The journey along the way was exactly as Jamie said, the town of Ravensfield was very remote. Many people here have moved away, and most of the people left behind are elderly people, with few young people showing up. The empty houses on the roadside also look desolate and eerie during the day.
The old house of the Eisen family looks very grand. The Eisen family must have been a very wealthy family in that era.
The group of people walked out of the car, and Jamie stood downstairs with an incomprehensible expression. It didn't look like he was missing, but he also had a faint feeling of rejection.
"Honey?" Lisa put her hand on Jamie's shoulder and touched it gently as if to comfort him.
Jamie nodded quickly to calm down his emotions, took two steps up the steps and raised his hand to pull the knocker and knock on the door. They didn't let them wait long before the door was opened from the inside. A blond lady wearing a suit and skirt came out with a smile and gave Jamie a hug as he looked at her with a confused expression.
Seeing that Jamie's expression was still a little confused, the blond lady smiled brightly and said: "Hello Jamie! I'm Ella, we talked on the phone." After saying that, she turned to the person next to Jamie with a smile that did not change, and also gave Li a smile. Sha gave a warm hug: "Welcome home!"
Lisa looked at Jamie and said awkwardly: "Oh."
Jamie was obviously not used to the over-enthusiasm of this strange stepmother. After vaguely introducing his friends, he led everyone into the mansion.
At this moment, a middle-aged and elderly man's voice came from nowhere: "Ella! Who is here?" It sounded full of energy.
Ella walked at the front and led the way. As she walked, she turned back and said to Jamie with a smile: "Edward would be extremely happy if he knew you were coming back today."
Hearing this, Jamie barely twitched the corners of his mouth, but failed to reveal a smile. He didn't think his father would be very happy to see him. They had always disliked each other for so many years.
The Eisen family's old house is as historic as its appearance. At first glance, the furniture and floors are spotless. The roof was very high and there were many oil paintings hanging on the walls. Winnie walked at the back and looked all the way, and she could also see the portraits of the elders of the Eisen family.
As they walked up the spiral staircase, they could see the high roof and the sunlight filtering through from above. After walking up the long stairs, you entered a room directly opposite. In the center of the room, a man was sitting in a wheelchair looking over, with an oxygen mask on his face.
"Oh, look who's here? My son?" The man's voice came out from behind the oxygen mask, muffled.
Winnie noticed that both Ella who came to greet him and old Eisen in a wheelchair were all dressed very formally. Old Eisen was wearing a black, crisp suit with a bow tie around his neck. Looks like... another puppet Billy.
Ella quickly walked over and took off the oxygen mask from his face, stood next to the man and put one hand on his back and another on his shoulder affectionately.
Old Aisen took a breath: "If I didn't call you, would you not have planned to come back?"
Jamie moved his lips and swallowed what he wanted to say. His eyes turned to the wheelchair under old Eisen and asked: "How did you have a stroke?"
"I'm older, Jamie." Old Eisen said, and he looked at Lisa who was standing next to Jamie: "I heard that you are pregnant. That's great news."
Lisa put her hand on her belly and smiled.
Neither the young couple realized that only Winnie and the Warrens knew about Lisa's pregnancy. Where did old Eisen "hear" about it?
Probably seeing that the atmosphere was too awkward, Ella whispered to her husband: "Jamie has brought his friends back. We should prepare the bedroom. They must be very tired all the way here."
"No!" Jamie suddenly interrupted: "We will stay in the hotel."
It was obvious to everyone that Jamie and his father had a difficult relationship. No one protested, and it was indeed more comfortable to stay in a hotel than in a stranger's house.
"Didn't you come back to see me?" Old Aisen asked.
"We still have a lot of spare bedrooms in our house." Ella smoothed things over: "This is the first time I bring friends back, and we will entertain them well."
"No." Jamie's attitude was very resolute. He was very uncomfortable when facing his father, and he didn't even want to introduce the friends he brought back to old Aisen. "I have one more thing to ask you."
Old Eisen was used to Jamie's attitude, "What's the matter?"
Ella stood next to old Eisen, her eyes swept over Lisa's belly in a hurry, and then looked at the "friends" standing behind Jamie.
Jamie: "We used to sing a nursery rhyme when we were kids, be careful of Mary Shaw's gaze..."
When Jamie finished reading, Old Eisen told him calmly: "This is just a nursery rhyme. There are more or less similar nursery rhymes in every place. There is nothing strange about it."
"But it's true." Jamie said, "I want to know how this nursery rhyme came about, and who is Mary Shaw?"
"This is just a story made to scare children," Ella said.
Seeing that he couldn't ask anything, Jamie didn't want to tell old Eisen what happened to them, so he planned to leave to find other people in the town to ask. Even though he hadn't seen his father for a long time, Jamie felt uncomfortable meeting him again.
Jamie: "Okay, then I'm leaving."
Old Aisen and Ella looked at each other, "But you just came back."
Jamie acted unmoved and pulled Lisa around to go out. The Warrens could only smile awkwardly at old Eisen and followed Jamie away. Winnie was still walking at the end, looking at Ella who ran out after Jamie, and then looked back at old Eisen.
At this time, Old Eisen lowered his head and couldn't see his expression clearly. It seemed like he had a sad attitude towards his son, he seemed to be asleep, or he seemed to have lost consciousness.
Winnie's perception of souls has dropped to the lowest level now, but she can still distinguish between the living and the dead. Although old Eisen had an oxygen tank next to him and spoke clearly, Winnie noticed that he never breathed from beginning to end. Except for two deliberate loud gasps, his chest and abdomen did not rise at all.
Coupled with her vague impression of the plot of the movie, she remembered that old Eisen was indeed dead. Winnie originally thought Ella was a puppet made by Mary Shaw, but according to her observation, Ella was a living person. What exactly is the deal between Jamie’s stepmother and Mary Xiao?
There was something strange and unusual about it that none of the fellow exorcists noticed. Winnie thought to herself that it was lucky that she was here, otherwise they would really have come to kill someone.
Rowling, who has yin and yang eyes, has a strong sense of evil spirits, but cannot detect the evil of living people. What Winnie wants to do is to remind people without leaving any trace, but she cannot know everything as if she has opened her eyes.
When they walked down the stairs, Ella was still trying to keep Jamie. She seemed to really hope that Jamie and the others could stay at home: "It's rare for you to come back and bring your friends with you, why don't you stay at home? Lisa still If you’re pregnant, just stay at home!”
"No need." Jamie was too determined, saying that he didn't want to live at home.
From their subsequent conversations, everyone learned that old Aisen's years of domestic violence led to Jamie's mother's suicide and his second wife's divorce. Even though Ella said that old Aisen had changed a lot, she only got a sneer from Jamie.
After the group of people left the mansion, Jamie's mood improved a little. He looked at Winnie and they said apologetically: "I really don't want to live here, so I can only take you to the hotel."
Mr. Warren looked up at the mansion thoughtfully, thought of something, and swallowed the words as he was worried about the puppet in the trunk.
"It's okay. You'll be more comfortable staying in a hotel." Rowling said. Everyone could see that Jamie had a shadow towards his father and was considerate of him.
In the end, they stayed in a small hotel. After booking the room, everyone took out their luggage and put it away. Mr. Warren deliberately left the box containing the puppets in the hotel. A few people simply ate something and then drove away with Jamie. They were going to find the old people in the town to ask about Mary Xiao.
On the way, Mr. Warren, who finally took down the puppet, told his wife what he had discovered: "Mr. Eisen's stepmother, her back and walking posture are very similar to the woman in the surveillance video."
Luo Lin, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was startled and turned to look at her husband: "Are you sure?" As she said this, her mind began to compare the image of Ella she saw not long ago with the image in the video.
The view from the window quickly regressed. Rowling frowned and kept thinking, "If she is really the one who sent the puppets, is she possessed by Mary Xiao?"
"I don't know." Mr. Warren shook his head and said, his eyes fixed on the red car in front of him to prevent himself from getting lost in an unfamiliar place.
Unless someone is possessed by an evil spirit, they won't be able to detect it unless they take the initiative to expose it. When Ella was leading the way, Warren felt that she looked familiar, and after observation, he raised his suspicion to seven or eight points. The evil spirits would hide in the puppets, and he was worried that Mary Xiao would hear them but never said anything.
"It's right not to live in the Eisen family." Rowling said.
There is also a pregnant woman among them. If she is possessed by Mary Xiao, the baby, who is less than a month old, will never survive the exorcism. Even evil spirits may seize the child's body and be born, which will definitely be a disaster.
"We need to find out Mary Xiao's purpose." Rowling looked worried: "I originally thought she could only possess puppets, but I didn't expect that she could also possess humans."
"Evil spirits possess humans," Mr. Warren said.
It wasn't until the car stopped in front of a certain house in the town that Mr. Warren had the opportunity to ask Jamie for a surveillance video. After Jamie sent the video to Warren's cell phone, he still didn't understand what was going on and thought he was going to use the video to compare it with people in the town.
The old people Jamie knew lived in this house, and the young people in the family also went out to live. Jamie stepped forward and knocked on the door. After two or three minutes, the door was opened from the inside.
The gray-haired grandfather looked at the stranger outside the door with some confusion. He didn't recognize him until Jamie said hello.
"Jamie! Long time no see!" The old man asked with a smile, "Do you have a problem with me?"
Jamie nodded: "Yes, I have something to ask you. Do you know Mary Shaw in the small town nursery rhyme?"
When he asked this question, the originally smiling old man's expression froze, as if he thought of something bad and his smile disappeared. He said slowly: "Oh, I know that nursery rhyme, it was meant to scare you." I didn’t say anything about inviting them in. I just wanted them to leave as soon as possible.
The Warrens saw a problem at first glance. They met too many people at work, and there were many people who kept secrets and dared not tell them.
"But it's real." Jamie said, his eyes pleading: "Someone sent Mary Shaw's puppet to my house..."
"Impossible!" the old man suddenly interrupted: "Those puppets have been buried!" After saying this, he realized that he had made a mistake, but he really didn't want to have anything to do with Mary Xiao's curse, so he retreated to the house to return the goods in fear. He closed the door by the way.
Seeing this, Jamie hurriedly stepped forward and knocked on the door. The rapid knocking on the door kept coming, which made people jump with fear.
The old man behind the door just wanted to drive them away and said, "If you want to know, go to the funeral parlor. His family buried Mary Xiao and those puppets."
Jamie put down his hand, and he could see his fear of Mary Xiao from the old man's behavior and expression. Since he mentioned "funeral" and "burial," Mary Shaw is not a superstitious story.
She really existed and is even buried in the cemetery.
"Let's go! Go to the funeral home!"
