Jacky is still trying to wrap her head around the fact that the giant flaming ghost she was fighting before now had the appearance of a child.

 

They were still a fire ghost though. Just a small blue one instead of a giant orange one.

 

Jacky closed her eyes and took a deep breath. After taking a moment to recenter herself she opened her eyes and looked over to see that her sword was now gone.

 

“...I guess that’s how that works…” Jacky said to herself before directing her attention back towards the small ghost.

 

“You’re just a kid, aren’t you?”

 

The ghost shakes their head yes. The wispy fire on their head moves back and forth as they do this.

 

“So you can understand me.” Jacky says with a sigh and scratches the back of her head. “I wish I’d known that I’ve been fighting a kid this entire time. I probably wouldn’t have even tried to fight you if I did.”

 

The ghost just blankly stares at her as Jacky crouches down to meet the ghost at their level.

 

“I’m sorry about trying to hurt you and everything. You didn’t deserve that.”

 

The ghost nods in agreement.

 

“...So…I feel like I’m doing all of the talking here…” Jacky says as she sits down on the ground figuring that she’s probably going to be at this for a while. “Can you speak?”

 

They shake their head no.

 

“Can any ghost speak?” Jacky asks as she cocks her head to the side.

 

The ghost just shrugs where their shoulders would have been if they still had their body.

 

Jacky, realizing that this was going nowhere, thinks of an idea.

 

“You can use your blocks!” Jacky says as she snaps her fingers. “That’s how we can communicate!”

 

The ghost perks up and seems to find this to be a good idea as well.

 

Jacky and the ghost make it over to where the ghost’s blocks were (while avoiding all the holes created from the fire) and she sits down again.

 

“So, can you tell me what your name is?”

 

The ghost starts quickly rearranging the blocks until it spells out their name.

 

CYNTHIA

 

“Oh! So you're a girl then?”

 

The ghost girl nods.

 

“So Cynthia, care to tell me what happened here?” Jacky says with a soft smile.

Steve, Rose, Will, and Casey finally make it up the stairs and towards the room where Jacky is.

 

“Jacky! Are you okay?” Rose yells out as she swings the door to the room open.

 

“Yeah. I’m alive!” Jacky says with a smirk. “I’m just having a chat with Cynthia.”

 

“Who is…” Before Rose could finish her sentence she glances over to the ghost that Jacky was sitting across from. “...Is that the ghost?”

 

“Yep!”

 

“So you’re not in danger anymore?” Rose says and feels as if a weight was suddenly removed from her shoulders.

“Nope!”

 

“Phew! Well that’s a relief!” Rose says as she wipes sweat from her brow.

 

“...So…” Steve says as he takes a few steps towards Jacky and Cynthia and notices the letter blocks. “I’m guessing that you and the ghost have been having a conversation.”

 

Jacky nods.

 

“Care to tell us what your conversation has been about?”

 

Jacky turns to Cynthia and the ghost girl nods her head in approval.

 

“Yeah! I can do that!” Jacky says as she stands up and faces the others. “Just to let you know, Cynthia was just a child when she…you know…so she doesn’t know everything that happened, but she did tell me a few interesting things.”

 

“Like what?” Will asks as he crosses his arms.

 

“Cynthia used to live here with her parents, but obviously a lot has changed since then.” Jacky says as she gestures to the dilapidated state of the house around her. “When she was still alive her parents didn’t seem to make a lot of time for her. They were too busy with the guests that they had over almost constantly. Something that I found strange was that none of the guests ever seemed to be repeat visitors. Anyway, Cynthia spent most of her time playing with the few toys she had here in her room, but occasionally did step out to see what her parents and their guests were up to. She said that her parents always told her that what they were doing was ‘grown up stuff’ and that she couldn’t ever join them along with the fact that she wasn’t allowed in their ‘special guest room’ down stairs. One day when her parents had guests over the house caught fire and…and Cynthia never made it out of her room that day…”

 

After Jacky’s explanation the others went silent for a moment as they processed this new information.

 

Steve was eventually the one to break the silence.

 

“I think I’m starting to put everything together.” He says as he scratches his beard. “Is there anything else that Cynthia told you?”

 

Jacky thinks this over for a moment.

 

“Oh yeah!” Jacky says as she snaps her fingers and points at Steve. “Along with the downstairs guest room she was also never allowed in her parent’s room…Now that I think about it, she wasn’t allowed in a lot of rooms in this house…She spent most of her time either in her room or in some of the more communal spaces in the house.”

 

“That’s right!” Rose blurts out as she cuts Jacky off. “The locked room next to this one must be her parents room! There might be something in there that will help us solve this case!”

 

“Yeah! I can open it!” Jacky shouts enthusiastically.

 

“...How?” Will asks with a slight scowl. “Did you find a crowbar around here?”

 

Jacky slowly makes her way over to Will and taps him on the shoulder as she wears a big toothy grin on her face. “You’ll see.” 

As Jacky walks out to the hallway and in front of Cynthia’s parent’s door the others follow to see what she was talking about.

 

“Get on with it.” Will says as he crosses his arms. “Show us this ‘amazing thing’ that you’ve been annoying us with for the last several minutes.”

 

“Can do!” Jacky says with a smirk as she closes her eyes. The yellow and pink energy quickly starts swirling around Jacky’s arm again until it transforms into the energy sword.

 

“...What? How?” Will sputters as Jacky points her sword at the others to show it off.

 

“I’m pretty sure this’ll be able to take down the door just fine!”

 

“Jacky! That’s awesome!” Rose squeals out as she and Casey quickly make their way towards Jacky to admire her new power.

 

“I know. It’s pretty cool, right?.” Jacky says nonchalantly as she starts to strike some cool poses with her energy sword.

 

‘I see. That’s why these two were recommended to join us.” Steve thinks to himself.

 

“Okay! Without further ado! Let’s break down this door!”

 

Jacky swings her sword between the door and its frame and is easily able to break the lock. She then kicks the door as it swings open.

 

The room was furnished with two beds, a bedside table in between them, a desk, and a few shelves. The room was also almost completely coated in dust and covered in cobwebs (which Jacky used her sword to clear).

 

The group filed into the room and began to look around for more potential clues to piece this mystery together.

 

As Jacky, Will, Rose, and Steve methodically checked through everything in the room, Casey used their power to see if they could detect anything that could help them.

 

Casey taps Rose on the shoulder and points towards a drawer on the desk.

 

“Oh, is it in there?” Rose asks as Casey nods to confirm.

 

Rose walks over to the desk and notices that there was a lock on one of its drawers.

 

“Jacky. There’s a lock over here, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you, right?”

 

“Not at all!” Jacky says as she summons her sword again and makes quick work of the lock.

 

Rose then opens the drawer and finds out that there was only one thing in this drawer. A small book with the word ‘Delilah’ written on its cover.

 

She opens the book and begins to skim the pages to see if it contained anything that would be useful to them.

 

“Oh! It’s a diary!” Rose exclaims as she continues to read.

 

Rose then suddenly drops the book on the ground.

 

“...I…I need to go sit down for a moment…” Rose says as she walks over to sit on the bed.

 

Steve makes his way over to the book and picks it up and begins to read it for himself.

 

He quickly figures out why Rose dropped the book. Its contents weren’t for the faint of heart.