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𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐒, 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐙𝐄𝐍 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐒, unable to comprehend the gruesome scene before them. A rivulet broke from the halo of blood around the girl's body and began to trickle towards their feet.

"B-but...how and when and who and why..." Thomas stammered once he was finally able to find his voice.

Jackson was about to speak when a voice from behind her startled the group and nearly sent them sky-high.

"What did you guys find?" Madelynn asked, approaching the group from the foyer.

"How did you get down here so quickly?" Penny asked, her eyes instinctively glancing up towards the set of stairs. "We didn't hear you come down the stairs."

"It's crazy," Jesse answered, stepping out from beside Madelynn with wide eyes and an even wider smile. "There's this painting in the attic that's a door to the front entrance. When we went through it, we came out in the foyer!"

"What's going on down here?" a voice called from the stairs, and Thomas, Jackson, Penny, Madelynn, and Jesse looked up to see Willow's and Luc's faces peering over the railing. 

"We found the bodies!" Jackson answered.

"Bodies?" Luc asked, sharing a glance with Willow before rushing down the stairs to join the rest of the group.

Thomas, Jackson, and Penny stepped aside to allow Madelynn, Jesse, Luc, and Willow a chance to see into the room. A matching look of shock appeared on all four of their faces as their eyes darted back and forth between the dead boy and the dead girl on the floor.

"Anybody know who she is?" Willow asked.

Everybody studied the girl's body, attempting to surmise any clues about her identity. Her short blonde hair splayed out around her, parts of it turning red from soaking in the blood, and her hazel eyes stared wide-eyed up at the ceiling. Her last expression was frozen on her face like a photograph, full of shock and fear.

"I do," Penny announced quietly from the doorway. Everybody parted as Penny slowly approached the body, their eyes following her the entire way. "Her name was Yvette. She was a teaching assistant for Professor Hagrid. I didn't know her well because she was a seventh year, but our mothers are friends."

"Do you know why somebody would want her dead?" Thomas asked, taking a step closer to Penny and the girl.

Penny shook her head. "She comes from a family of well-respected dragon trainers. I can't imagine that anybody would have a reason to kill her, but like I said, I didn't really know her."

"Wait a minute..." Willow announced, joining Thomas and Penny by the body. She pulled her sleeve down so that it covered her hand and carefully picked up the bloody candlestick from beside Yvette's head. She raised it to the light so that she could examine it closer, allowing the rest of the group to see it as well. "Isn't this the candlestick that Professor Plum received in his gift?"

All eyes turned to Jesse, whose face immediately flushed. He began to nervously bounce from foot to foot, unable to keep still. "But I put it in the chest! How did it get out here?" he asked.

Everyone's eyes then turned to Thomas and he hesitantly took a step backwards.

"You told us that we could trust you with the key, Wadsworth," Luc fumed, quickly closing the gap between himself and Thomas.

"Y-you can!" Thomas stammered, taking another step backwards.

"Then how did the candlestick get out?" Jackson asked, joining Luc by his side. Soon the group had formed a circle around Thomas, backing him into a wall as they barraged him with questions and accusations.

"Did you kill her?" Penny demanded.

"Maybe he killed them both!" Jesse shouted.

"Where is the key now?" Madelynn asked.

Thomas's hands flew across his body as he turned out pocket after pocket, but no key came clattering out. "It's gone!" Thomas announced with wide eyes.

The group of witches and wizards each shoved against each other as they attempted to squeeze through the doorframe and race to the parlour. When they arrived, they found the chest sitting on top of the desk, open and empty of its contents.

"Even our wands are gone!" Madelynn cried, her hands flying to the sides of her face.

"The key had to have fallen out of my pocket...Or maybe somebody stole it while I was asleep..." Thomas muttered to himself as he rubbed his chin in contemplation.

"Or nobody stole it and you're the killer!" Luc argued. A small chorus of agreements backed him up as everybody slowly edged to Luc's side.

"I'm not, I swear!" Thomas shouted, his eyes pleading with the group to listen to him as he waved his hands through the air.

"There's one way to find out for sure," Luc announced with a steely gaze. "We lock him in a room for the rest of the weekend. If nobody else dies, then he's the murderer."

Luc looked to Jesse and with a reluctant nod of Jesse's head, the two slowly began to approach Thomas with their arms out towards him.

"Please, you can trust me! I didn't do it!" Thomas shouted in exasperation as his eyes darted around the room for an escape. He tried to rush for the door by jumping over one of the couches but Luc and Jesse were too quick and they grabbed him by the arms.

"Come on, dude, please don't make this any harder than it needs to be," Jesse pleaded as they carried a thrashing Thomas into the foyer.

"It wasn't me!" Thomas cried, finally giving up and allowing his heels to drag against the marble floor as Jesse and Luc brought him towards a room farther down the hall. "You have to believe me! It wasn't me, I promise!"

Jackson, Penny, Willow, and Madelynn slowly followed after Luc and Jesse, trying their hardest to avoid making eye contact with a tearful Thomas. Mr. Boddy hissed at the group of witches and wizards as they threw Thomas into a broom closet that was barely bigger than he was and cluttered with cleaning supplies.

"Grab the cat," Luc instructed Jesse.

"No!" Willow said with a scowl, quickly placing herself between Luc, Jesse, and Mr. Boddy. "That's taking it too far. He's just a cat!"

Deciding that it wasn't worth his time to argue with her, Luc shrugged and slammed the door shut. His fingers groped the top of the doorframe until they found a small silver key and he slipped it into the key hole, locking Thomas inside.

"You're going to regret this!" Thomas's muffled shout came through the door as he pounded against it. "Let me out of here! You're making a huge mistake!"

The group turned to head back to the parlour, but Madelynn stopped to glance back at the closet as the pounding continued. "Do you guys really think this is a good idea?" she asked nervously, biting her lower lip.

"I don't like it either, but Mr. Green has a point," Jesse answered somberly. "With Wadsworth locked in there, that leaves one less potential killer out here."

"And what if Mr. Wadsworth isn't the killer?" Penny asked.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," Jackson sighed.

After returning to the parlour, the group devised a plan for the rest of the day. With Thomas locked in the closet, they felt safer to shower and change into fresh clothes. They each took turns using the bathroom on the first floor, the rest milling about outside as they waited their turn. Even with Thomas shut away, they still felt that it was safer to keep everybody within sight, just in case they were wrong.

Once everybody was clean and changed, the group found their way into the kitchen. It was nearing lunch time and a low rumbling had begun to echo in their stomachs. They carefully scoured the massive kitchen that was a numbing white from floor-to-ceiling until they found ingredients to make sandwiches.

"I still feel bad about Mr. Wadsworth..." Madelynn announced to the group between bites of her sandwich. Too hungry to set the table in the dining room, the party of witches and wizards had settled on the floor and countertops in the kitchen to eat their meal. "Maybe we should bring him some food?"

"No," Luc said sharply from where he sat on top of the island countertop. "We can't risk him getting out, especially when we don't know what he's done with our wands and the weapons. It's only one night. He'll be fine."

"We have to feed him eventually," Willow retorted from her seat on the floor. "He's not our prisoner."

"Actually, he kind of is," Jesse added his own input. "I mean, we did lock him in a closet."

"I don't feel any sympathy for that murderer," Luc snapped, his eyes absentmindedly glaring at the empty air before him as he took a bite of his sandwich.

"We don't even know for certain that he is the murderer," Penny pointed out, pushing her plate aside as she finished the last bite.

"Well, let's look at the facts, shall we?" Luc replied, pushing himself off the counter to stand before Penny. "One, Wadsworth was here long before the rest of us, giving him plenty of time to kill the boy and hide his body. Two, he woke up before anyone else this morning, allowing him the opportunity to kill again. And three, he was the one with the key and now everything is gone from the chest."

"But why would Wadsworth hide the bodies where we could easily find them?" Madelynn asked. "And why would he open the chest and remove all the wands and weapons when we all knew that he had the key?"

"Because he's sick in the head!" Luc argued.

"I don't know if he's the murderer, but I do believe that he's hiding something from us," Jackson added quietly as she crossed her ankles and leaned her head against one of the cupboards. "Everything about this is just...odd."

"How do you mean?" Jesse asked.

"Well, Wadsworth said that only the last person standing can meet the host, but so far, the only people to turn up dead have been people who weren't even invited to the Shack," Jackson explained. "It's like the host is playing some big game with us where only they know the rules."

"What happens if there's more than one of us still alive when the host arrives tomorrow night?" Jesse asked, goosebumps rippling down his arms. An eerie silence filled the room as Jesse's words settled on the rest of the group.

"Maybe Wadsworth was right," Willow piped up, squashing the silence and gaining the attention of everyone else in the room. "Maybe we need to discover who our host is before they arrive so that we know what we're up against."

"And how are we going to do that?" Luc scoffed. "We're trapped here."

"And maybe that's for the best..." Willow's voice trailed off as a new thought struck her. She jumped to her feet with wide eyes and a slight smile before continuing. "The host had to have been here, right? I mean, I've never seen the inside of the Shrieking Shack before, but I'm pretty sure this isn't what it's supposed to look like. What if our host enchanted the Shack to look like this before we arrived?"

"It makes sense..." Penny agreed. "Which would mean that there's a chance that they could have left clues."

"Would you all listen to yourselves?" Luc laughed in disbelief with a roll of his eyes. "There is no host! Wadsworth set the whole thing up, it's clear as day!"

"I think we need to get another look at the bodies. They've got to be connected!" Willow announced, ignoring Luc as she hit her fist against her open palm. "If we can figure out why they're here, then maybe we can figure out who the host is!"

Everybody rose from where they were sitting to make their way towards the door, but Luc quickly moved to block them. "Hold up, hold up," he said, putting his hands out in front of him. "I don't think this is a good idea."

"And why not?" Penny asked, placing a hand on her hip.

"If this is really some big game to the host, then don't you think they're watching our every move? What if they find out that we're looking into them?"

"It's a risk we'll have to take," Willow said with furrowed brows and her mouth set in a determined line.

Madelynn pushed her way to the front of the group to stand beside Luc. "I agree with Mr. Green," she said quietly, surprising the rest of the group, including Luc. "I think we should just leave the bodies alone and hunker down somewhere until the weekend is done."

"We can't just sit around and wait for the next body!" Jackson shouted. "We need to do something!"

"If we do something, the next body could be one of ours!" Luc shouted back.

"According to you, we're safe because the 'killer' is locked in a broom closet!" Willow argued. A suspicious look then settled on her face as she peered at Luc. "What are you so afraid of, Green?"

Luc didn't have the chance to answer because just then, the lights went out, bathing the witches and wizards in pure darkness.

"Not again!" Jesse cried.

"Ow!" Jackson's voice called through the dark. "Who just stepped on my foot?"

"Hey!" Luc's voice shouted. "Somebody just shoved me!"

When the lights turned back on a few minutes later, the group was relieved to see that they were all still in the same spot.

"Well, Mr. Green, it looks like you've gotten your way for now," Willow said with a deep frown. When Luc gave her a confused look, Willow continued. "The last time the lights went out, we found a body. It looks like we'll have to search the Shack to see if somebody else has wound up dead."

Luc and Madelynn moved aside to allow the rest of the group to slowly spill into the foyer to begin their search for the next corpse. However, they didn't make it far when Jackson noticed that something was amiss.

"Um, guys...?" Jackson called to the group, stopping them in their tracks. They all turned to look at Jackson before following her finger to the broom closet at the end of the hall where they had imprisoned Thomas.

The door was open and Thomas was gone.

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A/N: I officially had my spring break this week but spring break doesn't really feel like spring break when all of your classes are online. Ah well, it at least gave me more time to write!

Who do you think let Thomas out of the broom closet?