The Collymore Family

Chapter 21

"You promised we could play hide and seek the next time you came over!"

Noella's desperate and relentless pleading was starting to drive Irene insane.

"Noella, another day, okay?" Irene tried to tell her. She was too tired and stressed out over everything that had happened, and she already felt guilty enough having to ignore Angelica. She was pretty sure hide and seek wouldn't help.

"But...you promised." Noella stopped yelling, but now she sounded hurt.

Irene put a hand on her forehead. It felt like she was going to get a headache from all of this. She could tell her no and risk more begging and annoyance, or she could give in and just deal with it for the next twenty-minutes. Irene didn't want to get another migraine, so she chose the latter. "All right, but only one round, okay?"

"Only one round!?" Noella sounded even more disappointed than before.

"I'm really tired today, Noella. One round, okay?" Irene told her.

Noella sighed. "Fine, but for this round, you have to hide and I'm going to seek."

Irene really didn't care, as long as she got through the game quick enough. So, she nodded. Noella walked up to one of the walls and began to count to sixty, while Irene leisurely made her way up the stairs. Irene planned to just hide in Noella's closet or something, but when she reached the top of the stairs, she felt...strange. Irene glanced around the corridor, and it didn't take her long to immediately realize something was off.

The golden padlock door was wide open, with the padlock itself laying right beside the door. Irene was more confused than surprised. She knew that this door would usually shut once someone had entered. It would never stay open like this, so why was it doing that? Irene felt a strange aura near the door, and despite knowing she shouldn't, Irene's gut told her to enter the room. She'd been having these gut feelings ever since November third, the day she first found out Mr. and Mrs. Collymore were murderers. She would get this odd voice in her head and feeling in her body warning her that something was wrong.

Irene knew she shouldn't enter the room. She had made a promise with Ivy to not continue the investigation anymore. Irene didn't want to let her down, especially since she was the only person Irene had told about this entire thing. What if Ivy stopped helping her?

But the feeling was so hypnotic and so...urgent. Irene had the strong feeling that if she were to ignore this, something would go wrong. This was something important.

Ivy had told her not to exchange notes or speak to Angelica, but she didn't exactly say not to go into the room, did she? If Irene just went inside and checked around, she would technically still be listening to Ivy. Irene tried hard not to give in, but she really couldn't help it. Just walking away from this made her feel guilty. She felt like she was betraying Angelica, betraying Noella, and betraying Ivy all at once. It was clear she couldn't help Ivy without sacrificing the two girl's, something she absolutely did not want to do.

Before Irene could even process what she was doing, the cold surface beneath her snapped her out of her thoughts. Immediately, the door shut behind her with a loud bang. Irene looked up and saw the same familiar shelves that lined the walls in the room. Something odd she noticed, though, was that the box where she'd found the fingernails was gone. Irene remembered specifically that she had left it in the same place that she dropped it since she didn't have time to put it away. Now, it had completely disappeared from the room. Irene came to the horrifying realization that Mr. and Mrs. Collymore must have taken it, which meant they likely knew somebody was going into the room.

The recognition made Irene freeze. They knew. Mr. and Mrs. Collymore knew she had been sneaking into the room. They must have figured it out.

But that didn't line up.