THIS STORY IS NOT DEAD. I REPEAT, THIS STORY IS NOT DEAD. 

ELLNGHAM MANOR WILL CONTINUE. I REPEAT, ELLINGHAM MANOR WILL CONTINUE.

Top, top! 

THE END IS NEAR. JULY 1ST. I REPEAT, JULY 1ST.

Top! Top! Top! 

THE STORY SHOULD BE FINISHED IN TIME FOR ITS ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN SEPTEMBER. I REPEAT, THE STORY WILL BE FINISHED BY SEPTEMBER.

Top! Top! Top! Top! 

ALL WILL BE REVEALED BY THE STORY'S END. I REPEAT, ALL WILL BE REVEALED BY THE STORY'S END.

Top! Top! Top! Top! Top! 

Heave ho, to the top you go!

On the first page you'll be all the rage! 

Ellingham Manor is alive!! I've never been happier. :D

It's back!! It's back!! Yes!! I love this ski lodge, I can't wait! Time to obsessively reread the whole thing in preparation.

Yes! it! is! back! I can't wait for July 1st :)))

Chapter Fifteen 

“A Thousand Windows”

For several years afterward, Spirit would still hear that terrible noise from time to time, when they woke from a particularly bad dream. They had heard glass shatter before, but this was somehow different. It sounded like a thousand windows shattering all at once, and it seemed to last forever. The sound was bad enough, but it was inextricably linked to all the other horrible memories of that day, so whenever they heard it they thought of their death.

The sound had woken them the first time they heard it. Almost before their eyes had opened they were on their feet and running. They weren’t running anywhere in particular, just away — away from the sound, and then towards it, waging a furious argument within themselves about which way to go.

You have to help.

You can’t help if you’re next.

I have to take some risks if I’m going to help.

You’ve taken enough risks already.

But the murders haven’t stopped.

That last point was what made Spirit turn around and run in the direction of the sound. The sound was long gone, so Spirit had to guess which way they should go. They ran and ran and ran. More than once they tripped. They heard other footsteps, the other guests… who was left? The guilt of not knowing who was still alive and their curiosity pushed them to run even faster. 

Just as they thought they might drop dead, Spirit had made it. The sound had come from a room — a long and narrow room that held what looked to be an enormous telescope. Looking at it again, however, Spirit realized that there were a few shards of glass attached to one end of the telescope. Spirit leaned against the door to steady themselves and pulled back almost instantly. They turned around to see what had hurt them when they leaned back.

There were hundreds of tiny shards of glass stuck in the door.

Spirit turned around again, and scanned the room, taking their eyes off of the telescope and taking in the room as a whole.

The glass was everywhere. It had lodged itself into the walls and littered the floor. The room was empty except for the telescope, a lone picture frame missing a picture, and-

Nyx.

Luminescence.

“What on earth’s happened here?” droned an all-too-familiar voice.

Spirit clenched their teeth. They didn’t want to see his face, hear his voice. They walked very slowly over to the two bodies, glass crunching with every footstep they took.

“Do you hear me?”

They both lay face-down in positions far too uncomfortable to be natural. Nyx was wearing long pajamas. Luminescence was wearing some kind of dusty plaid coat. The room felt different near them — it was colder, the fault of an air vent, but there was also the faint sound of… the ocean? No, not the ocean… it was… 

“What are you doing here?”

The ends of Lumi’s hair had been singed. Gently turning her over, Spirit stared into eyes that could no longer stare back. The smell of smoke emanated from somewhere within the coat. It was hard to tell where Lumi began and her coat ended.

“I’m going to have to inform the others of this.”

“Are you?” Spirit was shaking now. “You’re going to tell everyone? Isn’t that convenient? So you can be the hero in a nightmare you made?”

Spirit turned around. Barnaby had crossed his arms, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

“What are you saying?”

“It’s you. Everyone knows it. You dropped that book. You released the snake. You pushed them off that balcony. Whatever happened to Kitten — you did that too.”

“I most certainly did not! I’ve served Lady Ellingham for decades, ever since the Sardine Incident began. Lady Ellingham made several prototypes before she built me, and were any of them well-mannered and clever enough to be a servant? They were not! Roxann and I were special, I a little more so than her, but that doesn’t matter! The point is-”

“Shut up.” Spirit closed their eyes. “Shut up. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” They were screaming by this point. 

Barnaby’s eyes, which were bulging so that they looked like they didn’t fit his face, now went to the opposite extreme. Slowly, he raised his arm until it was above his head. Spirit flinched and waited.

Nothing happened.

They opened their eyes again. Barnaby’s arm was stuck. He was trying to bring it down with a considerable amount of effort, but it wasn’t giving. After a moment, he let it relax. It flopped down to his side. He looked at Spirit nervously for a moment. If they were going to say anything, he wasn’t going to stick around to hear it. He ran, but Spirit had no energy to chase him. They went back to the center of the room. The faint ocean-not-ocean sound was still there. 

Nyx’s pajamas had not been singed, but her hair had been. Spirit turned Nyx over. Hair still covered her face, so Spirit gently brushed it away. Her face was just as quiet as Lumi’s, but somehow, things felt… wrong.

What was going on?

Spirit reached out to touch Nyx’s face and gasped. They backed up as the ocean-not-ocean sound grew louder. Spirit hit the ground on their palms. Glass dug into their hands, making them cry out. The ocean-not-ocean noise was suddenly gone. 

What was going on?

Footsteps drew close. Spirit had to tell whoever it was. They couldn’t. They had to.

Magnus opened the door. His face was solemn, but Spirit could sense something deeper in his eyes — anguish.

“Come with me, please.” 

Spirit did, to a musty bedroom. A rusty twin bed sat in the corner, and a chair stood in the very center of the room, a small round table flanking it.

“Please sit in the chair.”

Spirit did.

“You’ll stay here until the carriage is fixed.”

Spirit did.

“Roxann will watch you and serve your meals until then.”

Roxann did, entering the room as if on cue.

“You should get your hands bandaged.”

Spirit did.

“Feel free to try and put together that puzzle.”

Spirit did.

Magnus smiled sadly. “Everyone’s in their own room, Spirit. Please don’t take this too harshly.”

Spirit did anyway as they put the puzzle together.

You have to help.

You can’t help if you’re next.

I have to take some risks if I’m going to help.

You’ve taken enough risks already.

But the murders haven’t stopped.

I have to tell them.

But who is “them”? Who can I tell? Who can I trust?

Spirit repeated this argument to themselves as they opened the box containing the puzzle, as they took the corner and edge pieces and put them into a pile, as they assembled the puzzle, as Roxann left to fetch Spirit’s supper, and as they looked for that last piece of the puzzle, which must have fallen off of the table. 

“You have to help. You can’t help if you’re next.” Spirit was about to look under the table when suddenly someone grabbed the back of their neck. The hand was cold and its fingernails were long, digging into Spirit’s skin.

“You’re next,” said a voice.

Something was in Spirit’s mouth. 

What is it? What is it?

The puzzle piece. I found it.

The hand let go of Spirit, who crumpled over. The puzzle piece was lodged in their throat.

Where is Roxann?

Spirit tried to call for help, but they couldn’t get the puzzle piece out of their throat. They coughed and hacked until they hit the floor.

“Good night, Spirit. Sleep well.”

Who? Who did this?

I have to stay awake.

I have to stay.

I have to.

I have.

I-

Spirit’s memories ended there.

Chapter Sixteen

“The Notebook”

It was somehow too quiet and too loud that night in the Manor. PygmyOwl sat on her bed, unable to get any sleep. No noise came from outside — not even the sound of Lady Ellingham working on the carriage. Inside, the walls seemed to be talking to themselves; every so often a quiet noise of clanking metal would emanate from one of the walls, and Pygmy would sit up a little straighter on her bed. She wondered where Lady Ellingham and the robots were. She wondered what would happen to her and Queen. When Magnus had found them, trying to navigate the dusty corridors of one of the house’s upper floors, he hadn’t said anything. He had led them each to their own room and left, all without saying a word. 

Pygmy tried to remember how long she and Queen had stayed hidden. Time passed differently on the Ellingham estate — when Pygmy looked back at the past few days they felt like they had gone by in both seconds and several millennia. 

Pygmy hoped that Queen wasn’t too upset, wherever she was. Pygmy had no idea what came next. She hadn’t seen any of the other guests, barring Queen, for over twenty-four hours. Or maybe it just felt like that long — Pygmy’s watch had stopped when she had entered the Ellingham estate, and no amount of tinkering had fixed it.

Thunder crashed from outside. The entire room, possibly the entire house, shook. Pygmy jumped and screamed, quickly clapping a hand over her mouth. The air was suddenly full of anticipation. Electricity. Pygmy knew that something was going to happen, that she had to do something, that she would do something. But what?

The door opened with a loud creak. Pygmy craned her neck to see Magnus wearing a bright yellow raincoat. 

“This way,” he said without looking at Pygmy.

“Where are we going?”
“Home.”

“Home? Is the carriage fixed?”
“No.”
“But then how can we go home if it’s not been repaired?”
“Things have gone horribly wrong here.”
“Things are going horribly wrong here. We’re not done yet. We haven’t caught the murderer.”

“We don’t have to. You and QueenOfWolves are the only two left here.”

She lied to me.

Pygmy remembered how Queen had pulled her into her impromptu investigation, the notebooks they had shared, and how Queen had almost never left her side once they began trying to solve the mysteries of Ellingham Manor. Pygmy had trusted her. Pygmy had trusted a murderer with her life.

“Your bags are being packed as we speak,” Magnus said. “Come on. After I get you to the carriage, I have to collect QueenOfWolves too.”

“But what about everyone who’s dead?”
Magnus inhaled sharply. “That is… out of my hands. We are taking everyone’s remaining luggage, so that the CAPTCHAs and Alter Egos of those lost have something to… remember them by.”

“Out of your hands? Magnus, what are you saying? Something is going on here, something big. You have to tell me-”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Magnus growled, crossing his arms. Pygmy noticed that up his sleeve, Magnus had hidden a cricket bat. In case Queen tries anything.

“You… don’t think I’m the murderer, do you?”

“I don’t know. Now come on.” He held the door open for Pygmy, who followed him into the hallway.

The electricity was still in the air. Humming. Buzzing. Pygmy knew that nothing was right. Not them going home in the carriage, not the CBers being left in the freezer room, and certainly not Queen being the murderer. It just didn’t fit. There were pieces from two different puzzles, and Pygmy was trying to put them together to make one puzzle. Pygmy wished she had never heard of Ellingham Manor. She wished that she had thrown that stupid bird in the garbage can when she got that letter on that gray and cloudy day.

Wait, wait, wait. Queen’s been by my side pretty much since we escaped the wine cellar. Meaning that… she can’t be the murderer. Can she? 

She can’t be. 

And it’s not me. There aren’t any times where I can’t remember what I did here or where I blacked out.

But then… who on earth is it?

The carriage sat unsteadily on the gravel path that led to the estate entrance. The electricity — Pygmy couldn’t think of a better word for it — was even stronger here. Up above, the clouds were churning themselves into a fearsome thunderstorm. Roxann sat on top of the carriage, looking up at the sky and crying. 

Who could have guessed? Pygmy drove that thought from her head, though. She knew that she had to do something. The timing had to be perfect. 

When Queen gets here. I can’t do this without her.

Upstairs, Queen was quickly catching up on the situation. She, too, had gone through the my friend is a murderer phase, only to realize that Pygmy had been with her ever since they escaped the wine cellar together. As she approached the carriage, she saw Pygmy waiting in the now-pouring rain, trying and failing to keep herself dry with a quilt that Roxann had pulled out of the pile of luggage. Barnaby stood by the front of the carriage with a suitcase, grumbling to himself. Magnus stood near the CBers, keeping an eye on them.

“...Where are the horses?” Queen asked. It was a dumb question, especially with the electricity all around. Queen had to do something. She didn’t know what, she didn’t know when, and she didn’t know where, but she had to do something. 

“While she was repairing the carriage, Lady Ellingham made some improvements,” Barnaby sniffed. “Now it doesn’t even need horses to move. Cutting-edge technology.”

“Uh… sure.” Queen caught Pygmy’s eye, and they shared a look. Queen suddenly felt like she should apologize for suspecting Pygmy.

“Queen,” Pygmy said quietly. “We have to do something. We’re leaving Lady Ellingham alone with a murderer if we get into the carriage, and we can’t do that.”

Queen frowned. “What good has coming here done us? Eight people are dead, we’ve been threatened by a crazy robot, and we’re now being taken home in a carriage that may or may not be safe. Why should we care about Lady Ellingham?”

“Because she cares about us,” Pygmy whispered. “She invited us for a Week of Wonder and Whimsy, and when something interfered with that, she did her best to protect us. She’s worked day and night to repair the carriage. She knew that there were secrets we would uncover, and she was prepared for that. She took us to some of her favorite places. She wanted us to fall in love with the manor. This entire trip was a plan — not an evil plan, but a plan to find Lady Ellingham an heir! She’s not exactly young, and if that room with the photographs is any indication she has no children. The robots can’t exactly be trusted to watch after everything themselves. Lady Ellingham wants someone who cares about the mansion, who loves the mansion as much as she does, to have it once she is… gone. And whoever the killer is wants the Ellingham legacy to die with Flora. We can’t let that happen. We can’t. You’ve seen this place. It’s magical. Please, Queen.” Tears now stung Pygmy’s eyes. “Please.”

Queen nodded very slowly. 

“Please.”

“We can’t very well stop a murderer if we don’t know who they are,” Queen said, straightening her back and standing tall.

“Thank you,” Pygmy said. “Thank you so much. I knew you would understand-”

“Sh! Just… not now, Pygmy. Is Barnaby busy?”
“No, he’s looking out at the lake.” Pygmy, now completely focused on the task at hand, barely moved her mouth.

“Good.” Queen grabbed the suitcase and before Barnaby could say anything, swung it directly at his head. It made contact with a horrible clanging sound. Queen noticed with a pang of guilt that the side of Barnaby’s head was now dented. Whirling around, she saw Magnus, wielding a long, flat sort of baseball bat.

“I should have guessed,” he said, and drew the bat over his shoulder.

“Sorry, Magnus,” Queen whispered.

With a great effort, Pygmy jumped onto his back and wrapped her arms around his thick neck. Magnus gasped and dropped the bat. Queen swung the suitcase and knocked Magnus out in one hit. Atop the carriage, Roxann gasped.

“H-h-help!” She tried to scream, but it came out as a whisper. “At-t-t-tackers! Somebody help!”

“Where is Lady Ellingham?” Queen breathed. “She’s been hiding from us for too long. We need her to explain everything.”

“I haven’t seen her. Our best bet is the house.”
“You sure?”
Pygmy closed her eyes for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “I hope so,” she said.

Ellingham Manor was eerie with people and robots inside it. Deserted, it was downright chilling. Every creak of a floorboard, every creak of door hinges, every footstep was twice as loud as it should have been. 

“Any idea where Lady Ellingham sleeps?” asked Pygmy.

“The photo room? No — the bed in there was made…”

“This is ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Pygmy, calm down.” Queen put her hands on Pygmy’s shoulders and shook her. “There has got to be something that we can follow — a clue. Keep your eyes and ears peeled, and hurry for gosh sakes. I don’t know how long it’ll be until Magnus wakes up.”

“Help! Help! Fire! Police! Somebody help!” Roxann’s voice was unmistakable.

“Go!” Queen yelled. The detectives ran, trying to remember the way to the Memory Room. The manor’s hallways seemed to shift and bend as Pygmy and Queen ran though them. Roxann was still screaming, and now the walls were joining in, clanging and groaning. 

“I… swear… we’ve… passed… that… ugly… painting… before…” Queen panted, coming to a stop. 

The detectives sat there, breathing heavily for a moment. There seemed to be nothing left for them to do. Lady Ellingham was alone with a murderer in the house. They were lost. Pygmy couldn’t think about that. Not now. She concentrated on her breathing, short and shallow gulps of air, and then tried to make her breath like Queen’s, deep and slow. Or was that-

“There’s someone else,” Pygmy said quietly.

“What on earth are you talking about?”
“The walls.” Pygmy could now only hear herself and Queen. “Someone’s in the walls, and they’re about to jump out at us and try to finish us off. Stay where you are.”

Queen did, not daring to blink. Pygmy looked down the hallway and saw an air return. Something — a pair of eyes? — glittered back at her. 

“Let’s move.” They had found the murderer. 

“Where do we go?”

“We follow the eyes.” Pygmy took a step forward and spoke up. “Who are you?”

The glittering was gone. The walls now began to rumble again as the murderer crawled through the air vents. 

“Pipes, Ron, pipes!” Pygmy whispered.

“What?” Queen blinked.

“Never mind.” Pygmy began to run again, Queen now following her. 

The murderer knew that someone was on their trail. They crawled faster and didn’t bother with being quiet. Around cobwebby corners and down long stretches of carpet, Pygmy and Queen followed the murderer all the way to a bedroom. Queen threw the door open. A strange noise, like a frying pan being dropped, came from the far side of the room, the side with an air return. The familiar clanging of the murderer crawling through the air vents faded away.

“Whose room is this?” Pygmy asked.

“...Nyx and Darkling’s.” Queen walked over to an open duffel bag. Pygmy kept an eye on the air return.

There were a lot of clothes in the bag, dirty T-shirts and rumpled jeans. There was a toothbrush, toothpaste, an ornate hand mirror…

“Any name on the bag?” Pygmy hardly dared speak above a stage whisper.

“No-” Queen pulled out a notebook and her brow furrowed. “Who the heck is Mariella Shropshire?”

“That name is familiar.” Pygmy joined Queen on the floor, rummaging through the bag. The notebook was made of brown leather, with “Mariella Shropshire, Academy of Physical Sciences” embossed on it in gold. “I’ve heard it. Recently.”

Queen opened the notebook and stared at the image of herself, smiling back. It looked like a yearbook photo of some kind. She wore a polo shirt and she was smiling widely in the way that one smiles for a photo that they know strangers will be looking at.

The next page had a photo of Pygmy. This one looked as if it had been taken from a car — the edge of a window could be seen at the bottom of the photo.

Quill was on the next page. TERMINATED had been scrawled in china marker across the photo of Quill, who was on some kind of a stage.

Lumi, TERMINATED.

Mary, TERMINATED.

Darkling, TERMINATED.

Spirit, TERMINATED.

Kitten, TERMINATED.

Agent Winter, TERMINATED.

Nyx, DISPLACED.

“Displaced… displaced… Pygmy, what does ‘displaced’ mean?”

“To displace is to take over the place, position, or role of something.”

“Or someone.” Queen pulled out a wig, a wig that looked just like-

Pygmy screamed. In her hand was a human face, or rather a rubbery mask.

“Mariella wrote lots of letters to Lady Ellingham. I read them when we were in that room with all the photos. She wanted Lady Ellingham to reconsider a big decision that she had just made… yes. She wanted revenge. She did… something to Nyx and then disguised herself as Nyx with these clothes, and the wig, and this weird rubber mask thing. She ‘terminated’ the guests as Nyx. She’s our murderer.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Where is Nyx?” Queen shuddered. “And more importantly… where is Mariella?”