Primrose stopped at the large mansion and looked up. Surely this couldn't be the place. This mansion was brand-new. 'Ghosts' were always in old castles and foggy ruins. Not gleaming white houses that were clearly well taken care of. Then she realized that she was looking at stables, not a mansion. 227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcAWqDjlkj7
She went inside and found a young girl talking to a chestnut. "Come on, Jake. You know that all of the others are out there. Don't you want to join Lia?" At the word Lia, a familiar look went into the horse's eye. Don't be ridiculous, Primrose thought. Horses don't feel lust. They just want to procreate. The girl saw Primrose.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjqxmJzxCrT
"Hello. Are you the debunker?"227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0w026X3yOw
"Yes," Primrose said, annoyed at the fact that no one knew her name. Everyone just knew her as 'the debunker.' "Do you know where I can find the 'haunted mansion?'" She intentionally put quotations around the 'haunted mansion' bit. It sent a definite message: "There is no such thing as haunted mansions. There are only those who believe that there are."
The girl said, "It's just over the hill. You can't miss it."227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBNVjGDI0u2
“Thank you for your help,” Primrose said, slightly warmer than she was before. She left the stables and began the long climb up the hill. As she climbed, she looked around at the landscape, dotted as it was with small white and blue flowers that she didn’t recognize.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYen7IiPkb4
She finally reached the top of the hill and looked at the town that surrounded her. Now she understood why the mansion was up here. From up here, she felt like she was a god, beautiful and terrible. An undeniable deity. As she continued up, she began to go down the hill–and saw the castle. It had a beautiful red roof, and the sunset light glittered off of it, giving the feel of a welcoming castle from ancient times. She could almost imagine kings and queens dining there, living there, and dying there.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡePibPsNFh9
She shook off that feeling. She didn’t have time to deal with the beauty of the place. She had a ghost to debunk.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnjdJxsXTlS
She kept walking, reaching the entrance to the castle and walking in. After getting settled for about two seconds, she decided to organize the house, getting a feel for it at the same time.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSPIiWf7Z1W
That’s when something strange happened. She was about to go into one of the rooms when a man’s voice said, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. Not unless you like corpses.” She turned around to see who it was, but there was no one there. She shook it off, thinking, Stupid, Primrose. That was just your intuition and all of the stuff surrounding the ghost combining to make you hear a voice. Besides, you have to go in there. If there’s a corpse in there, then the authorities need to know. Steeling her courage, she opened the door and walked into the room. Lying in front of the fireplace was a body that was well preserved. She reached her hand towards it to see if it was alive–and its hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her advance. She yanked her wrist free and ran out of the room, biting back a scream. She raised her phone and dialed 911, still trying to calm her voice into her cool and composed debunker voice.
