The Mysterious Affair at Gremble Arms

      Well. That went well.

      The cynical part of his brain immediately started up an angry stream of self-derision for daring to believe even for a minute that he and Tyra would ever find success in a place like this. He already knew what these people were like, after all. He’d worked for them. And while he could admit that half a year wasn’t enough time to learn everything there was to learn about the Guild of Explorers, it had certainly been enough time for him to be yelled at, talked down to, and forgotten entirely more times than he could count. With so many exceptional individuals under its wing, it had seemed to Kiyoshi that the Guild had little patience for an underachiever.

      And yet… there was still a faint voice of dissent coming from a much smaller part of his brain (apparently the last holdout for what was left of his pride) that was doggedly clinging to the belief that he had done everything he could have tonight, and it would not be shut down.

      They really had tried.

      But in many ways, Kiyoshi found that made their failure to make any sort of positive impression here feel even worse. Tyra would likely lose her footing in the Guild after this, her communicators would never be released, and she’d have to move back in with her parents. The bitter truth was that they had tried their best, and it hadn’t been good enough.

      “It’s alright,” he mumbled out loud, falling back into another familiar habit as he leaned his cheek against the cold glass. He tried taking a few good deep breaths, utilising the full extent of his rudimentary knowledge of self-care (the venture into positive self-talk, conversely, was purely experimental). “It’s fine. Living in a tent is fine, actually. Builds character.”

      “Why are you following me?”

      Kiyoshi nearly ripped the skin off his face, yanking it away from the frosty glass so quickly. He wildly cast about for the source of the voice before all at once remembering who it belonged to. Stumbling off the bench, he felt a rush of shame to think that he had momentarily forgotten about the spectral Pteri who could now be seen staring back at him from the polished surface of the glass over the hidden door.

      “See? You’re scared of me.” Her furrowed brow hid her eyes in shadow, but there was stubbornness in the way this amber-tinted version of Cecilia held her chin. “So why do you keep following me?”

      “I’m not…” Kiyoshi started, but then decided there was little point in arguing. Who knew how long he’d have before she disappeared again? Straight to the point was probably best. “I came to ask you to stop stealing stuff from everybody.”

      Kiyoshi was almost as surprised by what came out of his mouth as Cecilia was. That… was not the foot he had wanted to start off on.

      “What?” she said, her face slack.

      “You’ve been stealing from people at the hotel,” he said, mentally kicking himself as he did so. Was he trying to make her mad? “Tonight, but also for the last uh. Thirty-eight years.”

      She didn’t say anything. Kiyoshi took that as a confirmation.

      “I know there’s a reason. I know you’re looking for something. But you have to stop. It’s going to get someone hurt.”

      “I can’t hurt anyone,” Cecilia said. She raised a wing and slapped it right in the face of the Kiyoshi in the reflection, letting him watch as it phased right through. On this side of the mirror, he felt nothing. “See?”

      Then, Kiyoshi had the surreal experience of watching the Pteri step between himself and his reflection, positioned as if she were standing face-to-face with him in the real world. A second later, she turned to look out through the mirror at the version of him on this side. She waved a purple necktie at him and Kiyoshi instinctively reached up to touch his now-empty shirt collar.

      “I can only do this.”

      “You’re… very good at it,” Kiyoshi said.

      She turned towards his reflection again and deftly looped the tie back around his neck. Kiyoshi tensed despite himself, but he felt only the gentlest tug at his collar as the tie rematerialized and did itself up.

      “I’ve had a lot of practice,” said Cecilia, with a hint of pride.

      “You could, um. Probably pretty easily hurt someone like that, actually.” Kiyoshi paused, wondering just how bad an idea it was to tell her that. “Honestly, I think you might be able to affect a lot of things on this side of the mirror. Even if you can only touch objects, there’s still power in that. But you’re just stealing jewellery. Why?”

      “I don’t want power,” she said, moving out of frame. Kiyoshi silently cursed his luck at losing her again, but a flicker in the nearest window alerted him to the Pteri drifting across the colourful panes there instead. “I’m looking for something.”

      “Cecilia….” He moved in front of the new window to keep pace with her, choosing his next words carefully. Not every ghost appreciated being reminded of their undead status. “You’ve been looking for so long. Why is this thing so important to you?”

      “Because it was mine.” She paused, nearly at the other side of the window. “Because he took it from me.”

      Something wiggled its way to the front of Kiyoshi’s memory. A fragment of a story he had heard earlier that night. “…Burke.”

      A flash of rage lit up the Pteri’s face, her curls bobbing as she hunched her shoulders and stamped her foot. “I hate that name!” she shouted, and Kiyoshi swore he heard the frame of the window rattling in the wall. He couldn’t help an anxious glance down the veranda in either direction, unsure just how soundproof this wall might be.

      “He ruined everything!”

      “Did he—” The Shoyru started over, in as gentle a voice as he could manage. “In the stories, they say Burke caught you stealing from a guest.”

      “I hate the stories too,” she snapped, glowering at him. “I’ve heard all of them. And they’re nothing but mean, mean lies. I never stole from anyone. Not once in my entire life. Not back then.”

      “Then what happened? What did Burke do to you?”

      Cecilia hovered at the edge of the window. Her expression was harder to read than it had been in the mirror, the colour and texture of the stained glass making her form ripple and shift from one moment to the next. But still, the longer they spoke, the more Kiyoshi thought he could see the beginnings of… something, coming over her. Or maybe it was less seen than felt. Some kind of slow, intangible shift along the lines of reality. Little by little, the blank-faced spectre he had first encountered in the lavatory hallway was being replaced by something that felt less distant, but all the more heartbreaking in its proximity as the closing gap between their worlds split open secret wounds. The being taking shape in the glass was an echo of pain and anger that hadn’t been allowed to sleep for thirty-eight years, now fully distilled into the lonely, tormented image of the Pteri before him.

      “He caught me with something he thought I shouldn’t have,” she said bitterly. “But it was mine. I saved up for it. I saved up for years. And it wasn’t even for me, it was supposed to be for…” Her voice shook. “I was going to give it to Mabel.”

      A scene from a photograph flashed into Kiyoshi’s mind. Cecilia Kindly Assists Mabel With Another Project. “You two… weren’t just friends, were you?”

      “We were friends.” Her voice was quieter now as she looked away from him. “And we were so much more.”

      Kiyoshi’s mind was chugging, still struggling to put the pieces together. “...I’m guessing you didn’t burn down Gremble Arms either, then.”

      “Why would I ever do that?” she whispered, horrified. “Gremble Arms is my home. Gremble Arms was our home. Mr. Burke stole something from me, and I didn’t know where he put it. But I needed to get it back.” She closed her eyes, and for a time seemed lost in the memory. “I don’t know what started the fire that night, but it spread very quickly. Most of us got trapped in our rooms, but Mabel was on the night shift, and I didn't know where she was. I tried everything to get out. If the flames burned me when they touched me, I don’t remember it. I was only thinking about Mabel, and about what Mr. Burke had taken from me. From us. I thought maybe if she got out safe, and maybe if I could get to the manager’s office… that thing represented our future. My entire world.“ Her eyes snapped open, glowing like coals. “I needed it back. It mattered more than anything else.”

      Kiyoshi let the silence deepen between them for so long that when he did speak, his voice sounded very small. “…And you don’t remember anything about what that thing was?”

      “No,” she said. Her own voice sounded thin, far-away. “Only that I was certain Mabel would love it. She always loved beautiful things.”

      “So… all this time, you’ve been hoping that if you just… happened to find it, through random chance alone, the memory would come back to you.”

      “Yes. I’m sure I’ll know it.”

      Kiyoshi knew it would hurt her, but she had already endured so much, and the thought of her having to endure it forever…. “But what if you don’t?” Kiyoshi looked straight into her eyes, which seemed to reflect his own apprehension back at him. “What if you never find it, and you never remember, and you just keep stealing things forever and ever until you can’t remember anything at all about why you even wanted it in the first place? What if it never means anything, and it never ends? What if you forget Mabel?”

      She stared at him as if stricken. After a long moment, she said, slowly, “You are scared.” She was looking at him as if seeing him for the first time, and she looked a little sad. “But not of me. Of everything else. I remember being like that.”

      Kiyoshi really wasn’t in the right headspace to be psychoanalysed by a ghost. “I just want to help you,” he said. “Listen. I think there are some people I can talk to here who might remember more from before the fire. If we work together, maybe we’ll be able to figure out what Burke took from you. But please, I’m begging you, please don’t steal anything else. Even just for now. Please.”

      “It’s all I can do now.” She frowned. “And I’m not hurting anyone.”

      “I know you’re not trying to.”

      “I can’t hurt anyone.”

      “You can, and you are.”

      “Who am I hurting?”

      “Me.” She froze, and Kiyoshi let out a breath. “Among, well. Many others. Minerva, for one.”

      “Minnie..?”

      “The world didn’t end that night,” he said. “You still have friends here. And it hurts us all to see you hurting. We just want to help you find some closure, and maybe a bit of peace. If we can.”

      “I…” Her eyes darted to the side a fraction of a second before there was a soft scraping sound not far from Kiyoshi, who spun around in time to see the door behind the glass panel opening up and a shadowy figure moving onto the veranda.

      “So this was your reason,” Dalton said as he stepped into the light. He wasn’t smiling.

      Kiyoshi didn’t dare move, unsure of the other Shoyru’s intentions—but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing towards the window. Cecilia was gone.

      “I know who you’re looking for,” said Dalton. “But it doesn’t matter. I heard enough.” He took another step forward, and the couple of inches of height that he had on Kiyoshi suddenly seemed very significant. “And I have to admit, Kiyoshi. You’ve given this mystery a twist I really didn’t see coming. But maybe I should have.” Dalton stopped right in front of him. “After all, who else but a Ghostchaser would throw everything away for a ghost?”

      When Kiyoshi just gawked at him, speechless, Dalton frowned. “You don’t have to look so surprised. I make it my business to know who my colleagues are, even esteemed ex-colleagues such as yourself. I know who everyone in that room is. Where they came from, what they’re known for, who they’re related to. There’s some people in this guild who think that kind of thing doesn’t matter, but when you’re not born into it, the truth is easier to see, isn’t it? That’s one thing you and I have in common.”

      “You followed me out here,” said Kiyoshi at last. “Why?”

      “You slipped up in the interviews,” said Dalton simply. He shook his hair back and slid the green-and-gold mask off his nose. “That’s better. Now we can actually see each other.”

      “I didn’t do an interview,” Kiyoshi said coldly.

      “Oh,” the Island Shoyru said with a short laugh, “oh, how wrong you are.”

      Dalton carefully placed his mask on the bench beside him, then turned back to Kiyoshi. “But don’t beat yourself up about it. I got a lot of things wrong tonight too. Me, I thought you and Tyra were suspicious from the moment you walked in the door.” He shrugged. “Believe me, I’ve been to a lot of these galas. Most people just show up for the free food and the chance to gossip, ‘cause so many of them have already explored everything they think is worth exploring and they’ve all got everything they ever wanted. But when someone’s still got that drive, that hunger in them, I can tell. The whole time we were dancing, Tyra was going on about all her plans for her inventions, all these big dreams she had, and I was just wondering to myself how far she’d go to make it happen. When Soffleberg’s necklace was stolen, I thought I had it all figured out already. There was even a convenient ghost story to cover it up. It couldn’t have been Tyra. But it could’ve been you.”

      “I was in the lounge,” Kiyoshi said, frowning. “Even Cherry could tell you that.”

      “Cherry?” Dalton raised an eyebrow. “Cherry’s an incredible adventurer, but she doesn’t care a lick about anyone or anything that isn’t fantasy. Her only loyalty is to adrenaline. I wouldn’t trust her testimony even if she wanted to give it.”

      “Fantasy?” Kiyoshi snorted. “That’s rich coming from the guy who’s been bullying everyone into playing his dumb mystery game all night.”

      “No,” Dalton said with a grim smile. “I’ve been bullying you and Tyra into playing my dumb mystery game all night. And it’s let me keep both of you under close supervision. Not as close as I’d hoped, admittedly, but close enough for me to figure out some things about the two of you, while I made my mind up about what I was going to do about it.”

      Kiyoshi had a feeling Dalton was going to tell him anyway, so he pettily refused the bait.

      But then Dalton said, “Conclusion number one: you two don’t actually care about each other as much as I thought.”

      It might have been the last thing Kiyoshi expected to come out of Dalton’s mouth.

      “Wh—“

      The words were knocked away by the meteoric impact of Dalton’s fist meeting the smaller Shoyru’s jaw. Kiyoshi saw stars as his teeth smashed together and pain bloomed across his face, the strength behind the blow enough to send him flying in the least aerodynamic sense possible. His ungraceful tumble terminated a few feet down the veranda in a tangle of flailing limbs and wings.

      “I thought if I stirred up your protective instinct, you wouldn’t leave her side,” Dalton said calmly, shaking out his wrist while Kiyoshi struggled to right himself. “But you did. Again and again. You’re a coward, running away even when you knew she was in distress. And as for Tyra? Your so-called best friend barely spared a thought for you all evening, leaving you to wander around and get into all kinds of trouble that she didn’t even have the decency to bail you out of afterwards. Real friends would have stuck together.”

      Kiyoshi staggered upright, his head still spinning. “That’s not—we just trust each other. Even when we’re apart. That’s the kind of friends we are. It’s like, um.” If the veranda could stop tilting back and forth so distractingly, he thought it would be easier to find the right words. “…Parallel play?”

      Dalton wasn’t impressed. “That kind of trust’s gonna get you killed, Ghostchaser.”

      He moved like lightning and Kiyoshi somehow managed to dodge the initial swing, but he wasn’t fast enough to escape the knee that buried itself in his gut. He rolled off of Dalton in a ball, wheezing.

      “Conclusion two: neither of you are honest, but you’re the bigger liar.” Dalton loomed over the incapacitated blue Shoyru, and through a blur of tears Kiyoshi could see Dalton’s normally cool facade cracking now, a vicious snarl pushing its way to the surface.

      “In fairness, that trait finds you in pretty good company here,” Dalton spat. “This guild’s been lying to me from the minute they pulled me out of the gutter in Meridell.”

      Still struggling to regain his breath, Kiyoshi saw a chance and lashed out with his tail, hoping to sweep Dalton’s feet out from under him. But the Island Shoyru leapt into the air, wings unfurling in an instant to hold him aloft.

      “Showoff,” grunted Kiyoshi, flinching against the frigid gusts stirred up by Dalton.

      “Sure, we get a couple of biological advantages,” Dalton said, pushing himself up to ceiling height. “But it takes a lot of work to turn a Shoyru into a rugged adventurer. You should know that. They had to build me up for years, make me really believe I was special, before I could be even half as useful to them as Jake was from day one. They made me hate my own body, see it as just another chain holding me back.”

      “I get it,” Kiyoshi muttered, finally recovering enough to haul himself off the floor. “The adventuring world isn’t built for Neopets like us. You don’t have to tell me that.”

      “No. You really don’t get it.” Dalton landed on the balustrade next to him. “That’s what makes you an adventurer. Up against that kind of adversity, you can either rise to meet it head-on, or you can turn your back on everything and run away. That’s the difference between the two of us.”

      “Your suit’s nicer too,” Kiyoshi said, a little unsteady on his feet.

      Dalton scoffed. “Yeah, but it’s not like I bought it myself, is it?” He hopped down lightly from the rail, holding open one of his emerald lapels and examining the garment with a critical eye, as if the two of them had just stepped outside to compare fashion. “This whole ensemble was dreamed up by some designer in Faerieland, then packed and delivered right to my door, all courtesy of the Guild. They don’t do it for everyone, but they’ll do it when there’s a certain message they’re interested in sending. And I guess since the award I was getting tonight had a lot to do with what I did in Geraptiku, someone up high must’ve decided I was worth the expense.”

      “What did you do in Geraptiku?”

      Dalton paused, and for a moment he looked genuinely confused. “What do you mean, what did I do in Geraptiku.”

      When Kiyoshi just shrugged, Dalton waited for a beat then said, “Normally I’d rather choke on my own fist than bring up anything said onstage at a gala, and not that I particularly care, but they did literally just give me an award for it. Weren’t you listening?”

      “No.”

      “They put me in charge of the expedition to map the rediscovered city,” Dalton said bluntly. “Then just last year I cracked the code that let us start translating the writing on the markers, all the names and warnings and directions on the tombs. It made my team and all our sponsors rich.”

      “Oh.” Remembering the golden symbols on Dalton’s mask, Kiyoshi looked over to where that very mask was still sitting neatly on the bench, and a memory clicked into place: flickering yellow light, scrolls falling out of his arms as he teetered through the Guild of Explorers archives, tightly packed lines of text in an unintelligible script. “Oh, so that’s what your theme is. On your mask. Gotcha.”

      A hand shot out and gripped his shirt front, pulling him up until the shorter Shoyru’s feet were kicking at thin air.

      “Kieran Sunday himself pushed that mask into my hand and told me to wear it tonight, so that everyone here remembered just how much they owe me.”

      Dalton slammed Kiyoshi back against the wall—and against one of the stained glass windows, which cracked audibly under the force. Kiyoshi was sure he heard a small sound of surprise from someone on the other side.

      “You didn’t give me anything,” Kiyoshi said through gritted teeth, clutching in vain at the fingers curled under his throat.

      “Then let me leave you with something now.” He pushed harder, crushing Kiyoshi’s wings against the splintering glass. “D’you know the worst thing the Guild of Explorers ever did to me? I’ll tell you. It’s a good cautionary tale. Maybe it’ll make you think twice about getting involved with the Guild again, at least until you've managed to grow a spine. Because this guild will chew you up. And make no mistake, they’re gonna mould you into whatever shape they want before they throw you off on something they call an adventure and use you to take over the world, breaking it up piece by piece until it’s all sitting in the bank accounts of Mr. Sunday and his friends—but first they’re gonna melt you down, all so they can be the ones to reinvent you. You think Dalton Oritz is my real name?” He laughed bitterly. “The Guild took that from me. That’s their game, and it’s a game I lost. Even I can accept that. But none, none of that compares to the actual worst thing they did, the thing that haunts me day and night. The one thing I can never forgive them for.”

      There was a slight tremor in Dalton’s hand. Even Kiyoshi’s struggle petered off for a moment, unable to look away as the other Shoyru’s expression hardened into an unsettling mask of stone.

      “They told my family I was dead.”

      Dalton’s voice had gone hollow. “Mind you, it had been years since I saw my parents. I’d already messed up my life pretty bad by then. The Thieves’ Guild got to me long before anything as noble as an explorer ever came calling. My family out in the countryside, who knows how much of those years they ever got wind of? But it didn’t matter in the end. The Guild of Explorers took me in, trained me, tested me—haircut, paint job, made me stand for photos and talk to Times reporters with stars in their eyes as they all drew up a profile of the kind of action hero they’d been missing ever since Jake got too old to do it. And sometime while all this was happening, the Guild went behind my back and sent a little courier back to Meridell with some fabricated bad news. Just like that, they had me forever. No more loose ends to snag me away. By then the Guild and I both knew my parents wouldn’t recognise me anymore anyway. Not that it matters. In the end, the real reason I can’t go back to my family is that I know their son really did die all those years ago. And I know that if they knew me like I know myself now, if they knew everything I’d done to get here, they’d be as ashamed of me as I am.”

      His grip on Kiyoshi’s shirt tightened, and his eyes locked with those of the other Shoyru, hard as flint. “I know you haven’t figured it out yet, so I’m going to do whatever I have to do tonight in order to make this lesson really stick. You like to run, Ghostchaser?” He leaned in, hissing, “Then you better run as fast as you can. You better run far away from this guild, and get out while you still ca—aackhh—!”

      The pressure at Kiyoshi’s throat disappeared all at once, and he slumped down from the window, gasping. Dalton was stumbling backwards, clawing at his own neck, where a silk purple tie had appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be tightening very quickly.

      Kiyoshi whirled back to the window. “Cecilia!”

      The Pteri’s lashing tail and dark ringlets were all that could be seen of her in the reflection behind the thrashing Island Shoyru as she dragged him slowly but steadily back towards the edge of the veranda.

      “Cecilia, get out of here!” Kiyoshi shouted desperately, instinctively veering towards Dalton without having the faintest idea what he could do about it.

      In an instant the necktie slipped from Dalton’s neck and fluttered off into the night, leaving the Island Shoyru gripping a column for support and heaving for air.

      “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” said Cecilia as her image moved away from Dalton’s in the window, her voice filling the space in the real world between the two Shoyrus. “But I also don’t want him to hurt you.”

      “Ce—“

      Dalton made to lunge at the window, and though what the Island Shoyru meant to achieve by doing this Kiyoshi couldn’t begin to imagine, his own body moved automatically: taking the suit jacket that he had just shrugged out of and swinging it around in a wide arc, cracking Dalton right in the face with two pockets full of smuggled rocks.

      Dalton went sprawling, giving Kiyoshi enough time to spin around and confirm with relief that Cecilia had vanished again, but scarcely a second later the other Shoyru had sprung back to his feet.

      “Good!” Dalton said with a ferocious glint in his eye, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “At least there’s something you’ll stand up for. That’s a start.”

      Kiyoshi brought his jacket of rocks around again as Dalton started towards him, but this time the Island Shoyru saw it coming, easily grabbing the overloaded garment and using it to yank Kiyoshi forward so he lost his footing. With Kiyoshi still unbalanced, Dalton twisted the coat out of his grip so forcefully that it twirled the other Shoyru around like a toy spinning top, ultimately sending him straight into a faceplant on the rough floor as pebbles bounced and skittered away in all directions.

      Tossing Kiyoshi’s jacket to the side, Dalton nudged the groaning blue Shoyru with his shoe until he rolled over.

      “Had enough?”

      “What do you even get out of this?” Kiyoshi slurred, wincing as he pushed himself up to a sitting position once again. “Like… if you just wanted me to get the message that I should steer clear of the Guild of Explorers, you could’ve just sat back and let the rest of the night’s events take care of that—‘cause believe me, I’m getting it loud and clear. What else do you want from me?”

      “I already told you,” Dalton said. “I’m only interested in justice tonight.”

      “Justice?” Kiyoshi blinked. “You already know who the who in your whodunnit was, and it wasn’t me. So why even bother coming out here to fight me?”

      “This really isn’t much of a fight.”

      “So why even bother coming out here to maul me?”

      Dalton sighed, as if everything Kiyoshi had experienced at his hands represented only a fraction of the pain Dalton was suffering by having to explain it to him. “Because you’ve been letting her get away with it.”

      He crouched down in front of Kiyoshi. “And that brings us at last to Conclusion Number Three: that you chose a side, and you chose it very early in the game.” He sounded exasperated in an aloof sort of way, but it wasn’t hard to see the disdain in the way he looked at the other Shoyru. “You chose the ghost’s side, and not Tyra’s. You know, the most annoying part of this whole thing is that I would’ve just given Tyra the money she needed if she’d asked for it upfront. I don’t have any patience for dancing around the truth, but at least she’s been more honest about her intentions tonight than you have. And now your best friend’s the one who’s gonna pay the price.”

To be continued…