Yellow? Curly and red? I don’t think you should have hair, dairy. It’s disquieting.) So anyway. Your metaphorical hair being torn out in frustration over how I could keep going back to someone who was so obviously… not right. Something in her brain is crooked. Animalistic. Gestures of love aren’t love, they’re the currency of manipulation.

I watched her with an ache in my chest. So, diary, all this to say, I was very happy to watch Ariana and to know that I was never going back. I didn’t yearn for her in the way I’d used to. I had believed that I needed her to be happy. I had believed that she was the only one. But that had been a twisted dark little world, and I didn’t want to rejoin her in it. It was so good, to watch her, and to not feel an impulse to regain her. That magnetism was gone. I felt free.

But I also felt so sorry for her. What was wrong with her mind that she could do the things she’d done? Betray me, when I was perfectly willing to be a true friend? Become the leader of a horrible group? Mar the souls, without consent, from hundreds of bodies? Make a deal with the Whiskalits?

I could have just walked away from her and spat on the ground and thought good riddance. But what a soul. What a broken, ugly little soul. I didn’t want her to have to live like that. I did not want her to become a monster when she was dead, wear a plague mask and speak in a rasping voice. I had seen glimpses of who she might have been, and I wanted somehow to pull up the weeds and thorns and gasoline in the garden of herself and just give her sun and clean air. Surely, with time, she would grow back? Surely she could become human again?

Finally, I turned away, diary, but I knew two things. I was no longer under Ariana’s influence. I did not need her. I was not God and she was not Satan, immortal rivals, because in a sense I had decided that neither of them were real. Our destinies were not pitted, she was not inevitable. She was just a cruel person whose lure I could walk away from.

So. I was not in love. But I did not want to see her belong to hell for all of her life. It would be a horrible way to live. If only there was a way to change the colors on the inside of her chest.

I thought about heading to the Whiskalit world now. Right now. Just to stab one of them. Just to see if it worked.

Instead, I knew that I had teleported to 1921 to find my thought. My revelation. I sensed it was waiting here for me, and seeing Ariana on the bridge hadn’t been good enough. I had to go to where my brain had always worked, where ideas had always been present.

I had to go back to the secret basement.

It wasn’t as bad an idea as it sounded, diary. I promise. I didn’t look like myself, and the last time I’d been there, it had been abandoned. The Night Enthusiasts had cleared us out, stolen out stuff, and then left it. I felt fairly sure it would be all right. Really, I just didn’t think it through. I had to go. I knew I was going to find what I was looking for if I did. It was worth a few risks.

Deep down, I wondered if what I was looking for was just Noble. Octavia. Scotland. As if I believed they were still waiting there for me. Oh, diary. It was like they were dead. But. Not with the finality of death. Or at least, that’s what I was trying to undo. Finality.

I teleported to MMPS. My heart hammered, and a string was plucked in my stomach. I felt ill. I loved this place. I just wanted to wander it the way I had done before, take comfort in the strangeness, each object a promise that life could be better that mundane.

No one was in the Pawn Shop. I could hear and feel the silence. I wondered if they kept it locked up to the public now. Now that Mr. McGillicuddy was a Night Enthusiast, with nothing to care about, would he leave it abandoned? All his rooms and all his doors? Would it become nothing? Gather dust?

I crept to the nail in the wall and from there made my way to the secret basement. I stopped in the foyer, and my breath stilled. Everything felt so vacant, diary. Like it was holding its breath. Sometimes, when there is life and people and story in a house, I get the sense that the walls are warm, alive, almost breathing. In motion. I did not get that sense now. No sense of breath. It was like it was dead.

Cobwebs clustered on the walls and the light seemed grayer than usual. But what I couldn’t stop staring at was the red writing. Death to all Mice. Who had left this message for me? Only I could see it? Who had selected me as a heroine of this story? Who had put the words into my life? If I had never summoned the Whiskalits, would Ariana ever have found them? Could any of this have ever happened?

I crept into the dark secret basement. There was a sour, old smell, and yet everything still fizzled with their presence, like it wasn’t abandoned, just waiting. Too much of the good of the people who had lived here was still in the walls.

I knew the Night Enthusiasts had stolen mostly everything valuable, but I also knew Mr. McGillicuddy kept some small things in his study. I wandered in there, and sure enough, about half the things had been left behind on the floor. The odd things. The silly things. The things that shouldn’t really have any value. I poked through them for a moment until I found something… wonderful. A small glass bottle, turquoise, clouded glass, with a narrow spout. It had a weathered tag tied to its neck.

Ghost Bottle, the thing said. For the trapping of ghosts.

Well. That would do, wouldn’t it?

Season 5

Episode 7

Ghost In a Bottle.

October 25th, 1921 continued.

With the ghost bottle tucked under my arm, I teleported back to the murder object, to return to Wrath. I got back to the boat. It was deep dark night now. Thick and smelling of purple and watery with sound. I crept through the doorway and into the boat. My plan had been to wake Wrath and then venture out to finish this idea. Instead, I decided that I needed a bit of a nap after all.

I set the ghost bottle down on the floor near my bunk. Wrath was still comfortably snoring, so I didn’t think anything was wrong. Why would I? I climbed into bed, threw the covers over my head, only then remembered that I was still wearing my shoes, kicked them off, and was asleep in half a minute.

All night long I dreamed about the signs. This way to find the bodies. Signs that led me to Ariana, and then to Renfield. This way to find the bodies. But I didn’t find corpses. I found NEs.

I awoke in the morning with the eeriest feeling. For one thing, I felt like I was back in my childhood bed, but not in a cozy way. It gave me a bad feeling like, uhoh. We’ve gone backwards. We’re not supposed to be here. This isn’t right.

I rolled over and assured myself that all was well. A kind of green tinged sunlight came in through the windows. The boat was a little warm and humid, but in a pleasant way. I could feel the motion of the river below me. I stared into the early morning shadows, across at Wrath’s bunk, and I tried to figure out where my bad feeling was coming from.

Wrath was still asleep. He wasn’t snoring anymore, but I could see him breathing so I wasn’t too concerned. Perhaps he was out of his deep sleep and merely dozing. I should have calmed down but I was still on edge. A strange sound had woken me. What was the sound? Why did I feel like something was wrong?

Then, it happened again. Diary, it was such an ordinary sound. It should have been a very common sound, too, here on the river. But it sent chills shooting through me, and I was so sure something was wrong that I leapt out of bed.

The sound was a drip. That’s all. Just drip! The plop of a thick substance hitting the wood. Maybe… that’s why it had woken me, why it felt wrong. Water is very thin, and there is ever so slight a difference in the sound when water hits and when something thicker hits.

I was hearing something thicker.

I scurried across the room, already seeing the flash of the future in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see the drip, but I nudged Wrath’s curtain to the side a little bit, and there it was. Liquid and glowing on the floor.

Blood. Magic unusual blood. But glowing while it was liquid.

Wrath was bleeding from a small cut in his finger. Strangely enough, it looked as if he had cut himself on himself—some bits of wood in his hand were sticking out and jagged. The blood feel in rhythmic beads. Not too often. As long as I could hold my breath, it would stay still on the edge of the finger, gathering, and then when my lungs couldn’t take it anymore and I had to breathe in, even though I was so scared, a new drop fell.

He had lost about a quarter cup of blood already. It didn’t really feel as scary because it didn’t really feel like real blood. But. There it was. Dripping. I had to stop this wound.

I got out my hankie in a jumble of nerves and began to wrap up Wrath’s finger. He was still asleep, and me grabbing his hand like that made him yell and spring away.

“DEATH TO ALL MICE!” Wrath shouted, loud, like it was a war cry. Then he looked at me, startled, and blinked. “Oh, Maude. It’s you.”

If I’d felt sick before diary, it was worse now. I decided to ignore what Wrath had just said. I wondered if he even realized, even remembered. But it had come out of the most primal place in his soul.

“You’re... you’re bleeding,” I said. “Here, let’s get this fixed.”

Wrath stared down at where the glowing green was already sopping through my handkerchief. “But that isn’t blood, Maude. It’s the wrong color.”

“Dawn’s blood was this color,” I said. I didn’t want to frighten him too much. “When I found her.”

“You mean…” Wrath said. “The cadaver did this to me? Changed my blood?” He stared down at his finger. “What does that mean?”

I had a ghoulish fear that this wound would never close, that there was something new and wrong about this blood, but after about a minute of applied pressure, the flow lessened. This wound would seal at least.

“Oh, Maude,” Wrath said. “What if I’m not human anymore?”

We looked at each other. Then Wrath corrected himself. “Or. I’m not human anymore in a different way.”

“The cadaver changed something,” I murmured.

Ergh! I’d known this was too good to be true. A simple handshake and rejoining of past and present selves. Wrath wasn’t back to normal magically. This wasn’t all good. Something strange had happened to him. The blood inside his veins was luminous. What if he was electric? Alien? Going to burn out?

Why isn’t there a manual for these things somewhere? If I had a dollar for every time something happened to me but no one had any idea what was happening, well, I’d be rich. I’d be as rich a sailor who just found buried treasure. Anyway, diary. It was like I was on a brand new planet with new rules and new possibilities. Everything was new. Impossible. I couldn’t take Wrath to a human doctor. They’d lock him up, not to mention they’d have no idea what to do with his wooden eye.

“Wrath, we are going to find out what’s going on with you,” I said. “Why this happened. Perhaps! It’s only temporary. Perhaps it’s just the two pieces of you readjusting. And you’ll go back to normal in a few days.”

“But Maude, I didn’t cut my finger,” Wrath said. “I’m bleeding but I didn’t cut my finger. Something else did. Someone else did. I think that thing is still inside of me. Maybe it’s angry. Maybe it wants to get back out.”

“Wrath, it doesn’t have a mind of its own,” I said. “It’s you.” Even though I knew nothing of the kind. We had let him absorb a giant cadaver that looked just like him. “I’m sure we’ll work this out.”

But how. Oh, God. I knew who I needed. I knew exactly who I needed. And she was currently running around as a NE.

It was time to put my ghost bottle to use.

After Wrath’s finger stopped bleeding, I told him what I wanted to do.

“You’re mad,” he said, and then grinned toothily at me. He had a hungry look, like a fox. Well, at least someone loved my idea.

I drew an eye symbol, and I sent Wrath ahead to be sure the coast was clear. It only occurred to me after he left that it would take him a long time to teleport and get back out of time loops, because I hadn’t given him any magic jelly for a doorway back. But how could I? Until I knew more about… what was happening to him, then I didn’t want him running off with some of the most powerful substance in the world.

Wrath wasn’t back in five minutes, so I decided to venture after him. I stepped through the eye symbol, and then there I was, as if I’d never left. The haunted house. Our hideout, just before Ariana had turned everyone into Night Enthusiasts.

Well, it was empty. Quiet. It was back to feeling broody and damp, the way it had been when I got it. I didn’t hear anyone, but I also didn’t see Wrath. Slowly, I climbed the staircase, and I began to imagine all sorts of monsters, centipedes as tall as I was, ghosts with long fingers. I don’t know why I was imagining ghosts as if they weren’t real, as if tempting myself to be scared. This place was chock full of ghosts. One was about to pop out at me at any minute, I could tell.

I turned the corner, scared, scared—and then I saw something! It was Wrath. He was standing in the hallway, looking innocently around at the walls.

“Oh, hello,” he said. “You’ve been very slow.”

“The coast is clear?” I said.

“As a sheet of glass,” he said. “This place has been vacant for centuries.”

No, it hadn’t. We wandered down the halls together. I got goosebumps. The last time I’d been here I’d seen Mr. McGillicuddy the Night Enthusiast, and it had been like seeing the worst kind of monster.

“What are we doing here?” Wrath whispered.

“Looking for ghosts,” I said.

We continued to prowl down the hall. Every creak of wood was both promising and terrifying. “Here, ghosty ghosty!” I said.

“Maude,” Wrath said, “Why are you summoning specters?”

“Because specters could just be the solution to this whole mess,” I said. “I have an inkling. But I need to collect one to find out.”

“With your ghost bottle.”

“Yes.”

“For the putting in of ghosts.”

“Yes.”

“Who will then be angry and try to murder us.”

“No, they won’t,” I said. “Besides. They keep begging me to return them to their bodies. I assume some temporary housing will do.”

Wrath snatched my shoulder. “Maude. What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing bad.” His reaction had startled me. And here I’d been thinking that I was so clever.

“Are you going to stick that ghost into a human body?” Wrath stared at me, horrified.

“Um,” I said.

“Maude!’ Wrath said. “I am standing before you, the living proof that stuffing alien substances into living people is a terrible idea. What are you thinking? You’re just going to create a possession, willy nilly? You’re going to chuck a spirit into a body that already has a spirit and hope for the best? What if the ghost doesn’t want to leave? What if the ghost is a murderer?”

Wrath had chilled me. I suddenly felt foolish, or even, dangerous. Diary, I do so hate when leaders do something pragmatic but unethical. I had been steering full steam ahead for pragmatic. What was I doing? Was I that kind of leader after all? Did I step on people to get the job done?

“I… I have a theory,” I said. “And if I’m right, then it’s not as dangerous as it sounds. I don’t think.”

“You can’t just go around sticking ghosts into people,” Wrath said. “You can’t. People have to agree to this sort of thing.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m going to get consent first. You’ll see.”

“How? By having a chat with a Night Enthusiast? Letting them know you’re alive while you ask for their permission to chuck a ghost into their body?”

“Yes,” I said. “Precisely.” I continued my journey back down the hall.

“Maude!” Wrath said. He scrambled after me. “You can’t let anyone know you’re alive! What did you go to all that trouble for? Hm? What are you thinking?”

“Wrath,” I said. “I’ve got to try this.” I refrained from adding, And you’re half the reason why. We needed a doctor.

“I have no idea what’s happening, but I don’t like one shred of it,” Wrath said.

“You’ll see,” I said.

Wrath and I stepped into a room at the end of the hall. It was rather lush compared to the rest of the house. Purple curtains and a gilded blue ceiling. Carpeting. It felt like a small ballroom. Even a throne room, if such a thing still existed. I felt a prickle in the air of the room. This was where I would find what I was looking for.

Diary, this was a very solemn moment. I have not mentioned this theory for an instant but it has been brewing in my head for a very long time. I think I understood who the ghosts were. Who the bodies were. I had dreamt about the signs all night, remember? This way to find the bodies. And I’d found Night Enthusiasts whenever I followed the signs.

Could it be a solution? So quickly? Waiting for me?

I needed to summon ghosts, but really, I needed to summon one particular ghost. I walked to the center of the carpeted room (it smelled a bit like mold) and I tilted my head back and screamed.

Wrath, in the corner, jumped about a foot in the air. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry!” I said. “But I’m not done yet.”

I stood in the middle of the carpet with my fists clenched and I screamed, over and over, “My leg is bleeding! My leg is bleeding! I need a doctor!”

Not the most brilliant script in the world, potentially, but I thought it would do the trick. “I need a doctor!”

A moment later, the turquoise blue glow of many curious ghost heads poked out of the wall. Like little busts looking down at us. None of the ghosts came into the room, however. They stayed on the side and watched. Not right, then. They weren’t what I wanted.

“Doctor!” I yelled.

And then, just like that, a tall ghost with a sharp nose rushed into the room. The ghost stared at me, hovering a foot off the ground. The ghost’s posture was urgent, like it had come to help. Then it paused, confused, and slowly, the urgency melted. The ghost turned away slowly, as if bewildered.

“Scotland,” I said.

The ghost stopped. She turned her head, confused.

I met the ghost’s eyes. She wasn’t much like Scotland. All my ghosts had melting features, like they weren’t human but wax on a hot day. This one was Scotland’s height, though. The nose was right, the way the ghost stood.

“You’re Scotland,” I said. “Aren’t you?”

She blinked at me. I don’t think the ghost fully understood who she was or what she was doing here.

“You remember me,” I said. My voice got shaky diary. I couldn’t help it. “We were friends. About a week ago, someone chopped your soul in half. Your body and the rest of your soul is still out there, but you’re here. You’re the missing soul piece, aren’t you? Scotland’s empathy. Scotland’s Humanity.”

The ghost floated a little bit closer.  She got close enough that there was a kind of smell, like singe-ed cloth. She looked down into my eyes, frowning. Part of her gaze was vacant, hollow, like a corpse floating about. The other part of her gaze was sharp. Searching. Trying to remember. I suppose it was hard, when you are only a fragment of someone’s soul, to remember what you are or who you are or why you are. It was funny, too, to think of something good—Empathy, Humanity—seeming so creepy and vacant. It was like without us, without a human to have the humanity, it became a lost and anxious void. No wonder they wanted their bodies back so badly. Assuming I was right about all of this.

“I remember you,” Scotland’s ghost said. “I lost my shoe.”

Well, at first I was utterly confused by that, until I remember the time in the Night Enthusiast prison that Scotland had snapped off the heel of her shoe. That was a moment the real Scotland had lived through. The ghosts in this haunted house hadn’t been anywhere near us then. Only the real Scotland would have remembered something like that. So. I was right. This was the missing piece of Scotland’s soul. I had done it. I had solved one of the mysteries. Except.

Diary, I did have this horrible thought. What if this thing in front of me had nothing to do with Scotland. That was Wrath’s fear. That it wasn’t the missing soul piece at all, that it was a ghost. Feral. Cruel. A dead human or evil spirit roaming halls. What if it was tricking me into thinking it was Scotland? What if it had somehow learned about the shoe thing, what if all of this was an elaborate trick?

Return us to our bodies. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? If I returned a ghost to their body? Was this Scotland or not?

“I can return you to your body,” I said. My voice trembled. In the corner, I saw Wrath put his hands over his face. But I had to try this. If Scotland agreed, and this worked, it could be the answer to everything. “Will you step into this bottle?”

I think that an evil ghost trying to fool me would have been very wary of tricks. But this ghost stepped straight towards the bottle and poked her finger into the open spout. This bottle could have ended up like a genie prison, a very dangerous prospect for a ghost, but it was like she was Scotland. And she trusted me.

Like a bit of thin cloth being whisked through a keyhole, the ghost… folded up and appeared a moment later inside the bottle, as nothing more than a swirling glow.

I gently corked the bottle. The other ghosts looked at each other in confusion.

“What?” I said. “You asked me to return you to your bodies.”

With a ghost in a bottle, I left the haunted house. Wrath came with me, but he kept giving me glares.

“It will be up to Scotland,” I said.

“Who you shouldn’t be talking to!” Wrath said.

Diary, it’s easier said than done to find someone. I couldn’t very well stride into the Purgatory Club and ask for Scotland by name. Wrath and I spent the rest of the day looking for her. Wrath claimed he was looking for her whenever he teleported into Night Enthusiast establishments for me, but he probably wasn’t. He hates this whole idea. But he is starting to glow, diary. Glow. His skin is getting paler and more green. I need a doctor. We need to experiment.

I am back in the boat at present. I will write more tomorrow. If I find her.

October 30th, 1921

We lost quite a few days looking for her, and the delay was agonizing. Then, I found her. At last, I found her going into a shop for medical supplies. I stepped in after her. No one else was present, apart from the shop keeper. I cornered her in a back aisle, next to some glass jars and sneezy powders.

“Scotland,” I said.

She turned. “Maude,” she gasped. The disguise I had on was not good enough for my close friends. She gazed at me with wide eyes, nearly dropping the jar she held. Well, there it was. A Night Enthusiast knew I was alive.

“I have a proposition for you,” I said.

Season 5

Episode 8

Ghost in a Friend

October 30th, 1921 continued

Scotland and I stood in the back aisle of the medical supply store, staring at each other. It was such a bizarre experience, diary. She was a Night Enthusiast. My brain scrambled. My brain tried to believe that. But the rest of me was so sure I was looking at a friend, all I felt was relief. That relief was so dangerous. Her loyalty was to them now. Not to us. Not to the good fight we had been fighting together before. Scotland was not my friend.

But I looked at her and was sure she was.

Scotland glanced towards the back of the shop, to see if the shop keeper was watching us. He was busy scribbling in his ledger and probably wouldn’t have noticed if we’d danced a polka. Scotland looked back at me, and suddenly there was a glint in her eye. Hunger. That was when I began to be afraid, when I began to realize that this person looked like Scotland but wasn’t her. Not really. There was something lizard-like in her eyes. Feral.

“Maude,” she said.

This was the moment. My stomach turned to soup. This was when she could teleport. Go straight to the Night Enthusiasts. Tell them I was alive. She could also reach into her pocket and pull out a gun or a potion or anything really, something that contained the Death to All Mice spell. Something that would leave me as a Night Enthusiast.

I had to keep her attention. I had to keep her interest.

“You’re alive,” Scotland said.

“As you see me,” I said.

She blinked, slowly. I tried not to stare in paranoia at her hands. Would she reach for something?

“Before you—do anything,” I said. “I have a dangerous proposition for you. A science experiment. I want to know if you’re willing.”

“A science experiment?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to try something. It’s never been done, but I think it will work. Please bear with me for just a moment. I know you’ll find the theory as fascinating as I do.”

“Why can’t you try it yourself?” Scotland said.

“Because my soul is still intact,” I said.

“What?” she whispered.

Slowly, I pulled the ghost bottle from my satchel. The bottle glowed like a lamp, liquid in its luminescence, and Scotland’s features were washed with gentle green.

“I have, in this bottle,” I said, “what I think is the missing piece of your soul. And I was wondering if you would let me put it back in.”

Then—oh, diary. Something flashed in Scotland’s eyes. She missed it. She missed being whole. She had regret. The Night Enthusiast in her wasn’t convinced this was good. It was like I’d reached into the brainwashing and woken her back up.

“I’ll do it,” she said, so suddenly it startled me, and that’s when I knew that Scotland, the real Scotland who was still in there, was willing to try anything to get herself back.

“It’s not guaranteed,” I said. “This is one of the ghosts from the haunted house. It claims it’s you, and I do think that’s what the ghosts have been all this time. But it could be a trick. An evil spirit. Something else.”

Scotland gazed hungrily at the bottle. A gleam of quick thinking came into her eyes, and she gently roped her arm through mine and led me to the front door. “Let’s head to the alley, shall we?”

Sounded like a good place for a murder. But I felt a tremble of desperation in Scotland’s arm. How profound, diary, to crave being human again.

We walked around back, where no one could hear us or see us but the bricks. Wrath was elsewhere looking for her. It was just me, if something went wrong.

I wondered if she would trick me now, use me, destroy me, or if she really did want to come home.

“How will I meld with the ghost?” she said.

“Well,” I said. “If it’s a monster, then it will try to possess you. If it’s you, then I hope you would stick back together again, like water going back into the ocean.”

“Uncork the bottle,” she said.

“Are you sure?” I said. I was suddenly terrified. What if this turned out to be a trick? What if we couldn’t trust the ghosts? Were they us? Or were they something else?

Something in that moment told me, diary, and I got cold to the ends of my fingers, that the ghosts were something else.

“I am sure,” Scotland said. “I agree to this. I understand the risks. Let the ghost out, Maude.”

I suddenly couldn’t do it. I had Scotland fascinated, perhaps we could do more research, together, before—

I wasn’t quick enough. Scotland reached across and took the bottle from me. Before I could open my mouth, she wrenched off the lid.

The vapor of the ghost rose into the air, almost like luminous wings on the front of Scotland’s body. For a moment, her face was hidden by the haze of spirit. Then, as she inhaled, the ghost was sucked into her torso. For a moment it gleamed like smoke in her mouth, and there was a glow in her eyes. Then she was just a normal woman, standing there.

My feeling of foreboding was gone. The ghost bottle felt like an ordinary bottle. Could this possibly be…. Was it possibly…

“Maude,” Scotland said.

She stepped right up to me and threw her arms around my neck. Scotland is taller than me and I was utterly engulfed. Scotland is also meticulous and brave, so imagine my surprise when she began to sob.

Diary, no one could fake sobs like that. She blubbered. She wheezed in and out with delighted, relieved breaths. She laughed and snuffled and moaned.

I had a very sticky shoulder a few minutes later. We just stood in the alley, my hands knotted together behind her back, holding her close for all I was worth.

It seemed silly to ask it, but I had to know, “Are you back?” I said.

Scotland stepped aside. There was no mistaking the look in her eyes. Night Enthusiasts have a kind of vacancy, a hardness. She was vulnerable, rich, alive. All of her was at the surface, shining out. I felt my heart crack with relief. So the ghost wasn’t a trick after all. It had worked.

“I feel wobbly,” she said. “Like the missing soul pieces are inside of me but still separate. Does that make sense? I feel patched but not whole. Like a broken teacup being held in place.”

“But…”

“But I think,” she continued, “that that’s enough for now. I am back. The humanity is back. Maude.” She seized me by the shoulder and swung me around.  “You have no idea how horrible it is to be a Night Enthusiast. To hate everything they are and then become them.”

Scotland and I teleported to somewhere safe, which I decided should not be me and Wrath’s house boat just yet. Just in case. Just in case, at the end of the day, something was somehow still wrong.

Scotland and I strolled in some Spanish gardens, smelling the thick, heavy perfume of white flowers and feeling the warmth of the sun on our faces. I caught her up on everything, while still holding some information back. I explained how the fake corpse had worked for my pretend death, without telling her about Dolores or where she was. I wondered how Dolores was doing. Now that she’d gained her grandmother’s unique magic unusual power, the ability to physically summon anyone by holding one of their hairs… well, I hoped she was putting it to ethical use.

So. I didn’t tell her about Dolores. I said Wrath and I had a hideout but I didn’t say where. Finally, I explained the thing that made me the most nervous. Diary, I am not sure how to navigate any of this without taking obscene risks. That’s what it’s so tricky.

I told Scotland I was worried the spell had left her with latent loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts. That even though her personhood was back in full force, she might still think they were the source of all goodness in the world.

As soon as I said that, Scotland snapped her fingers.

“Oh, that’s why I’ve been feeling positive about the Night Enthusiasts! It’s very strange, Maude. It’s like I’m divided. I hate them. My mind is firm on that. But I’ve got this… warm, inviting feeling whenever I think about them. Like they’re a pleasant drug, something that will make me feel good.” She bristled. “Well! Now that I know that, I’ll simply keep an eye on the feeling. I’m sure in a day or two it will have worn away.”

Yes, but what if it didn’t?

Lastly, I told her about Wrath and the cadaver. That was when her eyes got hard, and she looked at me like maybe she was going to break something.

“He has a completely alien substance in him, and it’s turning his liquid blood phosphorescent? What was he thinking? Letting that thing in?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” I said. “You have a completely alien substance in you right now.”

“Yes, but I’m not insane,” Scotland said. She rubbed her arms in dismay, staring straight ahead, thinking. “Oh, Maude,” she said. “I just want something to be normal again. Normal without any surprises or hiccups or threats. Is that too much to ask?”

It seemed it was. I had Wrath back as my friend, but he was ill. I had Scotland back, but she still felt a nagging loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts. It was like I was hounded by my worst fears—friends who are only friends are the surface, friends who will turn subtly into what once betrayed me.

“Well,” Scotland said. “Get me straight to him. We will need to see what we can do.”

“Do you think you can cure him?” I said.

“This wasn’t exactly covered in my education,” she said. “But I’ve a lot of reading on the side, about magical unusual spells and curses. It takes more to be a doctor to magic unusuals. I’ll see what I can do.”

Scotland and I returned to the houseboat, where Wrath was sitting up in one of the bunks.

“Oh,” he said, rather idly, looking at Scotland. “I see you found her. I had a sense that you’d found her, you see, and so I came back here.”

Scotland smiled and stepped up to Wrath. She took his wrist, checking his pulse as a first step.

“Did you, Wrath,” she said. “Or were you just tired and came back early?”

Wrath looked at me. “I don’t like her,” he said. “She’s still a Night Enthusiast.”

That gave me a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, but then,

“Just because I’m being stern doesn’t mean I’m being evil,” Scotland said. She opened Wrath’s mouth and looked inside. “I don’t really believe in fortune telling. I assume you don’t want Maude to think you were being lazy, but I highly doubt you sensed that I’d been found.”

“You live in a magical world and you don’t believe in fortune telling?” Wrath said. He glared at me. “Maude. Make her stop poking around in my mouth. And make her stop insulting me.”

I smiled. “Wrath, you know we were after Scotland expressly because you need a doctor.”

“Well, make her… expressly… go back,” Wrath said. He huffed.

Scotland hummed as she went around her work. I wondered if Wrath really had sensed that I’d found Scotland. Could his madness be a kind of second sight? And was he using that second sight right now when he said Scotland was still a Night Enthusiast, or was he only being petty?

“I don’t like it when you poke me,” Wrath said. “You did this before. In the prison. I haven’t forgotten. You always go around touching me like I’m a bowl of soup.”

Scotland glanced at me, as if to say, can you please make him be quiet?

“Scotland,” I said. “You’re going to have to ask him first. He’s not a bowl of soup.”

“But,” Scotland said, “Doctor.”

“But,” Wrath said, “Patient!”

Scotland broke out laughing. I smiled to one side.  

“Fine,” she said. “Wrath, I apologize. I would like to examine you, to see if I can get to the bottom of this cadaver incident. May I examine you?”

Wrath folded his arms and said smugly, “NO.”

Scotland and I both yelped in dismay, “What?”

“No,” Wrath said. “It’s fun to say. No, no, no.”

Scotland tilted her head and glared at me, as if to say, was it for this that you dragged me across town and risking bottling up a ghost?

“Wrath,” I said. “You are ill.”

“No,” Wrath said, arms still folded. “Don’t want her poking.”

“Fine,” Scotland said. She took a step back. She studied Wrath from two feet away. “I can see you’ve lost a lot of the wooden pieces, Wrath. That must be encouraging.”

“It is,” Wrath said.

“And how do you feel? Does your body feel better or worse than it did before?”

A funny thing happened. With the distance between them, Wrath’s childishness seemed to melt away, and they began to converse like two adults. There was an even calmness, a matter-of-factness in Wrath’s voice that I’d never heard before. Surely that was a sign that the cadaver had been a part of him, that he was more Hester than he had been in a long time. I felt like I was listening to Hester. Scotland asked him dozens of questions, occasionally stopping to make notes in her notebook. Knowing I was of little use here, I began to wander back and forth inside the houseboat.

I began to yearn, diary. What was my life before this adventure? Nothing. It was all just… for other people. Get married. Accept marriage proposals when they are offered and don’t look back. By that logic, I should be married to Henry Hubert. Living for him. Washing his socks. Smiling and being glad that I was at least useful to someone. Or perhaps, if not married, still typing all day for Mr. Levy, glad and grateful so grateful that I was at least useful to someone. I was a cog in the machine, and didn’t that feel nice? But it didn’t feel nice. Oh, it’s one thing to work a job for the sake of your passions. Working all day so you can paint or travel the world by night. But I had… I was for other people. I was not for myself. And that was the most dismal of feelings.

I could feel something growing. This exultation. This sense that, when this is all over, not if, but when, when I make it, when my friends are restored, and I reach the end of your pages… I am going to stand on tiptoe and look at the world. I have spent my life being for others. Lately, I have spent it cleaning up the wild adventures that have led me to where I am. But after this adventure? I am going to just enjoy. I am going to be for me.

I wish I knew who left my china eye in the Pawn Shop that day. Who put it there, so that I could find it. Someone unlocked my powers my giving it to me, by leaving it there. In a sense, it was Mr. McGillicuddy, because he told me I could take home, but still… who bothered to take that broken piece from Mara’s kitchen floor where the teacup smashed and lay the fragment tenderly in that exact spot? My whole life changed because of that moment. And I don’t know who did that for me.

I was deep in the midst of these reveries, diary, when someone knocked on the houseboat door. I looked to the left and counted. One Wrath. One Me. One Scotland. Who was outside?

Wrath and Scotland went silent. I told myself I was being silly—it was probably just the real owner of this houseboat, come to kick us out. I lifted my shoulders, walked to the door, and opened it bravely.

The person standing there, in the twilight glow, was not the owner of the houseboat.

It was Noble James.

Noble James. My friend. A Night Enthusiast. Noble James. He stood there, holding a large contraption under his left arm. I was so surprised to see him, and so bewildered, that at first I didn’t recognize the machine. Why would I? It was just an odd thing, like a giant telegraph machine or something from a magic unusual post office. But as I stared at Noble’s face, wondering if he was here to change us back in Night Enthusiasts, I couldn’t stop thinking about the machine. I’d seen it somewhere before. I knew it.

“Maude,” he said.

His eyes filled with tears. Relieved tears. I waited for something bad to happen, and that’s when I recognized the device under Noble’s arm.

It was the machine Raster used to track us. I’d seen him using it one night when I’d gone after him. This was it. This was the machine. That’s when I noticed Noble had some bloody bandages in his pocket, the dried blood glowing bright in the twilight.

“What are you doing here?” I breathed.

“I knew you were still alive,” he said. “I knew it. I knew it had to be true. That’s why I…  I just…” He tapped his heart. “I knew you weren’t dead.”

“Noble,” I said. He had found us. He was a Night Enthusiast. He was going to tell the others. My fake death had been for nothing, we weren’t safe—

“Maude,” he said. “I’m halfway back to being myself. Enough that I’m not a Night Enthusiast anymore. I’ve found a cure. I found a way to grow my missing soul back.”

Season 5

Episode 9

Something Eternal

October 30th, 1921 continued

I was utterly speechless. Diary, if you were a person, and not an inanimate bundle of paper, then from where you sat on the table behind me, you probably would have squeaked. I squeaked. I stood in the open doorway of our houseboat, staring into the twilight and into the smiling features of Noble James.

He still had his newsboy cap. It was tilted. He was gorgeous. I digress.

He said it again. “Maude. I found a way to grow my missing soul back. I’m not a Night Enthusiast anymore. I’m healing.”

I took a step back. In the corner, Scotland and Wrath were watching all of this in total silence, mouths open. I glanced at Noble. Then at Raster’s machine under his arm. He had clearly stolen Raster’s machine, and what was left of my bloody bandages, and had used them to trace us here. Raster didn’t have his machine anymore.

I wanted to say so many things, diary. Instead, I stood there. I stood there staring while this thought and that question and this emotion zipped through my head and left me as empty as a seashell. I could not move.

Noble moved gingerly and set down the machine. “Here,” he said. “I can tell you don’t believe me, so I’ll prove it.” He tugged all his pockets inside out. “See? No weapon.” He said. He stared at me, his eyes softening. “Maude. Can’t you look at me and tell that it’s me?”

I could. I could. It was him. That was why I couldn’t move. I could see it in his eyes, the way I had seen the absence when he’d become a Night Enthusiast. He was himself again. Recovering.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” Noble said.

He knew he hadn’t won our trust yet, not entirely, so he didn’t come inside. He sat down crossed legged in the doorway. Scotland and Wrath sat down on Wrath’s bunk (I believe Wrath was holding both of Scotland’s hands in suspense) and I sat down on the floor. Straight across from Noble. Both of us in the beam of twilight.

“I didn’t want to be a Night Enthusiast,” Noble said. “It was as simple as that. Deep down, I knew it. So as soon as it happened, I set about trying to fix it, while pretending I was on the same side as everyone else. I knew the soul was dead. I had been a spy long enough to know how this works. The soul isn’t out there, waiting, ready to come back.”

Scotland and I glanced at each other. Then she continued to watch Noble as we put the thought away for now.

“So if I couldn’t go find it, I knew I would have to go rebuild it. The human body heals. It grows skin back. Not a whole finger or anything, but perhaps the soul is more versatile. I set out to prove that it was. I decided to grow my humanity back. My empathy.

“I started small. I thought about the Pawn Shop. My family. I thought about everything I loved, and that began to stir things. But that wasn’t enough. So I went to the site of the worst news I’ve gotten this year, which was Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

None of us were moving. We were spellbound. I think my whole body ached.

“I don’t know if you remember, but there was a massacre in Tulsa in June. A few months ago. They burned the Greenwood district. An angry white mob. They held six thousand black men women and children prisoner for eight days, they injured eight hundred, and they murdered about three hundred. Greenwood was absolutely beautiful. Prosperous. The massacre started over lies. Nothing. It spun into the core feeling that everyone had been smothering and they wrecked everything. They rioted. Killed. Burned.

“So. I went to Tulsa. The Greenwood district is still charred. I went to the cemetery where many of them are buried. Outside of the war, it’s one of the most horrifying events that will happen in my lifetime and most people don’t even know about it. In a way it’s worse than the war. Do you feel that? Prickling on your spine? Because in the war, they still passed gifts across the trenches over Christmas to each other. They only did as they were told. They followed orders but they weren’t trying to kill women and children. These people saw beautiful homes, homes in their community, and they burned them to the ground. The wallpaper shriveling. The electric bulbs bursting. You don’t do that to people you believe are human. And to deny the humanity of another human being? I think that is the most evil thing that exists.”

We were so quiet. I hadn’t known. About the Tulsa Massacre. It’s so easy to pretend we’re human when we can cover up the bird beaks with a mask.

“So,” Noble said. “I went there, and of course, I felt, but that wasn’t enough. That was just one piece. One starting piece. The first line in a long poem that said, Not like this. So I kept traveling.” He folded his hands and looked down. I could tell he was putting those pictures away, wrapping them gently in a protective cloth, not burying them to never look at again, but setting them aside. Diary, it’s hard to write all of this down. I am expressing it badly. So badly. I know this. My fingers feel clumsily. I am only looking in on Noble, probably getting half his words wrong, trying to understand how he felt and even feeling ashamed of how much I bungle my own understanding. I am sorry I cannot do this better. But here I am wanting to do something. Wanting to never forget this. That these things matter, and no matter how really remarkably awkward I am at saying See This Now, we must See This Now. We must never forget, never smooth over, never shy away in cowardice, or the Whiskalits win.

“I went all over the country,” Noble said. “And I just talked to people. If you wait long enough people will tell you just about everything about them. And if you hear people’s deepest darkest secrets something in your heart just opens up. They also asked me about me, and I told them. And that back and forth, push and pull, of me caring about them and feeling them care about me, that’s what started to grow things back. I began to be kinder to myself, and that helped me be kinder to other people. It was like lifting weights, like training for a marathon. I could feel it working. Then I went to Harlem New York and just basked for a full twenty-four hours in the art and the music and the theater. So I started with the horror of humanity and finished with the beauty of it. And the push and pull between those two things was just a reminder of how far we have to go but the fact that we are growing, that as human beings we’re not ending, we’re changing, and my desire to be a part of that change is another thing that helped me heal. There is every kind of story on this planet, but I have always wanted to be part of the good ones, and remembering that was profound.

“I can feel that I’m not Noble as I used to be. But I know I will be. I am healing. Trees don’t grow overnight but the roots are there, growing, and the growth of those roots snapped every stupid spell that Ariana put into my mind. I feel no loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts. I am myself. And I’m halfway back to being whole.”

I stared at him. Then I couldn’t bear it and I looked down. My emotions swirled.

Diary, that was three separate ways. My friends were all with me again, but not totally normal yet. Each one had gotten bits of themselves back, but in an entirely different way. A cadaver, a ghost, and now Noble teaching himself how to care again.

“Noble,” I said.

It was strange, because—Wrath’s transformation made me nervous. The cadaver was acting like an illness, an infection we didn’t know how to cure. Scotland made me nervous, because when I’d put that ghost into her, I’d had the strangest feeling that it wasn’t the missing bit of Scotland’s soul after all, it was something else. Scotland had said herself the two pieces still felt separate, like the healing wasn’t complete yet.

But Noble? This didn’t make me nervous at all. There was no fear here, no anxiety for nasty surprises. He did this. On his own. He built it. This was Noble. I could feel it in the depths of my chest. There is something eternal about Noble James. About his, forgive the pun, but about his nobility. Meet him as a Night Enthusiast and he turns out to be a spy. He dies, but turns out to not be dead after all. Leave him in a Whiskalit world, and he’s fine. Let him be a Night Enthusiast for a day and he comes back, himself, just as strong as ever. Leave him as a Night Enthusiast and he goes and tears the brainwashing out of his mind. He stands alone. He stands as himself. He refuses to have his identity dictated and who he will always be is Noble.

“May I hug you?” I said.

Noble smiled, a gleam of delight shining in one corner of his eye. Then he stood up, and I stood up, and I just jumped. In one fell swoop, straight up into his arms. I wrapped both my arms around his neck, inhaling the smell of him, and he clenched both his arms behind my back. It was strange that I had known him for so short a time and yet he felt so familiar. It wasn’t nerve-wracking or too intimate or peculiar to hold him like this. He felt a little bit like home.

Noble set me down, and we both took a deep breath. Then he turned to Wrath and Scotland.

“Wrath, Scotland,” he said. “I would say I’m surprised to see you here, having recently seen you both as Night Enthusiasts in the Night Enthusiast lair, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Maybe a little annoyed.” He grinned at me. “I think I wanted to be first.”

“Well, you clearly did it the right way,” Scotland said. She went over to the small round table and tugged it out into the center of the room. Apparently, we were about to have a conference. “Wrath is infected with a dead body, and I’m infected with a ghost. I think you’re the first one Maude can trust implicitly.”

“I take offense to that,” Wrath said. The he paused. “Never mind, it’s true.”

“Explain?” Noble said. “Dead bodies and ghosts?”

We all grabbed a chair. Scotland got out a bottle of wine (how had she found wine? Did she make it appear out of thin air? She’d only been in this boat for five minutes) and we each had a clay cup full. The light of the single candle in the center of the table reflected in the surface of my drink. The shadows behind us all were purple and mysterious, but it didn’t feel ominous. I was home again. We were together again. Wounded, but scheming. The community had returned.

“Tell us how you got here,” Scotland said. “What made you realize Maude was dead?”

“Oh!” Noble said. “Well, that was a key part of it. Maude, when I saw your corpse, nothing felt right. Internally, this sense had been growing. That I was going to find you. It was like the more I healed, the more a magnet in my chest was pointing due north saying, find Melinda Maudie Merkle. And the feeling didn’t go away when I saw you dead. It was still pointing somewhere else. It was very hard to argue with a dead body, but I did my best. I went to Raster’s machine and stole it, as well as everything of yours he had. Did you know he had a cabinet full of blood and bloody objects, neatly labeled by name? Well, it’s going to take him a year to rebuild this machine.” Noble grinned. “I took it and used it, but as you know, it’s slow. It listed all of your previous locations first, one at a time. I was dying to found out what you’d been doing in Brazil, so I went and found Dolores while I waited for it to finish. She told me what had happened. Didn’t seem too keen to talk about you, almost like she was irritated. What did you do, Maude, break of one her plates?”

“I did not,” I said. I had no idea why Dolores would be irritated with me. She was probably irritated with Noble for being nosy and ruining whatever plan I’d been trying to set up.

“So that’s how I learned about the false corpse,” Noble said. “None of the Night Enthusiasts know. The machine only lists a location once, so even if they stole it back from us and used it, that location won’t show up again. It was a bit gutsy hoping no one would follow you there and chat with her.”

“I was relying on speed,” I said. “And the assumption that no one goes looking for dead people.”

“I see,” Noble said. He took a sip of wine.

“So that was about an hour ago,” Noble said. “I returned to the machine and your location was listed as here. I only had to go into the Night Enthusiast’s collection of murder objects, find one for this year and location, and walk.”

“And we’re very glad you’re here,” I said.

“So am I,” Scotland said. “Except I was in the middle of an experiment. And I was interrupted.”

“What experiment?” Wrath said.

“You,” Scotland said.

“I am not an experiment!” Wrath said.

“It was more than a simple examination,” Scotland said. “Besides. I’d been about to test something.”

“You haven’t told me about the ghosts,” Noble said. “What’s going on with you and Wrath?”

We explained about Wrath and Scotland’s peculiar circumstances. After he heard about Wrath’s glowing blood, he glanced in concern at him.

“It’s glowing?” he said. “Like it’s dry?”

“But it isn’t dry,” Wrath said. “It’s quite wet.”

“Magic unusual blood only glows when it’s dry,” Noble muttered. In her seat, Scotland squirmed. Oh. No. She knew something. She knew something I didn’t know. There was more.

“So anyway,” Scotland said. “I was thinking we should begin the investigation again. Wrath, if you wouldn’t mind picking up where we left off?”

“Yes, I seem to recall I wasn’t letting you touch me,” he said.

“Yes, and it was hindering my work,” she said. “I need to at least check your heart rate, breathing, all of that.”

“Humph.” Wrath said. Suddenly, his face fell, and he became very preoccupied with something on his finger.

“That…” Wrath said. He stared down at his pinky. “That hasn’t been there before.”

At first I thought Wrath had a bug perched on the end of his finger, a shining beetle with a strange nose. But he poked it, tugged at it. It was attached to his finger. It was part of his finger. He turned his hand around so we could get a better look, and the fingernail of his left pinky had turned into a dark, sharp claw. It was obsidian, shimmering, and deadly. It looked like the talon of a bird.

“What’s going on with me?” Wrath said. “This isn’t wood. I’m meant to be human or puppet, I don’t have time for a third thing.”

“Let me see it,” Scotland said. She got up, offering her hand to Wrath.

Wrath recoiled, snarling. He held his hand against his chest protectively. “Death to all mice!” he hissed at her. “Death to all mice!”

I went cold. Wrath didn’t seem to realize what he’d said. This was the second time he’d said that phrase, without prompting, as though it came from deep within him.

He wobbled.

“Lie down on the bed,” I said.

Wrath stumbled over to the house bunk, and he toppled in. He still held his hand, the single bird talon gleaming like an infection. “Death,” he muttered. “Death to… no, that isn’t right… not that.”

“Maude, we have to talk,” Scotland said. She slung open the houseboat door. I jumped to my feet

“Stay with him?” Scotland said to Noble.

Noble got onto his knees beside Wrath’s bed. “Of course,” he said. He took Wrath’s arms gently in his hands. “You’re all right, my friend. Deep breaths. Now. Repeat after me. I am worthy. I have value. I am going to be all right. Deep breaths.”

Scotland and I hurried outside. The stars were out. The thin, long grass under our feet was wet. Scotland shut the door and took a few steps out into the night, where Wrath wouldn’t hear.

“Maude.” Scotland said. She gripped my arm. “I know what’s happening to Wrath. He’s dying.”

“What?” I breathed.

“Magic unusual blood glows when it’s dry,” she said. “It also glows in dead bodies.”

“What.”

“Normally it takes several days for the blood of a corpse to glow, so it’s not commonly known. Really only doctors are familiar with it. But it’s a way we can tell time of death, by how much of the blood is glowing. That thing that stepped back into Wrath? I think it was a missing part of him. Really him. But it was dead. He lost a part of himself when he was put into that train car but that part of him wasn’t alive and waiting, it was dead. Now that it’s back in him, he’s being sucked into the death, like a black hole. He’s going to start dying slowly.”

“But what about the bird talon?”

“Maude,” Scotland said. “Have you ever seen a Whiskalit? Under the mask? Do you know what they look like? What about their hands?”

“They always wear gloves,” I said.

“I think Wrath might have made a deal with the Whiskalits after all,” Scotland said. “I think he might be becoming one, slowly, as he dies.”

Season 5

Episode 10

A Kidnapping Commences

October 30th, 1921 continued

I clutched Scotland’s hand. We stood in the twilight outside of the houseboat, and I don’t know if I have ever felt so ill or so scared.

“You mean…” I said. “You think Wrath is becoming a Whiskalit?”

“Yes,” Scotland said. “I’m afraid so. That is, I know that he’s dying. I am sure of it. It’s why his blood glows, because corpse blood glows in Magic Unusuals. And… that talon growing on his finger. And he keeps saying Death to All Mice. As he dies, I think he’s turning into one of them.”

“But…” I said. “I don’t think he made a deal with them. I don’t think he agreed to become one.”

“I think maybe he did and then forgot,” Scotland said. “I think he repressed everything to do with it. But now he’s turning into one.”

“No,” I said. I clutched her hand so hard I’m sure I was cutting off the circulation. Wrath had been through so many metamorphoses since I’d known him. Mad, evil, kind, confused, murdering, refusing to become a Night Enthusiast. In his short time outside of the train car, he had begun to heal. If he had made a deal with the Whiskalits, the man he was now would take it back. My friend didn’t want to become one of them. I wasn’t going to let Wrath spend his eternity croaking behind a bird beak, living in that diseased cave, promoting death.

“Scotland, we have to heal him,” I said. “He’s dying but he’s not dead. We can’t let him die.”

“Maude, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never reversed death like this before. He is infected by death itself and it’s spreading. I’m not sure how we could stop something like this.”

“Well, we’ll find a way,” I said. “We must.”

We stood in silence in the damp grass for a moment. Crickets chirped.

“We can’t tell him,” Scotland said. “He shouldn’t know.”

“I agree,” I said.

“I’ll go back in with him now, if you want to tell Noble?” Scotland said.

“All right,” I said.

Scotland went back in. I paced under the shadows of the dark trees, feeling everything. Noble. Noble was coming out to meet with me. My heart fluttered.

He appeared a moment later, shutting the houseboat door gently behind him. He stepped up to me.

“Hi,” I said.

He smiled. “Scotland said you’d tell me?”

We wandered. It was dark in the forest around the houseboat, too dark to see, so we skirted the riverbank and walked up and down. There was a heavy, fragrant smell in the air, like purple flowers, and the grass whispered under our feet.

I told Noble everything. He was silent for over a minute.

“We have to bring the cadaver back to life,” he said. “The thing inside of him. We need a resurrection. It’s only a fraction of his personhood, it shouldn’t be as difficult as bringing an entire human being back to life.”

“Do you know anyone who can do that?” I said. “Bring someone back to life?”

Noble shook his head. “No. It would be quite the power, wouldn’t it?”

There was a silence. Then,

“How are you feeling?” Noble said. “About everything?”

“I miss everyone,” I said. “And I’m so worried about Wrath.”

“Oh, I know. But I mean, no, not that,” Noble said. “I meant. You know. Our last conversation. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, Maude. I was turned into a Night Enthusiast so soon after.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt bashful.

“Are you feeling better about yourself?” he said. “More like you belong?”

The last time Noble and I had talked, he’d asked if he could kiss me and I’d told him no. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was worried he wouldn’t love me if he knew what I was. That I could fall in love with both ladies and gentlemen. He’d told me it was quite normal, that I belonged.

“To be honest I haven’t had much time to think about it,” I said. “With everything going on. But… I don’t know. I do feel better. I feel like a butterfly with two different colored wings. I can’t fly without lifting either one of them, so it’s nonsense to try to pretend I’m all one side. I’ve been feeling breezy. All right. Like I have been flying just fine, accepting both sides, and I hadn’t really ever done that before. It’s like living life without a limp. It feels free. Very free. Very nice.”

I stared up into his face.

“Well, good,” he said.

I wondered if he was going to ask me if he could kiss me again. But he didn’t. Hum.

We walked a little further. The moon was golden.

“Going to Tulsa must have been horrible,” I said.

“It was,” Noble said.

“Noble, there’s so little I know,” I said. “I feel… pathetic in my attempt to understand or say or do anything about this. I will never grasp the depth of how that must feel. To see your people treated like that.”

“To deny the humanity of another human is what the Whiskalits are all about,” Noble said. “And that’s a thread of evil throughout all of human history. I don’t want to live through my thread but I am. That is the essential evil, to find another member of the human race inferior to you for any reason.” He turned and looked at me. “We have to stop it, Maude. For anyone and everyone. What’s going to happen in future wars if people believe some people aren’t fully human? We have to stop doing this to each other. How are we going to teach people that everyone is worthy? Deeply worthy?”

“I wish I could kill the Whiskalits,” I said.

“It won’t stop it completely,” Noble said. “They were human once, too. These ideas begin somewhere.”

“It would be a start,” I growled. Then I glanced at him. “Noble, do you think there might be… a ledger of some kind in the Whiskalit world? Something that states the agreement that makes someone a Whiskalit?”

“MMM?” Noble said, in a what are you thinking now, sort of way.

“And if you…. sort of burned the ledger… do you think you could undo the agreement?”

He stopped. “You’re trying to keep Wrath from becoming a Whiskalit.”

“Of course I am,” I said.

“If you stop the Whiskalit transformation that won’t stop him from being dead,” Noble said. “He’s dying. We have to fix that first. And living Wrath isn’t a Whiskalit. So he won’t be in any danger while he’s alive.”

“Still,” I said.

“Don’t mosey over to that cave in the middle of the night, please,” Noble said. “We have enough to worry about it.”

“I’ll bookmark the thought,” I said.

“Maude.”

“What?”   

When we returned to the houseboat, Wrath was asleep. In the light of the candle, I glanced over his features, but nothing else had changed. The transition wasn’t quick, which I assumed meant he was dying very slowly. He looked younger when he was asleep. I wondered who he would be, what he would be doing, if none of this had ever happened to him.

Scotland sat at the table rubbing her eyebrows. Noble and I sat next to her.

“Do you have any ideas?” Scotland said.

“Not yet,” I said.

Noble poured the last of the wine and passed Scotland the cup. “Is wine good for headaches?” he said.

“No, but a kind gesture is,” Scotland said. She took the cup. “Thanks.” She sipped. “What do you think, Noble? About all of this?”

“I think we have to find a cure for death quite soon.” He said. He lifted his nearly empty cup of wine from before. “Cheers to us!” he said. “For doing what no one in modern times has been able to do before. Bring the dead back to life.”

“Shall we bottle it when we’re done?” I said.

“No,” Noble said. “Because I think curing a supernatural cadaver will look very different from curing typical death.”

He was right. The cadaver hadn’t been dead in the typical sense. We had to restore to life something entirely alien. How would we do it?

“Do you know who’s very good with stuff like this?” Scotland said, after a pause.

“No,” I said. “Who?”

“Octavia,” Scotland said.

“Octavia?” Noble said. He had an edge of surprise in his voice.

“I know Octavia comes off as a bit ditzy,” Scotland said.

“I was going to say ethereal,” Noble said

“But she’s good with stuff like this,” Scotland said. “I think of her as being a pixie. Smart but strange and not quite in our world. I consult her whenever I deal with supernatural things I don’t understand. She thinks outside the box, and she knows a lot of lore.”

“But Octavia is a Night Enthusiast,” Noble said.

“Well,” Scotland said. “There are more ghosts where mine came from.”

I opened my mouth. “No,” I said.

Scotland leaned forward. “I’m fine.”

“For now,” I said. “This science experiment we’re currently running inside of you has only just begun. Wrath is dying now because of what entered him.” I felt sick. “What if something happens to you?”

“Wrath had a cadaver enter him. Something we could touch and feel was dead. Something tangible. This is all spirit. And spirit can’t really die, can it? It can’t be dead, it can only be separate from our bodies. What is happening to Wrath is horrible but it is a completely separate concept. So far, the missing bit of my soul has been doing its job. I am me again, even if I am occasionally absentmindedly respecting Dawn Mumungus.”

“You think the ghost inside of you was really you?” Noble said. “Actually your missing soul?”

“You don’t believe me,” Scotland said.

“I don’t,” Noble said. “I was a Night Enthusiast, remember? Or rather, a spy. I watched initiation ceremonies. The soul goes away. It doesn’t wait.”

“Maybe it goes and waits in Maude’s haunted house,” Scotland said.

“Don’t be funny,” Noble said.

“I’m not being funny,” Scotland said. “Look, if this ghost is my missing soul, it means that the ghosts we saw in that house before WE were changed into Night Enthusiasts, those ghosts were the original Night Enthusiast’s soul pieces. The ghosts are all the same thing. If they’re us, fractions of our former selves, then the ghosts we met before Ariana’s spell were all the Night Enthusiast soul pieces floating around. Waiting.”

“They said they were waiting for me,” I said. “Why would Night Enthusiast soul pieces be waiting for me?”

“I don’t know,” Scotland said. “But ghosts can time travel, obviously, or use murder objects, because that haunted house isn’t in our timeline. My soul piece moved back in time to wait in that house. Remember, most of us were in the house when the spell turned us, but I was still out looking for Ariana. Renfield found me, same as he found you, Noble. That means my ghost traveled to the house. Now that’s funny. That’s very interesting.”

“You’re forgetting one much more plausible answer,” Noble said.

“What?”

“The ghosts were never us, never Night Enthusiasts, and never went back in time.”

“There are about two hundred ghosts in that house,” Scotland said. “That’s not an ordinary haunting. That’s a congregation. Say what you want about who they are or where they came from, those ghosts traveled there. I’m sure of it. They collected in that house on purpose. They know something.”

I puffed my cheeks out as big as I could. I just sat there slowly releasing the air. I didn’t like to think about this. Scotland was right, our soul pieces or not, ghosts had gathered and were waiting for me. Why me? Why ME?

“Do either of you doubt that this is really me?” Scotland said. “Can’t you tell I’m back? It’s a propped-up fix, certainly, but I am myself again.”

“I do believe you,” I said. At least I hoped I did. “But that doesn’t mean we should do the same to Octavia. Not until we know more.”

“Look,” Scotland said. “Do any of you have any ideas? For how to stop a supernatural death? We need Octavia’s insight. Time is ticking. Wrath doesn’t have time for me to wait and see what this ghost does. We need Octavia now.”

“But she won’t agree to it,” I said. “She isn’t like you, Scotland, she isn’t desperate to experiment. She isn’t ready to be a lab rat in the name of medicine.”

“I wanted my soul back,’ Scotland said. “Deep down. She will, too.”

“But…”

“Octavia and I made a promise to each other once,” Scotland said. “This was years ago. She made me promise if she ever got swayed by Night Enthusiast ideology, if she ever fell in love with their philosophy and changed her mind and joined them, I would kill her.”

“Kill her?” Noble said.

“She knows the NE are murderers,” Scotland said, “That they create harm. She wanted to die rather than join that. I’m not going to kill Octavia. At the time, when I promised her, I had no intention of killing her either, maybe locking her up or something. But she wanted me to do anything I could to stop her from being that. So. She will take the ghost. She’s already given her consent. I know she would be willing to try anything.”

“And you think she might know a way to stop Wrath’s death?” I said.

“If anyone can, she can.”

Noble and I looked at each other. Scotland had already made up her mind. It was up to us to decide.

I sat there for so long I almost forgot what I was trying to decide. I thought of Octavia’s sweet face, her dark eyes, her glossy long black hair, her high cheekbones and pale brown skin. Beautiful and as Scotland had said, a fairy. As Noble had said, ethereal. Sort of wafting from room to room. Her cheerfulness, her courage, her surprising internal strength. She’d been lost in the Whiskalit cave and had still kept a smile on her face. I squirmed. My heart fluttered thinking about her. She was so lovely. And such a remarkable person.

Could I really stick a ghost into her? Not knowing ultimately what it was? Then again, could I let her stay a Night Enthusiast a minute longer? When she might commit things that would be on her conscience forever?

We needed her. And she would want to be here. She would want to get out.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s do it. Let’s kidnap Octavia and get her ghost.”

From there, things moved quickly. We wanted to do what we were doing immediately. Scotland decided to stay with Wrath, in case something went wrong while he slept. We needed a doctor by his side. Noble and I would split up, one to get Octavia, one to get the ghost inside the bottle.  

We stepped out into the night. “I assume I go for the ghost and you go get Octavia?” I said to Noble. “Since they trust you and my face would cause a bit of an uproar?”

“Actually,” Noble said. “I think we should go together. In case something goes wrong. No splitting up when things are this dangerous.”

“So I wave at all the Night Enthusiasts?” I said.

“You wouldn’t have to,” Noble said. A slow grin spread across his face. He was getting an idea. “Tonight the Night Enthusiasts are having a party. A masquerade party. In their lair. We could go. With a mask on, no one would recognize you. There are a lot more Night Enthusiasts than there used to be. And we’d only need to stay for five minutes.”

“You really think I should risk it?” I said.

“It might take two to kidnap Octavia,” he said. “What if she doesn’t come willingly? What if we need to pick her up and run out the door?”

“As in, you’ll sling her over your shoulder, and I’ll get the doors?” I said.

“It takes two to conduct a proper kidnapping,” Noble said.

I smiled. It was true, now that I had a definite friend again, I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. “All right,” I said. “We’ll crash the party. We’ll do both things together.”

It didn’t take long to return to the house, find Octavia’s ghost, and ask her to step into the ghost bottle. I could tell, when Noble sat how much the ghost looked like Octavia. He was starting to have his mind swayed. Perhaps the ghosts were us after all.

After that, we got masquerade masks from a shop. Mine was black with black feathers and faux diamonds on it. Noble’s was harlequined in black and white. He simply went back to his apartment for a suit, but I had to teleport to a shop and get a dress. It was long and black and shimmery, with bare arms and a V neck as is the current fashion, with a slightly flirty gathering on the left side of the skirt. With the mask and the dress on…. I felt dramatic. Remarkable. Like something out of a painting. Noble and I grouped up again and then teleported together to the Purgatory Club.

It was dark. Automobiles with their round lights lit up a drizzle of rain in the street. We dashed across the cobblestones, my high heels clicking. Noble squeezed my hand.

“Ready?” he said.

I squeezed back. “As I’ll ever be.”

And just like that, delicately disguised, we stepped inside to crash a Night Enthusiast party.  

Season 5

Episode 11

A Dark and Lovely Dance

October 30th, 1921 continued

Diary, it was a blustery night. Rainy. My feet had already begun to cramp because of the cute strappy little black heels I’d already put them in. It was in this state that Noble and I burst across the threshold of the purgatory club, wearing masquerade masks.

We stepped inside the club. It was warm and dry and smelled of cigarette smoke. Curtains glowed in the light of spotlights, and all around us, humans chattered. They glanced in curiosity or even mockery at our masks, because no one here in the human part of the club had been invited to the masquerade ball below.

“Makes me nervous,” I said to Noble, as we skittered through the ground. “They’re not acting like they’ve seen many guests wander through here wearing masks.”

“Don’t you think they’re just being judgmental?” he said. “Of us? Not the masks?”

“Oh,” I said. “Maybe so.” I looped my arm through his. “Carry on, Sir, until we meet our bitter doom.”

“Don’t be dramatic about bitter doom when it could be right around the corner,” Noble said.

We were of course on our way to kidnap Octavia. As we marched towards the secret Night Enthusiast entrance, I felt for such a long time that cold droplets were still striking my skin that I finally reached down and rubbed my arms. Oh of course. Not indoor rain. Goosebumps. I was covered in goosebumps. I wanted Octavia on our side so desperately, and I was also as nervous as a canary in a cat’s mouth. The bottle of the Octavia’s ghost rattled in my satchel. How much longer would it be? And would this work?

Noble and I stepped behind the curtain, but instead of the usual way to get into the Night Enthusiast speakeasy, a man stood there in a bowler hat, with a green vest and a bit of purple around his eyes. He was very large and intimidating.

Noble removed his mask. The bouncer nodded at him right away.

“Mr. James.”

Noble put his mask back and just waited. I was shivery. Probably visibly.

“Is she worried about something?” the bouncer said.

“Just cold,” I said cheerfully.

I didn’t remove my mask. How could I? I wondered if Noble had a plan. He just stood there for a moment. Then he said abruptly, “What’s the hold up? Aren’t you going to let us in?”

The bouncer gestured at me. “Who’s she?”

“Date,” Noble simply said to the bouncer. “She’s one of us. Brand new. I made her myself.”

Oh, did you now? I stood there pretending to purr and trying not to laugh as the man stepped aside with a flourish and let us in. I supposed even in the Night Enthusiast world, Noble held a lot of respect and power. The bouncer didn’t question him.

Unless this was a trap.

I thought about traps as we hurried down the murky underground hallway to the Night Enthusiast cave. I could already hear music crooning, its jazz reverberating off the walls of the tunnel, tinny and hollow and other-worldly. If it was a trap, this thing we were walking in to, was it for both of us? Or was it just for me?

We stepped into the cave a moment later. I was transfixed, I must admit. I prefer the sense of home and kindness that I get in the secret basement, but this was a bit thrilling. The last time I’d seen this cave it had been murky with dark. There’s a darkness in caves unlike anything else. A pure deep black. That darkness was still present, but now it glittered with purple string bulbs and emerald green lamps on every cocktail table. The lamps were strange copper apparatuses that made this look like the party of an undersea witch.

A band played music in the corner. I wondered if they were Night Enthusiasts too or if this was just the strangest gig they’d ever gotten. As soon as Noble and I edged into the party, I began to feel safer. It was so dark here. We all wore masks. I could barely make out the dresses of women three tables away. We were here to hide, to mingle, to party but to not be seen. Almost as if the Night Enthusiasts were afraid of their very faces.

“Should we split up?” Noble said. “I know what you look like and you know what I look like. If we only stop to talk to Octavia, once we spot her, then she might be easier to find.”

“And just one of us is less intimidating than two of us,” I said.

“If you find her first,” Noble said, “Don’t let her know it’s you right away.”

“How old do you think I am?” I said. “Five?”

“Sorry,” he said with a grin. The grin looked a bit wicked under that mask. “I’m a jangle of nerves and I assume you are, too.”

“Let’s find her,” I said. “As much as I want to stay for an hour and drink wicked cocktails, I think the sooner we leave the better.”

“Agreed,” Noble said.

He stepped off into the crowd. For just a split second, pure terror shot through my veins. I felt it like a throb. What if he wasn’t healed? What if this was the end of me?

Then I felt security pour back in. There are a lot of things I’m not sure of, Diary. A lot of things I’m sure will go wrong before the end. But I knew Noble was himself. He was like a center of gravity to me, a reassurance that evil would not always win, that I was not alone. Diary, never underestimate the power of simply being a good human and simply existing. You’ll heal the world just by making toast.

I wandered through the party. I swayed to the music, tried to act a little tipsy so people wouldn’t be as threatened by me scanning them. I wanted to just look like a cheerful drunken girl who was curious about everything. I’m not sure what kind of job I did. I’m a goody two shoes. That wine we’d had around the table in the boat was some of the first I’d ever had in my life!

No one seemed to mind me though. I wandered and searched, but diary, it was so hard. A lot of the masks were huge, faces utterly concealed beneath them. The place was so dim. Features were hazy. I passed a few masks with long bird beaks on them. Ick. If not for the tufts of 1920s haircuts or high heels, I would have been worried there were Whiskalits weaving about with us.

This wasn’t working. A few yards away I spotted Noble, seeming equally lost. I paused for a moment to simply take in the enormity of my life at the moment. I needed to understand my trajectory so I wouldn’t feel so lost.

The plan. Kidnap Octavia. Stop Wrath from dying. And then—oh, diary, that makes my head spin. I’ve been so preoccupied with the fact that Noble is here I have barely given any time to the truth. All of these people in the room with me, Night Enthusiasts old and new, were capable of healing. Gaining their souls back. But how to convince them all? We could not unleash healing upon them with a weapon the way they’d unleashed destruction upon us. We couldn’t snick a trigger and see it done. It had to be personal. Slow. And that was something that wasn’t ultimately in my power.

I knew I needed to find her. I felt rumbly with nerves. Then I stopped trying to look for Octavia in the crowd and asked myself if I knew her well enough. Octavia. What would she wear? Octavia liked to express herself. Her dress would be a reflection of her personality. Well, did I know the personality enough to—

It would be a white dress with silver sparkles. I wandered through the crowd. Not a lot of people were wearing white. That’s why she would pick it. To stand out like an ethereal ghost, like the ethereal ghost in my pocket…

I spotted a girl at the back. Small and willowy. Sipping her drink slowly like she had a lot to think about. That was my girl.

I hurried up to her, and that was when I realized I wanted Octavia to like me, to trust me, so badly. I wanted her to know I cared about her.

I reached her. She didn’t look over at me, assuming I was a stranger.

“Hi,” I said, in a very fake voice. “Would you like to dance?”

She glanced at me, looked me up and down. “How did you know I like girls?”

I hadn’t known that.

“I was… just hoping,” I said.

She squinted at the crowd. “The group I used to belong to was more accepting than this bunch. They’d be all right with it, it’s legal, but they would still count me as a sort of second-class citizen because of it. A bit wrong. Not as pure as they are.”

“Well,” I said. “Should we show them all wrong and dance anyway?”

She stared at me for a long time. The eyeholes of her mask hid her eyes for the most part, but I began to see a glitter through the mask, like light on water.

“Yes,” she said. “We shall dance.”

She reached out her hand and I took it. This didn’t feel like hugging Noble. Touching him had felt familiar, safe, like being home. Touching Octavia felt strange, unearthly and sharp, but perhaps that was the lizard-like coldness of every Night Enthusiast. I felt like I was on a different planet or in a different timeline. A sort of horrible mirror world where things go wrong, and you are forced to watch how badly your life might have gone. Friends miserable. The good world you once inhabited lost.

But my good world wasn’t lost. Not yet. I wasn’t defeated, and I wasn’t alone. Noble had regained his humanity apart from me. This wasn’t a problem I had to fix by myself, all alone, stone by stone. I was not the only force of good in the world, and that thought comforted me deeply as I took both of Octavia’s hands in mine and we stepped out to dance.

We were silent for about a minute, just dancing. Neither of us were particularly good, but maybe that’s because two women dancing together weren’t used to leading, and so we both led, and there were too many limbs. Out of the corner of my eye, in the shadow of the cave, I saw Noble watching us. He nodded once at me. He knew I’d found her. He was standing by.

We listened to the jazz. Octavia broke our silence by abruptly saying,

“You remind me of my dead friend.”

And then, diary, I don’t know what came over me, but I became fierce. I wanted to surprise her. I dipped her backwards. “I am your dead friend.”

Octavia yelped. I swept her back onto her feet. “Be very very quiet,” I said. I made it sound like I was threatening, dangerous, but of course I had no intention of hurting her one bit. “You must listen to me.”

“Maude?” she gasped.

“Do as I say or things—will be just terrible,” I said. Oh goodness. I was not good at threatening anyone. “I’m not here alone. Be quiet.”

“I’ll be quiet,” she said, but it was in such a strange tone of voice I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

“We’re going to walk over there,” I said. “To the door.”

I felt absolutely giddy. Like my head was going to spin off my shoulders. I had done precisely what Noble had just asked me not to do. What had I just retorted? Do you think I’m five? Oh dear. My pulse thumped. It had felt right at the time. Exactly right. I needed to tell her it was me. Now I felt so unsure. What had I done? We were in a room full of Night Enthusiasts. What was stopping her from screaming her head off?

Maude, you have to not let your heart take you away, I said to myself. You told her because you were in the moment. Use your head. Not your heart.

Octavia and I walked to the far wall. Noble sat where we were headed and wove his way there as well. Octavia kept staring at my left hand, which was still looped through hers. I wondered what was about to happen. I wondered why I’d taken such a terrible risk.

It was then that I realized what you have probably already guessed, diary: I had a crush on Octavia. How many crushes can one girl have? But this was a different kind of thing. It was… less about Octavia and more about acceptance, in general. I worshipped her from afar and I just wanted some token of light. I wanted to know if I was good enough. What if deep down I was oily and wrong? And that was the only reason Ariana loved me, because she was oily and wrong, too? Noble was above all that—I felt safe with him. I knew he loved me, and I loved him back. As what I love him as I am still muddy on, but I love him dearly. With Octavia… despite being turned in a Night Enthusiast against her will she was something extraordinary. She is good, she is bright, she is remarkable. She is not oily and wrong. I think this is still just shame over liking women. Feeling like I don’t belong to either camp, like I’m some sort of traitor for having a foot in both sides. Of course there’s nothing wrong. Of course I am whole and complete and not a tight-rope walker. But I feel reluctance and shame. Perhaps I am drawn to snakes like Ariana when I love women because when I look in the mirror at the Maude who loves women, I see a snake. Something foul. My crush on Octavia wasn’t about a lifetime of happiness, it was about one moment of acceptance. I wanted her to see me as something good. I wanted her to revel in me. Because if she found me lovely, then it would be a sign that I was. And I felt as if I needed it, in order to move on, in order to say to myself, you are a gem. Be at peace.

Octavia and I reached a dark corner of the cave, where the music was quiet and very few people were around. Noble hung back, not sure where Octavia and I were at with introductions.

“What are you doing to do?” Octavia said, rather serenely. “Are you going to stab me?”

“No,” I said. I reached into my satchel. I didn’t know what else to do. I was getting nervous, and we had always known we were just going to do this, because if we asked, she would probably say no, and…

I slipped my fingers around the cork of the ghost bottle and gave it a gentle tug. As I did it, I knew I was doing something wrong. What could be wrong about giving someone their humanity again? But a voice seemed to whisper in me, like an evil omen, “She didn’t agree…” and the voice faded as the silver dust of Octavia’s ghost shot straight into her.

Noble reached my side, having seen the ghost. I wondered if he would be wildly angry with me for jumping the gun, but he just put his hand on my shoulder and gripped hard.

Octavia stood there staring for just a moment. Then she shuddered. She looked up into my eyes with a curious expression. “You put it back.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved. This ghost seemed to have done the same thing as the last one.

“I’m not hollow anymore,” Octavia said. She frowned at me. “Maude, I have something to show you. Something really terrible that Ariana is doing. You’d better come with me.”

Noble and I glanced at each other. This was the beginning of something. Was Octavia herself again? Was all well?

Octavia didn’t wait for us to respond. She hurried through the dark cave, out the tunnel. We followed her because we simply couldn’t let her out of our sight. She didn’t stop until she was out in the dark, rainy street, and then all of us stood there in out masquerade gear.

“Noble, you’re with us again?” she said. “Somehow. Very good. Well, Maude, we have a sort of office now,” she said. “Noble, you weren’t in on this because Ariana never trusted you. Inner circle stuff. The thing I have to show you is there. Here’s a photo of the main room of the office. Let’s teleport, now.”

Noble and I glanced at each other. She was showing us how to get to a secret office. This was good.

We disappeared, one after the other, in tiny blips. The office was dark and a bit humid. It smelled of old wood polish and paper. Banker’s lamps sat on desks. Rain clattered against the dark windows and the streetlights gleamed beyond.

The Night Enthusiasts had an office. How boring. Reminded me of Mr. Levy.

“Here.” Octavia hurried down the hallway to a kind of vault with a barred metal door. She stepped in first, pointing to a stack of papers. “It’s there. Do you see it?”

All three of us stepped inside. A kind of electric hum seemed to pass through the room. I stepped up to the stack of papers, but Noble didn’t. He stared at Octavia. As she jumped back outside and slammed the door shut on us, he lunged for her.

She held the door firmly in place.

“You can’t teleport,” she said. “The room is magicked.”

“Octavia,” I said. “Why are you doing this?”

“Maude, I’m very confused,” Octavia said. “I feel everything again. I am myself again, or at least, I have all the same depth as I did before the Night Enthusiasts made me shallow. But now all that emotion and loyalty and passion and pain is on the side of the Night Enthusiasts. I don’t understand that entirely. I think I need to have a good sit down and sort through everything I’m feeling. But for now. I’m still a Night Enthusiast. I’m still loyal to them.” She slammed the door shut and locked it with a furious twist of her wrist. “So rot in here while I go fetch Ariana.”

Season 5 Episode 12

The China Eye is Gone

October 31st, 1921

Diary, it was not a good time to be alive. I have had many moments in my life since becoming a Magic Unusual. Some of them glorious. Some of them terrible. But all of them storied moments, moments worth living through because all of them smacked of adventure and trying and reaching for the moon. This was not a pleasant moment to live through, because, even if I had managed to shift from under the ridiculous load of guilt, I was left feeling infinitely bored.

Here’s where I left off.

Octavia, as you remember, had had her ghost returned to her. We had thought she would behave much like Scotland, join the team and come with us on our new plan because her soul bits were returned. We needed Octavia to help find a cure for Wrath’s dying. Augh. Wrath was dying, and we were stuck in a magical closet.

Yes, remember the closet? The one Octavia locked Noble and I in? The ghost hadn’t worked. Octavia had still felt loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts, and she had betrayed us.

She’d hung in the doorway for a moment, and then she’d done the worst thing yet.

“Turn out your pockets,” she said.

“What?” Noble said.

“Pockets!” Octavia said.

Noble tugged at his, revealing nothing inside but a handkerchief.

“Give me your bag, Maude.”

“What?”

She tugged a small pocket pistol out of the sleeve of her dress. She threw her shoulders back and glared at me, the tiny but deadly weapon pointed straight at my heart.

Octavia was very cute as a gangster. I wished she could have been on my side instead.

“I will shoot you,” she said. “I’m very emotional right now and not rational. So just give me your satchel.”

Despite this claim, I didn’t think Octavia would really shoot me. Still, I felt compelled. I handed her my bag through the bars. It had a whole jar of magic jelly in it, diary. And I had none in my pockets. I did not want the Night Enthusiasts to possess an entire jar of magic jelly, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave it away.

With that, Octavia left. At first Noble and I thought Ariana would arrive within minutes. But she didn’t. The longer it took for Octavia to return and Ariana to arrive, Noble began to mutter, “Maybe she had a change of heart.”

But then why hadn’t she let us back out? It seemed more likely that Ariana was letting us stew.

Noble and I tried to break out for half an hour. It was useless. The little paper closet we were in, complete with a door of metal bars, was magicked. No teleporting. No breaking down the door. Neither Noble nor I had a murder object on us, or we might have used it. The magic jelly was of course, gone. Noble sat down with his head in his hands, and I didn’t speak. It felt stupid to apologize. This was my fault, really. I’d told her who I was. I could have released the ghost and waited to see how she’d react. I’d fumbled, gloriously and appallingly. Now Noble and I, the only two magic unusuals left in our part of the world with intact souls, sat locked in a closet. Noble’s cover was blown. The Night Enthusiasts knew I was alive. This was everything I’d dreaded since the beginning. Nothing was stopping them from using my power for their own. My ability to break a spell with a wish. They could march up here, remove my soul, and have it. Perhaps they could even remove my power the way Dolores’ grandmother had removed hers. This was the end, diary. I was alive, I was trapped, and I was about to become a Night Enthusiast.

But was that really as final as I’d thought? Noble sat across from me, proof that it didn’t have to be final. Oh, but what spells would I break, what would I do and undo, while they had control of my mind?

I couldn’t bear to sit there and do nothing. Diary, I sat in that cell, and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I set down every adventure from the last few days, and I felt all of it. My fingers were shaky. Wondering. Wondering if this would be where the pages end, and if a new Maude would start writing after me.

Of course it had to go wrong. Of course the ghosts weren’t the solution we’d thought they were. If we’d stuck them straight into everyone, the whole kit and kaboodle of Night Enthusiasts past and present, we could have been done with this in the snap of a finger. But life doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t. It has to be more complex, more nuanced. Hang nuance. I was hoping for a magic switch.

Finally, my fingers inky and my heart fluttering, I glanced up. Noble was staring right at me.

“There are no words for my idiocy,” I said.

“I forgive you,” he said. “To err is human.”

“Are you calling yourself divine?” I said, with a smirk.

“Yes,” he said. We both grinned at each other. Funny to be smiling when we might be about to die. Die.

What if they were going to kill us, because Noble was living proof he’d never be loyal, no matter what? How could they keep someone like that? What good would we do them?

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said. “There has to be a way.” I heaved with desperation. I wasn’t going to end here. Not like this. I think in the end I’d told Octavia who I was because I wanted to be able to trust in the friend I’d known, the human who was still within her. I’d wanted to believe that nothing can take away our spark of light. I wanted to trust in her core. And I still wanted that. That sign that the real Octavia would win. It would be horrible to die this way, because the death would be a proven sign that we can have our humanity stripped and it is possible to never find our way home. To go out like a dark night, lost.

I shut my eyes and prayed, “Please, not like this. I need this to be true. I don’t want evil to be infinite. I want good to be infinite, undestroyable. Please. In our cores. Let this be true.”

To Noble, I said, “Come on! Let’s find a way to break out. You and me. Right now. There has to be way.”

Noble shook his head. “Maude, you know there isn’t.”

Yes, my fingers still hurt from trying the first time. Think, my brain said. What have you got that you can use?

We had nothing in this cell. We had our costumes, our masks, the papers (which were quite useless) and ourselves. I thought about taking off my shoe and banging it against the bars. We didn’t have much to work with. But wait a minute.

We did have ourselves. We were assets. My brain spun a plan. It was a flimsy plan, like cotton candy. But it was something.

So I muttered the plan to Noble, and he nodded and said it was our only chance.

Octavia returned with Ariana about twenty minutes after that. My heart thudded, seeing Ariana again. Sometimes I fear her, not for anything she has done but for this deep gut sense I have that she would do anything. That she might snap and flail and suddenly we’d all be dead. She has a volcano inside of her, oozing rage, oozing confusion. You can see it boiling in her eyes at times. And to think I used to be so lonely that I thought she was a good friend. The poor thing.

“Maude,” she said. “You’re not dead.”

“Nope,” I said.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said.

“Oh?” I said.

“That’s right,” she said. “Because I had such a clever plan to stop you, and now I get to see it in action.”

Stop me? I haven’t done anything. Did she really think I was capable of bringing down her entire empire? It made me feel a bit better.

Octavia stood back. Her eyes were puffy. She’d been crying. So. She was conflicted. She was confused about who she was, not entirely loyal to them. But she’d still brought Ariana here.

“Ariana,” Noble said. “For God’s sake, let me out of here.” It was cute to see him pretend to be evil when he wasn’t. He overdid it a bit, I think, but maybe Ariana wouldn’t notice.

“Octavia said you were with her.” Ariana glanced at me.

“Yes,” Noble said. “Obviously. I was running a long con. Maude thought she could trust me. What? Do you seriously think we can undo the spell you set up with the Whiskalits? It was fool proof. And. Why would I want to change anything? I’ve reached enlightenment. I want to be a Night Enthusiast now.”

“I never said you changed yourself out of being a Night Enthusiast.” Ariana said. “I thought maybe she’d found a way.”

“No,” Noble said. “Don’t be ridiculous. What would she have done? Like I said, I’ve been running a long con convincing Maude I’m on her side. It’s just a con.”

“A long con where you didn’t tell me Maude Merkle was alive?”

“You know you’d have demanded to see her right away,” Noble said. “It would have ruined everything. You can’t keep your head around her.” There had clearly been real animosity between these two. An actual Night Enthusiast feud, because Noble was falling easily into insulting her, like it was an old pattern. Why would the two of them have been at odds? What were they at war over? And then I realized with a kind of funny flutter that they were at war with each other over me. They both loved me. That had spilled over into arguments and snapping. They both sensed how deeply they were in competition.

“Fine,” Ariana said. “You were conning Maude.”

“Yes, and then Octavia left me in this stupid closet,” Noble said. “For God’s sake let me out.”

“You’ll have to submit to a test,” Ariana said. “To make sure you’ll still a Night Enthusiast. We can detect it, you know.”

“Obviously,” Noble said. “We’ll go do it right now. Just let me out, I’m going crazy.”

Ariana nodded her head at Octavia, who held the key in her fingers. “Let them both out. I’ve got skull spells on both of you. And if you try to teleport or get away, I’ll kill Octavia.”

“What,” Octavia said.

“No hard feelings,” Ariana said. “But they both like you. Come on, everybody out. No funny business. Octavia, go get Noble tested for being a Night Enthusiast. Maude. Come with me. And remember if you try to get away, I will hurt Octavia very much.”

Noble and I gave each other a glance, but he was still acting. It was a mean little smirk. Oof. I hoped that wasn’t the last time I would ever see him.

It was hard to know how scared to be as I followed Ariana out of the room. She was shorter than I’d remembered. Or perhaps skinnier. Like she wasn’t eating, like she was a buzzard of bones. She wore a simple dark purple dress with black stockings and black heels. She walked in front of me, and she seemed so callous. I wondered what she was feeling, underneath. I felt so sorry for her. I had been lonely. But how much lonelier must she be? In this state? How could she even like herself?

She walked up a staircase, checking every now and again to see if I was there. It was when she turned her head to check on me that I spotted little vulnerable looks in her eyes. She did miss me. She wanted me back. But I was not going morally and emotionally backwards to meet her where she was. If we would ever be friends, she would have to heal. Like Noble. And I wondered if she would.

Ariana opened at door at the top of the staircase, and we stepped inside. Because this office building was so commonplace, I expected this to be an ordinary room, but it wasn’t. It was a strange dark place full of mirrors and mist, and soft gray lighting on the floor. Two chairs sat in the middle of the room. I was worried that magic happened here, and I didn’t want to go in.

“Sit down, please,” Ariana said. She stepped into the room. “I am going to tell you your fortune.”

I knew she had threatened Octavia, and I also knew it was foolish to risk so much when I didn’t even know what was going to happen. I was afraid. I didn’t want to go in. But I also felt like Ariana was about to tell me something. I at least wanted to know what she had in mind for me. It was too early to escape. So I went in.

She shut the door, and we sat in ornate wooden chairs in the middle of the dark room. It smelled like incense.

“Maude,” Ariana said. “I’m not going to kill you, because I don’t have to. But I do want you to know, I’ve given up on your forever. What’s between us is over, because I’m putting you away, where no one will ever find you again.”

“What do you mean you’re putting me away,” I said. I felt strangely calm but also shaky at the same time. “Prison?”

“No,” Ariana said. “I may as well tell you, because I’ve already done it. You can’t undo what I’ve done. You can’t change anything. It’s happening to you, slowly. It’s been happening to you, for weeks. You might as well know.”

Oh this was the most horrible thing I’d ever heard in my life! I had the creeps! “What are you talking about?”

“At first, the Night Enthusiasts wanted your power. Your ability to break spells with a wish. They wanted you on our side, one of us, so you would be an asset. Well, as it happens, I actually need you to never have that power. There’s a spell you broke and I can’t have you breaking it. So I have to make sure you don’t have your power anymore.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Are you going to remove my power?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ariana said. “You’ve already made the wish. Otherwise I would just kill you to stop you.”

I felt dizzy. I had already made the wish. I had already broken the spell. Ariana desperately wanted to stop me from breaking a spell I have already broken.

But. I haven’t broken any important spells. Have I? This would have to be immensely important, life or death, this spell would have to hold the fate of the Night Enthusiasts in its hand. I haven’t broken any spells like that. That I’m aware of.

“I am going to undo you,” Ariana said. “Everything you’ve built, everything you’ve become. I’m erasing time. Things have already started to happen to you, right? Weird holes in your story? The china eye has disappeared, hasn’t it?”

I stared at her.

“Hasn’t it?” Ariana said.

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s because I went back in time and erased its existence,” Ariana said.

“You can’t change time,” I said. “I tried once. We can go back in time but we can’t alter anything. We can’t interfere. You couldn’t have made my china eye cease to exist. You can’t alter anything. It isn’t possible.”

“Oh, it isn’t possible,” Ariana said. “But I didn’t just ask for one thing from the Whiskalits. I got a few perks as well. I asked to look into the future to see whether or not this entire scheme would work.”

“And?”

“And,” she said. “It works beautifully. For them and for me. As long as I get rid of one wish, stop you from undoing one spell.”

“And which spell is that?”

“As if I’m going to tell you.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. I felt sick. “What did you do? Are you just lying to me to make me miserable?”

“You can’t change events,” Ariana said. “Especially not big things. But the Whiskalits were also keen to make sure you never ended up breaking the spell you broke. They gave me all the magic they could. Enough for one small gesture that could change everything. I have changed time, with the Whiskalit’s help. I went back to 1916 and I went into Mara’s kitchen, and that man who died on her floor? John? The one whose dead body smashed the teacup into bits and created your china eye? I took it out of his hands before he keeled over, pretending to be a concerned bystander.”

I interrupted her. I was furious. I got my teeth out. “Oh, you moved a cup. You could have kept him from dying, how about that to change events? No. You moved a cup and let a man die.”

“John had to die,” Ariana said. She squinted. “Maude, do you know why John died?” She was being smug. She knew something I didn’t know. Something about John and that night and perhaps Wrath and Mara, too. Why they’d been hunted. Why Wrath had been imprisoned in that horrible way.

“Why did John have to die?” I asked.

She leaned forward, eyes glinting, and I felt my stomach flop. “Do you know what John’s magic unusual power was?”

I stared at her. I knew nothing about John, except that he’d been friends with Mara and Wrath but messing around with the Night Enthusiasts when they first became an organization. “Of course I don’t know,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Well.” She let the silence fall, settle, and I realized she wasn’t going to tell me anymore about John. My curiosity was twisted now between that old mystery and this new one. What Ariana had done.

She continued. “So, yes. I moved the cup. And that’s why this is important. The teacup didn’t smash under him. The china eye doesn’t exist. It never ended up in McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop, and so you never took it home. One small gesture, but with it, I erased an entire story. Yours. It will take a few more days to finish up, I expect. You’re going to wake up one morning in your old bed, and you’re not going to remember that being a magic unusual ever happened.”

“Someone else will unlock my powers,” I said. “Someone else will make it happen, another way.”

“Ha,” Ariana said. “No. We saw the future. Maude, I’m sorry. I really am. But that china eye was the only chance you ever had at becoming a magic unusual. You were too far away from us, you only got one chance to cross paths. Your story is going to start to disappear. All of this is going to go away. And that way, you’ll never end up breaking that spell we so desperately need intact.”

Diary. I was not going to stand for this. But as I stared into Ariana’s face, I wondered how there was anything I could possibly do.

Season 5

Episode 13

Whiskalit Zero is Dead

October 31st, 1921 continued

Ariana stared into my eyes. She had just told me that she had used the power of the Whiskalits to erase me. She’d had just enough twisted, impossible magic from them to change one small gesture in history, which was stopping the teacup from smashing in Mara’s kitchen, preventing the creation of my china eye. The creation of myself as a magic unusual. The creation of this life.

My fingers shook. Ever since I met her, diary, she had this strange power. Like she could get into my blood and brain, like I needed to do as she wanted or something bad would happen. She betrayed me, and that was a horrible, sudden burst of bad, but even before that… there would be this soft rage in her. I have mentioned it before, I think, in recent trails of ink. I have a core fear that if I flout her, she will wreck me. It is like I recognize the capability in her, the wolf, the non-human, who will simply tear if given the chance. So little holds her on the threshold of humanity. I fear that very much, and I feared it looking into her eyes. She had done it, too. She had torn. Why me? Why us? Why were we pitted to be such enemies? Because she had just done the worst thing imaginable to me. She was taking the story away. She wanted me to go back into the box.

Well, I was not going to go back.

I blinked into her eyes. Did she want me to be afraid? What sort of reaction was she expecting from me?

“I don’t believe you,” I said. Even though I did. The china eye was gone. This was why. She claimed that other details of my story would begin to disappear. How soon, I wondered? Soon enough to stop this?

“I could have just let you vanish,” she said. “But I wanted you to at least know. I’m sorry. I thought you deserved to know.”

This didn’t merit a response. I leaned back in the chair and stared at the smoke and mirrors in the room.

“And now,” Ariana said. “I am going to leave you in here. See, it doesn’t really matter where you go or what you do. You can go free if you want. I know you can’t stop my empire before you’re gone. It’s impossible to give a soul back. Your friends are gone. They’re my friends now. I would have let you join us except I had to stop you. Stop what that spell you broke from ever getting broken. The Whiskalits made me do it, Maude. They really did. They saw what you had done and they… well, they practically shoved the magic into my hands. Really. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Sure, you didn’t,” I said. The poor idiot.

“They needed it to be this way,” she said. And then she brushed out of the room. I think she has gotten worse, diary, really much worse, or I have gotten more preceptive. There was a chemistry that she brought into the room—oily and foul—as if her insides were so stressed and guilty and strange that she affected the electricity in the air. Poor thing. I know it’s strange of me to pity her. How much of our friendship was real and how much of it was all manipulation from the beginning? I don’t know if I will ever know. But I believe in the girl she could have been. I hope that girl gets to live.

Ariana shut the door, and I wrapped my arms across my chest and felt very deeply, with six or seven deep inhales. As much as I was a blizzard of pain and fear, diary, I also had a huge spark of hope. Fire, melting all the whirls of snow. Ariana said that the Whiskalits had needed it to be this way. I assumed she was only pointing all the blame on them and how much they had made her do it to keep from feeling guilty. But with all her little lies, I did see a sharp glint of truth. The Whiskalits never would have given her power to change history for no reason. Power to do something? For Free? It wasn’t in their natures.

Ariana said that she and the Whiskalits sat down and watched the future unfold. Perhaps they used their strange glass apparatuses, watched our story unfold in a crystal ball. I think they must sit petted in their world, very unafraid, and I don’t think they peer anxiously into the future. Not often. Not often at all. Certainly not in the last three months. But at Ariana’s request, they had peered into the future. And then they had seen something that wasn’t just bad for her. It was bad for them.

I know this because they gave her magic. Something I have done was very bad for them.

I have already broken a spell. I have already done it. I have set something in motion that is so terrifying to the Whiskalits that they want me erased. I am quick with delight. The Whiskalits are terrified of me. Which means we are almost finished creating their destruction.

I think I know what spell I broke, diary. I am not going to tell you. In case I am wrong. But. I think I know what the Whiskalits are so afraid of.

Now. If only I can figure out what Maude does, how Maude harms them, what this terrible threatening thing that I do to them is. It is in motion. It has begun. If only I can finish it.

Diary, I know I don’t have time. Not for everything. We have to save Wrath’s life. We have to heal every Night Enthusiast, and I want now more than ever to stop the Whiskalits. End them somehow. What I must do right away, however, is find a way to stop myself from disappearing. If I go, it all goes. Think about it. Even Wrath disappears, because he stays stuck in that train car forever.

I had to get out of here. I was still sitting in this salty, smoky room, as if Ariana’s words were handcuffs holding me down. I got up and walked away. I teleported out of the building, idly, to two or three places so no one could catch me. Noble was still in the Night Enthusiast base. So was Octavia. I wanted to help them, to find out what was happening with them, but I was reeling. Soon Ariana would probably tell Noble smugly that I was disappearing. I had to find an answer to this.

I needed to think. I teleported to the middle of nowhere, a place I’d once been to visit a relative no longer living. I barely remembered it, but I pictured the straggly large limbed tree from my childhood in my mind and I arrived. It was hot, for October, for what I was used to. The ground was dry. I felt itchy just looking at the spindly yellow grasses. Magic Unusuals tend to teleport to interesting locations, because they’re the spots we keep easily in our minds. I knew if I didn’t want anyone to ever find me, I should go here. Where the houses were quieter, more of lumber and shingle than made to be pretty. Rain barrels and dirt roads and a sort of quiet hostility. Why would Maude ever go here? No one would think to look for me.

I marched and thought. A woman alone, still wearing a winter jacket. I tore off the jacket and continued to walk. I was hot and sticky already. Perhaps a foul mood would be just the thing to get my brain into angry action.  People peered out of their windows. They brushed aside thin white curtains and scowled at me. They didn’t like me. Just by looking at me.

“What?” I wanted to holler at them, my arm outstretched. “What, do you not like me because you can sense I have lesbian blood in me?”

Not that lesbian was the exact right word, but it made me proud to say. I was fingerpainting with pieces of myself and I was still finding the words. Besides the pride, I was in a mood all right. Hot. Sticky. Grumpy. Then I looked up at the porch of a house and I had all the breath knocked out of me. Diary, I couldn’t stop staring at it. A woman had nailed a sign to the top of her roof and carefully written with a brush and blank paint, JAPS KEEP MOVING. THIS IS A WHITE MAN’S NEIGHBORHOOD.

I couldn’t believe it. Then I could believe it. I stared at it, and I thought of Noble, and Tulsa. This was them. Death to all mice. Not that the Whiskalits had hunched here cackling and giggling and written out that sign with their insane fingers. But that ideology. It was here. It was everywhere. I wanted to crush it like a cockroach. This seemed to be all that was wrong with the world. In a nutshell. That single phrase. Death to all mice. That horrible, seemingly endless philosophy. Other people are less human than me. I am better than other people. Us vs. Them. To see other humans as other, instead of just as human as you are.

I was so furious, diary. I was so done. I had to end the Whiskalits. Not that they did all of these things on their own, but I know they had contributed power and magic to this evil belief. If I could get rid of them, if I could end them, then things would be better for humanity. No more of these humanity haters getting added power to sway people’s minds.

As I walked along, I heard the rhythm of my footsteps in the grass, the rhythm became a kind of chant. I remembered what I’d overhead once in the Whiskalit cave. Whiskalit Zero is dead. The First Whiskalit ever to live, and she is dead. It is like a mantra uttered in the barricades of war. Whiskalit Zero is dead. Whiskalit Zero is dead. They can be stopped. They can be killed. BUT HOW?

If only that phrase could be forgotten. The way of summoning them. If only it could be forgotten. Who had learned the phrase, why had I seen it on the wall, and how many others knew it? I wished to bury it. I was so furious that someone had left it for me, like a pandora’s box, where only I could see it.

I was thick with rage. I don’t normally get angry, diary, but I was livid. Everyone was trying to ruin everyone else’s life. My life was on that list, thanks to Ariana believing that I was expendable. A mouse, perhaps? Was I a mouse to Ariana now? Anyway, I looked down to snatch my magic jelly and head straight to the Whiskalit cave. That was the kind of mood I was in. But my hands closed on empty air. magic jelly was gone, stolen by the Night Enthusiasts.

Back I went. Back to the Night Enthusiast office, where I hurried from hall to hall and only just ran into Noble.

“Maude!” he said. “Thank God! Did you escape!”

“No,” I said. “She let me go.”

He cocked his head. “She didn’t let you go.” Noble clearly had no faith in the goodness of Ariana.

“No,” I said. “She did let me go. It’s a long story. I’ll explain later. Have they tested you yet?”

“No,” Noble said. “And I’m about to vanish before they do. Listen. Octavia is switching back. She feels terrible. She’s struggling a lot, but the spell is starting to break. I’m going to take her back blindfolded to the houseboat. She said she’s willing to start to give us ideas on how to heal Wrath. She definitely doesn’t want him to die, no matter where her allegiance lies.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Where are you going?” Noble said.

“Nowhere,” I said. “I just have to take a quick jaunt somewhere. Any chance Octavia had her change of heart before she handed over all my magic jelly?”

Octavia had not had her change of heart before handing it over, but the people keeping it locked up in a bin hadn’t gotten the memo about Noble. They let him walk right out with it. He smuggled my satchel back to me a moment later.

“Noble,” I said. “Promise you’ll get out of here now.”

“I was going to say the same thing to you!” he said. “Don’t stay. Something bad will happen. It always does with them.”

“All right,” I said. “Well then we’ll both leave right now, and we’ll meet up at the houseboat because nothing will go wrong.”

“Well, all right then,” he said.

He hurried off. What if someone did go wrong? What if he rejoined Octavia only to find her allegiance had swapped yet again? What if someone tested him for lack of soul before he had a chance to escape?

“Please be all right,” I breathed. If all went perfectly, he and Octavia would be with Wrath and Scotland when I returned there in an hour. Wrath would be healing already because of some brilliant plan Octavia had. I would leave it in fate’s hands for now, because there was something I wanted to do.

I left the Night Enthusiast office. I went to a field in the middle of nowhere and used some magic jelly on top of a rock. I made a doorway to the Whiskalit cave. The place of blood mushrooms and eternal quiet and a kind of sickness in the air. I took a few anxious swallows before touching it. I knew I wanted to go here, but I wasn’t sure how much.

I arrived in the Whiskalit cave, and it smelled more like moss and damp than I’d remembered. I had taken myself straight to their magic room, where they’d once caught me while I was hiding under a table. This was a place of books and apparatuses.

The Whiskalits were not here. The lights were on, a pleasant yellow. Around me, the cave echoed as I worked, and I wondered if they had any sense at all that I was here. I felt—this is hard to put into words, diary. As I flitted around, rummaging in their possessions, I felt like a fly. Their world is huge. Compared to everything they possess, I feel as small as a bug in someone’s home. Often, flies get up to things before you even know they’re there. I felt insignificant, but secretive. I was so little to them. Why should they notice?

I know the Whiskalits are obsessed with themselves. And, like moody narcissists, I assumed they would keep extensive records of themselves. Probably logs of what they had for dinner, journal entries as boring as mine might have been if I never became a magic unusual. Hm. As boring as they might become if all of this never happens.

Can’t think about that. I went straight for the books and flipped. After skimming through a few volumes, I hefted a huge book, with pages fifteen inches wide and a gnarled leather cover, onto the table. I began to read and sure enough it was a record. I would find what I needed here. I would find out how Whiskalit Zero died.

It was horrible and fascinating stuff, diary. The things in these pages. I brushed past everything in the interest of time, searching only for the word Zero. I felt like whole eons could pass while I twirled back page after page, and I did not want to get lost in the time spell of these horrifying stories. I learned quite a bit about the Whiskalits. What spells they had set up to protect their world. How they made those spells in the first place. The spider web threads on which those spells hung. At last, in the middle of the book, I found what I needed.

I imagined it being spoken in one of their horrid little voices. Whiskalit Zero died today. Whiskalit Ten was angry and attacked. He did not think it could be done, but she lies dead. Our great leader, with blood spilled and no more life. Of course, we are already dead, in our way, but now she is truly gone. Her spirit went beyond, instead of hovering eternally in our between world. Whiskalit Zero is Dead.

We thought that we were eternal, but we see we can be killed. Humans cannot kill us, of course. We are invincible to humans. But. We did not think everything through. Our perfect scheme it seems has a hole. Whiskalits can be killed by other Whiskalits. Our spells are not eternal. We the Whiskalits can undo our spells. We must try to maintain the peace.

I shut the book with a slam and put it away, my hands shaking. That was what I needed to know, but was it good enough? Whiskalits could kill other Whiskalits. Only they could destroy themselves.

It was at this point, diary, thinking about history and journal entries, that I checked your pages. Just briefly, just to see, before I returned home to the houseboat. And. Bits of you are gone. I see whole blank sections and I know the story is there but I honestly don’t remember what goes there. What? What have I forgotten? What Ariana has done has already started happening. I don’t know how much time I have left.

I know that I should be fighting to undo this magic of Ariana’s, but there’s something else. Oh, diary, I am burning with it. If I stop being a magic unusual in a few more hours, if I lose my ability to time travel, this is what I must do. I’ve just got to do this one thing. For me. Before this story ends.

Season 5

Episode 14

It Was All Going to Happen

October 31st 1921 continued

Oh my, diary. What a state we are in.

As I am sure you are on pins and needles remembering, Ariana has cursed me. She has used Whiskalit power to undo the moment that made me a magic unusual, and my whole story is being erased. Whole sections of you have started to disappear. My china eye has of course been missing for a while. But I am worried I don’t have much time left, so I went to do the thing I have wanted to do for a very long time, ever since I knew I could travel in time. It seemed silly before. I have put it off. I have told myself it doesn’t matter, that perhaps I don’t even want to do it, not really. But now that my life is tightening around me like the drawstring of a bag, I know. I see it quite clearly. I want this very very much.

It took sneaking back into the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop and finding a catalogue of murder objects to get me started. I found one that would take me to the tail end of the 1800s, 1897, to be exact, the year my parents met. I used it. It took me to a general store on the west coast, where onions hung from the ceiling and a man in a blouse and waistcoat behind the counter looked very surprised to see me. I scurried out and teleported to a place I had once been, the college where my parents met.

It was October here, as well, it seemed. It was a beautiful day. The air was crisp and the sky was porcelain blue. The trees were half bare, skeletal and lacy, and the dusty crackle of brown leaves was in the air. I felt an unreleased sob get hot in my throat. The fragrance of memories seemed to be in the air. Everything seemed richer, simpler, kinder, like the blank slate our lives can be when they begin. Were the colors brighter? It was like I had entered a painting of my childhood. The way things look bigger and brighter and friendlier when we’re young. My emotions were high and they affected how I perceived the campus, they made it lovelier, more enormous. I was stepping into a moment of my own past, in a way. I had the shivers. I think most people would be fascinated to step back in time and take a look around at their parent’s lives. To see the color palette of humanity then, the different hues of fashion, the different smells in the air. I took a look at their lives. A lot of men and women scurried back and forth in dark hued clothes, holding books and laughing and talking. I wondered how long it would take me to do what I had come here for. I wandered the campus a little aimlessly, taking it all in. Wondering if the sky always looked that pure and blue.

Suddenly, a group of young men came past, and for a moment I fancied that one of them looked familiar, until I realized I was being ridiculous, and he wasn’t just familiar he was very person I had come here to see: my father.

I had always been closer to my father than my mother. I also knew my mother would not feel at ease being approached by a stranger. In her no-nonsense state, she would likely pass this off as nonsense and forget the memory. My father, however, was open hearted, and he told tales of things that had happened to him from ages and ages ago. He kept things. He pondered them. He saw everyone with grace, so I strode up to him, and I cleared my throat gently.

“Good afternoon, Peter,” I said. That was his name. Do you remember it from the headstone, diary? Peter Alonso Merkle.

He was so young. Younger than me. It was sweet and funny. But I knew that face. I felt a strangled moment, where I wanted to burst into sobs and throw my arms around his neck because he was here. Alive. With every chance and every moment still stretching out ahead of him. A few memories trailed through my mind—spinning a top with him in the stairwell when I was very young, the way he used to joke about gray hairs coming in. His voice belting an Irish folk song while he baked bread in the kitchen. It was all going to happen. My heart and throat squeezed with a deep, beautiful pain, diary. There was something beautiful about time, how it really isn’t linear, how every moment of his life is only one closed door away from me. It’s like he isn’t dead, he’s just living behind another window. We are all blooming in sync, alive at once, but I knew him for many years hand in hand with that life. It was my privilege.

I realized I was staring. He was probably very bewildered. His school friends looked concerned.

“Is something wrong?” my father asked. One of his school friends touched him on the arm, compassionately.

“No,” I said. “Nothing is wrong. But may I talk to you for a moment?”

Diary, my disguise has muddied a little bit since I last put it on, but it is still there. Our memories play tricks on us. Even though my father would come to know my adult face very well, I doubted very much that he would recall the face of that random girl who had spoken to him once on campus. Even though I’m sure he would remember this strange occurrence for the rest of his life.

He broke away from his school friends, told them he’d be with them in a minute, and he walked down the walkway with me. We stopped under a young tree.

“What is it?” he said. “Do I know you? I apologize, but I don’t remember your name.”

“No, it’s all right,” I said. “You don’t know me.” I didn’t want to tell him how I knew his name, because this way the curiosity would keep the memory awake. “I just wanted to tell you something, and you must promise me to never forget it. Someday you are going to have a daughter. She is going to love you so much. You and a wonderful person and a wonderful man and she will probably feel that she didn’t tell you enough. You are good. You are going to be a truly wonderful father and she is grateful for you.”

“Well,” my father said. “Well! I don’t know what to say.” He peered into my eyes. “That’s really very kind of you. Are you sure you don’t know me?”

I smiled, because I had never said I didn’t know him. “If you ever in your life feel a moment where you didn’t get to say goodbye, perhaps she was on her way to boarding school and jumped on the train to be with her friends before saying goodbye, or—or perhaps you were late for something, and you really needed to be there because they were waiting for you, and you had to go, but you didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Well just remember that she loves you. She will always love you. Let that be your goodbye. Just shut your eyes and know. She loves you. She is ready to say goodbye. You can be at peace and know that she is all right.”

My father stared at me, his eyes deep. Serious. “Thank you,” he said. “I will never forget this.”

My eyes were swimming with tears. I snuffled, not unlike the way I would, about ten years in his future, when I was crying, and he let me get snot all over his hanky. “And please tell your wife,” I said. “Tell her over and over, like a story, until even her practical mind believes in it, too.”

“My wife?”

“Well… whoever you marry.” I smiled at him. “I need to go. But thank you.”

“Take care of yourself,” my father said.

“I will,” I said. “I am going to have a wonderful life. No matter what tragedies or beauties befall me, I will be sure to have a wonderful life.”

He smiled at me. So friendly. I smiled at him, and then I walked away down the campus, my heart lighter and my spirit at rest in a way it had never been. I had had my goodbye.

I thought about time, diary, as I took steps to teleport back to our secret houseboat. I had been able to speak to my father, here back in time, because I hadn’t changed anything. If I had tried to tell him my name or tell him anything about his future, I’m sure I would have been caught in that same funny loop I had been with Wrath. But I hadn’t changed the events of the universe by doing what I’d done. Time would continue as it had. I pondered that, as I teleported into the damp grass outside the houseboat. The sun was beginning to rise here, rays of gold and lemonade pink in the early mist. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t changed a thing. Did that mean that all this time, my father had known I loved him, sensed my goodbye despite my never having given it? Or did it just mean the time magic didn’t care about small moments like that? There was something sweet about him feeling closure, all this time, but now I had it, too.

I stepped into the houseboat, snuffly and still achy with what had happened. Octavia sat at the table, writing things down like a tornado, and she looked up when I walked in. She was snuffly and red-eyed too.

“Oh Maude,” she said, “I’m so sorry.” Diary, that’s how you know someone has really changed. When their opening line is I’m sorry, and you can tell they really mean it. “I was all muddled but I’m clear as day now. I am myself again.”

She jumped up and we met in the middle for a hug. She rubbed my arms. “Are you all right? You’re crying?”

Noble was at my side, then, too. Scotland was still in the corner, sitting with Wrath, but she watched with an arched spine, like someone poised to strike. Ready to spring into action after whatever I had to say.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I mean, I won’t be fine, probably not. I don’t have a lot of time.”

“What do you mean?” Noble said.

I told them what Ariana had done. Octavia yelped. Scotland went back to tending Wrath as if nothing had happened, but with the tension in her arms of someone who was about to snap a pencil. Noble just sat down.

“No wonder you’re crying,” Octavia said.

“I’m not actually crying about that,” I said. “I’ve just gone to see my father. In case, you know, I don’t make it out.”

Noble reached out and took my hand. I squeezed his. “We’re going to fix this,” he said. “There’s no way we’re going to live a life without Maude.”

“Things are being erased, though,” I said. “Bits of me are going blank.”

“You know,” Octavia said. “Maude, I can’t remember how we met. And I know I remembered it this morning because I was thinking about it.” She stared at me, in a trance of concern, and then she suddenly leaned forward with her fingers pressed against her temples. “Oh, this is horrible! Horrible! It’s happening to all of us, too.”

Noble had been hiding his face for most of this. He rubbed the space around his eyes with his thumb and middle finger, his hand shielding his eyes. I watched him swallow.

“We’ll fix this,” he said.

“The Whiskalits probably used the most powerful magic they had,” I said. “I doubt we can compete. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do.”

‘But…”

“Octavia,” I said. “Have you found a way to heal Wrath? Let’s focus on that. And on stopping the Whiskalits somehow. Apparently, I do that. Apparently, I harm them in some way, which is what they were trying to stop in the first place. Well, I want to speed up the timeline of when and how I do that and make it happen anyway. Let’s find a way to kill the Whiskalits.”

“Maude,” Noble said. “It shouldn’t be possible.”

“It might be,” I said. “I think I have a plan. I think I know how we can do it.” I turned to Octavia. “Do you have anything?”

“Yes,” she said. “The secret is healing him is actually quite simple. One of us on our own couldn’t do it. But you know magic unusuals can transfer their powers to someone else, just for a day? There’s a potion you can use to do it. Very hard to make but I happen to know how.”

Ah, like Dolores! She’d used a potion to grant me her power for a short time.

“We will have to split up,” Octavia said. “To get the powers into four separate potions. I have four magic unusuals I know of. Their names are written here. They each have a unique skill, and I think once we combine all four of those skills, the resulting potion will be enough to heal him.”

It was magic as chemistry. I was very impressed with her.

“It will take the magic of instant decomposition, the magic of emotional closure, the magic of wound reversal, and the magic of self-recognition,” Octavia said. “It’s a wild thing, but I feel very confident about it. This potion should work. It should heal Wrath and reverse the death. He’ll stop turning into a Whiskalit.”

“But,” I said, and my voice was very quiet. Everyone turned and looked at me, because they heard something ominous in my whisper. “He will still turn into a Whiskalit after he dies. This will stop him from dying now, but it won’t heal his eternity. He could die in a car wreck next week and become one of those things.”

Octavia blinked. “Maude, I… I don’t think we have time to solve that problem right now. I’m not sure what we could do.”

“I know what we could do,” I said. “But we can’t do it if Wrath heals.” I took a deep breath. “In order for this to work, we have to keep letting Wrath turn into a Whiskalit.”

There was a silence. Then Scotland hollered, “What?”

“We can heal him as fast as we can after this is over,” I said. “If he agrees to this. He’ll be on the edge of death, but I think we can do what we need to do before it’s too late We can’t heal him until he’s undone the contract. He has to ensure he won’t become a Whiskalit, ever.” I failed to mention that I had another plan, as well.

“Ask him,” Scotland said. “Ask him what he thinks.”

Wrath was a bit comatose on the bed. I walked over to him and knelt. He rolled over, and I flinched.

He’d been changing more after I was gone. One of his eyes, the wooden one, was morphing into something else. Like a scab, like the sucker-mouth of an undersea fish. It was like the eye was vanishing into flat flesh, and from the center a rayed star of scarring was reaching out. A sun of dried blood. It was horrible. It was horrible to look at. I could see the scarring begin around his other eye, too.

“Maude,” Wrath said. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“My plan?” I said.

“Turning into a Whiskalit,” he said. “All of you, stop talking about me like I’m not here. I heard the whole thing. Of course, I don’t want to go through this again. I’m mad. I’m wild. I want to do this the dangerous way. I want to fight back. We’re going to bite the Whiskalits. You can stop me from dying after this works. Maude, tell us your plan.”

So, I told them my plan. Halfway through Octavia began scribbling things down, because she knew exactly how to find the components I needed. We debated for about half an hour about what we would really need, how we would spin the web of the spell we wanted. By the time we were nearly finished, Wrath’s second eye was already halfway gone. We would have to lead him by the hand. It occurred to me then that that was what the Whiskalits looked like under their masks. Those strange wounds the only thing remaining where their eyes had been. I thought of them saying to me, We hate eyes. Almost as if they could not stand seeing what they’d done.

We were about to get up and go, flurry to our separate destinations to get this plan into action, when someone knocked on the door.

A knock. Someone was here. A stranger, or… We looked at each other. Had Raster built a second machine, quicker than Noble supposed? Had we been traced here?

I went gingerly up to the window and took a peek. What I saw out there made my heart burst with both delight and shock.

Standing outside in the early morning light was Mara. She had left her tower.

Episode 15

Out of the Cocoon

October 31st, 1921 continued.

Dear diary, you have by now no doubt begun to notice the date. October 31st. Halloween. Remember I had a prickly ickly feeling that something was going to happen on Halloween? That it would be wild and profound and just right for this story to end on all hallow’s eve? Creep for creep? Well, it is Halloween. It was Halloween as all these things began.

Well, Wrath, Noble, Octavia, Scotland, and I were all in the houseboat. There had been a knock on the door that sent us all into confused shivers, and when I looked, Mara was standing outside the door. She had found us. Perhaps there was some extra magic in the magic jelly when she used it, because she was the creator, and she and only she could use it to go directly to a person. Take me to Maude. Or, perhaps, you have to be in love with someone. Deeply in love. So much that they become not just a person but a place, a whole world you know, and you can teleport to the world of themselves the way you can teleport to a garden. Perhaps Mara had said, Take me to Wrath, and it had worked.

I flung open the door. Behind me, my friends yelped. For all they knew, we were all accounted for. Our only other ally, if he can be called that, is Mr. McGillicuddy, and he was never one for taking action. I pictured him resting in the Night Enthusiast lair in a rocking chair, thinking and not feeling very much and wondering which side of him was correct: this new side that believed in the Night Enthusiasts, or the old side, that didn’t. I wondered if even Mr. McGillicuddy had begun to doubt his loyalty to the Night Enthusiasts. It had only taken a few hours for Octavia to lean away from the spell in her mind. Perhaps he was already putzing, aware of the spell and that it was only a spell, eager to heal and come back to who he was.

I find that deeply consoling, diary. The spell simply couldn’t last. Not forever. No matter how much magic you use, you cannot take hold of a human mind. You cannot bind another human being to your will forever.

Anyway, it wasn’t Mr. McGillicuddy, our old friend, it was Mara. It’s hard to feel safe when everyone you trust is all in one room, so I didn’t blame my friends for springing back in alarm, but I realized that now everyone I trusted was all together. And that could be very powerful indeed.

“You came,” I said.

“Yes, well,” she said. “I’d forgotten how much I liked people.”

She stepped into the room. The shift in the electricity of the room was so apparent, we all felt it ripple across our pores. Mara and Wrath saw each other. I had not yet told him she was alive, because I didn’t want to torture him with the fact that she might never come out. Mara had spent months thinking that Wrath had died suffocated and in agony inside that train car. It was only my arrival that let her know he was still here, but mad.

Wrath stared at Mara. He let out a strangled yelp. Mara stared at Wrath, who was of course by this time half Whiskalit. He looked creepy and rather diseased. Wrath said, to Scotland,

“I’m really dying now, I’m seeing things. I’m really dying now.”

And Mara said, “What on earth have you been doing with yourself?” She strode towards him, as if she could wipe the scarred Whiskalit eyes off his face with a hankie. “What is all of this?”

She took his hand, and well, diary, it seems rather private to discuss in detail what happened next. I didn’t really look. Noble and I tiptoed to the corner and had a conversation, because of course there was so much crying, and the innocent, almost feral whine of disbelief and joy in Wrath’s voice was hard to listen to. He had been through so much hell, and here was a profoundly good thing in his life come back to him. Mara held him like she was never going to let go. And I thought, in that moment, how much better it is to at least be alive. Death is a shutting of the story, and while this was not the story Wrath and Mara wanted, I think there was something healing in the fact that it was not over.

Noble and I murmured, to give them as much privacy as we could.

“We have everything we need?” he said, with a quiet smile. “We’re ready to begin the plan?”

“Yes,” I said. “And if Mara goes and fetches the last bit of magic, we can all split up at once. Create this solution faster.”

“That’s true,” Noble said. He glanced over there. “If we can ever pry them apart.”

“We have a little more time,” I said.

“Stop being optimistic,” Noble said. “You don’t have any extra time and neither does Wrath.”

“Hm,” I said.

“Maude,” he said, “If I lose you…”

“Don’t,” I said, and I was still infinitely comforted to look inside my mind and see that I still remembered. The moment I first saw him in McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. “Let’s not talk that way. Not until it’s too late. We’ll be together until the end. I’ll let you know if, well, I’ll let you know if everything starts slipping and you need to say goodbye.”

Over on the houseboat bed, Mara was humming a song to Wrath. It sounded a lot like the one I’d heard in the Night Enthusiast cave, the song that had been used as a distraction to lure him away from the train cars.

“Fine,” Noble said. “Fine for now. How are we going to find the Magic Unusual who has the power to multiply the impact of a spell? Octavia said we could need that power in order to do this.”

“And she’s absolutely right,” I said. “What we’re concocting will work, I really believe that, but it has to be powerful. Ludicrously powerful. If we get his magic mixed in with the rest, it will make the impact of the existing spell a hundred times more powerful. There has to be enough impact.”

“But Octavia doesn’t know where he is,” Noble said. “She said only Matthew John, who is currently a Night Enthusiast, would know where he is.”

“We have to ask Matthew John,” I said. “I was getting to that, before we were interrupted by Mara’s knock on the door.”

“Matthew John is a threat while he is one of them,” Noble said. “You can’t risk getting detained again. None of us can. And putting his soul in a bottle and finding him and waiting the realistic three hours for his equilibrium to return is equally ridiculous. Octavia was a grenade when we put her soul back. It’s very distressing for anyone and he wouldn’t behave any more rationally or loyally towards us than she did.”

“I’m not proposing I speak to Matthew John or try to stick his ghost back in,” I said.

“No?” Noble said.

“No,” I said. “I’m proposing I’m going to speak with Matthew John’s ghost.”

Noble blinked at me. “We still don’t know what those things are,” he said.

“Yes, we do,” I said. “We know exactly what they are and why they don’t really work. And that ghost in there that looks like Matthew John really is a piece of Matthew John. He will also know where to find this magic unusual.” I believed in the ghosts, diary. Finally. Entirely. I will explain in just a moment why they gave me that creepy, wrong, dangerous feeling in spite of them really being pieces of my friends.

“I suppose you’re going to go collect that spell,” Noble said. “You’re going to be the one who goes and talks to the ghosts.”

“How did you guess?” I said.

“Because you like trouble,” he said.

“Ha.”

We checked over our shoulder, and it seemed Wrath and Mara were returning to the issues at hand. Wrath was telling her all about our plan, what we were trying to do, and how it would hopefully stop him from becoming a Whiskalit, ever.

“You are not going to die,” Mara said. “Not now. Tell me what I can do. Show me what to get. I’ll be back here faster than any of you.”

We conferred. We chose a unique magic unusual power to pursue. During all of this, the crying and the planning and the surprises, Octavia had been busily making potions. She now handed small glass bottles to each of us, with about a quarter cup of potion inside.

“This will only work for another two hours,” she said. “So make sure you get the unique magic unusual powers transferred into here as quick as you can. Best of luck!”

Wrath was not coming with us, as we anticipated he would soon lose both his eyes. I think it took a lot of courage for him to remain here, knowing nothing, feeling the change come over him, hoping that we would be fast enough.

“I’ll have tea and crumpets ready when you all come back,” he said. “Be good, children.”

Before I left, I went and gave him a hug around the neck, and then I thought perhaps I shouldn’t have, because it probably made him feel like we would never see each other again.

Outside, I thought of something. Suddenly. What Ariana had said.

“Mara,” I said. “What was John’s magic unusual power?”

“John?” she said. She stared at me.

“John, Ira’s father?” Octavia piped up. Ira, if you remember at all, diary, was the girl who could write messages that not everyone could see. She could make them visible to some but invisible to others. Did you think anything of that at the time? We’d enlisted her help when fleeing the secret basement to get to the haunted house.

“Is it the same John?” I asked. “He was Ira’s father?”

We conferred. John, the man who’d died and smashed my teacup, had been Ira’s father.

“But what was his power?” I whispered.

“The same as Ira’s,” Mara said. “He could write messages that not everyone could see.”

“Mara,” I said. “Why was John killed?”

She looked at me. “Maude, if I knew why they had killed John, and put Wrath in that train car, and hunted me, I would have done something more about it. I had no idea. I know it’s all connected. John did something that night. Something the Night Enthusiasts hated; he betrayed them. They thought he’d given Wrath information, but John hadn’t. John took some secret to his grave. They thought Wrath knew the secret. They thought I knew. They tried to torture and then make an example out of him to get him to tell them. They wanted whatever this was very badly. But for all I know John died with the knowledge.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” It was time for us to go. We had to go. And yet I couldn’t help wishing I knew. What kind of power had John had, what had the Night Enthusiasts imprisoned Wrath in an attempt to get?

I split up from the others, hurrying through pops of teleportation, to get to the haunted house as quickly as I could. I was buzzing with energy. I felt frantic. It occurred to me, as I teleported into the ghost room of the haunted house, that this was the last time, in this adventure, that I would ever be alone. It was a strange thought, and it came over me like a prickling of premonition on my skin. We would solve the rest of this adventure together. Or perhaps the premonition meant that I would disappear before I could ever be alone again.

Well, I was here now. Alone. On a mission. With many ghosts to talk to and many people who I knew. The ghosts were us. The problem with them, from the start, had only been—

Ghosts began to poke their heads out of the walls.

“Return us to our bodies,” they wailed. “Return us.”

Oh, dear. Some of them were quite creepy now. The older ghosts. With lopsided features and melted candlewax noses. I was about to make them terribly angry. I wondered if they could be dangerous. All people could be dangerous in the right environment, no matter how good, and these were after all just people. I bit my lip.

“I need to speak to Matthew John,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

I scanned the strange luminous faces for his, but none of the ghosts peering at me seemed to be his.

“No,” the ghosts said. One of the tallest ones, one I didn’t recognize, perhaps the ghost of the very first Night Enthusiast came floating over to me. Long, long fingers, Long, long arms. I repressed a shudder. This one didn’t feel human anymore.

“No?” I said. Let’s pretend I said it firmly, and I didn’t squeak it.

“No,” the tall ghost said. I think this might have been the ghost I spoke to first, here. “We will not let you speak to Matthew John. We will hold him back and prevent him from coming. We will not let you have what you want, until you return us to our bodies.”

I sighed. I stared around at them. I simply could not return them to their bodies. They didn’t understand yet, and hoping for a thing you cannot have is so sad.

“Can you travel through time?” I said. “Answer me that. Pick things up? Like some ghosts?”

“We can both travel through time and transport objects,” the tall ghost said. “Though it is very difficult for us.”

“Ah,” I said. That answered all my questions.

“Return us,” the ghost wailed.

“Oh, but I can’t,” I said. “Not because I don’t want to. Or that I don’t have. I mean I literally cannot do it. No one can do it. You can’t be put back.”

The ghosts stared at me, in utter shock, as if they had no idea what to say.

“Listen to me,” I said. “I can’t rejoin you to your bodies. I rejoined two of you. Scotland and Octavia. It worked but it was messy and stressful, and they feel a constant anxiety of trying to keep you in. It distressed Octavia deeply and it barely worked. You, the soul, have been fractured, and those two pieces of you won’t stick back together again. I cannot put you back in your bodies. You won’t assimilate. You’re like water and oil now.” I took a deep breath. “You won’t go back in.”

The ghosts stared at me in such unblinking silence I took a deep breath. “Shall we sit?” I said.

I sat down on the carpet in this strange empty ballroom, and ghosts filled the space in front of me, like strangely shaped ethereal flowers, their bodies overlapping to create thin and opaque hues of blue. They looked like the lines of a strange painting of waves.

“You’re the ones who created the signs,” I said. “The This Way to Find the Bodies signs. You took them places where you had been—I bet it was the Octavia or the Noble ghost who found a way to use a magic jelly eye symbol to end up in the cave of the Whiskalits. That was very clever and I’m sure not easy. You carved the sign yourselves and left it there, pointing towards the cave where Octavia was, so she could be found, but also to where Ariana was. Ariana was about to show up in the Whiskalit Chamber, and you meant her. She was the body. Was Ariana’s ghost in charge of that mission? The second sign led us straight to Raster. Both signs were pointing towards Night Enthusiasts. Night Enthusiasts are the bodies, bodies without a full soul.”

“You are almost correct,” the tall ghost said. “Although you presume we have more power than we do. We did not physically take the signs, nor did we choose the exact location. We used a bit of time magic and they fell where they fell. They were not exact. They were the best we could do.”

That explained a lot.

“But we tailored the signs to you,” the tall ghost said. “So that when you touched them, you would remember us. Our blood is on your hands. It came off glowing on your fingers. Our blood. Never forget you are our only hope. If you do not help us, then our blood will remain forever on your hands.” 

This was pretty weird, diary. I suddenly felt like I was in an arthouse show, or some weird modern poem fashioned after Greek tragedies. Blood forever on my hands…. Bloooogh….

“That is awful,” I said. “I’m so sorry. That you feel dead. Of course you feel dead. You were murdered, in a strange sort of way.” I took a deep breath. “But I cannot put you back. Don’t you see? This is a truth much deeper than this situation. When we are harmed, we do not become what we were. We don’t. We don’t go back to the person we once were. We heal, we grow back slowly, the way Noble did, and then we become ourselves again, perfectly whole, but with different shapes and colors and tones in our soul. To put you back would be impossible. We don’t go back to the beginning. We move on.”

The ghosts stared at me. I blinked back. Ooh, this was where things got dangerous.

“I am going to make sure you see the great beyond,” I said. “Whatever that is and whatever that means. We are all going to come here to visit, I promise. My magic unusual friends and I. Your bodies. We are going to thank you, feel love for you, promise to never forget you, and then let you go. There will be a ceremony so you can move on. What is best for you is not to struggle constantly inside your old body, wanting to be put back in but never fitting. What is best for you is not your bodies, but your peace. You need to go onward. We are going to come back, and we are going to help you go onward.”

The ghosts stared. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. So much hung in the balance here. I would be erased soon. No more Melinda Maudie Merkle, no more memories and therefore no context to guide me through what was happening. If I didn’t act soon, I would not be able to get the spell for Wrath. If the ghosts didn’t let me talk to Matthew John, I would never get the spell for Wrath. This couldn’t take long, we simply didn’t have time for this, and yet I had no idea whether or not the ghosts would accept it.

The tall ghost glimmered, seemingly growing even taller. “We do not accept your story,” the tall ghost said. “We do not accept that we cannot have our bodies. If you do not put us back, we will lock you in the cellar, in the darkest coldest corner of this house, and we will never let you out.”

Episode 16

The Magic Room

October 31st, 1921 continued

A lot of things have happened to me in my life. True, the vast majority of them have happened since I started journaling in you, but there were still a lot of things before these adventures. But now? I mean, everything has happened. I’ve accidentally gotten stuck in a cave on a different planet. I’ve had daring escapes from Night Enthusiasts. But never in all my adventures have I been so simultaneously scared and confused.

The tall ghost had just threatened to lock me in their darkest cellar forever if I didn’t return them to their bodies. I found this disappointing, as I had just given what I thought was a rather touching speech about moving on into the afterlife and how when we heal, we heal into new people, not the people we were before. I thought it rang with truth and I was more than a little disappointed to hear the ghost ignore my philosophy and go straight to talking about chucking me in cellars.

I was scared, of course, because I didn’t want to end up in a cellar, but I was also confused. How were ghosts supposed to make me do anything? Then they all came towards me in a rush of light, a blur of transparent bodies, and I remembered that they could touch and move things if they really tried. This many of them could probably hurl me down the staircase.

I yelped and dropped to my knees. I covered the back of my head with my hands. I waited for the worst. And then suddenly, I heard two voices I knew very well.

I stared at the carpet, my heart brimming with hope. It was impossible, wasn’t it? But I distinctly heard Matthew John and Rupert shouting at the ghosts, in a fashion that was so very like them.

“All right, that’s it! That’s it! Back up all of you!” That was Rupert, of course. “My goodness, are you a bunch of monkeys? Be civilized. We are not throwing anyone in any cellars.”

The tall ghost moaned, “But I just said—”

“Maude is a friend and she has things to do,” Matthew John said. “Renfield, you don’t remember that because you’ve been stuck here too long. You’re confused.”

“Yes,” Rupert said. “We’re new. And we say, let Maude go.”

I looked up. It was Rupert and Matthew John. Just, as ghosts. Seeing my face, Rupert waved. “Hello Maude! How is the rest of me doing!”

“Well, I think,” I stammered. Then I pulled myself together. “But Wrath is in trouble. Matthew John, I need to know where the Magic Unusual who can multiply the power of spells is. We’re making a spell, but we need to make it more powerful.”

“Oh, he’s in Kent,” Matthew John said. And he rapidly gave me directions on how to get to the fellow’s house.

The tall ghost was looking rather furious that his only bargaining chip was gone. Matthew John had already given me what I needed. I felt very sorry for them, the ghosts. Their person would keep living, but they had to move on, ahead of time, into the afterlife. Then again, I refuse to believe in an afterlife that isn’t lovely. They will be fine. I felt a prickle in my heart, a reminder to say goodbye to the Mes that have once been, who I do not need to get back, who I may lovingly thank and say farewell to.

“Maude, don’t worry about us,” Rupert said. “We’ll chat with the other ghosts. We’ll look for you. We’ll look for your coming, and the coming of our bodies, and we will move on, as you said. It sounds good to me. I think… I think really all any of us ever wanted was the reassurance that our person is going to be okay.”

“Yes,” I said.

Matthew John waved. “Hurry up, Maude! And come back to tell us the tale!”

Oh, telling tales. I want to live forever, diary, and tell tales.

I used some magic jelly to get to Kent, to travel to the home of this magic unusual. He was there, watering petunias. I explained the rush I was in, and he tutted and hurried and asked me if I was sure I wouldn’t like a cup of tea to soothe my nerves and I said no thank you I’m really in rather a rush, and he must have been somewhat familiar with the magic, because he took the potion from me, cupped his hand over it, and suddenly the potion changed color. His spell was inside. The power to multiply a spell.

“Thank you,” I said. “You have no idea how much good this might do!”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

I left, hurrying with the potion in my pocket, when a huge blank space suddenly filled my mind. I felt myself being pulled somewhere, like something was dragging my feet across the gravel path, backwards. I shook my head. No, I’m not going. Then the feeling passed, but I was left with even more gaps in my memory. I had a hard time remembering what I was supposed to do. Then I remembered, and hurried.

I arrived back at the houseboat. I was the last one to get there, which was no surprise because I’d had two stops to make instead of one. Wrath was sitting up on the end of the bed, his features strange.

“Hello Maude,” he said, but his voice was strangely creaky.

“Let’s go,” I said. 

I wanted to stop. I wanted to tizzy and wonder, did we have everything? Was this foolish, reckless? But we simply did not have time. It was all so urgent. I was watching my deliverance or my destruction flit past my eyes. This was where the story ended, diary, and I was about to watch it, watch it at last, but it was speeding, like a hawk striking down out of the sky.

I drew an eye symbol on the houseboat door. Then one by one, we touched it, all going together into the Whiskalit cave.

We arrived in their magic room, the air singed with the smell of incense and metallic stone. The damp and the high ceilings and strange magnetism in the air made me feel like I was made of something other than flesh and blood.

Wrath strode into the center of the magic room. Then he reached back and snapped his fingers like a crab hand for the spell.

“Hurry up,” he said. “I’m dying and I don’t have all day.”

“Maude,” Noble said, holding up the only potion that hadn’t yet changed color, the only potion we hadn’t put a power into yet. “Your turn.”

He handed me the small bottle, and I cupped my hand over the top. I shut my eyes. Felt everything quiver, felt everything ache.

“I wish the spell would break,” I said. But it wasn’t an active wish, it was a waiting wish, a wish I’d put into the bottle. When I opened my eyes, the potion inside the bottle was bright blue, like the bright blue of my china eye, and I felt wistful for the beginning of everything.

My power to break spells with a wish was now inside the bottle.

“All together now!” Ocatavia said cheerfully. She took each of the tiny potions and deftly poured them into a goblet. Then she handed the slurry of power and magic to Wrath.

“Drink up,” she said.

“Ooh,” Wrath said. “This is going to be fun.”

He guzzled the potion, and then blinked, smacking his lips. He said, matter of factly, “I feel like a god.” In spite of everything, the stress and fear, I burst out laughing at him.

Wrath handed back the cup, and he was about to begin uttering the spell, when the worst possible thing happened. The lights went out.

“Damn!” Scotland shouted.

“Can we do the spell somewhere else?” Noble said.

“No,” I said. “It’s got to be the magic room. This is where they created the spells I read about. This is where we have to break them.”

We all looked at each other, wondering what happened now.

“I’m not leaving,” Mara said. “No matter what happens. I am going to stay with Wrath to see this through.”

“Neither am I,” I said.

“None of us are going anywhere,” Octavia said. “We’ll stand with you, Wrath. We promise.”

Wrath gulped and nodded. He stood perfectly still, as if he was waiting for something.

“Wrath, break the spell,” I said. ‘Now’s your chance. Before they arrive.”

Wrath shook his head. “No, I want them to hear it.”

He couldn’t have done his magic before they arrived anyway. Their footsteps echoed to the north just after that. They were coming. One minute, maybe. Into that minute, Wrath spoke to me.

“Maude?” he said. “I’m remembering something. I want you to know it. It helps me, to know this, to understand. Do you know I never knew why they put me in that train car? I never knew. They kept asking me about John’s spell. John had found a spell, an impossible, secret spell. He had died before he spoke to any of us, and yet, the nature of the secret was that he had to tell one person the secret, too. He had to. Does that make sense? There are many magic usual secrets that are like that. Once you uncover a secret, secrets burn and hurt inside your blood until you tell. You must release the secret to another person, or at least write the secret down. Once the secret is shared the pain stops. John would have had to have told someone. He had learned the secret over three hours before he died. They thought he told me. But he didn’t. I don’t know who he told or how. But I’m remembering some things that John said to me, that the Night Enthusiasts asked me. I think the secret was this. I think John had discovered the spell to summon the Whiskalits. It was ancient, lost, impossible. John found it, for the Night Enthusiasts, and then he changed his mind. He chose not to tell them how to summon these ugly little demons. He told someone else. He died with his secret. But… this moment? For me? The train car was about this. About them. I want to see them ended.”

“Go on then,” I whispered.

They came. They entered the room in their dark cloaks and bird beaks, the lights came back on again, eerie and pale green.

The Whiskalits looked at us, their masks whirling left to right as they looked at each other in dismay. They made the same quick motions as a flock of disturbed birds. One gurgled. Then their gaze settled on Wrath, and that’s when they howled and cowered like they couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“He does not cover his eyes!”

“An abomination! Give him a mask! Make him cover his eyes!”

“Not nice, is it?” Wrath said. “What, you don’t like to think about how creepy you are? Listen to me, all of you! I’m here. Aren’t I? Aren’t I your worst fear? Aren’t I what you have been trying to avoid? You tried to get rid of Maude because she broke a spell. One spell. She broke one spell with a wish, but you feared the result of that so much that you tried to wriggle her out of history. I am what you feared, aren’t I? Maude let me out of my train car. I should not exist. Without her, I wouldn’t exist. But Maude set me free, and here I am.”

“You were not destined to arrive for several weeks,” A Whiskalit croaked.

“You probably wrote the date down wrong,” Wrath said. “Here’s the thing. I am damaged. I have made terrible mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes was thinking I wanted to join you when I was dead. But it all worked out all right in the end, and I don’t have to BE my mistakes. Only Whiskalits can kill Whiskalits. Only Whiskalits can break Whiskalit spells. But I think you’ll find, for our intents and purposes, that I am a Whiskalit. Maybe I’m already dead. Maybe I’m close enough. But I can break every spell you’ve ever made.”

“You do not have that level of magic,” the Whiskalits wheezed.

“Yes, I do,” Wrath said. “Simply because I am not alone. There are many, many people in the world, many magic unusuals, and while we cannot do these things ourselves, I think you’ll find that with Maude’s magic and my Whiskalit self and a little help from a few others… I can do whatever I want.”

The Whiskalits gurgled. They ducked. Wrath could have waited longer. He could have gloated, basked in their fear, kept talking, but he didn’t do any of those things. He just lunged. He lifted his hands, stretched them to the ceiling and shouted. This was the moment. This was it. I was in this moment, too, my power, being used by Wrath. Listen very carefully diary. We had gone to such lengths to make sure the following spells would work. Wrath cast them one after another, each one bursting on the ends of his fingers like brief sparklers. Red. Green. Blue. I had never seen magic so powerful it lit up. But he was making all of this true. We were. Listen.

“I wish to break every spell you’ve ever cast,” Wrath said. “You will no longer live forever. When one of you dies, they will not be replaced. You can no longer make new members. You will die out. You will stop here. I will not become a Whiskalit. Ariana will not become a Whiskalit. We seal your world. No one will ever be able to enter it again, no matter what magic they use. And last but not least, I seal these spells. They cannot be broken by anyone except a human. By the human power still left in me, I make these new spells impossible for a Whiskalit to break.”

Here, diary, I want to specify a very important thing. There is no unique magic unusual power for death. There were currently twelve Whiskalits and one Wrath. We had not advised him to try to kill them, simply because only Whiskalits can kill Whiskalits, and he would be fighting alone. Weak. Almost dying. I wanted them all dead. Eternally dead, never to plague humanity again. But it was not Wrath’s job to kill them. In trying, he would simply be killed. Even if it was possible for him to kill one or two before he died, they would still go on living as a group of ten, and they would still carry out their work. I think it is best to let them kill themselves. Let them grow so hungry for power, so closed off from our world, that they fight and kill amongst themselves. I wished with all my heart that we could simply end them. But for now, as humans with limitations, this is what we did. We sealed their world. No one could ever find them by magic again. We could not trap them here, I do think they can still be summoned by uttering Death to All Mice, but the hope is this. Humanity will grow. We’ll change. We’ll learn. We will someday reach a point where we do not see other people as inferior to us, and the phrase Death to All Mice will be utterly forgotten. Since the Whiskalits cannot leave unless summoned, they will be truly trapped. They will be forgotten. And then one by one they will die. They will become extinct.

I had a strange premonition, diary. I know human horrors aren’t over yet. Are there new ones on my horizon? World events that make us wonder how we could ever do this to one another? I don’t think I will see the Whiskalits truly gone in my timeline. But after me? Will they cease? We had done good work here. We had done what we could do. Wrath and Ariana were safe. Future human beings had also been spared this fate. The Whiskalits were trapped and would one day die out. It was what we could do.

Wrath finished his glorious spell and the Whiskalits gnashed their teeth and huddled over. If we’d had any doubt that the spell had worked, the ceiling began to fall. The cave world was shaking. Spells tumbling. Power whisking out through a vacuum.

Boulders crashed down.

“I think we undid more than we thought!” Wrath hollered.

Noble snatched my shoulder, his eyes blazing with urgency. “We have got to go. Maude. Now.”

“Right.” I knelt and drew an eye symbol, as fast as I could. Everyone huddled behind me, except Wrath.

“Go!” I said. Octavia touched the eye. Vanished. Scotland. Mara. She looked at me and I just said, “I’ll make sure he gets through.” And she went, as if she knew that maybe things would go wrong, but that Wrath would want her to go. She had her fists clenched as she went.

Then it was just Noble and me. Rocks were still crumbling. A landslide was starting. The noise was so much.

“Wrath you’ve got to come now!” I screamed.

“Why do you think you can leave?” Wrath yelled. “We just sealed this place off forever, no matter what magic gets used! You would all be trapped here enterally too if it wasn’t for me! I haven’t let the spell finish so you can get out!”

Oh. But that meant.

“Wrath!” I said. “I can’t leave you here! I can’t leave you behind!”

“Maude!” Wrath said. “Someone has to stay and finish the spell! And you two have better get out of here because I am tired of holding open that last little crack of light! This world is sealing. Forever. You must. Get. out.”

“Maude,” Noble said. “Let’s go.”

“No!” I said.

Noble took my arm.

“Make sure she doesn’t stay on the edge of life!” Wrath shouted. “Make sure she finds the center of it!” I didn’t know if he was yelling to Noble about me, or to me, about Mara.

Noble knew I would never go. He made me go first, so he could follow. I was in a blur. I didn’t want this to be the only way it worked. I didn’t want this. But I knew Wrath, and I trusted him. He said he had to stay. He wanted me to go. Blindly and stumblingly and with a sharp, sour ache running through my whole body, I touched the eye.

I arrived in a nighttime meadow in 1921, where Scotland, Octavia, and Mara were already waiting. Noble arrived a split second after me.

We had defeated the Whiskalits, but we had left Wrath in the Whiskalit world.

McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop

Season 5

Episode 17

If You Want to Know Who Did It, It Was I.

October 31st, 1921 continued

Diary, we stepped through the eye symbol into that field, and I was furious at how beautiful everything was.

It was a perfect night. The moon was glowing like nectar, and the tall grass around us whispered as only dry October grass can. It was the perfect end of cool, as if nature had scraped a bit of Antarctic stardust into the air. I shivered and stamped my feet and very nearly burst into tears.

I didn’t know what to do with all my feelings. I had a lot of them, so I paced. Wrath was gone. We had left him there. We had left him in the Whiskalit world, to seal the spell, and no form of magic in the world could bring him back.

Mara sat down with her head between her knees in the grass and cried. I was glad we were in the middle of nowhere. No traffic cops telling us to move along. I ached like the Dickens. I loved that infuriating man, that mad, glorious soul.

I rubbed my arms and only then did I even remember that I was still disappearing. We had solved his story but not mine, and Wrath’s story didn’t feel like a victory. We should have been scrambling to heal him from his cadaver poisoning, not weeping in a meadow.

Suddenly, something came over me. There was a kind of jasmine smell in the air, and I almost felt like something had jabbed me very hard in the stomach, as if to remind me of something. I didn’t think it would work, but I just howled, “I wish he was here!”

And suddenly Hester Wrathbone, no longer looking like a Whiskalit, had tumbled into the grass beside us.

Mara screamed. Noble stanced off, worried this wasn’t Wrath. Wrath looked around wildly and then yelled like a banshee. I think we could have been heard for miles.

“Is it really you?” Wrath shouted at all of us.

“Is it really you?” I shouted at him.

He gulped and touched his stomach. “That was… that was simply wild. What did you do?”

“I just wished you were here,” I said.

“Well, that is not possible, Melinda Maudie Merkle,” Wrath said. “I finished that spell. It is done. Sealed. KAPUT. I made sure of that. No one can break it unless they’re standing in the Whiskalit world which of course none of us are. So how do you explain how I got here?”

The jasmine smell that had surrounded me reminded me of something, and suddenly I realized what had happened, and I knelt down in the grass with my face in my hands and laughed until I was hysterical.

They all sat around me. Mara and Wrath held each other’s arms and hands and didn’t seem to know who got to rest who’s head on the other person’s shoulder. They were a bit like wriggling puppies. I finally stopped laughing long enough to explain.

Diary. Do you see what happened? Remember when I gave Wrath that awkward hug around the neck before we went off on our expeditions? Well, some of his hair must have gotten on my sleeve. Remember way back, to the beginning of this story, when I unlocked the box of Dolores’s grandmother, and that dormant magic unusual power was released? Well, the power didn’t go into Dolores. It went into me. All this time I’ve been carrying two unique magic unusual powers, and one was the ability to pull someone to me, no matter the distance or difficulty, as long as I had some of their hair. It seemed Dolores’s grandmother’s power was even more powerful than we knew, because it had summoned Wrath outside of the laws of magic. It simply worked. No matter what. Despite Whiskalit magic, despite our magic. I explained all this to my friends, and we collapsed backwards into the grass like adolescents, laughing and shocked at how, despite all the bad luck in the world, sometimes, things spin in your favor.

It was Dolores’s grandmother in the end, of course. She must have sensed that I needed this. Perhaps the decades of unuse had made this power teem with energy, enough for one glorious burst of something impossible. I owed a lot to her. Wrath was with us again.

Diary, I am running out of pages. It is very soon to the end, not of my adventures, but of this one. After we realized Wrath was back with us, and we’d gotten over the shock, we realized that he was technically still dying, and we sprang back into action. He was no longer turning into a Whiskalit, because he had broken that contract with his spell. But the cadaver was very much still in him, infecting him with its own death. Octavia knew exactly what spells to use, and we had a sort of encore of the previous adventure, scurrying to the homes of magic unusuals, pounding on their doors in the dead of night, demanding to get a bit of magic to save a life.

An hour later, when Wrath was quite weak but dozily chatting in Mara’s arms, hanging on, I think, because of the overwhelming sense of how much life awaited him, we gave him the potion. He drank it up, his second in a day, and said he felt much better. His strength was back in about twenty minutes, and when Scotland checked his blood, it was red while liquid and glowed while dry. He was wholly himself again, and no longer dying. Thank goodness.

It didn’t matter that we had made the Whiskalits’ worst fear come true anyway. They had still set into motion the magic that would stop me from existing. I knew that I would not last forever, but I didn’t want Dolores’s grandmother’s power to vanish with me. I said goodbye for now to my friends and teleported back to Brazil, made my way into her shop front, and waited in the glow of her parlor for her to arrive.

She appeared shortly, and she stopped in her tracks when she saw me. Diary, the look on her face. She knew. She knew the power had passed to me and not her.

“I think your grandmother wanted you to have the power all along,” I said. “But she knew I needed it for something first. It should…” I stepped closer. The smell of jasmine filled the air again, and with a gentle slide, I felt the power leave me. Dolores face brightened. “Well,” she said. “As long as she really does trust me in the end.”

“Of course, she does,” I said, and I left.

After that, I didn’t want to return to my friends. I kept thinking about what Ariana had done, and if it could be undone. Such a smell gesture. Preventing a teacup from breaking. Then suddenly, I got a mad idea, and I decided I might as well try it.

I went back to my friends. We went to the secret basement together and they helped me find a murder object that would get me to 1916, about an hour before John died. I arrived and then teleported to Mara’s apartment, keeping out of the way. I knew Ariana would be here, soon. Attempting to ruin all of this. She was not here yet, however. I hid in the kitchen and waited until John arrived.

John walked through the door. He looked startled to see me. He was also sick, and he knew it. The poison that killed him was at work.

“Hello,” he said, rather bravely considering. “I don’t know you.”

“Hello, John,” I said.

He walked up to the table. He picked up the teacup, full of coffee, and took a sip. I could tell he was in pain, but he was riding it gracefully, living the most ordinary moment he could.

“Listen,” he said. “I don’t want my friends to be in pain. Tell them I love them. But I’ve just done a funny thing. I’ve written words that nobody can see. A spell. A pretty horrible spell. I had to tell the secret to someone, so I just wrote the words, but I made the words invisible to everyone. Except I had to make them visible to just one person to tell the secret. Just one. So I made them visible to the last good-hearted person who would see me alive. I think that might be you. Would that be all right? You can ignore the words. They’re in the Pawn Shop. But you might end up being the only person in the world who can see them.”

Death to all Mice. The letters. I had seen them because I was the last person to see John alive, apart from Ariana, perhaps, who did not count as good hearted. He gave the secret to me. And we had done all right with it, in the end. We had wounded the Whiskalits in an incredible way, because almost through an accident, John had given the spell not to the Night Enthusiasts but to me.

“Can I do anything for you, John?” I asked.

“Make the world better.” He winced. “And, tell my daughter I adore her.”

“I will,” I said.

I knew Ariana would be here any minute. John shut his eyes. He wanted privacy. He wanted this moment to gather himself. He was going to crumple, fall soon, and it felt strange to stand and watch. I stepped down the hall and out of sight. I shut my eyes.  

I heard Ariana arrive. I heard John fall. Then the kitchen went silent, and I went back in.

Ariana was already gone, but she had left the unsmashed teacup sitting on the counter, whole and quaint. I winced a little, but also felt a strong stab of pride for the adventures to come. I felt very close to John’s spirit, almost as if he was there. There was a lot of pain ahead in this timeline, but we were on the other side of it now, ready for good. I had to get to the good. I picked up the teacup and tried to reenact John’s fall as much as I could, and I fell straight onto it. It was a delicate thing, and I was worried I’d torn it to power. I scrambled up, sure the eye would be in crumbles, but it was exactly the same, diary. As if this was how it had been broken in the first place. The blue eye still gazed up at me, whole and unblinking, from the shape I knew so well. I held it in the center of my palm. This moment, this first thing, was back. With so much tenderness, I set the broken pieces under John and left.

I had not been stopped from interfering with time, and I think perhaps that was because time was very sick of being interfered with and approved of what I was doing. Time wanted to get back on track as much as I did.

It took a little while after that to get to the exact right moment. Thank goodness I had you, diary, or I wouldn’t have remembered the exact date. September 3rd, 1921. The entry was still there, from the day I found my little piece of McGillicuddy and Murder’s.

I made it to September 3rd, 1921, just shy of two months ago, and I went into McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. I hoped I had the time all right. Suddenly, I saw me, Maude, walk up the staircase. I ducked behind a piano as fast as I could, heart hammering. The slant of sun in this place was golden and warm, buttery, and it smelled a little like going back in time. I was aware of the resin smell of the old wood and the fragrance of dust and the quiet creak of thousands of beautiful things. I heard the murmur of traffic outside, awooga horns and purring engines. I remembered how it felt, to love this place, because it was the only thing I had. I had caught a glimpse of my expression. I had looked so… far away. Like life itself was something I pulled away from, something I wanted to not do. Bruised little Maude. I felt such compassion for myself. I have been that girl, diary. Truly. I have been lonely and battered, and over the course of writing in your pages I really have learned that I have value, promise, skill, ingenuity, and most of all that I want people and I want life and I can have both of them. It has been such a journey, watching every heart filament come true as I write it down. But here I was. This was. Thinking with quiet fondness of that Maude. The girl who began it all. She doubted herself, but nevertheless, it was her. She started this adventure.

Well, past Maude was upstairs, so I hurried to the front, where I had found the china eye, and I was surprised to see Mr. McGillicuddy. He didn’t recognize me, of course, he bustled behind the desk and smiled vacantly at me as I went past.

I checked, and the china eye was there, exactly where I’d found it. It had reentered the timeline, and yet we had somehow always been in this timeline. Things had always happened this way. This wasn’t a change; this was the beginning of the story.

“Mr. McGillicuddy?” I said.

He turned, surprised.

“How much is this eye?” I said.

“Oh.” He smiled. “About a dollar.” Not too much! The price of a good meal. But I knew old Maude would have balked at it. Walked away.

“May I buy it?” I said. I felt a sweep of joy. “And, you must know, I’m a magic unusual from the future. You’re about to see me come by. But could you say nothing about this and make sure I get this eye for free?”

“A gift for your future?” Mr. McGillicuddy said. He tutted, pleasantly. “Why not.”

I paid for the china eye. Then, diary, I wanted to watch, so I crept behind an enormous curtain, fifteen feet away, when I was sure no one was looking. Maude, Me, arrived a few minutes later. She seemed dozy, disconnected, and she wandered from curiosity to curiosity. I watched this moment unfold, diary. Do you remember it? From the very beginning?

I saw it in the corner by the checkout counter. It was just lying there by the golden bracelets, and I felt like it was looking at me. I mean, actually looking at me, like it had moved just before my eyes fell on it.

I asked the old man behind the counter how much it was. He came around and looked at it. He picked it up, and a strange smile spread across his face. He seemed to love the old broken eye, and that made me feel a little less nervous about it.

He told me it was free, that it had broken off of something. He said I could have it.

Free is exactly the sort of price I’m looking for. He dropped it into my hand, and I felt the strangest sense of dread.

I watched as I turned and went away. Mr. McGillicuddy went back to humming behind the counter. Oh, Mr. McGillicuddy.

Then, I shut my eyes. I felt something coming over me, like a wave. Was I being erased? Or was I possibly…?

Like someone gulping for air after being trapped underwater, I heaved for breath and my eyes snapped open. Every single one of my memories had roared through me in a flash. Everything, everything stayed the same. I whipped you open, diary, hungry for the sight of missing entries, and every page was full again. I’d done it. I leaned back, ready to cry. I had put myself back in reality. It could have been so many things, but it was me. I was the one who made Melinda Maudie Merkle a magic unusual.

There’s a quote from Treasure Island, and it’s always been one of my favorites. Jim Hawkins is in the worst sort of danger, surrounded by pirates, and they’re probably going to kill him, but instead of being cowardly, he lists all of the things that have gone wrong for the pirates. Every plan that’s been ruined. And then he says, “If you want to know who did it, it was I!” I love that moment. I dreamed of one day saying It was I. I did this. I can say that. If you want to know who rescued you, who changed your life forever, Melinda Maudie Merkle, It was I.

I felt light as a bird as I stepped out of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. The Whiskalits were ruined. I was restored. I went back to my friends, and I wrote in my diary for a very long time, and I had a cup of tea.

November 10th, 1921

Diary, I don’t have very many pages left. There are so many stories about to happen, but I can’t tell you about them in detail. We will just have to imagine, on this crisp and blustery November day, all of the good that will occur.

Octavia and I went for a walk. We had just spent the last four hours cleaning up the secret basement of McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop with the other magic unusuals who had begun to grow their souls back. It was tiring work. I was sneezy.

“I think I’m about ready to say goodbye to my ghost,” Octavia said.

“Really?” I said. “That’s a lot of healing in a short time.”

“Well, I’m not entirely back to normal but I’m feeling quite solid,” Octavia said. “I think when we sealed the Whiskalits up it did something to that loyalty spell they cast. I don’t like the Night Enthusiasts anymore. The others that I’ve talked to feel the same way. With the Whiskalits broken, their spell is pretty thin.”

So far, not everyone who used to belong to the pawn shop was back on our side, but we were having conversations day by day. People were coming back. Many of them were off on expeditions, like Noble, to find what they were missing. The rest of us were putting our home back. With the death of Dawn Mumungus and the loss of Whiskalit power, the Night Enthusiasts were scattered. And I was determined that we wouldn’t be passive now. No more hiding. We would be active, do more, use magic for good, not for passivity. We were going to see to it that the Night Enthusiasts never rose to power again.

“But yes,” Octavia said. “I’m getting closer to moving on into a new life, as a new but whole Octavia.”

Suddenly, she swerved. She giggled, then Octavia kissed me gently on the lips. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “Just that you’re a joy and you deserve to be kissed.”

“Ooh,” I said. My heart bubbled. Just what I’d been looking for. It was nice, to be kissed by a girl. I was glad I got to write about it, before this diary was over.

Octavia and I kept walking. It was a pleasant silence.

“What’s next for you?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. I was open, as blank as a new book. I wasn’t interested in pinning myself down to one particular future just now. My future could be as varied as a tangle of morning glories. I would let it grow wild. Octavia. Noble. Anything. Anything.

“Have you heard from Ariana?” Octavia said.

“No,” I said. Diary, I’ll let you know this is the last time Ariana gets mentioned in these pages. There is no heartfelt resolution, no sudden perfect transformation of character for her, because it simply hasn’t happened, and I don’t know how it will. She knows she can grow her soul back. But she’s missing. We haven’t been able to find her. Is she trying to heal? Or hiding from us? Wanting to stay curled up the way she is forever?

She’s not unlike Mara, hiding in that cocoon of grief for too long. This Maude doesn’t know how that story ends. But future Maude will. I am looking at a future where I get resolution, where I see how Ariana’s story ends for good or evil. Someday. I know we will cross paths again. And I wonder what it will look like. I hope she fights and gets herself back.

My heart was full as I returned about an hour later to the secret basement. Wrath and Mara were cleaning in the parlor, a Victrola blaring. Wrath had a feather duster, and as he whirled through the room dusting, he seized Mara and dipped her backwards. I smiled and left them to the glorious process of becoming themselves again. He was more human than ever now. Scotland thought someday he would be completely restored.

I was just tiptoeing down the hall when I ran into Mr. McGillicuddy. He was one of the first to come back, along with Rupert and Matthew John of course, and he carried a hatbox down the hall.

“Where should I put this, Maude?” he said.

“I don’t know…” I said. “Aren’t you the leader?”

“Oh, not anymore,” Mr. McGillicuddy said. “That’s you.” And he smiled and walked away.

I went deep into the heart of the secret basement, into the lush velvety lilac scent of darkness, and I sat on a bench. The silence rustled. I felt my heart fill. Suddenly, from a door behind me, Noble appeared.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he said. “Feeling overwhelmed?” He sat down beside me.

“No,” I said. “I am overjoyed to be alive. I think I have found the center.”

He settled with his back against the wall. The silence glowed. I put my head down on his shoulder. I shut my eyes. I felt at home.

This concludes McGillicuddy and Murder’s Pawn Shop. There are more adventures at minervasweeneywren.com
Thank you so much for being Maude’s diary, and for listening.