Three weeks later...

PART ONE: Investigation and Exploration

To be fair, most people wouldn't think that a box of Rice Krispy Treats (containing 60 bars, 46.8 oz, and approximately 5,400 calories) was the best thing to bring if you knew you would be trapped in what was widely considered a haunted house for an entire night or two.

But then again, Ranboo wasn't 'most people.'

That was why, instead of filling his suitcase with the normal things (pfft) such as a toothbrush and clothes, he had brought his 60-pack of Krispy Treats. He didn't care. They would be useful. If nothing else, you could throw them at a ghost.

And it wasn't even extra weight! In fact, Krispy Treats were very lightweight, something that Ranboo appreciated when he was driving through Villisca, Iowa to get to the old (and maybe haunted) Moore house. Well-- really, Phil was driving. Ranboo didn't have a licence, and even if he did, he thought it was probably better to let the only actual adult drive the car.

Due to a distinct lack of sleep, everyone looked exhausted. Tubbo was nodding off, head propped up on his hand, leaning precariously against the car window. Tommy, who seemed determined not to fall asleep, still looked as though he might break in half like a graham cracker under too heavy a s'more.

The sleepiness was understandable. The trio had stayed up all night talking about everything they had read or found on the Internet and the various websites they had found all about the murders. But websites wouldn't compare to actually seeing the house, and they had all been buzzing with excitement when they had first set out, an excitement that had quickly given way to exhaustion.

Ranboo only realized he was starting to fall asleep when Phil knocked against the window, startling Ranboo awake. The sky outside had turned dark, the buildings changing from old-fashioned houses and sprawling sidewalks to an array of old brick buildings. Large window displays took up entire walls, the lit streetlights already shining as the sky had ripened to a kind of magenta.

"Do you want food?" Phil asked from the driver's seat. "We're coming up to a restaurant and I don't want you guys to go hungry."

He made a sharp turn and the sudden change in motion tossed Ranboo's body around like a rag doll on steroids. Startled out of his reverie, Ranboo nearly fell on his face when the arm he had propped against the window slipped and sent him into a nosedive.

"Food?" Phil repeated, focusing on the road again as he had to make a left-hand turn.

"Uhhh," was Ranboo's intelligent reply, crumpled in half like a piece of folded paper. He groaned, taking a minute to recover while Phil waited patiently, and then checked the time. Peering around the chairs, blinking sleepily at the glowing red numbers, he discerned that it was 8 PM, which was completely unreasonable and altogether unbelievable. How long did it take to drive across Iowa anyway?

He yawned and stretched as much as he could in the cramped car, which wasn't much. Sleep still clung to his arms, exhaustion begging him to lean back and close his eyes. Maybe he could just take a little nap... just, just rest his eyes...

"Ranboo," Phil said again, laughing through the words. "Do you want food?"

Realizing he still had to answer a question, Ranboo blinked himself awake enough to nod, then remembered Phil couldn't see him nodding and felt foolish about it and cleared his throat. "Food... uh, yeah, food is good."

"Good, because I was going to stop anyway. You refused lunch so now I'm going to force-feed you if necessary," Phil joked, turning into a parking lot. Ranboo gazed out the window, glancing over the brick buildings and rusty iron fire escapes. A maroon-painted streetlight sported a sign that told him they were in Villisca's downtown area.

"You're a right hero, Phil," Tommy said, in a tone that suggested he was fighting to stay awake. "Where're we eating?" He yawned, settling back into his seat, and then shook himself awake again with a groan.

Phil nodded at a restaurant with a cheery red awning. "Cast Iron Cafe, the first restaurant I found." He stopped the car and turned the key, the engine cutting off with a low growl.

Ranboo pressed his face against the window like a little kid would, trying to squint inside of the cafe. After a few moments of surveillance, he had made up his mind. "I like this place," he declared, turning back to face the others with a smile. "It has a rainbow sticker on the door."

"That's always good," murmured Tubbo, half-asleep. He rolled over, sighing happily. "Rainbow pillbug..."

Phil hesitated a moment before shaking his head and opening the car door. "Tommy, can you wake Tubbo up? Tell him that he has to eat, too." He opened Ranboo's door, blinking in the afternoon sun.

It was warm in that almost uncomfortable sort of way, sunlight glancing off of the car door and shining right in Ranboo's eyes. A fog had started to rise, which was just perfect for the night that they were spending in the haunted house. The town seemed sleepy, too, as though it was snoozing all the time and could never be fully roused. It was comforting, in a way.

Ranboo yawned widely as he got out of the car, revelling in the fact that he could actually move, and stretched his arms over his head. He was wearing a cosy white hoodie with a yellow daisy embroidered on it, the inside lined with soft fabric that made him want to curl up and sleep.

"Tobs, wake up. Tubbo. C'mon." Ranboo vaguely heard Tommy trying to rouse Tubbo from the inside of the car and smiled as he heard Tubbo's sleepy mumbles of protest. He ducked his head in, grinning.

"Tubbo, you've gotta get up. Get up, big man. We're here." He poked Tubbo's shoulders and laughed when Tubbo pushed his hand away with a murmur of complaint.

"Don't wanna," Tubbo mumbled, shifting in his seat and cracking one eye open. "Leave me alone, why're you all so cruel?"

Phil snorted. "Sorry to be cruel, but you've skipped lunch and I'm not letting you skip out on dinner too. Get up."

Eventually, Tubbo was awoken and the car door was opened and Tubbo stumbled out of the car, still in a daze. Right behind him, Tommy winced in the sudden, bright light, and he shaded his eyes as he walked over to Ranboo.

"Bit bright out, innit?" Tommy gazed at the sunset, the molten sun oozing into the silhouetted buildings. The fog was lit from above with a hazy orange glow, mist sinking into the ground, dew forming fat drops on nearby windows.

Ranboo nodded thoughtfully, leaning against the car. He hummed a reply, watching as the sun sank slowly into the shadow-sticky silhouette of downtown Villisca.

"Hmm." He shook himself off and glanced over at Phil, who was now supporting Tubbo and still trying to startle the brunette fully awake. "Let's go. I'm hungry."

They went into the cafe and, as it turns out, had a wonderful time. A sweet, freckled lady with dark caramel skin introduced herself as Mel, the barista, and they sat down at a booth lined with red leather that crackled when they sat. They all ordered coffee. It's needed, in these desperate, sleepy times.

Soon, Mel brought them their coffee, which was a new concept to Ranboo, who was used to baristas just shouting names and putting coffee on the counter. He'd gotten a caramel latte, indulging himself and getting it with whipped cream and those fancy rainbow sprinkles that cafes keep in vintage-looking glass containers with tape as a label.

Tommy sipped a dark chocolate mocha, and screwed up his nose in a frown at the bitter taste. "It's just... so bitter," he complained, shaking the mocha. "It's like espresso but worse. I don't know how it's worse than espresso."

"Why'd you get it?" Ranboo asked curiously, scooping the whipped cream off of his own coffee with a plastic spoon provided by Mel.

Tommy shrugged with one shoulder and took another tentative sip. "It'd keep me awake. I don't wanna be like Tubbo." He darted a glance over at Tubbo, who was practically nodding off again, only waking up every few minutes to take a long drink of his own coffee.

Tubbo had gotten a (decaf, Phil insisted) white chocolate mocha, balancing Tommy out. Steam rose peacefully from his cup, a white-and-red paper straw already stained with dark brown mocha. A blob of melted whipped cream was on his coffee, somehow still looking appealing.

"Y' talking about me?" Tubbo murmured sleepily, leaning heavily against Phil. His eyes were almost closed, and they kept blinking shut for a few seconds. "Not nice to gossip..."

Phil ruffled Tubbo's hair, smiling indulgently. "Aw, kiddo. It's not gossip, don't worry."

Tubbo sighed and took another drink of his coffee, almost sloshing it down the front of his shirt. "Mmkay, I trust you, Phil." He tried to blink himself awake but failed, spilling a few drops of hot coffee onto his hands and wincing. "Oww."

"He's adorable when he's sleepy," Tommy sighed. "He keeps saying disturbing things in his sleep but when he's all tired like this he's pretty tame."

Tubbo mumbled something as he took a sip of his drink. It sounded something disturbingly like "I'll rip your legs off", but Ranboo didn't feel equipped to deal with that particular sentence.

He took another sip of his coffee and gazed out of the window, kicking his legs back. Phil was already done with his coffee, a plain espresso with a lot more cream than Ranboo thought was really necessary-- but he couldn't really judge someone else's coffee tastes. He was eating something that was basically half whipped cream, after all.

"Alright," Mel said in her Puerto Rican accent, "your orders. Mashed potatoes and sweet potato fries for the first young man and," she slid Tommy's order over to him, "a chopped brisket sandwich for the second young man." She grinned. "A tall glass of water and some waffle-cut fries for the third young man, and grilled cheese for you." She put the white plate with grilled cheese down in front of Phil, then swept off to go talk to the next customer.

Taking the first bite of his sandwich, Tommy snorted. "She didn't call you the fourth young man, Phil. Do you know why that is? You know why she didn't call you that?"

Phil pointed his fork at Tommy. "Shut it or you're not getting a ride to the murder house."

Tommy gasped in terror, nearly dropping his brisket sandwich. "You wouldn't, Phil! You wouldn't!"

"Oh, I totally would."

"Uh oh," murmured Tubbo, popping a waffle fry in his mouth. "The girls are fighting."

Ranboo couldn't hold back a snort, though he immediately regretted it when Tommy's wounded gaze swung to him. "Boo, I thought you were my friend!" he whined, grabbing onto Ranboo's hoodie with both hands and looking up at him with doe eyes.

"Off," Ranboo commanded stiffly, unsure how to deal with a sniffling Tommy clinging to his shirt. "Off or I throw you."

Phil rolled his eyes. "You heard the man, Tommy. Get off of him and eat your sandwich, we won't be stopping again for any more food." He tore off a piece of his grilled cheese and gave it to Tubbo, who had been eyeing the sandwich with obvious envy.

Saved from the uncomfortable experience of human contact, Ranboo enjoyed his potatoes and watched as Tommy and Phil broke out into a game of quiet public argument and as Tubbo stole more of Phil's sandwich.

---

The regular tour guide was sick, so his son was there instead.

This was a problem.

This was a problem because, while the regular tour guide let people stay the night, his son was a dour, skinny man with hair the colour of sour cream and dark circles smeared under his baggy eyes who did not let people stay the night.

Phil was desperately trying to convince him, not wanting to disappoint the trio. Tommy was perched on a nearby rock, Tubbo poking a stick at an anthill. Ranboo was peeking out from behind Phil's shoulder at the substitute tour guide, his hood pulled up over his hair and eyes-- a bearable replacement for a mask and sunglasses, though not perfect.

"Tourists?" the tour guide's son asked. Hot espresso sloshed around in a paper Starbucks cup, a few fat drops drooling down the sides of the white cardboard. "You aren't anything special." He brought the cup to his mouth and drank some, a droplet of coffee falling down his chin. He smeared it off without batting an eye.

Phil sighed. "No, we're paranormal detectives. It's... a job?" he tried. "A non-paying job," he clarified. Ranboo let his head rest on Phil's shoulder. Tubbo fell backwards as an ant crawled onto his stick.

"Uh-huh." The tour guide took another long sip of his coffee, a disbelieving, almost bored look on his face. "Tourists. A new batch of ghost 'unters comes along every fall. Like I said." He leaned closer, his stubble littering tiny, sharp shadows along his jaw. "Nothing special."

Ranboo smelled sour coffee and grimaced, backing away in disgust.

"Give me one good reason why I should let you stay," the man said. He glanced over and saw Tommy picking at a patch of wildflowers, poking at round petals and summer-green stems. He snapped his fingers and hissed loudly at the blonde. "Get away from those right now! The oil on your hands will ruin them."

Tommy made a distressed, surprised noise and backed up hurriedly. He shied over to Phil, ducking behind the older man and making himself seem as small as possible.

Phil drew himself up, anger flashing in his eyes. "You may refuse us a place to stay the night, but you will not, under any circumstances, yell, shout, reprimand, or even raise your voice at any of these kids. If all you offer is this kind of treatment, I'm surprised you garner any customers at all."

He didn't pause for breath, didn't even let the tour guide's face change to an expression of indignation. "I don't care whether you like it or not, we're staying. End of story. And if you have a problem, take it up with me-- I assure you, I'll be more than happy to settle it."

The tour guide's son stammered over a few syllables, his face turning red, then white, then somewhere in between. Finally, he settled for growling a curse and storming away to a plastic booth a few dozen feet away.

He came back with a clipboard. A ledger and a blue-ink pen were attached. "Sign here," he snapped. "And get out of my sight."

"Thank you," Phil said, anger still lacing his tone. "We'll be staying two nights and one day. We'll leave the morning after next. Sorry to disturb you."

The man flinched, then muttered something and snatched the ledger and clipboard back. He vanished quickly into the booth.

Ranboo would have cheered, but he didn't want to get yelled at and for a grown-up fight to break out right then and there.

He settled for cheering quietly.

"So... here it is."

"Wow."

Ranboo gazed up at the Moore House, unsure what else to say. It looked eerily... normal, like any sort of house he'd pass on the way to school or on the way to a bakery to buy a treat. Except for a sign that swung in the breeze, reading 'Villisca Axe Murder House', it looked perfectly regular. A chill went down his spine as a cold wind blew past, and he turned at the sudden breeze.

Tommy sneezed, breaking the silence. "I'm tired," he declared, taking the first step forward. "Let's go to bed."

"But aren't you worried that ghosts will chop us up?" fretted Tubbo, hugging a stripey squash plushie close to his chest. It was a small plush that Tubbo had seen at the farmer's market in Villisca and had immediately fallen in love with. After a lot of begging, he had convinced Phil to buy it for him, and now there was no way he was letting go of the thing.

The squash was already looking somewhat squished and disgruntled to get dragged along on this mad journey. Ranboo didn't blame it, honestly, but it was coming along whether it liked it or not.

"Nah," Tommy rolled his eyes, "if the ghosts come I'll cuff them upside the head. I'm a big man, I can do anything I want to do." He grinned in a lopsided way at Tubbo, blue eyes sparkling in a way that was obviously meant to comfort.

Tubbo peeked up at the house, shivering. Tommy clapped a hand on the shorter one's shoulder, making Tubbo yelp and jump, nearly dropping the squash. "Now let's go!"

"Uh-- maybe wait and help us unload--" protested Ranboo, but they were already running inside, Tubbo shrieking protests and Tommy just laughing wildly as he dragged Tubbo behind him.

Phil rolled his eyes. "Ignore them. They're always like this at hotels, too. Don't worry about it." He picked up a suitcase and nodded to Ranboo. "Go get your stuff from the backseat," he said. "I've got the rest."

"Thanks, Phil," Ranboo said, relieved at not having to drag the rest of the suitcases into the house. He tugged his own bag from the backseat, clutching it tightly to his chest-- it was very light, courtesy of the 60-pack of Rice Krispies that he had packed-- and went inside the house.

The first thing that greeted him was the smell of raw sugar and peonies. It wasn't unpleasant, per se, but it was definitely overwhelming in that ugh-why-are-there-so-many-flowers kind of way. Floral wallpaper was the next thing he noticed, creamy white striped with yellow and dotted with all manner of pink and white flowers that flushed out in mountains of petals.

Ranboo set his suitcase down on the couch and moved to look around.

Even the inside was normal, if a bit vintage and odd-looking. A worn-out velvet armchair sat near the fireplace, which was cold and empty except for a few blackened logs. A couch decorated one entire wall, stretching from the kitchen wall to the space where the foyer began. A few tables were scattered around the scene, and one of them held a vase with a single dark red rose plopped in the water.

It didn't look like a house where a murder had happened. Actually, it looked as though Ranboo had suddenly stepped into a house-turned-museum of a dead famous person and gone beyond the red tape that said 'do not cross'. A circular window let a dot of light splash into the room, wavering between silver and molten gold on the glossy wooden floorboards.

He sighed and flopped down on the couch next to his suitcase, looking around to see where he'd sleep. "Tubbo? Tommy?" he called, cupping one hand around his mouth. "Where are you guys?"

"Boo!" Tommy sprang out from behind the doorway, grinning like a maniac.

Ranboo nearly fell off of the couch, letting out an indignant cry. He blinked, shook his head, blinked again, then realized it was just Tommy and righted himself with a huff. "Don't-- don't you dare do that again," he warned, pointing a finger at Tommy, who was falling over himself with laughter.

"You just fell, oh my god," he wheezed, clutching at the doorframe for support. "I'm definitely doing that again. I'm doing that so many more times until it's not funny, which will be never. I'm going to do that forever."

"Philll," Ranboo whined, hugging a pillow to his chest with a fake pout. He turned big eyes towards Phil, who was standing in the doorway with two suitcases behind him. "Tommy's bullying me again."

"What? No, I wasn't! I was just having fun! Phil, don't believe him, you've known me for longer!" Tommy clasped a hand over his heart, turning his own doe eyes to Phil.

"That's why I don't believe you," Phil sighed, rolling his eyes. A slight grin turned up the corners of his lips as he spoke. "You're both hopeless. Tommy, come help me with these suitcases."

Tommy wilted so fast Ranboo was almost afraid he'd actually fall over. "Aw Phil, but I don't want to," he complained. "I got Tubbo off to bed, doesn't that count for something?"

Ranboo tilted his head. "Tubbo's asleep already? I thought he'd be more... I don't know, scared of the house." He stood up and stretched again, pulling his suitcase off of the couch and leaning against the handles.

"I thought he'd be, too, but he just passed out on the bed," grumbled Tommy. "Now I have to carry his things. Thanks, Phil, thanks, Ranboo." He sighed but didn't protest any more about having to drag two suitcases up the flight of stairs. "Thanks, Tubbo."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "If you mean he's sleeping in the master bedroom upstairs, you'd better get him out of it. The master bedroom isn't available to sleep in, though the other two rooms are."

"Why not?" Ranboo asked curiously, stepping up the stairs after Tommy.

"Well, the last person who slept in that room died a violently bloody death," Phil said casually, as though explaining the weather for next Tuesday. "Oh, and I'm not talking about the Moores. That bedroom was open for sleeping for a while, and then someone else was bludgeoned to death by the blunt end of an axe."

"What the fuck?!" Tommy yelped, nearly dropping the suitcase. He was two stairs above Ranboo, so this was an unpleasant thing to have nearly happened, as the suitcase would have fallen right on his face. Tommy didn't seem to have noticed, though. "Someone died?!"

Ranboo clicked his tongue, waving his finger to correct Tommy. "No, no no, I think you mean someone else. Someone else died. There were two murders, remember?"

Tommy turned pale, then a bright shade of red. "That doesn't help, Boo!" He huffed and finished dragging the suitcases up the stairs, blinking fast. "Okay, I'm going straight to bed. It's like ten and despite the fact that this is an actual haunted house, I'm ready to pass out."

Laughing to himself, Ranboo followed Tommy upstairs to one of the bedrooms.

The upstairs was no less florally wallpapered than the downstairs, though the roof slanted slightly and was painted in varying stripes of yellow and brown. A tall, skinny, milky-white vase sitting on a table held another dark red rose, though this one was yellowing slightly and dropping petals onto the table beneath.

Ranboo pushed the door of the room open to find Tubbo snoozing on a bed, curled up into a small ball with a pillow clutched to his chest. His figure was covered with a thick, red plaid comforter, and he snored gently, his squash plushie on the pillow next to him. There was a distinct lack of other beds in the room.

"...where do I sleep?" Ranboo asked hesitantly, turning to Tommy, who gave a careless shrug.

"There's another bedroom downstairs, yeah? Two beds. We'll sleep there."

"Then where does Phil sleep?"

Tommy grinned, rolling his eyes. "Who cares? On the floor, maybe." He sighed, sitting down on the edge of Tubbo's bed. Despite putting up a joking front, Ranboo could still see how tired Tommy was, his shoulders drooping and eyes sleepy and red-rimmed.

Ranboo yawned widely, trying to blink sleep away from his eyes. "Then let's put the suitcases in the closet and head downstairs to sleep. I'm exhausted."

Letting out a relieved breath, Tommy almost slumped onto the bed. "I thought you'd never say that. Let's go."

The bedroom that they were staying in was the one where the two Stillinger sisters had died. Now that Ranboo thought about it, it was rather odd to categorize bedrooms by who had died in them, wasn't it?

Ranboo traced a gash in the wall with his finger. It was one of the original marks made by the blade of the axe, and it was dug deep into the wall, splintering the wood and hacking at the wallpaper. There were more of these marks spread out around the house, created by the backlash of the axe when the killer lifted it too high and dug into the ceiling. This one, however, was on the wall, and so jagged it was sure to give him splinters.

He took a deep breath and flopped back onto his bed, letting his eyes flutter closed.

The curtains on the window were drawn tightly closed so only a sliver of moonlight fell across the bed, casting a silver glow down on the floor. Shadows clung to the crevices in the room, giving the whole place an eerie tone, the picture bathed in a sudden casting of black-and-white.

Ranboo's eyes opened and he gazed sleepily around at the room, the striped wallpaper, the cabinets pressed to the wall and devoid of books or anything else. He felt slightly as though he'd been submerged into a black-and-white picture film, his skin glowing pale in the grey moonlight, his eyes blurring everything into a grainy picture.

"Hey, Ranboo?"

Tommy's voice was soft, almost a breath.

"Yeah?" Ranboo rolled over. His eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see Tommy huddled under a blanket, the covers drooping over his hair like a hoodie. He was hugging a blanket to his chest, his chin propped up on his hands.

Tommy glanced around before speaking again. "Do you... really think we'll find anything here?" he asked, almost nervously. "I mean, I do want to find something, but at the same time... Ranboo, knowing we're sleeping in a room where people were murdered, man, it's creepy as hell. I dunno how to say this... I'm scared, I guess. Nervous."

"Well, you just said it," Ranboo teased lightly, then he rolled over, his eyes drifting to the ceiling. "But yeah, I know what you mean. I'm almost scared to go to sleep. I keep thinking I'll have nightmares, then I start imagining what the nightmares will look like, and it's so creepy I can't close my eyes."

Letting out a soft sigh, Tommy flipped over, still clutching the pillow almost like a security blanket. "Can we go over the facts again? You always talked so much every time we were going to sleep. I think my brain might actually be used to going to sleep whenever you open your mouth. Like a comfort thing, I guess."

Ranboo blinked, unsure whether to be hurt or pleased. His face settled for a weird mixture of the two, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Um... okay."

He turned to face Tommy, tapping his fingers on the wooden bedpost. "June 9th, 1912. Unusually cold for a night in the summer. The Moore family walks home from church with two houseguests that will stay the night."

"Lena and Ina Stillinger, ages 12 and 8," recited Tommy, his lips quirking up into a kind of smile. "We're sleeping in their room."

"Yeah. That night, they die. Lena's head was split in half and her face bludgeoned until unrecognizable, and Ina died with the first blow: an axe through the spine. The murderer was never caught, and they never even figured out if the crime was premeditated or a crime of passion, as it's called." Ranboo paused, tossing his head from side to side as he tried to remember the rest of the story. "Nobody put up a struggle except for Lena, who was found with wounds to her arm and leg. It's theorized the killer was someone who was deeply religious-- the mirrors in the house were covered as well as every other reflective surface, including the windows."

Tommy frowned at that. "Yeah, about that. I've never understood-- why does that mean that the killer was religious? What does covering the mirrors have anything to do with this?"

Ranboo grinned, happy to share. "Listen and learn. It's very common in some traditions to cover the mirrors after someone died so they wouldn't be trapped in the reflective surface. Mirrors have long been believed to be portals to other realms, and I guess people thought that ghosts were more susceptible to that kind of trapping magic."

"Hm... alright, I can kind of get that. So the murderer was a religious wacko?" Tommy played with a corner of the blanket.

"Maybe. Also, the murderer took pleasure in killing them-- they could've stopped at just killing the eight, but instead, they returned to each body and came at them until they were unrecognizable." Ranboo thought for another moment. "Oh, and there were lamps."

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "Lamps?"

Ranboo nodded in earnest. "Uh-huh, lamps! There was a kerosene lamp on the bedside of each of the victims. One for each victim. I only found this out today, actually. Isn't it interesting? Why would there be lamps? What was the killer doing?"

"Simple answer," Tommy yawned. "He was trying to summon Satan, yeah?"

"That's..." Ranboo chewed on that answer for a moment. "...actually fairly acceptable as an answer. You know what though, I hate that, so we're not gonna talk about it."

"Hmm," Tommy agreed sleepily. "M'sure you don't wanna?"

Ranboo pulled the blankets further up over his chest, shivering as a cold draft flitted into the room. "No," he said decisively. "No, I do not. Let's talk about something else, actually. What should we talk about?" He rolled over. "Tommy?"

Silence yawned in the room. After a soft pause, small snoring noises came from Tommy's bed.

Ranboo smiled, letting his eyes finally close. "G'night, Tommy."

---

"Let me get this straight," Ranboo said incredulously. He looked between Tubbo and Tommy, disbelieving. "A prophetic dream?"

The three were sitting at the round kitchen table in the Moore house. Phil had clear plastic cups that he was filling with orange juice and passing around the table. He was listening to Tubbo's story with a subtly amused smile. A loaf of sweet bread was sitting on a red checkered napkin, crumbs scattered around the table and butter placed next to it.

Tubbo hit his hand on the kitchen table and then winced. "No, no, not a dream!" He held up his squash plushie. On it, someone had taped a neon pink Post-It with a squiggly blue-Sharpie smile. "It talked. In real life. Not a dream."

"I dunno, mate, sounds a bit like a dream to me," Phil said, raising an eyebrow. He walked around the table and pulled out a chair, sitting in it and leaning across to raise an eyebrow at the brunette.

Defensively, Tubbo threw the squash plush onto the table. "Come on now, you guys-- it talked, it really did! Listen, last night I woke up around one--"

"How do you know what time it was?" Tommy asked curiously, his voice muffled with sweet bread. He quickly swallowed the mouthful and made grabby hands for more, but Phil easily pulled the basket of bread out of his reach with a sigh.

"Because there was an alarm clock on the bedside," Tubbo explained impatiently. "Anyway, I woke up and I was weird and sleepy and had just had a bad dream so I wanted someone to talk to but you were all very asleep, so I made do with a Post-It and my squash plushie." He motioned to the squash, which was sitting in a very disgruntled way on the kitchen table.

Ranboo closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, trying to take a deep breath. "So, a recap. You were sleep-deprived and scared so you decided it was a good idea to give your squash plushie a face?" He raised an eyebrow at Tubbo, taking a slice of the sweet bread and biting into it.

Tubbo's ears turned pink. "You don't have to say it like that!" he said indignantly. "I was tired! It-- I... I did think it was a good idea. I'm-- you-- fuck, I'm an idiot," he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Yeah, yeah, but what about the dream?" Ranboo asked, rather intrigued. "What did it say?"

"It wasn't a dream," Tubbo cried, exasperated. "It-- listen, if you don't want to hear it, that's all you had to say. You didn't have to keep insulting me like this," he huffed, folding his arms over his chest.

Phil sighed into his coffee. "Ranboo, Tommy, let the boy speak."

Tommy threw his hands up into the air. "I wasn't the one talking!"

"Yes you were," Ranboo whispered, voice muffled as he took another bite of the bread. Tommy shot him a furious glare and Ranboo made a choked wheezing sound, apparently unable to laugh and swallow at the same time.

Tubbo cleared his throat loudly and Ranboo clamped his mouth shut, smiling placidly at the other boy. "Alright, if you're finally stopped interrupting," he dramatized. He held up the plushie by its tag, the neon Post-it unpeeling slightly and swinging to a lopsided angle. "I woke up at around one in the morning and did... this," he motioned vaguely at the Post-it note with a mildly embarrassed grin, "and I was about to go back to sleep when it... talked."

"Do you mean it, like, talked talked?" Tommy asked through a mouthful of bread. There were only two pieces left, Ranboo noticed with distress, and quickly snagged another.

The glare that Tubbo gave Tommy could have frozen the Nether. "Is there another kind of talking you know about?" he said dryly.

Tommy hesitated. "...hallucinations?" he hazarded, crumbs falling from the side of his mouth. Phil motioned at his mouth with a sigh and he brushed them aside with his napkin, rolling his eyes.

"Right." Tubbo sighed. "Not a hallucination, dumbass."

"What did it say?" Ranboo asked.

"Well, first it said something like hello," Tubbo said nicely, apparently pleased that Ranboo was taking him seriously. "And then it said 'pleased to meet you.'"

Ranboo raised an eyebrow. "What a polite ghost," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "Interesting."

Tubbo nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, at that point, I said hello, the pleasure is all mine back to it."

Tommy threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "You said hello to a ghost?!" he yelled, scowling over at his friend. "That's ridiculous!"

"I wasn't about to be impolite!" Tubbo shouted back defensively. "What would you have done, set the thing on fire? They waited like a hundred and twenty years to talk to someone! I wasn't gonna ruin their dreams!"

"So you immediately knew it was a ghost?" Phil asked, taking the last piece of bread and batting Tommy's hand away as he tried to steal it.

Tubbo nodded again, glancing down at the plushie and then back up at Phil. "Yeah, I mean, I didn't know what else it could be. It's not like the squash plush just came to life, that'd make no sense."

"Plus, it's inconsistent with the plot the author has in mind," Ranboo muttered.

"What?" Tommy asked.

"What?" Ranboo replied innocently, already forgetting what he had just said.

"Well, anyway, words were exchanged," Tubbo continued breezily, "and after the introductions, it kind of... mumbled something."

Ranboo slid forward to the edge of his seat, eagerly waiting to hear more of the ridiculous (and maybe fantastical) story. "What? What did it say, Tubbo?"

Tubbo dropped the plushie down on the table. "It said, you will help. And I thought that was slightly rude, not even giving me a chance to say yes or no--"

"It's a ghost, big man, it hasn't been using manners for a long time," Tommy snorted. He shifted in his seat and passed Ranboo's remaining slice of sweet bread a hungry look.

Rolling his eyes, Ranboo gave him the slice. Tommy cheered quietly and swallowed the whole thing in one bite, then shook back his curls from his eyes and shot Ranboo a delighted smile. Ranboo silently mourned his bread.

"So I asked how I would help," Tubbo said, ignoring their silent back-and-forth, "and it didn't give an answer. And then I'm not quite sure what happened next, I can't really remember, but I think I passed out." He grinned around the table as though this was solid evidence that ghosts existed and not just evidence that they had apparently forgotten to order Tubbo a decaf.

Ranboo stared blankly at him. "...that's your encounter?"

Tubbo reached for the sweet bread, found that there were no more slices, and wilted. "Don't say encounter, it makes it sound like I met an alien. You're so weird, Ranboo."

An awkward silence descended upon the table, which was only broken by Phil whistling quietly.

"...why don't we finish breakfast and then decide what to do with the day?"

---

"Who wants to come with me and do out-of-the-house exploration?" Phil asked cheerily once everyone had finished with their breakfast. "Ranboo is taking up in-the-house exploration, which basically means that he'll be peeking around the house and generally doing unsafe things. I'll be out of the house, going to the library and asking people about this whole case."

Ranboo chewed on a piece of gum. "You do realize that most people will tell you lies just to get you more into the tourist-y mood?" he said. He was sitting on the couch, squished between Tubbo and Tommy.

Phil grinned. "Don't worry mate. I know how to handle liars. Now! Tubbo, what do you want to do? Explore a haunted house or go to the library?"

"I don't want to get chopped into tiny bits," Tubbo muttered. "I'm going to the library."

"That leaves me with you, tall guy," Tommy declared brightly, looping an arm suddenly around Ranboo's shoulders and pulling him into a kind of half-hug. "Want to go get murdered by a ghost together?"

"Uh, sure," Ranboo tried to squirm out of Tommy's tight grip, "that sounds... okay."

Tommy grinned. "I'd only go ghost hunting with the best, I hope you know. You'd best live up to my expectations, Boo."

Ranboo considered. "I hope your expectations aren't too high."

"As long as you can break down a door and have good taste in music, you can stay on my team," Tommy said cheerily and thumped Ranboo on the back with no warning. In a fit of panic, the taller boy immediately spat his gum onto the floor, then froze stiff.

"Oooh..." Tubbo murmured sympathetically.

"Oh boy," Phil sighed. "Ranboo, clean that up, please. Tubbo, get ready to get in the car."

Tubbo nodded and ran to the foyer while Ranboo stared in distaste at the splattered gum. He turned with a slow, murderous look to stare in silent rage at Tommy, who carefully withdrew his arm from around Ranboo's shoulders.

"Sorry...?" he backed away slowly, raising his hands in surrender.

"Oh, you're not sorry yet." Ranboo tackled Tommy to the ground, Tommy yelping in protest as the two went tumbling into the nearby wall. The drywall shuddered, bits of wallpaper and old dust falling and powdering their shoulders with a faint white layer as they tussled on the floor.

It was all play, of course-- Ranboo could probably not have taken even a praying mantis in a fight, and neither actually wanted to hurt each other. Both were careful not to hit too hard, though Ranboo did make sure he grabbed Tommy's hair and tugged, painfully, prompting a shriek of indignation from the blonde.

"Ow! That hurt, you prick!" He broke out of the fight, massaging his head wound and wincing. "I hope you know that I hate you now."

Ranboo was splayed out on the floor, looking generally defenceless and covered in white dust and tiny pieces of floral wallpaper. He coughed, scattering the dust up in the air, and ran a hand through his hair to try and get the fine powder out of it.

Tommy shook his head and a cloud of pale dust flew from his hair, making him sneeze loudly. He rubbed his nose and scowled. "Shit, Boo, I'm gonna be feeling that tonight."

"The dust?" Ranboo asked, propping himself up with his hands and managing to sit upright.

Phil rolled his eyes. "Yeah, he was definitely talking about the dust. No, you idiot, he's complaining about how you near tore his hair out." He ruffled Ranboo's hair, helping get some of the powder out of his hair. "And there's dust everywhere."

"Aww, Phil, I'm sorry," Ranboo whined, flopping back onto the carpet. He rolled onto his side, tucking his hands under his cheek and staring up at Phil with wide eyes.

"Don't worry Phil, we'll clean up," Tommy said breezily, surprising everyone. He looked around at their faces and raised a single eyebrow. "What? I'm no idiot. I can clean, at the very least, anyway."

Phil squinted at Tommy, then apparently came to the conclusion that he wasn't joking. He sighed, then gave Tommy a tired smile. "Thanks, Tommy."

Tommy offered a thumbs-up and a grin. "No problemo, old man."

Phil gave an exhausted sigh and turned towards the foyer. "ARE YOU READY TO GO?" he shouted at Tubbo, making the two in the living room jump.

"I THINK SO!" Tubbo shouted back. "MY SHOES ARE ON. DOES THAT COUNT?" He poked his head into the living room and blinked at Ranboo and Tommy splattered across the floor, covered in a thin coating of white dust.

Ranboo jumped to his feet-- a difficult thing, that, especially when you're sitting cross-legged-- and clapped his hands together. Dust flew from them like two chalk erasers and Tubbo snorted in laughter, accidentally inhaling an entire mouthful of floral wallpaper dust and instantly dissolving into a coughing fit.

"Oh..." he made a pained noise and slid against the wall, coughing into his fist. "Dust. I'm wounded. I'm gonna dieeeee..." He waved his hands dramatically in the air and slumped to the floor, sticking his tongue out in an odd imitation of death.

"If you're done," Phil said, "let's go. Mm?" He picked Tubbo up by the sleeve and tugged him to his feet, though the brunette stayed determinedly limp. Phil shook him slightly as though trying to make a point, but Tubbo just slumped sideways in his arms and made a bleh sound.

Phil pressed his lips into a line and scooped Tubbo up into his arms, carrying him like he would a kitten. Tubbo squeaked and began to flail, almost falling right out of Phil's grip, though he held onto him tightly.

Ranboo had to curl his hand over his mouth to stop a grin from spreading over his face. Tommy, on the other hand, made no such show over being amused, letting out a bark of laughter as Tubbo tried to elbow his way out of Phil's grasp.

The older one carried Tubbo out of the room, sending the other boys a small nod as if to say we'll be back. Ranboo tried to match his cool nod and send a message with his eyes, but he was pretty sure he failed. If eye-conversation was a language, he was almost certain that he just told Phil something about cilantro burritos. And Ranboo didn't even like cilantro burritos!

Actually, he'd never had cilantro burritos before. Maybe it was too soon to form an opinion about them. He knew that cilantro was good. Burritos were good. Maybe a cilantro burrito would be good, too.

Making a mental note to ask Phil to buy him a cilantro burrito at some point in the vague future, he watched as the hiccuping growl of an engine filled the room and Phil's car left the driveway.

Ranboo rubbed his hands together and turned to Tommy, grinning. "Alright. We got the house to ourselves, buster! Where do you want to start?"

"First off, you don't call me buster," Tommy instructed, looking slightly annoyed. "And second, and you better have done this because I'm relying on you... you brought fancy ghost devices, right?"

Ranboo snorted, waving his hand airily back and forth. "Of course not. Who d'you think I am? No, no. You get the phone." He held up his phone, displaying an app folder filled with various apps. "In fact, the phone is so awesome that we both get to use it! Isn't it wonderful?"

"You're a disappointment to the cause, Boo," he said without hesitation. Tommy had never been good at disguising his less-than-positive thoughts.

"Aw, that hurts," Ranboo laughed. "Do you want to go find us some ghosts or not?"

"Oh, definitely."

The house was very old.

And, as was required by what might have been every haunted house ever in existence, it was pretty darn spooky.

And old, spooky houses usually have attics.

The Moore house was a continuation of the old, spooky haunted house bloodline, and as such, it would have been a grave thing not to have an attic. So it did. It was just... just a little...

"Rather bloody small, innit," muttered Tommy, keeping his shoulders tucked tightly together so they didn't knock against the cobwebby walls. Mildew stuck to their shoes with every footstep they took, and cobwebs stuck to the ceiling, spiderwebs tucked away in corners with their dust-covered prey left to rot. Shadows didn't loom like they did in the stories, but rather, they lurked quietly, leering at the two boys from where they pooled in the corners of the room.

Tommy ran his hand along the wall and grimaced when his fingers came away coated in a thick layer of slimy grime. "Ugh, it's disgusting here," he said, smearing the filth away on his pants.

Ranboo sneezed in agreement (and from the dust).

He held up his phone with its flashlight, trying to illuminate the blacker corners of the attic. "I can see why this place is abandoned. It's tiny."

"You think everything is tiny," Tommy pointed out in a crabby voice. "You're fucking tall. But yeah, I gotta say, this place is pretty--" he lifted his head to examine the ceiling and almost screamed as a big, dark brown spider scuttled away from the flashlight beam.

Ranboo froze in place, then let out a small breath. "Don't worry Tommy, I'm pretty sure that was just a wolf spider. They aren't poisonous." He took a defensive pose anyway, prepared to fight it just in case.

Tommy made a squeaking noise like air being sucked out of a balloon. "It doesn't matter whether it's poisonous or not, they're terrifying and huge and I'm going to die!" He took a hasty step back, tripped over an old box taped shut with greying craft tape, and landed face-first in a large pile of debris.

"Ooh..." Ranboo flinched in sympathy.

Tommy slowly propped himself up with his arms and promptly spat a dust bunny onto the floor. "Ow, that--"

A slow beeping filled the room. Ranboo stared down at his phone screen, his eyes going wide as it flashed red in an unhurried manner. "Holy shit," he cursed, making Tommy suck in a sharp breath and immediately sneeze loudly to get the dust out of his nose and mouth.

Both boys jumped as the beeping jumped several paces faster, rapidly turning into a swift pattern.

"What's that, Ranboo?" Tommy asked carefully, getting to his feet and staring in cautious wonder at the phone. "What does the phone say?"

Ranboo lifted a hand. "First of all, it's not a phone, for all purposes right now it's a ghost hunting device. And second--"

"Get to it, Boo!"

"Jeez, wow, sorry." Ranboo huffed before continuing. The phone flashed bright red, the beeping turning to a long throbbing of noise, the crackling sound of the phone fading in and out. "Oh-kay, wow. Um. This is supposed to be some kind of EMF sensor-- it gets the phone to sense all sorts of heat and electricity to determine something or other."

Tommy frowned. "English, tall guy."

Ranboo's phone flashed disturbingly red, the pattern of beeps hiccuping for a few seconds in bright flashes before it settled down to a slow pulsing throb. "It's a ghosdar." He grinned. "Get it? Like-- like 'ghost' and 'radar'? Funny?" He caught Tommy's blank look and cleared his throat. "Not funny. Got it."

"Sorry if I'm a little more focused on the fact that your ghosdar is ghosdar-sensing a ghost!"

"Calm down, dude." Ranboo squinted at the screen. "I'm sure it's noth-- ah! Shoot!" He startled back as the screen flashed an angry, bright shade of red.

Tommy smirked. "Guess your 'nothing' didn't like that."

Ranboo snapped his fingers (he would have clapped, but he had a phone in one hand). "Wait! We can use this!"

"Just occurred to you?" Tommy snarked.

"No, like--" Ranboo paused, looking around, then back at his screen. His face shone with red light, making his features appear warped and shadowed. He leaned close to his phone screen, his lips barely moving as he talked quietly.

Tommy watched in silence at this strange ritual before stepping forward and snatching Ranboo's phone away from him. "Hey! Boo, listen to me!"

"Uh--" Ranboo was left staring at nothing, blinking quickly as his eyes tried to get adjusted to the shadowy floor. He looked up, squinting in the sudden darkness. "Yeah?"

"The ghost won't be able to hear you if you talk so quiet, Ranboo," Tommy said sarcastically. "And significantly more importantly, neither will I! So get to the point, tell me what's going on!"

Ranboo grabbed his phone back from Tommy before the blonde could drop it and ruin the delicate balance between worlds that his ghosdar had created. "You want to know what I was saying? Well, Tommy, it's really simple, you see."

Tommy made a yeah, yeah, hurry up motion with his hands.

"Morse code," Ranboo said simply. He grinned at Tommy's confused expression. "Remember? The phone beeps depending on... something." He frowned at his phone. "What do you beep at again?"

The look on Tommy's face could have melted glaciers. "EMF, remember? You told me yourself, Boo. Remember?"

"Oh yeah! I did say that!" Ranboo snapped his fingers again (he was really getting tired of that. He missed being able to clap his hands without risking dropping his ghosdar). "Thanks for reminding me."

He leaned close to the phone. "Ghost? Whoever-slash-whatever you are? Send a spike of activity-- or EMF-- or whatever--" He leaned even closer until his lips were almost brushing against the microphone. "...if you can."

The phone instantly flashed a bright red.

Ranboo's overjoyed grin nearly blinded Tommy. "Oh my gosh!" he squealed, dropping his phone in excitement and clapping his hands together. He did a little dance without noticing. People are prone to dancing little dances when euphoria strikes. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, ghosts are real!"

"Holy shit," Tommy said in a hoarse voice. His face had gone very pale. "I think we just broke the universe."

"No way!" Ranboo laughed brightly, the sound reverberating off of the slanted ceiling. "Ah, this is awesome! No way!"

Then he remembered his phone and gasped in panic, bending down and scooping it up from the floor. Still, he was too happy to care much, and besides, no harm had been brought to the screen.

He collected himself and made a little sound that might have been clearing his throat if he hadn't been so excited. "Ghost? Whoever you are out there? Um... hello. Do you know morse code?"

The phone beeped loudly in a way that sounded a little sarcastic.

"How the fuck would it know morse code?" Tommy asked, smacking Ranboo's shoulder. The colour was starting to return to his face, though his eyes remained wide as though he was a deer caught in bright headlights. "It's been trapped in the house with a thick coat of dust and a severe lack of library books around, yeah? W-wait a second, do you know morse code?"

Ranboo scrunched up his nose to frown at Tommy. "What? What kind of silly question is that?"

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Boo. Seriously. Do you know morse code? It's a yes or no question. Even you should be able to handle this much."

A look of affront like icy winter swept over Ranboo's face. "What do you mean even I should be able to handle--"

"Yes or no!" Tommy blurted, obviously losing his patience.

Ranboo hesitated. "No," he admitted, making a face. Then a hopeful look crossed his expression. "Do you?"

Tommy spluttered. "Yes, but-- well, not really-- that's not-- it doesn't matter!" he cried finally. "The ghost doesn't know morse code, Ranboo! It couldn't communicate even if it tried!"

With a shrug, Ranboo turned back to the phone. "Can you talk?" he asked brightly. "Ooh, and, um, I should ask this question. Can you go out of the attic?" He paused. "One beep for yes, two for no."

He covered the microphone and mouthed the words communication has been established in Tommy's direction.

You're a fucking moron, was Tommy's distinct answer.

The phone, apparently unaware of their unspoken conversation, beeped twice.

Ranboo looked put out. "You mean every time I want to talk to you, I have to come to this crummy place?" he complained, waving his hand at the dusty attic. As if to further prove his point, a spider dropped slowly down on a single shining string to land between the two boys. Tommy scuttled away as fast as he could and hid behind Ranboo.

The phone made a series of loud beeping noises so disturbing both boys jumped instantly.

After it finally settled down, Ranboo decided he was very confused.

"Wait, you can come out of the attic?" he asked slowly. "But that was a no. I said one beep for yes, two for no."

Beep, beeeeep, was the phone's loud answer.

"Wait, did you mean no you can't talk or no you can't leave the room?" he tried to clarify. His head was spinning slightly, and he thought a headache might have begun to form. "Wait, but that means... jeez, I'm so confused."

Tommy rolled his eyes and grabbed Ranboo's phone away from him. "Shut up, Boo," he said in exasperation. "Let me do the talking."

Ranboo yielded his phone with only mild concern. "Go ahead, Tommy. I'm as confused as peanut butter."

Tommy screwed up his face in a look of incomprehension. "What the fuck do you mean?"

"Exactly!"

He sighed and lifted the phone to his lips. "Alright, ghost, talk to me. Hear me? Remember yes and no?"

A single beep.

"Ah, that's the shit," Tommy exclaimed, obviously proud of himself. "Right, right."

"Watch me, I'm TommyInnit," Ranboo mocked, holding up Humorous Quotation Marks and pasting a terrible British accent over his words. "I can communicate with ghosts and say the word fuck ten times in a row without being caught by TOS--"

Tommy affectionately smacked Ranboo in the shoulder (again). "Shut it, I'm trying to establish a firm connection." He shot a look in Ranboo's direction. "And I do not talk like that."

"Yeah, yeah." Ranboo grinned. "Anyway, can we talk to the ghost?"

As if in answer, the phone gave one long, last beep and fell silent. The red blinking quickly faded into black, leaving the duo with nothing but silence and shadows.

Tommy shook it, disappointed. "Aww. No more ghosdar?"

Ranboo took it and pressed the home button. He shook it again. Harder. "I think..." he hesitated, tapping the screen to no avail. "I think it's dead."

"Come off it, that's no fun!" Tommy exclaimed, frowning at the phone and then at Ranboo. "What do we do now, wait for Tobs and Phil to get home?" He scrunched up his face in an expression of distaste at the idea.

Ranboo tilted his head from side to side. "Maybe," he considered. "What do you want to do?"

Tommy looked up, then down, then side to side. Finally, his shoulders drooped slightly. "Let's go downstairs. See what we see, yeah?"

"Yeah. Okay."

The stairs clattered noisily as they made their way back downstairs. Dust bloomed in the air like tiny clouds, the air filling with the sharp, musty scent of old furniture. There was a little door that they both had to stoop over to get through, but it was the only entrance to the stairs, and Ranboo rather enjoyed having to half-crawl through a tiny children's door. He felt like he was going to Narnia.

Of course, the only thing they were going to was back to the living room, but it was still nice all the same. He glanced down at his phone and a fresh wave of disappointment washed over him.

Beside him, Tommy squinted at the ceiling.

"Wait, Boo, hold up," he breathed, staring up at the dusty wood. "I think I see something."

Ranboo glanced up at the ceiling and snorted. "Yeah, and you'll reach it how?" Tommy was tall, but he wasn't that--

Tommy looped his arms around Ranboo's shoulders and pulled himself up so that he was essentially piggybacking on Ranboo's shoulders. Ranboo yelped and shuffled around, trying to knock Tommy off, but the Brit held on tightly like some sort of deformed, blonde koala.

"Hold still," Tommy grumbled, trying to find a good grip to hang on tighter.

"This-- ow-- Tommy, this hurts my back," Ranboo whined, trying to find a good grip to toss Tommy off.

Tommy snorted and wound his legs tightly around Ranboo's torso, stretching his fingers towards the ceiling. "There's something in the ceiling, under some torn wallpaper. Stop complaining, Ranboo," he said primly. "I need to see what this is and you're disturbing me with your vulgar fussing."

"I'm vulgar?" Ranboo mumbled to himself, sounding affronted. "I'm the one who's vulgar?!"

"I said, shut up," Tommy pressed. "I need to grab this--" He slipped sideways and latched onto Ranboo's shoulders with a yelp, barely managing to steady himself.

Ranboo's legs wobbled underneath him like a newborn baby foal's. "You need to grab what, a stray wire?" he asked sarcastically. "Gee whiz, I wonder what Tommy will find! What's that Pokemon?" He paused for dramatic effect. "It's a bit of plumbing! Wow!"

Almost against his will, Tommy laughed. His fingers brushed against the wallpapered ceiling, then again. "It feels like metal," he said offhandedly. "Um... like a chain. Cool to the touch."

And then something shiny and tarnished fell into his palm. He looked down at it, curiously. It was a cross, attached to a silver chain obviously meant to go around someone's neck. Chipped glass beads went down the chain, and a man was depicted hanging from the cross, faded paint drawing red slashes across his wrists and feet.

"A rosary," Tommy mumbled thoughtfully, blinking down at it.

"What's that? Did you say you'd get down now?"

Tommy scowled down at Ranboo. "What's that? You're going to carry me to the couch?" he snarked back, but clambered off of Ranboo all the same. The brunette sighed in relief and rubbed at his shoulders, wincing slightly.

Flopping onto the nearby couch, Tommy began to examine his find. Ranboo curled up next to him, looking at it with a curious tilt of his head. "A rosary," he marvelled, echoing Tommy's previous statement.

"Yup," Tommy said, popping the p. "Is it a clue, d'you think?"

Ranboo shrugged. "We can't really tell, can we? This house has been examined by people for years. Would we actually have found something that they haven't?"

Tommy let the chain dangle from his fingers, faded silver winking in the light. "Probably not, but what if we did?"

"That would be pretty, uh, pretty awesome, if I do say so myself." Ranboo stretched, letting his head fall on Tommy's shoulder. He yawned widely.

Raising an eyebrow, Tommy glanced over at Ranboo. The rosary was placed on a nearby table, next to a milk-white vase, and Tommy ran his hands through Ranboo's honey-brown hair. "How much sleep did you get last night, Boo?" he asked softly.

Ranboo turned his head so his face was nuzzled into the crook of Tommy's shoulder. "Not enough," he mumbled. "I woke up in the middle of the night... lots of nightmares."

Tommy sighed and pulled Ranboo onto his lap, letting the taller boy curl up against his side. "Alright, you take a nap. I'll look over some things and try to find out how old this rosary really is."

"Thanks for taking this seriously," Ranboo murmured quietly, burying his face in a pillow. "I'm having a great time with you and Tubbo and Phil."

Smiling, Tommy wrapped his arms around Ranboo and gave him a hug. "Aw, Boo. Yeah. Me, too."

PART TWO: Encounters

Ranboo woke up to the smell of honey and a closed laptop on the carpeted floor. He was sprawled out on the couch, a knitted blanket thrown across him, a throw pillow under his head.

Tommy's laptop was easily recognizable, Minecraft and DSMP merch stickers littering the top. A keychain had been attached to it, with a fluffy pink sheep attached and a few keys he had found over the years. His water bottle was on the table, paint pens doodling candies on the plastic sides.

But where had Tommy gone? Ranboo looked around, blinking slowly. The floor had been swept, he noticed, just like Tommy had promised.

"You awake?" Tommy asked, peeking his head into the living room. He lifted a mug up, sloshing a bit of liquid over the side. He cursed and withdrew back into the kitchen. "Did you know this place has a stove that works?" he called from the other room, sounding delighted. "And it only took me two tries to get it up and running! And they have a kettle!"

Ranboo lifted his head, yawning. "Did you make tea?" he asked, his voice slurring. He rubbed sleep out of his eyes.

Tommy whirled into the living room with a bright smile on his face and a mug of tea in each hand. He set one down heavily on the table next to Ranboo's couch and sat on the floor, blowing furiously at his own mug. "The kitchen is fully stocked," he said happily. "All sorts of stuff! And! And--" he sat up, practically buzzing. "Guess what, Boo?!"

Ranboo sat up slowly, the blanket falling lopsidedly off of his chest. "Um... you put a lot of sugar into some extremely caffeinated tea," he observed.

"No-- well, yes. But anyway! The rosary is from around the time when the Moores were killed! Isn't that interesting?" Tommy was nearly vibrating with excitement.

Now Ranboo was interested. He nudged Tommy's laptop towards the blonde, picking up his tea and blowing gingerly at the top. "That's cool," he admitted. "Theories?"

"Well, pretty much everyone was Christian back then," Tommy hummed thoughtfully. "But not everyone would carry around a prissy, fancy rosary like that one. You talked about a priest, didn't you?"

Ranboo took a sip of his tea. Warmth spilt down his throat and pooled slowly in his stomach, tasting of sugar and strong black tea. "Yeah, I did. Reverend George Kelly, a priest at the local church."

"Well, did the good Samaritan have a rosary just like this one?" Tommy asked, dangling the rosary from its chain, the fine chain looped around his fingers. The light sparkled across it like a metal crystal.

"I have no idea what his rosary looked like," Ranboo said honestly. "But it looks old. How did you figure it was from the 1910s?"

Tommy made a weird face. "I scoured the Internet. It took way too long, but it was worth it. Not fun, let me tell you," he hastened to tell Ranboo, scowling. "You better be grateful."

Ranboo fastened his arms around Tommy's shoulders and slumped against the other boy. "Ah, well then, thank you," he yawned, dragging out the last syllable. "But, um, theories? Important, kind of?"

"Yeah, yeah. Get off of me, Boo." Tommy pushed Ranboo off of him with a fond eye roll. "I found out that while he did confess to the murder, he retracted his statement-- but only after his daughter visited him in his cell."

"That's interesting."

"Isn't it?" Tommy pulled his laptop onto his lap and popped it open. His tongue peeked out between his teeth as he concentrated, his eyebrows furrowing. "I dunno why his daughter would be able to convince him when the death sentence didn't."

Ranboo kicked back on the couch, giving himself a luxury by allowing himself to laze around and stretch out on the cushions, his eyes still glossed over with sleep. "Mhmm," he murmured, motioning for Tommy to continue.

Tommy pulled up a Google tab and showed it to Ranboo, almost shoving it in his face. "And look! He confessed to the murder and said that God had whispered in his ear to murder them. That's just fucked up, innit?"

"Right." Ranboo sat up, suddenly feeling much more awake. "What we need next is trial reports-- the monologues of what everyone said in George Kelly's trials, the evidence presented, the exact words of the confession, and why the jury decided that he wasn't guilty."

"Wait, they did? How?" Tommy opened a new tab and began furiously typing something out on it, then hit send and waited impatiently. "He confessed!"

A shrug from Ranboo was only barely caught in Tommy's peripheral vision, as he was too focused on reading something in the Wiki. "Guess if you're rich enough, white enough, and Christian enough, it's all pretty easy," he offered.

Tommy shook his head. "Messed up, man. Still is."

"Well, the first trial ended in a hung jury, and the second was an acquittal," Ranboo rattled off as though reading it straight from a website. In reality, he was doing this all by memory, which he considered fairly impressive, considering he had just woken up not two minutes ago. He took a sip of his tea, feeling accomplished. "So. . . if he was the murderer, he got away with everything."

The lights flickered overhead. Both boys looked up at once, then at each other. Ranboo swallowed, pulling his legs off the floor and folding them up so he was sitting criss-cross applesauce on the cushions. Tommy gave the lights a warning glance as though to say, I'll fight you, ghost, but then gave a shaky breath and looked away.

"Faulty wiring," he decided, his voice trembling on the last word. "Nothing more. The ghost was in the attic, right?"

Ranboo hummed a few bars of an old song he liked to try and calm himself down. Don't make the ghost angry, Ranboo, he reminded himself. Maybe don't talk about how its possible murderer got away with literally everything, especially right in front of it.

"Yup, in the attic," he replied, his voice thin and his face pale(r than normal). "No possibility of it coming down here, that's for--"

The ceiling shuddered and bits of drywall and glue cement rained down over them, coating the entire floor in old, sour-smelling dust. Tommy coughed and raked a hand through his hair before Ranboo grabbed his hand, stilling him instantly.

"The-- in the attic," he whispered-- maybe 'gasped' was a better word. "Do you hear it?"

Tommy froze in place, listening.

Up, just overhead the two, were footsteps, stomps, really. It didn't sound like a man-- more like a small child's, but they were loud and strong and upset. Flakes of the ceiling landed on Ranboo's nose like dark snow.

"Supernatural occurrences," Ranboo said in terror, his voice high and small. "One possibility is a full-body manifestation, but those are rare. Second is audio manipulation, but--"

"Sound can't do this, Boo," Tommy hissed through his teeth, sounding exasperated and terrified at the same time. "Sound can't bring the ceiling down on us!"

There was a solid lump in Ranboo's throat, but he continued. "Third is partial manifestation, where it can do--" The ceiling gave a particularly harsh quake and the ceiling beams creaked loudly. He squeaked. "Where it can do that."

The sounds grew louder until it sounded like the ghost was throwing a tantrum. Bangs and loud, shaking stomps came from the ceiling, the lamp cord swinging violently through the air.

Tommy thought he tasted copper in his mouth before he realized he had bit down hard on his tongue. He ran his tongue gingerly over his canines before swallowing and seizing hold of Ranboo's hand. "It's all well and good to know what it is, but we have to get out of here now," he shouted over the thick screech of noise coming from upstairs. "Before the ceiling caves in on us!"

He jumped up from the couch and dragged Ranboo out of the room, through a corridor, under three separate doorways the front door was right ahead of them.

Ranboo sprinted ahead and shoved the door open, jumped out of the house and waved hurriedly for Tommy to join him. The blonde managed to get within arms reach of the doorway, and then, right before he slipped through, it slammed shut in front of his face.

Obviously, Ranboo screamed.

---

The next few minutes were all a blur, but this was basically how it went.

Ranboo, freaking out, banged on the door. "Tommy!" he yelled, pressing his face as close to the house as he dared. "Tommy! Where are you?!" He grabbed the doorknob and tugged at the door, trying in desperation to open it. Stubbornly, the door refused to give.

A loud thud came from inside and Ranboo flinched back, stumbling down the concrete stairs and swearing to himself, dizzy and frantic. Panic had flushed his cheeks and cranked up his heartbeat, the quick thu-thump, thu-thump beat too loud in his throat and ears.

"I'm here!" Tommy called back, his voice muffled. "I'm-- I'm okay, I think."

Ranboo squeezed his hand in a fist over his heart, trying to take deep breaths. "You think?" He clambered back up the stairs and sat down on the last one, letting his back press against the closed door. His head tilted back and rested gently against the wood. "What's going on inside?"

A long pause sent waves of fear rolling through Ranboo's chest, almost suffocating him until Tommy finally answered. "I... the banging stopped, if that's what you mean. I-- I can't see anything, though. The bloody lights stopped working."

"So it's all dark?" Ranboo asked hesitantly. He put his hand against the door, slowly letting it drag down the rough-textured wood until it slowed to a stop against the concrete. "But you're okay?" Not being brutally murdered by an axe-wielding ghost? his mind unhelpfully supplied.

A few bangs came at the bottom of the door, then a pained hiss from behind it. "Other than being locked inside a haunted house with an upset ghost? Yeah, Boo, I'm doing positively delightful. Thanks for asking." His voice dripped with sarcasm, but Ranboo only felt relief at the familiar tone.

"Right, good, I'm calling Phil," Ranboo mumbled to himself. He tugged his phone out of his pocket and then cursed loudly.

Dead! It was still fucking dead!

He threw his phone down on the ground, not caring if it would break. "Do you have your phone on you?" he called through the door desperately.

"Good idea, Ranboo!" Tommy replied curtly. "Except for the part where I'm locked inside the foyer and can't get my phone because it's in the kitchen. Great plan!"

A loud bang came from the door and Ranboo lunged back, eyes wide. Tommy spat out a curse. "Was that the ghost?" Ranboo cried in obvious panic.

Tommy's sigh was audible through the wall. "No, moron, I was trying to break down the door. It would've worked, I think it's just-- I think the ghost is trying to keep me in here."

"No shit, Sherlock," Ranboo quipped in reply, but his voice sounded weak to even his own ears. "Magic? So that's real too?"

"Who fuckin' knows at this point. I just want to get out of here," Tommy complained. "It smells like old gasoline and dust."

Ranboo jumped to his feet and splayed his hands out over the door, standing on his tippy-toes to try and peek through the dirt-smudged door window. He sighed in defeat as he realized he couldn't see anything, courtesy of the busted lights in the locked room.

"Do we wait until Phil gets back?" Tommy asked quietly. "Cause I don't wanna be trapped for very long. This kind of sucks." He let out a small, shaky laugh.

"I'll get you out," Ranboo promised, seizing hold of the doorknob and trying in vain to open it. "And Phil won't be gone for much longer, right?"

His gaze swung around the courtyard as though he might find something to get Tommy out. A crowbar, maybe some gardening tools, a hatchet--

No, do not try and use an axe against this particular ghost, Ranboo reminded himself. We don't want to make it more upset.

As though it had read his thoughts, an angry wail came through the upstairs window, making Ranboo wince at the screeching noise. He blinked a few times dizzily, then looked up and caught a glimpse of something curious.

"I think the ghost is angry, Ranboo," Tommy said from inside the house. His voice was very quiet. "I don't know if it'll let me out."

Ranboo had to use all of his willpower not to try and punch a hole straight through the stupid door. "Shut up, Tommy."

"Ranboo--"

"I said shut up!" Ranboo was shouting before he realized it. He stopped abruptly, his voice echoing down the grassy slopes that led up to the house. "I told you that I'd get you out. I wasn't lying."

His gaze trailed solemnly up to the open window on the second story. "And I think I know how."

All of which was fine and good, except for how it led to Ranboo trying to climb on top of an old, creaky, and possibly termite-infested roof.

"Ow-- oww!" Ranboo complained, heaving himself over the roof's small awning. He had somehow managed to clamber up the drainage pipe and drag his legs over the side of the roof, clinging for dear life onto the tiles. Scratchy and rough to the touch as they were, feeling almost like sandpaper to his uncalloused hands, they were the only thing that stopped his plummet back to the yard.

He chanced a look behind him at the steep drop down and nearly fell off in shock. The drop back down was over eight feet, and onto cracked, weed-filled concrete sure to break at least a couple of his bones.

"Okay, not looking down," Ranboo whispered to himself. He squeezed his eyes shut and dragged his legs onto the roof, scrabbling for a handhold. He seized a crooked roof tile and pulled himself further up, a step closer to the window.

A step farther from the ground.

He crawled forward on his stomach and carefully grabbed hold of the window once he was in reach, using it to drag himself closer so he could open it wider. He tried to reach in and push it farther up, but his hand met a thin mesh screen.

Ranboo scowled. He snagged a small hole in the mesh and tugged hard. Immediately met with a satisfying ripping noise, Ranboo watched with delight as the screen tore in two, fraying at the edges as it came undone.

"That's right, you stupid house," Ranboo whispered in triumph. He ripped the rest of the screen off and shoved the already open window to a place where he could wiggle through. He peered through the window into the attic, covered in dust and cobwebs.

First, his head, then, his shoulders and torso, and finally, his legs came through and he landed in a heap in the mildew-smelling attic.

At this point, he was really regretting deciding to come up here.

He slowly untangled himself and stood up, propping himself up on a piece of floorboard that stuck up at an odd angle. A spider slowly ambled down the wall in his peripheral vision and he quickly decided that he was not going to stay in the attic for any longer than necessary.

Luckily, the attic hadn't locked like the front door had, and he was able to open it with a fair amount of ease. Muttering thanks to whatever was up there listening to him, he closed the door securely behind him and scampered quickly down the stairs.

He ducked under the tiny living room door, then closed it (pushing one of the couches in front of the door, just for good measure) and walked through the house to the foyer.

The lights were still out, so the only illumination that Ranboo had were the small tendrils of sunlight that peeked through the shuttered windows. They made his shadow stretch out, seeming too long and making Ranboo jump every time he saw it move out of the corner of his eyes.

Quickly enough, he reached the locked door of the foyer. He pressed a hand against it, hesitated, then wiggled the doorknob. Nope. It was firmly locked.

"Tommy?" he called softly, cupping a hand around his mouth. He looked around, then knocked briefly on the locked door. "Tommy? You okay?"

"Right here," was the quiet reply. "I'm a'ight. Got knocked around a little bit when the bloody door slammed in my face." His voice sounded indignant, and Ranboo had a sudden vision of Tommy glaring daggers at the door.

He giggled, then knocked against the door again. "How should I get you out?"

Tommy snorted. "You think I know? Honestly, did you just rush in here with no plan whatsoever?"

"I--" Ranboo paused, turning the words over in his mouth. Did he have a plan? Now he was inside the house, but was that really better than being outside? Now that he was inside with the ghost, was he really better off?

A shiver went down his spine as he considered it.

"You don't have a plan, do you?" Tommy's voice tore Ranboo out of his thoughts. "I knew it."

Above them, the lights fizzed and popped, sparks sprinkling down from the thin iron coils and fading into thick black flakes that collected in the glass bulb. Ranboo's breath froze in his throat. The lights flickered, on, off, on, off.

And then they pulsed a couple of times, electricity buzzing, and then everything went dark once again. A string was attached to the ceiling light, swinging gently in a nonexistent breeze.

"Aw, fuck off, you damn ghost!" Tommy shouted. A loud slam came from inside the foyer, like the sound of something being kicked. "Haven't you fucked with us enough already?"

". . . what are you doing, Tommy?" Ranboo turned around so he was facing the door. He propped his head up on his knees, watching the door with mild curiosity.

A soft, frustrated growl came from behind the door. "I'm tryna talk to this ass of a ghost. That's the problem though, ain't it Boo? I keep yelling and complaining and I dunno if he can even hear me. It's awful. I just want out of here." Tommy punctuated this with another loud bang from the foyer, making Ranboo jump.

"Yeah. Sure wish we could communicate, huh?" Ranboo looked sadly at the dark screen of his dead phone, pressing the home button a few times in vain.

Tommy laughed sourly. "Communicate? I think we're a little past communication, Ranboo. It's been listening to us this entire time. Maybe before we even stepped into the house."

Ranboo thought with a flush of embarrassment back to the time when he had tried to step inside the kitchen and banged his head against the top of the doorframe. "I sure hope not," he said to himself, and then gasped. "Wait. . . comm-- Tommy! Tubbo's squash thing!"

"Yeah? What about it?" Tommy tapped his fingers against the door. "You feelin' alright back there? Need a hug from a weird squash plush?"

Screwing up his face in distaste, Ranboo shook his head vehemently. "No, but-- it's like-- it's already tapped the line! Between ghosts and humans! Maybe we can use it as some sort of middle ground, where the ghost can talk to us, right? Maybe even say sorry, convince it to let you go!" He knew he was babbling, even sounding a little desperate, but it was the best lead he had.

"It locked me in here with no explanation and you think it'll listen to reason?" Tommy sounded glum.

Ranboo pursed his lips, thinking hard about it. "Worth a shot, at least," he offered quietly. "You think?"

A long silence stretched through the hallway like taffy.

Ranboo had started getting worried that something had happened to Tommy when a long sigh came through the door. "Yeah, fine. Get the squash if you really think it'll help."

Luckily, the trip up and down the stairs to grab Tubbo's new toy was undisturbed by the ghost, and Ranboo only tripped over a loose floorboard once. He quickly steadied himself on the railing and continued down the stairs much more carefully.

It was only a matter of seconds before Ranboo was back downstairs with the squash stuffie in his arms. It was weird and lumpy, the Post-It peeling off at the edges. He pushed it back into place, praying that it would work.

Taking a deep breath, Ranboo held the plushie up above his head. "To any spirits here listening," he rattled off, his voice shaking, "and even those who may not be paying attention. We. . . I'd like to lay out an opinion and ask you for assistance. To whichever ghost that locked us in here and-- and turned off the lights, I must request that you release your hold on the comings and goings of the living inhabitants here."

He winced, waiting for a reaction, but none came.

Ranboo stared at the plushie again for a long second, then sighed and set it down on the floor. "God . . . I'm so fucking stupid." He rubbed at his eyes, tired and trying not to cry.

Tommy knocked against the door. "Does that mean it didn't work?"

"What do you think, Tommy?" Ranboo asked, his nerves frayed. "Do you think that it meant that the ghost came along and said, 'oh yes, I'd be happy to let you go'?" He slammed his hand against the floor angrily. "This ghost! I can't believe it!"

He grabbed the plushie and threw it against a nearby table, where it knocked off a doily and slid on the floor, completely lifeless in its manner.

Tommy cursed loudly. "Dammit. What the fuck, ghost?!" he called angrily from the foyer. "We apologize! What more do you want? We're trying to solve your fucking death! What kind of thank-you is this?"

Almost instantly, a wail came from the attic. Wind whistled in through the half-closed window and ruffled Ranboo's hair, blowing his bangs in his eyes. He spat out a lock of brown hair and blinked, confused. "What in the--"

"Shush," Tommy snapped. "Listen."

Ranboo froze where he sat, breath catching in his throat. Soft creaks were coming, but this time they weren't from the attic. They were in the living room, coming from the kitchen, making their way closer and closer to the locked foyer. They sounded like . . . they sound like footsteps, Ranboo realized.

"Um. Hello?"

An answering brush of wind blew past his cheek. He barely had time to stifle a curse before the lights flickered again.

The bulbs spat sparks, the iron wick crackling with energy. On, off, on, off, and then . . . they stayed on.

Ranboo stared at the ceiling with trembling hands. His heart thudded loudly in his chest at a pace he knew was probably dangerous for his blood pressure. "Um... Tommy?" he asked hesitantly. "Are--"

"The lights on for me? Yes, Ranboo. Yes, they are," Tommy replied, sounding shaken.

"Do you think, um. . ." Ranboo faded off, not wanting to finish his sentence for fear of immediately jinxing it.

Tommy let out a shaky breath. A rustling came from behind the door as he stood up, and then a soft rattling came from the doorknob. A click as the door began to move.

Ranboo moved back as the door slid open, then jumped to his feet to stare in shock at the foyer.

Tommy stood in the doorway, his entire body shaking, eyes wide and terrified. Ranboo clapped a hand over his mouth, not sure if he was going to smile or laugh or puke or cry. He settled for sniffling loudly, the words sticking to the back of his throat as he tried to speak. "Oh, my god," he finally whispered.

Tommy was stock-still for a few moments, and then he lunged at Ranboo.

For half a second, Ranboo was immediately convinced that the ghost had possessed Tommy and was now going to use his body to kill Ranboo. But as Tommy threw the two of them into a tight embrace, Ranboo realized that Tommy was crying, and then he was crying too, and couldn't stop, tears rolling down his face and stinging his eyes as he wept.

Relief.

He drank it in, a luxury he hadn't felt for what seemed like an eternity and a half. It felt like honey, like all his muscles relaxing and the realization that no, they were not dead, and they needed more than ever to figure out just what the fuck was going on in this house.

First, though, he whispered a silent thank you to the ghost, the words barely a single breath on his lips. And he squeezed Tommy tighter, crying silently into the blonde's shirt as the both of them lay there, on the floor; a mess for sure, but wonderfully, delightfully alive.

Ranboo sat on the vinyl seat, fidgeting with his hands.

The booth was dead silent. The last words of the tale hung in the air, and though everything was completely quiet, he still heard the words bouncing around in his head.

"So you're both alright?" Phil asked quietly. He was sitting across from Tommy and Tubbo, and next to Ranboo, his fingers drumming on the tabletop. The smell of greasy fries and warm, toasted hamburger buns filled the air of the diner, pink neon lights painting Phil's face with red highlights. Tubbo had firmly attached himself to Tommy's side and stubbornly refused to move, though Tommy looked as though he was thankful for the close contact.

"Yes." Ranboo brushed floppy hair out of his eyes, swallowing back the truth. The scratch on his arm burned more insistently, reminding him that he was not all right. "I mean-- my arm got a bit scraped up climbing on the roof, but nothing too bad." The lie tasted bitter in his mouth, even as the words left his lips.

Phil tutted. "Show me," he instructed.

"It-- it's barely a scratch," he mumbled, pulling his arm closer to his chest by instinct. He bit down on his tongue so he didn't yelp when the cut brushed the vinyl seats.

Tubbo leaned forward, concern blanketing his expression. "Ranboo, what's wrong?" he asked, tilting his head.

Phil reached over and tugged Ranboo closer with a slight frown. "Can I see?" he asked.

Ranboo sighed and reluctantly pulled his sleeve up. ". . . here."

He knew it looked bad, but it wasn't really that much of an injury. Splotchy red surrounded a graze from a pipe, the skin only cut in a couple of places along the scratch. Sure, it sucked, and itched and stung, but it would heal with just a little bit of time.

"That looks like it hurts," Tubbo contributed, sounding sympathetic. "But it doesn't seem to be too bad, yeah, Phil?" He leaned back in the seats and let his legs swing back and forth under the table.

Phil sucked in a breath. "Ranboo, I think you're having an allergic reaction to whatever cut you," he told him, pulling his shirtsleeve back down to cover the cut. "There's red all around it."

Tommy piped up. "That would be from the cold," he said energetically, happy to share some knowledge. "When it gets really cold around an injury it can make the skin get irritated. It doesn't mean that Ranboo's allergic to something."

Ranboo let out a breath, pleased to have an explanation other than we need to get Ranboo to the hospital so he doesn't die immediately. "Yes," he enthused, pointing at Tommy. "That; exactly."

"All right." Phil lifted his hands in faux defeat. His curiosity piqued, he turned to Tommy. "And how exactly do you know that?"

"Oh, when I came to visit him at first I got hurt all the time," Tubbo jumped in. "We'd go on adventures of all sorts! It was lots of fun." He grinned at Tommy, who smiled brightly back.

Phil rolled his eyes. "That makes sense, actually."

He paused his exasperation to smile at the waiter that brought them their food. The waiter offered a pleasant smile in return, setting down their steaming plates in front of each of them.

Delicious smells instantly filled the booth. Ranboo grinned down at his plate, grabbing a fork from the nearby silverware packet he had been given when they first entered the restaurant. He had emerged from that particular adventure feeling like he hadn't eaten in a week; apparently it had taken a lot more out of him than he had expected.

Phil clapped his hands. "Eat up, everyone. Then we're going back to the house and getting some rest."

Ranboo looked up at Phil with a mouthful of noodles and grinned as much as he could. "'Ath sounf goo', Phil." Realizing he was speaking utter babble, he swallowed and repeated the words. "That sounds good, Phil."

"Are we really sleeping in the house again?" Tubbo asked, passing a concerned look between Tommy and Ranboo. "Shouldn't we, I don't know, stay the night in a motel or something like that?" He spooned a forkful of pot pie in his mouth and hummed appreciatively.

Tommy nudged Tubbo with a smile. "Good pie?"

Tubbo finished the mouthful and nodded. "Really good."

"I think it'll be safe for a couple of hours," Phil told them cheerfully. "Besides, we won't be sleeping for that long. I have a few ideas concerning this ghost."

Who knew that Phil had taken a college course in Mythology & Folklore?

"I swear, Phil," Tommy told him, stuck somewhere between awe and annoyance, "Sometimes it just seems like you bloody know everything."

Phil only laughed. "Ah, I know a few things. I didn't know it would come in handy here, though. I can't say I ever expected to get to this point in my life."

Ranboo was holding an iron poker, snagged from the set of iron fireplace tools in the living room that Phil had distributed between them. Tubbo had a broom, while Tommy clutched an ash shovel, wielding it in a way that was probably more dangerous to his fellow ghost hunters than to an actual, violent ghost.

The sky outside was dark and peppered with stars, the moon shining half-full in the blackened sky. Fog swamped the yard outside, cast in a soft azure light by the waxing moon and disguising grass already heavy with fat dewdrops.

Though outside was a beautiful nighttime landscape, inside was a much different story.

Tubbo and Ranboo were covered in soot from digging around in the fireplace to retrieve the iron tools, Tommy was looking at his shovel in obvious disappointment (what had he expected? A kitchen knife? Phil had told Tommy again and again that he was not to be trusted with a knife, at. All.), and Phil was sitting on the counter, eating a cheese sandwich, looking strangely unruffled by all this.

"I'm not a Mythology 101 teacher," Phil said, rolling his eyes. "I can't tell you everything. But I can tell you what most people know, which is that iron and salt hurts ghosts." He brandished his own tool, a metal crowbar which he had retrieved from his car a few minutes ago.

Tommy pointed at Phil. "Don't try to shake off the compliment, you brilliant moron."

The corners of Phil's mouth quirked into a smile and he ruffled Tommy's hair, making the blonde groan and shove his hand off. "Aw, get offa me, Phil," Tommy complained, ducking away and smoothing back his rough curls.

"Right, then," Phil said, grinning around at the group. "We're not splitting up, not this time. That turned out to be a mistake, didn't it? From now on, no more splitting--"

Two simultaneous crashes came from either side of the house.

Ranboo whipped around, half expecting the kitchen door to slam shut and separate Tommy and Phil from him and Tubbo, but it remained innocently open. He took a few wary steps closer to the kitchen, then snatched Tubbo's hand and dragged the two of them in.

"What the--" Tubbo nearly choked on his saliva. He yanked his hand back, staring wide-eyed at Ranboo. "Is something the matter? What was that crash? Is this what happened when Tommy got locked in the foyer? Is that why you were so scared; 'cause I kind of get it now that was really loud--"

"Well, I don't want Tommy and Phil to be locked in the kitchen by themselves, if that's what you mean." Ranboo felt a shiver go down his spine as a cold breeze tickled the back of his neck. Tubbo shuddered and pulled his mossy-green jacket closer around himself.

"Getting a bit cold," he murmured, lacing his fingers together absentmindedly. "But don't worry about doors, Ranboo! I can take care of that!" He grinned up at the other boy.

Ranboo blinked down at Tubbo, cautious but intrigued. "How exactly would you 'take care' of a door?"

"We're burning that bridge when we get to it. Now then, let's investigate the crashes!" Tubbo decided cheerily. "Phil, Tommy, you go around this floor. I'm going to the attic with Ranboo."

Phil sighed. "I just said no splitting up, Tubbo."

Tubbo crossed his arms in mock anger. "Yeah, but Tommy got some Ranboo time all to himself--"

"And a ghost," Tommy muttered, making Ranboo snort with laughter.

"--and I had to look through those boring accountant books and newspapers. Now it's gonna be my turn to explore with Ranboo, and besides Phil, I haven't even been in the attic before." He bounced on the pads of his feet, looking excitedly between Ranboo and Phil.

Phil chewed on this for a while. When he spoke, it was carefully placed. "You can go with Ranboo . . . if he wants to split up again."

Tubbo immediately turned his doe eyes on Ranboo. "Oh, pretty please with sugar on top?" He clasped his hands together. His sneakers tapped on the floor as he just about vibrated with excitement.

Ranboo let out a long breath, waving in exasperation at Tubbo. "We're going to die," he told the Brit flatly. "This is exactly how a horror movie starts."

"Yeah?" Tubbo let this information sink in, his smile dimming for a second. Then it was back, and, if possible, even brighter. "Well, that's not so bad, is it?"

Biting back the urge to explain in slow, careful wording why he did not want to die a painful death at the hands of a ghost, Ranboo instead squeezed his eyes shut. He tipped his head back and breathed in slowly through his nose.

"All right. Fine. Yes. Let's go get ourselves trapped in a horror game."

Tubbo cheered and punched the air. "Nice!"

"I'll see you all later," Tommy said, sounding amused. He leaned closer, a pale strip of moonbeam turning his skin ghostly white, and grinned eerily around at the two. "Or . . . maybe not," he added in a theatrical whisper.

Then he drew back, looking pleased with himself. "I've been wanting to do that for ages," he told them happily. "What d'yall think?"

". . . impressive," Ranboo assured Tommy. "Good luck working with that shovel of yours."

He grinned at Tommy's offended shout as he jumped out the kitchen and sprinted to his guest bedroom to snag his (now fully charged) phone and George Kelly's rosary. Pausing, he also remembered to grab a Rice Krispy Treat, just in case he got hungry up in the attic.

Laughter echoed from the kitchen as Tubbo also made a hasty escape and slammed the dollhouse-esque door open, scampering up the cramped stairs. Ranboo only made it to the living room in time to watch him vanish into the darkened attic.

Not wanting to be left behind, he got up the stairs in record time and slipped through the dusty, maroon-painted doorframe.

The attic was much the same as always.

It was fairly well lit for the middle of the night-- windows with no shutters opened up to face the moon, the dust-soaked air almost looking like moonlit fog instead of the mildew-smelling truth. An old leather chest sat quietly in a corner, facing an ancient-looking armchair that was once probably emerald green.

Ranboo reached up, his hands brushing against the sloping ceiling, and his fingers snagged on a cobweb. He quickly pulled his hand back down and glanced around the dark room for Tubbo.

"Boo!"

Tubbo lunged out of the darkness, his fingers curled into a poor imitation of claws.

Ranboo shrieked and fell backwards, nearly banging his head on a decaying crate. "What the-- Tubbo!" he complained, rubbing his head. "That's the second time someone did that to me! It's not funny!"

"Sorry, sorry," Tubbo wheezed, holding his stomach and leaning against the wall so he didn't crumple to the floor. "Didn't-- know it would be th-that funny."

His laughter quickly turned to violent sneezing as the dusty air filled his lungs. Ranboo patiently waited for him to stop sneezing, collecting himself and dusting off the top of the crate before perching primly on the edge of the wood.

When Tubbo finally stopped coughing, he looked at Ranboo as though traumatized, his eyes watery and nose red. "Jeez, what did they do to this place? Who forgot to sweep?"

"I don't think anyone's been up here in a while," Ranboo admitted, dusting off his legs and getting to his feet. He kicked at the crate and a board caved in, crumbling under even the smallest bit of pressure.

Tubbo glanced at the crate, unimpressed. "Case in point. Hm." He swept a finger along the floorboards and came up with it covered in dust. He sniffed it and sneezed again, scrubbing at his nose with his jacket sleeve. "God, this is dismal."

"And spooky." Ranboo's eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting by then, and he scanned the room almost hesitantly, waiting for something to move. He let out a soft breath when nothing did. "I don't want to stay up here for too long."

Tubbo knocked on a piece of damp board that leaned against a wall, then jumped back with an eep as a millipede crawled out of a shadowy hole in the decaying wood. "Oh, bother, Ranboo. The ghost isn't going to do anything to us unless we make it mad." He waggled his eyebrows at the taller boy.

Ranboo walked closer to Tubbo, pulling out his phone to illuminate the ceiling. "Is that a fact?" Nothing up there.

"Did the ghost attack you unprovoked?" At Ranboo's annoyed face, Tubbo smirked. "That's what I thought, big boy. Now, let me see the rosary." He held his hand out expectantly, and after only a small pause, Ranboo handed it over.

Tubbo let it swing from his fingers, looking at it from every angle. "Huh . . . cool. So you think whoever's rosary this is, that's who killed this family?"

A chill sank into the room and Ranboo's face went blank with panic.

"I mean-- maybe, but-- I don't know, let's stop talking about this, yeah?" He pushed Tubbo lightly towards the opposite end of the room. "C'mere." He leaned down to mutter something directly into Tubbo's ear.

"The ghost doesn't really like it when we talk about the . . . the perpetrator," Ranboo whispered to Tubbo, delicately skipping around the word murderer.

Tubbo nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. How'd you get the ghost to talk to you before it, y'know, went all psycho?" He turned the rosary over in his fingers, watching the tarnished metal glint in the moonlit night.

Ranboo pulled out his phone and brandished it at Tubbo. "With this, the help of an app, and a yes-no code."

Beckoning Ranboo to hand the phone over, Tubbo placed the rosary back in Ranboo's open palm. "Can I chat with the ghost?" Tubbo asked interestedly, tapping a few keys on the already opened EMF-sensing app.

"Only if you want to get locked in the foyer," Ranboo joked, then quickly paled when a small giggle escaped through the termite-eaten walls of the attic. "Um-- maybe another time," he offered swiftly, trying to snatch his phone back.

Tubbo frowned, tugging it away from him. "There might not be another time, Ranboo, and this is so exciting, y'know? I can't just not investigate, can I?"

Ranboo matched Tubbo's frown, trying to grab for his phone. "Yes, you can. At least, you can not investigate right now, right?" He pushed the rosary absently into his pocket, more focused on Tubbo's grasp on his smartphone. "You're being weird about this whole thing, Tubbo!"

"Oh, leave it alone!" Tubbo snapped, his expression turning cold. "You're the one acting weird! You were sooo excited about going on this journey, and then one single bad thing happens and you shy away? What did you expect, teacakes and roses? I mean, come on!"

Ranboo flinched back as though slapped, and the rosary slipped out of his pocket. It slipped through his fingers like water and quickly landed on the floor, making not a sound as the dust made a makeshift cushion.

Neither of them even noticed. Ranboo's cheeks were burning with a mixture of guilt and shame, knowing that Tubbo was right, that he was being a coward. But he couldn't help it. Tommy could have gotten hurt.

"But-- what if Tommy had gotten hurt?" he asked in a wounded whisper, repeating his thoughts out loud as though that would help him find more secure footing. His feet seemed to be slipping out from under him, though he knew that they were firmly planted on the floor and weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Tubbo crossed his arms. The blue light of Ranboo's phone lit up a strip of Tubbo's arm and cascaded bright light over the dusty floor, shining a blinding shade of white. "Then we would have figured it out," he said, gently but firmly. "Because we're a team. Because we came here to have fun, not to be one-hundred-percent completely safe. Ranboo. Come on, Ranboo." His eyes were pleading now.

Ranboo hesitated, looking away. "I . . . you're-- you're right." He let out a small breath. "I just . . . I wish there was a way that we could do this without getting injured. With no risks."

"Hey." Tubbo put a hand on Ranboo's shoulder, his frown softening. "Sometimes I wish so, too. But life wouldn't be fun if there were no risks, now would it? We wouldn't be able to do half the things we can do now. I say it's better this way, and we should live it up to the fullest."

Ranboo let his lips curve into a smile, though his eyes burned with the effort it took not to cry. "Where should we start?" he asked.

Tubbo looked around the room, his face lighting up with a grin. His eyes gleamed. "I say we start right here. Now then, Ranboo, who exactly is the ghost who lives in the attic?"

" . . . " Ranboo looked away in shame. "Yeah, um, that would be. Well. We don't exactly know," he confessed.

"You don't know?!" Tubbo balked, eyes growing wide. "It seems there's a lot of fixing that needs to be done. Lucky for you I'm here. Just call me the fixer-upper!" He twirled the fireplace broom in his hands and banged it against the floor of the attic.

Dust instantly flew into the air. Ranboo swallowed a mouthful of it before he realized what was happening and immediately had the unfortunate involuntary reaction of hacking up his lungs.

He doubled over, leaning against the wall for support while his lungs carved themselves clean. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he glared up at Tubbo from his crumpled position, eyes watery and red-edged. "Was that necessary?"

"For the Fixer-Upper's dramatic entrance? Yes. Yes, it was." Tubbo poked at Ranboo's cheek with the bristles of the miniature broom. "You need to gain more respect for your elders, fool."

Ranboo pushed the broom away, rolling his eyes. "You're like a couple of months older than I am. Can we just-- get started?"

Tubbo grinned, brandishing the broom. "Yes, of course. Now listen very closely, my young apprentice. There are ghosts in this attic, and we need to speak with them. Do you have your protection with you?"

"Um . . ." Ranboo showed Tubbo his poker, unsure if that would be the right thing to do.

However, Tubbo only clapped and beamed brighter. "Excellent! Now, we need to have a chat with these dear ghouls. We need to speak with these white-clothed devils and see just what we can do to solve the mystery of their very existence. Presto!" He held up Ranboo's phone as if showing off a relic. "A communication device!"

"Ah-ah-ah," Ranboo chided, buying into the contagious excitement of ghost-hunting. "It's called a ghosdar, Tubbo. A ghost radar, see?"

Tubbo flung Ranboo's phone at him so fast the brunette barely had time to grab it. "Show me how to use it," he ordered Ranboo, acting dignified and imperial. "I'm intrigued." He lifted his chin in such a haughty manner that Ranboo had no choice but to laugh.

"Right. So, it's this right here, and we press this, and it should light up."

The screen began to pulse a slow red and Ranboo grinned down at his handiwork. He was allowed to be a little bit pleased about his luck in getting the EMF sensor to work, wasn't he? Yes, he was.

Ranboo looked around at the dinghy attic. "Ghost? You there? We'd like to ask you some more questions." He tapped the side of his phone, the glass making a little ping noise under his finger.

"You'd better answer, peasant," called out Tubbo, wielding his broom like a sword. "Or we shall smite you!"

"Hsst! Be quiet." Ranboo looked at the ghostdar, which was glowing on and off, throbbing bright red and then fading gently out to a soft grey. "I'm catching something."

Tubbo took a few delicate steps closer to Ranboo, not wanting to disturb the dust carpet, and peeked over his shoulder on his tiptoes. "Cool," he breathed, breaking character to stare in awe at the screen. "Really, really cool."

"Ghost?" Ranboo tried again, examining the crooks and crannies of the cramped attic. "I asked if you can hear me."

He shook the phone slightly as though it was broken and could be fixed through slight amounts of physical violence. Nothing happened. No dramatic beeps, no bright red flashing, absolutely nothing that contained any sign that the ghost was anywhere near.

Ranboo sighed and put his phone away. "I guess it's somewhere else."

"Hm." Tubbo tilted his head around, looking curiously at the attic. "Maybe on the ground floor? We should check up on Tommy and Phil anyway."

"Good idea." Ranboo switched his phone off with a soft click and tucked it in his pocket. A sudden thought stopped in his tracks, a frown writing itself on his lips. "Wait a second, Tubbo. Where'd you put the rosary?"

Tubbo twisted around to stare at Ranboo. "I gave it to you," he said slowly, his voice cautious. His grip tightened around the broom, his expression clouding over with confusion. "You don't have it anymore?"

"No, I-- I thought I had put it in my pocket." He rummaged around for a while and came up empty-handed. "Where did-- we need that! Where did it go?"

Ranboo felt his pulse start to race and swallowed back his panic. Maybe it fell out, he reminded himself. It's probably just on the floor somewhere, no need to get scared. He kneeled down and began to feel around for the rosary, waiting with bated breath for his fingers to clasp around the cool chain.

When nothing happened, he came back up empty-handed, looking at Tubbo, cautious and confused. He shook his head, not wanting to speak when his mouth was so strangely dry.

"M-maybe I did take it," Tubbo offered nervously, rooting around in his own pockets to find the rosary. After a few seconds, he met Ranboo's eyes and then let his gaze drift to the floor.

Nothing.

"This could get into a pickle for us if that ghost finds it," Ranboo reminded Tubbo, who looked like he didn't want to be talked to, let alone be reminded of their probable doom. "It got so upset when we talked about the priest it belonged to-- we can't let it find that rosary, Tubbo."

Tubbo gritted his teeth. "We're finding Phil. Come on." Not waiting for a response, he grabbed Ranboo by the forearm and dragged him towards the attic entrance.

A cold wind howled through the windows and slammed the door shut just inches from their face. Tubbo recoiled and Ranboo staggered away, hitting the edge of his shin on the same moldy old crate he had kicked.

It always comes back to bite you, his mind thought, tauntingly. Or in this case, kick you.

"No, no, no," Ranboo repeated, half-limping to the door and trying to wrench it out of its frame. It stayed closed. "No, no, we can't-- not this again!"

Tubbo took a deep breath. "Right. We're burning the bloody bridge. I don't have time for your frivolities and your fucking wailing, ghost," he called to the ceiling, cupping his hands around his mouth. "It's annoying at best. So fuck off and let us do this!"

"What are you going to--"

Tubbo snatched the poker out of Ranboo's hands. For a glorious, terrified moment, Ranboo thought he was going to break the door down, and for some reason the only thing he was worried about was the property damage.

But then Tubbo took a deep breath and tore the sharp head of the poker off of its wooden handle. He fitted it carefully underneath the bottom hinge and began to slowly unscrew it.

Ranboo watched, amazed, as Tubbo pulled the first bolt out of the three hinges on the door.

"Just count yourself lucky the hinges are on the inside," Tubbo muttered to Ranboo, or maybe to himself. "This door was made to lock people out, not keep them in. Which means you're out of luck, ghostie! Ha ha, take that!" He clapped his hands together as the second bolt fell out. The door made an ominous creak.

A chill rose in the room. Goosebumps scattered down Ranboo's neck and up his arms, making him shiver and clasp his arms tightly around himself.

Tubbo sucked in a sharp breath, his breath pouring out of his mouth like white-frosted fog. "Ow!" He dropped the poker head, shaking off his hand.

Ranboo peeked forward. "What's wrong?"

And then he saw. The iron was frosting over, white ice crystallizing over the soot and the dust that had gathered on it over the years. It was probably so cold that Tubbo couldn't touch it anymore or risk frostbite.

"Tubbo, I think you probably shouldn't have taunted it," Ranboo muttered in a low voice.

Tubbo snorted (ghost hunting with Tubbo was much different than ghost hunting with Tommy, Ranboo was discovering. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not) and slammed a fist against the door. "TAUNT!" he yelled. "Hey, ghost! I'm taunting you! Come out and get me, you big bloody coward!"

"Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up right now, Tubbo, you need to shut up--" Ranboo's pleas were cut off by a slow hiss, like the noise hot water made when it was poured into a bucket of ice. Frost-bitten mist pooled around the attic floor, reaching syrup-slow tendrils up at Ranboo's legs and then fell back into the white fog.

"Why is it so cold all of a sudden?" Tubbo asked warily.

"Tubbo, I don't think you should have taken the handle off of that poker. I kind of need it now--" He was again interrupted when the sound of footsteps began to make their way over to the duo. "What the fuck," Ranboo whispered through gritted teeth, "is that. What the fuck is that."

Tubbo clasped his broom warily-- thank god for wooden handles-- and shifted into a defensive position. "I don't know, but if I'm going down, I'm going down fighting."

Ranboo stared at Tubbo, eyes wide. "How are you not nauseous with terror right now?!"

"Because I'm having fun, Boo," Tubbo cried, exasperated. "We don't have time for another melodramatic moment, so I'm just going to say that you need to get your ass up off the ground, stop wallowing in fear, and learn to live a little!"

"I'm trying to live a little! What you're doing is trying to die! A lot!" Ranboo's voice was desperate, but he had to admit, a little part of him enjoyed the adrenaline racing through his body.

He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. "Right, I-- okay. Let's get it together."

He stared down the footsteps-- he could see them coming towards him clearly. Footprints appeared in the layer of dust, appearing and then vanishing as dust was blown back over the tracks, looking as though someone was stepping barefoot through the attic.

Tubbo and Ranboo watched in simultaneous horror as feet bloomed up from the ground, filling in the footprints as they appeared. As though etched in blue ink and coloured in with an array of icy Crayola crayons, legs soon followed, and then a torso, quickly chased by shoulders that sent shots of pale mist out to form into gangly, long arms. Cheeks, peppered with dark blue freckles, appeared, and a set of wire-framed glasses surrounded the wide eyes of the apparition.

Scratch that, not an apparition.

A ghost.

Were they the same thing? Ranboo didn't know. He couldn't tell. He was a bit preoccupied with the fact that there was a fucking phantom standing three feet away from them!

"What the shit," Tubbo said in a hoarse voice. "That's a real fucking ghost."

"What did you expect, an ice cream sandwich?" Ranboo chuckled weakly as the ghost, apparently unable to hear them, strutted forward with a noticeable limp to his left leg.

Strips of floppy, dark hair hung over his gaunt face, his posture short yet skinny and long-limbed. He looked like a spider, and Ranboo began to feel more and more uncomfortable, beginning to grasp at his arms for fear of imaginary insects.

The ghost's face, thin and pale though it was, held a wounded expression so deeply distressed it made Ranboo quail back as though his misery could possibly be contagious. His eyebrows were pushed together, his eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that made his face seem that much more like an arachnid. He could be no older than eleven, and somehow that made it all so much worse.

"Right, right . . ." Ranboo cleared his throat. "Hello, ghost?" The ghost made no acknowledgement, but Ranboo kept going anyway. "Are you . . . okay? Over there? Hello?"

Tubbo frowned, waving a hand back and forth. "Any lights on in there?"

"You home?" Ranboo tried.

The ghost made a growling noise at the word home and white steam poured from its mouth. Its teeth were sharp and mismatched, the tongue littered with old scars and sticky burns that made it look like a quilt. Tubbo took a hasty step back.

"You're there. Okay." Ranboo cleared his throat, trying not to sound as terrified as he felt. "What's your name?"

It lifted a hand, the fingers popping and the skin cracking as it clenched the hand into a fist. Ranboo stared, thinking for a moment that it was going to punch the shit out of both him and Tubbo, but it only made a thumbs-up.

"Probably a boy, looks like a child but not a baby . . . Herman?" Ranboo waited nervously for an answer. That was the only one he could think of, though his mind was switching quickly through various other names. Katherine, Paul, Ina, Lena, Boyd . . .

The ghost gave another thumbs-up.

Tubbo stepped forward again, some of his earlier fear clearing away. "Did you have a chat with Tommy and Ranboo earlier-- oh, this is Ranboo, and the blonde one is Tommy. I'm Tubbo." Tubbo offered a simple smile.

The ghost blinked at Tubbo, then nodded slowly.

"Okay, um . . . were you the one that locked Tommy in the foyer?" Ranboo asked. Strangely, he wasn't scared anymore. In fact, the ghost seemed more scared of them that he would have expected.

Herman the ghost paused, his entire body shivering for a few seconds. He shook his head and mouthed a no.

"Oh . . . were you the ghost in the attic that we talked to, then?" Ranboo asked slowly, not sure if the ghost's hearing was as perfect as it might have been in his life.

Herman paused as though thinking. His head crooked to the side a little bit, cracking noises coming from his transparent neck, and then he nodded, his eyes grazing Ranboo's.

"And if you don't mind us asking, who locked Tommy in there?" Tubbo even gave a little bow. "Thank you for being so cordial with us by the way, Mr. Ghost."

The ghost looked at the floor, then let out a shuddering sigh. A ripple of sadness slammed through Ranboo, so sudden and powerful it almost brought him to his knees. On his other side, Tubbo made a soft cry and clapped a hand to his mouth, his chest heaving up and down.

Herman shook his head again. He lifted a ghostly finger, then traced something in the air.

Ranboo staggered upright, watching in confusion as Herman traced her in the air, over and over again, just like what children write in the foggy window on cold Saturday mornings. "Her?" Ranboo whispered, barely able to form words. "Who--"

Herman suddenly switched to mouthing the word trapped, his wavering form flickering. His injured leg buckled underneath him, though he continued to hobble closer, his hand clenching into a ghostly fist. Something dark trickled down his chin from his mouth and Ranboo quickly realized it wasn't saliva.

"Are you okay? What's going on?" Ranboo stepped closer, mouth opening in shock as Herman shook his head, his hand falling to his side.

As Ranboo and Tubbo stared, transfixed, Herman let out a cry of pain and stepped away from the two, his limp even more prominent. Suddenly, blunt wounds appeared over his arms, his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose wide, deep injuries with blue blood pouring from the cuts.

Ranboo watched in terror and awe as dark spots bloomed on the ghost's shirtfront, down his torso and littering up his chest, and then finally, a deep axe wound cut sideways down his face. Herman's mouth split in half, his freckled cheeks already drenched in blood.

Herman somehow managed to mouth the word bye, waved mournfully, and then vanished back into the white fog.

Ranboo stepped forward, his hand outstretched, and heard something crunch underneath the sole of his boot.

He paused, looking down, and scooped up the missing rosary.

---

"Well, that wasn't remotely helpful," Tubbo grumbled, unscrewing the last bolt from the door. He gave the doorknob a firm tug and quickly stepped back as the door made a loud crashing noise, falling inwards to land at Ranboo's feet.

Ranboo brushed off his pants, feeling a little shell-shocked. A headache gnawed at his skull, making him wince as he stumbled down the stairs. At least the rosary was in his pocket now and not on the floor summoning a brand new ghost. He still patted it, just to make sure. "Did you expect him to have all the answers? I think we stressed him out a little, honestly."

Tubbo sighed, already making his way down the stairs behind Ranboo. "I know, I know. But that was a lot and I guess I expected more. Not just some sad shit and a thumbs-up thumbs-down kinda ghost."

"Herman is eleven. Or he was, when he died." Ranboo quirked an eyebrow at Tubbo.

Letting out an exasperated cry, Tubbo started to aggressively brush the attic dust off of his pants. "Stop making me feel bad! I'm sorry that I wanted to know more!"

Ranboo finally reached the couch and almost collapsed on it. He unwrapped his Rice Krispy and shoved the foil into a nearby plastic trash can, biting at the corner without much enthusiasm. "Well, we did cross one suspect off our list," he pointed out.

"That's good, I guess. But now we know there's more than one ghost-- or there's something else that's going on, at the very least! Who could 'her' be?"

"Her-man," Ranboo joked. The feeling was starting to come back into his fingers as he ate the sugary treat, helping soothe his brain back down from the adrenaline high.

Tubbo rolled his eyes but chose to ignore the pun. "And now I don't know whether I talked to Herman or 'her' when my plushie was possessed! And we don't even know if he was lying!"

"I don't think he was. Did you think he was?" Ranboo looked over at Tubbo curiously.

"My gut says that he's not. But my brain says that he could be! I'm not sure who to trust!" Tubbo frowned, then rubbed his head, wincing. "My head hurts."

Ranboo patted Tubbo's shoulder sympathetically. "Yeah, me too."

"That's improper grammar, innit?" Tommy's voice came from the doorway. Ranboo glanced over at the Brit to find him leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, tongue poking out between his triumphant grin. "While you two were in the attic snuffling around like pigs on a truffle hunt, me and Phil found something of use!"

"Tommy! We saw a ghost!" Tubbo ran over to him, tugging him away from the doorframe and sitting him down on the couch.

Tommy's eyes went wide and he almost jumped up from the couch. "You saw what? And you didn't tell me this straightaway?!"

"We are telling you straight away, we're telling you now," Ranboo corrected him, crossing his arms and leaning back into the plush back of the couch. He gnawed at the Krispy Treat tastelessly, though his stomach didn't really want him to eat any more.

Tommy rubbed at one of his eyes. "Okay, yeah, I get that now, but-- how?! Why you, why couldn't it be me?!" He pouted, though Ranboo didn't really think that seeing a ghost was something that deserved envy.

"I don't know," Ranboo settled for saying. "Now then, what did you find?"

Phil emerged from the hallway, flipping a worn, green notebook in his hands. It was streaked with dust, turning it pale and sepia brown, and instead of a leather or cardboard cover, it was stitched haphazardly together with patches of green fabric.

"A diary. They'd left it in one of the nightstand drawers, probably looking for realism," Phil told them, rolling his eyes and sitting down next to the boys. "But I can tell that they probably didn't read what was inside, or at least, none of it actually contributed to what was happening during the trials and the searching for suspects."

Ranboo tilted his head, more than a little curious. "Oh?"

Tommy clapped his hands together, grinning ear-to-ear. "Yeah! The dad guy--"

"Josiah Moore," Ranboo interjected, but Tommy waved him off.

"--he's the one who wrote the diary. There's even a diary entry from the day of the murder! And it's so cool. Of course, the writing's barely legible, but, well." Tommy motioned to the diary, shrugging with one shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

Tubbo leaned closer. "Water damage?"

"No," Tommy said. "Shorthand cursive." His mouth twisted into a frown. "But Phil can read cursive and we'll figure out the shorthand. Nothing to worry about, see?"

"Oh my gosh, this is just like an actual book! Just like-- umm, it's-- it's a treasure hunt!" Ranboo tripped over his words in excitement, his leg bouncing up and down where he sat. "With a secret code and everything!"

Phil laughed. "Shorthand isn't a code, Ranboo. It's a type of handwriting." He smoothed out the quilted cover and opened it to the first page. Yellowed and crinkled though it was, Ranboo could make out near indecipherable lettering scrawled all throughout the old paper.

"Yeah, well, we got two words out of ol' Herman up there." Tubbo motioned up to the attic. He was sitting comfortably on the couch, cross-legged and rocking absently back and forth. "'Trapped' and 'her'," he quoted, holding up appropriate finger quotation marks.

"And nobody got hurt!" Tommy exclaimed. "We're on a roll!"

Ranboo shivered. "Well, we did get locked in the attic."

Tommy nearly fell off the couch, so sharp was his double-take. "You-- what-- how did you get out? What?! Are you alright?!"

"I got us out," Tubbo volunteered, lifting a hand with a cheery smile plastered on his face. Spots of colour still nipped at his cheeks, the cold air in the attic having turned both of their faces a wind-swept pink. "The door is gone now, but I got us out."

The corner of Phil's eyes crinkled as he smiled thinly, barely even trying to hide his amusement. "We promised not to break the house, remember?"

Tubbo gave a half-hearted shrug. "We can replace it in a bit. Can we look through that diary now?" he asked, looking at the scribbling letters with interest.

Ranboo pulled a blanket off the couch and wrapped it around himself. "Let's have a look, c'mon," he pleaded with Phil, giving him his best impression of a wounded puppy. "I know you're curious too, Phil. Come on."

Phil finally gave in and turned the diary over to Tubbo. Tommy stepped around the couch and leaned on the back of it, peeking over Tubbo's head as he flipped through the old pages.

"Which entry is the one from the murder?" Tubbo asked idly, turning pages and giving them a quick scan.

"Yeah, I'd like to know that, too." Ranboo cuddled further down in his pile of blankets. Warmth was finally starting to return to his toes, and his fingers didn't feel so icy anymore.

Tubbo buried his face back in the book and scrunched up his mouth in a vague scowl. "Can someone else read this? It just occurred to me," he said dryly, "that I may not, in fact, be the best person to try and read incomprehensible drivel such as this."

Ranboo barked a laugh and Tommy waved his hand over Tubbo's face, still leaning against the back of the couch. "Hand it over," he said imperiously. "I can read it."

"You can?" Ranboo asked curiously.

Tommy paused, taking the moment to shake a tuft of blonde hair out of his eyes. "I can try," he replied, snatching the book as soon as Tubbo lifted it over his head.

"Go ahead then, have a try for yourself," Phil offered, perching himself on the arm of the couch. "But I think Ranboo and Tubbo might be in a bit of shock. Do you want something to drink?" he asked the two of them gently.

Ranboo's mind flashed back to the warm tea Tommy had handed him after his nap. He flushed, feeling guilty as he remembered he hadn't even had a chance to drink it. "Yes, please," he mumbled.

"Tea--" Tubbo started.

"With an entire carton of milk in it? And warmed up so much it's practically boiling as I hand it to you in the mug?" Phil teased, but he patted Tubbo's shoulder. "Well, I guess I'll have to make some, then."

Tommy's expression brightened. "The kettle works, didja know?" he asked, flouncing proudly around the couch to collapse onto the plush cushions. "I found that out when I made tea, all by myself!"

"Oh god, I'm surrounded by the British," Ranboo whispered to himself, letting his lips curve into a playful smile. Nobody heard him, but that was okay, because it was already funny and didn't need them looking all offended and puffing themselves up like exotic birds looking to mate.

Tommy flipped to a page near the back and pointed to the date. "Now here's the murder entry," he told them all.

Ranboo leaned forward, already fascinated.

"I can read a little bit of this, but I can't read much cursive, so I'm going off the letters I do know. And the shorthand will fuck this all up." Tommy hesitated. "This may actually just sound like absolute nonsense. Please ignore me if that happens."

"That's no problem, seeing as I already ignore you all the time," Tubbo told him promptly, and immediately got a pillow to the face.

Tommy cleared his throat. "June ninth. We went to the Children's Service that the church was . . . well, I can't read the rest of that sentence," Tommy said, sounding disgruntled. "Um, then it goes . . . It was very nice to-- oh, what's that word right there? And then it says that he thinks they rather enjoyed it. Who's they?"

"The children?" Ranboo offered, clambering up the couch to sit on the top, his legs crossed at the ankles.

Tommy pursed his lips, squinting at the paper. "Um. We took the Stillinger sisters back. And then the next part is all smudged, but after that it's all gooey ooey love stuff about what his wife wore that day and how pretty she is." The trio made a face simultaneously and then giggled.

"G K was acting . . . aw, I can't read that! But it says something about someone with the initials G. K. He was acting funny today, and kept asking Katherine about dates and events that are so obscure . . . um, G K then says something about a shame, and then something about tutoring."

Ranboo frowned. G K. Where had he heard that before? "G K," he repeated out loud, trying to remember. "G K . . . at church . . ."

"George Kelly, Priest!" Tommy blurted out excitedly. "The priest! Remember, Boo? You were talking about him?" He pushed the book onto the back of the couch and swung his arms around Tubbo's neck.

"Wait, yeah!" In that moment, as cheesy as it might seem, Ranboo felt something click. Like he was surrounded by a puzzle, and another piece had just fallen into place. It felt right, as though he had been hesitating between choosing roads and now he knew exactly which one to take.

"He was acting strange . . ." Ranboo said slowly. "Can I see the book?"

Tommy pushed the diary closer to Ranboo, now apparently trying to climb over the back of the couch so he could access hugs more easily. "Here you are. Tubbo! Tell me about this ghost now!"

As Tubbo began to embark on the adventure, Ranboo flipped through the faded pages of the diary.

It smelled like those old books you could find in obscure bookstores, and the paper crinkled under his fingers when he touched it. The edges of the pages were browned and the insides were yellow like cream, the black ink faded to a brown and touched with burnt orange at the edges.

Ranboo squinted at the writing, trying to make out what the scribbled letters meant. It was so curvy and loopy, Ranboo wondered how Tommy had even deciphered the few pieces of sentences that he had.

Right, so what do we know? The top suspect right now is the priest. I don't see who else it could be; so we should look into G K more. Try and find some old photos, see if that really was his rosary.

Meanwhile, I'll also need to talk with Herman more and try to find out just who that other ghost is. She seems a lot angrier than he is. Why? And what does 'trapped' mean? Are they trapped somewhere?

Trapped in the house, or somewhere else? How? And why?

Something tugged at his mind and he frowned, tracing a smudged string of browned letters on the page. Lost in thought, he flipped lazily between two pages, not really trying to read them.

There are only four female options I can think of: Katherine, Ina, Lena, and Katherine's mom. How can I find out more about them? And who 'trapped' the ghosts, if that's even what it means?

Phil tapped Ranboo on the shoulder and he jolted up, blinking quickly.

"Yes?" he asked, a bit slowly. "Is everything okay?" He took the mug of tea that Phil offered, carefully holding it by the handle so he didn't burn his hands. The comfortable scent of warm milk surrounded the living room now as Tubbo and Tommy took sips from their own cups.

"Yeah, but I was wondering if you'd like to go to bed now. It's almost three in the morning, and you look exhausted." Phil nodded towards Tommy and Tubbo, who were cozied up to the side of the couch, Tubbo leaning against Tommy's shoulder.

Ranboo tried to stifle a yawn. Now that adrenaline and shock had left his body, he was left feeling strangely misplaced. And incredibly tired, his body took this moment to remind him.

Ranboo touched the dark green fabric of the cover gingerly as he closed it and held it to his chest, slowly getting up from the couch. Now that he thought about it, he was really, really tired.

"I think I'll drink this tea in my room," Ranboo admitted, blowing against the top of the hot tea before he dared to take a sip. It tasted good, pleasantly sweet and not overly bitter. He paused. ". . . did you put cinnamon in this?"

Phil looked vaguely embarrassed. "Did you not want that? Sorry. It usually helps me go to sleep, so I thought it'd calm your nerves without me having to give you alcohol." He actually stopped for a moment as though thinking it over, and then shook his head. "Yeah, no alcohol for you."

"Fun spoiler Phil," Tommy muttered over his tea.

"I've never seen you tipsy, and I never want to," Phil countered, raising an eyebrow at the blonde. "That seems like a very bad idea. Besides, you're underage, and there's no way I'm letting you do anything that you shouldn't."

The comfortable, familiar back-and-forth soothed Ranboo, letting him relax for the first time in what felt like hours. His head tipped back as he leaned against the back cushion of the couch, his tired eyes blurring the old-fashioned wallpaper that surrounded him.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and smiled.

When Ranboo had searched up ghost-hunting tips on Google earlier that week, most of the things that had come up were, predictably, from bad 1970s movies.

But there was one that Ranboo had actually paid attention to.

In bold, on almost every single site he had found, it said carry a journal.

So he listened, and brought a black pen on his journey back to the US, hoping to find a suitable notebook there. And he did, just not exactly as he had expected. His little black pocketbook, the one he pulled out of his suitcase now, had been found under his seat on the plane ride back.

He stroked the glossy cover of the pocketbook. His name had already been written on the inside flap in beautiful penmanship, courtesy of Tommy who for some reason knew calligraphy. A few math notes had been sketched in harsh graphite, almost tearing the page (courtesy of the previous owner, who seemed to not enjoy handwriting), but the rest of the journal was white, smooth paper.

Ranboo flicked on the bedside lamp, setting his still-steaming mug on a doily on the table. A black ink pen appeared in his waiting hand, and a few quick strokes labelled the date on the upper corner.

How should he start the journal off?

Dear journal, he decided easily, writing the letters in his messy scrawl.

Dear journal, a lot has happened today.

I know it's the first time I'm writing to you, and I already have a lot to talk about. So much happened today! But I'll be brief, and summarize:

We identified a possible murderer (G K, or pastor George Kelly), discovered that there's more than one ghost living in the house (There's Herman Moore and also 'her'. Maybe more-- probably not, two seems unlikely anyway. What could 'trapped' mean?), and got locked in rooms twice today (one was much more dramatic than the other. It would have helped to have Tubbo during in-house exploration time). It was really exciting, and I think we almost have this mystery down!

Ranboo shook off his hand, which was starting to cramp.

We have to leave the house tomorrow, since we only got to stay here for two nights (this is the last night) and one day (which was today. Yesterday? Is it tomorrow already? Not sure, huh). But we'll still be able to investigate more tomorrow! We're going to look into G K in the morning and see if we can't find more proof, and also I'm hoping to look around the town and the house to see anyplace someone might be 'trapped'. I'm so curious about 'her', too. I'll tell you tomorrow whether or not we found out 'her' identity.

But my hand hurts now, so I should probably

"--Boo! Hey, Boo, listen to me!"

Tommy raced into the room so fast he stumbled at the doorway and had to hold onto the frame to regain control. At the sudden shout, Ranboo nearly fell off the bed.

Tommy was panting as he slumped against the doorframe, his chest heaving violently up and down. He was grinning so wide Ranboo thought his cheeks must hurt.

"Yeah?" Ranboo started, then looked down at his journal and nearly swore. "To-mmy, you made me smudge my writing!" He frowned, going back at some of the letters and trying to trace over them to salvage the smeared work.

Tommy pursed his lips. "Sorry, I guess. Anyway-- I think I got something! I think I know what 'trapped' means! I was remembering that conversation we had late in the afternoon yesterday, remember? At night, right here?" He motioned around the room as though trying to jump-start Ranboo's memory (which was already perfectly fine!) ( . . . hopefully).

Ranboo sat up, his attention pulled towards Tommy as curiosity took over. "Yes, I remember that. It was, um, riveting," he decided, choosing not to say that it had nearly given him nightmares.

"Yeah, and you were talking about how in different religions, people believe in covering the mirrors to not let spirits get trapped in reflective surfaces, right?" Tommy was bouncing up and down on his tiptoes, obviously on a roll.

To Ranboo, the pieces were starting to fit together, but there was still something wrong with the scenario.

He spoke slowly and carefully. "I remember, but Tommy," Ranboo started, then halted. "I don't-- I don't see how that would work. The mirrors were covered. The murderer took care not to let them get trapped in the mirrors, if that's even true in the first place!"

"No, listen." Tommy was getting impatient now. "What if he had left one of the mirrors uncovered and purposefully trapped the ghosts in there? And then covered it up so nobody would guess!"

"That's devious," Ranboo admitted. He tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes at the ceiling as he thought. "And . . . . it's probably possible. It's also possible that even if the mirror superstition isn't true, a person's belief could be so strong that they would believe they were trapped there, essentially trapping them both in the mirror and in their own mind." He stopped to take a breath, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Nobody would think of it. It's actually genius."

Tommy smiled, obviously pleased. "Aw, you think so?"

Ranboo chose not to tell him that he was, in fact, only complimenting the murderer.

"Yes. Definitely," he said instead, and then carried on, closing his book and pushing it to the side. "So now we'll need to, what? Look through all the mirrors in the house?"

"More likely . . . the small, hand-held ones. So that the killer could carry them around, I'd think. And they'll still be here, 'cause if they weren't, then the ghosts would've travelled with them, right?" Tommy scooted onto Ranboo's bed, tapping the side of his mouth thoughtfully.

"Good idea." Ranboo felt a yawn swelling up in his throat and pushed it back down, blinking fast. "Hey . . . what time is it?"

He fumbled around for his phone, eventually finding it and pulling it up closer to his face. The sudden blue light overwhelmed his eyes and he dropped the phone, wincing, before adjusting to the brightness and scooping the phone back up.

2:47, the clock read, and then, as though suddenly changing its mind, 2:48. Ranboo stared at the numbers for a while, his sleep-deprived mind grasping at straws to understand them, and then sighed, setting his phone back on the bedside table.

"Late," he informed Tommy. "We need to get to sleep."

"And look for trapped ghosts in the morning?" Tommy inquired, though his attention was already elsewhere as he very nearly pounced on his bed. He looked back up at Ranboo, face half-buried in a pillow. His voice was muffled as he spoke. "Pleeease?"

Ranboo sighed. "And look for trapped ghosts in the morning," he conceded tiredly, reaching up to switch the lamp off. As the golden light of the lamp vanished and a calm darkness swept across the room, Ranboo could feel himself easily slipping off to sleep.

He closed his eyes and let his thoughts stream away, until all he had left was the cool night breeze and the soft light of the moon shading everything in blue.

---

The next morning it dawned bright and early.

A little too early for Ranboo.

Exhausted by the previous day, he slept through the entire morning and only woke up when a loud knock echoed through the house.

He sat up, the covers pooling around his waist, and rubbed sleepily at his eyes. He looked at Tommy-- or would've, but Tommy was already gone, the bed made, and suitcase gone. When Ranboo looked around in a hurry for his own suitcase, it was gone as well, to his shock.

They left! his first thought cried immediately. He'd only just managed to quell it when the second one came: and they took the Rice Krispies instead of me!

He quickly shook his head as though the thoughts were annoying flies. The thought of Phil and Tommy and Tubbo leaving without him was fretting, but not possible at all.

The knock came again, and this time Ranboo slid out of the bed, glancing at his phone for the time. 9:34.

No, that can't be right. He frowned at the clock, then shook his phone as though it was broken. Did I sleep until 9:30? No, there's no way.

The numbers stared him dead in the face, unmoving and unafraid of him-- mostly because they were just numbers and they couldn't be scared of anything, seeing as they weren't exactly . . . sentient. Ranboo poked at them one more time, and then looked out the window to confirm them.

He was met with a sunny sky, cottony clouds drifting across the open expanse of silky blue. The fog from the previous two days was gone, and he was met instead with a cheerful rural scene, dandelions sprouting out of the gravel roads, a stop-traffic red truck parked to the side of the road, next to the unused plastic garbage can out front of the Moore House.

Wait.

Ranboo's head jolted back as though on an elastic string, his eyes fixing on the red truck.

That wasn't Phil's truck. Phil didn't even have a truck (to his knowledge. It was perfectly possible that Phil had a double life as a truck racer)!

Ranboo didn't recognize that truck at all, but it certainly had a bad feeling attached to it. It had rock-n-roll bumper stickers plastered all over the back window, for one thing, and Ranboo was sure he'd remember anyone he met who had an 80s' fetish. It was one thing to like the genre of music, but he doubted they could actually even see out that window, so thick was the cloud of band logo stickers.

Ranboo blinked away the remaining gummyness in his eyes, trying to get a clearer picture. He peered around the windowsill and saw, with relief, that Phil's van was still parked outside on the cracked concrete driveway. So they hadn't left without him.

But that still left the question . . . who was parked outside?

As though responding to Ranboo's thoughts, another knock banged against the door, this one even louder. He winced and walked out of the room, through the living room, and into the kitchen.

"Hey, Ranboo," Tommy greeted him cheerfully. "I saved some breakfast for you. You slept really hard, I couldn't wake you at all." Their suitcases were leaning against a counter, zipped up and ready to go.

Tubbo, sitting next to Tommy with a cinnamon roll in his hands, nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, and I tried my hand at it, too. You'll want to wash your hair soon. Sorry." He said this last bit without the faintest trace of apology, and Ranboo quickly ran a hand self-consciously through his hair. To his disgust, there was in fact something sticky in it. He tugged his hand away and noticed that something yellowish had stained his hand.

"What did you do to my hair?" he asked, his voice sounding scratchy even to himself. He cleared his throat and accepted the cinnamon roll that Tommy slid to him across the table. "And why isn't anyone answering the door?"

Phil scoffed. He was leaning against the counter, arms crossed and a grim look on his face. "If he wants in, he'll have to bust down the door."

Ranboo stared at Phil, confused. "Who?" he asked finally, taking a bite of the roll. "He'll have to do what?"

"Phil made an enemy," Tommy explained around a mouthful of cinnamon roll. A teasing grin spread across his face. "He can't help it. It's just his way. He's so contrary, you know."

"I'm sure I don't," Ranboo murmured in response.

"I'm not contrary," Phil huffed. "I just don't like him. And for goodness sake, Tubbo, stop stealing pieces of Ranboo's breakfast!"

Tubbo paused mid-snatch and withdrew his hand, casting a miserable look at the floor. "Sorry, Phil. Sorry, Ranboo."

Ranboo nodded absently at Tubbo's apology, his attention dragged back to the front door when a fourth, insistent knock banged against the wood. It sounded like whoever it was was practically throwing their shoulder at the door now, and Ranboo winced as a resounding thud echoed through the house, quite nearly shaking the walls.

"I don't think he's gonna stop," he informed Phil, carefully keeping his voice blank so his exhaustion didn't show. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

"I don't care," Phil muttered, keeping his arms crossed.

"It's loud and annoying," Tommy complained. "You should care."

Phil hesitated, then shook his head. "Fine, I'll let him in," he said, sounding defeated. "I'll be right back." He walked out of the room slowly as though each step hurt him, and made his way down the hallway to the foyer.

"And don't forget about what we said!" Tubbo called down the hallway. "You need to--"

Phil waved a hand passively. "Yeah, got it. Don't worry."

Ranboo glanced over at Tommy, who was stuffing his mouth full of cinnamon roll again. He leaned over the table, gently pulling Tommy's plate away so the Brit would be discouraged from accidentally killing himself, whether that was from choking or an OD on sugar.

"Did you find any mirrors like the ones we talked about?" he asked.

"Funny thing," Tommy replied, frowning. "The answer's no. There's plenty of big mirrors attached to the wall, but they were covered during the murder, and I can't find any type of reflective thing that coulda been carried around in a murderer's pocket."

"Yeah. We looked and looked, but there wasn't anything at all," Tubbo added, his shoulders slumping. He gave Ranboo an apologetic look and shrugged tiredly. "I dunno if it's worth pursuing anymore."

Ranboo sat in silence, thinking hard. It was probably a good idea to accept that there wasn't anything else on this lead, but something told him there was more to it. There was something they were missing, but he didn't know what it was . . .

"Can we maybe ask someone who lives here about it?" Ranboo offered.

Tubbo bit his lower lip. "Sure, if you'd like, but I doubt anything will come of it. Who were you thinking?"

The faint sound of arguing came from the front door, and Ranboo immediately recognized the voice. He was on his feet in an instant and in the front hallway behind Phil before he could think about whether or not this was actually a good idea.

Still, if there was anyone that would know, it was him.

Even if he did smell like old coffee.

"I don't care! You said two nights and one day. It's right here on the sheet. And now I want you out of this fucking house!" The tour guide's son was on the front doorstep, his voice raised to a pitch that hurt Ranboo's ears to listen to.

Phil stood in the doorway, expression stony. "We'll be out as soon as we can pack our things," he snapped back. "There's no need to yell, and there's certainly no need to come here with the intent of dragging us out like a sixteenth century loan shark."

Last time, Ranboo had thought that it was the dark that made the man look so faded, but now he was seeing him in the sunlight and he looked even more grey than before. His skin was pale but almost ashen, his hair limp and sporting an oily kind of salt-and-pepper; even his clothes were faded and torn at the edges.

But Ranboo was here on a mission, and he wasn't going to let anyone deter him. He poked his head out from behind Phil, startling both of them. He grinned up at the dour man. "Excuse me sir, I have a few quick questions to ask you," he said in his most charming reporter voice.

The man blinked, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "I'm here to kick out the rats, not listen to their problems," he barked, hitting the clipboard under his arm with the red pen in his hand.

Phil drew breath to retort, but before he could, Ranboo snuck out from behind the door and quickly got in front of him. "I'm sure you are," he said smoothly, as though nothing had been said at all. "But I just have something to ask you. It's very fast, I assure you. Would you happen to know if there was anything reflective in the house at the time of the murder? Anything shiny, anything at all?"

The man stopped as though surprised. He shook his head. "I'm liking you all less and less," he muttered to himself. "Tourists coming with their damnable questions and not giving me any rest time."

Ranboo refrained from pointing out that technically, it was him that had decided to come down here and interrupt their rest time. Instead, he smiled cheerfully. "Do you know of anything like that?"

"Silverware is pretty fucking shiny, isn't it? So are tools. Metal shines. Mirrors reflect. Are you fucking dumb or are you just spouting crazy?" The man scowled up at Ranboo.

For a moment, Ranboo sat there, thinking hard. It's true. Not just mirrors and glass reflect-- metal is pretty shiny. Silverware? No, it wouldn't be reflective enough if they didn't polish it each day. And it'd probably be locked in the silverware drawer, too, so we can kick that idea out of the window.

And then, it clicked.

Tools.

Three nights ago, Ranboo had been scrolling through Google, eating up mouthfuls of information on the Villisca Axe Murders. He never expected to find anything that was too weird, but one detail stuck out to him.

The sink had been turned on, the soap used. Blood was found caked in the bottom of the sink . . .

". . . as though the murderer had washed his hands," Ranboo whispered to himself, thinking hard. "What if he didn't wash his hands? What if he washed something else?"

Like the murder weapon?

Keeping the axe clean and shiny. Finally, everything had a purpose; everything fit together.

"It's devious," Ranboo went on, thinking out loud, repeating himself. His eyes gleamed, his lips spreading into a slow smile. "It's genius."

Both the tour guide and Phil were staring at him now, but Ranboo barely noticed. He grinned to himself, then snapped out from his reverie and met the tour guide's face once more, putting on his most polite smile.

"Excuse me, one more thing mister," Ranboo said cheerfully. "Would you happen to know where the axe is? You know, the one used to . . . " he waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially.

The man huffed impatiently. "Why do you want to know where it is?" He put his hand on his hip, looking suspiciously at Ranboo, gel-slick hair falling in his eyes.

Ranboo only upped the brightness of his smile. "We are ghost investigators," he reminded him eagerly. "We have to pursue every venue of opportunity, you know!"

"Yeah, right." The man paused, his bottom lip jutting out as he thought. Ranboo noticed that the skin on his nose and shoulders was pink and peeling slightly, as though he had been sunburned, and he frowned in sympathy.

"I think . . ." the man said eventually, speaking slowly. "I think it was loaned to someone, who sold it, someone else borrowed it and then willed it away to their third child who sold it at a garage sale, and now arrangements are being made to give it back to the history association in Villisca." He shrugged with one shoulder.

Ranboo stared in awe. "You really know a lot about what goes on here, don't you sir?"

The man scoffed, but he looked faintly pleased. "I try to help out as much as I can. As it happens, you--" he shot a pointed look at Phil again, his expression hardening, "--are messing up my fine schedule. I had a group of people coming here to celebrate a birthday, and your tramping around is just going to make them late. You'd better finish up before I call the cops on your damn ass--"

Phil threw his hands into the air. "Why don't we go back to your little stall, then?" he demanded. "I'm very happy to set up more arrangements, or I would have been, had you not been a perfect nightmare as soon as we stepped foot here-- tramping around, as you so call it!"

"I do call it that!" The guide leaned forward. "You wanna know why? 'Cause that's what you all are doing! Getting in the way, that's all!"

Ranboo edged out of the way, tiptoeing back towards the house as thoughts swirled around in his head. So it wasn't the axe. What could it be?

A regular person would have just given up on this whole possibility of 'reflection ensnarement', as Ranboo had rightly dubbed it, but that's just no fun. He was sure there was something going on here.

Trapped.

Mirror.

Tools.

He walked back inside the house, so distracted he nearly stumbled right into the doorway. He dodged it at the last minute and hopped to the side, spinning in a lopsided loop around the bend in the hallway like a top with too much inertia.

He glanced at the ceiling and realized the lights were off. That was odd. He shook himself off-- there's nothing going on, he told himself, laughing nervously at the way his heart jumped anxiously inside his chest.

"Tommy? Tubbo?" he called softly, cupping one of his hands around his mouth.

A soft whistle of wind was his reply, and he nervously tugged at the collar of his shirt. His eyes had adjusted to the slight darkness now, and he quietly walked down the hallway, making sure his feet made no noise. He didn't want to accidentally walk on a creaky floorboard and startle himself.

He kept his hand on the wall so he wouldn't miss the kitchen doorway, a habit he had formed after an entire three hours of stumbling around a hotel in the middle of the night and eventually ending up startling a cleaning lady so badly she had screamed something about el chupacabra and fainted. In his defense, he had been hungry, and the hotel had said it offered 24/7 service-- which, on the pamphlets, seemed like it would include midnight snacks.

The entire house looked even eerier when it was dark. Of course, Ranboo had seen it when it was dark before, but he'd been rather preoccupied at the time.

Dust hovered in the air, catching on the faintest sunbeams that snuck through the tightly pulled windows. The wallpaper, which had previously been a shade of pink and green-- faded, yes, but still colourful-- was now turned into a muddy brown by the lack of light. For some reason, he could see gauzy spiderwebs more easily than when it had been filled with light, turning the whole place into a sort of quiet, dreamy haunt.

He blinked a couple of times, trying to look around the dark rooms. Why was it so dark?

Poking his tongue out of his mouth, he tried to test the air. It didn't seem cold, so he figured he could probably cross another ghost attack off the list. His fingers met air and he looked around, his eyes catching on the slightly darker patch of shadows in all the other shadows that was the only signal a doorway even existed.

He walked into the kitchen, groping for the light switch and opening his mouth to ask Tommy and Tubbo why they had turned all the lights out.

Almost instantly, a pale face appeared not three inches away from his own.

Ranboo reared back, ready to shriek in fright, and a hand clamped down over his mouth. He squirmed and fought hysterically and tried to push whatever it was away, shouting for help through the muffling hand over his mouth and his struggling hands met a solid body.

He stopped.

Ghosts weren't solid. They probably couldn't even put a hand over his mouth. They were just dust and cold wind and . . . whatever else ghosts were made of. What were ghosts made of?

I need to start investigating exactly what they're made of, he thought distantly, and pried the hand off his mouth. Tearing himself away, he put a hand on his hip and glared down at Tommy, who was standing in the kitchen doorway with an oddly serious expression on his face.

"What was that all about?" he hissed, scowling. "You scared me half to death!"

"You need to be quiet," Tommy told him smartly, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "We're trying to pretend we're not here. Careful, quickly now-- Phil can only buy us so much time, you know."

Ranboo raised an eyebrow (he was rather proud that he could do that. His mother had told him early on in his life that not everyone could raise just one single eyebrow, so it was something he had always been happy about). "Phil's buying us time?"

Tommy waved out at the doorway, already pushing past Ranboo into the living room. "Yes! What d'you think that whole performance was? You thought Phil would really get that angry all of a sudden?"

Ranboo blinked down at Tommy, and then understanding clicked. "Oh-- ohh," he said, the truth dawning on him. He actually felt rather stupid. "Oh yeah, cause--"

"We're not done here," Tubbo cut in, looking rather smug. "And we needed more time to get stuff done, so we convinced Phil to keep that guy busy. It was my idea," he added in a carrying whisper.

"Yes, yes, Tubbo," Tommy sighed, rolling his eyes. "Can we get started now? Please tell me you got something when you decided to interrogate that guy."

Ranboo hesitated, his head tilting to the side. "Yeah, I think I got something. You were talking about reflective surfaces, and I asked him a couple of questions and now I have an idea." He rubbed his hands together, smiling.

Tubbo had been walking to the living room to follow Tommy, but now he paused, looking suspicious. "Is it an idea I'll like?"

"I'm not sure," Ranboo said cheerily. "Why don't you ask our dear little Herman?" He shot a delighted grin over his shoulder at Tubbo.

"Oh, don't tell me we're--" Tommy started, his face crumpled into an apprehensive grimace.

Ranboo nodded, already walking towards the stairs. "Up to the attic we go!"

---

The attic was no less dreary at ten in the morning than it had been last night.

Spots of sunlight pricked through the window blinds, but for the most part, it was completely dark. The rafters were occupied only by the occasional gasp of wind and a couple starving spiders, and as usual, the string that connected to the single lightbulb did absolutely nothing when Ranboo tugged on it.

Sighing and shaking his head, Ranboo brandished his phone and turned the flashlight on, illuminating the surrounding boxes and old furniture.

Tommy brushed a spiderweb off his shoulder, looking disgusted. "I hate this place so much," he muttered. "I bet that chair would collapse if I sat on it."

"Don't say that," Ranboo chided. "This place is a paranormal gold mine!"

Looking at him skeptically, Tommy held up an old, greyish sock. "Right. And I bet this specific sock is holding all the answers, doesn't it?" He slipped his hand inside the grimy fabric and began talking to it, holding the sock as though it were a puppet. "Mr. Jenkins, what have you to say about the ghosts that live here?"

"Oh, well I wouldn't know, dearie," the sock replied in a high-pitched voice. "I'm only a dear old sock, aren't I? Goodness, who put you up to this? Was it those rascals down the block?"

Tommy cleared his throat to return to his regular voice and continued, trying to stifle his laughs. "What rascals, Mr. Jenkins? Who are you talking about?"

Ranboo actually paused in his activities to stare curiously at Tommy and Mr. Jenkins. Tubbo was also raptly watching with something close to awe in his gaze.

"Those rascals! You know, the ones led by that one awful young'un with that odd panda mask." Mr. Jenkins looked rather disgruntled by all this, despite just being a grey sock.

Ranboo stared down Mr. Jenkins in distaste. It was one thing to insult him, but completely another to insult his brand! He didn't think he liked Mr. Jenkins very much. He huffed haughtily and turned away, continuing to shine his flashlight in the rafters.

"O-oh," Tommy said, sounding as though he was trying his hardest not to laugh. "Oh, you mean Ranboo? I thought he was the good sort?" He assumed a confused, childish tone, batting his eyelashes innocently.

"No, not at all," Mr. Jenkins replied in a shocked voice. "He's the worst sort of them all. You'd do good to stay away from him."

Feeling personally affronted, Ranboo turned around to blow a raspberry at Mr. Jenkins. Tommy, Tubbo, and Mr. Jenkins himself all gasped at the exact same time, and Tubbo actually pressed a hand to his heart in shock.

"Ranboo! Apologize at once to Mr. Jenkins-- he's just a poor old sock, he doesn't deserve your disdain!" Tubbo looked as though he would march on over to Ranboo and drag him back just to force an apology out of him.

Ranboo rubbed at his eyes, letting a long pause hover in the air. "God, I hate this so much," he mumbled.

"I'm sorry, what's that? I couldn't hear," Mr. Jenkins sniffed disdainfully.

Ranboo stared Mr. Jenkins right in his nonexistent eyes, praying that the old sock would suddenly come alive and have an actual neck and soul just so Ranboo could throttle the life out of him. Apparently tired of waiting, Mr. Jenkins did a movement that Ranboo imagined would have been like a person snootily turning their back on someone else, and something inside Ranboo snapped.

"Apology? Oh, you want an apology? Fine. I'll apologize when I see you next, which will be in Hell you little--" Ranboo almost launched into a string of curses right there, but Tommy easily stripped the sock off his hand and threw it at Ranboo, hitting him right between the eyes.

"Oh--" Tubbo clapped a hand over his own mouth to stop himself from bursting out laughing.

Ranboo peeled the sock off his face and glared at Tommy.

"This." He held up the sock, his expression flat. "I am going to bring it downstairs and cut it into tiny pieces and hurl it into the next river I see, and even that will not have been bad enough."

"That's q-quite the strong reaction," Tommy wheezed out, tears welling up in his eyes. He sat down on a nearby crate, his shoulders shaking so hard he very nearly fell off.

Turning his back on Tommy, Ranboo stuffed the sock into his pocket and made a silent promise to burn it. "My hatred-- my hatred for this sock-- you don't understand. You could never understand."

"If you're done being dramatic." Tubbo cleared his throat, though he still wore a slight smirk. He was also sitting on a crate, leaning back and looking somehow regal, though he was still dressed in pajamas and-- to be fair-- was sitting in a dark attic with nothing better to do than provoke an actual ghost. "I thought you wanted to ask Herman something."

Ranboo straightened up, slipping a smile back onto his face. "Indeed I do! We're going to clear so much up-- provided he talks, of course."

Tommy gasped, his hands flying to his mouth. "Is this an interrogation? I wasn't made aware! I don't have good history with law enforcement! Oh my god, were you the law enforcement all along?" Tommy wrung his hands in fake distress.

"Calm down, bucko. I'm not taking this to the police." Ranboo placed a single hand on Tommy's shoulder and delicately pushed him back down to a sitting position. Then he frowned. "You've been arrested?"

Still pretending to be sad, Tommy made a small hiccuping noise, apparently trying to fake a sob.

". . . right." Ranboo plucked at the collar of his shirt, clearing his throat. "Anyway! Well, I was hoping to contact Herman easily, maybe just say his name a couple of times."

Tubbo, still lounging luxuriously on his dusty crate, brushed some of his hair out of his eyes. "Herman?" he tried, flopping on his back onto the top of the crate. "Herman, come out. We know you're there."

"We have something to ask you," Ranboo called, trying to be polite. He looked around the attic, but nothing otherworldly or dramatic happened. "Please?"

A gust of wind blew into the room and surrounded the trio, making Tommy gasp as the wind buffeted his hair. He had never seen a ghost before, Ranboo remembered, and grinned at his awe as Herman began to appear (he was rather pleased that they didn't have to shout to get Herman's attention anymore).

He was just as spidery as before, with long, gawky limbs that didn't seem to fit with his short 11-year-old children's frame. His thin face was bloodless and smattered with blue freckles, and his shoulders drooped and his short-cropped hair seemed limp. He looked up at the three of them, his face strikingly pale, and his eyes seemed to be watery with tears even as none came to his eyes.

"Right, so . . . " Ranboo cleared his throat. "Sorry about calling you back. I'd like to ask you a question."

The ghost nodded, shrugging tiredly with one shoulder. Used to it, he mouthed.

Tubbo frowned, his eyebrows furrowing together. "Well, that's not right! I'm really quite sorry if we interrupted your sleeping time, Hermie. Can I call you Hermie?" he asked with sudden interest.

Herman made a face but nodded again. Question? It seemed he couldn't speak, but for some reason when he mouthed the words they made perfect sense to Ranboo. Another magic thing, he supposed with a fresh wave of exhaustion.

"Yes, well . . . I was hoping you'd tell me more about trapped and her. And what those words mean-- you kind of just told us those words and didn't really explain." Ranboo offered a halfhearted smile, trying to seem self-assured but surely failing.

Herman fell silent-- well, he didn't mouth any words. He just sat there thoughtfully, his head tilting to the side. After a few seconds, he stepped forwards towards the group, and all three gasped. Tubbo nearly fell over his own two feet, he stumbled back so fast, and Herman quickly adopted an apologetic expression.

Listen to me, he told them, and continued to move paces closer. His limbs bent in all the wrong ways, stretching out and then moving back together and swinging in one direction and then the opposite one. Ranboo shivered involuntarily and forced himself to stand still, watching warily as Herman approached.

When he came, I was already dead.

The words rang as clearly as bells in Ranboo's head and he stared at Herman, who wore a somewhat weak smile on his face. It was the first time he had seen an expression other than gloom on the ghost, and it seemed wrong somehow, as though it had been stitched messily onto his face.

But more curious than the smile were the words. Ranboo was absolutely certain that Herman's mouth hadn't moved. How was he communicating like that?

"What the shit?" Tommy asked, echoing Ranboo's thoughts in a hoarse voice. "You can just talk in my head? No way in hell am I letting you do that!"

Herman shook his head and raised a long, thin finger to his still-smiling lips. Ranboo shuddered. Time to listen, I guess.

My heart had failed. It was always weak, my parents said, and that's why my father kept me so close to him. Herman stared miserably down at the floor. He wasn't levitating like most ghost stories say, Ranboo noted; he was firmly planted on the floor, and it didn't seem like that would change. In fact, it seemed much more plausible that he'd scuttle up the walls like a spider.

"That same night? That's awful." Tubbo put his hands to his mouth, looking utterly distressed. "So you had already become a ghost?"

Herman nodded. It was a secret from the rest of the town. There wasn't much work for the (aaand here Herman uses the r-slur. My god, I was not looking forward to getting into this, but I suppose it has to be done. Now, I want you to understand that it was much more common in the 1900s to use slurs like this, and while I'm not saying that makes it okay, I want to make this as realistic as possible while also being respectful. So I want to ask you: in the future, should I bleep it all out or just not use those words at all and instead replace them with more respectful ones? [I will NOT, absolutely NOT, write any uncensored slurs. I just want to make that clear] As I'm in no way in the position to make this decision, I'm leaving it up to you, and I want to assure you: if you find something offensive, I'm more than willing to listen to comments about it and change them for that chapter and in the future. Thank you for being patient with me, I'm trying my best and I would really appreciate the feedback!).

The trio reeled back and let out simultaneous noises of shock.

"Herman--" Tubbo started, sounding cautious. He was staring up at Herman, blinking fast. "We don't really . . . use that word anymore. That's kind of . . . not okay. At all."

Oh, yeah. Ranboo apparently realized why Tubbo looked so pale at the same time that Tommy did, and both boys moved closer to Tubbo, huddling around him in a way that might have been described as protective.

Looking curious, Herman blinked down at Tubbo, his gaze shifting to Tommy and Ranboo as they inched closer. Then he nodded slowly. Confusing, but I will listen. And you will listen too?

"Yes." Tommy cleared his throat. "We will."

My spirit was not yet taken before the man arrived and he, he-- Herman stopped, the voice in Ranboo's head cutting out with a wail that sounded like wind blowing through a window. The ghost nearly doubled over but caught himself on a crate, making little hiccuping, crying noises.

After a few minutes of awkward silence broken only by the sniffling of a ghost, Herman looked back up. His cheeks had deepened to a darker blue, his eyes watery and smudged with tears.

"Are you alright?" Ranboo asked gently, giving Herman a concerned frown. "I'm sorry if this is overwhelming, but I just . . . I just want to get to the bottom of this."

The ghost nodded, though he looked miserable.

It happened really fast, and I waited for them to join me, but the bad man-- he trapped them. The voice dwindled to a whisper in Ranboo's head and he found himself stepping closer to Herman as though he could strengthen whatever connection was being used.

"What did he trap them in?" Tommy asked eagerly.

Herman's face crumpled and he turned away.

It's all sad now, I'm all sad now, he wailed suddenly in Ranboo's head. They're all gone and I'm left with her and you took them away, you found it and you took them away from her and now she's mad--

Tubbo looked frustrated, and Ranboo rather agreed. "Who's her? We took 'them'? What do you mean-- did we take whatever the other ghosts were trapped in? But we didn't take any--"

He stopped. Slowly, he turned to feel in his back pocket, and pulled out the rosary.

Herman's crying rose to a howl as soon as he saw it, and a breeze began to pick back up in the attic. I don't want to be stuck! Don't make me! She's mad at me now, it's all your fault, I don't want her to be mad! It's not my fault, it really isn't!

Freezing cold wind blew Ranboo's hair in his face and he grimaced. It howled through the open window, circling the attic and smashing into the walls before flying back out the window, slamming the shutters closed and making him flinch backward.

"What's happening?" Tommy asked in panic. Ranboo shook his head.

You'll trap me, I'm already trapped-- she has me, and now you'll have me, Herman cried, sounding terrified. The wind shook the walls of the attic, the wood creaking and worrying snapping noises coming from the ceiling beams.

Ranboo looked at the rosary, and then back at Herman, who was cowering against the opposite wall, his shrieks so high-pitched they hurt Ranboo's ears. "Herman, calm down!" he shouted through the wind, though that seemed to be the worst thing to do.

Herman howled in symphony with the wind he was summoning and dropped to the floor, cradling his head in his hands. Ranboo felt sudden hands on his back and was pushed sharply to the side, making him yelp.

"Move!" Tubbo yelled, shoving Ranboo away, and then he himself lunged for cover.

A resounding crack echoed through the attic as a rafter fell to the ground, making the entire attic shudder.

The moment that passed after that was probably the longest of Ranboo's life, but finally he broke out of his daze long enough to move for cover. He and Tommy crawled behind the paisley couch, Ranboo shaking so hard he was sure it was visible. He looked wildly around for Tubbo and saw him crouched beside the trapdoor, opening it and waving for them to follow him.

"Let's go!" he shouted at the others.

Tommy was already running towards the trapdoor that led to the ladder. Tubbo simply jumped, not bothering with climbing down with the rungs, and Tommy quickly followed suit, then waved at Ranboo to follow behind.

But Ranboo hesitated. Tucking the rosary back in his pocket, he fought the wind and somehow got close to Herman, who was curled up in a shaking ball on the ugly, dusty couch. His form was wavering and occasionally vanishing briefly as though glitching, pale blue seeping into the colour of the paisley armchair.

"Herman?" Ranboo said in a quiet voice. He didn't know if the ghost could even hear him. The wind blew his voice away from even his own ears, and a particularly harsh gust smashed into his shoulder and made him hiss in pain.

A small hiccup came in his mind. He took that as an affirmative to keep talking and swallowed nervously, still flinching as sharp gusts of wind sliced right past him.

"Herman, hey, listen. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to overwhelm you with my questions, I'm just trying to find out what's going on." He tried to put a hand on Herman's shoulder but, predictably, his fingers went right through. He winced. "Hey, let me make you a promise."

Herman looked up and Ranboo had to use all of his willpower not to immediately cower back. His entire face looked changed, his eyes too big and his mouth too wide, and when he opened his mouth his teeth were sharper than normal. When he spoke, however, his words sounded low and desperately frail.

A promise? he asked weakly, the words accompanied by a gust of wind that crashed into the floor and made Ranboo flinch.

"Yeah. A promise." Ranboo gave him a gentle, if shaky, smile. "I'll find out what's going on, and I'll make sure that 'her'-- whoever she is-- isn't mad at you anymore. And tell you what, I'll even get the rest of your family un-trapped. I'll smash the rosary as soon as I can and you can . . . you can go to Heaven with them. I promise."

He felt a little bad about lying about the whole Heaven thing, considering he didn't really believe in God, but he thought he needed to comfort Herman. After all, though it was hard to believe, Herman was really just eleven. He seemed like an all-knowing ghost, but he was just as sad and confused as a regular child, and didn't seem to know what to do.

Herman peeked up at Ranboo. The wind slowed to a gentle breeze, just barely buffeting Ranboo's shoulders. The whole family? he asked.

"Not just your family, but everyone that was trapped." Ranboo kneeled down by Herman so he could be on eye level with the ghost. "That includes Lena and Ina, too."

A small smile graced Herman's lips, and it didn't even look so wrong anymore. And you pinky promise?

Ranboo held out his pinky and Herman did his best to mirror him, although the two couldn't actually touch. "There we go," Ranboo said. "I pinky promised."

Herman's entire face lit up and he offered Ranboo a little-child grin, his cheeks actually dimpling. Ranboo couldn't help it, he smiled back.

Thank you, panda-bear. Oh-- but do be careful around Lena. Herman pulled his hand back, gave one little, last wave to Ranboo, and vanished into a gust of wind.

Ranboo stood there, waving good-bye, and then frowned. "Lena?"

His heart rate sped up and he looked around wildly, raising his hands as though that might get Herman to come back. "Lena?! What do you mean-- you mean that 'her' is--" His vision spun and he blinked several times, trying to clear it up.

He stared around at the attic, which was completely back to normal. The dust had all settled again, and the only sign that anything dramatic had happened was the fallen ceiling beam. Ranboo scrambled to his feet, kicking up dust as he walked to the attic trapdoor.

Tommy peeked out from under it, his face completely drained of colour. Ranboo met his eyes. "You heard Herman?" he asked, and Tommy nodded.

"'Be careful around Lena', hm. I guess we know who 'her' is now," he murmured to himself, the words tasting somehow bitter in his mouth. He smiled faintly at Tommy, who offered a half-smile in return.

"Come on down, Boo. I think we should take a moment, yeah?"

Ranboo let out a long sigh. "Yeah, that sounds good." He kneeled down by the trapdoor, lifting up the wooden flap completely. Tommy retreated down the ladder as Ranboo started to crawl down, vaguely registering a warm fuzziness in his legs that slowly climbed upwards.

And that, that was when Ranboo's body decided to completely give up.

He realized something was wrong instantly when his grip on the ladder slipped, but by then it was too late and his eyesight was already blurring. Black ate away at his vision like acid and he shook his head dizzily, his hands tightening around the ladder rung, before they slipped completely and he simply fell.

Ranboo was startled awake by someone shaking his shoulders and calling his name.

He blinked slowly for a few seconds, and then jolted bolt upright, his eyes growing wide. The room was dark-- no, his sight was cloudy-- and now he couldn't even see who was next to him, just a dark figure made of shadows and what if it was a ghost? What if he was a ghost now?

I just made a promise with a ghost, he thought faintly, and a weak chuckle slipped from his lips.

He was trembling, his muscles crying out in protest even from the simple matter of sitting up. Suddenly, strong hands pushed down on his shoulders and pressed him back down to the soft cushion underneath him, voices whispering faintly, sounding concerned-- about him? Was he being reborn? Was this what it felt like to die?

I don't want to be reborn yet! He tried to pry the hands off of him, but his fingers felt like jello and he could barely lift his arms. Attempting to sit up only made the hands hold him down more firmly and he panicked, lashing out with his legs and striking something solid with the heel of his boot.

With a curse, the hands let go.

Ranboo took complete advantage of this to sit up and try to crawl away, but apparently this was a bad idea as he had been on something that was separated from the floor by a distance of a few feet. He fell to the ground with a thud and gasped, shocked by the sudden, dull pain that rippled through his side.

He felt uncomfortably hot all over-- what was going on? He groaned weakly and tried to struggle upright, but he couldn't move. Everything hurt now. He blinked around at his surroundings, but everything was dark, and he moaned in pain, trying vainly to crawl away.

"--Ran . . . Ranboo, can you hear . . ."

He blinked several more times, trying to clear his vision, and someone unexpectedly pressed something cool to his forehead. The unbearable heat eased a little, and his eyes fluttered shut as he melted into the touch, letting out a sigh of relief. Someone scooped him up, hefting him easily in the air, and Ranboo didn't stop them. They smelled comfortingly familiar and he wiggled closer, letting his head flop onto their shoulder.

The voices came again, but softer this time.

"Aw . . . just like a kitten," someone cooed, and he was set back down on the soft surface. He snuggled into it this time, but the comforting presence retreated and he frowned, reaching out and grasping at air to try and drag them back.

A little laugh. "He wants . . ." The noise vanished like music from a staticky radio station. "Why don't--" Ranboo's hearing kept fading out and he shook his head, trying to clear it up.

"--sit with him," a voice whispered.

A pause, and then the cushions sank down as someone else sat on them. Ranboo nodded in satisfaction as he realized it was the nice one, and he wriggled a little closer. The cool towel was taken off, but only for a few seconds, and then it was pressed back to his forehead.

"Ranboo," someone whispered. "Ranboo."

That's certainly my name, Ranboo thought distantly.

"Ranboo, are you awake? Can you hear me saying this?" The voice sounded worried.

Ranboo opened his mouth to reply, but found that it was so dry he could barely speak. He tried to speak and the words stuck to his dry throat, turning into bare whispers. He settled for nodding.

"How do we . . . " the worried voice said, and then his hearing faded to nothing. " . . . okay?"

Someone ran a gentle hand through his hair, making him squirm. Ranboo blinked a couple of times, slowly at first, and then faster. The room was still blurry and dark, but now he could make out colours.

"Ranboo, wake up," someone whispered. A blob of green moved closer, reaching out a fuzzy, pale hand and brushing it along his cheek.

" . . . really warm," the green one murmured worriedly.

Ranboo looked around, barely able to lift his head. A red and white blob was sitting on the couch-- the nice one, he remembered vaguely, and tried to sit up.

"--llo?" he tried, and then gasped as noise successfully came out of his mouth. He coughed several times, shaking his head as his senses slowly sharpened. "He-- hello? What happe--" His voice cracked and he coughed again, the words coming out scratchy and sharp.

Three gasps came instantly. "--water," someone directed, and Ranboo only vaguely sensed someone leaving. He struggled up into a sitting position, and the damp towel fell off his head.

He sat there, panting for some reason, looking around in utter confusion. Whoever had left came back into the room and a cool glass was pressed to his lips. Water lapped at his dry lips and he drank gratefully, reaching up to grasp the cup with fumbling hands.

"Oh, bloody hell, you scared us," a voice chided him.

Ranboo nodded again. "Didn't mean to," he mumbled, his voice muffled by the glass still pressed to his lips. The hand holding the glass withdrew and he was left holding it, just barely able to support it with his trembling fingers.

Someone else sat down on the couch. He was feeling a bit crowded now and drew his legs up to his chest, retreating into the corner of the couch.

"Yeah, I bet you didn't mean to!" the voice sighed. Ranboo looked around. His sight went a bit blurrier as his head moved and he blinked until it focused better.

"Tommy?" he croaked, recognizing the owner of the voice. He looked at the other person sitting on the couch, looking at him with a heaping amount of worry. "Tubbo?"

He stared around the room. It was dark-- they had dimmed the lights, and a soft, plump couch pillow had been pushed under his head. Ranboo looked up and saw the third figure, standing in a mossy green raincoat. "Phil?" he asked in disbelief. "I'm not dead?"

Tommy scoffed, but he sounded choked, and Ranboo realized that his eyes were red and watery. "No thanks to Herman," he muttered. "You just-- collapsed. It was really scary, I--"

Phil walked a little closer, pressing a hand to Ranboo's forehead, then his cheek, and then touching two fingers gently to his neck. "I got home just as they were getting you down from the attic," he said. "You probably just got a little overwhelmed and your blood pressure got too high. You're a bit warm, but that should fade." He gave Ranboo a kind smile.

"Thanks, Phil," he mumbled.

Tubbo nodded, looking satisfied, and jumped into the conversation. "And it was even really helpful! That awful man can't kick us out when we're having a medical emergency, so you just gave us a free pass for the rest of the evening."

Ranboo looked around, confused. "Evening?" Hadn't it been morning? "Oh, don't tell me I slept through the whole--"

"No, you were only asleep a couple of minutes, ten at most." Phil sat down on the ground so he could be on eye level with Ranboo. "But it was helpful all the same." He winked.

Ranboo felt a small smile growing on his face.

Tubbo frowned, suddenly backtracking. "We're not going to let Ranboo keep doing this right now, are we?" he asked. "He just fainted!"

"He's also right here," Ranboo reminded him. "And I'm not unconscious anymore." He already didn't feel as weak anymore, feeling back in control of his limbs already.

"I say we let Ranboo make this decision for himself," Tommy declared. "But I'm not carrying you to the couch again. You already fell asleep on me twice this trip-- I'm not letting it happen again!" He smiled cheerily at Ranboo, who couldn't help grinning back.

Phil stood up, offering his hand to Ranboo. "Well, Ranboo? What do you say?"

Ranboo took Phil's hand, his smile growing. "I say if we can finish this, then we finish this!"

PART THREE: The Art of Wa-- Pardon Me, Ghosthunting

Figuring out what they wanted to do next was fairly easy, courtesy of Tubbo.

(I know what we're going to do, Tubbo had declared, looking completely self-assured.

Ranboo had paused in the middle of slurping down another full glass of water. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Oh, yeah?

Tubbo gave him a proud grin. Yeah! Hand over the rosary, Ranboo. Oh, and a quick question: do you know how to perform a seance?)

However, once that was all well and done and figured out, there was still the matter of actually doing it. And therein lied the problem.

"I think we need candles," Tubbo called. He was rooting through a wooden cabinet, the door lolling open as he dug through its contents. "Don't we need candles? For a seance?" He poked his head out of the cabinet to look at Phil for confirmation.

Unfortunately, even Phil didn't know how to conduct a seance. He held up his hands, looking rather helpless. "I don't know much about ghosts," he reminded them. "Even the course I took was mostly just about mythology and cryptids-- el chupacabra, Baba Yaga and so on."

"Um, it says here that we don't need candles." Ranboo squinted at his phone, making a face. "All we need is 'a welcoming place in our hearts to induct the spirit into our circle' and a well-lit night . . . " he groaned, swiping back. "I don't want to hear about the moon cycle. It's not full, it's not dark, maybe it's a fucking candle or some shit--"

Phil raised an eyebrow, looking amused. "Waxing?"

Ranboo waved at Phil with the hand that was holding his phone. "Yes! Maybe. I don't know!" He slid to the floor, kicking dispiritedly at the couch.

Tommy was in the kitchen, where he had cleared out a great big swath of space. All the chairs were in the living room now, and they had nearly bled the kitchen dry of all its salt. "I've got the salt circle up and going," he called to them. "Here's hoping it even works."

"Popular opinion-- even with things considered mystical-- usually has some grain of truth to it," Phil said. "I'm betting it'll work."

Tubbo gasped in delight, withdrawing from the cabinet cradling a large, dusty ziploc baggie. "I found candles! Well, some of them are birthday candles," he admitted, looking apologetic, "but I think it should work."

"Right, most times a seance is pictured as a performance where we sit in a circle, hold hands, and say the ghost's name." Ranboo took the candles from Tubbo and passed them over to Tommy, who was the arranger of the seance, as he was the one that could draw the best circle. The tour guide wasn't going to be very happy about the chalk circle on the kitchen floor, but it would come right off. Ranboo hoped.

There was also the added benefit of having candles, which would not just give it a more creepy air, but also probably have some sort of paranormal effect. And if they didn't, well, they'd at least look cool.

But birthday candles?

"This seance is gonna be weird as hell," Tommy said, echoing Ranboo's thoughts. He poked idly at a bright yellow birthday cake candle and it fell over, scattering wax flakes on the floor.

"Well, we don't know how to free a ghost from ensnarement," Ranboo pointed out. "And I don't want to bother Herman again. I mean-- I don't want to trouble him."

Tommy made a face. "So your next choice was asking the pissy, rude-ass ghost that locked me in the foyer? Great plan, Boo."

Ranboo stuck his tongue out. "Well, at least this time we'll have something protecting us from her," he shot back. "And I won't ask her any questions about the actual--" he stopped, pausing. "The you-know-what," he finished, choosing not to say 'murder' around the ghost with delicate sensibilities that could also probably kill them.

Ranboo searched up seance on his phone one last time, and when he saw the only results he was going to get consisted entirely of badly photoshopped images, he turned it off. "Why does nobody on the internet know how to do this?" He leaned his head back against the couch.

"Well, magic has mostly fallen out of fashion." Phil was sitting on the back of the couch, and only now looked up from his phone, where he had probably been doing important seance-related things. "What d'you say the ghost's name was?"

Tommy glanced up from where he was kneeling in the kitchen. "Lena. Lena Stillinger. That's our best guess, anyway-- Herman mentioned the name."

"Yeah, and also the only other death that might have not resulted from just axe wounds," Tubbo said, surprising everyone.

Ranboo glanced over at Tubbo, blinking. "What? What does that mean?"

Tubbo laughed, pulling his head out of the cupboard. Dusting off his legs, he got to his feet. "You did send me and Phil off to the library, remember? Did you really think that we wouldn't find anything interesting?"

"Ah, I remember now," Phil said suddenly. "You convinced that librarian to let you look through the newspapers, yeah? I nearly forgot. You seem to have forgotten to confide what they said to me, though."

Tubbo shrugged carelessly. "Oh well, you're learning now. Anyway, they said lots of stuff about the murder-- really interesting stuff, too. Lena might not have died from being mauled, you know."

"I don't know," Ranboo said honestly, leaning forward. He was really interested now, and was rather regretting his choice of not coming to the library with Tubbo and Phil. "Could you tell me?"

"I'd like to know, too." Tommy poked his head out of the kitchen, apparently just as curious as Ranboo was to hear about this. His cheeks were streaked in white chalk dust and he had salt crystals in his shirt, but dusted himself off and tried to make himself look as presentable as possible before gingerly lowering himself onto the couch.

Tubbo cleared his throat as though preparing to make a speech, and then he launched right in. "Lena Stillinger, well, you'll already know about how she was thought to have died fighting. But there's actually more!" He grinned around, swept up in the excitement of having a rapturous audience. "There was bruising and blood clots all over her body and a deep wound on her arm-- it's very likely she could have bled to death instead of being cut up, and the newspapers were not able to put out a definite cause of death.

"Plus, since most of the wounds in lethal positions were obviously made after her death, it's possible the murderer left for a while to kill the others, leaving Lena alive, and when he came back she had already bled out." Tubbo finished this with a smile on his face. "Isn't that interesting?" he enthused, sounding positively delighted.

Ranboo blinked a couple of times. " . . . and where did you find this?" he asked. "Was it the actual Villisca newspaper?"

Tubbo nodded, then paused. "Well, it was the obituary. But I suppose that counts."

"Thank you for the absolutely riveting history lesson," Tommy said, looking rather nauseous. "Can we get started on the seance now?"

"Oh! Yes, of course," Tubbo assured him cheerfully. "Sorry, I didn't think I was taking up too much time."

The seance was duly set up when they stepped into the kitchen. The curtains were tightly drawn, leaving it with a dusty, brown-coloured light coming from the domed ceiling light in the kitchen. A circle of salt had been spread out on the tiled floor, and inside, the candles were arranged in a semicircle with overlapping circles mapping out where each one had been set.

The space within the salt was big enough for each of them to sit down, and Ranboo gingerly lowered himself down in one corner, trying to be careful enough to not disturb the salt line. Tubbo plopped himself down next to Ranboo, and Tommy sat on the other side of him, making a face at the birthday candles as though they had personally offended him.

Phil rummaged the inside of his coat for a while before finally pulling out a raincoat-yellow lighter. He bent down close to the candles and lit them, one after another until melted wax dripped like fat dewdrops down the sides of the candles. Colourful wax pooled on the floor into hardening puddles, the birthday candles already melting quickly.

"Alright, now we hold hands," Phil directed them, settling back in the space across from Ranboo.

"I didn't know you had a lighter, Phil," Tommy said, sounding a little awestruck. "Ohh, do you use it to do drugs?" He lowered his voice conspiratorially, but Phil just rolled his eyes.

"No, I carry it around because lighters are useful," he deadpanned, reaching over to smudge a bit of dirt off Tommy's cheek. "I plan to have a long, healthy life, unblemished by premature lung cancer."

Tommy scoffed. "What's a lighter good for other than drugs? Arson?"

"Depends on the lighter," Tubbo offered. "Some lighters are terrible with the type of wood used in houses. It's all in the type: some use oil and others natural gas, and still others use friction to set evaporated gasoline on fire."

Ranboo blinked at Tubbo. "How do you know what type of lighters are good for--"

"Alright, now we hold hands," Phil repeated, more forcefully this time and cutting Ranboo off. He smiled around the circle, eyes sparkling. "Time doesn't wait, boys."

Dutifully, Ranboo held out his hands, and Tommy reciprocated with little hesitation. Tubbo gave his hand a nervous squeeze but managed to smile cheerfully, looking somewhat anxious about the idea of a seance. Considering that Tommy had been the one to get locked in the foyer, Ranboo thought it was rather strange that Tubbo would be the nervous one, but he decided not to say anything about it.

"Take a deep breath," Ranboo said, and he himself inhaled deeply, letting his eyes close. Around him, he heard quiet intakes of breath, and he held his own breath for a while before letting it out in a slow huff. "Right, now we'll want to say her name."

"Lena?" Tommy asked, swallowing hard.

"Lena," Ranboo confirmed.

"Yes, Lena." Phil smiled around at the circle. "Lena!"

"Lena, come on out!" Tubbo called, tilting his head back up towards the ceiling. "We know you're there!"

As if on cue, the lights flickered. On and off, on and off.

Ranboo tipped his gaze upwards, watching as they flickered sporadically, and he felt strangely calm for some reason. His muscles relaxed as the lightbulb trembled. The ghost couldn't get to them. They were surrounded by salt, they had each other; they were safe.

Now, it wasn't that he was stupid, but he was stupidly idealistic, and that can lead to a kind of soothing positivity. However, this positive outlook was quickly dashed as the lights dimmed and hissed, the glass lightbulb very nearly smoking.

A slow buzz built up, transforming into a kind of screech as the lightbulb popped and shook. The noise cut off when a loud crash came from the living room, startling all of them, and Ranboo wheeled around to see that a painting had fallen off the wall. It was now lying in a puddle of shattered glass, the paper painting inside ripped by a stray shard.

"Don't break the circle!" Phil barked in an unusually sharp tone. Ranboo clamped down on Tubbo and Tommy's hands, making Tubbo yelp in surprise, but it did stop Tommy from jumping to his feet and running out of the room.

"We need to keep our hands joined," Ranboo said, trying to sound calm. He gulped as the living room lights flickered and dimmed a couple of notches. "We-- we shouldn't panic."

As if to prove him wrong, the lightbulb overhead spat a collection of sparks that rained down on the collected group. Tubbo cried out as a fat ember landed on his bare arm and made an awful sizzling noise, trying to leap backwards out of the circle.

Phil quickly ushered him closer, managing to tug Tubbo closer to his side. He brushed the glowing ember off of Tubbo's arm, making sure not to let go of his hand, and soothed him with gentle words. "Oh dear, that looks like it hurts," he tsked.

Tubbo replied with a whimper, his grip on Ranboo's hand tightening until it hurt.

"Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this," Tommy chanted, his eyes squeezed shut. "I don't like this at all-- why did I agree to do this? Oh, fuck this, man!" His hands were trembling; Ranboo could feel it as Tommy's hand shook in his ironclad grip.

The lightbulb trembled, the rope swinging from side to side, and then it shattered with a loud crack. Curved glass shards rained down on them, scattering around the circle and landing in the puddles of melted wax. Smoke poured from the curl of wire left hanging, mixing with the smoke from the candles to fill the air with the choking scent of fire.

"We-- this was all expected, no need to be scared," Ranboo lied, his voice jumping an octave from pure fear. "Just a normal Saturday! We can do this!"

Tommy reached up, his hand still clutching Ranboo's, and somehow managed to drag him down by his hair. "Boo, it's fucking Tuesday," he snarled in his ear, hanging on tight despite Ranboo's fervent attempts to get Tommy's hand out of his hair.

Ranboo laughed nervously and accidentally inhaled a mouthful of smoke. "Well, I-- shit--" he doubled over and began coughing, hot smoke scratching up his throat and leaving his lungs throbbing.

"Ranboo, are you okay?" Tubbo asked worriedly, leaning over and completely forgetting his own injury.

"Fuck," Ranboo managed, blinking back tears. Then he nodded, and then he shook his head, letting a slightly hysterical giggle escape his throat. "I mean-- kind of," he managed past the sharp pain in his throat.

Hot smoke was filling the kitchen, glass shards were scattered across the floor, and Lena Stillinger had yet to appear. He felt himself tearing up again, and not just from the smoke. He wanted to shout. He wanted to grab Lena by the hair and drag her kicking and screaming into the mortal world.

He wanted her to show her stupid fucking face and not just cower in the shadows while she killed them, trapped in their salt circle like rabbits in a cage.

"Lena, you little bitch!" Tommy looked as though he'd climb to his feet and fight Lena himself; apparently his train of thought had been similar to Ranboo's own. "Come out, you fucking coward!"

"Shut up, shut up," Ranboo whispered fervently. "Don't make her mad!"

Tommy shot a smoldering glare in Ranboo's direction. "The fuck you want me to do, let her smoke us to death?" he snapped. "Plus, I think she might be a little mad already. Just a sneaking suspicion. Just a tiny little inkling."

Ranboo felt his entire face go red and he tilted his head back, avoiding looking at Tommy. Then he froze, and his face went from maroon to pale white. "Tommy," he whispered, "look. Up."

Not just Tommy, but everyone else in the circle looked up at the same time. Tommy let out a curse, Tubbo a loud gasp. Phil just stood stock-still, his eyes going wide.

Lena had appeared.

Right above them, in fact.

Etched out in tones of washed-out grey, she was curled around the string that had supported the now-shattered lightbulb, her spine curving unnaturally to give her a serpentine look. Her limbs were also weirdly long, and her fingers bent in all the wrong places, her greasy black hair combed back and arranged into two separate braids tied with bows. Her floral dress had probably once been beautiful, but now it was ripped and stained with something-- something . . . bad, just as the long white scarf coiled around her neck was.

While Herman's smile had looked wrong, her entire face felt awful and repulsive to Ranboo, pale as paste and arranged strangely, as though someone had taken Scrabble pieces and thrown them haphazardly at a board: a flat smile here, eyes there, one slightly larger than the other.

"L-Lena," Ranboo stammered, trying his hardest not to recoil at the sight of her.

She cocked her head to the side, her gummy eyes narrowing slightly. Her pupils didn't move, he realized faintly. They were fixed and strangely pale and covered in a sticky white film that made him shudder.

Yes? Me, she responded in a simpering voice. Like Herman, she spoke in their heads, but this time it was accompanied by a buzzing of static and, when she stopped talking, a screech of feedback that sent Ranboo's head spinning. Though, that might have been the smoke.

Tommy just gaped.

In a quiet voice, Phil informed them that they could let go of each others hands. "It's probably best to stay in the salt circle, though," he muttered, eyes fixated on Lena's unnatural figure.

"Yeah, already got that, thanks," Tubbo said faintly.

Lena was also not floating, but rather hanging onto the lightbulb cord. It seemed that while gravity worked even in the afterlife, weight was no longer applicable.

"We-- we tried really hard to summon you," Ranboo said in a wavering voice. He let go of Tommy's hand to motion around at the salt circle.

Lena blinked wide, sticky eyes at him. I see that. Good job. I'm here. Again, the microphone-like feedback made Ranboo wince.

Tommy finally found his voice. "Um-- we wanted to ask you a question." Instead of waiting for a response, he barreled on. "How do you break an object that ghosts are, um, you know, trapped in?"

When Lena bent closer to examine his face, her arm twisting at an odd angle that seemed to somehow not hurt her, he bit down on his bottom lip and a bead of blood appeared. He licked it away quickly, but not before Lena's eyes narrowed, and the lights in the living room wavered dangerously.

Whyever would you want to know that? she asked, her lips quirking down in a pout. She tapped her bottom lip with a cracked nail as though thinking. Such an odd question to ask a ghost.

Please be careful, please be tactful, Ranboo prayed, staring at Tommy and hoping beyond hope that his pleas would somehow telepathically transfer between the two of them. His hands clenched into fists, his body practically buzzing with tension.

Tommy hesitated. "Because we made a promise-- well, Ranboo made a promise," he supplied, his eyes throwing a fleeting glance at Ranboo. "And we're trying to keep it, so we need your help."

Now Lena laughed. Actually laughed, as though what Tommy had said was hilarious; a full-on belly laugh that had her clinging for support from the rope. Everyone watched in shock as she gulped in deep breaths for air, then finally quieted down, swiping at her eyes. You need help? From me?

She leaned further down from her perch, making Tommy flinch back. She spread her mouth in a gruesome smile, her lips cracking at the edges and flaking off. You think I don't remember you, she cooed in their heads. The feedback grew louder as she finished, dizzying Ranboo and making him choke back a hiss of pain.

"Tommy," Phil said in a warning voice, watching Lena closely. His eyes narrowed into slits as she snaked closer, a delighted smile gracing her dry lips.

Tommy stayed stock-still, his own eyes wide and frightened.

Tubbo was shaking and his hands were cold, though his palms were sweaty. He hadn't let go of Ranboo's hand and Ranboo honestly couldn't blame him; Lena was even creepier than Herman had been.

Lena smacked her lips. You're that annoying one, she decided. Aren't you? Fine; I'll answer. She grinned, and her teeth were just as cracked as her nails.

She blinked her gooey eyes once more and then dove off of the ceiling lamp-- straight towards Tommy.

Ranboo couldn't help it; he screamed.

Loudly.

Tommy shrieked too, and he fell backwards into Ranboo, who somehow managed to grab onto him and continue to scream.

But Lena never reached him. She never got close enough, and now Ranboo knew the whole salt thing worked. She hit something a few feet above them and bounced, her body thrust off the unseen boundary and launched into the wall.

She hit the floral wallpaper with a screech of static and Ranboo clapped his hands over his ears, wincing as the sound screamed in his ears. Her faded dress crumpled around her as she rammed into the wall, and as if on cue, the living room lights shattered. The fire alarms burst into life, screaming their protest as clouds of smoke filled the room.

Lena slid to the ground, her entire ghostly form pulsing with an eerie electric light. She grabbed onto the kitchen counter for support, dragging herself to her feet, her legs twisting strangely as she did so.

Ranboo heaved breaths in and out, nearly crying from the hot air. His eyes hurt from the stinging smoke and he tried to take shallow breaths, though his lungs wailed for air.

"What. The fuck," Tommy managed, the words coming out strangled and short. Ranboo didn't reply, he just clutched Tommy tighter. "What the fuck?" he sounded near tears, and Ranboo didn't blame him.

Phil had moved closer too, and Tubbo, still reeling from the shock, scooted a little closer to him. "This was a mistake," Phil said, so quiet that Ranboo nearly missed it. He glared at Lena, who was dusting herself off now and preening her oily black curls into place again, once again prim and dollish.

Ranboo swallowed. "You think?"

"I want to get out of here," Tubbo said, sounding choked. He sniffled and Phil pulled him closer, fitting him against his side and running his hands comfortingly through Tubbo's hair. "I don't like this very much anymore."

Oh, poor baby, Lena cooed, primping her cheeks and miming tears. She rubbed mockingly at her own eyes, pouting once more. Boo-hoo. Can't take a little scare. She hissed at them, suddenly all sharp angles and bony, thin limbs.

Tubbo jumped to his feet, pushing away from Phil and glaring daggers at the ghost. He swiped away his tears and curled his hands into fists. "Oh, shut up. Like you can talk, you bloody coward. What, you-- you hide in a house all day and get pissy at everyone? That doesn't sound like a fulfilling afterlife to me! That sounds sad! You're sad, and small, and so fucking pathetic--"

With a growl of rage, Lena lunged again, but quickly came into contact with the salt barrier again. She clawed at it, her nails transforming into curved talons, but to no avail. The barrier held fast.

Fine, I'll tell you, she snarled. You want to hear the whole story? Get ready to hear all of it. She slammed her fist against the barrier one last time and then shot away with a crackle of electricity.

Instantly, the fire alarms died. The smoke began to clear up.

Ranboo blinked teary, red eyes at the ceiling, where the smoke had started to dissipate. The wailing of the alarms still buzzed in his ears, but now everything was quiet . . . too quiet.

He looked around, taking deep breaths that were-- well, actually full of clean(er) air. The last of the smoke was whisked away by an evening breeze through the open window-- when had that window been opened? Why didn't the smoke go through it before? His head hurt. Maybe if he could just lie down . . .

"Don't you dare faint again," Tommy demanded, dragging him up by the shirtfront and snapping two fingers in his face. "Don't you fucking dare! This is your adventure too, I can't keep lugging your unconscious body behind us!"

Ranboo groaned weakly in reply. He shook his head, seeing blurry dots in the corner of his vision. "Sorry, I'll try my best," he mumbled through his cottony mouth. The truth was, the air had been so smokey and the sudden gift of actual oxygen again made him dizzy.

"Is it safe to get out of the circle again?" Tubbo asked timidly, kneeling back down to face Phil and Tommy, looking back and forth between the two.

Phil shrugged, and then thought it over and shook his head. "Always better to be safe than sorry," he said. "And I don't think Lena--"

He was immediately cut off by a screech of static. All four of them winced simultaneously, covering their ears, as the metallic sound rang through the kitchen. But it wasn't Lena, Ranboo realized. This wasn't coming from inside of his head-- it was a real noise, loud and awful and coming from . . . the living room?

A television-- the television that had been in the Moore houses' living room, to be exact, an ancient old thing with a glass screen stuck in a large wooden box-- was pulled into the living room. Or pushed. It could have been either, really.

The TV had two floppy antennae that splayed out on either side of it like a pair of bunny ears, a crank-turn dial that looked as though it would fall off if it were so much as touched, and it was set in a rickety three-legged stool that was only rickety because it had once had four legs.

Do you like it?

The familiar buzzing voice snatched their attention and they all looked around to see where Lena was. Then Phil let out a curse and Tommy shrieked, and Ranboo whirled around to see Lena Stillinger sticking her head out of the TV screen.

I thought I'd bring in a prop, she simpered, batting her eyelashes and smiling in a sickeningly sweet way. Her gummy eyes narrowed at them, even as her peeling lips were spread in a poisonous smile. Ranboo felt a shudder travel down his spine.

"Did you now?" Phil said carefully. "I thought you were going to--"

Lena waved a hand at Phil. Oh, pooh. Be quiet.

Ranboo felt Tommy shuffle a little closer to Phil and he backed up too, until the three of them-- Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo-- were all in a little pile around Phil. "Now, now. Let's be quiet," Phil whispered. "She can't hurt us while we're here. And there's no smoke anymore."

Ranboo felt tears sting at his eyes and shook his head stubbornly. "Yeah, I know, but she--"

"It's a lot," Phil soothed. He ran his hand through Tommy's hair, and when he put a comforting hand on Ranboo's shoulder, the brunette noticed he was shaking.

"I wish I had remembered to bring the stupid iron things--" Ranboo cried in frustration. "We wouldn't be trapped, then!"

Phil shushed him one more time. "No use dwelling on the past. Let's just wait. Maybe she'll let us out."

Lena giggled in front of them. She was now perched on the television, her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands splayed out over the wooden box. Positivity is a virtue, she sing-songed. Now let me speak.

She cleared her throat with a loud drag of static. Now, to begin-- there was once a priest named George Kelly. He was quiet and skinny and beloved by all, but then one day he erred.

As Ranboo watched in horrified fascination, Lena dipped her entire hand up to the elbow inside of the television screen. It burst alive with static and grainy spots for a moment, startling them all, but it quickly died back down. Lena drew her hand back out of the appliance and grinned at her prize. Clutched within her fingers was a ball of crackling electricity.

She stretched it out, then rolled it into a ball and threw it towards the ceiling. Tubbo yelped as electric bolts zigzagged off of it, but the orb of furious light only shifted, stretched, and then popped into a perfect spherical shape.

Now Kelly, Lena purred, reaching out an arm to give the ball of electricity a poke, had given a sermon earlier that day. He'd spoken to the children, the lovely, young children of Villisca.

Ranboo felt a nervous shiver crawl up his spine, wiggle into a lump, and hide itself in his throat. He licked his dry lips, trying his best to actually breathe.

Lena didn't sense his discomfort, or if she did, she didn't seem to care. And he was in the church, she continued, after sundown, reading the holy book. As if on cue, the ball of light shifted, turning itself into the rough shape of a large, thick book. Lena stepped off of the television and grabbed the electricity, forcing it into a ball again.

And he says that he felt the need to slaughter, to slay, Lena whispered, balancing the lightning on one finger. And who else to slay but the little girl who couldn't answer his questions?

Tommy's eyes widened. "Katherine," he breathed. "The journal. The 'obscure questions' that Kelly had asked her."

Tubbo glanced at him, confused, but Tommy lifted a hand to keep him quiet as Lena continued. She didn't even seem to notice their interruption, luckily for them.

Better yet-- the whole family! The girls staying with them! What reason did he have to refuse? Lena's grip on the ball of lightning tightened, her hands transforming into claws, her nails lengthening and turning sharp. Her grin became wicked and unbalanced, frighteningly so. So that night, under a moon much like this--

"It all comes back down to the moon," Ranboo grumbled. "Waning, waxing, whatever the fuck it is."

Phil cuffed him over the head and told him to stay quiet.

Lena let the electricity go again and it turned into the crude shape of an axe. She seized the makeshift axe and twirled it around in her hand, staring at it with something akin to awe. He took the axe, the very axe of Josiah, and used it to slay the little girl. Then, her brothers. Then, her parents, and then he made his way down to the girls on the bed and took the axe to them.

But I didn't let him forget it.

Ranboo felt something in the air change, his skin prickling as the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The atmosphere felt charged now, but with something more than electricity; Lena's static voice screeching with microphone feedback. He could barely make out what she was saying.

She swung the axe at the floor and the electricity exploded, shooting out jolts that crackled and then dissipated into thin air. Ranboo warily inched backwards, watching Lena as she stood still in the middle of the kitchen. Then she turned to face them, and instead of looking angry or even creepy, she just looked tired.

I followed him, I . . . you could easily say it was an accident that he'd trapped us. That he'd meant to cover all the surfaces, but no. He pressed that chain to our throats after slitting them. He dipped it in the very blood of our life and the wounds of our death. He meant every last detail.

As the murder unfolded in front of him, Ranboo wondered if maybe this entire thing had just been a fever dream. Maybe it was just some kind of hallucination and he was still dreaming of the future, sleeping soundly in the UK with his friends after plotting a trip.

But then Lena curled her hands into fists, and sparks shot from her eyes, and Ranboo decided that his imagination was probably not big enough to think all this up. No insult to you, he assured his imagination, and then felt stupid for trying to talk to himself.

So I followed him. It was easy. I wasn't trapped, and I could track the rosary: everywhere he went, I was. Everywhere I was, it was because he was there. And every second of all the days, I made him miserable.

So he confessed. Lena huffed, shaking her head. Apparently even she had not expected the priest to confess. Years later. And I was sure I'd finally broken him, so I laid off.

And then his daughter came and begged him not to confess, and he cried, he doesn't deserve to cry he didn't deserve anyone's pity-- Static rose in Lena's voice. She turned to glare at them all, fury appearing in her expression like lightning in a storm.

Of course, they were all huddled together, captivated by her story. Ranboo found that he couldn't even speak as Lena approached, her entire ghostly form shaking with rage. She glowed.

And he gave it to her, he threw it into her hands and now he was the one begging, pleading with her to take it and put it in the house. Lena was at the barrier now, and her hand shot out and came into contact with the barrier. She growled. And she did. Pathetic, what a coward.

Ranboo suddenly found his voice again. "What . . . what did you do?" he asked quietly, his voice shaking.

Lena grinned, her white eyes glowing like an oil lamp. Well, she joined me pretty soon after. But I couldn't do anything about Kelly anymore. Ina needed me, I couldn't leave her. I wouldn't. Her gaze softened and then hardened. But I couldn't break her free either. I couldn't do anything about it.

Unexpectedly, Tubbo spoke up. "If it's because you couldn't touch it-- if all you have to do is smash it-- we could help you."

Everyone turned to face him, even Lena. Her face turned curious for a moment, then a flicker of understanding dawned. Yes. She darted closer to Tubbo, pressing a hand to the barrier. Yes, you can. The agreeable one, no? I thought I already . . . I thought I already asked for help. She tilted her head to the side, her neck cracking.

Tubbo's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, Lena retreated. I will get the bond. I know where it is, and nobody has touched it since the daughter.

The weight in Ranboo's back pocket was suddenly all too heavy. "Does she think it's still in the ceiling?" he whispered suddenly, whirling around to face Tommy and Phil. Tubbo was still staring open-mouthed at Lena, who had vanished into the living room. "But I-- we took it, I don't--"

Phil stiffened. "Well, shit. I don't think she'll like that."

"Maybe I shouldn't have taken it--" Tommy offered, just as a screeching howl echoed through their minds.

Ranboo crumpled in two, his head pulsing with pain as the scream continued like the sound of wind through a mic. Tubbo cried out and clapped his hands over his ears, but that wouldn't help, Ranboo knew, it was in their minds and you can't block your mind off from a ghost--

"Definitely shouldn't have taken it," Tommy said through gritted teeth, trying not to fold in half from the sheer volume of the howl. Phil was staring off into space, apparently transfixed, and the only way Ranboo could tell he was affected was by the way his entire body was trembling.

Lena stumbled back into the room. Her oily hair fell over her eyes, but her mouth hung open and something inside it was shining, as though she'd stuck a lightbulb in her throat. She was glowing completely now, her form glitching in and out as she swayed, evidently delirious with rage, in the kitchen doorway.

You took it, she hissed, her voice amplified and shrieking with a television's buzz. Who took it?! I'll kill you--

She dove at the salt circle, scratching at it with dangerously sharp claws and screaming in fury. Ranboo, for his part, grabbed Tommy and Tubbo by the hands and slammed them against the floor.

Tubbo screamed and struggled to get loose, clawing at Ranboo's hand and pulling away even as Ranboo clamped down harder.

"Don't fucking move! The circle isn't that big and it's the only thing protecting us--" He winced as a kitchen window shattered, raining shards of glass onto the counter. "From that. Tommy, do you have anything heavy?"

"Right now, the only things I have are the sound of my fucking heartbeat and the feeling that I'm gonna either pass out or die! Now let go of my hand!" Tommy shoved Ranboo away and pressed his hand to his chest, clutching it as though it had been burned. "Seriously, you think we can't remember a rule? Don't go outside the salt circle? Fuck off!"

Lena howled her fury and stamped a foot against the floor, making the floorboards shudder. Ranboo felt a sudden urge to drag Tommy closer and slap him. His heart rate jumped, blood rushing in his ears.

"This is not the time to fight, this is not the time to fight," Tubbo chanted, squeezing his eyes shut. "Stop fighting, please!"

Phil grabbed Ranboo's shoulder and pulled him away from Tommy, apparently sensing his malice. "You need to calm down--" he began, and then was cut off by a glass vase on a nearby living room table exploding.

Glass pieces shot everywhere, slamming into things and cracking until bits of glass dust littered the floor. A stray shard was flung in Ranboo's direction and buried itself in his upper arm, causing him to cry out, his hand immediately going to cup the injury.

"Ranboo!" Phil cried in alarm, but Ranboo's attention had already snapped to the gash.

Lena shrieked as Ranboo stared at the wound, but he couldn't tell if it was a laugh, from fright, or just plain anger. She was still clawing at the salt barrier, but now she was also crying, and her tears were just as pale and gooey as her eyes themselves.

The glass shard was deep in his arm, a sharp slant peeking up from under his skin. Blood teared up under the glass and began to weep from the injury, thick red lines making their way down his arm. Ranboo stared at it in fascination, his vision going blurry for a few seconds before he forced it to focus.

Lena swayed several times, her gaze fixing on the wound. Give it back to me, she hissed. Her claws scraped painfully against the barrier and Ranboo winced at the noise. Her eyes were smeared with the pale goo of her tears, her cheeks covered in thick tearstains.

"Rather not, thanks," Ranboo said weakly. He felt the glass sticking out of his arm and thought, rather distantly, that he was definitely going to die this time. He groped at his pockets and tugged out the rosary, holding it limply in his hand.

At the sight, Lena screamed again, her entire form crackling with electricity. The lightbulbs in the kitchen and living room glowed brightly, illuminating the scene, but the rays of light seemed to go right through the ghost.

It's right there you have it you have it, now give it back! She reached desperately for it, but was blocked by the barrier again. Lena howled, slamming her fist against the wall and crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

Ranboo felt a twinge of pity tug at his heartstrings, but he shook it off and pressed the rosary into Tubbo's hands. "Just smash it," he said dizzily. His hands were stained and dripping with blood, so the rosary was well-covered in it, making Tubbo hesitate as it was offered.

He gritted his teeth, shoving it at Tubbo and shaking it. "Take it!"

"Why can't you smash it?" Tubbo wailed, sounding frightened. "It has your blood on it!"

"He's injured, and you need to suck it up," Tommy snapped. "I'll do it myself!" He tried to snatch at the rosary, but Tubbo pulled it away, shaking his head violently.

Phil was saying something, Ranboo was pretty sure. He couldn't faint again. He had to stay awake, or Tommy would kill him . . . he felt his vision going black and blinked quickly, swaying in place.

Or maybe Lena would kill him. He heard her crying, was she really that sad? But she had seemed so angry. How strange.

Tubbo was grabbing something out of Phil's hand, something large and heavy . . . oh-- was it his journal? He would need to write this all down in his journal, but wait, it couldn't be his journal because it wasn't big and it wouldn't break the rosary.

Ranboo groaned weakly, struggling to stay awake. " . . . hurts," he whispered, his voice breaking. Tommy immediately forgot about the rosary and jumped over to support him, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying to help him up.

"Stay awake, you cretin," Tommy hissed, sounding choked. "We need you here! You can't pass out again!"

"Not plannin' on it," Ranboo mumbled, slurring the words together. He focused on the people behind Tommy, Tubbo and Phil, gathered around something shiny on the floor.

Oh, were they going to break the rosary? He did want to stay awake to watch that.

He forced himself to sit upright, weakly trying to push Tommy aside. Luckily, Tommy guessed what he was trying to do and shifted, moving to support Ranboo from the side. Tubbo, it seemed, was holding a wrench. That would certainly work. Thank goodness.

"Lena," Ranboo said, though his mouth felt like cotton. He turned to look at the ghost, who was weakly banging her fists against the barrier. She looked so broken. "Lena, I'm sorry for making you sad."

Tubbo brought down the wrench.

Right on the rosary.

---

"Well, that was bloody mental," Tommy said, grinning lopsidedly at Ranboo.

He was helping the American to the couch. The two of them collapsed on it, breathing twin sighs of relief, and Ranboo slumped instantly against the nearest couch pillow.

Tommy wrinkled his nose at Ranboo's arm, which was now wrapped cleanly in gauze. He had not fainted, thank-you-very-much, and now that his blood cell count had been restored to normal, he felt much better.

After breaking the rosary, the entire room had lit up, just for a moment. Ranboo couldn't see what happened, exactly, but very different stories came from each of his team members. Tubbo claimed Lena had melted into a puddle of goo, which, while being a good story, was probably not true. Tommy had said that she'd turned into a lightning bolt and shot herself out the window.

But Ranboo believed Phil. For one, he was the only one that hadn't been preoccupied at the moment; either with an injury, with a friend with an injury, or smashing an antique rosary that ghosts are trapped in. And for another, his story was actually believable.

"They all faded away," Phil had said. "Lena just stood still for a moment, and then figures appeared around her. One of them was very little, and Lena just kept staring at the little one until they both faded away."

Ranboo knew that was probably Ina. He smiled at the thought again, and hoped that Lena felt a little better. She had been really angry at pretty much everything.

He said this last thought aloud, to Tommy, who laughed. "Well, we were rooting around in her past. Digging up old wounds-- that can't be much fun."

"Hm." Ranboo hummed carelessly, leaning against the couch. "I wonder if Herman left, too."

Tommy shrugged. "I bet he did. I think he only stayed because of Lena-- you know? I think he was keeping her in check. One ghost helps out another."

"No, I don't think that's it," Ranboo said thoughtfully. "He said something about her trapping him. I think she was keeping him here. So when she left . . . "

"He got to go?" Tommy finished, looking bemused. "Huh. Maybe. But whew, that certainly was quite something." He laughed loudly again, reaching up and ruffling Ranboo's hair. "Thanks for almost dying in there, Boo. I'm pretty sure I would've hit Tubbo to get that rosary. I felt all weird and icky." He made a face.

Ranboo stayed silent at that for a moment. His ears pricked up as he listened to the sounds of Tubbo and Phil cleaning up the seance. Tommy had only been excused to look after Ranboo, who insisted he didn't need a chaperone, and Ranboo had only been excused because he couldn't move his right arm.

"I mean, I got really angry at you, too. And when me and Tubbo were in the attic, with Herman-- you know, he's all sad most of the time-- he made me feel kind of . . . bad." Ranboo's mouth twisted in a half-frown as he thought. He didn't know how to describe it.

Tommy caught on and shuddered. "Ugh, you think they made us feel what they were feeling? That's creepy as shit. Thanks for telling me that."

Ranboo nodded absently. "Yeah, we'll need to be careful around that from now on. But we did learn a lot, didn't we?" He grinned over at Tommy, feeling surprisingly fulfilled.

"Yeah. Yeah, we did." Tommy paused. "You're having an awfully cheery outlook on this whole thing, you know."

"'Optimism is a virtue'," Ranboo quoted, repeating what Lena had said. "But . . . we should also probably get out of here before that guy comes back and sees all of this."

Tommy glanced around the living room. "All of what?"

Ranboo sighed, gesturing widely to the whole of the living room and kitchen. "You know? All the shattered glass?" He looked around. The vase was still in pieces, and the water that it had been holding was collected in a puddle on the table. It dripped at a steady pace from the table onto a cloth napkin that had been placed below it.

"Sure, 'spose so." Tommy shrugged. "But we do have a cleanup crew." He grinned over at Phil, who was sweeping the glass from the shattered window into a dustbin.

Tubbo peeked his head out of the kitchen doorway, frowning. "I heard that!" he called. "Get over here, Tommy. Ranboo's a strong boy, he doesn't need anyone to look after him."

Ranboo laughed as Tommy groaned. "Aww, just a few more minutes!" he wheedled. "I just wanna chat with Boo for a bit, c'mon!"

"Get over here." Phil straightened up, smiling. "We need to get it cleaned up and in ship-shape before the loan shark comes back."

Ranboo stood up, though he put a hand against his arm gingerly. "I can help," he offered, and was met with instant protests.

"No, you're injured," Tubbo told him, slipping out of the kitchen to gently push him back onto the couch. "I'm not going to let you work yourself to death. It'd be a boring death after we just escaped being killed by a ghost."

"I agree with Tubbo," Phil called from the kitchen. "Except for the death part. I mean, you shouldn't die, but death isn't ever exactly boring." He rolled his eyes and dumped a load of the glass shards in the trash, blowing strands sweaty hair out of his eyes.

Tommy, for his part, just shook his head at Ranboo. "If you think I'm going to let you lift a finger for us after you nearly died, I'm gonna--"

Ranboo raised his hands in defeat, laughing easily again. His cheeks were flushed from the pleasure (and somewhat embarrassment) of being treated so gently. "Okay, okay." He paused for a moment, letting the others get back to cleaning; Tubbo slipped him a cautious, warning look before returning to his work. "But if I did die, I could just come back as a ghost--"

"Ranboo!" Tommy and Tubbo whined at the same time. "I thought I told you, Ranboo, just sit there," Tubbo reminded him, crossing his arms and looking somewhat like a scolding father.

Ranboo grinned. "Yeah, alright. How're we--" at a warning look from Tubbo, he stopped and retracted his statement. "How're you gonna get the lightbulbs back in place? And the rest of the glass that, um, shattered?" Shattered was a mild word to use, considering most of the glass had, in fact, exploded.

"Ah, good question." Phil lifted a vase out of a cabinet under the sink and displayed it, holding it by the skinny neck to show it off to Ranboo, who gasped. It was absolutely identical to the one that had shattered. "Check this out: identical vases. Window and lightbulb replacements, too. I'm willing to bet this wasn't the first time Lena got mad around some guests."

Tommy whistled, mopping up the water that had already spilled on the plush living room carpet. "And they kept this place open? Wow."

"Well, it seems to be a lucrative tourist attraction," Phil said absently, "I'm betting they wouldn't want to shut it down if it attracts so much money. Besides, it only adds to a realistic experience if glass shatters."

"Our experience was too realistic, in my opinion," Tubbo said under his breath. "Can we sue them for emotional trauma?" he asked, sounding interested as he retrieved a box of lightbulbs from the sink cabinet.

Phil raised a single eyebrow, filling the replacement vase with water. "No," he replied simply, plucking the red flower from where it lay pathetically on the table. He plopped it inside the vase, straightened the little lace table covering, and put the vase back on the table. "I thought we had more places to visit, besides . . . ?" He winked.

Ranboo grinned in delight. "Yes! What's our next destination?"

"Woah, hey now. Let's get out of here first," Tubbo cautioned.

"Texas!" Tommy cried excitedly at the exact same time.

Phil chuckled. "I doubt we can drive all the way down to Texas in a couple of hours. Why don't we go to a neighboring state instead?"

Tommy slumped against the counter, a dust rag held in his left hand as he dramatically clapped his right against his chest. "But Texas! Interesting!" he wheedled, blinking large doe eyes at Phil.

Phil sighed. " . . . I'll see what I can do. But for now, let's just try and get this done."

"Yes! Oh, I'll work so hard-- let's leave today! Please?" Tommy sprang back up, mopping up the bits of glass dust sprinkled around the kitchen.

"It's almost nighttime, I'm tired," Tubbo protested. "And you all completely missed that I was right! That voice from my plushie was a ghost!" He brandished a lightbulb at Ranboo as he made his point.

Ranboo groaned from the couch. "Oh, Tubbo, we don't know that--"

Tubbo frowned, putting his hands on his hips stubbornly. "Yes we do! Lena said so, she said that she contacted me before! I don't know what else that could mean. You're just a skeptic!" He turned away, lifting his nose in the air.

"Alright, maybe she did," Ranboo conceded. "Your squash plushie is a psychic, yes, fine."

"Speaking of which, where is it?" Tubbo looked around, apparently befuddled. "I haven't seen it since yesterday. It's like it just vanished."

Ranboo winced, the memory of throwing the plushie against the wall in exasperation popping up in his mind. "Um, yeah. So, about that. I kind of . . . threw him," he hedged. "Into the wall."

Tubbo gasped in indignation. "You did what?! Ranboo, you fiend!"

"That's a bit harsh," Ranboo protested. "Isn't it? I was frustrated, wasn't I?" He crossed his arms and tried to look pathetic and sympathy-inducing. "Give me a break."

"Yeah, but-- where is he?" Tubbo asked in exasperation.

Ranboo gestured vaguely towards the foyer hallway with his good arm and Tubbo dropped everything to scramble towards it. His squash plushie had been tucked away in a corner behind the table after Ranboo threw it, and was now wedged most unfortunately between a glossy wooden table leg and the wall.

Tubbo snatched him up with a cry of relief. "I can't believe Ranboo threw you, he's such an awful person," he cooed to the plushie. "Were you hurt? Oh, that must have hurt."

Ranboo turned to stare at Tommy, who's gaze flitted back and forth to Tubbo before shrugging and continuing to pick up pieces of broken glass.

"What're we going to do with the rosary?" Phil asked idly, picking up the broken pieces and running the smooth glass over his fingers. The glass beads were broken in half from the force of Tubbo's blow, and the little cross was ripped off of the twine, leaving only a tarnished metal ring behind.

Ranboo stared at it, feeling something tug in his heart.

"I want to keep it," he declared, getting up from the couch and pulling it out of Phil's hands before anyone could protest. "A memento from our first adventure." He held it almost reverently in his hands, smoothing out the crumpled string that held the halved glass beads in place. Some of them had fallen off entirely, and only one or two were still whole.

He tucked it in his pocket, feeling satisfied. The weight of it in his back pocket had grown to be familiar after only a couple of hours, and it felt nice to have it back. Of course, the heaviest part had been the silver cross, and that was now gone (Ranboo looked, but he couldn't find it anywhere, mostly because the author doesn't want the memento to be heavily associated with religion because this is a book that doesn't align with any one religion), but it was comforting all the same.

As Ranboo watched Tubbo screw new lightbulbs into the living room lights, and Tommy pick up the candles on the kitchen floor, he knew their time at the Moore house was finished. But that didn't mean that he couldn't keep a memory of it, did it?

No, it didn't.

"Oi! Ranboo!" Tommy shouted from the kitchen. He was now scrubbing angrily at the floor with a dust cloth. "I could use your help! Smoke stains are bloody brutal."

"I thought we agreed not to let him work!" Tubbo called back, pausing in his lightbulb-replacing to sent Tommy a stare.

Tommy shrugged with one shoulder. "Yeah, but he looks fine. Besides, I need help."

"Then I 'll help you," Tubbo said, struggling not to drop the package of lightbulbs. "Just let me finish up first!"

Ranboo rolled his eyes and ambled over to the kitchen, crouching down next to Tommy. The kitchen floor was, indeed, stained with what looked like ash, and Tommy was having a hard time getting it out. "It's fine, I'll help," he told Tubbo. "Where's the washcloth?"

"Um-- there's some right over there," Tommy directed him gratefully, then sent a snooty look at Tubbo. "Told you he'd be okay. He's a strong boy, like you said, didn't you?"

Tubbo grumbled at having his words turned against him. He continued to stare menacingly at Tommy for a couple more seconds, but quickly grew bored and continued to replace the lightbulbs.

The work felt familiar, and Ranboo quickly fell into a pattern that mostly was just him following Tommy's lead. They wiped up the smoke and ash stains, scrubbed away the small pools of wax that had collected on the floor, and even erased the thick chalk circles that Tommy had scrawled on the floor.

Luckily, although they did take a break for lunch, it only took a a couple more hours to get the rest of the house amply tidied up-- even the door to the attic was fixed back on its hinges-- and they grabbed their suitcases, preparing to leave the house behind for good.

Finally, everything was ready. Time to leave.

The sun was setting at this point, spreading molten gold like melting butter along the horizon of silhouetted cornfield, and purple clouds hid the moon as it drifted along the open sky. Another fog had risen, misting the windows as they left the house. It was a beautiful evening, reminiscent of the first day they had arrived, and Ranboo found himself hesitating in the doorway, his eyes grazing the familiar sunset.

Ranboo stopped just behind Phil, his fingers catching the door just as it was about to close. Phil glanced back at him. "Forget something?" he asked.

"I don't know . . . I don't think so," Ranboo corrected himself. He shook his head as though shaking off a daze. "Just thinking." He shrugged it off and gave the Moore house one last glance before walking over to Phil's car.

Phil smiled, running a hand cheerfully through Ranboo's hair. "It feels weird that it's over, right?" he asked, rather gently.

Ranboo nodded, leaning a little closer to Phil. "I don't know what it is," he admitted, his lips curling into a self-deprecating smile. "It feels like I'm leaving something behind."

Phil nodded knowingly, but he was gentle as he pulled Ranboo into a quick hug. "Let's go and sleep, okay? You'll feel better. There's plenty of hotels in Des Moines. Besides, we need to catch up on some z's."

Ranboo ducked inside the car, letting Phil shut it behind him. His suitcase bumped against his shins and he knocked his head against the ceiling, but he managed to get comfortable easily enough.

Tubbo, sitting on the other side of the van, had the window rolled down and his arm leaning lazily against the door. Tommy was in the front seat, which meant that he wouldn't stop bragging about it, but he quieted down when Phil clambered into the driver's seat.

"You looked like you were saying goodbye to an old flame," Tommy snorted, bending over to give Ranboo a grin. "Are you emotionally attached?"

"Oh, definitely not." Ranboo grimaced, buckling himself into the seat. "Just, it just feels weird, right?"

Tommy glanced out the driver's window for a moment, his gaze turning thoughtful. "Yeah, I guess it does. I'm still grateful to get out of here, though." He turned back to the front window, rocking back and forth excitedly in his seat. "And now we get to go to Texas! My God, it sounds awesome-- I've never been, didja know?"

"You're British," Phil pointed out calmly. He twisted the keys in the lock and the van roared to life, engine growling loudly then settling down as Phil started to back out of the driveway. "I think it's pretty reasonable to assume you've never been to Texas."

Tubbo yawned; already tired even though it wasn't too late at night. "Can we find a hotel before going to Texas?" he asked curiously. He had already made himself comfortable, wedging a pillow between his head and the carseat behind him.

Phil laughed. "You aren't going to stay awake for dinner?" he asked, setting the car into another gear and heading forward. "I was going to stop and grab something to eat, whatever you boys want."

"Ooh, can we try a burrito place?" Ranboo asked eagerly. "I have a new type of burrito I want to try." He leaned forward in his seat, the seatbelt protesting as he did so.

Phil shrugged. "I did say whatever you want, so if you can find a suitable one nearby . . . " He paused, having to stop the car as a bicyclist sped in front of him. "Yeah, go wild."

Ranboo grinned. "Awesome!"

"Texas, though?" Tommy asked hopefully.

"We'll see," Phil replied, already driving towards the highway. "We'll see."