Page 8 of An Inheritance of Monsters

Crispy turned around during the tour of the drop-door, raising both eyebrows until they nearly disappeared into his hairline.

He’d spent most of the tour picking out good locations to place our infrared camera sets, marking them off with spikes—X’s made of neon-orange duct tape.

For this one, he pulled out his roll of tape again. Mrs. Marsh looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, but she was too refined for that. She just gave him a small nod, and Crispy backed down several steps until he found a good location.

The sound of ripping duct tape filled the stairwell as the group began to descend.

“Beatrix Marsh was my mother,” Mrs. Marsh was saying, and my ears perked up. Rosalie had been kind enough to loan me a pen that she’d pulled from her messy bun, and I had the Black Book out before Marsh had even finished her sentence.

“Did she ever say why she broke off her engagement to Aston?” I asked, at the same time that Jack interjected with, “What did shedoto him?”

I won’t lie, I was a little pleased that Mrs. Marsh ignored him completely and gave me her undivided attention.

She had a little cat-like smile on her face. “She said there were far more worthy men in the sea, and Aston wasn’t worth the effort of fishing for.”

I scribbled that in my notebook while Jack gave me a sullen look.

Crispy was already filming again, and I was dimly aware of raising my chin a little and stopping to give Mrs. Marsh a nice, intense stare before resuming my notes.

These little tells were ingrained in me. They would look good in the video edits later, even if I felt a little foolish while doing them.

When we returned to the kitchen, which seemed to be the central hub of the manor, Crispy pulled me aside.

“Hey, I’ve spiked all over the house—” He pointed to one of his orange X’s, where we’d place a camera watching the bricked-off cellar door, “And I need to get the equipment set up before nighttime.”

“Go on, Crispy.” I patted his arm. I rarely got along with Sierra—our friendship was one borne of similar interests, rather than any actual connection—but Crispy was good people. “I need to work on getting the voiceover narration together. I’ll fill you in on any good bits.”

He was already backing away, needing to duck under a doorway with his long, lanky frame, and he gave me a quick salute. “Got it,Jefe. I’ll be back in a moment.”

When I turned around, Mrs. Marsh was practically at my shoulder. I just barely managed to hold back a tiny jump of surprise.

“So… do you have a moment to talk about the ido—statue at the docks?” I asked, pen already poised hopefully over the page.

She looked at me, and something about her eyes made me feel like she could see right through me.

Like she knew the feeling I’d had at the docks, that the statue was standing there waiting to swallow me whole.

“That’s a long story for another day,” she finally said. She reached out and laid her hand on my forearm. “I think it’s best that I show you all to the rooms you’ll be using during your stay.”

As much as I wanted to sit and pry into the past of Duskwood Manor, for hours if possible, she was right. We had loads of equipment to set up, and I still needed to begin composing the narrative.

And, since no housekeeper would remain on the island, we had also divided tasks such as cooking and dishwashing among ourselves. Dinner would probably be trail mix until we settled in fully.

Swallowing my protests, I allowed her to lead us from the room.

By the time night fell,Crispy had all the equipment set up.

There were infrared cameras stationed at every spike he’d placed in the house. We had a running feed to his laptop, and we’d set up several EMF readers and smaller cameras in our own rooms.

The manor was big enough that every team had been assigned multiple rooms away from each other, offering us all a sense of privacy. Crispy was two doors down from me, and Sierra was two down from him.

It was just enough space to finally shut the door behind me and breathe for a moment.

To not worry about the show slot. To not care about writing a flawless narrative.

To pretend the people who hated me weren’t here.

My room was enormous, with a picture window overlooking the far side of the island. A massive bed that could easily accommodate four people took up half the space, and an ebony closet door, carved with another motif that looked a lot like octopus tentacles, dominated the wall across from it.

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