The Phantastic Apparition Social Society Presents: A Murder of Sorts at Unlivington Manor, Chapter 6
As Camille’s body flew through the sky, Rex thought she would have made an excellent acrobat, and was about to say so, but a jagged shard of ceramic sailed right towards his eye with a whoosh. He caught it with a scowl just as the double bass came at him, which forced him to toss the violin bow aside, which poked Polly in her eye. The guests lay twisted in a horrible pile beside unconscious Daisy and Todd, and in the doorway stood Iggy, blood stained along the front of her dress, sweat dipping down her brows, bruises all over her body that seemed to be wrapped in cling film, and an expression on her face that was equal parts petrified and infuriated.
Vincenzo telekinetically yanked the strings off the double bass and wrapped them around Iggy’s wrists and ankles, fastening her a chair. Her mouth screamed in terror and Mildred put a sock in it.
Shaughnessy frowned at his now bare foot and began to sing, “Deep in the woods in a house on a hill, we lay our scene tonight. O night! ’Twas filled with fright!” His opera tune continued, as Iggy whimpered from the chair, “You’ll find us there as the winds goes shrill, with a fancy table spread. Six courses served with dread.”
Polly walked over to Iggy, whose muffled cries increased as the lump in her throat grew. “She’s choking on this sock!” Polly opened Iggy’s mouth, “Iggy’s trying to do herself in!” She released the sock from Iggy’s mouth. “Don’t swallow this! We’re going to help you!”
Iggy gasped, cried, stuttered, and did all of the things you might imagine one would do when trapped in a room full of ghosts who wanted to kill you. “Leave me alone!” She wailed. “And stop that song!”
Shaughnessy looked offended. Everyone loved his operatic tune. It was the one that got such high praise for its wild arpeggios. Earlier this evening, it had moved the room to tears. It moved Iggy, however, into a frenzy. She winced and moaned and thrashed.
Camille was brave enough to address the human. “He can’t help it, he’s a singing ghost. That’s one of his signature operas.”
“That awful song! It’s from the opera house! I hate that song, I hate that song!” She whipped her head in Shaughnessy’s direction. “And I hate you!”
Shaughnessy responded with a bellowing aria of rage. “Deep in the woods in a house on a hill!” His song catapulted the sock back into Iggy’s throat and she nearly died of asphyxiation.
“One moment, please,” Mildred’s hands were high in the air as the room grew silent. “Yes, Iggy, Shaughnessy is the ghost who haunts the opera house. But why do I feel like there is something else we should know?” She raised a ghastly eyebrow, which to the other ghosts was a scary sight, so when Iggy saw it, she nearly wet herself.
Poor Iggy cried, “That stupid opera house that everyone is so excited to visit because of its singing ghost! Our theatre is wonderful to, you know!”
Iggy came from a family who owned The Small Town Little Theatre, an independent venue for the performing arts. It was doing well financially, until the opera house down the road got a ghost, and excited patrons decided to flock there with their money, hoping for a unique and haunting experience. Iggy couldn’t stand to see her family go bankrupt, so she began terrorizing the opera house in her own human way: setting fires, smashing windows, typical vandalism. And from his favourite seat in the balcony, Shaughnessy watched. And his hatred for Iggy grew. The other ghosts realized immediately that Shaughnessy had the biggest murderous motive of them all.
Vincenzo smirked at this news. “My, isn’t this a fun turn of events? Shaughnessy dabbling in revenge—I’m impressed.”
“He may very well be grumpier than me,” Rex muttered.
“All of you really did hate Iggy,” Polly sounded sad.
Vincenzo was sharp with a retort. “To be fair, we only knew her while she was under your possession. Technically, it seems we didn’t like you.”
Polly pouted, Vincenzo smiled smugly, Rex sighed in annoyance, Iggy whimpered, Camille propped Daisy and Todd against the wall, Shaughnessy cleared his throat, and Mildred stopped him. “No, no singing. Tell us you did it, Shaughnessy.”
Shaughnessy firmly shook his head.
Polly was puzzled. “We’ve already established that Camille gathered an eyelash, Mildred poisoned her, and Rex shot her through the trap door into the ballroom. But Shaughnessy was singing in the conservatory the entire time.”
Camille nodded and pointed to Iggy’s bruises. “We don’t know what the weapon was that made these.”
“Yes we do,” Mildred turned to Vincenzo. “Before Daisy and Todd walked in, you said ‘I’ll go get the candlestick’. You know that you need the assailant and the original weapon to reverse a re-aliving spell. How did you know Iggy was beaten bloody with a candlestick? Did the two of you plan this?”
Vincenzo glared. “No, I didn’t do it.”
“Then how did you know about the candlestick?”
“Fine! Because I planted it and hoped to re-alive her before dessert, but she was a mess on the floor before I could even get an eyelash. Thank you Camille, and Rex. Mildred, Polly, all of you.”
“Let me go!”
“Be quiet if you want to live,” Mildred shushed Iggy.
Camille tried to make sense of everything. “All right, let’s get a few things straight. Polly possessed her, which brought her into the library. Mildred poisoned her, which allowed her to grow weak enough to get knocked over by the globe and fall through the chute, prepared by Rex. She was thrown into the ballroom next to the candlestick, which was the weapon Vincenzo planted, setting it all up for re-alivement since I had snatched an eyelash and set it on fire. But since Iggy’s human, it looks like I’m in the clear.”
“Oh shut up, Camille, you’re still as guilty as any of us,” Mildred picked up the salad plates and stacked them neatly in a pile. ”The question is, how did Shaughnessy sneak away to bludgeon her with the candlestick?”
“I never left the conservatory—”
Polly gasped. “Everyone, to the conservatory! Shaughnessy, you’re not off the hook yet. Mildred and Camille, help me restrain a singing limb, and let’s go.”
“Mind my back—“
“Put a lid on it, Shaughnessy. Rex, take Iggy. Vincenzo, go get the candlestick, and quick! I bet there’s another secret passageway!”
Rex heaved under Iggy and the chair’s weight. “No, there isn’t. And someone had better clean up this mess.”
Everyone pattered down the hall back into the conservatory and began to inspect the walls. Mildred pointed to a corner crawling with creeping ivy. “Shaughnessy stood right there. We all saw him. Start singing, Shaughnessy; let’s re-create the evening.”
Shaughnessy sighed, but he was always pleased to have an audience and obliged, “Deep in the woods in a house on a hill, we lay our scene tonight. O night! ’Twas filled with fright. You’ll find us there as the winds goes shrill, with a fancy table spread. Six courses served with dread.”
“Stop the song! Please!” Iggy yelled.
“Oh, but everyone loves this song,” Camille explained, “look at how the ivy is swaying around him in time to the lilting notes. It’s moving, isn’t it?”
Rex pointed, “It is moving. Literally. Shaughnessy’s singing moves objects.”
With this realization dawning on the Phantastic Apparition Social Society, everyone instantly put together what had transpired that evening:
As the sun set over Unlivington Manor, Mildred was marching up the lane, on the phone with the caterers, ensuring they had received her nine-page party document. Camille had already arrived, but didn’t make it up to the doorstep because she found Iggy sleeping under a tree. With a spark of mean-spirited inspiration, she snatched an eyelash from Iggy’s lid, tucked it into her pocket, met Mildred by the front porch, and the two floated towards the door. Meanwhile, Rex was setting up his globe and unlocking his trap door, in hopes of catching Iggy this evening. He floated out of the manor to the gate and greeted Polly. Once inside, Polly got comfortable in a seat in the conservatory, astral projected to the outdoor grounds, possessed Iggy, and brought her inside just as Vincenzo and Shaughnessy arrived. Vincenzo excused himself right away, and planted the heaviest candlestick beside the fireplace in the ballroom, resolving to secure an eyelash from Iggy and re-alive her. Then cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were served.
After The Ballad of the Blue Boat, Iggy (technically Polly), wanted to give Iggy some comforting—albeit fake—information, and asked Mildred about The Scientific Studies of Narcolepsy. Mildred, who had been waiting for a chance to poison Iggy, happily escorted her down the hall towards the library, slipping in an anesthetic along the way before scurrying off to the kitchen. From there, Iggy (again, Polly) searched the bookshelves, grew nauseous, and popped back into her own body, where she joined the rest of the Society in appreciating the music, which was now the operatic tune. Rex told Vincenzo about Opal’s passing, and across the manor, Iggy was knocked over by the globe, plummeted through the chute, and flew out of the fireplace and into the middle of the ballroom floor.
In the conservatory, Camille sneakily burned Iggy’s eyelash with a match (which honestly, didn’t do anything), and at the same time Mildred returned, Polly awoke, and Vincenzo hid in the secret passageway to hide his grief. And Shaughnessy, now reaching the B section of the melody, sung loud and clear, his voice telekinetically lifting the candlestick from its place beside the ballroom fireplace, and bludgeoned Iggy’s poor human body with every staccato. Having only had a sip or two of anesthetic, she was immediately awake. At one point she rose up, and in a woozy state tried to make it out of the ballroom, but she only got a few steps out before Shaughnessy’s big finish, which hurtled her back into the room, directly under the chandelier.
Todd entered the conservatory, was too emotionally moved to ring the bell, ushered everyone towards the dining room, while Camille noticed Iggy’s bloody footprints, turned into the ballroom, screamed bloody re-alivement, and that is how they found her.
But the evening didn’t stop there.
Once Iggy had been thrown and locked into the closet, she came to, and was rightfully terrified. She grabbed a hairpin, realized she had lost her purple hair ribbon, picked the closet door’s lock, and tried to escape. The exits were secured, so she rushed into the nearest room, which was the dining room, and tried a window. That didn’t work, but there was a dagger in the corner (which was Rex’s backup plan if the trap door didn’t work, he was, after all, Rexford Stonegraves, tall and mean). Though she was unaware of who these people were, and what she was doing in this manor, Iggy knew that if she didn’t fight back, she’d be dead. So she practiced thrusting and stabbing in case she needed to kill someone. One attempt was too energized, and the dagger plunged up into the ceiling and stuck, hanging precariously over Vincenzo’s seat.
As voices grew louder, Iggy dashed out, trying every window and door to escape. At one point she ran quietly behind the ghosts who were huddled in the hall, and threw a glass in hopes of taking out at least one of them. Alas, every exit she tried was locked, and by the time she ended up in the library, she noticed the globe had been booby-tapped with a wire. Hearing voices behind a door (which was in fact the secret passageway), she strung the globe back up to knock out whoever was to come through. Then she rushed out of the library, just missing Todd who was picking up her hair ribbon from the floor, which had fallen out of Polly’s pocket. As Todd brought Polly in for palette cleansers, Iggy ran into Daisy in the kitchen, who assumed Iggy had woken up from her nap, and thought her bloody dress was still part of the dinner theatre. When Iggy asked for first aid, Daisy thought this was all part of a costume, and helped her wrap up each wound tight with plastic cling film—just in time, too, because by this point it was a miracle Iggy was still alive. Iggy thanked Daisy, who had already forgotten the interaction and was back to muttering about ungrateful guests. Iggy then decided to safely hide in the music room, curled up in the case of a cello, until the monsters went home. It was there she ran into Polly, who was searching for Iggy, fearing perhaps she had woken up. The two got into a scuffle, and surprisingly, Iggy was a good fighter. She managed to hang Polly up by a violin bow and raced out of there, throwing a crystal flute at her and screaming—because in this situation, one would scream.
Iggy resolved that she would have to take them out one by one, and noticed a large ceramic flower pot in the conservatory, hulled it over to the music room, and took out Camille, causing a domino effect.
It was really an exhausting night for Iggy.
Now, in the conservatory, after piecing the puzzle together, nobody knew what to do. Everyone was to blame in some way, but not in a re-alivement. They couldn’t let Iggy go, but after hours of defending themselves against criminal accusations, they couldn’t agree on who might kill her. The idea of it felt a bit cruel.
Iggy had been thrashing so much in her chair that her ankle strings came loose. In a fit of fury, she ran towards Shaughnessy, still attached to the chair by the wrists, and jumped at him with a headbutt, much like a goat. Unfortunately, he dodged, and the creeping ivy was so unruly, her neck got tangled in it. The weight of the chair tugged her down as the rope of the ivy tightened, and poor Iggy was strangled to death in the conservatory.
At this moment, Mildred noticed that Todd had laid out the raspberry meringue by the Chloris statue twenty minutes before its course, to soften just so and intensify the flavour. He really had paid attention to the nine-page party document.
When Iggy’s spirit came to, everyone was enjoying dessert. She floated over to her body, still hanging from the ivy, and murmured, “Oh no.”
Polly offered her a bowl of raspberry meringue. “Welcome to the Phantastic Apparition Social Society. We meet every year, and none of us like each other that much, but the evenings are always eventful.”
Iggy took a bite, and sadly proclaimed, “This meringue is perfection.”
The End
