If there’s one thing adrenaline can’t make a pair of teenage boys run through, it’s a very solid bedroom wall.
And now that they’ve stopped running, Noah doesn’t know if he’ll be able to run again in his life. His chest and legs are burning from the strain, and the thickness of the air and dust isn’t helping him catch his breath. He’s able to let go of Cameron’s hand and slink over to the bed, where he collapses into a more or less sitting position, but even that feels like a Herculean effort.
Cameron sits next to him a few moments later, fishing out his phone. “Still no signal,” he says, in between breaths, “But it... should give us some more light.”
Technically it does, but the electronic glow of the phone’s screen just makes the rest of the room feel darker in comparison, the shadows of all the furniture being cast into sharper relief. And the sound of Cameron panting is setting Noah on edge. Cam’s never this out of breath, or at least- technically Noah has seen Cam out of breath before, usually after a P.E. class or sneaking out of someone’s bedroom or some other misadventure, but he never sounds tired, not like this.
“Where…” Noah pauses for a breath before continuing, “...are we?”
“Beyond the obvious?” Cameron says, shining the light at the bed posts. “...Hm. No idea. We shouldn’t stay here too long though… Best not to get trapped in a dead end if anything comes after us… He was very loud.”
That was the understatement of the century. It occurs to Noah that he has no idea if the Host is… “alive” is obviously wrong, so he mentally settles for “alright.” It would probably be better for them if the Host wasn’t, of course, but… it had sounded like he was in a lot of pain, for someone without a body.
“What was that thing you were reading? That… spell, I mean,” Noah gestures vaguely at Cameron’s jacket.
“The one about the earth and air and whatnot? Some banishment spell or other. I figured odds were somebody was going to notice the book was missing sooner or later, and might have a problem with it, so that was the first thing I looked up in the index. And that one was the simplest looking one, so I flipped to it as soon as I heard someone coming.” Cameron grins, a little shakily, at Noah. “I can’t believe you actually managed to follow me all the way into the attic, by the way.”
“I can’t believe you stole a spellbook from a decapitated woman in a crystal ball, yet here we are.”
Cameron laughs but oddly, it doesn’t make Noah feel any better. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Cameron says. “All of this has been right here for so long, and we had no idea.”
“I wish we still had no idea!” Noah buries his face in his hands. “Why did you even come here? And why did you take that stupid book?”
“...It wasn’t exactly planned, you know. We- Mali, Dillon, Adrian, Leilani and me- we all had some time to kill, and I was the only one willing to go in further than the porch, once we saw the lights were on.”
“Mali didn’t mention the part about the lights,” Noah mutters.
“Maybe she was trying to trick you, or trying to trick herself. Anyway. You can probably guess the rest- I’m not sure how much of the tour the Host gave you, but he started showing off all sorts of things. A gallery with moving walls, paintings that changed-”
“Yeah, all that,” Noah interrupts. “We were just outside of Madame Leota’s room when he found out what you’d done.”
“-I see. Well, he left me unattended while we were in the ballroom and while it was all very interesting, I hadn’t gotten as good a look at everything as I’d wanted. So I backtracked a bit and when I got to the seance room I noticed the Madame seemed pretty distracted and well… There was an opportunity, so I took it.”
At this point, Noah finally removes his face from his hands just so he can shoot Cameron his best annoyed look. “So you stole it on some sort of whim?”
Cameron, of course, merely raises his eyebrows. “You make it sound like I got dared to lift some candy bars.”
“No, I mean- You stole something, first off, which is bad, obviously- but then of course you’ve seen how insane this place is and you decided ‘Oh, you know what will be fun? Messing with all of it!’ What if that spell had, had banished you or something?!”
“It shouldn’t have, considering I specified the Host in the right place.”
“That’s-!”
“-Besides, if I hadn’t risked that spell he would have just taken the book from me and then we’d have been defenceless, right?”
Noah actually has to take a moment to think about this. Obviously the Host had been terrifying him all evening, but… “It wasn’t like he was going to kill us. I mean, I talked to him and the Madame, they agreed that if you just gave the book back we could get to go home and everything would go back to normal.”
Cameron laughs again, but this time it’s obviously forced. “How generous! And then I suppose we’d never have anything to do with ghosts or anything remotely unusual ever again?”
“...Ideally, yeah.” Noah huffs. “Are you even hearing yourself right now? There could be real consequences for all of this! We, we don’t know how any of this works so just- How do you think your Dad would feel if you never came home again?”
Cameron goes quiet.
Noah hopes, desperately, that maybe that’s a sign that Cameron’s reconsidering things- his cousin’s expression seems thoughtful, but it’s hard to read in the gloom. And then it gets even harder to read when Cameron casually swings his phone so the light is shining right into Noah’s eyes.
Noah flinches, having to turn away. “Jesus, watch where you point that thing!”
“I assume he’d be very, very sad,” Cameron says calmly. “My turn to ask a question. I’ve been wondering, why did you follow me here in the first place?”
“What-? What kind of question… I mean, you didn’t show up when you said you would, and I thought you’d get into some sort of trouble… which you did, by the way…”
“So? You don’t have to follow me everywhere, all the time. You could’ve just gone home.”
Noah stiffens. Why does Cameron have to phrase it like that? He wants to turn his head to glare at Cameron, but of course his cousin’s still holding that stupid light up. “I told you,” Noah says, “You were in trouble-”
“Of course I was,” Cameron says. “You did lead the Host right to me. Not to mention interrupted the banishment spell, even when you had no idea what it even was.”
“I didn’t lead him to you! And look, I had a bad feeling about that spell-”
“You have a bad feeling about everything.”
“I do not!” And even Noah has to cringe at how blatantly childish his own response is. There’s just something about the way Cameron is talking that is flustering him even worse than normal. That maddeningly even tone of voice, like he’s being oh-so-reasonable, and then there’s Noah flying off the handle, having no idea what he’s doing or talking about.
“I’m just saying,” Cameron continues, “It’s a bit irritating having you moaning about everything when I never asked you to come get me in the first place.”
Noah can’t even say anything to that, not at first. The only thing that comes out is an angry little noise. He’s “just saying?” Somehow, it feels like a punch in the face would have been kinder. His stomach keeps twisting up, it takes several attempts before he can spit out: “You selfish- You- You complete and utter prick.”
Cameron finally moves the light away, but Noah doesn’t bother to try and look up.
“Look,” Cameron says, standing up. “Forget it. Let’s just go before anyone else finds us.”
Noah remains seated. “...Why don’t you just find your own way, if I’m such a nuisance?”
There’s another pause, before Cameron says, “Sure, why not? I bet the ghosts will be happy to help an upstanding guy like yourself out of here.”
“I do have that whole didn’t-steal-their-fucking-spellbook-thing going for me, don’t I?”
“Right, and if the goodness of their hearts isn’t enough to compel them, I’m sure they’ll get bored of you before too long.”
“And maybe they’ll finally get so sick of you being such a self-centered dick that even the axe murderers will want you out of here!”
“And when they chop my head off you can tell everyone how you knew this would happen all along!”
“Just get OUT, Cameron!”
Noah’s expecting Cameron to offer some blithe retort or another, but the only thing he hears is a moment of silence, followed by the shuffle of Cameron’s feet. The light from Cameron’s phone drifts across the room, before disappearing entirely along with the sound of the door shutting.
Noah blinks back his tears, pretending that his eyes are only watering from the light that had been pointed at him.
We open the curtain on Act 2 with: words words words words
And now that they’ve stopped running, Noah doesn’t know if he’ll be able to run again in his life. His chest and legs are burning from the strain, and the thickness of the air and dust isn’t helping him catch his breath. He’s able to let go of Cameron’s hand and slink over to the bed, where he collapses into a more or less sitting position, but even that feels like a Herculean effort.
Cameron sits next to him a few moments later, fishing out his phone. “Still no signal,” he says, in between breaths, “But it... should give us some more light.”
Technically it does, but the electronic glow of the phone’s screen just makes the rest of the room feel darker in comparison, the shadows of all the furniture being cast into sharper relief. And the sound of Cameron panting is setting Noah on edge. Cam’s never this out of breath, or at least- technically Noah has seen Cam out of breath before, usually after a P.E. class or sneaking out of someone’s bedroom or some other misadventure, but he never sounds tired, not like this.
“Where…” Noah pauses for a breath before continuing, “...are we?”
“Beyond the obvious?” Cameron says, shining the light at the bed posts. “...Hm. No idea. We shouldn’t stay here too long though… Best not to get trapped in a dead end if anything comes after us… He was very loud.”
That was the understatement of the century. It occurs to Noah that he has no idea if the Host is… “alive” is obviously wrong, so he mentally settles for “alright.” It would probably be better for them if the Host wasn’t, of course, but… it had sounded like he was in a lot of pain, for someone without a body.
“What was that thing you were reading? That… spell, I mean,” Noah gestures vaguely at Cameron’s jacket.
“The one about the earth and air and whatnot? Some banishment spell or other. I figured odds were somebody was going to notice the book was missing sooner or later, and might have a problem with it, so that was the first thing I looked up in the index. And that one was the simplest looking one, so I flipped to it as soon as I heard someone coming.” Cameron grins, a little shakily, at Noah. “I can’t believe you actually managed to follow me all the way into the attic, by the way.”
“I can’t believe you stole a spellbook from a decapitated woman in a crystal ball, yet here we are.”
Cameron laughs but oddly, it doesn’t make Noah feel any better. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Cameron says. “All of this has been right here for so long, and we had no idea.”
“I wish we still had no idea!” Noah buries his face in his hands. “Why did you even come here? And why did you take that stupid book?”
“...It wasn’t exactly planned, you know. We- Mali, Dillon, Adrian, Leilani and me- we all had some time to kill, and I was the only one willing to go in further than the porch, once we saw the lights were on.”
“Mali didn’t mention the part about the lights,” Noah mutters.
“Maybe she was trying to trick you, or trying to trick herself. Anyway. You can probably guess the rest- I’m not sure how much of the tour the Host gave you, but he started showing off all sorts of things. A gallery with moving walls, paintings that changed-”
“Yeah, all that,” Noah interrupts. “We were just outside of Madame Leota’s room when he found out what you’d done.”
“-I see. Well, he left me unattended while we were in the ballroom and while it was all very interesting, I hadn’t gotten as good a look at everything as I’d wanted. So I backtracked a bit and when I got to the seance room I noticed the Madame seemed pretty distracted and well… There was an opportunity, so I took it.”
At this point, Noah finally removes his face from his hands just so he can shoot Cameron his best annoyed look. “So you stole it on some sort of whim?”
Cameron, of course, merely raises his eyebrows. “You make it sound like I got dared to lift some candy bars.”
“No, I mean- You stole something, first off, which is bad, obviously- but then of course you’ve seen how insane this place is and you decided ‘Oh, you know what will be fun? Messing with all of it!’ What if that spell had, had banished you or something?!”
“It shouldn’t have, considering I specified the Host in the right place.”
“That’s-!”
“-Besides, if I hadn’t risked that spell he would have just taken the book from me and then we’d have been defenceless, right?”
Noah actually has to take a moment to think about this. Obviously the Host had been terrifying him all evening, but… “It wasn’t like he was going to kill us. I mean, I talked to him and the Madame, they agreed that if you just gave the book back we could get to go home and everything would go back to normal.”
Cameron laughs again, but this time it’s obviously forced. “How generous! And then I suppose we’d never have anything to do with ghosts or anything remotely unusual ever again?”
“...Ideally, yeah.” Noah huffs. “Are you even hearing yourself right now? There could be real consequences for all of this! We, we don’t know how any of this works so just- How do you think your Dad would feel if you never came home again?”
Cameron goes quiet.
Noah hopes, desperately, that maybe that’s a sign that Cameron’s reconsidering things- his cousin’s expression seems thoughtful, but it’s hard to read in the gloom. And then it gets even harder to read when Cameron casually swings his phone so the light is shining right into Noah’s eyes.
Noah flinches, having to turn away. “Jesus, watch where you point that thing!”
“I assume he’d be very, very sad,” Cameron says calmly. “My turn to ask a question. I’ve been wondering, why did you follow me here in the first place?”
“What-? What kind of question… I mean, you didn’t show up when you said you would, and I thought you’d get into some sort of trouble… which you did, by the way…”
“So? You don’t have to follow me everywhere, all the time. You could’ve just gone home.”
Noah stiffens. Why does Cameron have to phrase it like that? He wants to turn his head to glare at Cameron, but of course his cousin’s still holding that stupid light up. “I told you,” Noah says, “You were in trouble-”
“Of course I was,” Cameron says. “You did lead the Host right to me. Not to mention interrupted the banishment spell, even when you had no idea what it even was.”
“I didn’t lead him to you! And look, I had a bad feeling about that spell-”
“You have a bad feeling about everything.”
“I do not!” And even Noah has to cringe at how blatantly childish his own response is. There’s just something about the way Cameron is talking that is flustering him even worse than normal. That maddeningly even tone of voice, like he’s being oh-so-reasonable, and then there’s Noah flying off the handle, having no idea what he’s doing or talking about.
“I’m just saying,” Cameron continues, “It’s a bit irritating having you moaning about everything when I never asked you to come get me in the first place.”
Noah can’t even say anything to that, not at first. The only thing that comes out is an angry little noise. He’s “just saying?” Somehow, it feels like a punch in the face would have been kinder. His stomach keeps twisting up, it takes several attempts before he can spit out: “You selfish- You- You complete and utter prick.”
Cameron finally moves the light away, but Noah doesn’t bother to try and look up.
“Look,” Cameron says, standing up. “Forget it. Let’s just go before anyone else finds us.”
Noah remains seated. “...Why don’t you just find your own way, if I’m such a nuisance?”
There’s another pause, before Cameron says, “Sure, why not? I bet the ghosts will be happy to help an upstanding guy like yourself out of here.”
“I do have that whole didn’t-steal-their-fucking-spellbook-thing going for me, don’t I?”
“Right, and if the goodness of their hearts isn’t enough to compel them, I’m sure they’ll get bored of you before too long.”
“And maybe they’ll finally get so sick of you being such a self-centered dick that even the axe murderers will want you out of here!”
“And when they chop my head off you can tell everyone how you knew this would happen all along!”
“Just get OUT, Cameron!”
Noah’s expecting Cameron to offer some blithe retort or another, but the only thing he hears is a moment of silence, followed by the shuffle of Cameron’s feet. The light from Cameron’s phone drifts across the room, before disappearing entirely along with the sound of the door shutting.
Noah blinks back his tears, pretending that his eyes are only watering from the light that had been pointed at him.