text: > Look around
  Estate Agent's Office (Jenni Polodna)
  The space is dominated by the unexpectedly symbiotic combination of a giant desk and a tiny woman, who together give the impression of being one complete single entity, like a centaur. The surface of the desk is becoming cluttered with glossy architectural magazines, manila folders, and real estate listings pamphlets. Behind it, a gunmetal-grey filing cabinet lurks unattractively in the far corner. The exit back out to the street is east.
  
  The lion sex book lies on the desk, partially covered, waiting for you to steal it. "Soon, lion sex book," you whisper in your head. "It won't be long now."
  
  Bethany looks at you expectantly. "I'd be stupidly thrilled to show you one of our many real estate files if you specify a property."
  
  > examine the folder
  Which folder? Backwater Church folder, Forthright & Rotier Estate Agency folder, Backwater Public Library folder and Cragne Manor folder seem particularly interesting.
  
  > look at the church folder
  The church folder contains mostly receipts for the installation of various stained-glass windows. You spot one for $0.00 with a pen scrawl across the bottom reading "I refuse to depict Imelda Cragne as the Virgin Mary, may God have mercy on my soul."
  
  "Oh yeah," Bethany says, when you point it out, "I forgot to mention that most of the Cragnes commissioned church windows of themselves as religious figures, but I guess the idea of a saintly Imelda Cragne clutching a baby Jesus was too much for that stained-glass artist. They fled to Canada the same day that receipt was written, which was absolutely the right call."
  
  > examine the agency folder
  That's weird; the estate agency folder contains nothing but a single security camera photo of the room you are currently in, taken from a vantage point near the ceiling. You feel compelled to take a closer look.
  
  > examine photo
  You look at the security camera photo in the estate agency folder.
  
  The space is dominated by the unexpectedly symbiotic combination of a giant desk and a tiny woman, who together give the impression of being one complete single entity, like a centaur. The surface of the desk is becoming cluttered with glossy architectural magazines, manila folders, and real estate listings pamphlets. Behind it, a gunmetal-grey filing cabinet lurks unattractively in the far corner. The exit back out to the street is east.
  
  A taller, short-haired woman wearing JNCOs and a trolley pass stands on the other side of the desk, blood dripping down her arm. You can't see her face, but... that can't be you, right? It looks like
  you...
  
  "Oh, hey, ignore that," Bethany tells you. "Our security camera got possessed a couple weeks ago and Ms. Rotier's been slacking on replacing it, that's all."
  
  > examine the library folder
  The Backwater Public Library folder is empty except for an index-card-sized note reading "Contents of this folder have been reclaimed as the rightful property of B.U.S.H. Any queries, complaints, and suggestions can be directed to the_uncaring_void_of_my_anal_canal@hotmail.com. Have a good
  rest of your SUCK IT LOSERS!!!".
  
  > look at the cragne manor folder
  The Cragne Manor folder is thin enough to appear empty while closed. When you open it, you see that it contains nothing but a Post-It note with the words "BETHANY, TOOK THESE TO GET DIGITIZED. RECYCLE THIS NOTE PLEASE!!!" alongside a small drawing of an anthropomorphized Earth giving the thumbs-up.
  
  > ask her about the town square
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and the syllables I just heard you say were 'Charles Bingadocio'.
  
  > ask her about the Mausoleum
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and as far as I can tell, you just said 'radio fat lump'.
  
  > ask her about the shack
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and all I got from that was 'bedlam cube'.
  
  > ask her about circus
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and what I just heard you say was 'breaking up with Frito chili pie'.
  
  > ask her about the hospital
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and the syllables I just heard you say were 'carcinomuffin'.
  
  > ask her about the school
  (Bethany about high school)
  "Some stuff went down a few years ago and now the high school has never existed, plus it's banned from this dimension," Bethany says. "If you encounter a high school in Backwater, you're supposed to inform the authorities at... shoot, what was the number? Oh, right, there is no number, they'll just show up in a van."
  
  > ask her about train station
  (Bethany about Backwater Station)
  "We've got a folder for that!" Bethany says, turning to search through the filing cabinet.
  
  > take BOOK
  definitely the right idea. When you play the scenario out in
  your mind, though, it goes something like this:
  
  [IMAGINARY SCENE] You slip the book into your pocket. Bethany
  turns around, ready to drop the folder on the desk, and spots that the book is gone. Her octagonal eyes glow red, and each unruly curl of her hair transmogrifies into a cobra, its eyes glowing red and its fangs dripping venom. "WHERE IS MY BOOK?" she roars, shaking the walls of the real estate office.
  
  The desk grows a mouth and chomps you in half somewhere around the lumbar spine. Your lower half bleeds out on the berber carpet as the desk masticates your torso and eyeballs and hands and other parts of your body you like a lot and use often. With a satisfied expression, Bethany retrieves the novel from the bloodsoaked pocket of your JNCOs. "Now I can finally confess my truth," she tells your exposed kidneys. "I think reading about lion sex is kind of nice actually."[END IMAGINARY SCENE]
  
  ...okay, clearly this town has got you in a real weird headspace. The point is, you'll have to find a way to steal the book without Bethany noticing you've stolen it, or things might get... uncomfortable.
  
  "Found it!" Bethany drops the folder onto the desk, further covering Twin Hearts Between the Planes.
  
  > examine train station folder
  "Backwater didn't have a train station until 1968," Bethany tells you. "The local business owners were really pushing for one to be built, but the town council elders fought it tooth and nail, because they thought it would attract undesirables -- I think we both know what that's code for -- from the city. Then somebody pointed out the undesirables from the city, if you were nice to them and gave them shotguns, would be great allies in the constant war against the even-less-desirables who kept slithering out of the hills on their tentacle legs to steal babies. Backwater got noticeably less racist after that. Also fuller of babies."
  
  > ask her about the pub
  (Bethany about the pub)
  "Sure thing! Hold tight while I look for that folder," Bethany says, turning to search through the filing cabinet.
  
  > take BOOK
  definitely the right idea. When you play the scenario out in
  your mind, though, it goes something like this:
  
  [IMAGINARY SCENE] You slip the book into your pocket. Bethany
  turns around, ready to drop the folder on the desk, and spots that the book is gone. Her octagonal eyes glow red, and each unruly curl of her hair transmogrifies into an individual tarantula with its own set of eight hairy legs. "WHERE IS MY BOOK?" she roars, shaking the walls of the real estate office.
  
  The desk grows a mouth and chomps you in half somewhere around the lumbar spine. Your lower half bleeds out on the berber carpet as the desk masticates your torso and eyeballs and hands and other parts of your body you like a lot and use often. With a satisfied expression, Bethany retrieves the novel from the bloodsoaked pocket of your JNCOs. "Now I can finally confess my truth," she tells your exposed kidneys. "I think reading about lion sex is kind of nice actually."[END IMAGINARY SCENE]
  
  ...okay, clearly this town has got you in a real weird headspace. The point is, you'll have to find a way to steal the book without Bethany noticing you've stolen it, or things might get... uncomfortable.
  
  "Here's the folder!" Bethany drops the folder onto the desk, further covering Twin Hearts Between the Planes.
  
  "The pub was the first building constructed in Backwater," Bethany tells you. "It's been through approximately one hundred and seventy-eight changes of ownership since. The current owners say it's haunted by the ghost of an angry brewer who had his secret recipe for triple-dark stout stolen by Benjamin Franklin, but my
  research suggests they just made that up to get on the Food Network. They used to have pretty good maple poutine but the current owners got all uppity about 'that's not real Vermont food, that's fake Canadian tourist food, blah blah fiddleheads blah blah blah.' I kind of hate the current owners, if I'm honest."
  
  > look at the station folder
  The train station folder is incredibly thick. Flipping through it, most of its bulk appears to be schedules of arrivals and departures, and you're about to fall asleep when a folded page flutters out from between the timetables. You unfold it and take a look.
  
  "Oh, that thing is great," Bethany says. "It's a map of a proposed trolley system through Backwater, which wound up not getting built because it turned out the guy who sold it was secretly a bear, and no one knew what to do with that information. The trolley system would have been so cool though."
  
  > look at the trolley
  From what you've seen of Backwater, it's not that big, yet the trolley system on the map in your hands is extensive. A forest-green line runs into the woods, while a line as red as raw beef connects the downtown to the meatpacking plant. The church has its own line (gold), Cragne Manor has several (in various shades of purple -- also,
  why?), and Backwater itself is split into "Dangerous
  Backwater" (orange) and "Spooky Backwater" (blue). Apparently the real estate office is in Spooky Backwater, whatever that means.
  
  > ask her about the Meatpacking Plant
  (Bethany about Meatpacking Plant)
  "Great, I'll show you the folder for that!" Bethany says, turning to search through the filing cabinet.
  
  > take BOOK
  definitely the right idea. When you play the scenario out in
  your mind, though, it goes something like this:
  
  [IMAGINARY SCENE] You slip the book into your pocket. Bethany
  turns around, ready to drop the folder on the desk, and spots that the book is gone. Her octagonal eyes glow red, and each unruly curl of her hair transmogrifies into a cobra, its eyes glowing red and its fangs dripping venom. "WHERE IS MY BOOK?" she roars, shaking the walls of the real estate office.
  
  The desk grows a mouth and chomps you in half somewhere around the lumbar spine. Your lower half bleeds out on the berber carpet as the desk masticates your torso and eyeballs and hands and other parts of your body you like a lot and use often. With a satisfied expression, Bethany retrieves the novel from the bloodsoaked pocket of your JNCOs. "Now I can finally confess my truth," she tells your exposed kidneys. "I think reading about lion sex is kind of nice actually."[END IMAGINARY SCENE]
  
  ...okay, clearly this town has got you in a real weird headspace. The point is, you'll have to find a way to steal the book without Bethany noticing you've stolen it, or things might get... uncomfortable.
  
  "Time to cross finding this folder off of the to-do list!"
  Bethany drops the folder onto the desk. Twin Hearts Between the Planes is now completely hidden from view.
  "The meatpacking plant was built by Alfred Silas Cragne in 1901 as an attempt to make a little money off of that year's Seven Days' Rain of Dead Pigs," Bethany tells you. "Which, as you might guess, was a phenomenon during which almost five thousand pigs fell out of the sky over downtown Backwater. Amazingly, only one person died, and everybody hated him, so it was a net win for the town."
  
  She shakes her head. "The pub owner likes to go on about how great it must have been to take a bucket out in the street and fill up on free bacon, but what I think is, if it means not getting clocked
  in the head with a pig hoof at the standard gravitational acceleration rate, I'd rather just spend the three bucks at Shaw's."
  
  > examine pub
  Along with some incredibly boring-looking documents, the folder labeled "Head & Anchor Pub (BETHANY: RELABEL THIS FOLDER)" contains a list of name changes and a piece of paper with all of the words blacked out FBI-style. "What's this?" you ask Bethany, indicating the latter.
  
  "Oh, that's the old secret menu for the pub, from back when it was the Sad Aroma and Garter Belt. It was a little too secret, if you
  want my opinion."
  
  > look at the plant folder
  You open the meatpacking plant folder and a chunk of raw beef falls onto the floor. Holding the folder as horizontally as possible, you open it the rest of the way. It's entirely full of raw beef. Mostly ground chuck, but you see a couple of ribs sticking out, and on the top is... is that a New York strip steak? "Hot beef injection compliments of B.U.S.H.," reads a note impaled into the meat pile.
  
  "True confession?" Bethany says, "I know they're proud of that little prank, but that's like thirty dollars worth of meat, and the park by my house has a grill."
  
  > ask her about the park
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and all I got from that was 'hose beast city'.
  
  > ask her about bush
  (Bethany about Badfinger University Shadow Historians.)
  "Badfinger University is five miles up the river from Squahonomie, and their Shadow Historians have been our archrivals for almost a century and a half," Bethany explains. "Every September our grad students and theirs engage in ritualized academic combat to decide which school has jurisdiction over which historical topics. This year they got almost all of the Cragnes -- I was gunning hard for Stella, and I made sure we kept Deuteronomous -- but this guy Josh that I hate blew the rest of our points on Jedediah Beaverhat, who is not even real,
  he's a pancake house mascot. I kinda think Josh is a mole."
  
  > ask her about Stella
  (Bethany about Stella Archer Cragne)
  "Stella Archer Cragne disappeared on the third of May, 1981," Bethany tells you. "She told her husband she was going into town to buy a hat for Petunia Cragne's wedding. The ticket taker at the station confirmed that she boarded the 12:35 train to Montpelier, and after that (once again Bethany drops her voice into Unsolved Mysteries registers) nobody saw her again. Dead or alive."
  
  "Ask me about Stella again if you want to hear all the facts of the case; I'm supposed to practice getting consent before quote-unquote talking people's ears off. People care an awful lot about their ears around here, if you ask me."
  
  > ask her about Stella
  (Bethany about Stella Archer Cragne)
  Holding up her fingers one by one, Bethany cheerfully enumerates the facts of the case. "Fact! Stella had no known enemies; the family liked her -- well, except Imelda Cragne, but she was a
  102-year-old racist who croaked six months before Stella went missing, so it's unlikely she was involved."
  
  "Fact! By all accounts, Stella & Horace were one of those boring quiet couples that stay home a lot and don't have affairs. Fact! I really enjoy saying 'fact!' Fact!"
  
  "Fact! Stella left the house with just her wallet and keys. She wasn't the purse-carrying type, but she owned a couple good-sized
  bags she could have packed some underwear and a toothbrush in if she'd planned to run away."
  
  "Fact! The Backwater P.D. searched all of the possessions she'd left behind and none of it was more suspicious than a Jell-O mold.
  I saw the whole list and lemme tell ya, I have weirder stuff in my pockets right now, including one or two bird skulls."
  
  > ask her about the lion sex
  (Bethany about Twin Hearts Between the Planes)
  Bethany looks you straight in the eyes, radiating academic gravitas. "Okay, so, believe me when I say that I don't normally read sci-fi bodice rippers starring big handsome lion guys."
  
  You assure her that you did not have her pegged as a paranormal romance enthusiast, and she visibly relaxes before continuing.
  
  "It's research, sort of," she explains. "See, Leelah Vaughan is the pen name of Stella Archer Cragne, wife of Horace Cragne. This book was published in 1980 -- one year before Stella Archer Cragne (here Bethany drops her voice about two octaves) mysteriously
  vanished."
  
  > ask her about the pockets
  (Bethany about a funny story)
  "It's a funny story," Bethany says. You wait for her to tell it to you, but she doesn't.
  
  > ask her about Peter
  (Bethany about Peter)
  "I'm afraid I haven't met your husband, no," Bethany says. "I only moved here a few years ago, and he moved away in -- I mean, as a historian, I know about -- what I mean is, the Cragne family
  basically is Backwater -- so-yes-I-know-a-lot-about-your-husband-and-I-hope-that-isn't-creepy
  ."
  She coughs uncomfortably into some papers, avoiding your gaze.
  
  > ask her about Jedediah Beaverhat
  (Bethany about Jedediah Beaverhat)
  "One legend goes that Jedediah Beaverhat invented the pancake, then he wanted something sweet to go on top of it, so he went into the forest and seduced Maple Kate, who was the half-druid tribal chief of the -- ugh, I don't know why I'm telling you Jedediah Beaverhat stories." Bethany makes a disgusted face. "He's not real, okay? He's not even an authentic local myth, just something the Goldwater Restaurant Group made up in 1953 to trick motorists into stopping for corn syrup."
  
  > ask her about the restaurant
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and as far as I can tell, you just said 'freedom horse binge'.
  
  > ask her about deuteronomous
  (Bethany about Deuteronomous Cragne)
  "Deuteronomous Cragne came from somewhere in the mid-1790s
  and founded the Backwater line of Cragnes. He's your husband's great-great-great-great-grandfather," Bethany tells you. "He had a lot of portraits commissioned of himself as this huge vampire-looking guy with bright red eyes and a twenty-hand-tall nightmare stallion, but I found some charcoal drawings of him as a teenager, and he's practically cherubic-looking. Like a Keebler Elf with fluffy sideburns. It's hilarious."
  
  > ask her about spooky Backwater
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and I only understood you as far as saying 'Charles Bingadocio'.
  
  > look at the pamphlet
  || 8 BR 1 BA || Quiet neighborhood! Completely redone with brand new floors and concrete-sealed basement. Hardly any muttering!
  
  || 3 BR 2 BA || Great river views and convenient for boating! Trawl for crayfish from the comfort of your living room. Entire upstairs still mostly above water!
  
  || 2 BR 5 BA || An obelisk lover's dream! Extensive yard boasts a true infinity pool and an impressive collection of garden statuary, including twin sphinxes. Paradoxically nearby to everything!
  
  Underneath the description of 23 Euclid Street, someone has scrawled the words "JACKDAWS LOVE MY BIG SPHINX OF QUARTZ."
  
  > ask her about 23 euclid street
  (Bethany about 23 Euclid Street)
  "Let me grab the folder for that!" Bethany says, turning to search through the filing cabinet.
  
  > take BOOK
  You utilize the skills you trained long and hard in the finest shopping malls of the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. Moving like a rattlesnake (except without the rattling, obviously), you
  silently slide the lion sex book out from underneath the folders and slip it into the pocket of your JNCOs before Bethany has a chance to turn around.
  
  ~~Lion sex book GET.~~
  
  > check your inventory
  "Found it!" Bethany drops the folder onto the desk.
  
  > press the space
  "Back in the 70s it was hip to build your pad on top of a transdimensional leyline nexus even though that plays hell with the electrical wiring," Bethany tells you. "It's a genuinely cool property, though. I've been over there a couple times to check the portals. One of the sphinxes and I get along great, the other one is all pissy with me because I solved all its riddles in three minutes."
  
  She sighs. "I offered to help it write new ones and, like, centralize a database? But now whenever it sees me it just rolls its eyes and makes fart noises, and I'm all, 'Real mature, sphinx.' It makes it super awkward chatting with the other one 'cause they're only
  ten feet apart from each other but the house is still really cool. There's an infinity pool and everything."
  
  > ask about the infinity pool
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and all I got from that was 'Junelaska vacation'.
  
  > ask her about 18 F'tagn court
  (Bethany about 18 F'tagn Court)
  "Absolutely! Let me find that folder," Bethany says, turning to search through the filing cabinet.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes.
  
  "Time to cross finding this folder off of the to-do list!"
  Bethany drops the folder onto the desk.
  "Some crazy stuff went down at 18 F'tagn Court," Bethany tells you. "In fact, there was this huge mess and we had to change the floors."
  
  "The floors?" you ask.
  
  "You see, his bl-- his blackyard blarbecue got a blit out of hand." She tightens her lips. "And it, uh, blurnt the floorbloards. So we had to change them."
  
  You quirk an eyebrow at Bethany and she deflates. "Sorry," she says, "I keep forgetting I'm supposed to lie about F'tagn Court, and
  wow am I really not great at it. Wanna know about any
  buildings where they didn't find a ton of faceless bodies?"
  
  > ask her about 18 F'tagn court
  (Bethany about 18 F'tagn Court)
  "Faceless bodies?" you ask Bethany.
  
  She tightens her lips and shakes her head vigorously. "Blarbecue! It was a very blad blarbecue. They blurnt the blatwurst and forgot the bluns. Also the potato salad had clams in it, yuck."
  
  You realize you're probably much happier not knowing, so you let it drop.
  
  > ask her about 36 river walk drive
  (Bethany about 36 River Walk Drive)
  "Let me grab the folder for that!" Bethany says, turning to search through the filing cabinet.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes.
  
  "The folder-finding wizard has done it again!" Bethany drops the folder onto the desk.
  "You know that ad where someone gets chocolate into someone else's peanut butter and someone else gets peanut butter into someone else's chocolate?" Bethany asks you. "That is basically what happened with 36 River Walk Drive except instead of a peanut butter cup you have a mostly underwater house and instead of being delicious it is soggy and bad."
  
  > examine the walk folder
  The folder for 36 River Walk Drive is completely waterlogged. Carefully, you pull away the top layer of manila. Inside is a large clump of illegibly smeared, soggy paper that rips apart when you attempt to separate the pages.
  
  "You're probably thinking that file is all wet because the property sank into the river and there's some kind of sympathetic magic in effect," Bethany says, "but what actually happened was, I dropped it in the toilet. My bad!" You quickly put the folder back down.
  
  > examine 18 F'tagn court
  The moment you slip your thumbnail between the two layers of the folder to separate them, the real estate office fills with a horrible shrieking as though angels were being torn limb from limb by an ungodly threshing machine, and you quickly withdraw your hand. "Yeah," Bethany says, "yeah, it does that."
  
  > look at 23 euclid street
  The folder for 23 Euclid Street is full of what you at first take to be someone's collection of midcentury modern cocktail napkins, then quickly realize is someone's collection of sphinx porn, crudely sketched onto midcentury modern cocktail napkins.
  
  "Yeah, there's a lot going on in that folder," says Bethany. "I was gonna warn you, but then I thought, nah, you look like a woman who can handle her sphinx dong."
  
  "Oh, I definitely am," you assure her, staring down a pair of cartoon sphinxes with comically oversized genitals engaged in a sex act you know only as the Even Wetter Willy.
  
  "Wanna know the really funny part?" Bethany asks you. "Sphinxes are asexual. I literally don't know why we hold on to these napkins."
  
  > ask her about the crystal
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and as far as I can tell, you just said 'hose beast city'.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a pamphlet of home listings
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a key pocket (open but empty)
  a book pocket (open but empty)
  a side pocket (open but empty)
  a trash pocket (open but empty)
  a backpack features guide
  a coded telegram
  a book list
  a library card
  Peter's jacket
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three
  a faint chill (haunting you)
  a cast iron spire
  a waterproof flashlight
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne
  a postcard of Big Ben
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  a pull-string doll
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup
  a familiar gold wristwatch
  a brass winding key
  
  > look at the pamphlet
  || 8 BR 1 BA || Quiet neighborhood! Completely redone with brand new floors and concrete-sealed basement. Hardly any muttering!
  
  || 3 BR 2 BA || Great river views and convenient for boating! Trawl for crayfish from the comfort of your living room. Entire upstairs still mostly above water!
  
  || 2 BR 5 BA || An obelisk lover's dream! Extensive yard boasts a true infinity pool and an impressive collection of garden statuary, including twin sphinxes. Paradoxically nearby to everything!
  
  Underneath the description of 23 Euclid Street, someone has scrawled the words "JACKDAWS LOVE MY BIG SPHINX OF QUARTZ."
  
  > ask her about the quartz
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and I'm guessing you didn't really just say 'bratwurst effect'.
  
  > ask her about the JACKDAWS
  (Bethany about that)
  "I'm sorry," Bethany says, "I have auditory processing disorder, and I only understood you as far as saying 'harbinger slosh slosh'.