Find It Inc.

Chapter 7

Each assignment is different and each hunter has been chosen because of the skills they can offer to the certain assignment that they are given. The first one I will tell you about is nicknamed: Frankie’s Mansions and its hunter is… wait for it… Caz. I’m kidding, it’s Frankie.

The mansions are haunted and it is up to Frankie to go in and find the missing pieces of a puzzle which are a map to a hidden treasure which is a part of a family fortune. The client has been unable to find any of the pieces because they are alive and only the dead can talk to the dead; hence why Frankie is a perfect match for this assignment.

But the challenging part is that they are three different mansions but they only have the location of one of the mansions and from there she will need to find the other two. Simple enough: she goes in, asks, and finds puzzle pieces, leaves and happiness. But this mansion’s residents are mute (not really mute but they do not talk to anyone even each other so them talking to a stranger is actually unheard of).

Frankie will have her work cut out for her once she gets to the mansion. The briefing of her assignment gives the address and there are photographs of what the building looks like inside and out. It is a well-kept mansion with a very attractive front garden but the back garden looks like a forest that has a literal graveyard in it. The front garden has smooth and soft bright green grass and she will be greeted by a pathway of dried up flowers (for the texture) as well as fresh flower beds on either side of the path that leads up to the mansion. This mansion does not have a wall surrounding its property but instead it has well maintained trees that circle and enclose the property except for an opening that can allow a horse and carriage to come through, or a car to you young whippersnappers. The flower beds change every season because not all the flowers can bloom all year around. There are small water fountains and fancy as well as creative bird baths that are cleaned regularly. It looks like a nice collection was being made.

The back garden is the opposite of the front one where the front one has birds flying, cleaning and singing and the rays of the sun as well as the moon dance across the soft green grass as if it is a dance floor for only the most talented of dancers; the back as dead trees and is in a constant state of darkness where even the night air itself fears to flow through it. The photographs of the back garden are very difficult to look at mostly because they are too dark to see anything. Jo can make out a shed of sorts that is next to the graveyard and the condition of the headstones indicated that this area of the garden has long been abandon and forgotten.

The actual exterior of the mansion is a sight to behold mostly because it makes zero to no sense. It looks like the mansion has been torn down, rebuilt on the rubble that it once was, torn down again, and built on that new rubble that is on top of the old rubble. Bits and pieces of the mansion have been added on and some have been taken off but it is obvious what and where things have been added. The designs are all different that there is no clear style of the architecture of the building. The mansion is not even one color that is how much of an architect nightmare this mansion is. By the looks of it anyone who knows anything about buildings will suffer from eye vomit once they see this mess of a building plus the building changes every year. There are a collection of photographs of the same mansion but every year it looks different Same address, same front garden, same back garden but something different on the actual mansion. One year it looked as if the roof was underground. Before you start to call to ‘neo-new-newdom classical inspired Dadaism’ it is not because the redesign of the building is not a social commentary of the times but a visual representation of spite and cruelty. Cruelty to the living that they have to walk thought something that they can easily get lost in and cruelty of the dead because it never feels like home. The pathway does not lead to the front door because the front door is on top of the mansion but you have to ‘go through the mansion’ to reach the front door. How do we know it is the front door? It is written on the literal door that it is the front door. All the staircases that lead up to it are different and some go around the mansion, under the mansion and through the mansion. A mess. A stupid mess.

That is the exterior. The interior is less mad except for the fact that the rooms move around and since none of the ghosts speak to each other you get wondering ghosts who are only looking for their things. But the actually design of the interior is quite pleasant. It is that of 18th century using a range of shades of browns and creams. There are also some rooms that have a touch of a more modern color for example: in one of the bedrooms the top of the skirting boards that line the edge of the room there is neon pink color on the top of skirting boards, not the entire boards only the top. The Greek inspired artworks that line the walls of all the rooms are something to gaze and wonder upon as are the sculptures that are dotted around in certain rooms but are also completely absent in other rooms so to find these rooms is a task in itself. The high ceiling makes you feel like an ant but a queen ant. As I have said the interior is lovely… if you can find the rooms. There are written stories that living family members have been trapped in the corridor of the mansion for a few days because finding any room is close to impossible because they keep changing and moving. And the corridors are boring gray with boring dirt that never leaves. It is boring and there are no windows.

‘But how do the people know it is haunted?’ I hear you ask. Well besides the fact that the interior rooms move and the exterior changes every year there is a sign that is craved on the each of the trees, from top to bottom, that circle the property facing out to the world that says: ‘This place is haunted’ over and over again. The letters glow.

‘But how does anyone know if the ghosts do not talk to each other?’ Wow, you are pretty talkative today. Well the living family said that all the members of the family that have passed away left the world on bad terms and that there is a curse on the family’s blood that states: regardless of how they die they will become ghosts. Many of the members died of natural causes but still haunt the mansion. No one knows who did what to bring on this curse so everyone blames everyone else and silent treatment is the way of the after-life for them. Plus other, non-family, ghosts have gone into the mansion and have seen the members of the mansion floating around but no word is spoken to anyone.

How is Frankie going to figure out this major puzzle to figure out the minor puzzle to find the treasure and maybe even put the family to rest? Research. Yep, a lot of research. And talking, which counts as research. Frankie needs to find only one family member to help her and while many ghosts before her have given up Frankie will not because she is not a quitter… and she needs the money. Before you ask your question, answer mine: do you think art supplies are cheap? And that Thomas is a well-known enough artist to rake in the cash? The answer is ‘no’ to both. Many talented people are unknown.

Frankie can be quite the charm-ball if need be and need be a lot in this situation. Well, she is more stubborn than charming but that can work too. But she is good at figuring out people’s stories and what makes them tick. This is her major skill and will be the most useful tool on her belt plus this mansion has a long family history that she can sink her little ghost teeth into.

The other two hunters just roll their eyes while Frankie begins to try to piece together what is up with this particular family. Thought the photographs she has figured out that the reason the mansion keeps changing is because no one has any idea on what to do for eternity so why not re-decorate and complicated other’s lives or after-lives? Frankie already has the beginning of the family tree with the help of the diaries and stories that are in her assignment file that she would have noticed last night if she had bothered to do her homework.

She also has so many theories floating around her head while she is floating around the room that she has to burst them out from her lips while the others are having their briefing. That is just how she works and she means no harm. To be honest she has never been a quiet thinker. One of her theory is that the other two mansions should have some sort of links to the same style (or lack thereof) as this one and that all the family’s estate should be recorded and easy to find. This was a good theory until, as Frankie figures out, the other two mansions are not owned by the same family. They are owned by friends of the family so a record of theirs would be elsewhere. Bloodlines are easier to track than friendliness.

Boss J and Boss K are beginning to regret doing her briefing first since her thinking out loud can break their train of thought, likewise everything and anything distracts Caz (even chair fluff on wooden chairs) it begins to get tiresome to get everyone back on track for their briefings. Although they can (and do) ask her to leave the room while she works, which she does (with no fuss), she still accidentally floats in while a briefing is happening and talks out loud. Frankie (all of them actually) go into their own worlds when they are working on an assignment that to break them out of it is quite difficult and takes a bit of time. And patience runs thin in Boss K’s world.

This one time, Caz, took the small electric fan that was on the desk and climbed on top of the desk to try to blow Frankie out the room when she floated in by mistake but it did not work because the papers that Frankie was holding in her hands become ghost-like and the wind just blew straight through her. The room ended up getting cold as well as the dust made Jo’s and Caz’s nose act up. So there was a talking ghost, two none-stop sneezing werewolves, in a cold and windy room, with an annoyed Boss K and a quiet Boss J.

The solution to this problem used to be to send Frankie home to work with all the materials and books she needs to do her research and answer her questions but they need her help with the other assignments as well but getting her to focus on them is a lot harder than anyone wants it to be. The only one who can multitask is Jo and Caz is worse than Frankie when it comes to focusing.