Bittersweet Candy Bowl

*Hugs ILB.*

Because you are doing an awesome job and for all the hugs and smiles you give out in order to brighten our days.

Aww. Thank you, Sean. ^_^

Say hello to origin story number one. ^_^


—-
Chapter 20 – Germans, Boats, and Other Dangers

At the deck, meanwhile, things were far less heated. Michelle’s insistence on staring out to sea, for something that none of them could see, was getting on Roger’s nerves, but it was peaceful by any standards.

The daylight was dying now, and a golden belt stretched between the ship and the sun, while seagulls shrieked. Zacharias thought it was a pleasant scene, but he, too, wondered what the painter was looking for.

To while out the wait, he shuffled over to Paul, who was standing by the railings at port side. There was a burning question that had been on his mind the whole day, but that he had not dared to ask.

“Erm… Paul Stark, was it?” he said hesitantly.

The duke looked around, slightly confused. “Yes, that is me,” he answered.

Zacharias drew his breath, and continued. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but… aren’t you German?”

“Oh?” Paul seemed to be disappointed at this. “Oh, yes. I am.”

“I can’t help but notice that you’re so distinctly… well, not German.”

Paul did not reply immediately. He gazed out across the ocean for a while, but eventually said: “Germany represents all that I do not want to be.”

“What do you mean?” asked the other, intrigued.

“I’m sure I do not need to tell you its history. But no,” he added, “that isn’t the main reason.” He sighed. “We are not widely known for our charm. If people hear the word ‘German’, they instantly think of rules and rigid organisation. I hated that.

“I always wanted to break away from it. So I changed my name, and I moved country. Travelled the world, and then pretended to be a Brit in Paris. That got me a long way.” He cast down his eyes. “But in the wrong direction,” he added, with a hint of bitterness.

Zacharias stared at him, unsure of what to say. He knew of the duke’s reputation, of course; that was why this response was so confounding.

“Anyway, enough about that. Do you know what our friend Michelle is up to?”

They both looked up at the painter in his lone vigil. He had been joined by Theresa on the upper deck, and their eyes were fixed on a spot in the far wake of the boat.

After a while, they decided to join the pair on lookout, if only to have something to do. Roger, on the other hand, looked sincerely uninterested and merely butted in every now and then to ask when they could go back.

But on his umpteenth try, when dusk and darkness joined, the captain got a response. The monseigneur squinted his eyes, leant forward, and asked him to “wait just a little longer, monsieur”. The rest of them tried to glimpse what Michelle thought he had seen, but that only served to confuse them more.

Zacharias was sure that the painter must have fumbled it, because he himself could see nothing. There was a long expanse of sea stretching out before them, but neither land nor vessel were revealed to his eyes. Only a distant lamp that was blinking feebly…

Was that it? If so, what was it? And how did Michelle know about it? He opened his mouth to formulate a question to the Frenchman.

But Michelle was quicker; he had just found the light and yelled in elation: “There! I see it! Mademoiselle Kenning, do you see it?”

Theresa looked askance at the spot to which he was pointing. It appeared that she understood nothing at all. But after a few moments, she opened her eyes wide.

“What is that weird light out there?”

“I do not know, mademoiselle.”

“It’s another ship,” Roger interjected. His interest had been sparked by the shout, and now he stood towering impressively behind them, glaring at the brightness beyond. “It looks old.”

Zacharias, who could only barely make out the little speck in the vast sea, wondered how the captain could see all that from this distance. Fair enough, he himself sometimes had to use reading glasses, but Roger’s sight must be near supernatural to discover such detail.

“And somebody’s obviously seen it fit to throw a bunch of floodlights on it,” continued the captain. “Well, it’s nothing to worry about. There are many ships in the sea, monsie… monseigneur. Probably just following the same route as us.”

“But mon ami, why is it signalling?” Michelle pointed out questioningly.

“Is it? You must be seeing things,” replied the other. He smirked, and turned his head away slightly. Zacharias found this a little odd – it was almost as though he knew something more about the boat out there…

“Either way, we should be getting back. Everyone here?” said the captain after a short while. “Let’s see… You, you, you and you, miss… Where’s the dunderhead?”

“Dunderhead?”

“That Davido guy.”

“Oh.” Zacharias had forgotten that he had joined them. He glanced down at the main deck, but he saw nothing at first. Then, shortly thereafter, he saw something that was slumped into a day bed.

“There he is!” he exclaimed, indicating the reclining figure.

“Good. Let’s get back inside, it’s time for supper.” The captain turned on his heel, walked down to the daybed and grabbed Davido’s arm, pulling him along. The others followed behind, one by one.

But as Zacharias stepped inside the door, he stumbled over a small, rectangular object. He picked it up, and stared at the cover. The Murders of Rugworthy Manor, it read.

Better see if anyone’s missing this, he thought to himself, before heading downstairs. The door closed behind him, not leaving a single living soul behind on deck.
—-

I like how you were able to turn my insane boat ramblings into an actual coherent plot device.

Keep up the good work.

“‘not leaving a single living soul behind on deck.”
^foreshadowing no doubt

Yes, but not in the way you might think. ^_^


—-
Chapter 21 – Strange Food

The group’s entrance into the sitting room was greeted with a shower of stares, exclamations like “Davido? But…” and the unspoken question of whether they had found anything. Roger answered the plea for information both immediately and insufficiently.

“Nothing,” was all he said, before hobbling into the kitchen, leaving the others to their confusion. As one, they looked back at the remaining members of the expedition.

Theresa was the one to step up. As she explained what had went down, Davido, Paul and Michelle took seats in various groups around the room. Zacharias, however, looked somehow befuddled. This was not unusual, but it seemed to be amplified because, in his hands, he held a book that he obviously did not know what to do with. Eventually, he stuck it in one of his vest pockets.

Davido, meanwhile, had become the focal point of some admiration due to his escape. He had not bothered to tell anyone about the secret passageway, and some of the more impressionable guests were sure that he must have done some magic trick. Plato in particular was praising of him, although to Davido that was more of a nuisance.

Always eager to make a good figure, however, the Spaniard had pulled out a ship in a bottle that was strikingly familiar to all those who had visited Roger Rahab’s room. His antics with the object were brought to an abrupt halt when the captain, who had just exited the kitchen, charged at him while yelling “That’s mine, you idiot!”.

Sandrine, in her usual playful mood, had gone to check up on her crew. The cook was grilling steaks on the stove while Rachelle adorned the dishes, a promise of a delicious supper.

August was on his way to fetch bread from the innermost recesses of the veritable freezer. He held two loaves in his arm and was reaching out for a third, when his eye caught hold of a peculiar formation…

Slowly, he turned. There, in a corner, was a large silver plate, covered in a thin layer of frost. Upon it lay the figure of a young woman, trussed and arranged as thought she was a pig, an apple stuffed violently into her mouth. Her tan body had received repeated blows from an axe, while drops of crystallised blood were suspended in their escape from the wounds. The display had been sprinkled with frozen vegetables, as though it was ready to be put in the oven…

The loaves fell down to the floor, making dull thuds as they made contact with the cold metal. August turned away, speechless, and walked slowly towards the exit with a feigned look of calm on his face.

As he neared the door, he detachedly heard Sandrine’s voice pose a question to someone else. “… Rachelle, do you know where Molly is? I have not seen her for hours.”

“Maria? Non, madame, I ‘ave not seen ‘er for ‘ours,” came the waitress’ reply, with a somehow snappish tone.

August stepped outside, turned to his mistress, and said: “Madame, I believe I have found miss Olina…”
—-

Ack! Another one bites the dust

*hums that song, then lapses into Party*

Oh, and if somebody missed the inebriation, here it is. I cannot write realistically for drunks, so bear with me. ^_^


—-
Chapter 22 – Alcohol

“What do you mean, August?” asked Sandrine, looking worried. Slowly, comprehension dawned upon her. “You cannot mean to say that…”

“I am afraid so, madame. It is a morbid scene.” He looked down at his feet, but kept his expression stony.

“Is she… in there?” asked Alexander, incredulously. August gave a solemn nod of confirmation.

For a while, there was no reaction – everyone appeared to be petrified by this news. But eventually Rachelle sniffed, before breaking into full tears.

“Oh… Oh, I am so sorrý! I zought she was… zat she was ze murderér…” she managed to say, as her crying became more and more violent.

Sandrine walked over, and put a steady hand on the waitress’ shoulder. “It is all right, Rachelle. It was an honest mistake to make.” She smiled friendlily at her, and added: “I do not think she minded it at all.”

This did not seem to help in the least. Rachelle sobbed still harder, her face buried in her white apron, which was soon stained with hot and wet tears. August gently took her by the shoulders and guided her to a stool.

The chef, still petrified, stared into empty air. “A body… in my fridge?”

“Are you sure she…” Sandrine tried, but could not get any further. The waiter nodded again from behind Rachelle.

“A body in my fridge?” Alexander asked again, clearly unable to take in the information. Sandrine gave him a concerned look, but she was interrupted from doing anything more when the Hamilton couple entered.

Diane, holding her husband’s left hand with both of hers, looked worried, while Abraham’s face revealed no emotion. “What is going on in here?” he asked, glancing from Alexander to Sandrine and back again. “Di said she heard crying.”

“A… body… in my refrigerator?” Alexander mumbled, frozen in time. As Diane pulled back one of her hands and put it over her mouth with a gasp, and Abraham gave a hesitant “what?”, August walked across to the wine cupboard in the corner. He pulled out a bottle of gin, filled a glass with the liquid, and handed it to the muttering Russian.

With August and Sandrine giving him sombre stares, Rachelle sniffing and weeping from her seat and the chef rambling between sips of alcohol, Lord Hamilton’s confusion was surmounted. He had no idea why they looked at him like that.

But after a few seconds, Sandrine smirked. Then, she started laughing, a hearty, trilling laughter that nonetheless was a bit unsettling.

“Oh, Abraham, you are so very sharming when you are shonfused!” she exclaimed, before stepping towards the door to the freezer. “August found poor Molly stuffed in here.”

“Wha… In there?” Abraham said, not believing his own ears. August nodded at him, too.

“Is she…”

“I am afraid so,” smiled the hostess. “Would you be a dear and help get her out? It is not a very dignified plashe to spend eternity.”

The Englishman gazed at nothing, dumbfounded. His wife was looking at him with a tender expression tinted with fear, but she did not speak. But as Alexander hiccuped himself into a standing position and went to retrieve the full bottle of gin, Abraham followed the waiter into the freezer, his face vacant.

Diane stood still for a while, but she eventually stuttered: “I’ll… I’ll go t-tell the others.” With those words, she turned and went into the sitting room. Soon, a perfect silence ensued from it, a silence that could split eardrums.

Sandrine took this chance to try and comfort Rachelle, whose weeping had lost some of its volume. Before long, however, she was interrupted by a hasty entrance into the kitchen.

“There’s been another murder?” Roger asked rudely. Lady Diane had come in right behind him, as had monseigneur Michelle and the duke. They all looked both incredulous and concerned, and Paul gave Rachelle a particularly worried glance.

“Yes,” came a voice from the freezer. It preceded August, who followed it up with: “Miss Maria Olina.” He and Lord Hamilton were, with some difficulty, carrying the silver plate with the disruptively decorated Argentinian on it between them. The others gasped; Diane gagged at the sight and grasped Roger’s shoulder for support, and Rachelle cried out before burying her face in the handkerchief.

“Oh, dear,” whispered Sandrine, her hand over her mouth. “That is not a very dignified position to spend eternity in, either…”

They all heard the thud of an empty bottle being carelessly put down on a table. Alexander dried his lips on his sleeve, lifted his index finger, asked “Who’s that?” and passed out on the floor.
—-

Some while ago, I stopped asking for feedback but I will do so again now. I feel it is needed. ^_^ So please, if you have anything to say do not be afraid of doing that.

The only change u would hav added was the type of alchohol. Alexander is Russian so shouldnt he be imbibing vodka rather than gin?

I*

Oh? Well, he might have but vodka is really just a type of whisky. I imagine him going after fluids that are common in high circles, and I do not believe vodka is among them.

Of course, I may be mistaken. But that was my reasoning, either way. ^_^

Sorry ILB, I’m not a literary genius so I will not be able to provide any nit-picking constructive criticisms. In other words, it looks fine to me.

But I want nitpicking. ^_^

Ah, I presume I will have to move this to the new forum soon. Still; until then I think I will keep this here. ^_^

By the way, this might be the longest chapter yet. Get a snack, if you want to take the perilous journey through my bad writing. ^_^


—-
Chapter 23 – Abuse of Alcohol

Everybody had heard the news, even Yashy, who had returned from her washing duties in cabin fifteen as they untied Maria Olina. Her entry into the kitchen had caused an exodus out through the other door; the only people left for her to shout at were Roger and Sandrine.

Alexander, though horribly intoxicated, had managed to pull a bottle of Scotch with him into the common room. August, with a mischievous glint in his eye, swiftly followed with three flasks of wine and two more with gin. This proved to be an example to the others, as both Abraham and Michelle exited the kitchen with some rather conspicuous bulges on their person.

Meanwhile, Rachelle had vowed to try and make things up to the deceased. She decided to take the body to the cabin where Lucia already laid, and to give her a more respectable resting place. Paul nervously, and just a little bit too quickly, voiced his desire to help her. Amanda also joined them, looking concerned.

When they returned to the others, they were met by a distressing sight. The largest of the reading tables had become a drinking table, and a vast amount of bottles were standing and lying on it and the floor below. Five chairs had been drawn up, but inexpertly, so that they all faced in different directions.

Shockingly, the chairs’ occupants were even more carelessly placed. Alexander was sitting leaned back, slid to the front of his seat, and his legs were bent at awkward angles. Abraham, who had popped open the vest of his tuxedo, were lying across the armrests of his recliner, protectively holding his cane with his left hand.

Michelle, in a remarkable (for his age) acrobatic feat, had managed to position himself upside down in his chair, while his arms were uncomfortably strewn over and under him. Davido were scrabbling himself back into his chair, after falling off it backwards, all while singing a sailor’s song punctuated by hiccups. Zacharias was the only one who remained in a somewhat normal form, dumbly staring into a void only he could see.

All five of them were grappling bottles, and drinking as though the end of the world was tonight and they had to consume all the alcohol in it before it was too late. The rest of them were glaring at the uproar with contempt.

In fact, it seemed that each of the drunks had their own assigned watch(wo)man. Diane was desperately fussing over her husband, sometimes trying to pull the flask away from him. Susanne, still reclining in the sofa, stared at her chef with some distaste, murmuring something about him making a complete fool of himself. Rachelle had walked up to Michelle’s chair, and was exclaiming how he was “a deezgracé for ze French”. Davido, meanwhile, was being jostled by Sir Plato, who complained about Davido destroying himself with alcohol, when he could be “building relationships with the right man”.

Unsurprisingly, this made the Spaniard drink even harder.

Zacharias, wobbling unsteadily back and forth, was the only one who had nobody to shout at him. Amanda, feeling a bit sorry for the pianist, went to sit straight across him and stare at him reproachfully.

Paul thought this might be one of the most pathetic scenes he had ever witnessed. The air stank and oozed with an assortment of alcoholic beverages and, also noticeably, smoke and sweat. The complaints of the watchers mingled with the slurred speaking of the five drunkards, who were defending their behaviour to the best of their abilities (which is to say, not well at all).

But, he conceded, they had a point. As though seeing Lucia cooked was not bad enough for all of them, the attack on Susanne had shaken them even more. Then, when they had imagined that the worst was over, they had been proved wrong by finding a frozen and feeble Maria, the most morbid murder yet, and it was topped by finding her right before supper, in the middle of their supper…

Paul wanted little more than to join them, to drink his woes away, to not care about any of the awful things that had happened on the cruise. But he knew it was pointless; the ship did not have an endless supply of wine and scotch, and facing another day of this with a headache to boot would have been unbearable.

He opted to sit down as a silent prop instead. He found a seat in a sofa, between an unusually resigned-looking Theresa and August, whose face was contorted into a nearly childish grin. The waiter turned his head and noticed the duke glaring at him, but merely gave a nod that said “What? It’s all in good fun.”

Paul sighed. Then, he moved his eyes across to Zacharias, who had only just noticed Amanda’s concerned eyes on him.

“Wh- whwhwh- wha-,” he tried. Having just enough presence of mind to know that he spoke unintelligible, but having too little of it to deal with it, he clubbed himself on the forehead with the flask he was holding and attempted to speak again: “Whwhat izzit?”

Amanda just kept staring at him, not even blinking as she did so.

“Wha’ve dodone? I didin’t dooh neethin’.”

There was a slight flicker in the countess’ expression. She gave her head the slightest of shakes, but still did not move her eyes away. Zacharias seemed to decide that whatever it was, it was not his problem, and it certainly was not his fault; he went back to staring into nothingness.

(Continued)

It was not long, however, before the musician seemed to remember something. He started patting the pockets of his coat with both hands, stopping at the inner pocket above his heart. He reached into it with his right hand (after a few unsuccessful attempts with his left hand and, once, his head), and pulled out a rectangular shape.

“I f-f-found thizzbook,” he commented in a loud voice, rather unnecessarily. “Whoozizzit?”

Most eyes turned in his direction, but it was Amanda who brightened up. She whelped, the first sound that any of the other guests had heard escaping from her mouth, and rose swiftly from her chair.

Zacharias, even slower than usual due to his large intake of alcohol, noticed that the book suddenly disappeared from his hand and, the very next moment, that his cheek had been pecked lightly by something warm; he realised that she had kissed him there.

Amanda’s sole focus was now on her copy of The Murders of Rugworthy Manor, and she could gleefully confirm that her bookmark was exactly where she had left off. She did not notice, however, that every eye in the room was on her and Zacharias.

Most of the others just stared dumbly, confused at what had just gone down. Alexander, however, raised his slurred voice and tried to ask the countess a question.

“Hhhhey, you, whhhy don’ you ever ssspeak?” was what came out. Amanda, looking up, beamed at him, then lightly tapped across to his chair.

To everybody’s further surprise, she bent down and whispered something inaudible into his ear. Then, she tittered off, with a soundless giggle on her lips, and sat down in a reclining chair in a corner far from the others.

The others stared stupidly at her as she opened her book and started reading, apparently without a care in the world. What had she said to Alexander? Had she said anything at all? Was this their imagination playing tricks on them?

That was as far as their thoughts came. The bead curtain to the kitchen had been flipped away, and the two angriest people on the boat had stepped into the common room. Shouting and screaming, Roger Rahab and Yashy Yamabushi assaulted them with a vengeance, while August comfortably watched the drunkards gnash their teeth and cover their ears.
—-

Ah, another wonderful chapter, I do still wonder what she could have said to Alexander though.

Who could have said something to Alexander?

…I’m trying to figure out if you’re being funny or just actually confused. I think it’s the former, but I’m not sure

hey guys whats going on HERE

I am actually confused. Who is it? ^_^

Miw meant Amanda I believe. Also this chapter was delightful

Indeed, Treless Druid got it

Oh, I had forgotten I wrote that in. ^_^

Either way, you will have to ask Bribri about that - he was the one who introduced the idea in the MMG itself.