Pepper's form wavers in front of them like a heat haze, shimmering, twisting, distorting as he walks down the corridor.  Every few yards it changes.  Rough stone walls, smooth floor; metal walkway with hand rails over an unknowable abyss; wood-panneled hallway with an Axminster runner.

"Ladies and gentlemen we are heading for what some call the Room of Remembrance."  He spun on his heel, now walking backwards.  "I like to think of it as a complete head-trip."  Spinning again, his coat flared out and snagged on a tree-root protruding from the earthen walls of that stretch of corridor.  "People have been known to have visions of past and future in this room.  The Edinburgh Psychic Investigation Society of Victorian times held regular seances in this room to great effect.  Rumour has it that there is a spirit bound to the table itself, one Armalan of Loc, though I've seen nothing myself.  It is believed to be a spirit of information, a veritable Google of its day.  Who knows?  We might be lucky.  We'll find out in about five minutes."
 

Ghost, bringing up the rear, said nothing.  He gritted his teeth and walked, eyes fixed on a point just above Peter Van Hoff's head.  Each step weighing heavily on him.

James blinked as he followed the indistinct form of Pepper ahead in the gloom.  He marveled at the eclectic collection of scenery that had clearly been arranged to confuse, entertain, unsettle or otherwise excite those on the tour. 

The tour was becoming more elaborate as they went on and Peter wondered how Pepper and Ghost could afford to keep it running. From the small size of this particular tour it did not seem likely they made much on ticket sales alone. So what was their real business?

Ryan seemed to draw in on himself, if only slightly. The tall New Mexican's eyes were darting left and right, his mouth set in a grim line, as he followed the others. 

As they walked down the hallway, Lucy briefly considered dropping crumbs from her oat cakes to mark the path they were taking. In considering it, she was certain she did not want to find her way back to the room they had just left. She then considered leaving the trail for the "constable" to follow, but doing so would have meant that she believed he was not an actor at all and that they had just left him alone in the dark back there. She shuddered involuntarily. Little of this crazy tour made sense any more. She was certain that much of what they had seen was indeed "real", if far from normal, but she couldn't even begin to guess at the motives of their guides. 

As she walked along the hallway, Lucy took a moment at each of the, what she thought of as, stitched-together sections of hallway. This patchwork hallway, at least, was something that could have been put together as a disconcerting part of a tour, but that wasn't what she had in mind to look at. She tried to gauge both the historical and, where possible, actual age of the man-made sections of hall. That was, until they reached the metal walkway, seemingly spanning out across empty space. 

Lucy stopped at where the hallway ended and the abyss began, she ran her hand along the transition point, looked for support cables, anything which would either reveal the carefully crafted optical illusion for what it was, or, in the absence of such proof, and again she shuddered, something that might just prove that the truth of it - that it was indeed real, impossible by the laws of physics, but real none-the-less.  She found nothing.  The handrail of the walkway spanning the abyss emerged seamlessly from the brick of the previous section of wall, sank in to the earth of the following section, as if built in one piece.  The joins felt cold to the touch, and her hand found it hard to find them precisely, but she could find no trickery.  The walls were real, the abyss was - as far as she could tell - real.

Annabelle gratefully laid her hand to the smooth stability of stone, recoiled from the cold slickness of the metal handrail, firmly averting her gaze from the drop below.  She was grateful for the cushioned footing of the carpet, stroking the silken timber as she knelt briefly to examine the Axminster.  To her astonishment, it appeared to an early example, early 19th century - how on earth were this pair doing this??  And the there was dirt.  It looked good dirt, she had to concede, but undeniably dirt. 

She raised a cynical eyebrow at Pepper's spiel though she knew in her heart that disbelief was getting difficult to maintain.  She hoped that Constable McGill was all right...

By the time Pepper reached the door, Ghost was looking decidedly ill.  He was pale, almost green in places, his face dotted with a cold sweat.  His right hand was in his jacket pocket, his left occasionally providing support against the wall.  As Pepper turned to face the group he shot him a questioning glance - you okay?  Ghost nodded.  He'd warned Pepper that this might happen along this corridor.  The important job was to get them into the room before anyone started getting auditory hallucinations.  At least that's how he'd described the sounds to Pepper.

Pepper snapped open the door, a metal affair reminiscent of a prison cell door.  The room beyond was white, the walls covered with a repeating hexagonal pattern about eighteen inches across.  In the centre of the room was a table.  Pepper was vaguely disappointed that it was made of dark wood, circular rather than hexagonal.  Around the table, seven comfortable-looking dining chairs.  He strode inside, stood at the far side of the table.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, come in, come in.  Welcome to the Room of Remembrance.  Please take a seat - that corridor can be quite draining."  He went round the table, pulling the chairs out for everyone.  Interestingly, each seat had a name card set in front of it.  Clockwise around the table: Pepper, Annabelle, James, Peter, Ghost, Lucy, Ryan.  Ghost sat as soon as he found his seat, slumping into it gratefully, pulling the chair close to the plain wooden table.  He laid his hands flat on the table, palms down, and took several very deep breaths.

James, walked casually round the table til he came to his place and sat down.  He glanced at Ghost's sickly, sweaty features with a raised eyebrow, but then set to fiddling with his place-card, flicking it between his fingers then apparently causing it to vanish with gesture that brought a little smile to his lips.
"perhaps Monsieur de Loc will explain just how I came to be invited on this crazy tour..." he purred quietly, with a short but good humoured laugh.

"Anyone else have questions for the spirit of the table?"  he joked, winking at Pepper and Ghost with an easy smile.

"I have one." Peter said. "How is it our names or on these placards? I myself didn't know I was going to be here tonight until this afternoon." The hall they had traversed to get to this room had been disconcerting but Peter had been able to dismiss it as incredibly good special effects. This was different. The only person who knew he might be here tonight was the person who had given him the ticket, Elizabeth Jenner.

Lucy shook her head in mild disgust as Peter and James spoke up. "Men," she thought to herself, "We're almost certainly on a tour of the impossible, where basic physics, probably even time and space, are being manipulated before our eyes and all they can do is posture."

That did lead her to thinking about what she would ask, if given the chance. Off the top of her head, the two most pressing questions were along the lines of just how do we get off this ride safely, and, somewhat less practically, but much more fascinatingly, how exactly was the physics/time/space manipulation being controlled.

Having married  a posturing man, Annabelle was able to ignore it all.  What she couldn't ignore was someone in distress.  She went to Ghost, lightly touching his shoulder.  "You're not well," she stated.  She slipped off her backpack, opened it up.  "I can offer you water, paracetamol, chocolate or - oh, yes, some rather good beef jerky." 

She laid the back of her hand to his forehead, testing his temperature.  Diabetes?  Influenza?   Withdrawal?  Why did his partner not do something?  To her surprise, he felt fine.  A little cool, perhaps, but not burning up as she'd expected.

"I'll take a piece of that chocolate, Ma'am.  Sorry to alarm you - there's something about that corridor that takes it out of me."  He flashed her a brief smile.  He did look better now they were in this odd room.  He accepted the chocolate, popped it into his mouth, chewed a couple of times.  "Thankyou.  Now, please be seated.  I think you're going to enjoy this."

"Hmm" said Annabelle as Ghost declared himself well enough. She looked at him steadily, holding eye contact, as she assessed his statement. She had only generic sympathy for the man himself but this tour was decidedly strange enough without one of the guides dropping dead/lapsing into coma/fits/DTs/speaking in tongues or whatever his affliction may be.

She gave a mental shrug and touched him fleetingly on the shoulder once again, her hands cool.

In fact, she felt cool, if not downright cold. The cold seemed to seep up through the floor and then through her. Her feet were freezing.

Thinking longingly of great big thick socks, Annabelle took her appointed seat. She thought nothing of the named place cards – if she thought of it at all, she would have assumed that Father Richmond had supplied her name.

She was between Pepper and James. Pepper was plainly odd but that appeared de rigeur for these tour guides. James looked nice enough. She greeted them both and laid her hands flat on the table, enjoying the feel of the wood beneath her palms.

There was something enduringly comforting about wood.

Pepper sat down, placed his hands flat on the table.  "Ladies, gentlemen.  You'll get your questions answered shortly, I assure you.  Please place your hands on the table as my colleague and I have done.  We'll see what answers the room can bring us."

"There had better be some answers." Peter said. He continued to stand until the two ladies had taken their seats.

James did as he was instructed, still watching Ghost out of the corner of his eye.  He  judged Ghost and his more talkative companion as clear charlatans.  This was not an opinion he held with any degree of scorn, or dislike, indeed it filled him with fond memories from his youth, thoughts of the carnival and its many colourful characters, rogues one and all.  Still the pale-faced fellow's words seemed to hold a ring of truth for James himself.  Though he was loathe to admit it, the bizarre corridor had left him disorientated, even slightly sick, though consciously he put it down to maybe too little oxygen in that section of the tunnel.  To cover the strange feeling he had laughed it off boldly when they reached their destination.  The truth was, it left had him feeling the way  watching the magic show had as a child, or those moments just before a concert... excitement, fear, adrenaline and anticipation.  The breathless, prickling sensation that something unusual and unique was about to occur.

Ryan said nothing, his sun-browned face far more closed now than it had ever been, eyes focused on something only he could see. He placed his hands upon the table as instructed, and sighed.

Lucy walked around the table until she found the placard with her name on it. Then she slipped into her seat and began to shake out her hands. She felt some of the tension that had been building throughout the night slide away, not much, but even the brief respite from it was a relief. She carefully placed her hands on the table, palms down, fingers together, giving nothing away. 

Lucy took a moment to look around the table at each of the people as they took their seats. She was relieved to see that the body language of several of her fellow tourists had changed markedly since the water room. The fact that concern for what was happening was now evident in the body language of a couple of people, most obviously Peter and Ryan, actually made her feel a bit better about the trek down the patchwork hallway to the room they now occupied.

Once the ladies had taken their seats Peter took one final look around the room and sat down. He did not want to admit it but this whole tour was beginning to get on his nerves. The corridor he had dismissed as excellent special effects but even so they were the best special effects Peter had ever seen. And the placard with his name on it. That was an impossibility unless someone were trying to set him up. Deciding to play along for now Peter placed his hands upon the table.

As Peter placed his hands on the table, the last of the group to do so, the air around them thrummed, wavered, resolved into the upper half of a figure wearing what looked to be a Star Fleet captain's uniform, late Deep Space Nine era.

"You come with questions."  The voice was a pleasant baritone, rich and calm.  The sort of voice you'd happily listen to for days on end.  "And you shall receive answers."  It moved into the middle of the group, hovering a few inches off the table top.  It spun slowly, pointed a stubby finger at James.

"You were invited because you are important to the events that preceeded this night.  Your blood holds a direct link to one the City wishes to speak with."  It swung its arm round, pointed to Peter.  "You wanted to know about names.  How did I know you would be here."  It smiled, somehow reassuring despite the strangeness.  "When you have a problem to solve, you wish to use your best resources.  You are all here because I need you to be here.  The City needs you to be here.  Out of common courtesy, I have used the names you would wish me to use at present"  Was it Peter's imagination or did it just wink at him?  It bowed briefly to both Pepper and Ghost.  "Gentlemen, thanyou for brining my guests this far.  You may go."

Pepper raised a hand from the table, about to speak, but vanished the second his fingers left the table top.  Ghost nodded in recognition to the image and raised his hands.  He, too, vanished.

"You will have more questions, no doubt.  I will answer one question from each of you."

"Here's mine,' Ryan spoke up, eyes still staring down at his folded hands. His voice was low, but strong. "Who hunts me in my dreams?" 

"Interesting question.  Interesting but wrong.  The answer to your question is Herne.  Herne the Hunter.  You should have asked why you are hunted in your dreams.  I always find the why to be far more intersting and informative than the who."  The figure spun slowly around, looking each of the five in the eyes for a second or so.  "And there are so many interesting whys sat around this table!"  He clapped his hands.  "Who's next?"

Ryan just laughed, shaking his head. He should have known better then to expect a straight answer, given the day he'd had.

Peter had planned to ask the apparition what the Hell was going on on but after hearing the answer Ryan was given changed his mind. His brow furrowed as he tried to think how to word his question without leaving it open to being turned on him. In the end he still was not sure he had it right but asked anyway. "Why exactly do you and the City need each of us?"

"My name is Aamalan.  Before I was confined to this roo m, I was the official messenger for the City.  I could travel almost anywhere.  No barriers could bar my passage.  Last year, I was Disrupted.  Officially, I died.  Unofficially, I was recalled to this room.  I am both a known face and someone who should not exist.  I need you because you can now go where I cannot.  I can merely hint and suggest, manipulate events to a degree where my power was once strong.  Enough, for example, to bring each of you here.  You each seek answers and your answers are tied up with those I seek.  Especially yours, James."

Lucy gasped when Pepper and Ghost disappeared, but she surprised herself by keeping her hands on the table. When the, for lack of a better description she could come up with in the moment, Captain, turned towards her, she started to say, and then stopped herself, then argued with herself internally, then shrugged resignedly, and then finally, in a voice that could only be interpreted as somewhat embarrassed, asked, "How exactly is the physics/time/space manipulation, whatever it is that we have been shown on this tour, being controlled?" And then she looked down again at her lap, blushing, unable to look at her fellow tourists given the fairly reasonable chance that they would all start laughing at her at any moment.

"I would have thought you, of all people, would have figured it out by now.  After all, you're more than half-way to performing some of the manipulations yourself!"  Aamalan smiled kindly.  "However, in honest answer to your question, the manipulations are being controlled through commands input into a Chapman's Remote."

The DS9 guy appeared and that was fine, because it was some really clever projection of some sort.  Then first Pepper and then ghost disappeared and that wasn't fine because there was no illusion.  They were gone.

The unease Annabelle had been refusing to feel crystallised into fear.  She was vaguely surprised that it wasn't visible, hanging in the air like clouds of breath on an icy day.   They were really gone - she had no doubt that the seat beside her was now empty.  That was the nucleus of fear - the not-beingness.  She did not dare to lift her hands from the table lest she also cease to be.

She heard the image speak, her fellow travellers respond - distantly as though on a radio several rooms away.  A thousand things rushed through her mind as she looked around at the three men.  The thoughts that finally claimed precence were "I'm not a city person" and "This is not my city". 

She focussed on the half a man on the table and spoke, her voice plaintive.  "Why?"

"A simple question.  And one that demands a simple answer."  Aamalan looked around conspiratorially, as if to make sure no-one else could hear him.  "Forty-two," he whispered.  He grinned for a second, then his face became more serious.  "Actually, you are probably more important than almost anyone else here.  If it weren't for your presence, I wouldn't be able to speak to any of you.  If you don't believe me, lift your hands from the table."

Anyone who knew Annabelle well would be aware that that look meant she was very seriously pissed off indeed.  It had been described as a very similar to laying wet hands on dry ice - very, very cold and full of the promise of pain.  The tightening of the obicularis oris muscle pulled her normally soft and generous mouth into a thin hard line.

He rotated slowly, pointed a finger at James.  "And then there was one."

As Aamalan calmly answered each question as if the knowledge he was imparting was the most mundane information in the world, James became more and more convinced that he was wading deep into the waters of Effluence Creek devoid of the recommended equipment.  Even if he did get to know about his real father, he was convinced he wouldn't like the answer when it came.  Instead he turned to a problem that seemed far more pressing, especially now that their tour guides had inconveniently disappeared.

"Do you mind telling us how the fuck we get out of here?"

Good question. Peter thought, nodding his head. Until James had spoken up it hadn't occurred to him none of them knew the way out. He briefly considered removing his hands from the table to see, if like Pepper and Ghost, he would simply disappear, presumably returning to where they had begun. The idea was just as quickly dismissed, his curiosity too peaked to miss what came next.

"Give him a straight answer,"  Annabelle snarled at Aamalan.  "I do not believe this!" she raged to the universe.  "I am sat God alone knows where, talking to half a Roddenbury reject who quotes Douglas bloody Adams, says he's dead and he's on a mission to save civilisation as we know it from crumbling into the sea while humanity devolves into mud crabs and we are his special little helpers!"  Her chest heaved as she drew an angry breath.  "Well the four of us - er, five of us," she amended as she realised Lucy's presence, "are going to be very busy little Vegemites, aren't we?"

She fixed Aamalan with her basilisk stare.  "Answer his question and no bull shit. "

Ryan leaned over to Lucy and whispered "And i've spent the day with someone from another dimension who has fans on her clothes, another guy who turns everything he touches gray, and i've been chauffered around by a hologram, whatever that is. This is all starting to feel... normal." 

Aamalan chuckled.  "A Roddenbery reject quoting Douglas Adams!  I shall have to remember that one."  He turned to Annabelle, fixed her with his strangely empty, very dead, eyes.  "You, madam, see dead people.  You know this, I know this.  Thanks to your physical contact with this table I can be seen by all who touch it.  Believe me, Pepper and Ghost have brought many tour groups to this room over the centuries but this is the first to experience anything like this.  I am not asking you to save civiilization.  I am asking you to find the murderer of Lorelei Finlay.  A murderer who is hiding exceedingly well from the usual channels."  Throughout this speech, Aamalan's voice remained calm.  "There is nothing I can do to force you to help me.  If, after all you've seen so far, all you will learn tonight, you wish to walk away and pretend all of this was nothing more than an elaborate joke then that is your decision and yours alone."  He spun slowly to face James.  "So.  In answer to your question.  A good question, mind you.  One that shows a strong survival instinct."  Was he toying with Annabelle?  No bull-shit, she'd said and he was quite definitely prevaricating.  "You get out by removing your hands from the table.  For most of you, I will cease to exist.  Annabelle will be able to see me, Lucy might.  James, Ryan and Peter will definitely not.  There are two doors in this room, hidden from you at the moment.  Through one of them lies the passage you came down a few minutes ago.  Through the other lies the way forward to wisdom, knowledge and, ultimately - hopefully - truth."   He clapped his hands together gently.  "If there is more you wish to know, we have a little time before I must ask you to leave."

Ryan looked up. "Murdered? What do you mean, murdered. Nobody told me she was murdered at the funeral." He was glaring up at the figure, hands flat upon the table, brows drawn together thunderously.

"Department Thirteen are keeping this information very securely controlled.  If it was made public that anyone suspected she had been murdered then there is a very real chance that more killings will follow.  Killings that will eventually lead to the presence of beings that do not fit within the nice, cosy, conventional view of reality that most possess being made public.  This, in turn, would lead to the kind of persecution that would make the Spanish Inquisition look like a series of polite tea parties.  Witch hunts.  Cold iron.  War between the Fae and the humans.  And that is a war that you would not be able to win without resorting to some pretty awful tactics.  We have run the simulations and conservative estimates place it at between fourteen and seventeen days before someone deploys a nuclear device on Edinburgh.  The reprisals that would follow do not warrant consideration by a sane man.  Father Richmond described the situation succinctly as 'hell on earth'.  And he would know.  So, yes.  Your Godmother was murdered by person or persons unknown.  They are suspected to have fled to a secure location, possibly somewhere that does not technically exist.  She can follow them."  Here he pointed at Lucy.  "He can deliver judgement."  This time, James.  "In fact, he is the only one here permitted to.  The City has decreed that."  He turned back to Ryan.  "Your Godmother was over seven hundred years old.  She had survived war, famine, plague, the common ailments that plague a life.  She did not die of natural causes.  She could not die of natural causes.  What killed her was most unnatural indeed."

Ryan just stared at the floating figure for a moment. "Then what on God's green earth am I here for? If I can't find who did it, and I can't do anything about it, then why did she call for me?"

Lucy’s brow furrowed. “Follow them?” she thought to herself, “What did that mean? Something to do with her question maybe – the implication that she would be able to move about as Pepper and Ghost had? And was that how the curator had accomplished his earlier disappearing acts?” That idea that she could learn to do that was fascinating, but no more than sheer fantasy as far as she knew. And, the more she thought about it, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant fantasy either – tracking down an interdimentional murderer wasn’t exactly on her bucket list. Lucy’s furrow turned to a frown as she tried to think of why Aamalan would think her as even remotely capable of helping track down whoever had killed Ryan’s Godmother.

?

"Who the hell is Lorelei Finlay and what do you expect us to do that the cops can't?" Peter asked on the heels of Ryan's outburst starting to get angry. He had almost started to believe the whole setup but the mention of seeing dead people had brought him back to reality. Still he did not remove his hands from the table, A part of him wanted to see how this would play out so for now he would play along.

"You, mister Van Hoff, met one of her relations today.  In fact she was most generous in her donation to your failing gallery.  Were I able to visit London, I would look it up.  I suspect I would be surprised."  He paused, waiting for Peter to consider his words.  When it looked as though he was about to speak again, Aamalan continued, cutting him off.  "As to what I expect you to be able to do that the 'cops' cannot, that is simple.  I expect you to be able to find the murderer or murderers and bring them to justice.  You have a natural talent for persuading people, one that stems from the same source that my dear Lucy here draws her own unique talents from.  Anyone who can extract money from a Jenner will find extracting a confession from a murderer far, far easier."

"And what do you know of what's going on?" Peter barked at Ryan.

"Friend, you could fill an ocean with what I don't know." Ryan replied, still glaring at Aamalan. "I'm just a guy from New Mexico who got pulled into all this 'cause his Aunt died, and she wanted me at the funeral. I never even met the lady before today, and she was in a casket at that." 

Peter fell silent. He was still burning with questions but Aamalan's hints he knew the gallery Peter had persuaded Ms. Jenner to donate to didn't exist held his tongue. For now he would keep his skepticism to himself and let things play out as they would.

?

"None of you know how long this has been planned!  How long you have been planned!  You're pawns, all of you.  Pawns."  Aamalan circled slowly, his voice taking on strange, dopplered tones as he turned.  "Whoever planned this murder has been playing a very long game indeed.  The nature of Edinburgh means that those involved may have been alive to witness the birth of Christianity, the foundation of Scotland as a nation.  They may be the signatories of the original Festival Treaty!  The seeds of these events may have been planted hundreds of years ago!  But the events themselves are recent.  Minds that have spent so long playing the long game, considering the possibilities, weighing the contingencies, can be upset by mortals who have not.  You are the spanners I need to place in the works.  This game must stop.  Gesar and Zabulon are children compared to some.  They themselves are being played as pawns just as they play their own pawns.  Games within games, wheels within wheels, attack and counter-attack."  He raised his head, cried to the ceiling "THESE GAMES WILL STOP!  Aamalan of Locutia has spoken!  I play my hand NOW."

His words echoed away.  In the silence that followed he looked a little embarassed for his outburst.

"Yeah, right," Ryan said, shaking his head as he leaned back in his chair. He felt like he was sitting next to a freeway, thumb out, hoping for a ride home, watching cars whizz past at seventy miles an hour and not a prayer of any of them stopping. "Is it just me, or has the whole damn world gone crazy? Maybe I'm still asleep on the plane." He sighed and looked at each of the people he was sitting with; the girl who saw dead people, the persuasive man, the girl who could track his aunt's killer, the man who the city wanted to kill the killers. 

Seven hundred years old.

"I'd kill for a Dr. Pepper." he said, finally.

No, thought Annabelle, wistfully.  A hot chocolate.  85% chocolate melted into full cream milk, liberally laced with Bailey's, piled high with thick whipped cream and generously dusted with shaved chocolate.  She sighed.  As she reflected on the outburst from Aamalan disorientation turned to a thick white rage.  Another bloody man who thought he could dictate to her!  Her voice surprisingly level, green-hazel eyes like an ice age, she replied to the dead man quite calmly.

"I am not a tool and I am not a pawn.  I am my own woman and I refuse to allow anyone to reduce me to a lesser state.  Are we clear on that?"

James blinked as the last echoes of Aamalan's rant faded away.  The chamber seemed a little small for such booming reverberations but, as he had already witnessed the unlikely and the out-right impossible several times that evening, he only barely registered this strange anomaly.  

James had not spoken as the others questioned and protested.  He had stared wordlessly as the ethereal figure had spun a story so crazy that he had not even thought whether to consider it fact or fiction.  The stream of unfamiliar places, people and events that were being revealed to him only added to his confusion.  In the end, his brain followed his Jazz training, taking in everything before consciously ignoring most of it. 

"How can the city decide I'm the one to bring this Murderer in?"  He began slowly, "How can a City decide anything?!"  The barest hint of hysteria entered his voice.

"I think you have the wrong person, monsieur."  He tried to smile, casually, despite the unsettling feeling that prickled his skin, creeping outwards from his guts and upwards from the base of his spine.  "I...I restore houses and play Jazz music!  I definitely don't bring justice to monsters!"

"I agree with you completely.  You, James J Stanza, are one of the last people I would have chosen for this task.  Your father, however, believes otherwise.  It was on his insistence that you were invited tonight."

"If my real father wants my help, why can't he ask me in person?  He spends my whole life in hiding, without so much as a 'Hi son, I'm your estranged father but don't hold it against me!'   Then, when he finally decides to make himself known, he does it by hiding notes in my friend's basement like some sort of ridiculous treasure hunt?  Just who does he think he is?!" 

"Who your father thinks he is is irrelevant.  It is who he is that is important.  Believe me when I tell you that he has not enjoyed the role of absent father one iota.  Were things not somewhat complicated I am sure you would have had a lot more contact."

You were a better father than the one our son would've got...
James considered the words in his mother's last letter to his step-father.  He wondered just how terrible a person he really was, and whether his mother was right or wrong to have kept him buried as deeply from him as his step-father now was.

It occurred to Lucy, slower maybe than it should have, that everyone here was just as surprised as she was to find themselves in this bizarre situation – that they truly were all pawns. And, that while some of her fellow tourists were at least aware of some ability they had that might be helpful in such an undertaking, none of them were expecting, much less had volunteered for, any of this.

“Will you, Aamalan, or someone, be explaining how each, or any of us, or maybe just me, might, um, be about, that is, it might be helpful, at least to me, I can’t really say for anyone else, um, what exactly am I supposed to be able to do, and um, how, if that’s the right question at all, sorry, I’m a bit behind here, it seems, on what I am supposed to do and how to do it. I don’t suppose I can just wiggle my nose or click my heels together and then let Peter and James get on with, whatever it is they do next?”

"That is not known to me.  All I can offer is advice.  One known to me creates doors in his mind, uses them to bridge the Aspects.  Another created a number of keys.  Alex Chapman created his remote control.  There are as many ways to use the power you possess as there are individuals.  Listen as you leave this room, feel with every fibre in your body and you will find what you are looking for."

Lucy opened her mouth, paused, and then sighed and closed it. She frowned as she went over and over the tour to this point trying to see if she could figure out where she might have missed something that would help her understand what Aamalan seemed to believe she should have figured out by now. Failing that, she resolved to take her time when leaving the room, paying particular attention to listening and feeling for anything out of the ordinary that  might help her understand how Pepper and Ghost had been able to control the places they had traveled both to and between.

This is it. Someone finally figured out I'm not who they thought I was and decided to get even. I wonder how long they've been working on this. Peter thought, looking at each of his fellow tourists and wondering how much they were getting paid for this little prank. They were good, he would give them that. Ms. Jenner had done an excellent job setting things up. Satisfied he had figured out what was going on Peter relaxed with a smile, deciding to enjoy the show.

Aamalan stretched out both arms, turned slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees.  I need each of you to witness the events of this afternoon before you leave this place.  One of you has already been there but you will all find it educational.  It is my belief that the murderer or murderers were present.  Annabelle, you particularly may be able to shed new light on the proceedings.

"Oh, may I?" Annabelle snapped.  Ungracious, she knew and hardly eloquent, but she was deeply annoyed by his high-handed assumption that she would play his stupid game (if this wasn't all some seriously stupid dream in the first place).

"My apologies for my presumption, Ma'am.  Your somewhat unique ability is one of the reasons you are here tonight.  You can question those even I cannot reach."