COUNTERTOP
A couple of items sit quietly in the dark upon the countertop, the Aunt’s purse and a cocoa pot. Above them, an open cabinet gives way to a safe on the bottom shelf.
A crocodile skin purse with a red jewel embedded into the clasp. The purse itself seems to ooze with a moldiness that paints its age as much older than it should be. Inside, you find a book about overcoming grief:
As you inspect the purse, your ears twitch as you hear the sound of a woman crying behind you. You spin around to find the sobbing spirit of Aunt Jane reaching towards you.
“I fear the curse is at it again!”
“I’ll do whatever I can to end this misery!”
“Absolutely not! Losing Elsie again is the last thing I’d want. If something has happened to her now, it’s the work of some evil thing, some dark magic the likes of which I’m not sure who here could muster. Elsie was like a daughter to me. She was my brother’s daughter, my precious niece! Without her I’m not sure I could have survived after what happened to my own daughter.“
“It was all very disorderly! I remember trying to keep everyone calm while I waited for Vera, who had abandoned me to deal with the very irate neighbor. The neighbor was insistent on seeing Elsie, babbling about the theft of her garden stones or some trivial nonsense. Vera returned with some hot cocoa, awfully sweet if you ask me, but I was panicked by Birdie and regrettably quaffed it down too quickly! I instantly felt that something was off. I looked around, some people were missing. Virgil was gone, as was the salesman and the lodger. Come to think of it, the only people left in the room at all were myself, Vera, and the neighbor, Birdie! I saw Vera collapse to the ground, she was writhing in pain! I tried to scream for help but everything was already going dark! There was an unsavory flavor in my mouth, like metal, and a great pain started to overwhelm me. I fell back into the chair and… I saw the neighbor take off down the hall. A few moments must have passed by… I was still alive, but I couldn’t move. The last thing I remember is seeing the salesman step back into the room!”
“How dare you! You have no idea what it was like for me to lose both my husband and my daughter, and to such random acts of injustice! You don’t understand what it takes to come to terms with the fact that life is more fair to some than others, and that in my particular case it wasn’t going to be fair at all! Hundreds of people on the road the day my husband was struck. Dozens of children in that park, too, including the McDermott children! And yet, it all happened to me. My grieving process was long, arduous, and never-ending. I tried many things to recover, including taking my own life, which one might consider a murder of sorts. However, the murder of another never crossed my mind, and you should be ashamed to ask such a thing.”
You take a close look at the antique cocoa pot. Despite the rest of the house seeming to fall apart, the pot remains in near pristine condition. There has been much talk of the poison delivered unto the inhabitants of this house that night, and you have good reason to believe this pot was involved!
As you inspect the purse, your ears twitch as you hear the sound of a woman crying behind you. You spin around to find the sobbing spirit of Aunt Jane reaching towards you.
“I fear the curse is at it again!”
“I’ll do whatever I can to end this misery!”
“Absolutely not! Losing Elsie again is the last thing I’d want. If something has happened to her now, it’s the work of some evil thing, some dark magic the likes of which I’m not sure who here could muster. Elsie was like a daughter to me. She was my brother’s daughter, my precious niece! Without her I’m not sure I could have survived after what happened to my own daughter.“
“It was all very disorderly! I remember trying to keep everyone calm while I waited for Vera, who had abandoned me to deal with the very irate neighbor. The neighbor was insistent on seeing Elsie, babbling about the theft of her garden stones or some trivial nonsense. Vera returned with some hot cocoa, awfully sweet if you ask me, but I was panicked by Birdie and regrettably quaffed it down too quickly! I instantly felt that something was off. I looked around, some people were missing. Virgil was gone, as was the salesman and the lodger. Come to think of it, the only people left in the room at all were myself, Vera, and the neighbor, Birdie! I saw Vera collapse to the ground, she was writhing in pain! I tried to scream for help but everything was already going dark! There was an unsavory flavor in my mouth, like metal, and a great pain started to overwhelm me. I fell back into the chair and… I saw the neighbor take off down the hall. A few moments must have passed by… I was still alive, but I couldn’t move. The last thing I remember is seeing the salesman step back into the room!”
“How dare you! You have no idea what it was like for me to lose both my husband and my daughter, and to such random acts of injustice! You don’t understand what it takes to come to terms with the fact that life is more fair to some than others, and that in my particular case it wasn’t going to be fair at all! Hundreds of people on the road the day my husband was struck. Dozens of children in that park, too, including the McDermott children! And yet, it all happened to me. My grieving process was long, arduous, and never-ending. I tried many things to recover, including taking my own life, which one might consider a murder of sorts. However, the murder of another never crossed my mind, and you should be ashamed to ask such a thing.”
You take a close look at the antique cocoa pot. Despite the rest of the house seeming to fall apart, the pot remains in near pristine condition. There has been much talk of the poison delivered unto the inhabitants of this house that night, and you have good reason to believe this pot was involved!