text: [Themes: Lovecraftian, Lovecraft]
  
  > Look around
  You're in a rather forbidding living room. The chairs and table are all of some incredibly dark wood, the green carpet beneath them even darker. Vertical stripes of a complex red floral pattern on the wallpaper make the high ceiling seem even further away than it must be. A wide window in the west wall admits early afternoon light through its dirty glass, along with a view of nothing but sky and clouds.
  
  The room is cold.
  
  There are closed doors to the north and east.
  
  A red telephone is mounted on the wall.
  
  You see the mahogany podium with the buttons on it.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > examine the chairs
  All sharp corners and no cushioning, plus they seem to devour light. Meals in this room must be pretty joyless.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > examine the window
  Bobbing your head about until you find an angle from which you're able to see through the bleary old panes, you realize why only the sky was visible at first. The room you're in is high up, so you have to be close to the glass before you can see all the way down to the ground. You recognize the grounds of of Cragne Manor out there.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > go to the north
  As you move in that direction, the background music becomes fainter and murkier, as does all sound in the room. You sense that you're stepping outside some area which is the focus of the music. The further you move away from the focus, the more the music dissolves and the less comfortable you feel. Your physical movements start to become restricted, as if you were wading into a narrowing corridor of thick mud.
  
  Each step brings an alarming increase in nauseating sensations and disorientation until, almost sick, you rush back into the focal area. The music returns in full and you experience immediate relief.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > Go south
  You can't go that way.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > Go east
  As you're unable to leave the focal area of Francine's music, you can't work out any way to walk out of the immediate area.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > open the window
  The window is permanently set in the wall. Looks like it was never made to be opened.
  
  (Slowly-pulsing beats and a high, elusive melody play in the background.)
  
  > examine the lightbulbs
  (the lightbulbs)
  The bulbs must have been chosen to keep this hallway moodily lit instead of properly lit.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > examine the gig
  Printed on the gig poster in hectic green and black writing that you can barely read is:
  
  Coming up at The Carfax!
  
  Bread Loaf Mountaineers
  Pyramidial Tension
  Xavier feat. The Cosmos
  Francine C
  
  Each of these bands' logos fights for space on the poster in a cacophony of typefaces.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look at clipping
  A handwritten note on the newspaper clipping on the wall indicates it's from the Backwater Banner's August 26, 1994 edition.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > read it
  The article reads:
  
  (Cassandra Campbell. Backwater Banner, August 26, 1994.)
  
  Local Backwater musician Francine Cragne has been charged with misdemeanor assault after audience members alleged she threw real blood on them at the end of a musical performance.
  
  Miss Cragne, twenty-three years of age and who goes by the stage name Francine C, ended her encore at The Carfax Club on August 19 by emptying the red liquid contents of a vial over front row patrons. Cragne is known for her morbid on-stage theatrics, and the wet patrons assumed they had been sprayed with stage blood. It was only after leaving the club that audience members had the opportunity to properly smell and inspect the fluid. Some claimed it was real blood and returned to the venue to complain. Miss Cragne had already left The Carfax for the night.
  
  "I thought Francine was the bomb before this," said Burlington resident Robert Aspin, who attended Miss Cragne's August 19 show. "She does a lot of wild stuff, but I'm grossed out by this. Plus I don't want AIDS or nothing. I don't know where that blood came from."
  
  Backwater Police picked up Miss Cragne the next day at Cragne Manor, her family home in Backwater. When asked by this reporter if she had any comment to make regarding the accusation that she had thrown her own blood on Carfax Club patrons, Cragne replied, "You think I'd throw someone else's blood on them?"
  
  Miss Cragne was charged on August 20 and released on bail. The Carfax Club's management have declined to comment on the incident.
  
  > Examine wanted
  Which do you mean, the wanted poster of a woman or the wanted poster of a man?
  
  > Woman
  The grainy, xeroxed black and white poster says "WANTED: FRANCINE C". A big-mouthed woman in a ratty dress scowls into the camera, her hair feral, her attitude rock star. Francine Cragne.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > examine wanted man
  This crumpled xerox is an FBI wanted poster for the serial killer Ted Bundy. He went to the chair years ago, as you recall.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look at the large photograph
  The foot-long photo shows a laughing woman stepping at an angle towards the camera, as if to go past the photographer. Tight on her stocky body is a dark, satiny but scummy-looking floral dress, artfully torn in a few places or perhaps just worn out. Shoving a great mass of grungy red hair back behind one ear as she leaves, she has an obvious rock star fierceness about her. Her eyes are far apart and narrow, though you can't see into them in this photo, but her squishy-lipped mouth is flung open in laughter, revealing somewhat wonky and frightening teeth. Her skin is an oily white, her face scarred and with spots.
  
  The photo's background of a plain, cream-colored wall certainly throws this hectic-looking individual into relief.
  
  Comparing this photo to the adjacent wanted poster of the scowling woman, it's apparent that the woman in the photo is also Francine. In fact the images come from the same time and place. It looks like she posed for a photo to be used on the wanted poster, then broke the pose, started to laugh, stepped off her spot, and was snapped again as she did so.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > get the photograph
  If you did that, you'd feel a bit too much like one of those characters in a film who tears pages out of a public phonebook for their own convenience.
  
  (Underneath cold and muffled tones, a dull beat plays in the background.)
  
  > examine girl
  She's a sickly little thing. Her hair is a knotted dark red tangle that evolves into a bunch of corkscrews and rat tails where it falls over her shoulders.
  
  The girl continues to chant over the paper, the intensity in her young voice increasing:
  
  "Francine, rancine, ancine, en-seen, seen, een, enn, ee, Francine, rancine, ancine, en-seen, seen, een, enn, ee."
  
  (A steady but dulled beat plays in the background. There's also a separate high-pitched tone in the air. It feels more present, as if it's coming out of something in this room.)
  
  > examine the bed
  Like much of this room, the bed looks very old, with a decrepit black bedhead of flaking cast iron. The sheets are threadbare pink flannel.
  
  The girl's voice is growing hoarse from the repetition of the chant -
  
  "Francine, rancine, ancine, en-seen, seen, een, enn, ee, Francine, rancine, ancine, en-seen, seen, een, enn, ee."
  
  As the voice circles itself, the room starts to blur. The music that followed you here from the music room begins to sink away. You feel an intense nausea and headache coming on, and you fall to your knees, trembling.
  
  Just as you're on the verge of passing out, you realise the girl has stopped chanting. The unbearable sensations recede.
  
  (A steady but dulled beat plays in the background. There's also a separate high-pitched tone in the air. It feels more present, as if it's coming out of something in this room.)
  
  > look at the window
  The window's blinds are raised and it's open to the warm evening.
  
  Gathering yourself up, you look to the girl. Her eyes are open, and though she's flushed from her exertions, she appears calm, even tranquil. She looks down at the paper on the floor. Then she considers her left hand, the bloodied one.
  
  With a single forceful movement she shoves the hand in her mouth and down her throat. She gags and chokes, her face turns red and her body quakes. Then, as if pulling a cork from a bottle, she yanks her hand free and vomits pointedly all over the picture in front of her.
  
  Looking as devastated as a far older woman who's just given birth, the girl crawls forward through the steaming mess and lifts her paper out of it. Though dripping, it's still in one piece.
  
  (A steady but dulled beat plays in the background. There's also a separate high-pitched tone in the air. It feels more present, as if it's coming out of something in this room.)
  
  > look at the paper
  (the piece of paper)
  All you can make out from here is that there's a drawing on it.
  
  Suddenly the girl stands and turns to you. You'd swear she was looking straight at you, except that those widely set eyes of hers are unfocused.
  
  "Are you still there?" she asks in a harsh whisper. "I feel you. I must have called you. I don't know how, but I trust myself." The girl's eyes roll around with a beseeching madness that is upsetting to see in her young face.
  
  (A steady but dulled beat plays in the background. There's also a separate high-pitched tone in the air. It feels more present, as if it's coming out of something in this room.)
  
  > talk to Francine
  She's straining to hear, but you don't think she can.
  
  The girl darts her head about like a little bird, searching but not finding. It makes you wonder if you're really here.
  
  She turns away abruptly and begins a new chant: "Thine nine, I am thine, thine nine, return in time." Muttering a nonsensical stream of similar phrases, she takes her picture over to the window, sits on the floor, folds the picture into a paper plane, stands again and throws the plane out the window. Then she sniffs and rubs her nose on her pajama sleeves.
  
  She turns to face approximately in your direction again. The door to the room is thrown open behind you and the girl cowers. Someone enters the room in a thunderous way. The room floods with light from the doorway as this person seems to tramp into the very space you occupy. Your body jolts and so does the background music.
  
  The Music Room (Wade Clarke)
  You are in a large modern studio space, not unlike a concert hall but without any seating. Dark, golden-hued wooden paneling lines the floor and walls, imbuing the area with an intimate atmosphere in spite of its size. The walls curve inwards in a carefully designed asymmetrical fashion (some kind of acoustic treatment?) and electric-bulbed faux chandeliers fill the place with ruddy light.
  
  A doorway leads out of the music room to the west.
  
  Standing against the center of the eastern wall, facing you, is a mahogany podium with four push-buttons on it.
  
  > Lfo
  You press the LFO button. Nothing happens.
  
  > Lfo
  You press the LFO button and it lights up. The music begins to undulate rhythmically.
  The air trembles and your surroundings change.
  
  You are in a small, damp-smelling circular chamber flagged in an iridescent sea green. There's a hole in the ceiling leading into a sloped shaft, and a drainage grille in the floor. The plinking of distant water echoes up through the grille. Some weak bluish light bounces down into the chamber from the shaft. The light catches scratches on the floor.
  
  You see a child's kaleidoscope tube set on a metal stand, like a telescope.
  
  You see the mahogany podium with the buttons on it.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > examine the hole
  (the hole in the ceiling)
  You can barely reach the hole, and find you can't get any kind of grip on it. All you can see when you look up there is that it immediately becomes a diagonally-sloping shaft that leads out of sight.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > examine the grille
  The grille is concreted into the floor. You can't see what's beyond it.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > open it
  It's immovable.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look at the scratches
  Scratched into the floor in tiny letters is:
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look at the kaleidoscope
  The kaleidoscope is made up of three rotating metal cylinders attached end to end. The cylinders are decorated with embossed stars and rainbows. There's an eyehole at one end of the tube.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look through it
  Peering into the eyehole of the kaleidoscope, you see the expected pretty, glassy patterns in a circular frame - but only for a second. The effect wavers away, leaving you staring through a plain lens at a particular spot on the wall.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > examine the spot
  You walk over to the wall and squint at the area singled out by the kaleidoscope. It seems to be as green and featureless as any other part of the wall.
  
  Wait. While turning your head, you heard a sliver of someone's voice, as if you'd just dialed past a station on your car radio.
  
  Carefully, you move your head around the surface - up, down, back and forth - but, frustratingly, the other noises in the vicinity distract your ears, and you are unable to rediscover the sound.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > Continue
  You return to the part of the wall singled out by the kaleidoscope. Carefully, you move your head around the surface - up, down, back and forth - but, frustratingly, the other noises in the vicinity distract your ears, and you are unable to rediscover the sound.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look at the podium
  Atop the podium you see the following four buttons arranged left to right: A crimson button (illuminated), a button with a plus symbol on it, a button with a minus symbol on it, and a button labeled 'LFO' (illuminated).
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > search it
  There is nothing on the mahogany podium.
  
  (A weirdly undulating beat plays in the background.)
  
  > look at the seesaw
  It's of a kind you almost never see today, just a wooden plank on a hinge with a cold metal T-bar at each end. There are no springs or pads or anything else attached to the structure to cushion anyone or mediate the plank's motion.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > get on it
  You're really too big (physically) to do more than give this seesaw a push.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine hinge
  The hinge is rusting but remains functional. You notice a piece of chalk sitting on it.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine the chalk
  (the piece of chalk)
  A piece of plain white chalk.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > get it
  Taken.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > look athe t-bar
  There's something poking out of one of the handles.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > look at the handle
  (the dull machete)
  The blade is long and rusty. The dirty wooden handle is still covered in a mesh of rootlets, providing a nice grip.
  
  You wish you had something to sharpen it with.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > put the machete in the side pocket
  You unzip the side pocket, deposit the dull machete, then zip the side pocket back up again.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > look at the handle
  You find a note stuck in the end of one of the handles. You pull it out.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > Seesaw
  The note says: THE TREES
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine Daniel
  Peter,
  
  I was very glad to hear of your impending arrival. Your family line has been separated from Cragne Manor for far too long. Call me old-fashioned, but I wanted to give you something as a "homecoming" present. Truth be told, I'm really just returning your property. The object you'll find inside was something your father gave to me many years ago. He said that it had originally belonged to your great uncle Luther. He never explained why he wanted me to have it, and seemed to take great pleasure in the fact that the object's purpose or function was a conundrum that I couldn't solve. Following his death, I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I ended up simply using it as a rather elaborate paperweight. Maybe you'll have better luck figuring it out. Lord knows, it's not like the extended Cragne family hasn't dealt with its share of mysteries.
  
  Yours truly, Daniel Baker.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine TREES
  You look to the trees. A non-descript boy in drab clothing steps out from amongst them. He comes no closer.
  
  The boy's mouth starts to move, but you don't hear any sound from it crossing the space between you. You are instead startled by a toneless whispering right in your ear:
  
  Francine, we
  
  Francine, we're here
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine boy
  His face has nothing remarkable or unremarkable about it, nor does his hair. His clothing speaks of no particular time.
  
  We are carrying the circle you asked for from the far place. It
  will take 5113 days to carry it. On that day you will see mountain-climbers. They keep the circle inside their symbol.
  
  We are carrying the ears you asked for from the far place. It will take 381 days to carry them. Whenever you need them, say your name, then pick up three times. Do it at night.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > look at the boy
  His face has nothing remarkable or unremarkable about it, nor does his hair. His clothing speaks of no particular time.
  
  Why don't you let us in when you speak with us?
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine boy
  His face has nothing remarkable or unremarkable about it, nor does his hair. His clothing speaks of no particular time.
  
  We serve you only, no other child
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine boy
  His face has nothing remarkable or unremarkable about it, nor does his hair. His clothing speaks of no particular time.
  
  (Music consisting of a beat and sparse, cold notes bends up and down unpleasantly in the background.)
  
  > examine the body
  You want to understand more about what's happened here, or why, or who this is, but it's dark and you're numb and afraid. Your mind feels like it's retreated under a rock.
  
  (Strange music plays in the background. Beats, pulses and dissonant high notes move in and out of time. The whole piece ripples up and down in frequency.)
  
  > examine the marks
  Written in blood on her stomach is "FUCK YOU".
  
  (Strange music plays in the background. Beats, pulses and dissonant high notes move in and out of time. The whole piece ripples up and down in frequency.)
  
  > look at the lightbulb
  (the red-tinted bulb)
  The red tint makes for poor illumination.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > examine the shelf
  The junk on the shelves has probably been hoarded over many years in readiness for that one day when a single object buried amongst it could come in handy.
  
  You hear someone moving around upstairs.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > search it
  You better leave it alone. It's the only light you've got down here.
  
  You hear someone moving around upstairs.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > search them
  There's nothing you need amongst all that precariously balanced junk. You'll leave it alone.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > look at the desk
  On the writing desk are a newspaper clipping, the first diary page and the second diary page.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > look at the clipping
  It's been snipped out of an issue of the Backwater Banner.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > read it
  The article reads:
  
  RUMORS OF DECAPITATIONS IN THE NORTHEAST TURN OUT TO BE TRUE!
  
  (Edna Johnson. Backwater Banner, October 27, 1995.)
  
  Sources close to several ongoing murder investigations in The Kingdom have revealed to the Backwater Banner that the investigators believe they may be dealing with a serial killer. One whose modus operandi includes chopping off heads.
  
  When the headless corpse of a man was found on farmland outside of Hardwick in September last year, the sensational story was widely reported in local news. The man remains unidentified and the murder remains unsolved. What authorities haven't made public, but which the Banner can now confirm, is that two more headless corpses have been found in similar circumstances along the banks of the Lamoille River over the past year. The first corpse was that of a woman, the second that of another man.
  
  Vermont State Police Commander Keith Browne, Jr. has refused to offer any comment to the Banner on what he described as "this highly sensitive murder investigation."
  
  "I urge the press not to re-publish irresponsible rumors that could interfere with police work," the commander said on Tuesday.
  
  The Banner advocates a free press and believes citizens have a right to know about highly unusual dangers in their state.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a note from a seesaw
  a piece of chalk
  a shard
  a broken silver amulet
  a teapot
  a tiny leather journal
  Daniel Baker's note
  an old paperback book
  an old newspaper (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a metal flask (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a familiar gold wristwatch
  a glass jar containing an insect
  a pull-string doll (smelling faintly of mildew)
  The Modern Girl's Divination Handbook -- Volume Three
  a postcard of Big Ben (smelling faintly of mildew)
  the diary of Phyllis Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew)
  The Dollmaker's Journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a repaired page (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a wad of cash
  an antique locket (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a moldy, waterlogged journal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Twin Hearts Between the Planes
  a trolley schedule (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a backpack features guide
  a grimy rock (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a long hooked pole (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a soggy tome
  an employee ID card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  some yellowed newspapers
  a rusty piece of metal
  Tolerating An Asinine God (smelling faintly of mildew)
  loose bricks (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black business card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a trophy for a dog race (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty flathead screwdriver
  a pair of garden shears (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a gallon jug of white vinegar (smelling faintly of mildew)
  some mildewed leather gloves
  a key from an urn
  a bronze urn (closed)
  a copper urn (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a spray bottle that used to contain fungicide
  a waterproof flashlight (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pamphlet of home listings (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a mallet (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a gold jacket (being worn)
  a filthy rug
  a hovering spark (haunting you) (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (closed)
  a book pocket (open but empty)
  a side pocket (closed)
  a trash pocket (closed)
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > examine first diary
  This lined page has been torn out of a large diary to use as writing paper. It's covered in meandering cursive handwriting.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > read it
  The first diary page reads:
  
  In order for the magic to work I am Syrach-bound to write truthfully about my relationship with the subject and how I acquired the object.
  
  I first met Abril Navarro at the Maximas dojo on the evening of the thirteenth of January in 1995. She'd just broken up with a boyfriend who'd then shoved her out of his car in Vermont. She was looking around for new friends and new meaning. David definitely had his eye on Abril that night, but I had a feeling she might turn out to be useful, so I got her out of there before he could talk to her.
  
  (David later died when I conjured something on him. The summon was just meant to spy on him, but I hear it painted the room with his brains. That's why the Maximas are after me. It's also why my relationship with Abril has become so important.)
  
  Me and Abril got to drinking our way around Church Street. She told me she was from Miami originally. Her heavy Roman Catholic upbringing had turned her off the big religions. She loved her mom, so she wore the ring her mom gave her everywhere, but her mom was deep into religion and that was a bad scene for Abril. I suppose that's how people like Abril end up at a temple for the occult in Burlington.
  
  I told her I was a musician and that I was into the occult. I told her a lot of the Maximas people I'd met were full of shit, but also that I thought the temple was onto something. I didn't tell her that whenever their somethings came to anything, I liked to know about it. That was the main reason I kept visiting the temple.
  
  That night I took Abril to crash with me at Cragne Manor, just because it wasn't too far a drive. She thought the house was loco and that I must be a millionaire. I said I grew up there then got out of there, but I still had rooms there I could use. Talk about a long story short.
  
  If particular Cragnes noticed a strange Latina woman walking around the manor grounds, they'd go apeshit, but Abril wears her Florida Marlins baseball cap and big glasses everywhere during the day. I love Abril's black hair. It almost touches her waist.
  
  > read it
  The second diary page reads:
  
  I saw Abril on and off. I helped her get an apartment. She came to some of my shows and we went out. She liked that if she flirted with guys, they'd always be scared away by me. She didn't want another boyfriend already. She didn't want to try my bed, either. I just kept her close. I had perceived something about her, that her auras and her life forces and her cosmic keys were perfectly aligned with mine. I now knew what she would be useful for at the right time.
  
  On the second of November in 1995, I invited Abril to visit me at the remote property of a Maximas temple member in Essex. I'd acquired this property for the purpose. I drugged Abril's wine, waited for her to fall asleep and then sawed her head off. I played the music to open the way. I performed the incantation. I tasted the blood dripping from her head. I took the ring from her finger.
  
  Abril's the only one where I wished I didn't have to kill her. I liked her, but my existence is the important thing.
  
  These pages need to survive for the spell to work. I think I'll laminate them. Not at Kinko's, though. Then I'll hide them.
  
  I'm also bound not to destroy the head. The rest of the body, okay. Tonight I'll have to risk driving it over to the pit to get it started.
  
  I don't know who is decapitating people in the northeast.
  
  2 November, 1995
  
  > open the freezer
  You lift the freezer lid and rest it against the basement wall. A cloud of ice vapor plumes from the chest. When it clears, you see there's just one thing inside. An object wrapped in black plastic trash bags.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > examine the Head
  Which do you mean, the object wrapped in black plastic, the pull-string doll (smelling faintly of mildew) or the mallet (smelling faintly of mildew)?
  
  > Black plastic
  You pull carefully at the wrappings. The weight of the thing inside resists. After some fiddling, the first layer comes off, revealing another bag. You unwind it from around the object, disturbed to feel something alternately organic and hard passing beneath your fingers through the plastic.
  
  The second layer eventually comes off, revealing a third bag. You can tell the thing is inside it.
  
  You ease the mouth of the bag downwards. Something like a twinkling jewel appears in the opening. You lean closer to try to understand. Then you understand. A frost-dusted eye, the blank gaze of death. A woman's plump but slack, cyanotic-hued lips.
  
  Your heart and stomach both start at once and you wheel away, belching violently. Stomach acid comes scalding into your mouth. Gradually, the physical shock passes.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > examine the Head
  Which do you mean, the head of Abril Navarro, the pull-string doll (smelling faintly of mildew) or the mallet (smelling faintly of mildew)?
  
  > Abril
  Tensing yourself, you return to the bag and open the mouth a little wider. You were afraid it might smell, but it doesn't.
  
  Abril's lush black hair has been crammed carelessly into the bag. Death, freezing, and the isolation of her head in this absurd context destroy all your other attempts at understanding. Interpreting her looks is impossible. Acknowledging her ethnicity or anything else about her is impossible. Perhaps if you took the head out of the bag... No, you could never do that.
  
  As you release the bag, the weight inside it causes it to tilt slightly. Something stuck against the plastic catches the light.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > examine it
  You reach for the glint in the freezer and pull out a ring.
  
  It's a thin ring with a heart engraved on it.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > examine the ring
  (Abril's ring)
  It's a thin ring with a heart engraved on it.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > get it
  You already have that.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)
  
  > get first diary
  Taken.
  
  (Music consisting mostly of a muffled beat rolls around uncomfortably in the background.)