There was a knock on the door, and the Warrens' voices came from outside the door. Jamie walked to the door and opened it.
"Are you okay?" Mr. Warren asked hurriedly.
"It's okay." Jamie stepped aside, looked at the open window and said, "The window was pushed open by someone."
"We were woken up by the noise," Lisa said.
Mr. Warren walked to the window and looked down to see nothing. Then he looked sideways in the direction of Winnie's room window and saw a black thing falling to the ground.
He pushed the chair by the window aside and jumped out of the window. He walked to Winnie's window and picked up the things that fell on the ground. Then he walked back to the Eisen couple's window and looked at the light. Everyone was shocked.
It was Billy the puppet who was supposed to be locked in the box.
"Why is it there? Isn't it tied up in a box with a belt?" Lisa felt a panic in her heart.
When the four people knocked on the door of Winnie's room and saw the frost condensing on the window, Rowling couldn't help but have a solemn look on her face. They often deal with evil spirits and naturally know the signs when evil spirits appear. Ordinary ghosts can only appear in front of people and arouse people's fear. The more powerful ones can cause the temperature of the air to drop sharply, and the more powerful ones, like now, can cause water marks on the windows to freeze.
Is Mary Xiao so powerful?
Rowling turned to look at her husband, and sure enough she saw the solemn expression on Ed's face.
"Why is it behind Winnie's window?" Lisa asked uneasily. She saw the wide open window and thought it was Mary Xiao who came for it.
Jamie looked at Winnie who was just woken up and was still a little confused in surprise, "Isn't Mary Xiao trying to attack Winnie?"
Rowling frowned and said, "Mary Xiao opened the window of your room. She probably wanted to go in, but for some reason she suddenly changed her mind and came to Green's window..."
"Did you find anything?" Mr. Warren asked.
"Ah." Winnie, who finally understood what happened, said with a pale face, "I felt very cold when I fell asleep. I don't know anything else."
Lisa breathed a sigh of relief when she heard this, walked over and took Winnie's hand and said, "Let's stay in the same room from now on, it's too dangerous."
Mr. Warren suddenly realized: "It turns out that girls who live alone are more likely to attack."
Mary Shaw's method of killing was to shock and make people scream. He and Rowling were exorcists and kept the puppets at home for so long without any problems. Mary Shaw couldn't even do anything to her own daughter. The Eisen couple could take care of each other, and the possibility of being frightened into screaming was low, so she suddenly changed her mind and went to Winnie Green in the end.
But in the end, she didn’t know what happened, and Mary Xiao failed to take action.
The five of them looked at each other and couldn't sleep tonight. Unexpectedly, Mary Xiao was unwilling to give up any chance, and started taking action the night they arrived in the town.
Mr. Warren returned to their room and took the box over. After unbuckling the two belt buckles, he opened the box and put the puppet Billy back.
"I think it should be burned." Winnie said, "Mary Shaw can only kill people by possessing puppets. What if all her puppets are burned?"
Before they came, they were worried that burning the puppets would release Mary Xiao's soul. Now they knew that she had a total of 101 puppets in her hands. They were going to burn the bodies tomorrow and it was okay to burn them in advance now. And seeing that Mary Xiao was attacking the attacker with a puppet, it was obvious that the puppet was extremely important to her.
Mr. Warren nodded after hearing this: "Okay."
…
Early the next morning, the group drove to the store to buy something, and then went to Ravensfield Cemetery.
The summer vegetation was dense, and they walked around in the woods for a long time before they found Mary Xiao's tombstone, which was covered by weeds and vines. Looking to the side, I saw a large number of small tombstones next to Mary Xiao's grave. They looked around and found a small tombstone belonging to Billy the Puppet.
"dig." Mr. Warren distributed the shovels to everyone. Lisa, a pregnant woman, only had to stand aside and watch.
Originally, they planned to put Lisa and Winnie in a safe place before coming, but they didn't expect that Jamie's stepmother actually had a problem, and there was no one in the town. Instead of staying somewhere else, they might as well put them there. The sight is more reassuring.
Mr. Warren and Jamie dug Mary Shaw's grave, while Rowling and Winnie dug the puppet's grave. The puppet's grave was not buried deep enough and they quickly dug up the small coffin. Luo Lin squatted down and opened the small coffin. Unexpectedly, it was empty inside.
"It was poached in advance." Rowling said.
"It must be Jamie's stepmother." Winnie said, "If the puppets are Mary Shaw's weakness, then they should be moved to a safe place."
Jamie stopped what he was doing: "At my house, or at the theater?"
"Go to the theater and see it later," said Mr. Warren.
Not long after, they dug up Mary Shaw's coffin. Thinking that it wouldn't look good after someone had been dead for 70 years, Jamie asked Lisa to turn around and then opened the coffin lid with Mr. Warren.
It's still empty.
Everyone's hearts sank.
Jamie let out a breath, he didn't expect his stepmother to be able to do this. Not only the 101 puppets, but also Mary Shaw's bones were moved away.
"What should we do now?" Lisa originally thought that the curse could be broken by burning Mary Xiao's bones, but she didn't expect that both her bones and the puppet had been moved away.
"I think we should burn the puppet Billy first, and then go to Mary Shaw's lair to look for clues." Winnie suggested.
Without the puppet, Mary Shaw's movements would be limited, and the puppet should be burned anyway.
It was really not safe for the puppet to be around, especially after what happened last night no one dared to keep Billy. Winnie's proposal was approved by everyone. Mr. Warren first went to the car to retrieve the box containing the puppet. Even Mary Xiao could not be seen under the hot summer sun. They successfully threw the puppet into its own The small coffin was lit.
But even if they eliminated one puppet, they couldn't relax their mood. After watching the puppet Billy being burned, the group returned to the car and rushed towards the puppet theater.
They first choose to search at the Puppet Theater instead of Jamie's home, also because they prefer Mary Shaw and her puppets to hide in the "old home". Mary Shaw regarded the puppets as her own children, and the children and their mothers preferred to live in their own homes rather than anywhere else.
On the way, Jamie said to Lisa who was sitting in the passenger seat: "When you get to the place, just sit here and wait. It will be dangerous if Mary Xiao is inside."
"I said I would stay with you." Lisa disagreed.
Jamie drove the car looking ahead and glanced sideways at her and said, "If you go inside, we have to devote our energy to taking care of you." After speaking, he looked up at the rearview mirror and met Winnie's gaze: "Wen Ni also stays here, please take care of Lisa."
How could Lisa feel free to let Jamie go in alone: “I don’t need anyone’s care!”
Winnie, who was sitting in the back row, watched the two arguing silently. When the two were worried that the other was going to quarrel, she interrupted and said, "Lisa stays outside, I'll go in."
Lisa turned from the front row: "Winnie!"
Winnie took a bag from the car seat on the other side, dug inside and found a long hanging rope, tied the other end to the phone case, and then hung the rope around her neck.
Winnie smiled and shook her phone: "Aren't you worried? I can video chat with you."
Lisa pursed her lips and looked at them: "This is different."
Lisa didn't let up when they drove to the theater. When they got out of the car, they saw that the wooden bridge leading to the theater had broken. The theater was built in the center of the lake. If you want to get to the theater, you can only swim across it.
This place has been abandoned for 70 years after Mary Xiao's death. Later, a massacre occurred in the town due to Mary Xiao's revenge. The residents of the town did not even dare to mention her name, let alone come here.
There were overgrown weeds near the theater, and the dilapidated buildings were reflected in the dark lake. The buildings were covered with dry vine branches and looked particularly eerie. It seemed like there was something terrible hidden in the lake.
The environment and visual effects immediately reminded Lisa of some horror movies she had seen before and illustrated posters with haunted house themes.
Lisa: "What should I do? Swim over?"
Mr. Warren walked around the area and found two boats. He carefully checked the two boats and made sure there were no leaks before telling everyone: "Let's go there by boat."
"Lisa, you stay outside." Jamie said forcefully, and then he looked at Winnie.
Before he could speak, Winnie made a video call to Lisa: "I want to go together. If the matter is not resolved, Mary Xiao will still be watching. If you are worried about Lisa, seal her mouth with tape."
The idea of sealing your mouth with tape is a good one. You can't scream even if you try to seal your mouth, not even Mary Xiao.
Jamie: "This is no reason, I can also video chat with Lisa."
Winnie: "But I know that one more person is more powerful."
Winnie argued hard and finally convinced Jamie and the others to allow her to go with them. As she said, one more person means more power.
Lisa didn't expect that she would be left alone in the end. She was worried and scared, but she could only obey as she looked at the picture on her phone. In fact, she also knew that if she went in and something unexpected happened, everyone would have to take care of her, so it was better to stay in the car and not cause any trouble to them.
So Lisa stayed outside, and Winnie stuffed a roll of scotch tape into her hand. The four people got on the boat in groups of two and rowed slowly towards the theater.
The Warrens rowed their boat to the opposite side first. After 70 years, the building was dilapidated both inside and outside. Several large holes were broken in the roof, and chandeliers and building debris were scattered all over the floor. The performance hall was large, dimly lit and could only be illuminated by the light coming from the high broken roof.
"Many years ago, the town of Ravensfield was also very wealthy." Winnie stood in the auditorium aisle and looked at the rows of seats and sighed. Ordinary towns would not spend so much money to build a Such a big theater.
"Probably," Jamie said.
There seemed to be only three colors in the entire space: black, red, and gray, with red occupying most of the field of vision. The curtain on the stage is red, the seats in the auditorium are red, and there are also mottled decorations. Thinking that this is the lair of evil spirits, I couldn't help but feel a sense of resistance in my heart.
Rowling climbed onto the stage and found the chain-link bridge climbing up behind the curtain. This iron-locked bridge hangs high in the air close to the roof. If someone accidentally falls from it, they will die or be disabled. And this thing is 70 years old, and no one knows whether it is reliable or not.
She followed the connection between the iron lock bridge and saw a passage.
Rowling raised her hand and pointed to the passage and said, "There."
The three of them looked in the direction she pointed, thinking that Mary Xiao lived in that area.
"It's better not to climb on this." Winnie doesn't think this thing can bear the weight of the four adults. If it breaks in the middle and someone falls, even she may not be able to hold it.
Mr. Warren also has a relatively stable character. You can't take the elevator in a place where there are ghosts, let alone the dangerous iron lock bridge, which is as dangerous as walking on a tightrope.
Ed also felt that he couldn't take risks and looked around, "Let's go find the stairs."
