It is about 50/b>/span/i10C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Carnation and Prospect/span>(Your target discovers a cursed object in a thrift shop or estate sale – an innocuous item like a music box or mirror that compels whoever touches it to perform a specific ritual at midnight. The ritual will summon something dangerous unless they can find a way to break the compulsion or pass the curse to someone else before time runs out.)

It’s mid-afternoon, or it should be. Teagan had made plans to stop by, discuss some code problem or another she was having problems with on an assignment (a rarity, but it happens). Her last text said she was on her way, a few minutes out.

But the windows are dark. The clocks, if checked, show differing times. Must be a daylight savings thing: maybe they’re not updating properly (or aren’t tied to any updating system at all!). And in the bedroom, there sits upon one of the nightstands in the room a small, painted wooden box. The paint is chipped in places and the scene it depicts is faded with age: a mermaid sitting upon a rock jutting out of the sea, waves crashing up around her. Where it came from might be uncertain, foggy, distant. Thrift store? A gift? Maybe some yard or estate sale at some point. It’s a tchotchke, really. A music box, specifically, one that doesn’t work.

Or didn’t. Because suddenly, echoing from within that box, a melody begins to play.

“Why the fuck is everything in this town haunted?” Jeremiah says to himself. He walks over to the box and picks it up, opening the lid to look at what’s inside.

It probably doesn’t help that it’s freshly after Halloween and in a place like New Haven, that bridges places beyond and the mortal world… that thin veil is year-round, only to be barely extant this time of the year.

As there’s a knock at the apartment door — Teagan’s arrival, surely — the music box is opened. Within the seascape design continues, lacquered over the interior as it is the exterior. But instead of the mermaid looking away as she is on the lid, she’s looking toward the viewer. Blink and you’ll miss it, but Jeremiah could swear he saw her smile at him. The volume of the music increases and sounds not like instruments, but like overlapping voices singing in a language he can’t understand. The sound of waves crashing on the shore back them and the scent of salted air fills the room (moreso than it does usually in this seaside town).

Jeremiah steps over to the door, still mostly looking at the box in his hands, and opens it, expecting it to be Teagan.

It is, indeed, Teagan She’s got her messenger bag with her and everything; clearly weighed down with laptop. The woman looks immediately to the music box. “What’s that?”

The music grows louder in Jeremiah’s ears. The singing is alluring, calling to him. It wants him to collect certain things. There are still no words, but he just knows. He needs dill, fennel, thyme, salt. Does his kitchen have these things? He just knows he NEEDS them.

“No idea, but it’s fucking weird and it’s… I need to find some things. It wants me to. Dill, thyme, fennel, and salt… I have salt, but not the others. Most of the stuff I cook starts off frozen, so I don’t really have much of a spice rack.” Jeremiah says to Teagan. “I’m just glad you can hear it, too. Means I’m not entirely as crazy as I thought.”

“Hear what?” Teagan blinks at Jeremiah, looking at him, then the music box he’s holding. “I was just asking what the box was.” She steps further in, letting the door close behind her.

How can she not hear it?! It’s loud, filling the whole room like it’s echoing off of cavern walls! The waves crashing upon the rocks! The singing, the voices one over the other, demanding of Jeremiah that he get those four things. That he bring them and a knife to the pier.

“Shit. I guess I am crazier than I thought. The box… it’s a lot of voices, singing… and telling me to bring those herbs, the salt, and a knife… to the pier?” Jeremiah says, rubbing at his face with his free hand.

“Uhm.” Teagan gives Jeremiah a strange look as she moves around to get a better look at the music box. As if maybe seeing it from a different angle will help. “That doesn’t sound good. Just looks like a music box to me. It’s not even wound-” she points to the mechanical mechanism inside.

And indeed, if Jeremiah focuses, he’ll see it’s not turning. And one of the spokes that reads and plays the music is even bent in such a way to where it wouldn’t play properly. But he still hears it. And it’s not in that tinny, metallic way of most music boxes. But the compulsion is strong.

“Where’d you get it?” Teagan asks, hands going into the pockets of her jacket. Keeping them away from the box.

“I’m not sure. It was in my bedroom. But I don’t remember buying it, or getting it as a gift or anything. It was just… there.” He looks over the mechanism. “I could probably fix it… but… how is it… and how are you… the fuck?!?” Jeremiah finally says.

“You know, I just picked up a book…” Teagan swings her messenger bag from where it rests on her hip around to her front, pulling out a leather-bound tome. “Found it in a shop I was wandering earlier, it’s like someone’s reference book,” she explains as she starts flipping through it. “Looked like it might be useful to have on hand while I’m learning rituals.”

“So you don’t know where it came from,” Teagan prompts Jeremiah as she looks through the book, many of its pages appearing hand-written and illustrated, “you can hear music but I can’t. It wants you to bring herbs and a knife to the pier…” She hums to herself. “Can you put it down?”

Can he? He doesn’t want to, but maybe with the right application of strength or something he can manage?

Jeremiah shakes his head. “No. I can’t drop it. As soon as I thought I wanted to… I -really- didn’t want to. And that keeps happening every time I think about dropping it.”

Unfortunately, he just does not want to. Physically, Jeremiah is capable. He knows he is. It’s just a music box. But his hands will not listen. He can hold it in one, in both, even cradle it in his arms! But leave it off his person? Nope!

As he explains that, Teagan frowns more and moves to the nearest counter-type surface be it desk, kitchen counter, whatever. She lays the book out, but also pulls out her phone to flip through more of her own reference material. “So it sounds cursed. You don’t know where it came from, you’re hearing music, but I’m not. It’s making you want to do something. And you can’t put it down.” There is a pause as she looks over at Jeremiah warningly: “And I do not want to touch it!” Nnnnnope.

“Uhmmmmm… Okay, does it have any markings on it? Maker’s mark, names, anything like that?”

On the base of the music box it has a date: March 18, 1914. On the interior of the lid, in a neat calligraphic script, it reads: ‘The sea gave her bounty and we never gave our praise. So the sea took our Mary and our tears fill the bays.’

Jeremiah relays the date and inscription to Teagan. “It looks like it’s meant to memorialize this Mary woman, whoever she was.”

“Sounds like,” Teagan agrees, looking over her shoulder from the book she’s got to the music box. She’s also making sure she stays well away from it: avoiding even accidental touches.

The music grows louder, more insistent. Jeremiah NEEDS those items. He also knows he needs to get them and himself to the pier by midnight.

“Okay, uhm… Hmm, so you have salt. Good, good. Let’s try a basic purification, yeah?” Teagan is already rifling through his kitchen. Does he have a pot? “Got any candles, by chance?”

Jeremiah nods. “Okay… yeah, salt is in the cabinet above the microwave there. Pots and pans are in the one to the left and below the sink. Candles… I think I have a few from the last power outage? If so, they’re in the drawer next to the fridge.” /self calls to Teagan.

Jeremiah nods. “Okay… yeah, salt is in the cabinet above the microwave there. Pots and pans are in the one to the left and below the sink. Candles… I think I have a few from the last power outage? If so, they’re in the drawer next to the fridge.” someone calls to Teagan.

nods. “Okay… yeah, salt is in the cabinet above the microwave there. Pots and pans are in the one to the left and below the sink. Candles… I think I have a few from the last power outage? If so, they’re in the drawer next to the fridge.” Jeremiah calls to Teagan.

“Okay, good, good. You continue to try to put the thing down, okay? Try… uhm, I dunno, thinking about something else? Treat it like an earworm and sing a different song?” Teagan starts going through the cabinets, pulling out the various items.

And as if in protest, the singing grows even louder and more insistent in Jeremiah’s ears. It may even be getting difficult to hear Teagan now.

The redhead sets down her messenger bag and gets to filling the pot with water. The stove is turned on and the pot set on it. On the counter, she arranges candles around a large bowl (that she holds up and eyeballs to ensure is larger than the box!). “What did that inscription say, again?”

Jeremiah reads it aloud. “The sea gave her bounty and we never gave our praise. So the sea took our Mary and our tears fill the bays.”

Jeremiah begins to sing a okay version of ‘Sanity’ by Bad Religion. “There’s a watch in my pocket and its hands are broken. The face is blank but the gears keep turning…”

Jeremiah continues on. “Confusion is a fundamental state of mind. It doesn’t really matter how my day has turned out. I always end up living in a world of doubt and sanity is a full-time job, in a world that is always changing. And sanity is a state of mind that you believe in. Sanity!”

Further digging around produces some matches. As the water heats on the stove, Teagan nods slowly as she repeats the words to herself. “I think someone failed to keep up their end of a bargain,” she says, though Jeremiah might not hear her. Not because of his own singing, but because in answer to his singing: the voices get louder, as if competing with him!

The candles are lit and Teagan pours an ample amount of salt into the bowl. She checks on the water in the pot: not yet boiling. Further rifling in drawers and she surfaces with a knife.

“Jer!” It sounds like she might have said it a few times now by the way she’s shouting and waving a hand to get his attention. It is getting harder for Jeremiah to hear over the sounds of the voices and the ocean. They definitely do not want him to do anything but listen, but follow their command: collect the herbs, take them and a knife to the pier.

Jeremiah tries to focus on what Teagan is saying, going so far as to partially lip-read as best he can. “It’s really hard to hear you!” he calls out, far too loud for the few feet away that she’s standing. He moves towards the kitchen.

Teagan almost jumps when Jeremiah shouts at her. She cringes a little, but nods. She grabs her phone and opens the notes app instead. She types out: ‘I think it was a failed bargain’ and shows it to him. She waits until he’s read it: ‘Like some fisherman made a deal to be successful but didn’t keep up his end’

Why aren’t you getting the supplies?! That’s not what the voices are actually saying (they’re more just vocalizing), but it’s certainly the vibe that Jeremiah is getting. It’s a battle of wills that he can tell is only going to get more difficult the nearer to night time it gets. Right now it’s pressing, demanding, but not yet forcefully urgent. Not like the level of difficulty just putting down the box proved to be.

Jeremiah nods and uses his own phone, awkwardly holding it and typing with the thumb of the same hand. ‘Gting hrdr 2 stop. Thnk is gting strngr as it gets drkr.’ He shows the pidgin message to Teagan.

“Yeah, night time is pretty classic.” One could call it a stereotype, but there is a reason for it. Teagan forgets briefly that Jeremiah is having a hard time hearing her, but since SHE doesn’t have loud singing and ocean crashing in her ears, she can hear the pot bubbling as it hits a boil. Holding up a finger, she retreats to the stove and turns it down to keep the water simmering, but not boiling into oblivion. Tapping at her phone again, she starts and stops a few times… clearly struggling with whatever she’s composing.

Meanwhile, yes, it is difficult. The box, the voices, they are demanding. There is a NEED. It is not quite a hunger, more like… when you are exhausted, at the end of a long day, and nothing, no one, is going to keep you from lying down. Your only goal is your bed. Nothing else matters. Your biggest celebrity crush could walk into the room naked, holding your favorite guilty pleasure snack and you’d be like ‘Babe, I’ll try, but I might fall asleep.’ Jeremiah is holding on, but he might fall asleep (aka start the journey to the pier) once the sun starts dipping to the west.

But then Teagan is holding up her phone for him to see. It reads:

‘Step 1: Trust me.
Step 2: I need to cut your hand and collect some of your blood into this bowl.
Step 3: I am going to fill the bowl with the hot water.
Step 4: You are going to submerge the box into the bowl.
Step 5: Profit. (Kidding, it will hurt. I’m sorry.)
Step 6: When the time comes, destroy the box. Break it, smash it, stomp on it, w/e.’

She holds it up for him to read and in her other hand? The knife she took out. Hopefully his kitchen knives are at least… decently sharp.

Jeremiah looks unhappy about this development, but he nods. He drops his phone into a pocket and holds his now-empty hand out to Teagan.

If it helps, Teagan doesn’t look happy about it either. She grimaces and gives Jeremiah an apologetic look as she takes his hand and guides him over to the bowl. The knife is stared at for a good few seconds and it is likely glaringly obvious that she is not entirely certain of what she’s doing (but the book is open and she’s referencing it so at least she’s not flying entirely blind!). But she mouths ‘I’m sorry’ at the man before drawing the blade across his hand in a swift motion. Thankfully, it works. It’s probably a meaner cut than necessary, but it’s not horrendous. On the scale of ‘shit I cut my hand open while cutting this bagel’ probably.

Teagan continues to hold Jeremiah’s hand over the bowl until the pile of salt in it is saturated with his blood. The voices? Continue to sing, but there’s an anger to them now. Something malicious. They do not like this.

She shoves a kitchen towel (again, mouthing ‘Sorry!’) into his hand as she turns to get the pot of boiling water. “BOX IN AS SOON AS I’M DONE POURING!” The shouting probably feels silly to her, but to Jeremiah He can barely hear it over the music box!

Jeremiah nods, preparing to dunk his hand and the box into the water, really looking like he would rather be doing almost anything else.

That makes two of them. This was not on Teagan’s Google calendar for the day. ‘Makeshift purification ritual’ has, in point of fact, never been on her Google calendar for the day. But you do what you must, right? Teagan hefts the pot carefully and turns off the stove, turning to the bowl. She pours in the water and starts chanting something-or-another. It doesn’t really matter what the words are: Jeremiah can’t hear them anyway and the results seem to be evident as the instant the boiling water hits the blood-soaked salt, it begins to hiss and foam in a way the two never should, realistically.

Magic is fuckin’ weird.

But once the water is poured, Teagan steps back with the pot and gestures at Jeremiah to put the box in the water, flapping her hands encouragingly at him.

Jeremiah shoves his hand into the water, grimacing as he expects to feel it burn, since it was just boiling. Strangely, it is hot, but not burning. No worse than a slightly-too-hot bath that one quickly gets used to. But then, he loses sensation in his hand, unable to tell if he’s still holding the box or not, until he pulls it out, box-free. He looks almost disoriented at the sudden comparative silence around him.

It doesn’t burn, no, but it’s not a fun sensation either. There’s a moment of disconnect, when he loses sensation in his hand. Jeremiah may briefly understand what amputees mean about phantom limbs. It’s like his hand both is and isn’t there at the same time.

The bubbling and frothing continues, engulfing the box like seafoam capping waves during a storm. The singing is gone, but in its place is a single note — a scream — of rage, of anger. One that fades away as the box absorbs everything in the bowl.

And so (as she’s unaware he no longer hears the singing) Teagan’s voice might startle Jeremiah as she shouts: “DESTROY IT!”

Thankfully, little of the compulsion remains and while he might feel a reluctance or even a hesitation to do so… It is not nearly the difficulty he felt in putting the thing down before. He will be able to destroy it, by whatever means he so chooses.

Jeremiah pours it into the sink, and as the water drains, he releases his frustration in a few good, solid punches to the box, which easily gives way under the assault.

Even the metal component within crumbles away. That part, in fact, seems to simply turn to dust beneath Jeremiah’s fists. The rest of it becomes splinters. The scream of anger disappears steadily as the drain gurgles and the last bits of the water disappear.

Teagan puts out the candles and starts cleaning up in general. She puts the knife (gingerly) near the sink since Jeremiah is occupying that general area at the moment. “Literally checked out a store today and found the book,” she says, to fill the sudden quiet. Sure, it’s always been quiet to her, but there’s the *awkward* quiet now. “Uhm.” She holds the candles now, pausing before the cabinet they need to be returned to. “Sorry about your hand.”

Jeremiah shakes his head. “No need to apologize. Thanks for your help. I don’t know where that came from or what it was all about, but if you hadn’t arrived when you did, I might be at the pier doing who knows what right now, and might not have come out of it alive. A cut is a small price to pay.”

“I mean, I’m sure someone would’ve…” But it is Haven and people do weird shit all the time and other people are all too glad to let them, so Teagan leaves it there with a grimace. She winces all the same and shrugs. “Guess I’m just having a lucky day,” she says. Picking up her bag, she gives Jeremiah a weak sort of smile. “I uh… You mind if we reschedule?” The whole reason she came by in the first place, that is. “I don’t think I could focus on code right now anyway.”

Jeremiah nods. “No worries. Anytime that works for you, give me a shout and I’ll make it work. Thanks again, Teagan. I owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Teagan says to Jeremiah, lifting her hand in both a warding off of the offer and a wave as she lifts her bag over her head. She tucks the book back into it. “For all I know, we just foisted the problem off onto someone else or … something. I’m still just a baby witch.” She winks at him, but heads for the door. “But if you find yourself suddenly needing to go to the pier tonight, call me!”

Jeremiah nods. “Will do. Be safe, Teagan.” he says, with a wave.