A Mystery At Ravenscroft

The Crest

Parker

September 22, 2021

I'm laying in the middle of the bed in my mom's old room. This room is so big, way bigger than mine was. I'm currently living the best young adult life. I have a house by myself (for now), and I get to do pretty much whatever I want. I can't lie to myself and say that I don't enjoy this. All my life has been constant companionship, constantly surrounded by others, and it was great. But to finally be independent—to finally be "normal"—is nice. If you ignore the fact that I could possibly be trying to solve a murder. I just hope that's not what this is. Let's hope she's lost, and I'm just helping to bring her home. I could only hope.

I'm playing "In Bloom" on my Bluetooth speaker, and I'm surrounded by snack wrappers around the bed. Yep, I'm still a child. I sit up and collect all of the wrappers that have accumulated around me and throw them away in the trash. This room is so bare now that mom's personality is out of it. But her room still breathed her, even if she wasn't here anymore. That reminds me to send my mom a quick "good morning" text, and I tidy up the rest of the room. I grab my speaker humming the rest of the Nirvana song, and I go downstairs and begin making breakfast. I have always envied wanting to grow up in the nineties. Everything was so much simpler then. The best music was out, there wasn't so much chaos—everyone just lived in the moment. No smartphones recording every little moment, no distractions—just simply living. How I would kill to be able to live during that era. I'm scrambling some eggs and frying some bacon while I'm thinking about how life would've probably been so different if I was born then. Breakfast is finished, and I begin eating the eggs while skipping through Snapchat stories. I'm suddenly hit with the harsh realization that I'm supposed to be actively looking for a roommate. How am I going to find a roommate? I never even thought about that because when I make rash decisions, such as staying in a home by myself, I don't think about the small details. Yeah, I'd be living on my own, cooking food, driving by myself, that's fine. But what about sharing a home with someone else, having a random person occupy the space that's currently mine? What if they're a slob, what if they're racist, or homophobic... I stop myself because the list could go on forever. I just pray that whoever I find will be perfect, or at least as close to perfect as you could get in a person. I turn to Green Day radio and start fixing up the house. If I'm going to find a roommate, the house has got to look decent. I put my dishes away and begin in the living room. There isn't much to clean because I barely go in there. I'm mainly in my room reading, sleeping, or thinking about Ken. I make my way up the stairs and go into my old room. My dirty clothes and school supplies are strewn across the room because I'm half living between this room and mom's old room. As I'm putting my clothes in the hamper, I remember that I have to put this TV into the other room. I pick up the heavy flat screen and put it to the side, to put it in my new room later. I glance behind the dresser that it was sitting on. This is where it all started. This is where I found Ken's diary, and then everything changed. I was now tasked with the mission to bring Ken home. I started thinking to myself how different life would be if I never found the diary. Mom would probably still live here; she wouldn't be working in Ravenscroft. I wouldn't be starting to attend East Veridian this week... so many things would be different. But I can't think about that right now. It's not worth dwelling on the "what ifs" in life. You just have to keep going with the flow and make the best out of a situation.

Just for kicks, I pulled back the dresser some more, and went to peel up the wallpaper once more, bringing me back to the first night we moved into the house. How I made these exact movements a few weeks prior, the muscle memory sparking deja vu within my body. I had put the diary back in here a few days ago, to make sure my mom didn't find it when she was moving out. That would be a hard thing to explain. I bring my arm forward into the hole to fish out the diary to read it over, and see if there was anything I might have missed. My hand grabbed onto the diary but it also caught on to something else. Something small and leathery. I dropped the diary and whatever else was in my hand and shot my arm out of the hole. I got my phone and turned on the flash and braced myself to shine the light in the hole. Yes, there was the diary of course, but just beyond it was something brown and green. Small, but noticeable. Thankfully, it wasn't a mouse or anything. I let out a sigh of relief and pull both items out. I look at the small brown object in my hand. It had writing on it and it was the shape of a crest. I look around in the hole one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything else, and when I saw I didn't I examined the object. "The Viridian Society" it read, with an address underneath.

"182 East Ravenscroft Dr., 97136"

After I read that, it made so much sense. When I was looking that up the other day, I was associating it with Nighbury Falls when it's actually located in Ravenscroft. My heart leaps in excitement when I realize I'm going to be in Ravenscroft in a couple of days for class. Which gives me the perfect reason to snoop around and look for some more answers.

I finish tidying up the room, happy with my latest discovery. Since the weather is nice, I put on a dry fit shirt, an athletic skort and tennis shoes to do a quick jog. As I jog down my driveway and to the right I'm doing great. The wind blowing against my body, wiping my sweat off of my face, the quiet of the neighborhood, the freeing sensation I get is bliss. It all ends within a matter of seconds. As I'm rounding around a corner going across a crosswalk, there are crowds of people bumping and shoving past me. I gulp down every urge to yell and curse at the groups of people acting like I didn't exist. Like they don't see me enjoying myself. I see that they are by the woods near Dale's Diner, and the group just keeps growing. I start running again, trying to act like I'm ignoring what's going on. I'm actually eavesdropping... on the sly. I get to the crowd of people and stop. I stop pretending to not care and make my way into the crowd. My eyes grow wide, and I instinctively put my hand over my mouth. I can't believe my eyes. My mom will definitely be making me move in with her after this. As I'm getting ready to get my phone out of my pocket to text my mom, I'm startled when a girl my age bumps into me. We lock eyes for a moment, a sight of hidden familiarity. She breaks our gaze, and turns away from me and starts running in the opposite direction. I'm almost 100% sure she is about to puke.