The next day, it was raining. Truly, really, raining. Great, giant sheets of water poured from the sky; Wildsong looked out of her window in the morning and could barely see a few feet before visibility dissolved into a moving wall of water. It was strangely reminiscent of the very first time she saw Wayfarer Island, during that strange dream when it had also been pouring. 

Wildsong sat in the common room, cocooned in a fluffy throw blanket and sipping hot chocolate. It was a gloomy day, and people were basically milling around or sleeping in. She closed her eyes and burrowed down into the cushions, sighing. Maybe taking a nap would help.

Her eyes were closed for only a few minutes before something light hit the side of her head. Eyes snapping open, she turned to see a slightly crumpled paper airplane lying on the blanket. She looked around warily, but there was no one else in the common room from what she could tell. Hesitantly, she reached out, grabbed the paper, and unfolded it gently. Inside there was a message, seemingly handwritten: ‘WS, go to Storm’s room and search for a gold-and-black necklace. Bring it to the beach, leave it under the rock marked with a star. Tell no one else.’

Belatedly, she Wildsong realized that this was undoubtedly from the murderer. They needed her to find something for them, a necklace. But why her? And why couldn’t they just do it themselves?

Well, she didn’t know the answer to any of that, but she did know that she was in no position to refuse. If she did… well, she knew what would happen. Who knows, maybe this way she’d get into the good graces of the murderer. 

Wildsong stood up, a bit nervous about doing a task for a murderer, but knowing that there were no other options. She was in this to survive, and this wouldn’t change that. She made it confidently to the bottom of the stairs before realizing that there were four more guests between her and Storm’s room (where she’s not allowed to go to). Okay. A little harder, but still doable. 

She made it past Sterling easily enough, fae was still fast asleep. Tiptoeing quietly as she could, Wildsong advanced to the third floor, where Pangolin was attempting to solve a 1000 piece puzzle in under three hours by herself. Even given Pangolin’s exceptional skill in the puzzling area, it had been one hour already and the border was barely finished. 

“Oh, hi!” Pangolin said, spotting Wildsong. Wildsong smiled in a way that was completely natural and not suspicious at all. 

“Hey,” she said, in a tone that implied that everything was totally normal and nothing was out of the ordinary at all. “How goes the puzzling?”

“It’s hard, but once the outline is done then everything falls into place,” Pangolin said, slotting another piece in. “What’s up with you?”

“Oh, not a lot,” Wildsong said in a voice that was definitely not much higher than usual. “Pretty much nothing at all, really.” In a completely smooth and unnoticeable change of subject, she asked, “Hey, did anyone come down here recently? Like, pass through the room to get to the common room?”

“Uhh, I don’t think so,” Pangolin answered after thinking for a second. “I mean, I’ve been pretty absorbed in this and my back is to the stairs, so maybe? I don’t know, sorry.”

“That’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Wildsong said. She edged back to the staircase, saying, “Um, I’m going to see what Echo and Tenney are up to.”

“Cool, have fun,” Pangolin said distractedly, already caught up in the puzzle again. 

Wildsong, heart beating just a few beats too fast, made it up to the fourth floor. It looked clear; Tenney and Echo must be on the top bedroom floor. She breathed a quick sigh of relief, but then a flicker of movement caught her eye. She whirled around, fear spiking in her veins, only to realize that it was just Jerbo, shifting in his nest of pillows. Thank goodness, Wildsong thought. Jerbo lifted his head, tilting it to one side and giving her a judgy kind of look, as if he knew exactly what she was doing and didn’t approve.

“Oh, shush,” Wildsong whispered. “If you were being targeted by a known killer then you would be doing the exact same thing. Besides, it’s not like I’m hurting anyone or anything like that.”

Jerbo placed his head down reluctantly, expression now coming across as something adjacent to ‘sure, keep telling yourself that’. Wildsong rather maturely stuck out her tongue at him before refocusing herself on the mission at hand. Only two people left (Storm was outside, thankfully, although she didn’t really know why the host would be when the weather was like this), and then she would be free to liberate (read: steal) the necklace from the host’s room. 

Tenney and Echo were reading on the top floor, taking advantage of the extra bed there. Tenney, who was dressed in a simple collared shirt and skirt, looked up from her book when she spotted Wildsong coming up the stairs.

“Hi!” she said, smiling. “Care to join us?”

“Oh, I’m okay,” Wildsong said. “I just wanted to go up and see the light again.”

“Cool,” Echo said. “Did you ask Storm? I don’t think that she wants us going up without permission.”

“Yeah, I asked her,” Wildsong lied. “She’s okay with it.”

“Okay,” Tenney said, only half paying attention. Wildsong nodded and turned around to head up the stairs. She made it to the light level feeling quite proud of herself; with the amount of rain clouds obscuring the sun it was almost as dark as nighttime, and the light seemed three times as bright as usual. Wildsong suddenly felt uneasy, feeling uneasy every time it swept across her, as if it were purposefully illuminating her: ‘look here, I found an intruder!’. She ran across the space to the ladder to Storm’s room as fast as she could.

Rain lashed at the sides of the area so heavily that it almost felt like she was in a glass box underwater. Wanting to get it over with, Wildsong put both hands on the rungs and hauled herself into Storm’s room.

~~~

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

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

Purposefully searching Storm’s things felt weird and wrong, but Wildsong pushed past the uncomfortable feeling of it all and kept going. It was her first time seeing the room, and it felt a bit underwhelming. At least it was small, which was good, because it meant that it wouldn’t take long at all to search through all of it.

Or, that’s what Wildsong thought at first. Turns out, the size of the room was quite deceiving when it came to the amount of stuff that Storm could fit in there. There were whole jewelry boxes full of rings and bracelets and earrings and yes, necklaces, but none that were black and gold. After the jewelry boxes (aka the most obvious place) were thoroughly checked, Wildsong went through the drawers in the dresser, finding mostly clothes, but also strange little knick knacks, like little figurines of animals and scraps of miscellaneous fabric. 

Wildsong slid the last drawer (nothing but an old book) closed, sighing heavily. You’d think that a person who always appears so put together would have an area that reflects that, but apparently it’s exactly the opposite. Wildsong told herself to focus and got to work on the bookshelf. Could it be hidden somewhere in a book? Like in the movies, when they glue the pages together and cut out a space to hide things? Looking at the massive amounts of books weighing the shelves down, she frowned. Yeah, this might take a while.

A few books in, she was attempting to take one off of the shelf when it caught on another one, which tumbled to the floor. Wildsong bent down to pick it up when a certain flash of color caught her eye. It seemed like the candlelight was shining off of something through the thin space between two floorboards. Placing the book back on the floor, she walked over to the mysterious light, finding that one of the floorboards was quite loose. She picked it up from a corner and it creaked a little as she pulled it up to reveal a small space under, in which was sitting a thin gold chain with black stones in the shape of small flowers along the length of it. A particularly large black tear shaped jewel sat in the middle.

Wildsong reached down to pick it up, and the metal was very cold. There was a creaking noise below, which could have been the old building shifting from the storm, but just to be safe, she shoved it in her pocket and hurried back downstairs. 

<><><>

Wildsong was in hiding. 

The rest of the day had gone quickly, and she had tried her best to act normal, although any time Storm looked her way, she felt a mix of fear and guilt raise in her throat. The necklace weighed heavily in her pocket. 

They did a group activity in the afternoon (a chess tournament, Sterling won), so she didn’t have a chance to get away. In the evening, the group dissipated into individual people again, and Wildsong slipped outside under the pretense of going for a walk. She made her way to the beach and hunted for a little bit before finding that one rock, flat and heavy, with a white star drawn on the top with chalk. Under it she found a little hollow space where she placed the necklace. It sparkled brightly in the sunlight before being covered by the star-rock. 

Wildsong stood up, satisfied. She could leave now. Unless… well, unless she could somehow use this situation to her advantage. The idea wormed its way into her mind and took root firmly. 

Which is why she was hiding, under a flipped over boat, so that the sides form walls and the bottom were above her head. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, lying on a bunch of rocks with virtually no light and very little space to move, but that’s okay. From a crack in between two of the wooden boards, she had a clear view of the rest of the beach, including the rock under which she hid the necklace. All she had to do was wait here until the murderer came to retrieve the necklace, and she would have a name and face to report to the others. 

Except, as day passed from evening into night, there was no movement on the beach. It became steadily harder to see, and she hoped that they would hurry up and get here while there was still some light. 

Finally, after too many hours under the boat, and just as she was about to give up and go back, someone came down the stairs to the beach. Their footfalls echoed out over the water; they were uneven, stilted. As the figure got closer and closer, Wildsong squinted and could barely make out a figure wearing a skirt. There was only one person wearing a skirt today. WIldsong’s heart spiked and she covered her mouth to keep from gasping. 

Tenney- because it was Tenney who was coming down the stairs- was walking rather slowly, swaying a little. She reached the end of the stairs, clutching the railing for a second before beginning to walk towards where the necklace was hidden. 

She was only a few feet away when she suddenly stumbled, foot catching on a rock, and crumpled to the ground. Wildsong blinked in surprise, wondering what she was supposed to do. She couldn’t go out there, could she? Tenney was the murderer. Or at least, she was pretty sure that Tenney was the murderer. Either way, the other girl was unmoving on the beach, and after a few tense minutes Wildsong decided that she couldn’t stay under the boat forever. 

Very slowly, she lifted the boat off of her and slipped out from under it, muscles sore from all the time spent lying in such an uncomfortable position. She tiptoed closer to where Tenney was collapsed and it truly looked like she was unconscious. 

“Tenney?” she asked tentatively. “Hey, Tenney? Are you okay?” 

Tenney did not answer. Wildsong crouched behind her and rolled her over onto her back. She noticed two things, one right after another; number one was that Tenney’s mouth was open and there was some sort of green-ish foam on her lips. The second thing that she noticed was that Tenney wasn’t breathing.

“Wildsong?” Sterling asked in shock. Fae was standing at the top of the staircase, eyes wide. 

It took a few seconds to realize why they sounded like that: Tenney was dead, and Wildsong was the one whose shadow was falling over the body.

~~~

Dead: 7 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis, Periwinkle, Tenebrous)

Alive: 4 (Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling)

ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!!!!!!!!!!!

what a plot twist!!! my heart was thumping painfully fast there at the end!!! only four more CBers left!

dun dun duuuuuh 

RIP Tenney! I loved doing all of your outfit descriptions. I tried to make your portrait as black and white as possible, apologies that there's still some color. 

@Amarillis, don't worry, this lodge isn't slated to finish until the 22nd! You won't miss the end 🙂 

OH WOW! What an exciting part! RIP, Tenny! I am being very suspicious right now, but so is Sterling…

This is so good! 

“You?” Sterling asked, voice pained. 

“No, wait,” Wildsong shouted, jumping back from Tenney’s body like it was on fire. “It’s not what it looks like, I promise! I can explain.”

Sterling shook their head and took a few stumbling steps backwards, and from the fear etched onto faer face Wildsong realized that they were afraid that Wildsong was going to kill them. Because fae thought that Wildsong was the murderer. 

“I’m not the murderer,” Wildsong said, knowing perfectly well that that’s exactly what the murderer would say in this position. 

“I don’t believe you,” Sterling said softly, turning to run away. And Wildsong stood there, a mere few feet from the dead body of someone who used to be her friend, because chasing after Sterling would probably be the worst move in this situation. This was all wrong.

From the look of things, Tenney had been poisoned and only made it as far as the beach before collapsing and dying. Why she was headed for the beach in the first place, Wildsong had no idea. 

Wildsong took a few deep breaths. She could fix this. It wasn’t her, and people would have to believe her, even if that means she tells them what she was doing all day. Besides, it’s not like she wanted to work with the murderer, she was being threatened! 

Yes, this situation was still salvageable. She took one step forward, determined to clear up the situation, but as soon as she moved the entire world seemed to tilt by a few degrees. She blinked once, hard, trying to clear the sudden fuzziness engulfing her mind, but it was no use. It was suddenly very hard to stand up. 

Through the spinning and dizziness, Wildsong felt her hands burning. With shaky vision, Wildsong looked down and saw that her fingers were coated with a thin sheen of something green. But only in the places where she had made skin-to-skin contact with Tenney, when she rolled her over to see what was wrong with her. 

Her last thought was recalling that one time when she was much younger when she was at the amphibian exhibit at the zoo, and the zookeeper was telling her about the poison dart frog and how just touching it once could kill you.

<><><>

It was their first double-funeral. There were four people left on the entire island, three of them guests and one host. Here were the thoughts going through their minds:

One of the guests was feeling unbelievably sad, but in a way that was not quite genuine. Almost like they wanted to be so overwhelmingly sorrowful about Tenney and Wildsong’s death that there was no room to consider the fact that, at best, they had one or two more days to live. But they couldn’t (wouldn’t) consider that at all, so instead they cried and hid their anxiety behind the tears. 

Another one of the guests was feeling less resigned and more angry; angry at themself for deciding to come here, angry at Storm for letting it all happen, and most importantly, angry at one of the two people mourning right beside them, the one who brought their numbers down from eleven to three. 

The third guest (who was, of course, the murderer) was feeling a potent mix of relief and anticipation. Because Wildsong had died by accident, that was one less kill and one less day spent here. It was almost over, and then they could go free at last. 

The host was feeling elated at the double-death and had to focus quite a bit to keep that particular emotion off of her face. Her mouth moved to form meaningless words of pity, saying goodbye to people that she had doomed to death. Maybe she was feeling guilt, somewhere deep inside. Maybe not.

<><><>

After the funeral, if anyone had bothered to happen upon the stone with the star on it and had known to look under it, they would’ve found the space completely empty. 

After the funeral, if anyone had gone up to Storm’s room, they would’ve found her tearing up her room, prying up floorboards in a rage, looking desperately for something that wasn’t there. 

~~~

Dead: 8 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis, Periwinkle, Tenebrous, Wildsong)

Alive: 3 (Pangolin, Echo, Sterling)

~~~

Just to let everyone know, there will only be eight days in this lodge, so that means that there’s only one more day! Before the final day starts you’ll get an extra part (Storm background, mayhaps), and so far the final part is around six parts. 

Lovely part. Very interesting and you made me almost cry! and you had to end there. so mean

RIP Wildsong! Next part out tomm 🙂

Once upon a time, there was a girl born in a world that despised her.

It wasn’t apparent at first, not really. She was born in that time when hours-long trips were taken in carriages instead of cars and news traveled from person to person instead of from a television screen. Her parents were regular enough; her mother had a soft voice and kind eyes and would braid the girl’s brown hair with nimble fingers. Her father would come back from days hunting in the woods with handfuls of wildflowers for her. She had a name, but not one that matters anymore.

It was a simple life in a simple village where days melted into each other under the heat of the sun. The repetitiveness was comforting in a sense, and the girl grew into somewhat of a young woman with sharp gray eyes and her mother’s smile. She had friends, superfluous ones, but she enjoyed laughing and talking about things no deeper than the weather and what their favorite foods were. 

Yes, a simple, easy life. She was perfectly normal, bar the strangely colored eyes. Except for the fact that when she entered her second decade of life, nothing about her appearance changed. It became apparent, after a little bit, that she was not aging in the way that humans are supposed to. It’s like someone had hit pause at some point, and although she was existing, she wasn’t growing older. 

It wasn’t very long at all before the people that she had thought of as friends sent whispers of witchcraft rippling through their small community. Before long, there were heated cries from the townspeople that she should be executed as a heretic. Her own parents couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes anymore, but her father, a truly sentimental man at heart and someone who held no small part in the local government, managed to coerce the public into exiling her instead. 

The girl didn’t know where this curse had come from; perhaps she had angered a god in her past life and they had done this to her in retaliation? She knew, deep down, that there was something like magic running through her veins, but she didn’t quite know how to use it yet. At least that she could ignore, unlike her more visible strangeness. 

In no time at all, the girl’s hands were tied behind her back with thick rope and she was being loaded into a sailboat that took her out, out, out into the wide ocean. All the way out to a small island with a lighthouse perched on it, the light drawing the boat to its shore like a moth to a flame. They removed the restraints and pushed her onto the shore, unloading huge vats of kerosene and some provisions. ‘Don’t let the light die’ is what they told her as they left. 

She stood there on the shore, waves lapping over her feet, tasting salt from the ocean (or maybe her tears, she couldn't be sure). It was beginning to rain. She retreated inside to the lighthouse, which was barren except for a lone rickety bed and a somewhat sturdy desk. She sat on the bed, mattress creaking under each movement, and stayed there until the storm stopped. 

Somehow, miraculously, she began to create a routine for herself. Wake up, eat, tend to the light. She found out that she could create things with magic after three weeks alone on the island, when she was missing her mom’s cinnamon rolls and one appeared in front of her out of thin air. She only used it a little at first, making small treats and little trinkets which she stored in the room on top of the light, where she stayed most of the time. Sometimes, if the weather was tame enough, she’d go on walks around the island and on the beach to find shells and sea glass for decoration. During these walks, she thought about death and whether or not she’d ever be able to feel the bite of his scythe. 

Eventually, she got strong enough to create furniture, which slowly but surely began to populate the empty floors. She made a little nook for herself at the very top of the lighthouse, filling it with things that she created in those in-between moments during the day. (One morning she woke up in a cold sweat to discover a fascinating book with a skull pressed on the cover. Perhaps she conjured it in her sleep?). It took her three days to make that chandelier from the rope that was once around her wrists, the sea glass she had found, and a piece of driftwood, and it was crooked and strange-looking but it was also hers and she was proud of it.

One day, she was sitting on a chair on one of the middle floors, head resting on her hand, peering out the window. It was raining, as it often did, and the droplets patterned the glass in a way that reminded her of the stained glass in her old church. Lightning flashed somewhere distant; the wrath of some raging god. That was the moment that she decided that she needed a name, a new one on her own terms and not the one that connected her to the outer world. 

She decided that calling herself Storm would be fitting. 

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Storm who made a home for herself out of an empty shell of a place with nothing but her own two hands and the magic within them.

~~~

This does not entirely cover Storm’s backstory or provide her motivation for beginning the lodge, but it gives some insight into her character. Hopefully this also makes Storm's age field make more sense. Hope you liked it! The final day will start the day after tomorrow. 

One summer day, before she hosted a vacation for eleven guests and after countless years of exile, when the sky was a burning shade of cerulean, Storm peered out one of the many windows in the lighthouse to find someone standing on the beach. They were standing next to a small banged-up looking sailboat, hair tied back and soaking wet. The person seemed to sense Storm’s eyes on them and they looked up. Their gazes met.

That was the beginning. 

Once upon a time, there was a magic girl named Storm living alone on her island, kept company only by memories and thoughts.

Until someone came along and reminded her why she loved being alive in the first place.

~~~

Storm sat alone in the common room, hands clenching and unclenching. She had snapped a small peach pastry into being and was eating it in an attempt to distract herself. It was early morning, and so far she was the only one awake.

Well, not anymore. She heard the steady echo of footsteps descending the stairs, and the murderer casually strolled into the common room. 

“Hello!” they greeted cheerily. “Good morning!”

“No, it’s not,” Storm hissed, standing up. “Where’s the necklace?”

“Whatever do you mean?” they asked innocently. 

Storm’s gray eyes narrowed and she stalked closer to the murderer. “Drop the act. There’s no one else who knew about it.”

“You can’t prove anything.” The murderer sat down on one of the couches, pulling a pillow onto their lap. “It could have been a vengeful ghost. There’s plenty of those around.”

“You-” Storm’s eyes darkened. “How dare you go behind my back?”

“Yeah? What’re you going to do, huh? Magic me into giving it back?” They laughed. “You can barely manage to keep all the ghosts in one place and keep me killing at the same time. There’s nothing you can do.” Their expression turned a little more sinister. “I know your plan, why you invited us all here in the first place. I have the necklace now and I’m never letting you finish that spell.”

Storm’s mouth snapped open to retort, but the sound of footsteps filled the air again and both the host and murderer stopped talking as the second guest came down to the common room, oblivious to what was happening before. Storm managed to plaster on a smile and conjure up a platter of bagels for breakfast. The murderer’s smile, however, was real.

A few minutes later the third and last guest plodded tiredly down and the four of them sat in a circle, chatting and laughing, because it was either that or fear and crying and they would much rather spend their last day like this. Of course, only two of the four were aware that this was the last day at all. 

After breakfast, Pangolin, Echo, and Sterling decided to go outside and play with Jerbo; the arctic fox was feeling a little bit neglected and cooped up in the past few days. Nevermore, who had been without Reuby since day one, had been busying himself with chasing seagulls around the sky and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to catch fish with them.

Sterling and Pangolin took turns throwing a piece of driftwood across the island and having Jerbo fetch it, bounding over the rocks with ease. Every time that he brought the wood back to them, Sterling fed him a piece of beef jerky. 

Echo was engaged in an intense game of tug-of-war with Jerbo when it started to drizzle outside and they retreated back into the lighthouse. Jerbo went back to his nest of sheets and blankets to take a nap, and the three guests decided to set up a game of Uno, one of the few games they had yet to play. 

After ten minutes of playing, Pangolin had once again reclaimed her position as the queen of cards, winning three back to back games. 

When she won the third game, Echo threw her cards down in exasperation, saying, “That’s it, we’re never going to win against you, Pangolin. Let’s play something else.”

“Yeah, sure,” Pangolin said, gathering all the cards into a deck. 

“Hey,” Sterling said. “One more thing before we do that.”

The other two looked at fae quizzically. 

Sterling calmly asked, “Which one of you is the murderer?”

~~~

Dead: 8 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis, Periwinkle, Tenebrous, Wildsong)

Alive: 3 (Pangolin, Echo, Sterling)

~~~

Next part is the murderer reveal!!