Death at Morning House

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Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson

A photo article in Life magazine from July 1932 talks about the “all-American” family, the Ralstons, and their summer home, Morning House. Dr. Phillip Ralston built the house for his wife Faye, the six children he adopted in 1915, and the seventh child he had with Faye, four-year old Max. Built at a cost of $4 million, Morning House was meant to be a haven for good health and creativity. An article from the New York Times dated July 28, 1932, reports the death of Max Ralston and Dr. Ralston’s oldest daughter, Clara, aged 16. It is assumed Max snuck out for a swim, and that Clara, in grief, jumped four stories from the roof of the house. 

Marlowe Wexler has like-liked Akilah Jones since she first saw her “conjugating the absolute hell out of her first irregular verb” in freshman-year French and she has been pining for her at a distance ever since. One day Marlowe starts working at Guffy’s, the local ice cream place, and comes in on her second shift to find Akilah also working there. 

Marlowe is able to get to know Akilah including that her favorite smell is petrichor, so when Marlowe finally has the courage to ask Akilah out on a date and then back to the cabin on the lake she looks after, she of course has a petrichor scented candle for the make-out mood. Akilah also has a gift for Marlowe, the perfect shade of lipstick. While they’re on the sofa kissing, the candle explodes setting fire to the cabin and drawing the date to a dramatic end. 

Half the house is burned down and the owners are none too pleased with Marlowe, but they know it was an accident. When Marlowe goes back to work, she keeps her head down and avoids everyone, but it doesn’t matter though, she now has the reputation of being a fire bug. A few days into her self-imposed exile, her history teacher and neighbor, Mx. Gibson, stops by with an offer: spend the rest of the summer on a beautiful island giving tours of an historic mansion where no one knows about the candle incident. Sounds great! 

July 8, 1932. Clara Ralston is always the last to breakfast, the usual fruit and yogurt. There is always yogurt. She watches her father’s wife, Faye, look through her stack of mail and feels jealous. Jealous of her glamorous life on Broadway before marrying her father and all the friends and freedom she had. Her father interrupts Clara’s thoughts to announce that Life magazine will be taking pictures of their morning exercises, so it's time to finish up. As Life takes pictures of the children exercising, Dr. Ralston explains to the reporter how he came to adopt his six children. He was a doctor in England during the war and encountered new mothers, their husbands off to war or dead, with no money or support and other older children to look after and offered to adopt them, with the mother’s consent. First Clara, then William, Victory, Unity, Edward, and Benjamin. Then the last of Dr. Ralston's children comes running out the house, Max. He’s a lot less disciplined than his older siblings. 

Marlowe arrives at Clement Bay to catch the boat to Morning House and eventually reaches Ralston Island. She’s greeted by April who, as per instructions from the disembodied voice through the walkie talkie, takes her to the Playhouse. They walk through trees and past Morning House which looks like either an Ivy League school or Dracula’s castle or both to a smaller, happier Dracula building, the Playhouse. 

The Playhouse, in all its expensive fakery, is where the guides stay. April shows Marlowe around, showing her to Tom and Van’s room and the room she shares with Liani. Marlowe can choose to share with them or take a single room in the back that was once an art studio. The bathroom is through a tunnel with locked doors that leads to the main house. This is where Marlowe meets Van, “as in, get in the.” He’s not as funny as he thinks he is but he’s a great guide. As April is showing Marlowe the kitchen and explaining how meals work, Dr. Henson calls. She’s ready to see Marlowe now. 

July 8, 1932. Victory hates her name, preferring at boarding school to use her middle name, Marie, not the concept of winning. She also hated posing for Life magazine. All she wants to do is read her book, The Wizard of Oz, this time in Russian. The Wizard of Oz is her Rosetta Stone to other languages as Dr. Ralston likes to make sure his children are well educated and kept on their toes by switching out the language of the books in the library. However, the rest in the house are being particularly raucous now, so Victory can’t concentrate. Benjamin is painting, William playing piano, Clara dancing. All deep in their occupation and a little bit drunk too, particularly Edward, flopped out on the floor drinking straight from the bottle. In Clara’s opinion, they’re all being controlled and something has to give, so she gets drunk every night. 

Dr. Henson looks poised and ready to strike in her yoga pants. She tests Marlowe on the guide book she needs to memorize and walks through the main house with her. This is the first time the house has been open to the public since it closed its doors in 1932, so it needs to be a success. They make their way to the fourth floor and its balcony. The most popular part of the tour is this spot. When you look down, you see the death spot where Clara Ralston landed after jumping from the balcony when she found the dead body of Max Ralston in the lagoon. 

After Dr. Henson leaves Marlowe, she wanders around, looking at the children’s bedrooms and at family pictures, until she finds herself in the gift shop where she meets Riki, she/her, an independent contractor, who hate re-reads books. April thankfully interrupts the weird meeting and Riki extorting Marlowe out of $8 for a Thousand Island dressing magnet she doesn’t want. 

July 14, 1932. Clara has a secret hiding spot under the floor of the boat house because privacy is a rare commodity on the small island. Today however she isn’t lurking in the secret spot, she’s going out with her brother William on her speedboat Silver Arrow to check out the wreck of a boat near another island. As Clara talks about the wreck and Life magazine taking their pictures, William worries and he checks that she’s okay because she’s drunk all the time and has been acting weird. She’s basically being emo but in the 1930s. Clara doesn’t say she aches to escape. 

Marlowe unpacks her few things, texts her parents, then scrolls on her phone until April comes to get her for dinner. They’re eating in the main house dining room where the others are putting on a bit of a welcome party for her. This is also her first meeting with Liani and Tom. Riki and Dr. Henson also join them and talk turns to the Ralston family curse. After Max and Clara’s deaths, Faye was committed to a fancy psychiatric facility and Dr. Ralston took a home nearby so they could spend Christmas as a family. On December 28, Dagmar, Dr. Ralston’s sister, and Unity fell through the ice on the frozen lake and drowned. During World War II, Benjamin, Victory and William were living together in London to help the war effort. Victory and William were killed in 1941 when a bomb dropped on their house. Dr. Ralston had a heart attack when he got the news, but died five months later when he had another. Edward died driving while drunk in 1947. Benjamin survived the others until his death in 2002. When the morbid story is over, Riki leaves, but as she does, she drops the bombshell that Marlowe is taking over from a dead guy. 

July 19, 1932. Clara and Unity hear Max screaming and Dr. Ralston and Faye arguing about Max refusing to swim in his lessons. This only occurred during the summer because they were otherwise at boarding school. When Faye entered their lives a few years ago, she treated them all nicely and cared for them like a mother. When Max came, despite promises it wouldn’t, things changed for everyone.

After Riki’s awkward bombshell, the welcome party ends and April takes Marlowe to one side to explain. Chris, the person she is replacing, was the one who arranged the whole tour guide/get extra credit gig on the island. He was big into charity work and had a bright future ahead of him, at least until the night of prom. It’s tradition that after prom, high schoolers head to a random island to continue the party. They were all drunk, Chris possibly more so, and he tried to go swimming, fell, hit his head and drowned. They all grew up with Chris and were all friends. Liani was his ex and Van was his current partner. Needless to say, it’s a strange summer. 

Instead of texting Akilah about the dead guy she’s subbing for, Marlowe googles him instead, then doom scrolls on socials, then checks the Cheesecake Factory menu and relives the failed date until she has to pee. The toilet is so far away… On her way back, Marlowe is sure she hears someone shuffling around and books it back to her room. Nope. Not going to deal with that. 

Thankfully, in daylight, the trip to the bathroom isn’t too bad. After breakfast, Tom takes Marlowe on a tour of the outside of the house including the boat house, the lagoon, and where they found Chris. After lunch, Van takes over for the interior of the house and shows Marlowe how it’s done before she watches April give a tour.

July 19-20, 1932. Dr. Ralston asks Clara to give Max a swimming lesson (ugggggh), resorting to bribery to get her to agree. The lesson doesn't go well. Max fights tooth and nail, not wanting to be in the cold water, and kicks Clara. She drops him in accidentally, and after Victory and Unity fish him out, Max storms off and throws a rock at Clara. Faye believes Clara’s recounting of the events, not Max, and begs the three girls not to say anything to their father. However, Unity tells their father Max struck Clara with a rock. Dr. Ralston ignores that Max is a little shit, happy to forget the matter if Clara says it was nothing, until Max won’t eat his peas. Everyone has to sit and wait for Max to eat his peas, but he just angrily stabs them all individually. Max eventually wins and gets his custard. As they leave the dining room, Clara pockets the bread knife. 

For four days, Marlowe follows April and Van’s tours learning the ropes, favorite photo spots, and how to make groups hurry the heck up. At night, she dreams about all the would’ves, shouldv’es and couldv’es with Akilah. In a change of pace and scenery, Liani and Tom invite Marlowe to the town for a food run and leave Marlowe to explore Clement Bay on her own after a speedboat trip over. 

After an ice cream, Marlowe buys a book, the same one Riki was reading from what turns out to be Riki’s family’s store, consequently meeting Juhi, Riki’s sister. Soon though, she is back on the speedboat to Ralston Island and reading the book. After a confusing amount of Richards and Elizabeths, Marlowe goes in search of Riki. She knows Riki is staying in the main house, so after a bit of searching, she finds Riki who was expecting her. They talk for a bit about the book, how Chris was actually an asshole, and how there is and isn’t a mystery at Morning House with the deaths of Clara and Max. 

March, 1932. Max Ralston isn’t like his siblings. He’s not as eager to learn or naturally gifted, he’s messy, and he’s aggressive. He cut Victory’s hair, threw books into the fire, dumped ink on Benjamin’s pictures, and poured hot tea on a maid. The doctor calls it “high spirits.” They seem to see no correlation to the fact they can’t keep any nurse for Max either, until Miss Danfourth lasted longer than most. When she disappears, Clara is determined to find out what has happened and bribes a delivery boy to find out information for her. Apparently Max pushed Miss Danfourth down the stairs. Not only that, Max would urinate on the staff who displeased him, put broken glass in their shoes, pins in the bread, and one nearly lost an eye. There is something very wrong with Max. 

One day, Marlowe is able to get her lipstick so perfect it gives her swagger and the confidence to chat with Liani. That night Liani suggests they all go swimming in the lagoon. They’re having a great time when Riki joins them which kills the vibe for everyone but Marlowe. Marlowe decides it’s time to explain the candle incident. They all agree the fire wasn’t her fault. Dr. Henson then walks by, most agree she doesn’t care what they do, but Marlowe tells them on her first day, Dr. Henson asked her to keep an eye on everyone. 

July 23, 1932. Dr. Ralston invites his children, with the exception of Max, to a eugenics conference in New York because he’s a massive bigot. Since they all want to go back to their New York apartment at the very least, they agree. Because Dr. Ralston also likes to control everything, when Clara says she’s going to take the speedboat out, he arranges that all the sisters will go and take Max, while he and the boys will play tennis. When the girls stop for a snack, Max starts throwing a tantrum demanding cake. Clara pushes him in the water and tells Max to swim. Victory jumps in and pulls Max out. Back at the house, Aunt Dagmar comes to see Clara and Victory. She’s not worried, more concerned about them, and tells them to be more careful. There is a suitable underlying message to her warning. 

The next day, a PhD student comes to the island to see Dr. Henson. Marlowe tries to find her everywhere in the house and on the island. Dr. Henson doesn’t answer her walkie or her phone. The jet skis and boat are accounted for, the only thing missing is a paddle board and oar, but the river is a shipping lane, not suitable for a paddle board. No one can find her. The only thing of interest that happens is that April loses her necklace and gets trapped under the dock and gets a cut on her arm when she goes underwater searching. Eventually they call the cops and close the island to tourists. 

The cops search everywhere. A paddle board that looks like the one Liani remembers from the storage shed is found near another island. Eventually exhaustion from the day overtakes Marlowe and she goes to bed. At 3:57am Riki wakes Marlowe. She wants to copy all of Dr. Henson’s research, to preserve it from being lost when the cops eventually take it. It's a convoluted plan and not well thought out involving poorly weighted ladders and dumb luck, but they manage it. Strangely, Marlowe saw Dr. Henson’s yoga mat in the closet, when it should be in the balcony room. 

July 27, 1932, around 4pm. Victory wakes up groggy and dressed in her exercise clothes. She doesn’t remember anything after returning to her room after breakfast. The house is quiet apart from Max’s nurse in the hallway, worried. Max is missing. She fell asleep and woke to him gone. Victory wakes Unity and then Unity wakes Clara and everyone else. Clara slowly pulls herself awake and runs straight to the lagoon, diving in. Eventually she swims to shore with Max’s body. 

Marlowe wakes groggy and dresses for tours but Van tells her the cops have closed the island off as they search for Dr. Henson. She goes to look for Riki and has a panic attack about finding Dr. Henson’s yoga mat in her room when she originally told police she saw a rainy outline of it on the roof. The entire situation is weird and gets weirder when Van gives Marlowe relationship advice, to go forth and multiply with Riki. 

July 28, 1932, around 4pm. Unity wakes Benjamin, who is struggling to wake and confused why he was asleep, and processes Unity’s panic. As Unity and Benjamin come down the stairs, Clara and Victory return with Max’s body. Dr. Ralston takes Max and Aunt Dagmar takes the children to the Playhouse, except Clara who seems to have disappeared. They all wonder why they were all sleeping and why Max would go to the water. Things that never happen have happened and Clara went straight to where Max was. 

Back in Riki’s room, Riki makes Marlowe smell some strong powerful old-ass booze from the Ralston children. She found these six bottles just this morning. Riki has been looking through Dr. Henson’s notes and they confirm a rumor around town, that staff and family were all asleep when Max went missing. They could only have been drugged since they were asleep during the day when Dr. Ralston made sure their days were regimented. Max, who hates water and being found in the lagoon, would have to have been taken there. Riki believes Max was murdered! DUM, DUM, DUM!!!

July 27, 1932, around 4pm. Clara is woken by Victory. The time has come, and she knows what she has to do. Going straight to the lagoon, Clara finds exactly what she expected. Max’s body. 

Tours start again the next day, but there is a big storm predicted to start by nightfall. As Marlowe is taking pictures of some influencer, she realizes she’s not seen Dr. Henson’s big, impressive camera. When she asks Riki about if after watching Liani call a plumber because of stinky backed up toilets, Riki can’t remember seeing it but shows Marlowe a police report from the night of the two deaths. It backs up what was thought, everyone was asleep, Max was found by Clara in the lagoon, William and Benjamin saw Clara return from a swim and go straight to the balcony where she started dancing before falling to the patio. Clara was drunk and Dr. Ralston was the one to declare his children’s deaths. There are no crime scene photographs and the reporting is shoddy at best. Riki also shows her copies of Dr. Ralston’s diaries from 1914 with weird initials on - a code. Marlowe is called by the others to help prepare for the storm and accidentally drops her walkie. As she’s on her hands and knees to find the broken off piece, she finds a tooth. 

July 27, 2002. Benjamin Ralston returns to Morning House for the last time. He’s an old man and the last Ralston. Alone, he makes the trek from the dock to the house and at the location of the smashed patio, takes a trowel and buries a slender alabaster box. 

Marlowe likes puzzles. She’s good at them. She couldn’t tell you how she’s worked it out, but she’ll give you the right answer. The answer to this puzzle is MURDER. Because Marlowe’s brain works in weird ways and there is a potential murderer on the island, she decides not to tell anyone about the tooth and instead hides it in the lipstick Akilah gave her. After an ice cream party because the storm will cause the power to go out and Van says it's their patriotic duty to consume as much ice cream as possible, Marlowe calls Akilah. It’s the first time she’s tried to talk to her since the candle incident and it’s to tell her she loves the lipstick she gave her. Nicely cryptic. 

Everyone but Riki shelters in the living room in the main house. Marlowe feels removed from everything, she’s stuck on the idea of the tooth and a possible murderer. She lies down in the foyer laughing to herself and her mind is spinning. Van is convinced she’s high, but she's never done drugs. Then the paranoia kicks in, she’s sure someone is watching her. Marlowe crawls into the music room and hides under the piano until she hears footsteps. Then she decides she needs to get to Riki. Marlowe is sure it takes her six hours to crawl to Riki because what is time, especially when you’re high. Finally in Riki’s turret room, Marlowe word vomits about the tooth and murder and Dr. Henson’s giant missing camera which she’s sure Dr. Henson saw Chris’s death or murder through. Anywho, got any water? As Riki grabs Marlowe a drink and Marlowe is looking at Riki’s room, she trips over Dr. Henson’s giant missing camera. 

July 27, 1932. The morning of the deaths at Morning House. Unity woke early the morning she killed her brother, Max. Unity is very good at math and chemistry and is a particular favorite child of Dr. Ralston. She was given a special working desk, one with sixteen secret compartments which Unity used to hide the Veronal in. That morning, Unity went down to the kitchen and while the staff was busy, she distributed the drug out into the breakfasts, making sure everyone would get a non-fatal dose.

It takes a moment to calm Marlowe down and for Riki to explain that someone put Dr. Henson’s camera in her room. She’s not dumb enough to steal it and leave it lying around. Finally Riki explains the weird situation with Chris and the others. Basically Chris may have done a lot of good with charities and stuff, but he’s also a dirt bag who would hook up with anyone. Riki thought their friend group was off limits but April had a one night fling, then Chris started seeing Liani. Riki tried to explain Chris was a cheater and even tried to prove it with a poor quality, badly angled video she recorded on her phone of her flirting and rejecting Chris that only ostracized her from the group. Then Liani and Chris broke up and he started seeing Van. Then he died. Riki didn’t see it happen, she was at the party, but sleeping and listening to Carrie on audiobook. However, Dr. Henson could have. The spot Chris died is visible from the balcony, and it would have happened when she was doing yoga. It’s then they realize Morning House is on fire. 

Fire has a sobering effect on Marlowe and she starts throwing instructions at Riki. She enters flow state solving the problem of getting them out of the turret through the window. Thankfully the others see Marlowe and Riki on the roof and are able to help them down. As one, they watch Morning House burn. 

July 27, 1932. The day of the deaths at Morning House. After morning calisthenics everyone is feeling the effects of the drug and the morning run is canceled much to Dr. Ralston’s annoyance, but considering his lack of protest, the drug is working on him too. Unity takes a bath and waits an hour for the house to grow quiet. With promises of throwing rocks at the black swans, Unity is able to entice her little brother outside. As Max leans over the water’s edge to look for the perfect rock, Unity holds him under. She then drags him deeper into the lagoon and wedges his foot in the rocks below to hold him. 

Back at the house, Unity dries off and waits. She did this for her father because he couldn’t and she was the strongest Ralston. Unity falls into a natural sleep and is woken by Victory. She didn’t expect Clara to find Max so quickly. Unity waits in her room for Clara to come, she assumes Clara was the one who had raided her desk and its hidden compartments because Clara has her own hiding places. When Clara comes home, Unity meets Clara and they go upstairs together. Clara doesn’t understand why Unity killed Max, he may have been a terror but he was still their brother. Clara has been watching Unity for a while and could see her planning. She knew Max couldn’t swim. They start to fight and Unity grabs an iron patio chair, swings it at Clara and knocks her off the balcony. 

Eventually, and because they can’t get in touch with anyone off island to report the fire, everyone goes to their bedrooms and Riki goes with Marlowe. Soon Riki is pacing back and forth trying to work through the puzzle. Dr. Henson must have been murdered for seeing Chris being murdered. She’s not in the water as the police would have found her, and there isn’t a great big stain of blood anywhere, only the tooth evidence. Marlowe points out a tarp is missing, so the murderer must have pushed her on to that and wrapped the body like a burrito. But where is the burrito? Marlowe suddenly realizes the putrid smell in the bathroom is Dr. Henson. The fire was set to get rid of the evidence and with a known fire bug on staff and living on the island, it’s a perfect cover. Because the bathrooms are in the basement, they aren’t affected by the fire, yet, so they head down. In a small crawl space between the basement and main house, Marlowe gets a face full of stench. She doesn’t see Tom approaching with a sledgehammer, but Riki does. 

July 27, 1932. the night of the deaths at Morning House. Unity waits in her room for her father to come and congratulate her, but he doesn’t come. Unity goes to his office and finds a broken man. Unity explains about the Veronal, the dose, everything, and Dr. Ralston listens. He listens and cries. Dr. Ralston tells his daughter not to tell anyone, they will say it was a drowning and a tragedy caused by grief. Unity is not happy. She sees how flawed her father is. As she leaves, Unity is sure someone was listening in at her father’s office door. Someone knows what she has done. 

Tom, huh. Who knew. Except he tells them to move and smashes the wall to reveal Dr. Henson’s body wrapped in tarp. It’s heavy and liquidy and mushy and so stinky. They put the body in the Playhouse in the common room much to the shock of the others. Tom didn’t know Dr. Henson was there, he was looking for Benjamin’s supposed treasure he hid back in 2002. 

Marlowe boils everything down to their drama from prom night. Dr. Henson may have seen nothing and is just genuinely concerned about the group after the death of their friend/ex/boyfriend and wanted an outsider, Marlowe, there to look after them. Since mentioning the prom drama, eyes turn to April. 

Van told Marlowe in the beginning that April is an underminer, or rather, she’s full of shit, and makes up conversations and shit stirs. Marlowe remembers April wore a fleece during the hot as hell morning Dr. Henson went missing and “lost” her necklace during the search. She could have been hiding something. As April tries to defend herself and turn the others against Marlowe, Liani tells her they just need to find her necklace and they’ll get all the answers. 

Donning N95 masks, Marlowe and Liani check Dr. Henson and see her rigor-hands clawed, like she was grabbing at something. Then Marlowe, Liani, Riki, Van, and Tom head with a metal detector to search for the necklace, leaving April in the Playhouse by herself. After a while, they actually find the necklace. Back at the Playhouse, April still protests her innocence, and she’s not nice about it, and threatens to swim to shore. Yeah, fine, try that in the storm. Eventually April breaks down saying Chris was wasted and it was an accident and Dr. Henson wasn’t her fault. April then goes all TikTok white girl hysterical when they’ve fucked around and are finding out. The fire and emergency boat then arrives. 

While the fire crew deals with Morning House, the police, surprised, take April. When they have a chance, Riki shows Marlowe a plastic ziplock bag with two letters, one from the 1930s to Irene Wallenberg in Boston, and one from 1995 to Benjamin Ralston. This is his treasure! The 1995 letter informs Benjamin that they found the earlier letter in their aunt's affects, considered giving it to the police, but thought it would be better going to him.

December 28, 1932. Letter from Dagmar Ralston to Irene Wallenberg. The letter reveals that Dagmar and Irene were in love, though not together for sometime since Dr. Ralston demanded the time and attention of his sister in the raising of his six children which Dagmar found out were his biological children. Dr. Ralston, in his belief of eugenics, was trying to father perfect children and he kept meticulous notes of all ten of the women he was trying to impregnate, obviously only six resulted in a child. Dagmar loved the children and most especially Clara. When Faye came around, they got along but the roles shifted slightly. When Max entered the family, it was understood Dagmar would not mother him because he had Faye. Dr. Ralston’s belief in healthy eating and exercise did not have the same effect on Max and his behavior was written off as excess energy or some such lies by his father. But Dagmar watched. She also saw Clara’s strange behavior, her stealing a knife one breakfast. It was not to hurt Max but to protect him. Clara saw how dangerous Unity was and would keep watch outside Max’s bedroom. She knew swimming was his greatest weakness and tried to force him into learning, to keep him safe from Unity. 

It was Dagmar who searched Unity’s hidden compartment desk, having been shown by Dr. Ralston all the little hidey holes when her own similar desk was delivered. Dagmar found the calculations and the remnants of the drugs. In the aftermath of Unity and Clara’s confrontation, Dagmar was forgotten. She overheard Unity proudly confessing to her father. After they moved back to New York and Dr. Ralston arranged for Faye to go to a facility and the rest to follow her to a house nearby, Dagmar knew as their “mother” what to do. She took Unity out for a walk, she brought the thermos of hot cider laced with morphine. It was fitting to use Unity’s own technique against her. Dagmar sent this letter to Irene so she would know what happened and that she loves her, but she could not suffer a monster to live and could not kill her child and survive it.

Marlowe wakes groggily at 11pm in Riki’s home bedroom. Riki is frustrated that Benjamin didn’t do anything with the information he had, and they need to do something about it, but what? Eat crab cakes, thanks to Juhi ordering takeout, that’s what. After, just as Marlowe and Riki are about to make out, Riki tells Marlowe to call Akilah and check they really are broken up. Long story short, they’re still together, there was just a misunderstanding due to lack of communication. 

Four months later. Marlowe and Akilah are driving up to Clement Bay. They’re meeting Riki, Liani, Van and Tom to record for Riki’s podcast about the past and present tragedies at Morning House. Before Riki presses record, they share with Marlowe that a fishluencer accidentally recorded April and Chris in the background of one of his videos, and that the fire was confirmed to have been started in the turret stairwell. All evidence is most definitely pointing to April, but there are other stories to be told and names to be cleared, and it all starts with a candle that smells of petrichor.