The Undetectables E-Book

Courtney Smyth

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 557

Beschreibung

Be gay, solve crime, take naps—A witty and quirky fantasy murder mystery if a folkloric world of witches, faeires, vampires, trolls and ghosts, for fans of Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey and T. J. Klune's Under the Whispering Door. A magical serial killer is stalking the Occult town of Wrackton. Hypnotic whistling causes victims to chew their own tongues off, leading to the killer being dubbed the Whistler (original, right?). But outside the lack of taste buds and the strange magical carvings on the victims' torsos, the murderer leaves no evidence. No obvious clues. No reason—or so it seems. Enter the Undetectables, a detective agency run by three witches and a ghost in a cat costume (don't ask). They are hired to investigate the murders, but with their only case so far left unsolved, will they be up to the task? Mallory, the forensic science expert, is struggling with pain and fatigue from her recently diagnosed fibromyalgia. Cornelia, the team member most likely to go rogue and punch a police officer, is suddenly stirring all sorts of feelings in Mallory. Diana, the social butterfly of the group, is hitting up all of her ex-girlfriends for information. And not forgetting ghostly Theodore—deceased, dramatic, and also the agency's first dead body and unsolved murder case. With bodies stacking up and the case leading them to mysteries at the very heart of magical society, can the Undetectables find the Whistler before they become the killer's next victims?

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Perimortem I

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Perimortem II

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Perimortem III

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Perimortem IV

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

About The Author

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The Undetectables

Print edition ISBN: 9781803364780

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803364797

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Courtney Smyth 2023

Courtney Smyth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Michael

You were right, you know.

ONE

Six years ago

Theodore Wyatt’s greatest regret in life was dying while wearing a cat costume. Though this story is not about him, it is important to know this.

Every year on 31 October, the Broadwick family hosted a Samhain ball. It was described to Theodore as a massive celebration of both the dearly departed and of the Ternion, the three goddesses all of Occulture honoured. This was held in Broadwick Mansion, partly because the Mayoral Offices could not be used in the days surrounding Samhain – due to highly volatile spectral activity in the building – and partly because the Broadwicks liked everyone in Wrackton to be reminded of how well connected they were.

‘It’s a big deal to be invited to a Broadwick ball, so don’t fuck it up,’ the Night Mayor of Wrackton had barked at Theodore a few days prior, just as Theodore was making a break for home on the last day of his first year working in the Mayoral Offices.

‘How, as a matter of interest, can one get going to a party wrong? Just so I can figure out how offended I should be,’ Theodore had asked acidly. He was already very upset at the idea of having to go to a party. Theodore had hoped to spend Samhain as he always had before he’d moved to Wrackton – sitting at home with a book and letting it pass him by. He was Apparent, a non-magical being, and the festival did not mean to him what it meant to everyone else.

The Night Mayor’s eye twitched. It could’ve been annoyance, it could’ve been that something had got into it at the exact moment he started speaking; Theodore weighed up asking which it was before the Night Mayor choked out, ‘If you have to ask… Just remember you’re representing the Mayoral Offices as much as yourself, Timothy.’

‘It’s Theodore.’

‘Are you sure?’

Theodore decided maximum offence should be taken.

The Night Mayor had then given him vague directions to the mansion, and followed that up by shoving a Visit Wrackton: Samhain Etiquette leaflet into Theodore’s hands before walking away while Theodore was still mid-sentence. He still had the leaflet stuffed in his pocket, just in case anyone were to ask him if he had done due diligence in preparing to party.

Now Theodore clung to the edge of the crimson-lit ballroom, looking around for any of his wide-eyed Apparent colleagues, or any Apparent at all. It was a novelty for him, being in an Occult town like Wrackton and seeing magic up close, like visiting a theme park – if theme parks were typically found exactly halfway between Bath and Bristol, should one take a sharp enough left turn towards the faerie Redwoods. Something Theodore could talk about at parties, if he were the sort of person who usually went to parties. Or spoke to anyone at them.

He sidled up to the buffet table, piling enchanting food on a plate and staring at the enchanting décor and the equally enchanting demons, trolls, vampires, faeries and witches in attendance. Some of them were even in costume. This was an important addition conspicuously missing from the leaflet and from the Night Mayor’s instructions.

Faeries were the most daunting, ethereally beautiful and draped in avant-garde outfits that could have been abstract costumes, had Theodore not regularly seen faeries at the supermarket wearing something similar. There were several vampires wearing plastic fangs as a nod to Apparent folklore, and Theodore noticed how certain vampires made a big show of laughing uproariously. The folk whose skin had a blue-grey tint were trolls and they glowered from the corners of the ballroom, though Theodore had come to understand too that this was just what their resting faces looked like. He couldn’t believe that a mere year ago he hadn’t been able to tell the now-obvious differences between each Occulture. No amount of leaflets could’ve taught him what living in Wrackton had.

*   *   *

‘You’re Apparent, aren’t you?’ A tall demon in a bold checked suit and red plastic devil horns sauntered up to him. His angular face was bathed in red, and he raised a strong eyebrow at Theodore’s outfit of choice: a black-and-grey-checked shirt, a huge purple cardigan, and wildly unkempt blond hair. It was exactly what he’d put on that morning and had just considered changing out of before he noticed it was late and ran out the door.

‘Apparent-ly so, yes,’ Theodore said weakly, and shoved what he thought was a tiny silver cake into his mouth. This demon was the most attractive individual to look at him since he’d moved to Wrackton and Theodore didn’t quite know what to do.

‘Isn’t this food amazing?’ He swallowed. ‘A shiny silver cake. It’s almost like magic!’

The demon ignored both of his terrible jokes and extended a hand. Theodore juggled his plate into one hand and took the demon’s, realising too late that his fingers were still covered in cake crumbs.

‘Grey Quinn. I knew you were Apparent, because you’re not in costume. Let me help you.’ He didn’t seem to notice the crumbs. Grey took the plate from him, and in a swift movement jammed a pair of cat ears on Theodore’s head. Theodore had not thought he required help with this particular aspect of his person.

‘There. Oh, wait.’ Grey Quinn produced a marker from his pocket, uncapped it with his teeth and drew onto his face what Theodore both hoped and feared were whiskers.

‘There. Perfect. Look at us now.’ He turned Theodore around to face a mirror on the wall behind them. Theodore had no choice but to see he was indeed a bewhiskered cat, which he felt contradicted Quinn’s use of ‘perfect’.

He didn’t voice his chagrin, though there was much of it; he was not yet aware that this was a grave mistake.

‘Come on, smile.’ Grey Quinn shook him jovially by the shoulder. ‘Get into the spirit of things. It’s a party!’

Theodore felt himself smiling, and was uncertain if he’d meant to smile, or if the demon was using magic on him.

‘Go on, off you go. Have fun!’ Grey Quinn stumbled away.

It was only then that Theodore had three thoughts: one, that he was not going to have fun dressed like this at all; two, that he needed to figure out a way to resist the magically persuasive charm of demons before he was forced into doing something terribly untoward, like robbing a bank or compromising the scientific method; and three, that Grey Quinn was clearly intoxicated.

Theodore wondered how many steps there were between the buffet and the drinks table.

He took another bite of cake.

The lights went out.

The room clamoured with vague concern. The gathered Occult folk pulled lighters, phones and neon witchlight crystals out of their purses and pockets. Their hosts, Imogen and Ezra Broadwick, hastened to calm the crowd.

‘Does anyone know where the electricity is kept? Could one of our esteemed scientifically-inclined guests assist us?’ Imogen called. Her tone was calm, but her face twisted in the sort of panic one might expect of an individual who didn’t know how their home functioned.

Of his own volition this time, Theodore put down his plate of enchanted appetisers and volunteered to find the trip switch.

This, too, was a grave mistake.

‘Oh you’re too good. And you came in costume, that’s so… darling. Isn’t it darling, darling?’ Imogen said to her husband, who had already moved across the room to calm everyone. She directed Theodore to the basement and handed him a witchlight crystal to illuminate his way. Theodore had had to learn about witchlights quickly upon moving to Wrackton. They were magical lamps that had their own self-contained energy source – the exact nature of which he had yet to discover, though he expected they involved noble gases – that spectral activity did not affect the way it did other electricity sources. They came in a variety of colours and shapes and Theodore was very partial to the lavender ones, which is precisely what Imogen handed him. He held it up over his head so he could see a path through the ballroom.

‘Excuse me. Sorry. Cat coming through. Let miaow-t.’

An older vampire glared at him. Theodore hurried on in silence.

In the darkened basement of Broadwick Mansion, Theodore successfully found the trip switch. He thought about the plate of mini iridescent sandwiches he was going to return to. The last few days of working from home due to the intensity of the spectral disturbance in the Offices meant he hadn’t had access to faerie-catered food, and had missed out on numerous sandwich-and-tea opportunities as a result. As he closed the fuse box, he reasoned that he didn’t mind staying in Wrackton another year, especially when things quietened down after Samhain. The town had so many things going for it that he couldn’t get anywhere else. For instance, the sandwiches. There could’ve been an entire Visit Wrackton leaflet just on the sandwiches.

Theodore pressed the switch on a freestanding lamp near the doorway to check he’d been successful. It did not turn on, and he noticed the bulb was askew.

In a move perhaps even more regrettable than accepting the cat costume, he reached inside the lampshade without unplugging it.

He didn’t hear someone approaching behind him. He didn’t see the flex on the lamp twitch and jerk twice. He didn’t hear anything again.

TWO

Also six years ago, at the same ball

Mallory Hawthorne’s greatest desire was to find a dead body. She – who this story is really about – was fourteen when this wish was granted.

‘Tell me then, what does an “undependable” do?’ The older witch Mallory was talking to sipped her drink, which sloshed onto the floor a little as she did exaggerated air quotes.

Mallory was losing the will to live. Her father had brought her to the annual Broadwick ball, hosted by her best friend Cornelia’s parents. The night was meant to honour the Ternion and to celebrate the life and death of loved ones, but Mallory often thought it was just an excuse for folk to gather enough gossip about each other to last until the next Equinox. Things had been briefly exciting when the lights went out, but now they were back on and conversation was in full swing once again.

‘No, I said Undetectables.’ Mallory fixed a smile on her face. ‘The Undetectables, Private Investigators. It’s an agency myself and two of my fr— colleagues are launching tonight. Here’s our card.’ She passed it over, hopeful butterflies forming in her stomach. Mallory had reasoned that the party was a prime opportunity to find clientele.

The witch took it and peered at it, her eyes telling Mallory that she needed her glasses and could not for the life of her read the card, which was printed on cardstock stolen from Cornelia’s parents. Nonetheless, Mallory was proud of it. On one side it said The Undetectables below a logo featuring a pentagram, the symbol for pi in the centre. Her other best friend, Diana Cheung-Merriweather, had suggested they needed a bold Occult reference to symbolically represent their witchly rule of three. Because the Ternion – the goddesses Hexana, Blair and Elisabella – were depicted as three powerful witches, triplets and witches in groups of three were thought to be particularly powerful. Truthfully, when Mallory took the hands of her friends, she often felt a pulse of magic flowing through her and back again, so there was probably something to it. The pi symbol came from Cornelia arguing that if they were symbolising themselves, they should also symbolise private investigators in an amusing way. Mallory had eventually agreed to it all.

Underneath the logo was the phrase ‘helping you detect the undetectable’ in flowing script.

‘Great stuff, I’m sure. You’re a great girl, very tall.’ The witch patted her on the side of the face, reaching up to do so. Mallory was very tall for fourteen, and all of the stately Occult folk she’d approached with cards and offers of PI services over the last hour seemed determined to compliment her on her height. Her long dark hair was drawn back into a braid, and her pale skin had been dusted with glitter as part of her costume. Diana had sourced three identical lace dresses, cloaks and pointed hats for the occasion, and was resolutely immune to Mallory’s hesitance at drawing such obvious attention to her appearance.

‘Just give us a call any time,’ Mallory said politely to the witch, and excused herself, wondering where Diana was.

She fixed her gaze on Cornelia, who was glaring at the retreating back of the Night Mayor as he stuffed an Undetectables card into his pocket.

‘Cornelia?’ Mallory prompted as she arrived at her elbow, mildly concerned. Cornelia was watching the Night Mayor with such an intent look on her face that Mallory suspected she had cast a listening spell and was trying to hear what he was saying to a tall, check-suited and devil-horned demon in the corner. Fair-skinned and willowy, Cornelia had a short pixie cut, hazel eyes and glasses that were forever slipping down her nose. She wore the same costume as Mallory, though hers was hidden under one of a perpetual rotation of fancy coats, and she had chosen to forgo the glitter. Mallory smiled fondly at Cornelia, who didn’t notice.

‘That’s all mine handed out,’ Diana said, appearing from the middle of the crowd, adjusting her sleeves. ‘Hexana, what’s Cornelia doing?’

‘Spying on the Night Mayor,’ Mallory said, biting her lip.

‘Did he take a card?’ Diana raised an eyebrow, brushing her dark curls off her shoulder.

‘He certainly put one into his pocket. Shall we get drinks?’ She held out an arm.

Diana was as short as Mallory was tall, soft and rounded all over, and striking as anything, the glitter dusted on her light brown skin catching in the neon glow of the ballroom.

‘Well. That’s something at least. Anyone take you up on our offer?’

Mallory shook her head. Very few Occult folk had pocketed the cards or slipped them inside their impractical clutch bags; she could see them littering the floor and abandoned on the buffet table. No one had asked them to solve anything. Mallory, though mildly disappointed, was not deterred.

‘Cornelia.’ Diana grabbed Cornelia’s other arm and tugged her away from her intent listening. ‘Learn anything useful?’

Cornelia scowled, ending the listening spell. ‘I don’t know if he needs mysteries solved, but I bet he’s committed some crimes.’

‘On what basis?’ Diana asked.

‘The scientific basis of I really don’t like him,’ Cornelia said, and refused to elaborate further.

They helped themselves to drinks. There were various spells and enchantments making the food entertaining and the lights bounce strangely off the walls. Still, magic, for the most part, simply was; Mallory could magically paint a wall, though it would take the same amount of physical effort as standing with a roller. She often thought about how little the Occult as a whole cared for magical discovery. Year after year, it was the same thing.

‘I really thought this party would be different to the million others we’ve been to.’ Diana sighed into her drink.

It was true that they had all been dragged by their parents to infinite Occult parties. Cornelia’s parents were important members of the Ghoul Council, which was responsible for all things relating to and benefiting ghosts, the ins and outs of which none of them were particularly interested in. As far as they were concerned, it meant that the Broadwicks threw important magical parties and did important magical things, and this meant a lot of important magical folk were around, as well as some Apparent scientists, or so Mallory had heard. An idea struck her as she took a sip of a drink bathed in the red glow of the lights above.

‘The problem, clearly, is that we haven’t established a client base to use in our agency elevator pitch. So I propose we now go in search of a mystery to solve. Doesn’t have to be a big one, I don’t think, just something concrete.’ Mallory pulled a witchlight out of her pocket. ‘Let’s start in the basement, and work our way up.’

*   *   *

Mallory led the way down the basement stairs, holding her witchlight high. It was dark and eerily silent now that the hubbub of the party was behind them. She pushed open the door. Diana held up her witchlight too, illuminating the darkness in a cold blue glow.

Though they had been looking for a mystery, Mallory was not quite prepared for the sight that greeted them.

‘Oh. Oh, goddess.’ Diana took a step back. Cornelia made a small strangled noise and gripped Diana’s arm. Mallory ignored them both and moved into the room, having locked eyes with a man wearing faux cat ears and a huge purple cardigan. He stood over the body of a man wearing faux cat ears and an equally huge purple cardigan.

‘Am I…’ The ghost gestured at the body. His body. ‘Can you go get an adult for me? Please? Perhaps the Broadwicks? I believe I’ve had an accident and I need medical attention,’ he babbled.

‘Diana?’ Mallory said gently, recovering fastest. Her brain seemed to have caught on before her body that her greatest wish had come true, a thread of excitement bubbling through her. Diana, who had backed into the corner with Cornelia and was staring at both the ghost and his body with trepidation, snapped out of her cocoon of terror.

‘Light?’

Mallory hummed her assent, and Diana gently wrested Cornelia’s witchlight out of her hand and set it down in front of the body, placing her own to the other side of it. Mallory set hers on a high shelf, to light as much of the room as possible. She noted an extinguished witchlight was already there, though she was unsure why it wasn’t lit.

‘Cornelia.’ Mallory turned to her friend. ‘Please close the basement door. We need to secure the scene for Mr…’

‘Theodore. Wyatt. No Mister, that was my father’s name. Literally, that was my father’s name, letters came addressed to Mr Mister Wyatt, it was all very confusing at times.’ His hands were pressed to the side of his face, static sparking as he spoke rapidly.

Cornelia slammed the door shut and slid down it, her face not betraying any of her feelings. Mallory knew she was not easily scared, but meeting a fresh Samhain ghost was practically unheard of.

Mallory sat next to Theodore’s body, keeping eye contact with his ghost. She spoke softly and quietly, as though to a frightened animal, calm certainty guiding her actions. She would look back on this night and recognise it as the very moment she knew exactly what path her life was meant to take. The body on the floor was largely drained of colour, the right hand blackened and the muscles and tendons raised and red around the bulb that was still clutched in it. She did not react strongly to the sight of a dead body; it was dead, and she was there, and both felt factually acceptable. Ghost-Theodore’s hand was not as badly damaged, and thankfully did not contain a lightbulb.

He rubbed his hair and knocked the cat ears from his head. Both his and Mallory’s eyes flicked upwards as the ears rematerialised immediately. They were to be, it seemed, a permanent fixture. He blinked rapidly in alarm.

‘Before we go get anyone, we need to establish some facts. Where did you come from?’ Mallory folded her hands in her lap.

‘I originally came from Oughteron, I used to live in a house and now I live in an apartment here in Wrackton, which is supposedly twinned with Oughteron, but I suspect they're less twins and more deeply distant cousins, and I look at human remains and also remains of not humans ah-haha I am a forensic para-anthropologist and I was hired by the Ghoul Council to investigate the source of spectral disturbances and I was made to come to this party and a demon wearing fake devil horns, at least I think they’re fake devil horns, gave me cat ears and I came down here to fix the lights and now I am still here and I don’t have any sandwiches,’ Theodore said in one breath. A wild giggle escaped him.

‘Okay, Theodore,’ Mallory said gently, knowing instinctively that she needed to keep him calm. ‘Can you describe what happened when you got to the basement?’

Theodore did, repeating himself often, but he couldn’t quite explain what had happened when he’d reached into the lamp.

‘As I did it I remember thinking, “Is this plugged in?” and wondering why I hadn’t checked. And then… then…’ He looked down at his body. ‘Okay. This might sound odd, but can you confirm: am I dead?’

‘Oh, definitely.’ Cornelia inched forward so she was now sitting beside Diana, who was carefully scanning the room, her eyes lingering on every shadow, every cobweb.

Theodore made a high-pitched sound and buried his face in his hands.

‘Why haven’t I passed over?’

‘Weren’t you working under a Ghoul Council license?’

Mallory knew what Cornelia meant, but Cornelia had a tendency towards bluntness.

‘What Cornelia means is, through your work with the Ghoul Council, did you happen to learn what a Samhain ghost is?’ Mallory amended kindly.

Theodore looked at her and chewed his thumb absently. A spatter of static fuzzed from his cheek.

‘Yes. I think I’m in shock. Ah-haha!’ He giggled again. ‘Shock, bad pun. Yes. They mentioned… rules. The spectral disturbances in the Mayoral Offices – you know about those. The ones around Samhain. Though we Apparents just call that Halloween. You probably know that.’

‘We go to an Apparent school in Oughteron,’ Diana said, her eyes on the lamp. She beckoned Mallory over to look at it, pointing urgently at the plug socket and the lamp flex on the floor. Mallory shook her head subtly, unsure what Diana was trying to show her. Diana rolled her eyes impatiently.

‘Oh, how nice for you. Education and such. Wonderful,’ Theodore babbled. ‘Well, of course, Samhain ghosts are a theoretical possibility, but there are a number of conditions required to qualify. Strong enough pull to remain on earth. Die on Samhain, obviously. Body rejects ghost immediately and doesn’t rejoin within ten minutes of death. Something about a positive electrical charge, I think, perhaps something as simple as a static shock.’ He ticked the conditions off on his hands, spraying static into the air.

Mallory had just noted that reciting facts seemed to calm him slightly, when Theodore opened his mouth again.

‘It’s incredibly rare and unlikely, as in you could’ve come in here and found a unicorn. Have you ever seen a unicorn? I feel maybe they’re not that rare, I’ve never actually seen a bat or an owl so maybe there are just—’

‘And do you think there’s a possibility you yourself could be a Samhain ghost?’ Mallory tilted her head towards the body, and back to Theodore.

‘I don’t know. I sat here for a while, when I woke up, and it took me a bit to realise I couldn’t leave because I would still… be here.’

Mallory allowed a moment’s silence to elapse as Theodore took in the weight of his own words.

‘Mallory,’ Diana said finally, ‘can we speak on the stairs?’

‘We’ll be right back,’ Mallory said. Theodore nodded fervently and wiped his eyes. The whiskers smudged onto his fingers. He rubbed at them again, a hopeful look crossing his face. Wordlessly, Diana pulled a small mirror from her pocket and held it up so that Theodore could see in real time as the whiskers rematerialized. He sagged with resignation.

‘I’m a cat. I’m going to be a cat forever. The last living thing I said was “let miaow-t.” I shall meditate on this until your return.’

*   *   *

‘Okay, so, he’s been murdered,’ Diana whispered as soon as they closed the door behind them.

‘What?’ Mallory and Cornelia said together.

‘I think an important element of being electrocuted to death involves the item in question being plugged in. And the lamp is now unplugged. He’s Apparent, so maybe a demon followed him down here and used persuasion magic to convince him to put his hand inside the light, or someone hexed him. It just doesn’t make sense. Sure it’s possible he was thinking about something else, like—’

‘Sandwiches,’ Cornelia said. ‘He mentioned sandwiches.’

‘Right. But if he thought to check if it was plugged in but didn’t actually check, doesn’t it sound like he couldn’t stop himself? Plus, now that it’s unplugged… who unplugged it, and why? And why him? I mean he seems great, just…’ Diana trailed off. Admittedly, nothing else needed to be said. Theodore seemed harmless and not enough of a threat to be the target of an Occult killing, yet someone had done it anyway.

‘That’s our job to figure out,’ Mallory said decisively. ‘We find out who he spoke to tonight, who might’ve wanted him dead. He mentioned a demon put the cat ears on him.’ Mallory rubbed her fingers together, reaching for the memory. ‘Devil horns. We should investigate Theodore’s body for clues, check the lamp for any evidence, and then, Cornelia, we should probably tell your parents you found a body in the basement. While they’re preoccupied, we could try interviewing folk, see who saw what.’

Cornelia snorted, Mallory assumed at the idea of telling her parents there was a body in their basement, but nodded.

‘I’m in.’

‘Diana, are you in?’

Diana nodded too. ‘I’ll get started with the lamp.’

Mallory took a breath, excitement bubbling again, and opened the door. Theodore had not moved from where he sat beside his own body.

‘Theodore Wyatt, congratulations. You are the first official client of the Undetectables, Private Investigators. We are going to solve your murder.’

THREE

Now: nine days to Samhain

If Mallory’s life had a narrator, they would now say something along the lines of: reader, the Undetectables did not solve Theodore’s murder.

Despite this, by the time Mallory was twenty, Theodore was a permanent fixture in her life. One she had almost no say in, though she wouldn’t have it any other way. His personality had expanded over that time, burgeoning from the skittish fresh ghost she’d met in the basement to the personification of the word effervescent. As for Mallory, though she had grown taller and her hair had grown longer, she was otherwise visibly unchanged in those years.

‘Hello, Mallory, here’s your post. You should really consider iron-proofing the post box, literally any semi-corporeal ghost could steal whatever they wanted. Although Wrackton’s ghost population would need to increase by at least 100 per cent in order for that to even begin to be an issue.’ Theodore flounced into her kitchen and tossed a small bundle of letters down beside her without waiting for a response.

He also hadn’t given her a chance to open the door when he’d rung the iron doorbell, or indeed a chance to put away her phone or laptop so he didn’t break it. She stiffly threw a blanket filled with iron filings over her most precious electronics. Iron, when prepared with the correct spellwork, helped contain Theodore’s static charge, forcing him to be more than semi-corporeal, which was the only reason he was not banned from indoor spaces.

That, and he’d have complained a lot.

He kept talking. ‘You will not believe what I was given today.’ He pulled a book out of his bag and brandished it at her. ‘Take it, it is a most cursed object and I wish to have nothing more to do with it.’

Mallory shuffled forward to take it from him, grimacing in pain.

‘I care not what you do with it,’ he continued. ‘Use it as a doorstopper for all I care.’ Mallory could feel his warmth starting to fill the room. Contrary to popular belief about the chilling presence of an apparition, Samhain ghosts generated a lot of palpable heat, something Mallory was grateful for the comfort of on all but the hottest days of the year.

He handed over the book and stood back, looking expectantly at her over the spray of static that lifted from the pages and both their hands. Mallory sat down carefully and settled it in her lap, the light pressure sending an ache up her thighs. She closed her eyes, her fingers resting on the cover. It seemed too many steps to open the book, look inside it, read the words and comprehend their meaning.

‘Can you just tell me what it is, please?’ Mallory asked.

‘Well. WELL. Let me set the scene. I was working in the lab today,’ he started. ‘I was diligently, diligently, filling out a new start-of-season report on the instruments the Offices need for me to investigate the spectral disturbance this year, when this Ghoul Council rep came by and all but threw this book at me, saying “new rules”, and nothing else, like I wasn’t worthy of a conversation. Or a sentence. Or an introduction!’ He paced up and down, waving his arms around exaggeratedly.

Mallory picked up the letters, his words flowing over her head no matter how hard she tried to grasp them.

There were a number of reasons why the Undetectables hadn’t solved Theodore’s murder.

One was that there hadn’t been enough evidence – or at least, none anyone was willing to share with three fourteen-year-old girls, no matter how much effort they’d expended on finding it. Theodore’s death was ruled as accidental – as he had, by his own admission, not been certain he’d checked before he put his hand inside the lamp, and he had died of electrocution.

Two, Cornelia was pulled out of school a few months later to be home-schooled, where she set her sights on studying entomology. She was told she ‘lacked focus’ – and was ‘destructively disruptive’ and ‘either needed to stop bringing invertebrates to school or stop bringing herself’ – so she disproved everyone by focusing so hard on bugs and getting into university that anything outside of this lens was all but forgotten. Around the same time, Diana had discovered a prop-making course and poured all her spare time into latex moulds and the potential future of working in television. Meetings of the Undetectables became fewer and further between, and then, eventually, non-existent.

Reason three was by far the most difficult for Mallory to accept.

‘…And then they said, they actually said to me that if I even think there’s another ghost in the Mayoral Offices, I have to tell them about it or I could risk Isolation.’ He pulled at his cardigan anxiously.

‘Sorry, Theo.’ Mallory scrunched her eyes shut. ‘Sorry. What’s Isolation again?’ The word meant something to her, but the meaning of it had floated away as soon as it had arrived. This was happening to her more and more lately.

‘Where they put me in a ghostlight and throw me and the light to the bottom of Bonemarrow Lake. Forever. And that’s a long time, Mallory.’

Ghostlights were crystal balls used to trap powerful spectral apparitions – apparently including Samhain ghosts – for the purposes of punishment, and over the last six years the concept of them had grown to be Theodore’s biggest fear.

‘And they want you to do what now that’s different than before?’

‘Before, it was just if I thought there was another Samhain ghost nearby, I was to not initiate contact and instead inform the Ghoul Council. Now it’s if I think there is another ghost, of any sort, in my vicinity, I have to inform the Ghoul Council. The same Council that hired me to look for, among other things, ghosts attached to anthropological matter now want me to tell them about any ghosts I think might exist. When that’s what I’m specifically there for. It makes me think they don’t read my reports. Or understand me at all.’ He trailed off at the end, his face falling into a frown.

‘Oh. I’m sorry, Theodore. That sounds…’ Finishing the sentence was too hard.

‘Ridiculous? I thought so too. I knew you’d agree with me, because you are so reasonable,’ Theodore said, extending his arms triumphantly. When Mallory didn’t move to agree, he suddenly seemed to run out of whatever burst of furious energy had driven him and really looked at her properly, his eyes filled with concern. ‘Mallory, are you okay? I’m sorry, I should’ve—’

‘I’m fine, Theo. I’m almost always happy to see you.’ She forced a smile onto her face; it was true, but Theodore only had two modes: dramatic and more dramatic.

He visited her most days, and she was in varying states of well-being at those times, but this was a particularly bad day for her and he could – finally – clearly see it.

This was the third reason she’d never solved Theodore’s murder.

What had started out as aches and pains and relentless exhaustion not long after that Samhain ball had morphed into her dragging herself through her final years of school, just trying to survive until she eventually got a diagnosis. She suffered the fear she had made it up until finally being told by an Apparent doctor that she was, in fact, actually ill. She’d had to look up the spelling of fibromyalgia when they’d told her.

He tilted his head. ‘Are you sure? If I called Cornelia and Diana right now, would you tell them the same thing?’

‘Not only wouldn’t you, you couldn’t.’ Mallory felt a sting at the mention of her friends.

She hadn’t seen them in eighteen months, which felt like forever and no time all at once. Thinking about them made her sad, imagining them going to bars and shopping without a second thought, working all day and still having energy to cook food or clean their living space, whole days not taken up by medical appointments and resting afterwards. Their lives were not the same, grim, choose-your-unadventure Mallory’s was.

‘Of course I couldn’t, but it is not nice to say so.’ Theodore raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you called them recently? Nothing brightens your day quite like best friend banter!’

‘I’m fine. Just a bad day.’ She ignored the suggestion and shuffled through the letters, barely glancing at yet another cheery postcard from her parents, who were both abroad while Mallory’s dad held what he referred to as a ‘last hurrah’ archaeological professorship. Each postcard signified how terribly guilty they both felt about leaving their disabled only child alone, no matter how many times Mallory tried to convince them she was both an adult and capable of managing. She paused on the last letter in the pile. It was a cream envelope, addressed to the Undetectables. The first letter the Undetectables had ever received. Mallory frowned and slowly ripped it open, the movement sending a stabbing ache up her forearm.

‘What’s that?’

‘Letter.’

‘Thanks, Mallory, I almost held a doctorate and failed to learn what letters were,’ Theodore teased.

‘If only you’d got to the end of it, you’d have learned what books were too.’ Mallory smiled tiredly at him.

She unfolded a typed letter on crisp paper. A card fluttered to her lap, and Mallory’s breath hitched when she saw the familiar logo embossed on it. She set it to one side and focused on the letter.

Dear the Undetectables,Wrackton needs your help. I am writing to you as my last hope, as no other private services wish to take this case on, such is the delicate nature of it.

An Apparent by the name of Edward Kuster was last seen alive in the Mayoral Offices on 2 October. He was found dead in his bedroom in Oughteron some days ago. The Apparent police believe this was an Occult murder, due to the specifics of the case. As I’m sure you know, murder is in direct contravention of the Unified Magical Liaison’s Do No Harm Charter. This must be solved.

An esteemed member of the community would like you to aid in the investigation – your discretion is appreciated at this time.

Call the number below and the case is yours, should you want it.

Best regards,

J. Gabbott

Mallory’s eyes clouded over as she read, but she forced them back over and over the lines. The letter was short, but her brain could scarcely understand what it was asking of her. She read it twice more. It didn’t seem real.

‘What is it?’ Theodore plucked the letter from her fingers and held it up to his face, scanning it. His face brightened. ‘A murder! Another murder case for the Undetectables to solve!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Call Cornelia and Diana, right now, they’ll want to know. What time is it in Vancouver? Though Diana doesn’t really sleep, so it probably doesn’t matter.’

‘I don’t want to bother them,’ Mallory said, unable to keep irritation from creeping into her voice. It wasn’t like she was in any fit state to do the most basic tasks of living, let alone solve a murder. She took the letter back and folded it up, resisting the urge to crumple it into a ball.

‘You could never bother them.’

‘Just leave it, Theo,’ Mallory said sharply.

‘They’re your best friends. And this is a murder case, addressed to your agency. I don’t see how there could be any bothering.’ Theodore’s face was earnest.

‘Cornelia’s in Sheffield studying, or in London on placement or something – or maybe she got a job there, I’ve no idea. She doesn’t talk to me much any more. And Diana has worked so hard to get into set dressing, I don’t want to be any part of the reason she leaves.’ A sick feeling pooled in Mallory’s stomach. Theodore never pushed contacting Cornelia and Diana this hard, and she had long since learned that if something felt too good to be true, it likely was.

‘But I—’

‘Was this you? Did you write this?’ Mallory asked, awash with shame and embarrassment at the idea she could be so easily fooled.

‘It’s typed, Mallory. I cannot use a computer.’

‘You could easily have asked someone else to do it.’

‘First of all, I did not invent a fake murder, so perhaps write that one down. Secondly, they’ve always supported you, why would this be any different?’

‘They’re not here any more.’

‘But they’re always here. In your heart.’ Theodore placed his hands over his chest. Mallory was only slightly sure he wasn’t mocking her.

‘Let’s just stop talking about this,’ Mallory suggested, the words more biting than she’d intended.

Cornelia and Diana had been extremely supportive, but Mallory had difficulty swallowing the news that there was no known cure for her symptoms, magical or medical.

As her friends had planned to leave Wrackton, Mallory had grown more and more frustrated. They had limitless energy. They were not bound by a need for sleep. She could not travel to visit them, though they’d asked her over many times. She could not start university, which she’d wanted. She felt little pieces of herself slipping away as Diana and Cornelia grew into themselves. She was stuck in her house taking gap year after gap year until she’d realised that the number she’d taken now amounted to how long it would’ve taken her to finish a forensic science degree, had she been able to. They were gone now. Her friends had moved away. Her remaining old friends had stopped asking her to hang out as much, because she was never able to. The furthest Mallory had been from home in recent years had been to Oughteron to see her Apparent doctor, and that was just the next town over. All Mallory really had was Theodore. He meant the world to her, as both her best friend and her mentor, but every time she looked at him, she remembered that she had not solved his murder, and every day it made her want to cry.

‘Anyway,’ Theodore said, regaining control of the conversation, ‘that letter seems pertinent. It being the countdown to Samhain… No. Maybe you’re not well enough for this today.’

‘What? I’m fine.’ Mallory pulled a blanket over her. Theodore’s warming the room was helping her muscles loosen a little. She was feeling better than she had all day, but a headache still crept up her spine and into the back of her skull.

‘Great!’

Abruptly, some of Theodore’s energy returned. He fizzed around the edges with excitement.

‘It’s coming up on six years since I met my untimely end. Normally the anniversary makes me desperately sad—’

This was an understatement.

‘—but I decided – as of three minutes ago – that this year, we are simply going to solve the murder of Edward Kuster. I still think you should call Diana and Cornelia and let them know about it; this would be so exciting for us to take on.’ He folded his arms shyly. ‘And then, if there’s time, we could try again at my murder? I could then face my killer and give the Speech.’ He smiled broadly.

The Speech was a missive that had been written and rewritten many times over of various things Theodore wanted to say to his killer’s face. He often workshopped it with Mallory, to the point that she could recite it in her sleep.

‘I think this will be great for your skill set. You already know a great deal about DNA scanning and fingerprinting – to no avail in the quest to solve my murder, but still relevant information even without a database to compare to – and fibres, et cetera. Maybe this is where we’ve failed in the past. My hubris, destroying chances for us both.’ He took a deep, unnecessary breath, as ghosts did not need to breathe, and continued, plucking the letter back up off the sofa. ‘Then this letter, from – oh, I wonder who “esteemed member of the community” is? That could be anyone. We could try making a mind map, perhaps, figure out who it could be before we begin.’

Mallory shook her head, unwanted anger entering her stomach. Even if Theodore couldn’t have typed the letter himself, he could’ve asked a colleague to do it.

Theodore continued, his fists clenched in determination. ‘That's two known Occult murders, including me. They require a strictly magical approach, scientifically speaking. I’m thinking we could use a magical fingerprint scanner first, say on the lightbulb, then if that yields nothing we just revisit the mass spectrometer idea. And then we find out about whatever is happening with this new murder I had nothing to do with. This is a great plan, Mallory, one I am very proud to have spent four seconds thinking about before I shared it.’ Theodore tapped his fists together with finality, and a spray of static ended his speech. He looked at her expectantly.

Mallory could only think about how tired she was. How many steps were involved in getting her spell fingerprinting machine plans out again. In using magic, which she didn’t do so much any more.

‘That’s going to take a lot of magical energy…’ Mallory said slowly. Energy she didn’t have.

‘I know, I know it takes a lot of energy out of you,’ Theodore said hurriedly. ‘But just think how good it’ll feel. Both emotionally and also next year, when you’ll be starting your degree. But mostly emotionally.’

He’d said ‘next year’ every gap year she’d taken.

‘There are nine days to my anniversary, so if we started right now that’ll give us—’

Mallory couldn’t take it any more.

The bitterness and the anger at how stuck she was rose up her throat, where she wrestled with it for a moment, torn between not wanting to hurt Theodore, and wanting him to stop putting so much pressure on her.

She gave in.

‘Stop. Theodore, just fucking stop. Please. I’m so tired.’ A tear tracked down her face, followed by another, and another until she was sobbing, each breath making her head throb. ‘Nobody cares about this as much as you do any more. I’m really sorry. I can’t do it. I can’t solve your murder. Cornelia and Diana left because they don’t care about it or us, and I don’t have it in me to care either!’

Theodore stared at her, the fuzz of static intensifying. He dropped papers he must’ve had tucked into his cardigan and charged at her door, not bothering to open it. He went through it, and was gone.

Mallory cried alone in a rapidly cooling room.

*   *   *

It took hours for Mallory to both wake up on the couch and realise that she was, perhaps, the worst person she knew by a clear mile.

Theodore wouldn’t trick her like that. He also wouldn’t have sulked for very long if he had. The fact he wasn’t here, waiting for her to wake, told her all she needed to know. The letter wasn’t from him. It was real.

Mallory felt another pang in her chest. She had driven him away for no good reason.

Not for no reason, though.

She did not feel worthy of Theodore, most of the time. He had been wonderful when she started getting sick, and had never given up on her. All he’d asked was that she didn’t give up on him. And she still had. It was the worst thing she could’ve done to him.

This was as good as it got for her. Mallory had an opportunity, but she was too tired to do anything about it. Labs were not built for people with pain. Very little was. Even being in Theodore’s lab had become so uncomfortable, not just because it was impractical for her body, but because she didn’t like being in Cornelia’s house without Cornelia there, or without Diana sharing a joke or making a ludicrous statement for them all to debate at length.

And what would she even say if she did go to university next year when she was twenty-one, miles behind her peers who would be tiny children of seventeen and eighteen? There wasn’t anything that sounded good to her. I’m sick. I’ve been ill. I have a chronic illness. I have a pain thing. Life is pain. Existing is harder for me than it is for other people. I’ve been on a physical journey.

I’m a late bloomer.

It all felt impossible to overcome. But even if she stayed in Wrackton she didn’t have a lot of options.

Magic hurt too much to do. It took the same amount of energy to cast spells as physically doing the activity by non-Occult means, but Mallory had quickly learned that not being able to break magic down into steps meant she overexerted herself without realising. She was still a witch, but with basically no functional powers.

She made herself tea and found some biscuits she just about had the energy to eat, thinking about Cornelia and Diana and how easily they’d moved on, even though they of course had to. She’d told them to. Mallory hated how much she missed them when they probably didn’t think of her at all.

Her hands curled around the cup and she felt another pang of dreadfulness over Theodore. She’d go visit him tomorrow, if she could. Or maybe he’d come back over again, like nothing happened. She unfolded the letter from J. Gabbott and looked at the number enclosed, wondering what would happen if she called it and feeling ridiculous for even contemplating it. There was no way she could go to Cornelia and Diana with this; she had been telling the truth when she’d said she didn’t want to bother them.

Her phone rang, the noise startling her, mostly because it never rang these days.

It was Cornelia.

She fumbled putting the tea down, slopping some of it on her coffee table and on her well-thumbed forensic science books as she answered. The phone line crackled, and she worried Theodore had managed to break it earlier.

‘Mallory!’ Cornelia said, sounding very far away.

‘Cornelia, how are you? This is so funny, I was just thinking about—’

‘Diana…’ The line crackled, fading in and out. ‘Diana… murdered.Come… my house. Now.’

PERIMORTEM I

Edward Kuster dreamt of eating pizza when he died.

He would tell you, were he still alive, that he could smell it. The grease and the cheese. The tomato and the peppers. That he could hear the sound of the cardboard tabs lifting free, and the sudden burst of smell as trapped steam was permitted to escape the inside of the box. The feel of the stuffed crust between his fingers as he lifted the first slice without even bothering to give it a perfunctory dip in the garlic sauce.

The perfect pizza, the perfect slice, the perfect moment.

He would tell you how it tasted as he no longer held the slice, but instead it was unceremoniously shoved down his throat by an unseen hand.

He would tell you, were he not too busy choking, that it takes the average human two minutes to reach unconsciousness and seven to die from asphyxiation. Edward was asleep and therefore not conscious enough to struggle. It was a short death. He would tell you what it felt like to realise, just before dream-unconsciousness set in, that his tongue had freed itself from its muscular tether and lodged inside his throat, amid a chewed mass of glorified open sandwich. He would tell you how much he hated the sickening metallic taste of blood forcing its way around the blockage and the remaining stump of his tongue, down into his stomach, bile rising to meet it but having nowhere to escape as air refused to enter his lungs.

What he could not tell you was when he stopped noticing anything at all. Research suggests the human brain retains awareness of death for up to ten minutes after expiry.

Edward cannot confirm.

He would not think to tell you that, before he died, a tuneless whistle snaked through his bedroom, circling the ceiling as it watched its mark, creeping along the carpet to the foot of his bed.

This tuneless noise watched him sleep.

He would not tell you this, because Edward did not know. It had been a day like any other – October drawing in, the promise of leaves crisp and dying and cold, lonely winter nights ahead of him. This particular piece of knowledge would not have impacted the outcome.

The whistling worked its way into his ear, into his head, where the sound helped fabricate something pleasant for the moment of lucidity before Edward succumbed to death. He did not know this either.

FOUR

Mallory could not run these days, but she forced her body to propel her at the fastest walk she could muster to Cornelia’s house. She’d had the wherewithal to grab her satchel, shove the letter in her pocket, and to put on a coat, but it was woollen and did nothing to stop the sheeting rain pummelling her as she eventually threw herself up the steps to Cornelia’s front door and hammered the side of her fist on it, pain exploding on contact, her limbs frozen and her head pounding but neither as loud or as demanding as the painful hammering of her heart. Diana could not be dead. She couldn’t be. Not like this.

There was no answer. Mallory stepped back and squinted up into the rain, her hair whipping around her face as she tried to see any signs of life. The Broadwick Mansion was three interconnecting grey stone townhouses, but not one light was on in any of the visible windows.

She knocked a few more times, ringing the bell insistently, but nobody came. Her heart picked up even faster, blood rushing into her ears. Maybe Cornelia was in trouble. Maybe they were both inside the house with a killer on the loose and Mallory was the last person Cornelia had called.

Her hands shaking, she pulled her bag off her back. It took her a few tries to open the buckle, but she scrabbled around at the bottom and found what she was looking for.

Her fingers cold and stiff, she took out the lock picks she’d carried around since she was twelve and pushed them into the lock. She fumbled, trying to find the right tension, her frozen fingers and the driving rain making it impossible to get a good grip. There was a click and she held the door to straighten herself up, but it opened inwards as she leaned her weight on it and she all but fell in on top of Diana.

‘I thought I heard something. We were in the basement,’ Diana said, before shouting, ‘Cornelia! Mallory’s here and she’s trying to break in!’ Then ‘Oh,’ as Mallory grabbed her in a fierce hug, knocking the breath out of her.

‘Are you real? Are you alive?’ Mallory asked, her voice catching as her lungs burned for air.

‘I am real. Real annoyed at how wet you are. Let’s get you inside. Why didn’t you call a taxi, or ask me to come get you?’

Mallory gaped at her, but Diana shook her head and led her by the arm into the warmth of the kitchen. She was dimly aware that the lights were on at the back of the house, and that, at the back of the kitchen, the door to the basement was open, voices coming from below.

‘Cornelia…’ Mallory said weakly, but couldn’t form the rest of the sentence.

‘She’s downstairs with Theodore. Do you want some tea? Hold on, let me get you some warm clothes.’

Diana concentrated for a second and a pair of joggers and a jumper appeared on the table. ‘These are mine, let me resize the trousers.’ She concentrated again, whispering, ‘Lengthen, expand,’ and the clothes grew until they looked like they would fit someone eleven inches taller than Diana. It had been a while since Mallory had seen such casual magic, and she felt a pang of longing.

‘They’ll be wide on you, but it’ll get you warm. I’ll dry the ones you’re wearing, too.’ She ushered Mallory up the stairs, letting her take her time, and into the guest bathroom.

‘Do you need help?’

Mallory nodded, and without further comment Diana started pulling her wet clothes off. Mallory’s body was in shock, the cold deep inside her bones, the chill already seizing every single muscle.

‘I think this is the fastest I have ever gone from hello to undressing a girl before.’ Diana grinned, but turned her back as Mallory pulled off her wet bra and didn’t turn around until Mallory had pulled the jumper on herself. She forced Mallory to let her help her put the trousers on, handed her a pair of socks and clicked her fingers twice. Mallory heard the distant rumble of a kettle boiling down in the kitchen.

‘You’re still freezing. There’s only one thing for it.’ Diana steered her down the hallway, past Cornelia’s bedroom, to a room Mallory had spent an inordinate amount of time in over the years. ‘We’re going to have to warm you like a bug.’

Red light seeped through the doorjamb as Diana flicked her fingers and the door swung open, warm air curling around Mallory’s limbs.

‘Sorry it has to be Cornelia’s bug room, this entire house is freezing. There’s a fireplace in my room, I’ve just never lit one before. I actually don’t know a single fire spell, if you’d believe it. I should fix that.’ Diana tossed a blanket that smelled very much like Cornelia at Mallory and nudged her to sit on a beanbag. She rushed out a moment later, leaving Mallory to soak in her surroundings.

Red lamps and ultraviolet light lit the bug room, illuminating various terrariums containing all manner of interesting and mildly horrifying creatures, only some of which Mallory could name. A spindly-looking oversized mantis pressed its forelegs against the glass walls of its enclosure, staring at Mallory blankly with bulging green eyes until she looked away. Cornelia’s insects were creatures she had either bred herself, or got from various Occult folk across the country. Diana had left Mallory sitting beside a new tank full of small orange-and-yellow beetles Mallory had never seen before.

‘Those horrible little things are Cornelia’s new favourites,’ Diana said, as she reappeared carrying a tray. ‘I’m not allowed to call them horrible little things in front of her, even if I say it in Cantonese. They’re her favourite because they have a queen. She refuses to acknowledge that she has never once cared about monarchical hierarchies in any species before now. Here’s a muffin. You should have a muffin.’

*   *   *

Once a cup of tea was in her hands and a muffin had been forced into her, Mallory was able to explain.

‘Diana, I thought you were dead.’

‘Did I not reply to a text?’ Diana grabbed her phone and checked. ‘I haven’t been online much. I was putting in fourteen-hour days until the whole thing collapsed, but I thought I was doing a good job of keeping in contact with everyone, I’m sorry.’

‘No,’ Mallory said, her brain swirling. Until what thing collapsed? ‘No, Cornelia called me and said you’d been murdered.’

Diana put her phone down. Mallory was able to take her in now – the same, but more assured than ever – and felt strange at the idea of Diana living a totally varied, busy life in another country while Mallory had simply repeated the same pain-filled day over and over.