Oh my goodness Storm! So she is the real murderer. She just has someone else doing the dirty work.

Tenney was the first downstairs in the morning, and therefore the first to find Peri’s body. She ran up to fetch Storm, who looked down sadly at the scene with tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

Poor Storm, Wildsong thought. This must be so hard for her.

They had a quick funeral, and then breakfast. Echo always hated the days when the murder happened in the morning, because then the mood for the rest of the day was cast in shadows. The good (or bad) news was that the five remaining guests were more or less used to this by now, so there was less general melancholy, and by the afternoon, they were in relatively high spirits again. For lunch Storm conjured up an elaborate salad bar with every topping imaginable, which was greatly enjoyed. 

When Pangolin popped her head outside, she discovered that it was abnormally warm and that the sun was, for once, unobstructed completely and shone warmly down. She raced back inside and suggested that they all go out for a swim at the rocky beach.

“Good idea!” Storm said. “But just be careful not to go too far out, the riptide can be very strong.”

Because no one thought to bring a bathing suit to such a setting, they all braved the water in their clothing instead, which felt strange at first but was quickly forgotten once they started moving around. A few people (Sterling and Pangolin) elected not to swim, but instead sat on the beach under the sun. Pangolin leaned back against one of the boats comfortably, the rocky beach having soaked up much of the warmth. She was thankful that this beach was finally being used for something good instead of funeral after funeral.

The guests who were swimming, after engaging in a game of Marco Polo, got out of the water and laid down on the rocks, drying in the sun. They played I Spy (“I spy with my little eye, something blue”; “Is it the sky?”; “How’d you know?”) and laughed almost the whole way through. Tenney, who was dressed in a modern style tye-dye tank top and jean shorts, hunted the beach for flat, smooth rocks to attempt to skip. That quickly devolved into a competition of who could skip a rock the most times, and it seemed like Wildsong was going to win before Echo whipped a stone across the surface of the water eleven times in a row. Pangolin quickly fashioned a trophy out of some seaweed and driftwood and announced Echo the Rock Skipping Champion. 

Storm watched them from her window at the very top of the lighthouse. Joy was painted very clearly on each and every one of their faces. This would all be so much easier if they weren’t happy.

The sun was beginning to dip beneath the horizon when the guests all headed back inside, exhausted from their various activities. A dinner of ravioli and red sauce was pre-made, sitting on the tables in the common room. 

After dinner, they all elected to watch a movie on Echo’s blue and white striped phone. They propped it up on a vase of dried flowers (one that had not been emptied for funeral purposes yet) and turned to brightness all the way up, huddling together on a couch. They decided on a horror movie, an old one with bad special effects and over-dramatic acting which actually managed to be quite scary. 

All in all, it was a good day. Maybe the best that they had so far. There was always that sense of foreboding, that when they would wake up in the morning someone else would be dead or perhaps they would be the next victim and not wake up at all.

But they knew that for today, at least, they were safe, if only for a few hours. So they took full advantage. 

It was late when everyone finally collapsed into bed. Pangolin was tired in a good way, and generally less plagued by negative emotions than she usually was, which they considered a win. It was nice to really feel the sun again.

Sterling and Tenney were the last two guests who had a roommate, and that was a little reassuring. 

“Goodnight,” Sterling said.

“‘Night,” Tenney said. “Sweet dreams.”

The words must have been magic, because for the first time in a long time, Sterling dreamt of a field full of daisies under a serene full moon, and fae felt at peace. 

~~~

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

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

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)