“Can I have a word with my associate?” he asked.
“By all means,” Richard said. “I shall be here, waiting.”
Vic leaned close to me, grabbing my shoulder.
“He’s not a ghost,” he whispered in my ear. I tingled at his breath and tried not to shift. “He’s become a Land Wight.”
“What’s that mean?” I hissed.
“It means that we’re in serious trouble,” Vic said. “Land Wights are… territorial. Powerful. They are one and the same with a property. Instead of the mind itself being disembodied, it’s a part of the grounds. That means he controls the whole house.”
“What are your suggestions?”
“We play along, or else he could make it so we don’t escape,” Vic whispered.
I nodded.
“You were saying, Mr. Tremblay?” I asked. I tried not to be terrified.
“I am rather enamored of my new form, and yet one becomes attached, as they are wont to do, to their old life. I have access to the memories planted in this house’s walls—the echoes of people who once were, those who have passed through these halls. I have sorted and rifled through them all, and yet, I cannot find the why or the reason for my murder. That is where you come in.”
“Me?” I asked.
“And your friend, small help he may be,” Richard said. “I want you to find out who killed me. I have had, as you say, a hundred and seventy some odd years to think through and wonder how it happened, and I find myself still obsessed with my expiration.”
“Do you have any leads?” Vic asked.
“But of course. I have wondered—why then? Why the night it happened? What was different? What had I done that night, that my murder could wait no longer? And I have found nothing, no bits of information, no insight. The only difference between that night and any other is that we had four new guests at Tremblay Manor.”
“I don’t mean to be crass, but it did happen almost two centuries ago,” I said. “There’s no way we could find any physical evidence about your murder by now, everything would have degraded.”
“Ah, true, true.”
“And—you’re sure you have no memories of it happening?” Vic asked.
“None,” Richard said. “The last of my mortal life I remember was retiring to my upstairs writing nook—the room you find yourselves in. I locked the door behind me. I was feeling rather weary of the night’s progression. These parties—they are hardly for the ones who throw them, you must understand. So many occasions to remember, they all tend to stick together. I had found myself face to face with a certain amount of emotional guests and needed some downtime. I am rather a hermit, or should I say I was, in my mortal form. All I remember was drinking some tea, and then—as they say—kapow. I woke up some time later, floating in the basement, and took some time piecing my consciousness back together. I had learned later that they had broken down the door after they heard a gunshot. My head was splattered against the back wall. Like so.”
He withdrew a revolver from the desk and then aimed it at his temple.
“Afraid this bit will get a little messy, but I’ve been wanting to try this out for ages,” Richard said, and then pulled the trigger.
Crimson splattered against the wallpaper, and he slumped over behind the desk, and Vic and I jumped to our feet and screamed. A rush of blood poured like a fountain from behind the desk, and we jumped, trying to avoid getting it on our shoes. The door behind us creaked open, and out we rushed, in a pile of limbs and banging into one another.
The door slammed and locked itself behind us. The corridor we were in was brightly lit—dusk sunshine peeked in from a nearby curtain, illuminating a towering grandfather clock. It struck a series of sonorous chords, one by one, until it hit six, and then a mechanical figure danced out, twirling with its partner, and then went back inside.
“Is it just me?” Vic asked.
“No,” I said. “This whole building looks different.”
“I can’t find my phone,” he said.
I checked my pockets. Empty.
“Me neither,” I said.
“Well, that’s great,” Vic said. “May as well head down the stairs and check the rest of this out.”
“I have a feeling we’re not in 2020 anymore,” I said.
