A plump, redheaded woman walked up to the door first, erupting in a high-pitched scream and falling to her knees beside me.
"Oh, my goodness," she tried to whisper, but shuddered, seeming to have a tearful voice.
"It seems he was strangled," another woman behind me said.
"Who in hell would do this?" I heard Charlotte's voice behind me as well.
"Who had the time?" Another voice said.
As everyone continued to bicker, in horror, in suspicion, in grief, a clap of thunder shook my eardrums and caused them to ring slightly. The light flickered before shutting off completely, leaving all of us in a moment of confused, blackened silence. While the lights were still off, there was a loud knock on the front door. I followed the wall of the corridor, trying my hardest not to run into anyone, and tried to find my way down the stairs. The lights flickered once more, turning back on as I was halfway down the stairs, and I continued to make my way down, a few others following behind me. As I made it to the front door, I opened it, hoping it was some sort of police officer or anyone with power to help. It was only a girl in a soaking wet, black sunhat, a black dress, and Mary Janes that made her slightly taller.
"My apologies, am I too late? The rain made it impossible to find my way," she said sweetly, stepping inside.
"Who are you...?" I asked, in shock.
"Arthur? I'm your cousin. Felix's sister, Lydia."
"My apologies, my brain is too scrambled to think right now. Pardon my forgetfulness,"
"No worries," she said as she looked around. "You all look so pale and scared. Did something happen?"
"Lydia," the butler began. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Felix was found strangled to death tonight."
"What? No, that's impossible? Who did it? Why?" She seemed hysterical as she spoke.
"Where have you been?" The redhead from earlier asked. "How are we supposed to be sure that you had nothing to do with it?"
"Alice! How could I kill my own brother? I was stuck in the rain. A tree fell and blocked a few of the roadways, so I had to find a different route. How likely could you have killed Benjamin?" Lydia defended herself.
"Benjamin? I have been closer to him than you to most, if not all, of your family. I could never kill him, but you're cold, and dark, and couldn't even go to your own grandfather's funeral."
"I wasn't invited to Grandfather's funeral. I didn't kill Felix. I've only just arrived!"
"Then who else wasn't here before the party started? Everyone else has an alibi."
"Not necessarily," I butt in. "There's a housekeeper, and two cooks, and not even to mention anyone who stood by themselves, no eyes on them. I was with Charlotte and Beatrice the entire time, how many of you just stood by your lonesome and drank?"
The room fell silent.
"Wait..." A girl in a purple-pink dress walked up to us. "You said there were trees blocking the way? The way to where? Can we not leave?"
"Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like it. A short second after I had parked, I heard a big clap of thunder and one of the tall trees in the entryway fell over, covering the whole thing. The only way we would be able to leave is by crossing it without vehicles, but we're much too far away from anything for it to matter," Lydia responded.
"Oh, my days. So, potentially, if we were to call for help, would they be able to reach us?"
"Doesn't seem like it," a dark-haired man with a mustache quickly replied, his head buried beyond the curtain and looking outside. "That tree is enormous. Nobody is making it past that point."
"God, damn it," a woman with brown skin and a black dress exclaimed. "What are we supposed to do? We're locked in here with a murderer until who knows how long."
"I think we're going to need to know who everyone is. Some introductions could do us good!" Exclaimed the same mustached man. "My name is Vincent Crawford."
"I'm Dorothy Crawford," the dark-skinned woman said.
And as the line went down, I learned the names of the ones I was stuck in this manor with, some of whom I already knew. Alexander was an old man, white hair merging with the bit of deep brown he had left. He was my great uncle, and to be honest, I had forgotten about him for quite some time. Henry was a young man, possibly in his early twenties, with fair blonde hair, somehow being Felix's brother. Completely unlike, the two of them. Benjamin was a cousin of mine, with redheaded hair and was rather short. His sister, Alice, was also redheaded, her hair flowing long down her back, and her green dress hugging the folds of her skin.
The one in dark clothes and hair was Lydia, Felix's younger sister and my cousin. Thomas was dressed in navy blue with slick black hair. His relation to Felix was unknown. The same was with Michael, who was suspicious looking with brunette hair similar to mine. Beatrice was my older sister, also with brunette hair. Quinn was dressed in light-blue florals, paired nicely with his platinum blonde hair. Eleanor was brunette with short, wavy hair, and a mahogany dress. She revealed herself to be close business partners with Felix. Clara had chestnut brown hair with a dark, though neutral colored dress. She had been one of his university friends. Lilith was blonde with a purple-pink dress, and Josephine was dirty-blonde with a white dress.
After learning the names of everyone I was there with, we all gathered in the dining room, where the party was supposed to have begun earlier. The room was silent with confusion, especially since none of us had dealt with murder before.
"Where do we even start?" Alice began. "I assume nobody here is a detective or a pathologist."
"Who has a motive?" I asked.
"We were all invited equally to this party, so all our reasonings would be the same. Do any of you have a sort of grudge against him?" Dorothy asked.
"Why would anyone admit that they did? Felix was a kind man, why would anyone have a grudge against him?" Lydia responded, drying her hair off with a towel the butler had given her.
"I say we get some sleep," Vincent said. "The storm may have passed in the morning so that we can call for help."
"How are we supposed to remain safe during the night?" Lydia asked.
"All of Felix's spare bedrooms have locks on them, but there isn't enough for one of us to have each. We'd have to pair up, though there may be one of us who must sleep by themselves."
"I'll do it," Lydia offered. "I'm grieving much too hard to share a bed with someone else tonight."
"If someone dies tonight, we'll all know who was paired with who, so we can automatically assess who the culprit was. You're quite smart, Vincent," Charlotte praised him. "I'll go with Arthur. I want to keep a close eye on him."
"Oh! Alright then," I replied, the tips of my ears beginning to get hot.
I watched as people began to pair up. Most of the others chose people they were already close with, such as Vincent and Dorothy. I noted everyone's pair in my head before finding my way to a spare bedroom with Charlotte. Why she had chosen me was beyond my knowledge, but it did make me slightly nervous to be around her. It hardly seemed like the time to be fraternizing, but there was something irresistible about her. She was a beauty that I had never seen before, and something about her just made me want to forget about that night's tragedies and sink into her embrace. That was largely a fantasy I had conjured in my head, but there must have been some sort of reason that she wanted to share a room with me, I thought.
Together, we walked to the room we had chosen to stay in, and it was about what you would expect for a guest bedroom. The bed was bigger than the one I slept on in my home, and the blanket atop it was made from silk so expensive I couldn't even fathom to describe the feeling of it cascading through my fingers as I touched it. Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed as I walked behind her and shut the door, being extremely sure to lock it tightly. I took off my waistcoat and tie, throwing it carelessly onto the floor, and unbuttoned the first few buttons of my shirt. I removed my shoes to only leave my socks and sat on the edge of the bed next to her.
"Going to leave that corset on? It looks tight and uncomfortable," I glanced over at her.
"It is, but it's not as if I can just take it off. What am I to sleep in?" She responded, looking at me as if I'd just asked her to take her clothes off, and to be fair, I did.
"Oh, for as long as I've known Felix, he's had spare pajamas for his guests somewhere. We'd have to go to a closet of some sort to find any."
"Lord, I'd rather sleep in this corset than to go out there and find myself dead."
"Don't be silly, I'm with you."
"And what are you to do? I don't suppose you carry a revolver or a blade on you."
"Sleep in your corset, then."
"Can't be good for my ribcage. Come on, let us find a housekeeper."
I followed her out the door, not happily, especially after her comment. I couldn't leave her by herself, because heaven forbid something happens to her, and I be quickly blamed. We went down the long corridor and turned a few times to find other corridors, until eventually we ran into a housekeeper, dressed in a black dress, still despite the evening time.
"Hello," I walked up to her, and she sent me a smile. "Would you happen to have a spare pair of pajamas, or a nightgown, perhaps?"
"My apologies, but Felix didn't prepare for these many guests. We do not have anything that hasn't already been given out. I wish I could do something for either of you," she apologized to us, and I looked over at Charlotte, seeing her more than irritated face, mixed with a bit of panic.
I thanked her for her aid as the two of us made it back to our room. I shut the door behind us and at once sunk myself into bed. It was indescribably comfortable, but Charlotte was yet to lay down. She stood over the bed, looking at me nervously, likely because she couldn't sleep in this state. She then walked over to the side of the bed I had been laying on, and sat on the edge, uncomfortably close to me. I sat up to look at her, and she looked at me the same.
"Pardon?" I asked her, chuckling a bit, out of pure confusion of what she was up to, and more than anything I saw it to be funny what she was doing. I had an itching idea of what she was trying to imply, but I wanted to hear it out of her mouth, just to be sure. Just to be sure that a woman like her could really like a man like me. It was hard to believe in a woman of her liege and beauty, loving a lonely commoner. She gave up one of the richest men in the town, and wants me? Oh, it was truly something you wouldn't believe unless you had been there or heard it right from her mouth. It was a relationship of fairy tales, at least that's what it could be if she wanted it to, and that is what I waited for. I waited for her confirmation, because I had absolutely no reason to believe that's what she wanted. My jaw hung agape as I heard her mutter the words, "I'd like to kiss you."
"Is that so?" I replied in complete disbelief.
"Yes, it is," she chuckled softly, brushing her hand against the back of my neck. "To be frank, that's what I've wanted to do since I saw that luscious face of yours." My face turned a bright red as she said that, and I was much too stunned to speak, or even move.
"Well," I began, looking down at my hands rubbing themselves together nervously on my lap. "I'd like that."
"Is that so?" She asked playfully, scooting herself farther up the edge of the bed, closer to me, and placing one of her hands on the back of my head to guide. The gap between the two of us closed as I felt her soft lips intertwine with mine, and after a moment, she pulled away.
"Better than I thought," she noted to herself. "Well, I might as well get out of this corset. Would you care to help me with that?" With that, she stood up, and I sat up fully, trying to ignore my flustered feelings that had just come. She turned her back to me as I began to unlace her corset, loosening it until it could be removed. The rest of that experience was a blur, though I remember I could hardly believe she was sleeping with me.