Diviners are fond of speaking in riddles when explaining their prophecies, often revealing one half while leaving the other in shadow. Sometimes, they don't even reveal that much. This time was no different. Miss Audrey had no intention of explaining what she meant by a "grand performance." She simply told Jenkins not to worry about it, for fate always favors the ignorant.
"You must be curious about why this place was abandoned, aren't you?"
"...Poor construction, making it structurally unsound?"
The woman was struck silent for a long moment by Jenkins's simple guess. She gave up on refuting him and simply continued with her own explanation:
"Something truly terrible happened here. An entire family of five, who lived in this house, was murdered. Three of them died horribly right here, on this second floor where we're standing. After that, passersby and local farmers began to report ghostly sightings. Gradually, no one dared to come near this place anymore."
She looked at Jenkins, who seemed lost in thought.
"I know you've been encountering similar situations lately, so today's test is this: before midnight arrives, you are to uncover the truth of what happened here all those years ago."
"The truth of what happened here?"
Jenkins repeated the objective, then glanced around the rather empty second floor, now marked only by the passage of time.
"No. The police department never reached a conclusion. It remains a cold case."
Miss Audrey nodded, then added another hint.
"Back then, no trace of supernatural involvement was found, so the Orthodox Church never took part in the investigation. When I found this place on the outskirts of Nolan, I performed a rather complex divination. What happened here is far more complicated than it seems."
That was a clear indication that the massacre was tied to supernatural forces. And once supernatural powers were involved, any investigation was bound to be more complex.
"Are there any restrictions on the methods I can use to investigate?"
Jenkins asked again. His usual methods of investigation had nothing to do with divination.
"No restrictions, but I hope you'll remember this is a divination lesson. So, as you investigate, please try to use divination."
Jenkins nodded once more, then pulled the ladies' pocket watch from his coat. It was 6:47 in the evening. There was still plenty of time until midnight. He could take it slow.
Very few of the original belongings remained in the house, and the second floor was practically bare. Jenkins had no idea how the police had collected evidence back then. He could only assume the original investigators had been completely irresponsible, which meant he would have to search the house from scratch.
Miss Audrey wouldn't have given him an impossible task. Jenkins was confident he could find something.
The most conspicuous object on the second floor was the double bed, and Jenkins decided to start there. He took a pair of white gloves from his pocket—an essential for any antique shop apprentice—put them on, and then stood on his toes to touch the canopy above the bed.
"The quality is really quite good. I imagine this was a very expensive item back in the day."
He glanced back at Miss Audrey expectantly as he spoke, but she remained silent.
The tattered remains of the canopy had no labels or tags. After a brief inspection, Jenkins looked down at the empty bed frame. Goodness knows what happened to the original bedding.
The wooden slats were so rotten you could call them pulp. Even if there had been evidence on them, it would surely be gone by now. But Jenkins was an antique shop apprentice, and he hadn't spent all his time at Papa Oliver's just teasing Chocolate. He picked up a splinter of wood and sniffed it.
"Is this... Costa oak?"
The tree itself wasn't rare; it grew all over the continent. The problem was that, according to local custom, it was a low-grade wood used exclusively for making coffins. To use it for bed slats was, in the eyes of an ordinary citizen, no different from sleeping in a tomb.
"Yes, it's definitely Costa oak."
Jenkins murmured to himself, this time with certainty. He would never mistake the scent. The smell of rotting Costa oak was unique; you could sometimes catch a similar odor from cheap burial goods.
"How interesting. Why on earth would they use this kind of wood?"
Jenkins muttered under his breath, then bent down and swept his cane under the bed, but he found nothing.
"May I ask the cause of death for the victims who lived here?"
He turned and asked, hoping for more details.
Miss Audrey said, not concealing the fact. She had been standing by the window with Chocolate the whole time. The cat seemed uneasy in the cold, damp environment and looked like it wanted to go home.
"Gunshots... alright." The source of thɪs content is Nove1Fire.net
Nodding, he examined the bed slats again, hoping to find bullet holes, but instead, he found a small hole in the corner of one of the boards.
"This size? A coffin nail?"
He couldn't quite believe his own judgment, but based on his accumulated experience, the mark was remarkably similar to one left by a coffin nail. If that were true, then the residents here hadn't just used coffin material for their bed—they had used the actual planks from a coffin.
"Was there some strange custom here? Or were they forced to do this?"
Jenkins couldn't find a reasonable explanation.
With no other clues to be found, he temporarily gave up on the bed. Cane in hand, he moved to the wall, but the rusted steam pipes offered no new direction for his investigation.
He sighed, cleared his mind, and closed his eyes, hoping to calm his spirit. He stood there, trying to receive a hint from his inspiration through divination, but it seemed he truly had no talent for it.
Heaving another sigh, he looked directly down at his feet. He had noticed a faint spiritual glow coming from underground from a great distance away, but reaching a conclusion using his Eye of Reality always felt a bit like cheating.
But since Miss Audrey hadn't forbidden any methods, taking a little shortcut wasn't out of the question.
"Is there a basement beneath the house?"
"Oh? How did you know?"
"My inspiration told me."
Jenkins nodded, his voice firm with conviction.
The entrance to the basement was beneath the floorboards in the southeast corner of the first floor. Miss Audrey believed the police back then had never found it.
As he opened the entrance, a stale, rotten stench billowed out, so overpowering that Jenkins had to wait nearly twenty minutes before daring to enter. At the same time, he caught a whiff of something else... something unusual.