John B did, in fact, urge them forward through the little door in the wall. Kathryn doesn't know why he would even get the idea that there's water in there, but she's too tired and freaked out to argue.

As it turns out, the inside of the Crain house is at least twice as bad as the outside. The basement smells rancid and mould spreads everywhere, and it's barely even lit by the dimming sun. Low ceiling, no windows – this is just claustrophobia worthy. The constant buzzing of mosquitoes doesn't help either.

She already can't wait to get out.

"Down came Mrs. Crain, and cut off all our heads," JJ sings in the rhythm of the itsy-bitsy spider. "Up came the sun, and dried up all the blood."

Kathryn turns around so quickly she pulls a muscle. "I will smack you, JJ."

Around the middle of the basement, they're able to stand up straight. They start to look around for any water but, like Kathryn expected, why would there be a random river in the basement of that haunted house?

"See any water?" Kie asks. When she receives no answer, she gets frustrated. "Another dead end?"

JJ carefully touches the pipes above their heads. "There's not even water on the pipes."

"There's no water here," Pope sighs.

"Right, no water," Kathryn chimes in.

"Wo'ah–"

"JJ, shut up." She feels a chill run up her spine. "Can we leave now?"

John B sighs, defeated. This isn't their first dead end, and, to be fair, the whole ordeal could just have been them getting ideas after finding the wreckage of the Royal Merchant. It's easy to read between the lines of history and make up facts, cisgender white straight men have been doing it for centuries now.

"Know why we didn't find it?" Kie says. "Bad karma."

Kathryn looks up to the sky. Here they go again with the whole Sarah ordeal. She figures that there has to be more than friendship involved in their falling out, because this is just too unhealthy.

"Oh god, here we go," John B declares in a tired voice.

"You know, we had a good thing going," she tells him. "And then you decide to rope in Barbie, and now the trail's gone dry. Coincidence? Probably not."

Well, technically, without the plat map Sarah got from her dad, they wouldn't even be here in the first place. Kathryn guards herself from saying it.

"This is exactly why I didn't wanna tell you about Sarah,"John B fires back.

She scoffs. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. What the hell's the deal with you two?"

Kie looks away. Kathryn narrows her eyes at her. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" John B repeats. "Is it because I kissed you? Is that the problem?"

Kie slaps John B across the face.

"Damn. That's fair," Kathryn lets out. Somehow, girls are always supposed to have two motives, and that's either romance or envy. Even if that was the case for Kie, it was deserved.

JJ hums. "That echoed, dude." She snorts.

"Stop treating me like I'm some girl that's obsessed with you," Kie says, in her own right. "Instead of your best friend who's actually trying to look out for you."

John B slowly looks back at her. "Did you, uh... hit me?"

She holds up her hand. "Skeeter."

"Skeeter?" he repeats.

"Yeah, you see it?"

"Yeah." He slaps her.

She huffs. "Where's your proof?"

He shows her his hand. It goes on for a few seconds, of them hitting each other back and forth like two kids fighting over a cake, before Kathryn looks back at the other two.

"Might as well keep looking for water," she says.

Pope nods, rolling his eyes. "Let's get it over with."

She sees JJ raising his hand, but she takes a hold of his wrist. He whimpers a little. "Don't even try, big boy."

"Aw," he says. "You think I'm a big boy."

"Yeah, because you're pissing me off big time."

"Please," Pope begs. "There's already two of them, don't start."

JJ frees his wrist, and holds up his hands in reddition. "I'm not starting anything," JJ says, shrugging. "She is."

She scoffs. "I don't start shit." She sees a mosquito and slaps his arm. He raises his blue eyes to her, and she gapes when she realises what she's done. "In my defence, there was one."

"You're gonna die," he simply says, before tapping her forehead.

She can't help but giggle. It's a sound that ricochets on the wall and hits JJ right in the heart. "You wish, Maybank." She slaps his shoulder. "Woops."

"You're lucky I like you." He hits her on the arm – Kathryn just blinks. "Oh, my gosh! Okay, can we leave? 'Cause I'm already itchin' to leave. Ha? Punny."

She gets a grip – he's her friend. She pushes him lightly. "No mosquitoes, you just suck. It's like the place is infested."

She frowns to herself. Why would the basement, of all places, be infested? They didn't come from outside, and the door to the place was closed, so they must have been here for a long time.

Kathryn's lips depart in realisation. Mosquitoes grow in still water.

JJ throws something at her. "KD just found Mrs. Crain's voodoo doll, guys."

She has to concentrate every fibre in her body to prevent herself from screaming when she sees the old doll in her hands. It's missing an eye, and its hair is patchy. She throws it at JJ's face and he jumps to the left.

He shivers. "All right, can we leave this? 'Cause this is getting creepy."

"You threw a haunted doll at me!"

"Well, yes, but..."

"Shut up." She turns to Pope, looking at the quartet of bickering teenagers with very, very tired eyes. "Skeeters," she tells him. "Their larvae grow in still water."

"Their what?" JJ asks, frowning. "That's a weird word."

"It's just Kat and her bugs again," John B lets out, done playing around with Kie. Kathryn flips him off.

Luckily for her, Pope gets what she means. "There has to be water around." He steps towards her, and looks down, confused. "Hold on."

He starts to move things off of the floor, Kathryn helping him to make it quicker. Something falls and clunks loudly.

"Shh!"

"Oh!"

"She could hear us."

Pope only looks at Kathryn. "Help me move this."

She nods. "But if I break a nail, I'll use it to kill you."

He doesn't ask questions as to how, because he really doesn't want to know. She helps him remove the old planks off the floor, tugging on them until they're ripped from the ground, and they stare at the proof of it all.

There's a well underneath the Crain house. And if there's a well... there's water. They all lean over, trying to see the end of it. It's either too deep, or the night that's already fallen is making it hard for them.

"Well, well, well," Pope lets out. Kathryn snorts.

"That was a good dad joke," John B answers.

"They built this part of the house right over it," Kie says.

"This is where she hid the bodies."

"Dude!" Kathryn cries out, turning to JJ. "Stop it."

"No, I'm dead serious. There was never an outhouse."

"I'll push you in the well."

"She probably doesn't even know it's here," Kie adds.

Kathryn nods. "Wells like that, they're old." She points to the stones, at the way they're piled on top of each other. "Look. It's old, but the stones are polished so that they fit together."

"Which means, Indiana Jones?"

She rolls her eyes. "It means, John Bastard, that it's period accurate. It could have been built around the time Denmark Tanny was alive."

"Why do you even know that?" JJ asks her.

"Dad was a history nerd," she only says. To be fair, it's true. Kathryn just so happens to have dug around and learnt useless facts along the way.

"So..." Pope smiles softly. "We found water."

John B hums. "We're gonna need a really big rope."

"Oh, that's easy." They turn to Kathryn. "My dad has one." She blinks, before realising her mistake. "Had one. It's in his office."

Kie's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Why did he have a rope in his office?"

Kathryn clears her throat. It feels like salt water is rising at the back of it. She already can't believe that she's talking about it, so they shouldn't push it. "Look, he just did, okay? Now how about you ask me questions somewhere else?"

🫧

Kathryn realises how much of a bad idea this was when the Twinkie pulls up behind her old house. Her mom's car isn't there, so at least she's got that going for her, but overall, this is going to be absolutely awful.

"I take it back," she says. "This was a bad idea. Any of you have a very big rope that I can hang myself with?" Only Pope laughs at her joke. The others look at her with concern. "Look, by all means, I want to get back on the treasure hunt as soon as we can, but I promise you, this is suboptimal."

Kie frowns. "If you don't want to go, that's fine, just tell us where it is."

Somehow, that's worse. "It's just that..." Kathryn takes a deep breath. Everyone keeps telling her that opening up to people is the solution and that she should do it more, they just never told her how hard it was. "I never went back in. After he died," she clarifies. "I just never walked inside the room since I was eleven."

Emotional vulnerability should be a method of torture.

John B turns around in his seat, brows furrowed in concern. "We can go with you."

"It'd be better if I'm the only one in, if my mum gets home," she says. "I just have to get a grip."

"Alright, then I'll come with you."

Kathryn looks over at JJ, surprised that he'd even propose that so swiftly. Then again, he rarely thinks before he speaks. "My mum was already begging to get a reason to kill you four years ago, don't give her one now."

He huffs. "Yeah I know, I ran into her at Midsummers."

The Twinkie erupts in shouts of surprise.

"Yo, what?"

"And you lived to tell the tale?"

"What did she say?"

JJ shrugs, because clearly this isn't the matter at hand. "Just, you know Care Bear." Kathryn tries her best to not gag at the nickname. "Lovingly told me I should be in jail." He turns back to her daughter. "So, ya know, kind of waiting for a reason to get back at her."

Kathryn hums. "I can get behind that." For once, they all agree. "Thanks, JJ, but don't worry. I'll just be in and out." She turns back to John B. "If she pulls up, just flash the lights twice."

She gets out of the Twinkie after one last look, everyone shyly waving at her to encourage her. The van is silent for a few moments, before John B sighs and sits back on his seat.

"Aaaand JJ's gonna storm out in 3, 2..."

"Fuck you."

He was already halfway out of the Twinkie anyway.

Kathryn looks for the back door into her old house. It's opened by a code – her dad came up with it. It's stupid, really, but most of the time his passcode were dates on which Kathryn drew something. The code to the backdoor is a painting of a boat with a siren at the front. She was nine.

"KD, wait up!"

She stops, closes her eyes, and heaves out a sigh before she turns back to JJ. "Didn't we just decide that you'd stay in the van?"

He shrugs. "I just decided that if I could screw Caroline over, I'll take my chances."

She turns back to the door with a huff. "You better hope that this spite will kill you, or she will."

"Like I said, I'll take my chances."

"You're insane, I like that in a man."

The sentence got out of her hands and was out before she could even register that her smart remark could be taken any other way. Luckily for her, she manages to get the door opened before JJ starts asking questions.

The room is lit only by the sun setting down. The place is a mess, but it always has been. Her father used to say that he had his order for things, but it was by no means, order. Papers everywhere, stuff lying about, and pictures scattered on the furniture. The huge wardrobe in the corner of the room.

Kathryn's breath hitches in the back of her throat. It reminds her of the Crain house, and she feels silly for it. She used to call this home, used to hide in the wardrobe.

Now, it felt every bit as a haunted house as the Crain house did.

"You okay?" JJ asks her, worried because she's yet to move.

She steps forward. "Wonderful. Just perfect."

She looks around, and it feels like her dad is going to come in any time now and tell her to leave because she's not supposed to be there. Her hand ghosts over the pictures, the documents, the discarded lamp.

"It should be dusty," she says. "If no one has been here before, it should be filled with spiderwebs, right?" It's not.

JJ looks above her shoulder at her father's desk. "Maybe your mom keeps it clean. She's a control freak."

Kathryn hums, but she isn't convinced. Her mother hated this room, her dad used to go there to escape her, sometimes. They both did. So why would she bother to clean it up? She doubts she'd spend time unless she was forced to.

"Remind me, what are we looking for?"

She focuses back on the task at hand – who cares what her mother does anyway. Maybe she wants to sell some furniture, that sure looks like her. "A rope."

"Right, a rope," he repeats. "Can you be any less specific?"

She rolls her eyes, but the bickering keeps her on her toes and stops her from thinking about her father. She thinks JJ knows that. "You know, one of those ropes boats use to moor the boat to the docks."

He hums, but it doesn't seem like he's really searching for it, more like aimlessly looking around. Kathryn moves past the cluttered desk. She catches the glimpse of a picture, and her throat constricts.

"Dude, your father had a shit ton of things on the Merchant," JJ says, looking through the papers.

She doesn't think much of it, why would she? Her father was a history nerd, she said so earlier. Why wouldn't he pick up stuff about a sunken ship on the island he was born on? And yes, apparently, he allied himself with Big John to go on the treasure hunt they're set on finishing. It's just not out of place for her.

"Yeah, he was passionate, what can I say?"

Maybe her voice wavered, or maybe JJ just knows her that much, but he immediately drops everything and turns to her. "You okay there, KD?"

She puts the picture down, and turns around. "I'm fine," she tells him. "Let's get this over with."

She opens the wardrobe at the end of the room. Where stacks and stacks of files used to sit, are now a lone rope and some sort of device she doesn't recognise.

"When you said boat rope..." JJ trails off, still lingering by the desk.

She gulps, nodding. "He left it behind."

Edward Darcy set sail on the twenty-first of April without the rope, and never came back. Kathryn has to learn how to make her peace with that.

"You found it?"

"Yeah," she tells JJ. "Let's haul ass now."

"Yes ma'am."

She's about to take the rope, ignoring how heavy it is, before something glints in her peripheral vision. She crouches down – a screw from a plank of wood is coming undone. She yanks at it, almost gives herself tetanus in the process, but it comes loose.

"Kat?" JJ calls. "KD what are you doing?"

"There's something in there."

She feels something hard against her fingers, and she fishes it out from the space between the inside of the wardrobe and the outside. She looks at it, frowning.

"What is it?" JJ asks.

She hands it to him. "A diary, are you blind?"

He makes a face at her, before opening it. "You have to see this," he tells her.

With a frown and a stomach filled with dread, she takes the diary. She flips through the pages – some are dated. It stops before the twenty-first of April of 2015. However, there definitely are some interesting entries before that.

"He met Big John the day before he died," she realises. "I mean, we kind of gathered that he was in on the whole Royal Merchant thing."

"There's freakier." He points to the end of the page.

He was right. There's definitely freakier stuff – "Why the fuck would he meet up with Ward Cameron?"

She might have yelled that last bit. Which is too bad, because seconds after, light illuminates the office, turning back on and off again. They can hear a car pulling up in the driveway.

"Jesus fuck!" she swears as she tucks the notebook in her shorts. "We gotta get out."

JJ, crouching down next to her, frowns. "Wait, what's that?"

"Who cares? My mum is going to kill us!"

"No, seriously, KD!" She stops and looks at him. "That's a drain plug."

She stares at him. "A what plug?"

"It's – it's meant to be on the dock of a ship."

"Thanks for the boat lesson JJ, now let's get the hell outta dodge!"

He puts his cold hands on her shoulders, forcing her to stand down. "KD, if it's not there, the boat sinks."

Kathryn knows where he's getting at. She does – the rope, the drain plug or whatever, stuffed inside her dad's office... He was a great sailor. He knew his way around a boat, and he never would have gone without those.

"Is someone here?"

She doesn't have time to think about it, or to ask any more questions. JJ and her share a look, before they take the rope. It's heavy – more than they expected, and they hurry outside.

They hobble out with the rope, hurtling towards the Twinkie. JJ practically launches herself inside the van, tugging Kathryn inside.

"Move, move!" he screams at John B.

"I am moving!"

Kathryn almost falls on JJ but she makes it, and John B starts the Twinkie, driving off at full speed.

"You got the rope!" Pope cries out.

Kie looks at Kathryn with concern. "Kat, are you okay?"

"We found a part of her dad's boat," JJ says for her.

"JJ, don't."

"What does that mean?" John B asks. "What are you thinking?"

Thing is, they speak too fast. She barely has time to understand it herself, and she doesn't, and they already want answers and she's drowning—

"Nothing!" Kathryn erupts. She's seconds away from yanking her hair out. "My dad disappeared at sea five years ago. If it was..." She gulps, swallowing around the lump in her throat. She won't cry. "If it was a murder, something would've come up by now!"

"Maybe that's the 'something'," Pope reflects.

Kie nudges him. "Don't."

JJ tries to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pushes him away. She feels like burning, for the first time in forever. She feels like fire is coursing through her veins, and it'll swallow her whole, no matter if she doesn't want to let it anymore.

"Look, my dad is dead," she says, voice heavy with emotion. "You got it? Disappeared. He's dead. Nothing is going to change that, and I don't..." She closes in on herself, curling in a ball, looking away so they don't see the tears in her eyes. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

She feels her dad's journal against her back, tucked in her jeans. Somehow, it's on fire too. Everything is.

There's no point in going over the past, Kathryn learnt that much. With Rafe, and her mother, and now her dad – if she ignores the past, it can't happen again. She can make sure of that. She chooses to turn a blind eye, to look away.

But, sometimes, the story chooses for her.

Author's Note: It is time for the next subplot and I'm!!!!! Excited!!!!

Editor's Note: This just came to my mind but the villainisation of Kie in fanfictions needs to be studied