Find It Inc.

Chapter 14

So the photo fills in faces when Frankie or someone writes a member of the family’s name on it but there as to be a connection between people for it to work. A positive connection like between Granny Nana and Doger. If everyone is mad at each other there is no connection and therefore their faces will not appear in the photo. But the connection has to be real and genuine so people cannot fake it and to be honest they would not want to since they get nothing out of it. So to find the treasure Frankie will have to fix the families and make sure they all live deadly ever after.

Granny Nana, Doger and Peter go back to the shed in another attempt to smooth things over so that their family can get back together. Granny Nana remembers that the curse is actually linked to the hidden treasure so if that is found the curse should be lifted and all shall be freed. She says that this is how these types of curses work which is super convenient for Frankie and the plot. Woop woop. But of course this will take time and Frankie is hoping it will take hours not years and decades.

Thomas is happily painting the walls in black (as he was told to do) while Frankie watches and waits for the others to come out of the shed as a happy family and fill in the rest of the photo. But that does not happen yet. Instead, we get to see a scared Doger running through Thomas (who says ‘excuse me’) and straight out the front door. Granny Nana must have forgotten to put her spell back on to him and he took the chance to run. Frankie gives chase and is able to reach him at the gap in the tree wall that encloses the mansion.

Doger cannot go any further regardless how hard he tries and he knows this but never the less he still gives it his all. Frankie calms him down to figure out what is going on. After a bit of time and many ‘she can’t know, they can’t know’ coming from Doger; he is able to speak clearly. Doger tells his story of woe and that the curse is on his shoulders and his alone.

Back in the day of Doger’s youth when that photo was taken; Doger was actually really talented in magic even better than Granny Nana. Plus Doger enjoyed doing magic and more importantly he liked to experiment and he was successful in these little experiments he did. And you can see where this is going but I shall go on.

One day, after the photo was taken, Doger was working on something to make rooms move around at will. He thought it would be fun to come to a new house at the same address every day and he wished to make this a reality. He read books and did his research (do not let Doger’s laziness fool you; he is a high intelligent young man that seemed to have more smarts than foresight) and he figured out how to make it so. Doger cooked the potion and said the spell that he came up with but something went terribly wrong. For one thing the rooms did not move and Doger just saw it as a failure of a useless spell. That was not completely the case as he would discover a few years later with the first death after his mistake.

Doger was a couple of years older when is Uncle (the man who grunted in the shed when we first met him) passed away due to an accident that involved horses running over him. The funeral happened and everyone was sad but the Uncle was a ghost much to the surprise of everyone. Some even said that he planned to get caught under the horses’ hooves which he did not. Granny Nana tried to figure out why the Uncle was still in this world and did not move on which would have been the normal case. The Uncle even tried to leave the property but that was a fail.

The day that it was discovered that Uncle could not get off the land was the day that Granny Nana decided that she needed some help from an outside friend. So Granny Nana, the Uncle went into a carriage and began their journey. But as the carriage crossed the gap in the tree wall Uncle did not. He was sitting in the back next to Granny Nana and it was as if there was a force field that managed to push the Uncle thought to the back of the carriage so that he was floating in the air in the gap. Granny Nana noticed this and told the driver to head back. They tried again except this time the Uncle became more solid. The carriage managed to get out until it could go no further because of Uncle. He was getting smashed between the force field and the carriage that it was beginning to “hurt” so he took on his ghostly form to escape. The friend had to come to the mansion to investigate what was up.

As more and more people passed away it became clear that the families that are born or married in have become curse and cannot leave the grounds so that is why they cannot move on. Granny Nana was the last one to go due to natural causes and the ones that were left living ran out and away from the mansion. Peter’s mother passed away before she could leave so it was his father that managed to escape with Peter.

Doger did leave as well but the guilty of what he had done to his family resulted in his laziness and inability to work. He was not practicing his magic and therefore his talent for it melted away. This all began to happen once Doger figured out that he was the one who did it all. He did not mean to but he was too afraid to tell anyone. The family began to fight more and more and louder and louder to the point that if he had come forward it would not be heard and it would not matter according to the thoughts inside his head. Doger wanted to reverse it but he developed a paralyzing fear that he would only make things worst so he did nothing except let the guilty grow inside him. It was not eating him up inside which he would have rather experienced but it was weighing on his heart to the point where he found it difficult to breath. It was due to this that he decided to take his own life and he did so by going into the property where he was standing right at this moment. He wanted to suffer with the rest of his family.

Everything was okay (except for the ‘never moving on part’ and no one talking to each other) but everyone thought they figured how the curse works. They were wrong. The curse was blood and marriage based not land based and this was shown when Peter arrived at the front door. Peter moved away from the mansion when he was merely two months old and he never came back. When his mother saw him she ran into her room and screamed. His grandmother took him in and it took her a while to figure out that he was mute. He had no laugh. This was when Doger knew how badly he screwed up and that there was no escape. He tried to look for the treasure because Granny Nana was correct in saying it is linked to the curse (he still has no idea how but Granny knows best) but he could not find it. And it did not help that everyone kept moving things around due to boredom that he had to backtrack a lot.

Frankie listened but if became harder as the tale went on because his voice kept on being interrupted by his tears. Frankie understood how he felt and why he was so terrified to tell anyone. It is the same way she feels with Thomas (well not exactly but kind of close). She tried to comfort him and tell him that they will forgive him. He did not believe her and told her he needed a moment alone to think and gather his tears. Frankie agreed and floated back to the mansion.

As luck would have it Thomas had finished painting the interior of the mansion and he was standing outside enjoying the fresh air and smell of the flowers. Frankie thought about the words she had said to Doger and saw that she was being a hypocrite since she still has not spoken to Thomas about what happened to her. He knows that she took her own life but wondered why she did not come to him. She remembers that he went to her grave and asked her when was she going to come so he can just see that she is (for lack of a better word) better or less hurt and sad. But Frankie never did come (well she did not show herself to him) and Thomas grew sad while waiting that he could no longer do it.

Frankie decides that now was the time and she was going to make destiny listen to her not the other way around but destiny is stubborn and just at that moment when Frankie decides to show herself Doger floats past which prompts Frankie to follow him while going back to being invisible. She had to finish this first. Doger arrived at the shed with Frankie right behind him. They were still arguing inside and this time Peter was inside with them. Doger took a breath (a ghost breath) and floated in demanding their attention.

Doger told everyone the truth and everyone was in shook and silent. They were frozen. Doger apologized as much as he could before his voice went hoarse. One of the family members even went out to bring in Peter’s mother and Doger had to repeat all that he had said. The mother was even speechless (or lost her voice). There was nothing. No movement, no sound, nothing. Frankie felt uneasy. Peter’s mother went up to Doger and some people even flinched because they thought that she was going to slap him. Doger and she looked each other in the eyes for a long time. It was intense. The mother slowly lifted her hands to place them on his shoulder and another moment moved past. She pulled him in for a hug and said ‘apologize accepted’. Some people clapped while some got into an argument saying Doger got off too easy. The mother quieted them down and explained that they have been here for too long and (has Granny Nana has been saying) they need to break the curse so that the children can be sent free. Peter and his father were not the only family members to leave the grounds and if the curse goes on more will join them. They all agreed with this and Granny Nana let them go back to the mansion.

Some were not too happy with Thomas’s paint work and complained about it to others. Other people decided to mess around with Thomas and have a little fun with the new, living kid. It was as if there was never a ‘muting’ that has been happening for years and years. Frankie went to get the photo and everyone filled in their names. She was right about the photo being the map because now she could find the treasure, break the curse and go to the other two mansions. She found the hidden treasure by following the map but they had to destroy it in order to lift the curse so they did. All the souls got lifted up and many of them waved good bye. All who were left were Frankie, Thomas (who just painted) and Doger.

Frankie asked Doger where the other two mansions are to find the rest of the pieces for the hidden treasures and Doger said that this was the only mansion they ever had.