The Phantastic Apparition Social Society Presents: A Murder of Sorts at Unlivington Manor, Chapter 1
Through the dark, twisted shadows of an overgrown forest, with tree branches that clawed through the mist like a skeletal ballet ensemble, was a house on a hill, that some might say was abandoned. That is, if you didn’t count the ghosts.
Unlivington Manor was once an esteemed estate. It was the hosted grounds of distinguished parties, owned by a family who stayed very much out of the public eye, but were known for inviting guests to revel in lavish, fantastical, and incredibly exclusive festivities. Nobody could ever remember having met a member of this family, but they do recall extraordinary evenings. To receive an invitation was a mark of high class, and each sensational soiree breathed life into the secluded, albeit slightly scary, woods.
Town residents will tell you that there hasn’t been a party held at Unlivington Manor in sixty-six years. As the greenery grew thicker over the estate and the roads leading up to it, people eventually got the sense that they should stay away. One could get lost, or eaten by a bear. And so to this day, it stands, hidden by a wild forest, and by all accounts of the human eye, empty. With the exception of one agent in the property tax office who receives timely payments in the mail, Unlivington Manor is no longer considered lively. Yet every year, around this time, seven well-dressed ghosts gather for a simply delightful dinner party. These dinner parties have gone on for at least sixty-six years, and just like the parties in the world of the living, the Phantastic Apparition Social Society boasts and eclectic group. Its membership includes:
Mildred, a millionaire ghost,
Vincenzo, a vengeful ghost,
Polly, a possessive ghost,
Rex, a reclusive ghost,
Shaughnessy, a singing ghost,
Camille, a contorting ghost,
and
Iggy, an innocent ghost.
There is also a chef, Daisy, and a butler, Todd. They used to cater in Hollywood, so this gig barely made their list of odd requests.
Each dinner party was the picture of grandeur, and you might assume that after all this time, the ghosts of the Phantastic Apparition Social Society had become great friends. But that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. In actual fact, they despised each other. They simply didn’t have any other friends. And so when Iggy was found on the floor of the ballroom bleeding from her stomach, things got interesting.
It was 25 minutes after cocktails, 12 minutes after hors-d’oeuvres, and right as the guests were moving from the conservatory to the dining room, that Camille noticed a trail of blood. She poked her head into the ballroom, found Iggy sprawled under the chandelier, and Daisy was quickly informed that the soup would have to be delayed.
“Next year, gazpacho,” the cook grumbled.
The six remaining guests gathered around sputtering and oozing Iggy, taking in the horrible sight. The gruesome scene. The ghastly view. The terrifying spectacle. The … well, you get the awful picture.
Iggy had been re-alived, and somebody in the manor was to blame for it.
Mildred, ever the initiator, took charge. “Secure the exits,” she ordered Todd, who had just gotten the scarlet splatters out of the hallway tile. Then she carefully removed a silk glove and put two fingers to Iggy’s throat. Under her pearl-rimmed spectacles, an eyebrow raised up in concern. “It’s a horrific mess,” she snivelled. “The young woman is alive.”
“Well, I didn’t do this,” Polly picked up Mildred’s fallen wrist glove and tucked it into her pocket (it was pretty, after all). The pilfering spirit turned to Vincenzo, who was scowling at the chandelier. “Perhaps Vincenzo acted on a grudge.” All heads turned in his direction, which, if he had blood, would have made it boil.
“How dare you accuse me! I’ve been in the conservatory the whole time, crammed between mummified plants and Shaughnessy’s never-ending arias. This heinous act was not done by me.”
From her pretzeled position, Camille pointed a toe Rex. “Rex! Every year you complain about having to see our faces. Was this your attempt at finally getting rid of us?”
Rex remained in the corner. “I would have re-alived you all at once, to avoid prologued interaction such as this.”
“In times of great peril, might I sign a carol—”
“Quiet, Shaughnessy!” The rest tried to put their heads together to solve this great mystery.
“Maybe it’s a party trick,” Camille offered.
Vincenzo floated up to the chandelier, dislodged a magnificent candle, and let it fall onto Iggy’s foot with a whomp. She shrieked as the fire hit her lilac stockings, which perfectly matched her Mary Jane shoes. Mildred promptly stomped out the flame with an elegant boot and concluded, “It’s not.”
Polly covered a bleeding gash with a napkin, and spoke over Iggy’s whimpers. “It’s not that bad, is it?”
In actuality, it was quite bad. Though Iggy was the youngest ghost of them all (having only entered the society ten years ago), an entire body of blood rushing into a corpse only to gush back out unexpectedly lends itself to being a messy affair. Then there’s the psychological effects, which were better understood by the International Un-Body of Paranormal Psychologists, whose offices were coincidentally housed above the property tax office. Re-aliving was unpleasant and horribly complicated. Nevertheless, Polly fiddled with a napkin.
“For ten full years, she haunted the woods, but now she dines alone.”
Rex telekinetically lifted the nearest velvet curtain and began to wrap it around Shaughnessy’s throat, ending the ballad. Meanwhile, Vincenzo shot everyone a suspicious glower. “Whoever did this to Iggy might go after the rest of us, and I for one, will not stand by and become a beating pile of life tonight. Confess, culprit! So that we may do away with you.”
“We should certainly get to the bottom of this,” Camille crossed her arms and legs.
Rex eyed Polly, who was still gently stroking Iggy’s bracelet-adorned wrist, and muttered, “All of this accusation could be a cover up to throw us off the track.”
Polly noticed, and dropped the limb defensively. “Yes, Rex, we should take everyone’s attitude into consideration.”
“She’ll cry and have questions, let’s put her away—”
“Agreed.” Mildred’s glare lifted Iggy’s body off the ground into mid-air. She flicked her eyes to the doorway, which sent the poor woman’s body shooting through the hall and neatly into a closet. A thump of the unconscious body, a slam of the door, and they could now focus on the task at hand. “Just who had the nerve to ruin a perfectly planned dinner party?”
Silence filled the room as each spirit assessed their company. Who, out of them all, had decided to commit such a sanguinary crime?
Rex reached for a half-full glass of champagne but Polly snatched it back, protectively cradling it in her hands. “Why don’t we start with who left the conservatory with Iggy,” she turned as all eyes rested on Mildred, “care to comment, Mildred?”
Mildred patted around for her lost silk glove and collected herself. “Yes, I did leave the conservatory with Iggy. She had asked if I knew about a book in the library, and I was accompanying her when Todd bombarded me with a question about the fish course, so I turned down the hall to attend to that. Afterwards I looked in the library, Iggy wasn’t there, so I made my way back to the conservatory for hors d’oeuvres, as I assumed she had as well.”
“And what did you do when you saw she wasn’t there?” Vincenzo aimed an accusing finger.
“I didn’t notice. Shaughnessy’s voice was entering the B section of the melody, and you know how distracting that can be.”
They were referring to his favourite operatic number, and distracting it was. The notes of the B section go through incredible acrobatics before resolving into a hauntingly lovely ending. On this particular evening, Todd was so moved that he had forgotten to ring the bell to usher everyone into the dining room. After a moment of emotional silence, he had eventually mustered, “Soup.”
Camille contorted herself into a backbend bridge, elbows on the floor, hands around her ankles, and peered through her knees, unconvinced. “What was the book?”
“Excuse me?”
“The book Iggy was so interested in finding.”
The crowd closed in around Mildred, her diamond necklaces glistening in the thin sliver of moonlight that bled in from a large window. Rex’s lip curled in disgust. Polly’s pupils widened. Vincenzo’s frown deepened. Camille’s chin lifted. Shaughnessy’s nostrils flared. And Mildred, bejewelled and offended, spoke calmly: “The Scientific Studies of Narcolepsy.”
It should be noted that Iggy was prone to narcoleptic habits. For the ten years they had known her, it was common to find her napping mid-conversation, between courses, everywhere from in the study, the foyer, even on the toilet. Iggy the innocent ghost was a narcoleptic spirit. And it was no secret that her dining table snoring bothered no one more than etiquette-revering Mildred.
Polly snacked on a croquette while guarding a few more in her pockets. Chewing potato, she noted, “We all know how you feel about poor, innocent Iggy’s dozing off. What is it you’re always saying to the rest of us? Oh yes, that table manners and social graces must be respected at all costs,” Polly’s voice raised, “what if this was the cost?”
“She cursed her and cursed her evermore; flung her back through Afterlife’s door …” Shaughnessy’s serenade of mourning seeped through the room like an omen. He carried on, “the innocent Iggyyyyyyyyy—”
“Stop that nonsense, she was not that innocent, and we all know that!” Mildred flung a sapphire earring in frustration, which cut the impressive coloratura short. The gemstone passed by Vincenzo’s boot, whose scowl slowly turned upwards into a smile. He sauntered forward and whispered in Mildred’s ear.
“Did you do it, then? Take your revenge? Did it feel exhilarating?”
“And ruin my own dinner party? Certainly not! Besides,” she thrust her fingers in each of their faces. “You know that this is what happens to me when I touch human flesh!” The two fingers on her right hand that had found Iggy’s pulse were seared a deep purple. “I’ve always had an allergy to cheap fabric, and living skin is no exception.”
As she waved her hands for emphasis, Rex grabbed her left wrist. “Is that why you wear gloves, Mildred?”
An audible gasp shook the chandelier crystals and everyone stared at Mildred’s left hand, which was tucked neatly into its crimson silk glove.
“Crimson … the colour of blood,” Polly whispered to no one in particular, and everyone at once.
Mildred looked at the clock: the soup course was exactly nine minutes delayed, and the disastrous turn of events would haunt her for the next century. She exhaled deeply and controlled her tone. “Every ghost knows that the act of re-aliving someone requires an eyelash, and I must inform you,” she freed her hand from Rex’s grasp and waved it for all to see, “this luxurious fabric is far too smooth for that sort of grip.” She tried to get a hold of her own eyelashes and her slippery glove made her case with conviction.
“Then I propose we end this here, and go back to our solitary lives,” Rex began floating towards the door as the rest considered simply forgetting that the accident had happened.
Camille contorted into a spiral. “And allow whoever did this to come for us later?”
The realization that someone else could be next was strengthened by the fact that no one was confessing to the crime. It was a stale-mate, and by the looks of things, going to be a very long night. Suddenly a bell in the doorway shattered the silence.
It was Todd. He cleared his throat and announced, “The cook would like to say that the soup is best served now, if you’d like to move into the dining room,” he looked around. “Where did Iggy go?”
Polly fastened Mildred’s lost earring into her own ear and immediately sided up to Todd. “You seem incredibly calm given the situation.”
By ‘situation’, Todd thought Polly was referring to Iggy’s theatrics, which to him seemed to be taken from an overly enthusiastic improv troupe. He shrugged. “Oh, you mean the sprawling? I’m used to dinner theatre, saw it all the time in West Hollywood. Honestly, a lot of it wasn’t that good. Well done on the fake blood—since, you know, you folks don’t do that.”
The Phantom Apparition Social Society exchanged a quiet telepathic conversation that concluded it was best not to inform the catering staff about this ugly no-longer-a-ghost mishap. If Todd or Daisy told anyone, they would have to kill them, meaning their human families would likely investigate the manor, and finding a new manor was inconvenient. So, they played along.
Vincenzo led the way. “Iggy’s always wanted to be an actress. Alas, she’s taking one of her naps. Let’s have the soup.” He approached the grand dining table and took a seat. The others promptly did the same.
As bowls of tomato bisque performed an aromatic dance underneath each of their noses, Mildred, Vincenzo, Polly, Rex, Camille, and Shaughnessy studied each other meticulously. If Mildred wasn’t to blame, then who?
Shaughnessy eventually broke the tension, with a trilling thought that captured what everyone was considering, “If Mildred’s hands burn free from crime, than whose are stained as red as—”
He couldn’t finish the stanza, for a steak knife fell from the ceiling directly towards Vincenzo’s head.
