The Greyback Manor

Chapter nine

I waited until the full moon had set to go speak with Connor and Alexandria. There was only so long I could watch the paint dry though until I decided I needed to do something. I looked at Hyde, who had started to sweat and reached for the whiskey. 

"I need a place to make a detective board," I said.  

"Oh?" he asked. Before he could give confirmation, I ran off into his office after I got lost twice. The hallway was still dark, and under the full moon, the office looked even creepier. I brushed the dust of all the desk and took out some blank pages set on the chair. Hyde came into the office as well and let a lantern to see what I was up too. 

“Alright, let’s see we are going to need some ink. I've got clues to jot down." Hyde gave me a look of confusion at the slang term. Which made me giggle while I used a quill to write all of my clues down. There were no pictures of all the guests, so I used their invitations to pin them against the wall.  

"What are you doing to my wallpaper?" Hyde asked.  

“Shh, I'm thinking, and I've seen it done in movies," I responded. A thrill went through me as I created the detective board, adding everything I knew about all the guests at the dinner party. I started with the deceased ones, like how Dorian Gray hardly aged for over twenty years. Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster were once married, but now they hated each other. The three witches were a trio and practiced spell casting.  

There was not much on the headless horseman, so I decided to label him with the question mark page. The old-looking page seemed simple. I deduced that it was Dorian Gray's page. So, I wrote all of the page names onto the pieces of paper I had grabbed. I had a string to attach them all, so I just used the rope inside of Hyde's desk.  

“Careful, you might break my rope," Hyde cautioned.  

"I won’t, and please refrain from interrupting me. That’s a pet peeve of mine. Okay, so Dorian was the first victim, and he was old, so his page must be the old one. Where's that picture?" I asked as I connected the two with a rope.  

"Back at the hotel, I think," Hyde responded.  

"Then I'll have to travel over there soon. Okay, so the witches must be the Wiccan page, even without Hannah. They were spell casting left and right," I said. My voice soothed my own worries, and I felt a natural pull to this. The connections seemed to make more sense the more I thought about it. Dear old Kelly Frankenstein and her monster created and destroyed. I went back and forth between which should go under that category. Once I had made a guess on all of the deceased hotel guests, I turned around.  

“Wow, my eyes hurt, but I think I can say I understand what you are doing," Hyde said. I gave him a small smile, and my cheeks flushed a bit.  

“Thanks. If I'm right, if Alexandria is the hunter, Connor is the hunted, then Dorian would be the old one, while the witches are the Wiccan,” I explained. "That gives us four pages, and there's the creator and destroyer. Those cards go right along with the story of Frankenstein. Kelly is the creator, as she created the monster who destroyed her life." All the pages seemed to come together, and I made a list of possible objects that could go on the page. I recalled that every guest had an item stolen like Alexandria’s knife.  

"And pretty much everything else,” Hyde added, which made me push him in a playful gesture, the electricity from before running through my veins. I laughed to conceal the new emotions brewing in me, yet that only made them grow.