Page 27 of The Unknown
“You’re welcome to cook your own dinner,” I say.
Susie says nothing after that, spooning more food onto her plate in silence.
We eat at a rough-hewn table in a nook of the kitchen, at first too hungry to make small talk. Only after several hearty bites does one of us come up for air. Heather, who says, “Marin, this is amazing.”
“Absolutely delicious,” Julianne says. “Thank you again.”
“I can’t believe Loretta wouldn’t spring for a caterer,” Susie says, which I can only interpret as a commentary on my food. “It’s, like, the least she could do. Instead, we have to fend for ourselves.”
“I didn’t see you doing any fending,” Heather tells her. “If it wasn’t for Marin, all of us would have starved tonight.”
Another check in Heather’s column, which puts her way ahead of Susie’s score of zero. Still, Susie’s not wrong. Feeding the castisthe least that Loretta could do. In fact, I thought on-set catering was required.Then again, we’re not on a set. We’re in the real-life place where the real-life events that we’ll be acting out later on a movie set occurred. That’s a whole other ball of weirdness.
“This is all kind of unusual, right?” I say, lowering my voice in case Ronan or, God forbid, Loretta is listening nearby.
“What do you mean?” Heather says.
“This.” I gesture to my plate, my dress, the ham dangling from the pantry door. “It feels…off.”
“I don’t know,” Heather says with a shrug. “There’s always some kind of training involved. I once had to spend a week at a police academy learning how to be a cop.”
“And Disney made me take singing lessons,” Susie adds, surprising no one. Even as a tween listening to her music nonstop, I could tell she’d been auto-tuned to within an inch of her life. “Dance classes, too.”
“But you didn’t have to live like your characters,” I say. “Without electricity. Or your phones. Or water you can drink without boiling.”
“I suppose this is a little more unusual than normal,” Julianne admits. “In my experience, it’s up to the actors to decide how deep they want to sink into the lives of their characters. Some go full method, others just read the lines.”
“They should at least make us comfortable,” Susie says. “It’s not fair that only Violet gets to avoid staying in one of those shitty cottages.”
Heather lowers her fork. “They’re not that bad.”
“Maybe not for you. But I’m used to staying in suites.”
Instead of calling out Susie for being the entitled brat she clearly is, I roll my eyes, stare at my plate, and say, “Has anyone heard anything strange in their cottage?”
“Strange how?” Heather says.
“Like a scratching sound.”
“Haveyouheard scratching?” Julianne says, exchanging a fraught look with Heather.
“Yes.” I pause. “Is that a problem?”
“You might have bats,” Susie says through a mouthful of food. “I saw a TikTok about it.”
Her questionable sourcing aside, I’d consider Susie’s theory if not for the fact that, if it had been bats, I would have seen them flying around inside the cottage. Since I didn’t—and since I don’t think bats make much noise to begin with—I can only assume it was something else.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Heather says. “It was probably nothing,”
“Nothing,” Julianne echoes, leaving me to think the noise was indeed something and that maybe I should indeed worry.
But when I return to the cottage after Heather and Julianne offer to wash the dishes, all is quiet. For a few minutes, that is. The scratching sound starts up again just as I’m about to brush my teeth with the water I boiled in the kitchen. Toothbrush in hand, I search every inch of the cottage, even scanning the ceiling in case Susie was right about bats. But there’s nothing to see. The cottage itself is empty, even as the scratching continues from seemingly every direction.
It stops after a few minutes, going away as abruptly as it arrived, only to be replaced by a different sound, this time clearly from outside the cottage.
Footsteps.
Accompanying them are a steady rattle and the distinct clinking of glasses. Within seconds, they’re joined by knocks on the cottage door.
