Chapter 44: Two Basements
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
The restaurants in Linton usually sold anti-curse items, and the drive-thru coffee stand also sold small bells used to detect spirits. The best-sellers were the town’s own printed guides titled How to Safely Communicate with Souls. They were illustrated and colorful, but mostly nonsense.
The town’s sheriff had once lived in the old Atwood manor — of course, that was a long time ago. Now his experience had become highly authoritative, and the versions retold were far more terrifying than what he actually encountered. The sheriff always wore an “I don’t want to talk about this” attitude but never failed to drop cryptic little warnings like, “Just don’t ever do this — that’s all I can say,” which somehow made everything feel even more real.
Before sunset, the four members of the Association arrived in town. John stayed in the car while the three humans went inside to eat. Aside from them, there were a few other young people interested in visiting the haunted house. They spent a long time taking pictures with the creepy photos on the restaurant walls and also earnestly asked the waitress how to use the white ash keychain meant to prevent possession.
“It’s okay. They won’t stay overnight,” Liz said quietly, sipping her drink. “The specters will find a way to make them leave. By the way, Carolyn, you should go back to the car and get some sleep. You’ve been driving all day.”
“I’m fine!” Carolyn’s eyes sparkled. She did look wide awake. “The worst of my tiredness is gone. I’m super excited right now.”
“A little tiredness wouldn’t be so bad. We’re here to sleep anyway,” Coraci said.
“Technically, the three of us will sleep,” Liz added. “John can keep watch at night. Bloodkin are naturally nocturnal, so he doesn’t need to sleep — he can stay awake and protect us.”
After dinner, they found the old Atwood manor within about twenty minutes. The usual tourists hadn’t arrived yet, and the house cast a massive shadow in the twilight, looming like a beast in front of humans.
Several dim shapes floated out from the shadows to greet Atwood.
They were the specters who had always lived there. Specters, unlike ghosts, did not necessarily depend on a location and some wandered endlessly. They were a form of life distinct from flesh and blood but still possessed feelings and consciousness. They wanted a home just like anyone else.
At the front door, Atwood’s wife floated out to embrace her husband and curtsied to Coraci and the others. She wore a long, casual dress suitable for indoors and had a pair of gold-rimmed glasses attached to a chain around her neck. Although her flesh was as dark and brittle as old bones, you could faintly tell she had been an intelligent, gentle woman in life. She called herself “Holly” and Coraci referred to her as Mrs. Holly.
Coraci introduced the other specters in the house.
The one with the darkest color was Atwood’s mother. After death, she was finally free of arthritis and could float around freely. Everyone called her “Grandmother”.
The largest was “Mist”, who had lived in the manor for nearly a hundred years. He was so big that he blocked the hallway’s light, making it feel like an ancient tombstone stood before them.
The smallest was “Annie”. She had come from the highway and often roamed the town after settling in. She always shared stories about what was popular with the younger generation.
There were many specters who had died more recently. They were unstable and flickered constantly. They feared exorcists and hid in other rooms or popped half their heads out of the ceiling to say hello before quickly retreating again.
“It’s really surprising how obvious they are,” John said, eyeing the huge Mist. “Visitors here can clearly see them.”
“Specters are very conspicuous,” Coraci said, pointing to a corner under the dining table. “In contrast, ghosts are harder to spot. There’s a ghost right there, motionless. Besides the ghost and me, none of you can see it.”
John couldn’t see it. Carolyn curiously crawled under the table but was quickly pulled out by Liz.
“Specters can do many things, but they’re also more visible,” Coraci said. “Things that are ‘right next to you but invisible’ are ghosts. Some ghosts want to be seen, but people just can’t see them. Specters have more freedom — they can hide inside objects or shadows. Once they want you to see them, you will.”
“I get it. Your Becoming Light story was about ghosts,” John said, recalling one of Coraci’s short stories. When he’d pretended to be a magazine editor, he’d even emailed Coraci about his impressions of that story.
“But not real ghosts. That story was nonsense. Carolyn, don’t scare her — she’s shaking!” Coraci turned to the blonde girl. Carolyn had been crouching by the table playing with a four-sided black iron armor-piercing spike, while the ghost under the table struggled to crawl back underground.
“Guests, please follow me.” Atwood floated over. “A few ordinary explorers will come to the manor later. To prevent them from bothering you, please come with me to the basement. You can rest there for a while.”
The basement was a bit like the kind in Sir Kimplin’s manor but much smaller. The entrance was hidden behind a bookcase, which would be difficult for ordinary explorers to discover. The sliding rails behind the bookcase were so rusted they barely worked anymore. Normally, the ghosts passed directly through, but now John had to move the bookshelf.
Usually, the basement was not only used to store valuables but also to defend against attacks. Unfortunately, the tragedy back then had happened too fast. The killers had never given the family a chance to prepare.
“Their car is almost here. We should get ready to scare them,” the old specter couple nodded at Coraci. “It’s a bit damp here, sorry. If you need anything… I guess you don’t. Mr. Coraci, you can quietly call me by my real name. No matter how far away, we can hear when someone calls us by it.”
Carolyn shone her emergency light around the dark room. There was no electrical lighting in the old manor, so they’d brought a portable lamp charged to last for dozens of hours.
“I guess they dug out this room themselves,” John said after the specters drifted out. “I’ve seen similar big houses with basements. Usually, the basement entrance is at the end of the hallway outside the front hall — not inside a study or any single room. Older small castles might have basement entrances in rooms, usually to prevent assassination…like at Sir Kimplin’s house.”
“I guess you used to visit these kinds of houses a lot?” Coraci asked.
“Yes,” John said with a nostalgic smile. “My childhood school was a lot like this. I guess houses from the same era often share similar structures. The storage room here should also be at the end of the hallway outside the front hall.” Though he smiled fondly, he didn’t really remember many details from school anymore.
“Looks like they were pretty wealthy in life,” John said, inspecting the basement’s furnishings. The space was large enough to be arranged like a living room. Even just hiding here temporarily wouldn’t feel cramped or stuffy. The cabinets held tea sets and various jars, the tables and sofas were covered with dust covers, and even the small exposed legs of the tables were carved with delicate patterns.
“They were wealthy once,” Coraci said, pointing to a candlestick on the cabinet. “See that? It’s inlaid with gold threads and rubies. The gold threads are real gold, all handcrafted. As far as I know, the family had plantations in Southeast Asia and was involved in tropical mining. There must have been quite a few valuable things in this old mansion. After all these years, most of it’s probably gone…except some things in the basement.”
“The Blackmoon family has a basement too,” Carolyn quickly put down the candlestick, returning it to its place beside another. She’d been waving it around like a sword a moment before. “I’ve never been there — only heard about it. Their old house is basically a castle. Their basement isn’t really a basement; it’s a dungeon, with multiple levels. Before the eighteenth century, their ancestors even tortured prisoners there…”
Liz wiped her glasses, narrowing her eyes at her. “We never tortured prisoners. According to records, those weren’t even people.”
“They weren’t people but still prisoners! Oh, so you didn’t deny your family has a dungeon! And it’s not just the dungeon — the Blackmoon family also has plantations and tropical mining businesses, plus some things I don’t understand… Everyone there has equity shares…”
“Enough. Coraci knows all that; no need to repeat it,” Liz said.
“But John doesn’t!” Carolyn said matter-of-factly. “I’m always so proud of you. Aren’t you proud?”
“Those are my shares. What are you so proud of?”
John and Coraci exchanged amused looks. Carolyn usually didn’t seem scary at all — just an ordinary young woman who liked movies and shopping and felt proud to have outstanding friends.
In reality, she was one of the youngest staff in the Association, not yet twenty. Her parents had died in an attack by dark creatures. Members of the Association had taken turns raising her since she was a child and she had never applied for college. She was a hunter through and through.
Maybe that was why, sometimes, her straightforward thinking was quite important.
“What I meant is, don’t you find it strange?” Carolyn paced back and forth. “The Blackmoon family’s understandable, but the Atwoods aren’t some ancient magic family. They have a regular basement and storage rooms — why would they dig another basement in the study?”
“Maybe they feared break-ins?” John suggested. “There are lots of bookshelves here. Maybe it was to store valuables.”
“You obviously haven’t seen much ‘valuable stuff’.” Carolyn raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t think valuables would be stored on bookshelves, even in a basement. Liz would put the fire opal Lucian gave her in a jewelry box, her antique watches somewhere I can’t even find, and the doll dressed as Lady Galadriel under a dust cover…”
Coraci walked over to the desk. “Antique furniture and small decorations are worth something now, but back then, they probably didn’t need such tight protection. No tourist has ever been here, but no ‘valuable things’ have been left behind. So, I don’t think this place was meant to hold valuables. The basement entrance is in the study, and this…also seems to be a study.”
John thought for a moment and asked, “Coraci, can specters and ghosts see vaporized bloodkin?”
“Usually not. Because you’re smoke and dust, not a spirit… Want to vaporize yourself?”
John nodded. “I don’t know why, but I want to check if there are other secret rooms or basement entrances.”
His body turned into gas, colorless as air, and drifted out through the cracks in the doorway.
Coraci had roughly explained the manor’s layout before. John floated out of the study and down the hallway to the staircase in the main hall.
In the basement, Liz spread a plastic sheet on the sofa and sat down, thinking.
“Coraci, I have a vague idea,” she said. “Maybe figuring out the Atwoods’ past is important. From what I know, they were wealthy but not so famous. Why would they remodel the house to include a secret room?”
“True, I never thought about that before…”
Liz went on, “There was a massacre in this house, and more killings followed because of it. From Ms. Hai Jiu’s perspective, it was revenge. Now that they’re all dead, from the viewpoint of observing dark creatures, no matter the reason, malice and killing always breed instability. The violent events starting to happen here today might be connected.”
Carolyn tilted her head, looking at her. “So you heard that in the car too? I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
“The old specter kept talking; how could I sleep?” Liz adjusted her glasses and looked at Coraci. “Especially later when they started discussing their impressions of ‘the first time’.”
Coraci didn’t respond to that. He turned his back to them and bent over the desk. “This desk was heavily used back then. There are obvious ink stains here and there…”
“Your vampire went scouting and isn’t here, yet you’re getting shy? If I hadn’t been so tired then, I’d have interrupted to ask if you ‘came back for another round’…”
“Is one joke really worth you remembering for so long…” Coraci pleaded as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
John floated up the stairs to the second and third floors. He didn’t find any secret doors in the bedrooms, but he did discover a pulley elevator inside the walls that connected down to the study he had just left.
In the hallway, explorers shone their flashlights and recorded videos, pretending to narrate a haunted house tour. They didn’t seem interested in staying overnight. The ghosts quietly lurked in the shadows, holding back from scaring them too much for now.
John drifted silently over the heads of the explorers; no one noticed him. Along the way, he saw many stray items left behind by previous ghost hunters: modern newspapers, glass liquor bottles, large half-eaten bags of chips — perhaps dropped in panic — foam coffee cups, canned food they hadn’t taken with them… even garlic and coarse sea salt crystals. From these things, it was clear that those groups of explorers had once had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, specters and ghosts couldn’t hold onto objects and had no way to clean it all up.
He returned to the lower floor and, relying on his understanding of old houses, easily found the true basement storage room entrance. He floated through the crack in the door. Inside were empty storage cabinets and old, moldy walls, just like any abandoned basement.
Still, John felt something was off. The room was eerily quiet, and despite its large size, it gave an oppressive feeling…
Suddenly, panicked footsteps sounded upstairs. Perhaps thinking the explorers had stayed too long, the specters decided to send Annie and Mist to scare them away.
Annie wailed softly inside the walls, passing through every wall and piece of furniture. Mist flickered behind people’s backs, creating fleeting shadows.
The men and women explorers quickly fled in terror, shaking their cameras and shouting, “There’s really something here! I saw it! There’s really something here…”
John returned to the basement beneath the study. Not long after he regained form, Mr. and Mrs. Atwood also came back. They brought their guests upstairs, guiding them to several rooms where murders had taken place.
Since it was impolite to secretly investigate behind the specters’ backs, Coraci and the others didn’t mention their doubts about the house’s layout. They only asked if there were any other basements.
Atwood said there had once been one used as a storage room, but since the goods inside had rotted and the smell lingered, they had long ago had it filled in. Now, there was only the basement beneath the study.
John silently watched the old specter — Atwood was lying. But before he could tell his colleagues what he had seen, the moment passed.
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