“Strangled,” Hawk said, as if he were talking to himself and not to the rest of us. He had his hat off and was pacing back and forth, working through the information.

“Don’t see that a lot with werewolves,” Antoine said. “I’ve never seen that with werewolves, in fact.”

We were On-Screen, so we had to give our characters’ reactions to Lila’s demise.

It didn’t make a lot of sense for a werewolf to strangle a woman. In fact, the only reason I could come up with was completely meta: someone wanted to stop her from screaming. Because if she screamed, she would get the Dead status and couldn’t be attacked. That was the power of her trope.

I had one similar, Cutaway Death, but with that trope, I could still be killed because I only got Written-Off. Whatever wolf killed her must have wanted her dead—or at the very least didn’t want her to be able to report on what she saw.

But that didn’t make sense either because there was another witness.

Allegedly.

“Are you sure that it was a werewolf?” I asked Michael. “What you saw kill her—it was a definitely a wolf? How far away were you?”

Michael had been standing still, his face unmoving as stone.

“It was a werewolf,” he said. “I was on the far wall when it happened. The only thing that was out of the ordinary—” he started to say, but then he paused.

“What is it?” Hawk asked, moving toward him.

“The arms,” Michael said. “The arms were too short.”

Hawk pointed at Michael as if he’d just found his answer. “That’s it,” he said. “It wasn’t finished with its transformation. So, we’re talking about an immature wolf, possibly a brand new one.”

We all exchanged looks.

“I had the understanding that immature wolves were the most dangerous and least controllable,” Andrew said. “A bloodless kill seems out of character.”

Hawk shook his head. “If we’re talking about a wolf that hadn’t completed its transformation, it was probably still more human than wolf. Which means that when she saw it, she may have recognized who it was.”

More exchanging looks. We hadn’t rehearsed this. It was our real reaction.

“Are you saying it killed her to hide its identity?” Kimberly asked. She was sitting near Antoine but still keeping some distance.

“Not exactly,” Hawk said.

“It was hiding its shame,” Antoine interjected. “Newly turned werewolves are ashamed of themselves. That’s why they run away from home and usually don’t seek help.”

Hawk nodded. “I think she recognized who it was, and they were going through such an emotionally turbulent moment during their transformation that they just strangled her because they didn’t want to be seen that way.” RＡ

There was a moment of silence among us.

“So it is one of us,” I said.

Antoine looked up at me and asked, “Does that surprise you?”

“Yes,” I said. “We shouldn’t be transforming so soon, and, frankly, I didn’t believe we were actually injected with werewolf saliva to begin with.”

I had to bring this thought forward. It was a fun plot device, sure, but I couldn’t just let go of how… dumb of an idea it seemed at first blush. I needed to dig further and see if there was more to it.

“You thought he was bluffing?” Andrew asked. “Kirst? You thought he was just trying to motivate us?”

I threw up my hands. “At the time, it’s what made the most sense. Gathering experts to hunt werewolves and then turning them into werewolves seems counterproductive.”

“So he’s just an idiot,” Michael said. “He didn’t think it through.”

I looked around at the group, one at a time. We were still On-Screen, so there was more to be said.

“No,” I said. “I’d call Kirst a lot of names, but idiot is not one of them. He’s not stupid.”

“Could have fooled me,” Michael said.

I looked at Hawk. “What is a reason you would intentionally infect someone with the werewolf curse? How does that get him closer to his objectives?”

Hawk looked me in the eye and said, “Couldn’t say.”

Except I thought he was lying—not because of my Moxie or my people skills, but because I felt he was hiding his thoughts for the benefit of the audience, as if he wanted them to know he was hiding something.

After a poignant moment of silence, we went Off-Screen.

We were still in the courtyard of the fort where Lila had fallen. There was a sheet covering her now, and it didn’t take long for mercenaries to show up to carry away her body. They were acting as NPCs, cleaning up the scene and getting ready for the next one.

Shame was our On-Screen reason for her getting killed in such a peculiar manner—we needed one. I didn’t know what the audience had seen, and I didn’t know if Michael was telling the truth, but we were working with what we had.

“All right, everyone, where were you during the murder?” Antoine asked.

It was a topic that couldn’t be avoided. We had to figure out who the werewolf was—if it was any of us—so that our characters could properly figure it out.

“I was in the tunnels under the manor,” I said quickly because I wanted to explain why I was covered in dirt. “I found something big down there. We’re going to have to do a scene with it. Like I said earlier, I was listening when the murder happened. I never heard a scream. Now I know why. I might have heard a struggle, but maybe I was imagining it.”

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“Your Quiet On Set trope only works for things that are On-Screen, right?” Kimberly asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Maybe the murder wasn’t On-Screen,” she said. “That would explain why you didn’t hear it.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I have a hard time believing Carousel wouldn’t capture that on film. I doubt it will show the audience who the killer is right as it’s happening, but later, it will want to.”

“It was On-Screen,” Michael confirmed.

That was that.

“What exactly did you find down there?” Antoine asked.

I explained my theory that the Withers family might be buried underneath the manor because there was no cemetery on the property.

“Did you find one?” Antoine asked.

“I did,” I said. “I found Clara’s tomb. I didn’t disturb anything, but I opened it enough to know that there’s nothing in there.”

“Nothing in the tomb?” Kimberly asked. “Do you mean, like, the coffin itself is empty? There’s no body?”

“There’s no body,” I said. “No necklace either.”

Kimberly seemed really excited to hear that news.

“That sounds like a really big deal,” she said. “Were you On-Screen or Off-Screen when it happened?”

“Off-Screen from the moment I broke into the room,” I said. “It couldn’t have gotten more than a few seconds of footage of me looking into the crypt with my light.”

“So it’s canon?” she asked.

“The crypt is,” I said. “There’s only one real way to find out.”

Antoine seemed cold to the idea of looking through the tunnels. Maybe he just didn’t want to explore that subplot—I couldn’t tell.

“Okay,” he said. “Michael was at the scene of the crime. I was in the woods on patrol. Andrew, you were inside the library, right?”

“That’s right,” Andrew said.

“Can’t really verify that, but I’ll have to take your word for now. Kimberly, where were you at the time of the murder?” Antoine asked.

“I was at Hetty Morgan’s cottage. She was telling me about the legend of Clara Withers. It was mostly stuff we knew.”

“Wonderful,” Antoine said. “How about you, Hawk? Are you going to talk to us?”

Now that we were Off-Screen, Hawk was silent as a mouse. Hawk just looked at him. It wasn’t an angry look. In fact, I could tell there was the smallest part of a smirk on his lips.

Still not helping us Off-Screen. At least, he wasn’t going to help us out of character. He would still act as an NPC.

Antoine was trying to think for a moment, and then he asked me, “Who do you need for your scene in the tunnels?”

“Me, definitely. Kimberly, defnitely. Andrew, if only to help play into the whole science-versus-magic clash. Maybe Hawk. He’s a monster hunter, so he might be useful down there, if only for exposition.”

Antoine nodded.

Then, as if to reinforce that he would only act as an NPC, Hawk finally spoke up, careful to speak in character.

“I have business up here,” he said, staring directly at Antoine. “Take the werewolf-killing wunderkind. You might need an… extra gun down there.”

“I’m more help up here,” Antoine said, hesitant.

“It’ll be a quick scene,” I interjected. “Open up the coffin, gasp a little, cough because of the dust. We’ll be in and out.”

Antoine didn’t speak for a moment, but then he said, “All right, but make it quick. We’ve got to regroup, coordinate an offensive.”

His mind seemed to drift elsewhere.

And so, we departed. Michael and Hawk went to work on whatever project they were working on, and the rest of us headed down into the tunnels.

As we walked, Kimberly told her story from the night before.

“A hole in the ground full of rowdy men is no place for a lady to sleep,” Hetty said, handing me a stack of blankets and a pillow.

I had already denied her offer to sleep on her couch three times, but as I grabbed the blankets from her arms, I knew there was no denying her any longer. She wasn’t being polite. She was telling me.

“Thank you, Hetty,” I said. “You really don’t have to let me stay here.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said. “Us ladies gotta stick together. Now, let me go get changed, and then we can have a chat.”

“I look forward to it,” I said.

What I really wanted was to borrow her shower, but I didn’t say it. If I ever started to look too grungy, NPCs would start coming out of the woodwork to offer me a place to freshen up—even if it made no sense.

Women in films were held to a higher standard. As Adeline used to say, you can fight monsters while covered in blood, but you can never have greasy hair.

It didn’t take long for Hetty to return, this time in a nightgown with her hair let down from the bun she usually kept it in.

While I was waiting for her, I let my eyes wander around the cabin. I noticed the old décor. Hetty must have been in her 60s, but even then, she was too young to have some of the knickknacks I saw around her cottage. She was either a collector or an inheritor.

I noticed that all the windows had their shutters down. It was nearly the full moon, so it was probably the right decision. I also noticed a humble silver letter opener on the table next to the front door, right next to a shotgun. It was funny to see it among all the frills and patterned china.

It felt like I was sitting in Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma’s house—after the wolf incident.

On-Screen

When she came back, she sat in a large rocking chair while I sat on the couch, where I had laid out the blankets. She stared at me.

“Girl, they all look like you,” she said. “Like I was saying, they all find their way back here, and they don’t stay for long.”

“You’re saying there were other women that are drawn to Witherhold Manor?”

“Every couple decades,” Hetty said.

I tried to conceal my excitement—or maybe channel it into nervousness.

“Clara Withers—the young woman in the painting up at the Manor—it’s all about her, right?” I asked. “Can you tell me her story? Her real story?”

Hetty smiled. “I’m afraid I wasn’t around for the real story,” she said. “But I know the rumors. I heard the nursery rhyme growing up.”

The nursery rhyme had been embroidered on a piece of fabric and then stuck on the back of the painting of Clara Withers.

“What did you hear growing up?” I asked.

“Clara Withers was a sickly young woman. Always holed up in the manor by her mama and daddy. Never allowed to come play with the children of the town or to flirt with the workers at the quarry. Did you know there was a quarry?”

I nodded. “It’s been shut down for a long time,” I said.

“Longer than I’ve been alive,” Hetty confirmed. “See, the rumor was that she and her family were gone on some vacation overseas to the Far East or the deep jungle. No one knew. While she was there, she contracted a terrible curse—a plague to her. In those days, it happened.”

“In these days, it still does,” I said.

“On occasion, but not like back then. Back then, your baby might get cursed or sick with a disease that mankind doesn’t understand. And unless you could find some sort of medicine man or magical cure, that child was as good as dead.”

Her eyes drifted back into the past.

“Well, the werewolf curse isn’t deadly—at least, not to the person who has it,” I said. “What happened to Clara?”

“Well, you see, her parents were rich, so she wasn’t some sick little poor girl. No, her parents spent every dime they had trying to make her better. Even brought in magical men and sorcerers from all over, just trying to remove her curse. They say even old Mrs. Withers tried her hand at magic to save her daughter. They say that’s why Witherhold Manor is a touch gloomier than the rest of eastern Carousel. Maybe Mrs. Withers went too far.”

She stopped talking, waiting for me to understand what she was saying.

“She killed her daughter,” I said.

“Just rumors,” Hetty answered. “For years, that young lady wore a silver necklace that was supposed to draw out the curse. They say it did such a good job that when her mama went to perform some dark magic on her, it ended up killing her because there wasn’t enough wolf left in her to take the hit. Don’t know it’s true. That’s what they say.”

I furrowed my brow, tilted my head, and said, “The nursery rhyme makes it sound like Clara is still out there—like she’s a wolf running around.”

“A lot of confusion out there. That’s the she-wolf, you see. Because Clara Withers had a lover. What they didn’t know back then was that the werewolf curse could be passed with a kiss, not just a bite.”

“You’re saying that the wolf we’re after right now is the same one that was turned by Clara Withers herself?”

“Just rumors—all packed together, all swirled around. But I told you, that she-wolf is looking for love. And there’s a reason she ain’t found it yet.”

I took a moment to soak it all in.

Off-Screen

I continued my conversation with Hetty, but it never went anywhere.

A few times we went back On-Screen, but there wasn’t much more to be learned. A lot of what she said was familiar, but this was the first time we got it all in one place, laid out for us On-Screen.

At the very least, it was the first time I had gotten much of this information. It was my subplot, after all, so I was the one who needed it. Riley had found bits and scraps, and Carousel would choose which one of us would be the one to receive the information in the final cut.

I had a feeling it would be me.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep