#sitdannabailey

Anna has always had this weird draw to her dead great-aunt.

It started out innocently enough— curiosity about the Manor Mystery, a cold case way back from the 50s. Her great-aunt, Emma Bailey, had died in that case, according to Anna’s dad, as well as the celebrity Markiplier, the then-current mayor Damien Crowe, and some other less-essential persons.

Anna was a bit of a history nut, even from childhood, so it was no wonder that such a mystery would grab her attention. Her parents humored her for a while, and then later when Dakota and I came along we did too. It seemed fairly harmless, and otherwise she was a fairly practical, mild person, so we didn't think much of it.

Then, when she and Dakota started dating, I thought maybe she would be over it. That seemed to be the case for about a year or so.

Then, one day, out of the blue, as the three of us sat around a table at our local coffee shop, she spoke up.

“So I bought the manor.”

Dakota and I exchanged glances, racking our brains to see if we remember what the heck she’s talking about.

She smiled brightly and stirred her Cafe Mocha. “It’s okay, I didn’t tell y’all about it before. I wanted it to be a surprise. It’s the Markiplier Manor, from the Manor Mystery!”

A look of dawning horror began to grow on Dakota’s face and I spoke up before he could exclaim in protest. “Wow, that’s crazy! How did you even find it!”

“Well~” She twirled a lock of her curly, strawberry-blonde hair around her finger, biting her lip. Dakota instantly melted and I released a breath. Crisis averted by a cute girlfriend. “I may or may not have been digging around,” she said. “And I managed to find the exact location. And it was for sale!”

“How much?” Dakota said, remarkably calmly for someone whose girlfriend appears to have gone off the deep end.

Anna named a figure, and I whistled.  “That’s cheap.” I risked a glance at Dakota. “...Right?”

He shook his head, at a loss. “Insanely cheap.” He eyed Anna. “...Why was it so cheap?”

She smiled, a bit sheepishly. “Well, you know. Rumors.”

“Of?”

“It’s so haunted, isn’t it,” I whispered, my eyes widening dramatically.

Anna grinned, and Dakota groaned.

Anna and I high-fived. “That’s so awesome,” I laughed.

Dakota glared at me. “Don’t encourage her!”

“It’s just a house, babe,” his girlfriend said soothingly, reaching across the table to take his hand. He instinctively gripped it and she rubbed her thumb over his knuckles, tilting her head imploringly.

His brow was furrowed, but the hard lines in his face softened. “What do you plan on doing with the house, now that you’ve evidently bought it?”

“Explore! Investigate! Don’t you want to know what really happened to Emma and Markiplier and the others?”

“They died,” Dakota insisted. “They all died in a freak accident.”

“Actually,” I said slowly. “They… didn’t find any bodies. That was just the police report covering it up.”

Dakota gave me his best I can’t believe you’ve bought into this glare while Anna looked at me, impressed. “I didn’t know you looked into this kind of stuff,” she said.

I shrugged, smiling disarmingly. “What can I say? I love a good conspiracy.”

She laughed at that—a bright, delighted sound—and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “And we love our nerdy emo son.”

“It’s not emo, that’s an entirely different subculture—“

“Punk?”

“Flattering, but I’m not super into anarchy…”

“Goth?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. What do you call all black, mostly t-shirts and skinny jeans, a few chains and minimalist jewelry, sometimes but not always accented by an obnoxiously loud pattern and/or color? “Probably not goth, either.”

Dakota leaned back, still holding Anna’s hand, and sipped his coffee casually. “Let’s just call it ‘Brendon Urie Style’ and be done with it.”

“That man is an inspiration,” I said over Anna’s laughter. “So I’ll take that as the highest of compliments.”

“Good. He has good music.”

Anna stopped laughing and stared at her boyfriend agape. “You listen to Panic! At the Disco?”

“What? I can’t be a stick-in-the-mud and like popular music? You expect too much.”

Anna and I exchanged glances, and simultaneously imagined a future of the most obnoxious, concentrated collection of references to P!ATD songs that the world had ever seen.

It was glorious.

“Anyway, back to what we were actually talking about,” Dakota said, effectively interrupting Anna’s and my temporary psychic link. “So you plan to just… explore and investigate the manor? For fun?”

“Well, it’s kind of remote,” she said slowly. “And it’s in the next city over, so… it wouldn’t be practical to drive back and forth every day.”

I could tell that Dakota knew where Anna was going with this, and didn’t like it at all. For once, I didn’t intervene, choosing to let this play out.

“Anna, you know I love you, right?” Dakota said slowly.

“Yes, of course!”

“You know I would give you the world if I could, right?”

“I don’t think I would trust myself with a dictatorship, but I recognize and appreciate the sentiment!”

He smirked a little at that, and I marveled at their weird shared sense of humor. “So with all that in mind, love of my life…” Dakota leaned forward and lowered his voice. “If you’re planning to live in that house let me be the first to say I love and support you, but that sounds like a dangerous, risky, kind of incredibly stupid idea.”

“Aw Dak, that’s not fair,” I protested, but Anna waved my words off.

“No, he’s right,” she said, in a tone of voice I recognized but hadn’t really heard come from her mouth before. “I’m not smart enough to take on something like that. I’ll probably get kidnapped on the first night.”

We were both taken aback. Anna had been angry before, even sarcastic, but this...this was bitter.

Dakota looked hurt. “You know that’s not what I meant,” he said softly.

That seemed to shift her attitude. “I know, babe, I just…”

Dakota worried his lip, then spoke up. “What if… I go with you?”

I nearly choked on my iced frappe.

From the get-go, the two had been incredibly, painfully clear that they weren’t going to live together until they legit tied the knot. It was something really important to both of them and they’d talked a lot about it. That Dakota would even suggest that they move in together… he must have been really worried.

Anna blinked at him, then frowned. “No.”

“It’s probably pretty big, we wouldn’t even have to see each other if we didn’t—“

“It’s not that, Dak, I just…” she sighed. “I… I need this, you know? I need to… be on my own. For once.”

Dakota looked like he wanted to argue more, but I understood instantly. Anna had grown up in this little city and never lived anywhere else. Even though she’d had her own house for a while… I knew what it was like to feel stifled. Trapped.

Dakota may have disagreed, but he bit his tongue. Maybe literally, judging by the look on his face.

"We'll visit her," I said. "Maybe we can take a weekend trip or something."

He looked at me. He still didn't say anything, but appeared to be relatively pacified.

"And we can facetime whenever you want," Anna added.

"Alright, alright." Dakota took a deep breath and leaned his elbows on the table. "... I still don't think this is a good idea, but… if this is something you really want to do, Anna, and you think you can do it safely, then… I'm not going to try to stop you."

Her answering smile lit up the whole cafe, and Dakota immediately relaxed.

I didn't need any convincing… I had been on board from the get-go. I was excited for her to have this opportunity, and Dakota was just a worry-wart. I wasn't going to try to keep her from exploring her past and learning new things about herself. I wasn't going to take that away from her.

Although these days… sometimes I wish I had.

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To follow (and take part in) Emma and Damien’s story, go here.

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