*flicks hair*

I always love to be helpful… Too bad I couldn't tho.. Great part! 

In hindsight, playing a board game that doubles as a murder mystery may not have been the best idea. Well, Wildsong and Sterling didn’t seem to mind, and Echo thought it was kind of funny, but Amarillis didn’t like it at all. Usually she was a fan of Clue (and, not to brag, but she would usually win), but this time it was different. This time she was living a real life game of Clue, except in this one there wasn’t any clear answer or end.

“Ms. Scarlet in the Hall, with the… knife,” Wildsong said, and Sterling shook their head, indicating that fae didn’t have any of the aforementioned cards. Echo reluctantly showed her the card in her hand that had Ms. Scarlet’s smiling blonde face on it, and Wildsong crossed it off on her sheet, grinning. She finally knew that the person in question was Mr. Green, and she had figured out the weapon (candlestick) a while ago, so now all she had to do was figure out what room the murder happened in and she was good to go.

Or she would be, if Amarillis didn’t stand up abruptly mid-game and announce that she had to take a walk. Echo tried to convince her not to go alone, but she insisted on it, strangely enough. Wildsong shrugged, assuming that she just wanted some fresh air. She took Amarillis’s cards and redistributed them between the three remaining players, determined to win.

<><><>

In case you hadn’t guessed, Amarillis was not just going to get some fresh air. She exited the lighthouse with a nervous sort of feeling fluttering around her stomach, but, more importantly than that, she had a mission. Her mission was this: Amarillis was getting off this Clue-in-real-life island, one way or another.

According to her internal reasoning, to get off the island she would have to go through the ocean, and to do that she would need a boat. As far as she could tell, there was only one place on the island where she could launch a boat off of, and it conveniently had a myriad of boats waiting for her.

So, without waiting for her resolve to waver or for someone to spot where she was going, Amarillis speed walked to the top of the flight of stairs leading to the beach; they creaked as she descended. The rocks shifted noisily under her shoes as she made her way to where the boats rested. She grabbed the closest one to the shore and pulled, dragging it to the edge of the water. The waves were small, lapping gently at the shore, so different from the aggressive columns of water slamming against the cliffs on the other side of the island.

She slid the boat into the water gently, jumping in when the water became too deep for her to wade in. The riptide caught it and pulled it gently into the open waters. She had almost forgotten the strange float-y feeling that bobbing along in the boat induced. 

Amarillis floated, floated, floated, in that little boat for a long time. It moved frustratingly slowly, but it was moving, so she simply laid back and rested. A little bit later, she sat up, restless, to find that the island was almost out of view. Just a small shape so far away; the beach was a thin line of gray. And- what was that? A person? On the beach? Amarillis squinted, but she couldn’t quite tell. Surely not, right?

<><><>

The murderer stood on the beach, enjoying the nice breeze from the water. Off shore, Amarillis’s boat was a speck on the horizon, moving further and further away. They hummed happily, spinning around and walking slowly up the stairs. They wondered: how much longer would it take for the pinprick holes that they punctured the boat with to let in water? How fast would it sink? How long could Amarillis tread water? Not long enough, the murderer thought. 

Today was a good day. Amarillis’s death would hardly even be their fault; going out on that boat was a bad idea in the first place. 

Yes, today was a good day, they thought. And tomorrow will be even better.

~~~

Dead: 5 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis)

Alive: 6 (Tenebrous, Periwinkle, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling)

Dun-dun-duh….

How interesting. Well she ain't a suspect no more heh…

I suspect Tenney. She hardly is ever there if that makes sense

RIP Amarillis! Next part out tomm! Once again thank you to everyone who comments (especially pangolin, your comments literally make my day!!) <333 

Also I'm writing the last day right now and it really really doesn't want to be written T-T 

Periwinkle couldn’t sleep. It was technically morning and she was too tired to get up. But, apparently, not tired enough to fall asleep. She huffed out a sigh and turned on her side.

How much longer did she have? It was Amarillis yesterday, but it very well could have been her. She was so, so sure that summoning the dead CBers would work, but it had just ended in disaster. Does she keep investigating? Maybe Amarillis was right, there was no way she could actually figure it out with all avenues exhausted. 

Peri sat up, prepared to go down to the common room and grab Tenney and Pangolin to tell them that the investigation was off, but when she moved there was a strange sort of crinkling sound. She frowned and pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. Oh, it was the paper with the names that Tenney had attempted to get Hawkstar’s ghost to point to. Peri barely remembered grabbing it out of the air and shoving it into her pocket the day before, they had all been so frazzled. 

It really was a shame that Tenney’s last minute plan didn’t work, it was a good idea. Peri sighed deeply as she smoothed out the piece of paper and glanced down at the hurriedly written names. She froze.

One of the names was highlighted in bloody red. 

Had that been there before? Come to think of it, Peri hadn’t gotten a good look at the names since… well, since Hawkstar had tried to point to one. Peri had assumed that she failed, but what if this was what she was trying to tell them instead?

Peri stared down at the red smeared name with something akin to dread coiling in her throat.

“What’re you looking at?” a voice asked.

Peri startled, slamming the paper face down on her lap. “Uh, nothing,” she said instinctively. And then that fear induced white noise came flooding back because the person standing nonchalantly next to Peri’s bunk was the same name that was highlighted on the sheet.  Calm down, Peri. That doesn’t mean they’re the murderer.

“I’m the murderer,” the person said. 

“Oh,” Peri said, too stunned to speak any of the words ricocheting around her mind. “Why would you tell me that?”

The person shrugged. “I don’t know. You put so much effort into finding out who I am, I thought maybe you’d like to know before I killed you.”

The words hit Peri like a truck. Being in the same room as the murderer had registered in her mind, but for some reason, she hadn’t quite realized that she was going to die in the next few minutes. She wanted to scream. Instead, for some bizarre reason, she said, “Thanks.”

“Not going to fight or anything?” the murderer asked, puzzled. “People keep letting themself die. I don’t understand it.”

Unluckily for the person in front of her, Peri was not planning on dying. She had not gotten jumped, the murderer didn’t have the element of surprise.

Springing up, Peri put everything she had into slamming her body into the murderer, who stumbled back in a moment of pure surprise. She ran, sprinting to the staircase, mouth open to call for someone, anyone, and to scream (not quite loudly enough). She almost made it, too.

The murderer was faster, propelled by something not quite human, and they grabbed a handful of Peri’s blue hair and pulled, knocking her off of her feet. She landed on the floor with a muffled thump and stared up for a split second with wide eyes.

The murderer, with that signature grin, saw that Peri was dead. 

~~~

Dead: 6 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis, Periwinkle)

Alive: 5 (Tenebrous, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling)

~~~

This and the next part are a little shorter but I want to keep some suspense :))

RIP Peri! Your investigative efforts were valiant. 

The murderer finished with Peri quickly, watching as life fled from her expression. This part was always exciting. Finally, more guests dead than alive. The murderer felt relief (because their job was close to being over) mixed with anxiety (because it would be harder to keep their identity hidden). 

They never wanted this for themself, but they supposed that they weren’t really themself anymore, were they? No, not with that invisible leash wrapping around their throat and the marionette strings jerking their limbs around in an endless carousel.

Whatever. They were done agonizing over it.

The guests were all still asleep, and hopefully no one had awakened. As the murderer made their way up, up, up the stairs through the other rooms, they discovered (thankfully) that no one had been roused by the noise. They made it to the light room, squinting against the intermittent brightness, before climbing the ladder into Storm’s room. 

Storm was awake, because she rarely slept at all, and when she heard the creaking of someone entering she turned around, shoving a familiar piece of jewelry into her pocket.

“Hello,” Storm greeted, sounding exhausted. “Is it done?”

“Yes,” the murderer said. “Peri’s gone. Just in time, too. She basically figured it all out.” They handed Storm the paper that Peri had been holding, the one with the names.

“Good, good,” she said. Her eyes flicked up and then down, and she asked the question she had asked what felt like a million times since day one: “Are you sure you can’t kill more than one per day?”

The murderer’s mouth thinned into a tight line and gave the same answer they always did. “I’m sure. Only one per day.”

“Shame,” Storm hummed. “It would be so much easier.”

The murderer felt that familiar disdain that they often felt when talking to Storm. Maybe it was the way that she spoke with such little emotion. Maybe it was the fact that without her magic as a noose around their neck, they wouldn’t have had to kill anyone in the first place. But their voice was not their own anymore, so they just said: “She figured it out because of that book you gave her.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Storm replied, somewhat annoyed. “I didn’t think it would actually work, obviously. I barely had enough time to stop Hawkstar’s spirit from revealing anything, although it looks like she did manage to get something out.” She narrowed her eyes at Peri’s paper before folding it into quarters and tucking it into a drawer. “Keeping all these ghosts at bay is exhausting.”

“Is there anything else?” the murderer asked.

“No.” Storm was not looking at them. She hated making eye contact with them. “You’re dismissed.”

The murderer retreated, back down the ladder to their bed, lying down but not able to sleep. They would wait a few minutes before getting up regularly with everyone else. At least today’s kill was already taken care of.

The thought wasn’t nearly as reassuring as they needed it to be.

~~~

Dead: 6 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis, Periwinkle)

Alive: 5 (Tenebrous, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling)

~~~

Been waiting to put this part out for a while :)))) Thank you to everyone who has commented so far!! It means so much to me <333

Oh my goodness Storm! So she is the real murderer. She just has someone else doing the dirty work.

Tenney was the first downstairs in the morning, and therefore the first to find Peri’s body. She ran up to fetch Storm, who looked down sadly at the scene with tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

Poor Storm, Wildsong thought. This must be so hard for her.

They had a quick funeral, and then breakfast. Echo always hated the days when the murder happened in the morning, because then the mood for the rest of the day was cast in shadows. The good (or bad) news was that the five remaining guests were more or less used to this by now, so there was less general melancholy, and by the afternoon, they were in relatively high spirits again. For lunch Storm conjured up an elaborate salad bar with every topping imaginable, which was greatly enjoyed. 

When Pangolin popped her head outside, she discovered that it was abnormally warm and that the sun was, for once, unobstructed completely and shone warmly down. She raced back inside and suggested that they all go out for a swim at the rocky beach.

“Good idea!” Storm said. “But just be careful not to go too far out, the riptide can be very strong.”

Because no one thought to bring a bathing suit to such a setting, they all braved the water in their clothing instead, which felt strange at first but was quickly forgotten once they started moving around. A few people (Sterling and Pangolin) elected not to swim, but instead sat on the beach under the sun. Pangolin leaned back against one of the boats comfortably, the rocky beach having soaked up much of the warmth. She was thankful that this beach was finally being used for something good instead of funeral after funeral.

The guests who were swimming, after engaging in a game of Marco Polo, got out of the water and laid down on the rocks, drying in the sun. They played I Spy (“I spy with my little eye, something blue”; “Is it the sky?”; “How’d you know?”) and laughed almost the whole way through. Tenney, who was dressed in a modern style tye-dye tank top and jean shorts, hunted the beach for flat, smooth rocks to attempt to skip. That quickly devolved into a competition of who could skip a rock the most times, and it seemed like Wildsong was going to win before Echo whipped a stone across the surface of the water eleven times in a row. Pangolin quickly fashioned a trophy out of some seaweed and driftwood and announced Echo the Rock Skipping Champion. 

Storm watched them from her window at the very top of the lighthouse. Joy was painted very clearly on each and every one of their faces. This would all be so much easier if they weren’t happy.

The sun was beginning to dip beneath the horizon when the guests all headed back inside, exhausted from their various activities. A dinner of ravioli and red sauce was pre-made, sitting on the tables in the common room. 

After dinner, they all elected to watch a movie on Echo’s blue and white striped phone. They propped it up on a vase of dried flowers (one that had not been emptied for funeral purposes yet) and turned to brightness all the way up, huddling together on a couch. They decided on a horror movie, an old one with bad special effects and over-dramatic acting which actually managed to be quite scary. 

All in all, it was a good day. Maybe the best that they had so far. There was always that sense of foreboding, that when they would wake up in the morning someone else would be dead or perhaps they would be the next victim and not wake up at all.

But they knew that for today, at least, they were safe, if only for a few hours. So they took full advantage. 

It was late when everyone finally collapsed into bed. Pangolin was tired in a good way, and generally less plagued by negative emotions than she usually was, which they considered a win. It was nice to really feel the sun again.

Sterling and Tenney were the last two guests who had a roommate, and that was a little reassuring. 

“Goodnight,” Sterling said.

“‘Night,” Tenney said. “Sweet dreams.”

The words must have been magic, because for the first time in a long time, Sterling dreamt of a field full of daisies under a serene full moon, and fae felt at peace. 

~~~

Dead: 6 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis, Periwinkle)

Alive: 5 (Tenebrous, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling)