The sky was darkening by the time the Old Meeting House came into view. Tyler had been right. It was a ruin.

The new Meeting House at Pilgrim World was a very good representation of it, a wooden shed with the same structure. But this time, Ember got through the door easily, entering the small area now floored with dead leaves and broken beams.

She layed her bag on the ground, letting Thing out, as she walked towards the the only stone part of the 'building'; the fireplace at the back of the shed.

Thing signed on the ground. "I was expecting more too," Ember agreed with him.

Then, suddenly, he began moving his fingers fast-

Behind you!

"Who you talkin' to little girl?"

From behind her, man had appeared. He had long, tangly red hair, and a beard of the same colour. He was obviously one of the squatters Tyler had been talking about.

"These woods ain't safe..." the man said, almost threateningly.

Nevertheless, Ember remained calm. "Use the words 'little' and 'girl' to address me again and it'll be your safety in question, not mine," she told him, voice not even wavering.

"This is my place! Get away!" He said, abandoning all pretense of niceness.

"Thing, a helping hand here?" Ember demanded, and the hand leapt into action immediately, crawling across the leaves and climbing up from the man's leg, eventually getting to his neck and choking him.

"Argh!" The man's eyes and mouth went wide. His hands went to Thing's severed wrist but he didn't budge, eventually ending in the man running out of the ruined shed in fear of more attacks, leaving Ember free to search around.

"There's nothing here," she said, annoyed, as the hand crawled back into sight. He had obviously convinced the man to stay away.

Thing, meanwhile, was tapping, making more conversation.

Can't you just touch something and have a vision? It would give us more information.

"No, I can't just touch something," Ember sighed. "My visions seem to happen spontaneously."

Thing started signing again.

Ask Morticia for help. She had visions too, didn't she-?

"I would rather dye my hair the colour of Enid's than ask my aunt for advice," Ember quipped.

Thing scraped the side of a log. Maybe try touching something? Just to check?

"Oh, you want me to prove it to you?" Ember asked, more flared up by the minute. She slammed her hands on one of the only wooden beams still standing. "No," she said, putting her hands on a metal bit across the top of the fireplace. "Nothing."

"Ah, I bet this will give us some real insight," Ember held up a bit of litter - a Taco Bell takeaway bag - and pretended she was having a vision, putting her head up and shaking herself. "No!

"My visions are about as predictable as shark attacks," she muttered, picking up her bag and leading Thing out, touching the door on the way-

All at once, her head was wrenched upwards, and her eyes were open wide.

But she was no longer in the ruined Meeting House.

She was in the new, shiny one. The one in the sixteen hundreds.

She fell to the ground as she exited the shed, grunting

She was in the past.

Because as she came out, she looked around... seeing loads of pilgrims before her, majority of them with sticks on fire... they were yelling and seemed angry... at someone...

"BURN HER!"

"BURN HER!"

"DEVIL'S SPAWN!"

"SHE'S A WITCH!"

Looking closer, getting up, Ember saw the men with sticks of fire had encircled someone...

"BEAST!"

"REPENT!"

"BURN HER!"

Ember had now hidden, and had a good enough vantage point to see the person that was encircled...

It was the girl from her vision.

The blonde haired version of her.

"STAND ASIDE!"

And suddenly, as the girl cried out and was pushed to the ground, the circle of people also spread... and through the gap they had created, stepped Joseph Crackstone.

He was wearing the same thing as the waxwork of him in the Meeting House... he was holding the same staff.

He looked down at the girl with pity and anger.

"Goody Addams!" He yelled, making Ember do a double take. Addams? "You have been judged before god and found guilty. You are a witch, a sorceress. Lucifer's mistress herself. For your sins, you will burn this night, and suffer the flames of eternal hellfire."

"I am innocent," the newly christened Goody Addams said, speaking in the same voice she had in Ember's last vision of her. "It is you, Joseph Crackstone, that should be tried! We were here before you, living in harmony with nature and the native folk. But you have stolen our land! You have slaughtered the innocent! You have robbed us of our peaceful spirit!"

The sound of a knife being drawn-

"YOU are the true monster! All of you!" Goody finished, looking up at all the pilgrims.

Ember saw her get up and slash Crackstone's face... his cheek now dripping in blood... other pilgrims held Goody back as she went for another swipe.

"The devil ne'er send such a demon," Crackstone said, touching the cut on his cheek... fingers coming back bloody. He then used that hand to backhand Goody across the face, sending her flying into the pilgrims holding her, crying out. "And I will send you back!" He added, angrier now that Goody had lashed out.

"No! NO!" Goody screamed out, as the men holding her dragged her towards the Old Meeting House, the villagers of Jericho hollering.

"YOU ARE ABOMINATIONS IN THE DEVIL'S GRIP!" Crackstone bellowed as the house doors were wrenched open and Goody was slammed on the floor, at the mercy of the other pilgrims in the shed. Ember followed, hiding behind a barrel she found in the corner. "I will not stop 'till I have expunged this new world of every outcast! Godless creatures!"

No, Ember realised. No, these weren't other pilgrims in the Old Meeting House right now. They were outcasts. Outcasts which Crackstone had captured, determined to kill.

This ran through her head as Crackstone turned his back on the shed, his other pilgrim mates locking the doors after his departure.

Goody, meanwhile, was hyperventilating on the floor, looking at the outcasts, who, both she and Ember noticed, were chained up around the room. All looked cold, scared and pale.

"SET IT ABLAZE!"

Ember's eyes widened as she heard Crackstone's shout from outside, and the pilgrims with their fire sticks, setting the shed on fire.

Ember watched through the gaps in the wood, watching as they slowly went from black to orange, flames licking the wood up. The heat in the shed started to rise, as well, and soon, as sheen of sweat appeared on her lip.

"Mother!"

Her head snapped round to where Goody was now running towards a woman, chained up at the front of the group. The blonde haired girl instantly began undoing the chains on her wrists, but she worked slowly, and her mother had to say. "There is no time, child."

Both Goody and her mother's faces were wet with tears.

"Leave me! Save yourself!" The elder Addams said. "He's chained us all to the floor!"

As the smoke started to come in, Ember stood up, abandoning all pretence that she wasn't supposed to be here. She looked around, but her eyes kept going back to Goody. Her supposed relative.

"I shan't leave without you," she said, still trying to relieve her mother of the chains.

Her mother tried to stop her. "Run! Avenge us! Find the others, and save our future!" She started to cough on smoke- crying too- "Please! My sweet lamb! Run! Run as fast as you can! You are our only hope!"

She cupped Goody's cheek with her hand, the girl hyperventilating and crying but not choking on the smoke yet.

"Our only hope!"

So, as her mother cried for her, Goody forced herself up, and started to run through the piles and piles of chained up outcasts.

Ember followed.

She got to the fireplace... the one Ember had seen in the ruin earlier... but from there, she raked off all the dirt and old wood on the bottom, and opened a secret trap door.

A way out.

With some hesitation for her mother, Goody opened the door and forced herself down it, then, with a last glance at the burning shed, she pushed herself right down, and swung the door shut behind her.

Ember, who had seen her do this, was lost, coughing and choking on the smoke that now billowed through the shed, getting in her eyes and her mouth, her sense of living leaving her-

But then, suddenly, she wasn't even in the shed anymore. The smoke had clogged up into a haze, and through that haze came Goody, her eyes wide and tears under them. She looked deranged.

"HE WON'T STOP UNTIL HE'S KILLED US ALL!" She yelled. Ember almost jumped, eyes maybe wider than her relative's.

Then, suddenly, Goody turned her attention to something over Ember's shoulder. "He's here..." She said.

Ember whipped round-

She jumped back as Joseph Crackstone appeared in her face, his cheek still slashed, an angry look on his face.

Ember took a deep breath, backing away-

"There will be no escape for you!"

And with that, Ember awoke. She was lying on the leafy, muddy ground under the Old Meeting House, hyperventilating. Rain had started as well, pelting her face, which was muddy as well as wet.

Despite all this, she got up immediately, her wet plaits slapping her face.

"Thing, I saw her!" She yelled at the hand as soon as he came into view. "The girl from my visions! Her name is Goody Addams, and she's my ancestor from four hundred years ago!"

The hand nodded to all that, urging her to go on-

A sound echoed from the woods, making Ember properly get up on her feet, going to check through the gaps in the wet wood that was still standing.

She stood there for at least a minute, peering out through the gap.

She saw nothing.

"Must've been the bearded man from earlier," Ember turned to Thing, going back to check-

"Grrrrrr!"

Ember jumped back-

It was the monster that killed Rowan. Right there. It's swollen, bloodshot, out of proportion eye in the gap. Its huge amount of newly sharpened teeth underneath that eye.

Then it was off, as quick as it came.

Again, it had had a chance to kill her.

And again, it hadn't taken it.

"Come on!" Ember shouted to Thing, still slightly shaken and frozen. Then she moved, urging the hand to do so as well. "Come on!"

She ran along the path and out of the woods, weighed down by her soaking trench coat over her Nevermore uniform. She was looking for a sign, just anything that would tell her what this monster was.

And she found it.

Tracks; tracks of big, clawed feet, were imprinted into the muddy, waterlogged path she was walking on.

But the funny thing was, these tracks soon changed to human footprints. As if the monster had changed back...

Ember bent low over the last monster track, speaking her thoughts. "The monster's human."

She almost smirked, getting up.

And crashing into someone.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Of course. Of course! Of course it was Xavier Thorpe that was standing behind her, and that she had just crashed into. He was holding an umbrella, and wearing a confused yet amused expression. He was back in his Nevermore uniform.

Ember got up, wiping rain off her face. "I was following the monster. You know, the non existent one that's now spared my life twice."

"What, you saw it?" Xavier's face said shocked. His eyes darted round as though he expected it to come up right now. "It's here? Do you have a death wish or something?"

Ember thought about this. She couldn't say no. So instead, she questioned him. "What exactly are you doing here?"

"I overheard you say you were checking out the Old Meeting House," Xavier replied. "I guess it's lucky I showed up when I did."

"I told you, the monster spared me. It had nothing to with you," Ember spoke disgustedly. "But I did learn one thing. The monster is human. Its tracks turned from monster prints to human ones."

"Show me," Xavier demanded, and so Ember led him down the path-

Only to see rain, determinedly splattering the path. All tracks dissolved.

"The rain washed them all away."

Xavier scoffed. "How convenient."

Ember turned around, fire in her eyes. "I know what I saw."

"Okay, I'll try to keep an open mind," the boy before her shrugged.

"I'm so thankful," Ember said sarcastically.

"Well... I do think you might be right about Rowan," Xavier shrugged, as he walked along the path, Ember following.

"Why the sudden switch of sides?" Ember stepped in quickly.

"I texted him again," Xavier sighed. "I said that maybe we could meet up over spring break and go snowboarding like we did last year. But this time he texted right back and said he wouldn't be able to make it."

"Only you never went snowboarding last year," Ember had to admit, it was quite clever.

Xavier nodded. "You caught on quick."

"I always do," Ember said coolly.

"Well, part of me wanted to blame his recent weirdness," Xavier went on. "I didn't wanna think something bad happened."

"The cover up is always worse than the crime," Ember concluded.

"Well, I've told you my story, now I need you to tell me yours," Xavier put a hand on her arm to stop her from walking on. "Why did you go out to the Old Meeting House in the first place?"

Ember looked down, trying to find a benefit for lying. She didn't find anything. "I was trying to investigate Crackstone," she said. "Figure out how he's connected to this."

"Yeah, and you were try'na use your psychic abilities, right?" Xavier smirked.

Ember saw a benefit here. "What makes you think I have any?"

Xavier shrugged. "Lucky guess. When did they start?"

"About a year ago," he already knew. There was no point hiding it.

The continued to walk along the path and Ember explained. "Both Wednesday and I get them. Me more often, admittedly. When they happen, it feels like I'm touching live wire. I usually enjoy that sensation," she added as an afterthought.

"Yeah, but you're scared because you can't control it," Xavier had a smile on his face. Then it disappeared. "My dad's a psychic."

"Vincent Thorpe," Ember nodded. "My cousin's his number one fan. Watched his Vegas special so many times I'm surprised he doesn't quote it in his sleep."

Xavier scoffed. "So I've lived with a self described master, and the first thing he'll tell you is that psychic visions can't be trusted. You only see one part of the picture."

"I saw Joseph Crackstone in front of me as clearly as I'm seeing your shameless face right now," Ember shot back. "He gathered all the outcasts in the Meeting House and burned them alive."

"Okay, he was a sadistic asshole," Xavier shrugged. "So what? It was four hundred years ago, it's got nothing to do with now."

"But what if it does?" Ember was as fast as lightning. "You saw Rowan's drawing. Crackstone standing in the quad."

"You're creating a story in your head and using your visions to back it up," Xavier told her, words stringing together as easily as the rain was falling around them. "They're telling you what you wanna see."

"Are you mansplaining my power?" Ember asked.

Xavier laughed. "All I'm saying is my dad, the expert, would warn you that psychic ability isn't rooted in logic, it's triggered by emotions," Xavier told her. "And let's be honest, emotions aren't exactly your strong suit."

Ember looked down, then back up. "I believe Rowan was right. Something bad is going to happen, and I need to stop it. Starting with that monster who you still don't believe exists."

"And you're doing such a great job at convincing me!" Xavier rolled his eyes. "Look, Ember, you need to listen. What you're thinking isn't right, it's just-"

But Ember had already left him, walking off herself, the rain spitting hard on her already wet head.

❣︎❣︎❣︎

I thought nothing scared me. But that was before I stared into the eyes of Joseph Crackstone.

Ember had dried off and was now heading to the statue dedication in the Jericho square, violin in hand. She eyed the big new bronze statue of Crackstone in the square, looking at the face she hoped she would never see again. But she didn't worry. She had her own plan up her sleeve.

I don't believe in heaven or hell. But I do believe in revenge. I usually serve it warm with a side of pain, suffering and fake commiserations, but I've never faced an adversary cast in bronze.

She walked round the statue, looking up at it. She wasn't scared now, just angry. She was going to find out what Crackstone had to do with this.

Then she was going to kill his ally. The monster.

She nodded to Thing, who was beside the statue. He gave her a thumbs up in return as she took her place on the lawn, a couple of metres from where the marching band (who were staying stationary this time) opening her violin case and getting the instrument out.

"Hem-hem!" Mayor Walker, who was up beside Principal Weems at the platform, spoke. "It is my honour to celebrate our town's history, and Jericho's noble forefather, Joseph Crackstone."

They turned to that bronze statue Ember was trying to avoid looking at.

"Now, he believed that with a happy heart and an open ear, there was nothing this town couldn't achieve!" The mayor continued. "So, together as one, our community, and our friends at Nevermore Academy, we've built a monument to celebrate his memory. Now, may the spirit of Joseph Crackstone be memoralised for eternity!"

And with a flick of his hands, the band was off.

Ember played along on her violin, straight-faced. This wasn't fun.

As Weems and Mayor Walker posed for press pictures, the mayor hit the button and suddenly, water came spouting out of Crackstone's platform. The whole crowd erupted into applause whilst Ember continued to play, very much not joining in on the occasion.

The only time she felt a minor glimpse of happiness was when Thing, who was waiting behind the stands, struck a match on the ground and lit the fuse that Ember had set up half an hour prior.

The fire went along the fuse, finally ending at the new Crackstone statue, which suddenly blew up with a big bang! in a haze of smoke and flames.

Ember continued to play her violin as everyone ran for the hills, plenty of them screaming. Though this time, she was playing her own tune. Even when the smoke clouded her vision and hazed over her eyes, she still continued to play.

And still, even when Weems, who was hiding behind a car, stared angrily at her, somehow knowing that she was behind this.

She just kept going, the smoking statue of Crackstone behind her, his evil face melting before her unblinking eyes.