Starling House (Pt. 1)

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to BMC Book Love. I'm Kristen. [00:00:03] Speaker B: And I'm Summer. This is the podcast where we bring you all the comfort and gossip of a regular book club. But just between you, me, and her. [00:00:11] Speaker A: You may be wondering what the B and the C stand for. Well, today the B stands for beast. [00:00:17] Speaker B: And the C stands for chapter. [00:00:19] Speaker A: How have you been in your life? [00:00:20] Speaker B: Chaotic. That's how I've been. How have you been? [00:00:25] Speaker A: I've been fantastic. I have a good teacher in my classroom for the last couple weeks, which has been awesome. And now I am officially on winter break, which is also awesome. So I'm gonna have a lot of time off coming up, and I'm going to see you at one point. [00:00:40] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Crazy. Well, today we were going over the first half of Starling House by Alex E. Harrow. This was published October 3, 2023. And honestly, I knew nothing about this book. I knew the author's name. I've never read one of her books. I have one. I've purchased one. I have never read it. 10,000 doors of January, I believe, is the book that I have of hers. Okay. So I figured with the birds on the COVID it was going to be like a gothic story, but that was all I got. [00:01:14] Speaker B: And you were so right. Yeah, you were so right. If I looked at the back page of the book and it said gothic story, and I was like, okay, mine. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Just has quotes on the back from other authors. Mine doesn't say anything like that. [00:01:29] Speaker B: Maybe I looked in the front. Little trifold. Yeah. [00:01:33] Speaker A: If I have a hardcover, I will never look at the flap. Literally never will look inside the flap. [00:01:38] Speaker B: I don't typically do that, but I think I was just coming into it way too blind because I. I really want to read this book. And so we chose it. And then I didn't even have the slightest idea of what this book was about. Is this like a romance? I don't even know which. I'm thankful I chose this book. It's super good, and I highly recommend to everyone whether or not you're following along with our book club by reading the book or if you were just listening to see if you're interested in the book. It's a good read. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So far. I actually really enjoy this book. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually didn't know she had other books. So I'll definitely be picking up some of her other work then. Let's dive in, baby. We start the book by establishing that no one, our main character knows. We don't know her name yet, by the way. No, I don't think I knew her name the whole first chapter. [00:02:27] Speaker A: I think it was like, third chapter, when somebody. I think her brother finally says her name. And I was like, oh, we haven't gotten her name yet. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It took a while, and so I kept going. The main character, she establishes that no one she knows has ever seen the house. It's a big focus point in her life because she has a dream every single night about the Starling House in one way or another. She kind of dreams that it's her home. No one who lives there participates in any of the town activities or schooling. So she has no idea who lives there. But they do know that someone does live there. Our main character, she writes horror stories. She's very poor and is currently living in a motel with her little brother. And she mentions her mom. Her favorite book was written by a girl named E. Starling. And that's why she's obsessed with the house, because it's called the Starling House. Or at least that's what she thinks is why she's obsessed with the house. We don't actually know. No, because she dreams about it every single night. She lies, cheats, and steals to keep her brother going as he goes to school. And she tries to say for him to go to college because her mother is dead. That's established. And at night, she still dreams of the book that's called the Other Underland by the author, E. Starling, that I had just mentioned. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Yes. And I don't make predictions before I read a book. I make predictions after I read the first chapter of a book. That's normally where I typically go. So I'm semi established of how this is getting set up. And then I make a prediction. My prediction was that the Underland was real and that some of the starlings that are in the house got stuck in the other dimension or whatever it's going to be, and that permission is going to go and save them, which is not. Not what's happening. [00:04:12] Speaker B: It's not. Not true. Yeah. I will say I found myself not making predictions, which, you know me, I'm on it from chapter one. I'm usually like, this is gonna happen. And then I start predicting the next thing. And every single plot point that's revealed, I'm predicting how it's gonna develop. I wasn't doing that for the majority of this book. I was just kind of reading it. [00:04:31] Speaker A: Oh, was that nice for you? Was it. Was it just because you were so captivated by, like, what was happening next or Were you just, meh. [00:04:37] Speaker B: I think it was that there was things being thrown out, but I wasn't like, oh, that's gonna get somewhere intense, you know? So I was just kind of like, okay. And moving past that plot point. And then when it did come back later, I was like, oh, this is something serious in the book. And that's when I started making those little predictions. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. So our main character, she stole money from the cash register at her work. She worked at the tractor supply store. And she's walking home. She lives rent free at this motel that she's staying at with her brother because her mom made a deal with the owner somehow. And so now they live there rent free. Her brother has been accepted into a prestigious academy called Stonewood Academy. And so all she's been doing is trying to get money in order to send him to this academy so that he can get out of this town. Because this is the type of town that traps people here. They never leave. She passes Starling House after texting her little brother Jasper on the way home. And she can see through the trees that the light is on in the house, even through the metal gate, which she ends up walking up to and cutting her hand on. Then the light goes out immediately, and she sees a figure on the other side of the gate. It is the last Starling, who has never really been seen. His parents died at a young age, and strangely, the coroner said he couldn't figure out what it was after their bodies had been so badly mauled from, I guess, animals. Which we find out that later. We don't really find that out now. But he looks pretty normal, this heir last darling person. And she tries to kind of explain why she's there, but he's just silently coming closer and creeping at her. And she's not leaving. But at the same time, she's like, everyone says these people are bad news. He gets close enough to her to grab her injured hand through the gate, and his hands are shaking with rage as he's holding her and looking at her and. And his eyes are black, and all he tells her to do is run. And so she does. From here, we switch to the heir's perspective. And his name is Arthur, and he wants to call her back, but he knows that it's better that she's gone already, because the house seems to want her already. And he swore to himself when his parents died that he would be the last warden of the Starling House, which we don't really understand what that means, but here we go. And even though it seems like him and the house haven't really been cordial in years, he asked the house nicely to leave this person be because he doesn't want her to come back. He also has dreams that night of his past ages and things that had happened in certain places in the house with his parents and everything. And he wakes up hoping he never sees her again. I thought this was just a very interesting. The way that he was giving us insight into everything. So I was like, okay, maybe it's not an actual rabbit hole, like in Alice in Wonderland, where she has to go down to something, but maybe it's just an alternate universe itself inside the house, which is less right than my first prediction, actually. [00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it is like, Alice in Wonderland. Like, the rabbit hole. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:42] Speaker B: It's actually really interesting that you say Alice in Wonderland because the whole time I was reading this, I was like, this is the retelling of Alice in Wonderland with different twists. It's kind of like how a lot of authors like to spin the retelling of Beauty and the Beast, you know? [00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see. See that. I have read actual Alice in Wonderland retellings that are closer to the actual Alice in Wonderland, like, tale. [00:08:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:07] Speaker A: I have literally read one that's called Hazelwood, and she does something like Alice in Wonderland, like, goes somewhere and then, like, has an adventure in a strange land where it's actually Alice in Wonderland, whereas this is kind of still in the real world. Yeah, I understand what you mean. Yeah. [00:08:20] Speaker B: Yeah. This one's more based on, like, Alice in Wonderland, but instead of her going to that world, that world kind of creeps in into hers. Our main character gets home again. We still don't know her name until. [00:08:33] Speaker A: I think it's this chapter that we find out her name. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah, somewhere. And she gets home, she tells her brother nothing's wrong, because he's like, what's going on? Why do you look like that? Why are you bleeding? And she's like, nothing's wrong. I'm fine. She cleans the wound. She goes to bed. She has a dream that night about the house. And it's different than usual. It's happening more like it's a memory instead of a dream. She's really confused by that. But then we move on. At the end of the dream, there's this door that's unlocked, but when she goes to open it, she wakes up. She goes through her day like normal. And then she has the same dream the very next night, six days later. Time passes very quickly in this book. I must say, it does. She will go from, this happened. This happened six months later, or. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Or through the month she did. Blah, blah, blah. And now we're at a new month. Yeah. [00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So six days later, she returns the house. She reveals that her wound has never closed, and she came back out of pure curiosity. The gates actually automatically open for her, and she gets her very first look at the house. She knocks on the door. There's no answer. When she knocks again, there actually is an answer this time. He's like, what are you doing? She says, hey, I'm taking an architecture class and I want pictures of the house just so I can get a good look at it. And he's like, no. And she's like, please. And then he goes, how about a job instead? Which was, like, way too easy. [00:09:57] Speaker A: Weird. [00:09:58] Speaker B: I was like, okay, so no pictures, but how about you spend every single day here for the rest of however you want? Looking at this house. [00:10:09] Speaker A: I mean, you can tell from his point of view, though, that he's immediately struggling with whatever is happening between the house and her and him and the house. Like, he is just constantly, like, I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but also it's pushing me in this direction. So. And I just thought that the dream was interesting. I wasn't sure if it was going to be a dream about the future, like her future specifically, or if it was a dream. Like she embodied somebody else in the dream. Because she said it felt like a memory. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Of, like a memory of the past. That somehow, however she's getting these dreams is getting shown to her. [00:10:41] Speaker B: You know, we don't really know yet what the dreams are or what the causes of it is yet. No. But I will say it feels more like the house is talking to her over everything else. Like, it's just the house is saying, hey, you should come here. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Right. So that's why I'm like, maybe the house is giving her a vision of something that happened in the past. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Or is the house giving her a vision of something that could potentially happen in the future? [00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:05] Speaker A: Or is it just a drink? Does it actually mean anything or does it mean nothing? [00:11:08] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Who knows? We don't know yet. Honestly. Not in this half of the book. Anyway, Arthur offers her a cleaning position, and she asks for a high amount of money, which Arthur accepts automatically. They don't actually tell us the dollar amount, though, so I thought that was interesting. [00:11:24] Speaker B: It was interesting. I also noticed that they don't like giving exact numbers, which I actually love. [00:11:32] Speaker A: I don't love it when I'm reading it, but I understand it because it makes it relevant. Exactly. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Because if you say a number in 2014, that number is like, oh, my God, that's crazy. But then you're in 2026. That number won't get you shit. [00:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And she wants to take it because it is a high number that she just threw out there, but she doesn't want to do anything sexual with him, and she thinks that it's too good to be true. He assures her that it's not, so she accepts. Then he gives her the key to the gate before she leaves so that she can come back before whenever he wants. She says it looks like the key from the book. And he automatically says no. He doesn't say which book. He doesn't say, I don't know what you're talking about. He doesn't say anything like that. He just says, no. You know something, bro? He obviously knows something, but I want him to tell her. So Opal leaves and goes by her other job again, the tractor supply company. [00:12:23] Speaker B: That's her name, by the way. [00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah, Opal. Did we not say that yet? [00:12:26] Speaker B: No, we haven't said that yet. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah, her name is Opal. We find out her name is Opal. Her mom's name was Jewel. And so that's why. I don't know. So Opal leaves and goes to her other job. Some co workers tell her to stay away from Starling House. When she, quote, unquote, jokes about stopping by. She tells the truth, but because she's a known liar, everybody thinks that she's joking. And she's like, sometimes it pays off when you lie a lot. So after this, she goes home and talks to her brother and thinks about all the amateur films he makes because he's apparently pretty good at it. And then once Jasper goes to bed, she takes his laptop and starts searching Starling House. Up, she finds a picture between author E. Sterling and John Peabody Gravely, a founder of Gravely Power. Gravely Power is the power company in their town. And it's a very wealthy family. [00:13:15] Speaker B: They have a giant power plant where. [00:13:17] Speaker A: Everybody works, and they've been around for a really long time in this town. So she finds the wedding picture between the author and John Peabody, and then she reads the Wikipedia entry for East Darling, and there's no record of her birth, and her death was just declared. There's also no record of her death, really. It was just kind of like, oops, she's dead. And, like, somebody just told other people that both of them are very Weird of how she came to be. [00:13:41] Speaker B: It just happened. Yeah. [00:13:42] Speaker A: But she did, obviously write her book, and she sent her book to over 30 publishers, and it wasn't until it was accidentally found by an editor's child that it was actually considered for publication, and then it was widely released. Anytime that adaptations of this book were tried on stage or on screen, they were disasters, and they never actually came to fruition. So it's just like a general otherworldly vibe over the house. And even kind of in the real world, there are splashes of bad things that happen in the real world that seem to be stemming from the house. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Mm. Mm. Creepy vibes. [00:14:17] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Opal doesn't dream after she accepts this job, which she finds very odd, and she takes it as a sign. She shows up. He actually seems pretty irritated that she showed up, and he's upset. She begins exploring and finds the house disgustingly dirty. Every single surface is covered in black grime and dust. And she's like, this is actually ridiculous. It seems like only two rooms kind of seem lived in. She walks by one, and it's a sitting room where he eats, and that's basically it. And where he has a trail clean from his walking to and from the sink to wash dishes. Every portrait on the wall has a sword in it, the matching sword. And we switch quickly to Arthur's perspective, and he's upset because Opal is still bleeding and she's leaving. So he pays her, and she asks for more to get supplies. Arthur has a flashback memory once she's gone of his mother being stitched together by his father. He's 14. In this memory, she's mad because he's leaving, and he does it anyway, and the house helps him. And then he gets to his dad's truck and just drives away. The next time he sees his mother, her eyes are coming out of the socket or something and it's being stitched together, which was, like, a weird. [00:15:41] Speaker A: No, I think they said that the next time he. She saw it, there's something literally stabbed through her eye. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Yep. That makes sense. [00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:48] Speaker B: They were like, something or the socket of her eye. Anyway, it was abrupt for me. I was like, okay, so we get a lot of injuries here as a warden. [00:15:56] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Then he reveals that he's currently 28 years old, and we had already found out that Opal is 26 years old, so he's two years older. [00:16:04] Speaker A: And I feel like he blames himself a little bit for what happened to his parents since he left, since he ran away, it seems. But I don't know. [00:16:12] Speaker B: I'd agree with that. [00:16:13] Speaker A: He's very close to the chest on his emotions. Even when we're in his perspective, even. [00:16:18] Speaker B: At the halfway point of the book, it's a little unclear. Okay. What have you been feeling this whole time, buddy? [00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just a poor little baby. All right, so Opal gets home and asks Jasper to put the spoons that she stole from Starling House on ebay, but he can't do it because the WI fi is turned off. So then Opal goes to talk to Bev, who's the owner of the motel, to get her to turn it back on. Bev tells her while she's over there that some people from Gravely power are staying there for a while, which she hates. And so she just complains about it. And then Opal asks if Bev knows anything about Starling House, and Bev says that she'll just tell her a story about it, you know, like they always do. It goes like this. There are three Gravely brothers who made money selling coal that they dug up from the riverbank. And then this girl, Eleanor Starling, just comes and is found by this family. And so they take her in. She's what came in between them. She was odd, not very good looking, but she was doted on by the brothers after they found her. Then the eldest brother was found dead in the mud without a scratch on him, but with his face pulled as if he had seen some unspeakable horror. And then quickly after that, only a few weeks after, Eleanor and the middle brother become engaged. And this is when the town begins to talk about how maybe Eleanor had something to do with it and seems a little fishy. The night of their wedding, a fog rolls through which dissipates in the morning. And when it does, they find John Gravely at the bottom of the mine shaft with the same expression that his brother had on his face. And they say there were small footprints down in the shaft. Not only that, but they don't find Eleanor until a couple days later, wandering around in her wedding dress, laughing. And Eleanor tells them that she went for a walk after the wedding and got lost, and she was completely unaware of anything that happened with her husband. They obviously don't believe her, but they also don't arrest her because there's nothing that they have on her. So she uses her late husband's fortune to build the Starling house. She apparently had many different contractors who made different parts of the house and then were told to destroy whatever molds they'd made. Especially for the keys, I guess she made. Specifically, she made four keys and the molds were destroyed. She wasn't seen again once the gate was put in to her house. And then for years there was nothing and most kind of forgot about her and the house until the youngest and the only original Gravely brother left was killed with his horse on some train tracks. Like he was somehow on train tracks when the midnight train rolled through. And people are like, that's so suspicious. [00:18:54] Speaker B: They were like, the horse's hoof got stuck. Stuck or something. I was like, why are we reaching? [00:19:00] Speaker A: And yet he still didn't get off the horse and, yeah, missed the train. So they were like, this is weird. Like, there's no way that happened. But obviously there's no proof connected to the widow to that death. But that night, the lights in the Starling house go dark. The sheriff tries to investigate a couple weeks later, but it goes nowhere. And the town is ready to leave it all be. But they can't for three reasons. One, Eleanor and her book are now semi famous, and so they can't really sweep it all under the rug when people keep coming around and asking about it. Two, somebody else showed up and said that his name was Starling, and then the gates opened up for him and the lights came back on and it just seemed to be running like normal. They couldn't leave this house abandoned because somebody else came and was like, hey, actually, it's my house now. And three, they're like, it kind of seems like there's a curse on the town. And we think maybe, you know, we're not going to say it or anything, but Eleanor might be haunting us or like cursing us in some way. So that's the story. What do you think, Eleanor? Do you think she's good or bad? I have a feeling it's somewhere in between, but that's kind of a cop out. [00:20:06] Speaker B: I think Eleanor is good, if I'm being honest. I think she's the good guy. I don't know if I thought that at this point in the book, but now that we're halfway through through, I'm kind of thinking she's the good guy. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:20] Speaker B: What I noticed during this chapter, and it repeats several times, is the way that this author writes stories. She just puts the full story in front of you, or at least one version of it, because there's a couple of different versions of this story, and she'll just put it in front of you rather than give you little hints here and there or, like slip it into a conversation between Characters. And I kind of like it. [00:20:45] Speaker A: I like it because it repeats so many times. Because at this point, we're halfway through the book and we've technically gotten the same story three different ways. [00:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I like how she just plainly puts it in front of you rather than trying to slip it in between, like, things. [00:21:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:01] Speaker B: So you're getting, like, a full story every time you read it, even if it is told in three different ways. [00:21:07] Speaker A: Right. Honestly, this is kind of interesting because some authors really use the book as a format to be like, you know what? I'm gonna tell you a story here. Like, you understand this is a book. So if I break off this chapter and then give you a full story, you understand what I'm doing here. Whereas other authors are like, no, I need to make it as realistic as possible. So I need to make sure that it's in a conversation. I need to make sure that it's blah, blah, blah, and I need to make sure it actually. As if two people are having a conversation rather than us reading it in book. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Does that make sense? [00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:21:34] Speaker A: The way that authors choose to use their medium is very interesting, and I. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Like how she's using hers. Anyway, next chapter, Opal is typing up the story that she just heard from Bev, and Bev says she doesn't trust the boy that lives there. Now, according to the rumors, his parents died and he didn't call the police for days, and then he seemed indifferent about their death. Bev is warning her to stay away from the house, to just not go there anymore. And Jasper, Opal's little brother, has an asthma attack during his sleep. And Opal takes care of him and resigns to go back to the house to make money because he needs something to get him out of here. She returns with cleaning supplies and works six more days until Sunday. She's in the library looking through books and sees Arthur going through books labeled as Past Starling family Members. So he's kind of like shuffling through different journals and different things written about people who are named Sterling. He dismisses her, and she gets right back to work. Many weeks pass, and she's continuously working for him. She continues cleaning without seeing him other than to say hello, goodbye. And he hands her money as she's out the door. [00:22:47] Speaker A: And she says in the chapter that she feels like she belongs there and this house is being nice. But my question is, will the house always be nice? Because at this point, we weren't entirely sure what the house was. I wasn't sure if the house itself was evil. Or if whatever is happening in there is corrupting it in some way. Because when we're in Arthur's point of view and he thinks about the house, he seems to think that the house is mean or at least upset. But he's been with the house when the house was happy because he said, like, when my parents were around, the house was happy, and it used to look nicer, but now the house is upset and mean all the time, and they have an antagonistic relationship. But I don't know. [00:23:22] Speaker B: I love the way he talks about the house. Sometimes he's like, stop being a. Like, you're kind of being mean to me. [00:23:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:30] Speaker B: And he'll, like, purposely put his thumbnail through the wallpaper just to spite it. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm like, is that because he's being mean to the house? The house is mean to him? Or is like. Or is this inherently, like, an evil house? I just wasn't sure at this point. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I totally get that. I think at this point, I don't know, it feels like a secondary character. So it's. It has its own personality, which I love. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Chapter 8. The house is looking nicer in March, so she decides that she's going to bring some rugs outside to beat the dust out. But then she gets locked outside in the cold. And then Arthur comes from the woods and asks where her jacket is, because she doesn't have a jacket on, and she says that it's with her brother. So he begins to ask her questions about where she lives and who she lives with and how her situation is going. And she explains the situation pretty quickly since she doesn't really want him to fire her for the sass that she's been giving him this entire conversation, because she's getting a little bit fed up with his questions and, like, wondering why he's worried about her, basically. And she says that she hasn't seen her father in years, Jasper's father. They never even met, and her mother died in a car accident. She also says that her money is not for her, so when she leaves, he ends up giving her a coat, but he doesn't give it to her directly. He folds it under the envelope of money that he normally gives her and, like, leaves it on the couch, that she'll pick up everything and then just leave, and he won't have to interact with her directly, which I just thought was funny. And then we find out in his perspective that the coat that Arthur gave Opal was actually the last thing that his mother gave him before she died. And he even found an old note from her inside, but he ripped it up quickly because he got pretty upset about that when he spoke, saw it, and he does some drills with his sword. He's fast and brutal. Not at all like his mom, who I guess was very graceful with the sword. And I'm like, okay, so are they, like, the keepers of the supernatural in the area? I'm not entirely sure. It's still not super explained what the warden of the house does. [00:25:27] Speaker B: I mean, the last chapter we read for this half kind of explains it. [00:25:31] Speaker A: But at this point, it was. I was still like, I don't really know what you're doing. [00:25:35] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I was just kind of going with it. See what I mean? Information was just being given to me, and I was like, okay, I wasn't doing anything with it. [00:25:45] Speaker A: After this, he doesn't feel any better. So he tattoos supernatural creatures onto his body. And basically, like, a lot of his body is covered in these tattoos that he gave himself. And he's gotten better at it, but some of them he did very badly at. The next day, as Opal is walking to work, a woman, Elizabeth Bain, stops her and asks if she works at Starling House. She says that she's with Innovative Solutions Consulting Group, who work for Gravely. And she says she would like to speak to the current occupant since there are some legal issues that need to be worked out. And Gravely wants to expand, and so they're trying to see he'll give up the land in order for them to expand. And this woman, Bane, wants Opal to speak to him, and it can be very rewarding for her. She tries to imply that she will give her a lot of money, but Opal just declines. She leaves at the house. She doesn't mention anything to Arthur about this occurring. It just seems so fishy. Whatever this is is automatically, like, a red flag. I'm like, there's something wrong with you. I don't like it. And this is when I was like, whatever is happening at Gravely is the actual evil rather than whatever supernatural elements are happening at the house. Those are the bad people. I have a feeling. [00:26:56] Speaker B: See? I was like, I guess we did need a bad guy, because this is when I decided the house wasn't the bad guy. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, no, it's these people. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I was like, okay. This just means that we're okay at the house, at least. Yeah. Maybe not what's under the house, but the house itself is fine because they introduced the bad guy here. [00:27:17] Speaker A: We were on the same page. We're like, nope, this is it. Red flag. It's them. [00:27:23] Speaker B: One day after work, Opal is, like, kind of just hanging out. And then she leaves and stares at the power plant for a moment, which is a weird moment in the book. And then she decides to go to the library. So she goes to the library before closing. She asked Charlotte, the librarian for anything on the Starling House or Starlings in general. And she's asking Charlotte for help, but Charlotte's like, actually, all I have are these things, and I don't know if they're even helpful. And she's like, okay, so you've been through them. Can you help me go through them? And she's like, can you tell me what you've been doing lately? Because I know you're not up to any good. And she's like, actually, no. So Charlotte's like, okay, F you. Bye. Good luck. Which I thought was hilarious. Charlotte is kind of like her friend, but she's like an older woman who's gone through a lot of school. She's the smartest person Opal knows, and Charlotte is constantly bringing her books and bringing them directly to their motel room. Opal goes through everything and finds a phone number that she recognizes. It gives her a major panic attack, and she's rushing out. Charlotte catches her and makes her tell her what's going on. Opal lies and says she's trying to get her ged and she's taking this architecture class, so she was just really curious. And then Charlotte calls her on her shit again, and finally Opal confesses to everything except for the man who lives there and their relationship, and they discuss the different stories around the house. Charlotte shows Opal a recording of an interview she did with a woman who used to be at the Sterling House. She very specifically said this woman was from a black family. And she said that. And Opal was like, oh, I know what that means. [00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah, because they're in Kentucky. [00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So the story basically is there were three of the Gravely brothers who owned coal mines, and they purchased a man named Nathaniel Boone. Nathaniel worked in the mines and kept digging down further and further and further until he hit hell itself the next morning. One of the brothers was found bloated and blue, and Nathaniel was still in Eden, but they didn't own him anymore. So instead of leaving, he actually just found work on a boat nearby. And then he married and went on to every single night dream of the other two brothers and basically kind of curse them and want them to die. So Then one day he found Eleanor, and she was by the river and she was trying to drown herself. And he saves her from drowning herself by telling her a story about the hole in the ground and the things that live there. Nathaniel was not surprised to hear about another brother's death because Eleanor tells him that another brother had died or that she built a house there. And she doesn't walk into the river. And then he leaves Eden. He's like, my time here is done. And he's gone. [00:30:18] Speaker A: Well, he gets a note that says, because of a past friendly deed or something like, you need to leave. And so he's like, okay, please. [00:30:25] Speaker B: So finally, he's gone. [00:30:26] Speaker A: When we found the number, and she tells us that it is her mother's number that she realized was in the Gravely documents, I, for some reason, was thinking that was going to be Opal's father. Oh, that she had an affair with the Gravely dad. And that's why that makes sense. See, this is my thing. I put ishy Gravely. But then when I was thinking about it, I was like, we did have a mention of her father already. So maybe it's not that. My other question was, there's an actual crack where evil pours out, which is very interesting, but how much do they listen and does the warden have control over them? [00:31:09] Speaker B: See, what I think is funny is that you're taking this whole story as the truth. Opal, meanwhile, is like, I don't know if any of this is true or anything. [00:31:18] Speaker A: I took the first story as true. I'm taking this story as true. I think it's all true in different sides of the story. [00:31:24] Speaker B: It is a lot of blending of the story, though, because we're getting his viewpoint of it. [00:31:29] Speaker C: So we are in chapter 10, and Opal is walking back to Starling House the next morning, thinking about everything that she's learned and what she thinks is true. What's not true? Bane pulls up along the side of the road and tells her that they'll drive her to work instead. And once she's in the car, she says that it's not just Starling House that they're trying to pursue, but she just wants to talk to her a little bit more about some of the anomalies in town. And she gives Opal a tablet and starts swiping through and showing her all the strange and fatal events that have happened around them. Then she even shows her the picture of her mom's death. And Opal has a flashback to the wreck and how she left her mom the car. And this is when Bane also mentions Jasper. So Opal knows that this is a threat and they want her to give them information about the house and about Arthur and maybe take some pictures. All she really says is, okay. Then she tells them everything that she knows because they kind of won't let her get out of the car until she does and she leaves. Arthur is at the door when she arrives at the house, and he seems upset that she's late, but she immediately pukes on his shoes at this point. [00:32:36] Speaker A: Because we're about to do a character. [00:32:38] Speaker C: Flip here, but I was reading this at work and I had to stop the book, and so I closed it. But I wrote a note for this because I'm just like, can they please have a conversation? For the love of God, can they have an actual conversation? 10 chapters. I need them to have a real conversation, please. [00:32:53] Speaker B: And they really don't. [00:32:54] Speaker C: They don't. [00:32:56] Speaker B: They don't ever. [00:32:57] Speaker C: They get better at the very, very end. [00:33:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:01] Speaker C: What we've been reading, even then, it's not very good. [00:33:04] Speaker B: I think the second half of the book, we're actually going to get some good conversations between them, but right now it's just not there. [00:33:11] Speaker C: Fingers crossed, because, oh, my gosh, they are terrible conversationalists. Okay, so in Arthur's point of view, he didn't sleep last night because the Ms. Rose for the second time this week, and it's been doing that more frequently. He had to track down whatever came out, and then he waited for the sun to rise and for Opal, because she kind of always cheers him up, but then she doesn't show up when she normally does. So he kind of starts freaking out a little bit and he's like, I'm not freaking out. Okay, him, the house are, like, having conversations about this because the house is also seems to be kind of freaking out that she's not here yet. But they're like, both trying to be calm and cool, but it's not really working for either of them. He can also tell that there are people outside the gates and it makes them uneasy, but he doesn't think that they are clever enough to get inside. But he knows that they try to set up sensors and have cameras and random things. He's also gotten a couple business cards shoved through his fence, but he just normally tosses them or burns them or something. Otherwise, this woman, Bane will have to wait until he's gone so deep that he has ridden the House of Evil himself. And so by then, it'll just be a normal house and she can come however she wants. So basically, he's saying she'll never get inside unless I defeat the evil that's here. And then that's because it'll be a normal house and it won't have all the protections in place, I guess. But then Opal comes through the gates, and he feels like she belongs there and feels like she should be walking towards him in his clothes towards their house, and he feels everything that he shouldn't. He tries to suppress his feelings. He's like, I haven't felt these things for years, since I was a teenager. He shoved them down deep, deep, deep down. That's what he does. But Opal comes through the gate, and then she gets the house. And obviously, of course, again, she throws up on his shoes. So then he takes her to the bathroom and tries to help her. And while they're in the bathroom, she tells him what happened. And he says that he doesn't even care what she does or what she tells people. And then he leaves. But he doesn't mean that. And so, again, I said, for the love of God, please have more than a two minute conversation, I beg of you. [00:35:10] Speaker B: So this is a chapter where I started getting a theory about her mom's death, specifically because Arthur kind of alludes to feeling really guilty over what's happened to Opal. And he's like, it's all my fault, and this is the least that I owe her. And he kind of says it in, like, one word here and one word there. And so I'm kind of picking up that maybe Arthur had made her mom, in some way or another, drive into the river. And then he was the one who saved Opal because she was like. I remember watching my mother fade down further while I was going up. And then she said that she remembers she felt like she was in warm arms and that the nurses had told her that a lot of people who drown feels like that right before they die. And so I'm thinking maybe he, like, pulled her out. I don't know. That's like a very stereotypical thing, though. [00:36:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I could kind of see that, or if it was his fault anyway, because he couldn't stop the evil from getting out of his house. And so he understands that the evil was going somewhere, and then he's able to somehow save her. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I also already have the theory by here. I just didn't write it down that the evil, quote unquote, that keeps getting out is something like a hellhound, because they've already alluded to it being hell. Like the depths of hell underneath the house, or whatever pit opened up in the underworld. So if creatures keep coming out, I kind of feel like it's a hellhound searching for people who are evil because they're like, I wish these brothers were dead. And then the brothers are suddenly dead. Right, Sorry, just throwing theories out. [00:36:45] Speaker C: No, that's totally fine. Makes sense. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Our next chapter, she cleans up half heartedly. So she has just puked all over his shoes. He, like, took care of her, so he's like, no, you can stay for work for the day. So she stays. [00:36:59] Speaker A: Well, he just leaves. [00:37:00] Speaker C: He doesn't even say, like, you can stay and she can go. He just was like, do whatever you. [00:37:03] Speaker A: Want and then leave. [00:37:05] Speaker B: But she stays, which is like, go home, girl. And she half heartedly cleans and she's like, I'm kind of dusting. And then she ends up in the library. The house kind of guides her to this one book and she's like, I feel like I just kind of like run my fingers over the spines and one feels warmer and I'll pick it out. So the house is literally showing her where this thing is. And it turns out in the book there's a letter that's been hidden. And she's just like, all right. And steals it. [00:37:35] Speaker A: As soon as she sees who it's. [00:37:36] Speaker C: For, which is Arthur, she's like, yep, that's a plane. And put that in my pocket, thank you. [00:37:41] Speaker B: So she puts it in her pocket and just doesn't read it immediately. And then she's like, all right, I'm done for the day. She goes to leave, and when she's walking out, she finds Arthur in the driveway with a car. And she's like, are you giving me a car? He's like, no, I'm asking you not to walk here anymore. It's just like, oh, so you're giving me a car? And he's like, no, you can only have it so you can get to work. She's a fine, fine. So she takes the car. It's his father's old beaten truck. He also gives her his cell phone number and then, like, showing it to her a little bit. And she's like, it looks like he's never touched that cell phone day in his life, but okay. And then he leaves. Just because that's the way he does things. He just abruptly leaves. When he's done talking, she gets back to the motel, and Jasper, her little brother, is still at his friend's house. Opal is like, you know what? I've been kind of bored until now. So she finally brings out the letter. And the first half of the letter she's reading basically says, dear Arthur. It's from his mother. She mentions that they're the wardens, that she's taking care of the house. She doesn't directly say anything. And at the end, she mentions a part where he ran away. So Opal's like, oh, he's tried to run from this life before, and somehow he's still stuck here. Then she gets a text from Elizabeth, and she's demanding a photo of the house. So Opal's debating whether or not to send her a photo of the letter she stole, but she ends up deleting it and texting Arthur instead, asking if he is canned tuna. Then the next day, she surprises him by bringing the cat that she has been bringing up this whole story so far. And she named the cat Hellcat because it's just a little demon, but it hangs out with her sometimes. And she's brought it to him and just kind of releases it into the house. And he's like, what are you doing? She goes, you gave me a truck, so I got you a cat. And he's like, I didn't want this. [00:39:51] Speaker C: But, you know, he does, because in his own recollections, he's like, my parents never got me a pet. [00:39:55] Speaker B: He was like, yeah, I'm lonely. I wasn't allowed to have a pet. He's dealing with this cat running around his house, and she uses it as a distraction to go back to the library and hiding the letter back in the book she found. And then she's whispering to the house for them to hide it. And then later, she finds actually that the book is completely gone, which is good for the house for listening. [00:40:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:18] Speaker B: She kind of knows this whole time that the house has its own personality, but she doesn't know at the same time. [00:40:26] Speaker A: Yeah, she keeps saying, I know it's. [00:40:28] Speaker C: Not real, but it kind of feels like it's real, and so I'm just gonna do this anyway. But it's also not real, but she. [00:40:34] Speaker B: Just treats the house like it's real. [00:40:36] Speaker C: Yeah, but there are, like, inclinations of things like this of, oh, it kind of feels like one is a warmer. And then when she goes and puts it back, and it's like, hey, you need to make sure this is safe from other eyes, and disappears. So feel like the house is a helping hand trying to make sure that they understand each other, to me at least. [00:40:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:53] Speaker C: Now, the cat is very happy at the house and settles in pretty nicely. Arthur asked about the cat, and she tells him about it, and then why she needs the money so bad for her brother, obviously. But when she asks about what the house wants from him, Arthur's just like, you should go. I don't want to talk about this anymore. No, no, no, I'm going to cut you off here. You need to leave. So Opal is disappointed on the drive home, but she tells herself not to be and is like, he doesn't owe you anything. You shouldn't be thinking about him. Just don't worry about it. She drives to go get Jasper from his friend's house because he still hasn't been back for a couple days. And the mom is a little hostile to her, specifically because she doesn't go to church, and especially because she's not actually his mom. She doesn't entirely know how to speak to Opal, especially because they are so poor. And so she's very condescending, very like, well, he can just stay here. We have food for him here. And like you is implied. But she was like, no, go get my brother. Get him out here. We're gonna go home. And so finally, the mom relents and goes and get him. As he's getting his stuff, the mom sees the truck that Opal now has and tries to warn Opal off of the house and off of the people and tells her that many years ago, her husband saw that specific truck leaving after the turbines blew up in one. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Of the power plants. [00:42:10] Speaker C: And I guess he mentioned it, the sheriff, but by the time they were investigating, the parents had already died, which is, again, this was his. Arthur's dad's truck. So this is. The parents had already died, and so they didn't do anything with it. But she's like, they have bad vibes over there. Did you know that a Chinese couple used to live in that house? They weren't even Chinese, they were Japanese. That's what the footnotes say. Which I'm also very curious about the footnotes and if we will get to know anything about who this quote unquote author is. [00:42:40] Speaker B: The footnotes are a hit and miss for me. I read some of them and I'm like, oh, that's kind of fun. And then I read some others and I'm like, I didn't need to know that. [00:42:49] Speaker C: That I also feel the same way. [00:42:50] Speaker A: But it does give a lot of. [00:42:51] Speaker C: Backstory for the town. [00:42:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it gets really well thought through on the history of different things in the town. [00:43:00] Speaker C: So Jasper finally comes out and is confused as to how they have a car. And Opal lies and says that she got it from, like, these random people and then bribes him with pizza. And then when they're back at the motel, Jasper is in the shower while Opal is on the computer. And she gets an email from Elizabeth Bain and asks for pictures of inside the house, outside the house by Friday. Then she sees an email to Jasper from Gravely Power that they've accepted his application and would like to schedule an interview and she deletes it. And she's actually pretty upset that he would want to work for that company when he knows how badly they treated the town and Jasper had asthma and, like, certain things because of how things are bad in the water supply, things are bad at the food supply. There's just certain things about the town that is just not great. And she's like, why would you want to stay here? Please do not do it. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:50] Speaker C: So she deletes it from his email and then blocks that email from ever coming again. Literally blocks the entire emails. He will never get an email from them. And then she gets a goodnight text from Arthur, which she's like, oh, my God, he was so mean to me. But then he ended up saying good night. Later, she doesn't text him back, though. This is when time passes quickly. She continues to clean, but she does take the pictures that Bain wants every single week. Bain also tells her that they're going to send her better phone so they can get better quality pictures because they're too blurry and they're too this and they're too that. And when she goes into the office to get her package, she runs into Charlotte and she asks if she can go through the rest of the Gravely papers and try to figure out why her mom and a Gravely were connected. And I just don't have a good feeling about that was my whole thing. [00:44:36] Speaker B: About what specifically? [00:44:38] Speaker C: Specifically about the photos and the text messages to Elizabeth Bain. [00:44:42] Speaker B: I would like to note that there was an emoji used in this book. [00:44:49] Speaker C: Oh, when there's text messages? Yeah. [00:44:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It was used on page 100 and I was like, why are we putting the praying hands? It was really weird to me. But it also makes sense because there's images in the book too. There are? [00:45:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:03] Speaker B: So it's not like a far fetch. It was just really odd for me to read that this whole time. I'm like literally yelling at her, please just tell your brother that he's gonna go to this fancy school so he doesn't consider having this job. Also tell your little brother about the job you have because it kind of sounds dangerous. [00:45:21] Speaker C: I wasn't really like that invested in their relationship with what she was telling him. But when we get a couple chapters later that I was like, can you just tell him what's going on, please? Because this is just making things so much harder than they need to be. [00:45:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I got invested in it right here because this is when I was like, oh, 100%. This bitch is going to use her brother against her because it's her weak point and she's going to use it as a reason to get her to do things she doesn't want to do. [00:45:49] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, that's true. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And it happens. [00:45:53] Speaker C: It does happen. [00:45:54] Speaker B: We already know that. So now it's April. Arthur is now leaving her coffee and food in the mornings because she came in one day and he was like, that's your breakfast. And it was like an old gas station coffee donut. And so he starts leaving her food, which is like, he makes her eggs and stuff like that. So that's adorable. Jasper hasn't gotten a follow up email about the job. He's actually kind of being really evasive to her and moody whenever he's around her. And he's been spending a lot of his time at his friend's house. Opal says that the house is getting really clean and it's the beginning of May now and she's starting to worry if Arthur's gonna say it's clean enough and not employ her anymore. She still wants the paychecks, but she's nervous that they're gonna stop anytime soon. She tries thinking up new ways to clean every single day or how to improve the house. She painting like baseboards and stuff like that. And she even learns how to like, spackle and repair drywall. She mentions that the only two rooms that she hasn't cleaned in the house are the attic and the basement. Elizabeth asks her if there is a basement over text message and then uses a photo of her brother at school as collateral for her to find it. So, like, immediately she's using the brother. The next day she tries to find the attic, but the house is making it really hard for her to get there. She's like, I keep getting really lost and I end up on the second floor in a random room that I've seen a million times before and I just can't get there. And then she like yells to the house to stop being a dick about it. And then she goes back to the staircase and suddenly she's able to get to the attic. Turns out the attic is Arthur's room too. She looks around. He has a makeshift studio for, like, tattoos. And then she notices there's a sword sitting in the corner of the room. She also notices that the walls are, like, covered in drawings. And she looks all over the drawings and she's like, wow, these are really, really good. And then she finds one of a girl in the woods looking beautiful. And then the only color he's used in any of his drawings, of course, is in one drawing. And it's to color her hair red so she knows it's her. And then she's like, this is weird. [00:48:18] Speaker C: And, like, runs out of the house. [00:48:21] Speaker B: And she ends up running into direct, directly into Arthur, who is tending to his garden, a little flower garden. And she notices that he planted this garden among his parents graves. There's a weird moment between the two of them where she's like, sparks are flying. But he's also, like, planting flowers at his mother's grave. So I found it really odd. And I was like, why is this the moment we're choosing? And then he ends up walking away. And as he's walking away, he punches glass and hurts his hand. And then he's gone. And she's like, okay, bye, and leaves her cell. [00:49:00] Speaker C: The only thing I was thinking in this chapter was, okay, because you said that I am the kiss committee of this podcast. [00:49:06] Speaker B: Yes, ma'am. [00:49:08] Speaker C: And so this is when I was like, oh, we might finally get some vibes soon. Because before, I wasn't entirely sure if this is going to be a romantic book. They seem to sort of like each other or be intrigued by each other in some way. But I wasn't sure if it was going to go entirely romantic, especially because we did the Dreadful Story, and we did think that was going romantic, and then it didn't. [00:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:27] Speaker C: So I was trying to not get ahead of myself, but I was like, okay, this might be where some vibes start coming in. If she knows that he kind of wants her, and she might also be feeling that she wants him. But then she immediately mentions, yeah, for a second I forgot that he was ugly. And I was like, so you still think he's ugly? So maybe we're not doing the vibes yet. [00:49:48] Speaker B: She does say that. And I was like, okay, but she also mentions herself that she's not cute either. [00:49:55] Speaker C: That's true. [00:49:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, they're unattractive, so I guess it works. [00:50:00] Speaker B: Ugly match in heaven. Yeah, even ugly people need to find love. Okay. [00:50:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, just. [00:50:07] Speaker B: What? [00:50:08] Speaker A: No, I'm saying. [00:50:09] Speaker C: Yeah, just, I guess they're in the. [00:50:11] Speaker A: Same league, so it's fine. [00:50:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I just think it's weird when an author describes their characters as ugly because, like. Right. Not every character is beautiful, but at the same time, ugly is just such. [00:50:23] Speaker C: A weird, ugly word. [00:50:24] Speaker A: Like, weird. [00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:25] Speaker C: Described somebody. [00:50:27] Speaker B: You can just describe them as, I don't know, normal. Like, they're normal looking. They're not beautiful. Like, above average beautifulness. You don't have to say they're straight up ugly, bro. [00:50:40] Speaker C: But I guess it does allude to the fact of, like, oh, I just remembered that he's ugly. So it's like when you do meet somebody, your opinions and your feelings change for them. Also, your compatibility level differs. [00:50:52] Speaker B: True. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Whatever. [00:50:53] Speaker B: That means that by the end of the book, she's gonna think he's beautiful. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Though that does happen. [00:50:58] Speaker C: So the next chapter. Opal is restless, but she and her brother are hanging out at the mall, and he finally shows her the video that he just finished. And it's of this woman screaming, but smoke is coming out. And at the very last second, she sees this weird animal creature. And it's sort of wolf like, but not. And then she's like, oh, wow, that was a really weird effect. And he's like, what are you talking about? And then he clams up and he doesn't want to talk about it again because what she was commenting on wasn't actually in the video. So he's like, what are you talking about? [00:51:24] Speaker B: Like, the video was super short. How can you lose your attention span that quickly? [00:51:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Then she finds the video later on his laptop to replay it, and every single time that she replays it, she never sees the animal again. So she's like, what was I thinking? What did I see? That's so weird. On Monday, when she goes back to work, Arthur apologizes for punching the window because he's like, you can leave if you feel frightened or anything. You can leave. Like, it's. If you need to go, you can go. And she, in her mind is like. [00:51:48] Speaker A: I just felt his grief. [00:51:49] Speaker C: It wasn't anything that I thought was an actual violent act. He tells her that she can obviously can stop coming to the house since it's so clean, and tries to give her the last envelope of cash, but it ends up dropping to the floor. She grabs it, but she says that there's still more to clean, and she likes his reaction. The corner of his mouth turns up and she's like, oh, yeah, I know that he actually wants me here. [00:52:13] Speaker B: She's like, I kind of see something that resembles an indent of a dimple. [00:52:18] Speaker C: And she likes that she's gonna keep coming, even though it seems very dangerous for her to start liking him and to start thinking about him as somebody other than her employer. [00:52:29] Speaker A: On her way home, she sees her. [00:52:30] Speaker C: Brother walking down the road, and she's like, what the heck are you doing here? So he gets in the car and he tells her that Elizabeth Bane came to his school for him to remind Opal of her priorities. And she's like, what happened? What did you say? He was like, yeah, I said I would do exactly that. [00:52:47] Speaker A: Huh? [00:52:47] Speaker C: Yes, ma'am. Of course, ma'am. And then I booked it as soon as I could. And she's like, okay, good, good, good. Jasper says that he knows that Opal has been working at Starling House because some of the things that she saw had that S stamped onto it. So he's like, did you think I was dumb? And he wasn't gonna say anything because she seemed happier. And they also, like, had a little bit of money, so it seemed like things were going fine, even though he was weary about her going over there, and he thought that Opal would tell him some point, and she was just trying to, like, build herself up to it, but she never did. And so he was getting frustrated with her because of that. He tells her to stay away from the house, and she tries to tell him that it's fine. It's all talk. Everybody is just rumors. There's nothing going on in there. Like, it's not dangerous. And she tells him to give her a little bit more time to get him out of here, and he gets angry, then gets out of the car and says that he's gonna go stay at his friend's house. This is when I was like, girl, you should not keep it a secret from him that you are currently one payment away from having him accepted into this academy. Like, as soon as that goes through, he's going to be going to that school. He should know that. I don't understand why he doesn't know that yet. [00:53:49] Speaker B: Girl, I hit that point four chapters ago. [00:53:51] Speaker A: I know, but I'm like, this is when I was like, you really need to tell him. This is the point where you should be telling him everything, especially because he's so mad at you for keeping things from him. But right before he leaves, he tells Opal the message that Bane wanted him to deliver to her, which was 10. 1093. He leaves. Opal isn't Even sure that he recognizes what that's for. And it's actually Opal's real birthday. She forged her birthday on documents in order to make sure that she had custody of her brother. So I'm assuming that her actual reported whatever has her saying that she's older than she really is so that she could have custody of her brother when her mother died. And I'm assuming she wasn't yet 18, and she forged documents in order to make sure that she was 18 so that child Protective Services didn't take them away. Because of this and because of how she realizes this is a threat and that she knows Opal's real birthday and that her brother could potentially be taken away from her. She turns around and she goes back to Starling House because Elizabeth wanted her to get a picture of the basement and which we had covered. And so she turns around because she wasn't going to do it before, and she decides that she has to. It now switches to Arthur's point of view, and he wakes up and notices that the gate and the door are open. He can hear something in the house. He also hears some clicks, like somebody is maybe taking a picture. He goes into the pantry and then down into the trapdoor. He's only ever been there once before with his mother when he was young. And he almost decapitates Opal with the sword that he brought. But a stone slides from his feet and the swing goes wide. He is still able to pin her against the wall somehow. I was not entirely sure how they ended up in that position, but he did say that that's how they ended up. And when he realizes how close he is to her, he steps back and onto her phone. When he picks it up, even though the screen is cracked, he can see that there are pictures of his house on her phone that she has taken. And he's upset, but she says, like, hey, why can't I take pictures? Of course I'm sending it to those people. Also, I have questions, you know, like, I have many questions about this place, so maybe you should answer some of them. Then he says that he doesn't have any answers for her. And they hear more noises, and he once again tells her to run. [00:56:00] Speaker B: So there was a part in this book where, because it's when she's first pulled aside by this lady, she tells him, she's like, she wanted me to take pictures of your house and to pay me for them. And he was like, okay. And she was like, okay? And he was like, it doesn't matter. As Long as she doesn't get in the house, she's fine. She'll never get over here. She'd have to get past the gate, and she can't get past the gate. So as long as she doesn't get past the gate, you can tell her whatever the fuck you want. Basically, yeah. And he says that. And he doesn't tell her not to send pictures to this lady so that he's upset that she's been sending these pictures. Like, come on, dude. When she told you it. When it first happened, he was like, okay. [00:56:42] Speaker A: But he also said, but she can't come into the house. You're basically showing her everything in the house through pictures. So I think that might be why he's a little upset. But I. I don't necessarily think he was, like, out of proportion. I understand that he's upset, and I would probably also be upset, but he also isn't telling her things directly. He's just like, yeah, do whatever you want. And then having an internal monologue about blah, blah, blah, and then she ends up doing whatever she wants. And he's like, why did you do that? [00:57:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So you understand? Like, I was like, you can't be upset, buddy. [00:57:10] Speaker A: But also I was like, he's just trying his best. My poor little baby. He's going through it. [00:57:16] Speaker B: She leaves. He tells her to leave. She leaves. She pulls into the motel parking lot. She's still freaking out a little bit. Bev is checking on her because she looks like she's been freaking out a little bit. She, like, kind of thrumps into her room, and she notices that the storage crate of gravly family stuff has been left there by Charlotte. She kind of looks through their photo album, and she finds a pic of her mother, who's leaning on the car that she had when Opal was young. On the back. Back of the photo, it says Delilah Jewel Gravely. And then Opal is like, those three letters mean something. And checks her copy of the Underworld, and it says DJ G in it. So it has her mom's initials in the book. She also notices that underneath the djg, it also says, and it's handwritten in there, befriend beasts, children, and follow them down. She then starts recalling the story of the Underworld about Nora Lee who had bad dreams. Nora Lee was left in the woods as a baby and found by a fox who looked like he wanted to eat her. Nora Lee pleaded with the other animals to help her, but none did because he looked so nice. So she ran away. She ran away, followed a river and was about to walk into it when a hare came by who told her about a secret place hidden beneath the world called the Underland. She found it by following the river and followed it down and down and down. In the Underland, she found beasts and whispered her personal story to them. She spent all night there. And the next day when she crawled out from the Underland, she found the skull of the fox. And it's clean and smiling. And it made her smile that the fox was now dead. She tried to move on and live her happily ever after. After that, she built a big stone house with a big stone door on top of that hole. And she locked the way to the Underland. And then she buried the key by the sycamore tree. But she still slept poorly and she was waiting always for the next fox to find her. That. That's a quote from the book. The beasts then greet her as one of their own, and she lived on with them and her bad dreams. And that's the story. [00:59:34] Speaker A: And this is when we're finding out that Opal is a gravely. And not only that, but the fourth key that Arthur has been trying to find for his entire life is apparently just by the sycamore tree, buried. [00:59:46] Speaker B: Wouldn't he have read that book before? [00:59:48] Speaker A: That's what I thought. I was like, didn't you read this book? He. He mentioned like he did. She didn't leave anything except the sword and a children's book. And I'm like, okay, if those are the only two things she left, maybe let's go over the children's book a little bit. Let's be thorough about it. [01:00:02] Speaker B: You know, the children's book is based on some truths here. You know that pretty well. [01:00:07] Speaker A: Why have we not read this book thoroughly? I feel like I. I don't know. As soon as I read the line, I was like, okay, so that's where the fourth key is. Is buried by the sigma tree. I don't know, maybe that's not true, but I'm assuming that's where the fourth key is. [01:00:19] Speaker B: Or maybe he's looked there several times and he's like, it's not effing there. [01:00:23] Speaker A: Maybe he has. We haven't actually talked to him about this yet, but that was my theory. [01:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, because we have one chapter left. [01:00:29] Speaker A: Now that I like. We're re going over this. I realize that we get the same story four ways because I still believe that this is Eleanor's story, just told from a quote unquote story perspective more than even the other ones were. Yeah, and so she's just calling herself Nora Lee in the story. But in reality, this is just another version of the story that we've gotten in the past. So now this is version three, but we're about to get version four in this last chapter. That night she has a nightmare about Starling House taking Arthur into the mist, and she wakes up screaming. So as soon as she wakes up, she makes her way to the house, and there's mist everywhere. She gets there and the gates are already open for her automatically. But she does fall out of the cab of her truck and scratches up her hands in the gravel. Arthur is on the front steps with his sword, and he seems to be finding something invisible. He wants her to leave. And that's when that something invisible attacks him. She brings him into the house and can't act disinterested anymore since he's bleeding out. And he has his hand on her cheek. And then she ends up moving his hand into hers. And then they're, like, holding each other. And because they're holding each other, and he also has blood on his hands from his square scrapes and his neck wound that this invisible creature just gave him. Their blood ends up mingling, and suddenly the mist around her changes. And she now knows that Eleanor Starling never lied about Underland, because now Opal can see that the mist is actually vaguely wolf like and has eyes and is like an actual shape and an actual monster right there. She calls it a beast. Arthur tells her again to run, and he gets up to his knees with the sword in his hands, trying to take this creature on again. But she takes the sword from him, and he tells her not to. Like, you won't be able to do this. And she's like, just shut the up. Obviously, you can't do this. Somebody's got to do this. But immediately she gets knocked down as soon as she tries to attack this monster, and it almost gets her. It seems like it's going to kill her, but she reaches into her pocket and she grabs the iron gate key, puts it in between her knuckle and punches this shadow in the face, I guess, immediately it disappears, and that's it. It disintegrates. So she calls over to Arthur because the entire time he's wailing because he thinks that she's dead. Because the last time that they had this issue, his parents died. So she's like, I'm gonna die. She's gonna die. Everybody's gonna die. She's just wailing that she's dead. And then she Calls over to him, and then, because he's so shocked and happy and surprised, he crawls over to her and then kisses her. They kiss, and I was not expecting this to happen. But even in the story, she's like, I should have known that he would have only kissed me when, like, his very last restraint was gone. And so it was kind of like a quick thing that they were both not exactly expecting. But it's a very good kiss, apparently. [01:03:24] Speaker B: What's funny is I forgot that this kiss happened. And I was like, it'll probably happen next book part. But they did actually kiss in this part. I just forgot it. [01:03:33] Speaker A: They did, but he apologizes as soon as they separate and says that he shouldn't have done that. And they go into the house, and it provides everything that she needs to fix Arthur up. It seems like the house might be worried about him. She cleans his wounds, and he once again asks her to leave. But this time it's a little bit softer. It's not as like, leave. It's like, can you please leave? Like, please. It seems like out of the very depths of his soul, he's like, you should just leave. And she once again refuses. She's like, I'm not leaving this place. And eventually is able to persuade him to tell her the history of everything after she gets a little help from the house, dropping a book into his lap that he wrote about the history of everything, when he's like, no, I'm not going to do that. And then they're like, yeah, here you go. You already wrote it. It's fine. Just read it. So he does. It goes like this. He also says that this isn't going to be a story. This is just facts, 100% facts. He got the facts. He doesn't like to tell stories. He wants to tell facts. So this is what happened. Eleanor married a Gravely, who died the next day of a heart attack. Eleanor never leaves town or remarries. Instead, she builds a house almost directly over where her husband died, and she stays there until her death. There are no blueprints, and anybody who has tried to map the house fails. They think that she might have built a labyrinth in order to keep the things inside. Kind of like King Minos creating the labyrinth in order to keep the bull inside. It's kind of the same concept. After her death, the house chose a new warden who claimed he dreamt of it before he ever saw it. And so then as soon as he comes and finds the house, then automatically his name is now changed to Starling. These People are never actually a Starling to begin with. Their name gets changed once they move and become the warden of the house. That's how it works. They're not actually related to each other 95% of the time, even though Arthur's related to the warden that came before him. But it doesn't usually work like that. This obviously continues even with the last wardens who were Arthur's parents. And they went through the same pattern. And the house seemed to love his parents, but Arthur was selfish and didn't want to take over until it was too late, which now made him vow to be the last warden of Sterling House. And so we basically knew all this information already, I feel like. But these are now what we've considered the facts. Facts, I guess. [01:05:41] Speaker B: Right. What I found interesting, and this is the one part of it that we didn't know, is that he was never Starling, that none of them were ever starlings. They were all brought there by the house. [01:05:54] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:55] Speaker B: And, like, as soon as they got there, they had their name on the deed and they just claimed the Starling name. So none of them are blood related. [01:06:04] Speaker A: I do feel like they've kind of mentioned that, though, in the story before, because she says none of them look the same. It always says, like, oh, they're talking about this owner who was a Japanese couple that lived here, blah, blah. They also talk about the black couple that have lived there. And, like, then they ended up leaving, like, certain things. And, like, I do feel like they kind of already had it woven into this story a little bit that they were not related. [01:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:26] Speaker A: But this directly says, like, they're not related. And you just get a dream and you come to the house. [01:06:32] Speaker B: There were Easter eggs. I never put those Easter eggs together, apparently, because I was like, this is the first I'm hearing of it. But that all makes sense. Actually, now that you've brought it up, I understand. [01:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah. That is it. We are at the end of our chapters. So what do you think is going to happen with the rest of the book? [01:06:49] Speaker B: I want to hear what you think first. [01:06:52] Speaker A: Okay. So this is my problem, is that I have two different ways that I could go with this. Okay. I'm just gonna read my notes first, and then I'm go off from there. [01:07:00] Speaker B: Okay. [01:07:01] Speaker A: This is my prediction. So the greatest I've heard about the stories that have happened to their ancestors, but this one that is in charge now, I'm assuming, wants power for themselves, which is why we get Bane and that whole group, because they want to expand their land I'm assuming that they actually know that evil is inside, and they don't want to just expand their land in order to get, like, more land to put power plant on. They want to expand, quote, unquote, and then go into the depths of hell and use that for whatever they want to use it and, like, nefarious purposes. And then they'll try to break into the house in order to do that and then die. I'm assuming that, like, it's kind of how we end the book is they try to break in somehow with all the information that Opal has told them. So they may be try to infiltrate or, like, try to go directly underneath the house. That's how the house is. Like, try to keep them from that. And then also Opal and Arthur would try to keep them from that. That's how I feel like, that book is gonna be, like, climaxed, and, like, most of them will die ultimately. Leading this is my thing. If the evil is actually defeated, one, will the house stay sentient? If the house stays sentient, will Opal and Arthur continue to leave there? I think that would be very cute if it. It was a nice house that they could live in that's just actually nice to them and they don't have to deal with any of the evils of the world. But also, she wants to get out of that town. She doesn't really want to live there. So I'm like, even if the house is still sentient, even if the house is not sentient, it was just a nice house that they could live in. Like, would they actually want to stay there? That's my thing of, like, them two together. I do feel like they are probably going to be together at the end of this because it does seem to be pushing into the relationship realm with them, even with him saying, like, this isn't a good idea. She is fully committed to the house and to him, it seems like. And she's not gonna back down from this from now on, especially because she can now see the creatures in the house. So I do feel like they'll be together. I just don't know if they'll actually be in this house or not. Yeah, they could potentially leave. Their happy ending could be leaving. [01:08:54] Speaker B: I think their happy ending is gonna be leaving because both of them want out of there, right? Because he tried to leave before, and he's only back because of what happened to his parents. So I think he definitely wants to get out of there. She wants to get out of there. They're fucking gonna be gone. That's their happy ending, is that they're finally out of this town. [01:09:11] Speaker A: This is my other thing was that if the evil was finally cleansed from that spot, will the town itself become better? Which is why I'm like, maybe they'll stay in the house, especially if it's still sentient and they can live in a happy house. But that might not be how this story wraps up. There's many possibilities of how this to get though. I don't know. [01:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah. My current theory is actually that the Graveleys know what's down there because of the history of their family. The history of their family has always tried to go down there because they think that there's jewels or there's something that is going to make them even richer than they are. And so they've written it down and passed it generation to generation. And that's the thing that's kind of like pushing them towards getting there and why they keep pursuing it and why outside parties, quote, unquote, keep pursuing them. And so I think definitely they're gonna realize after the ending that it's not all that they think it is. I guess. [01:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:09] Speaker B: I don't think it's gonna happen. But I really want them to defeat the evil. And then the house just becomes just a house, like he said. Because he said said that. [01:10:17] Speaker A: He did say. I think it would just become a house. [01:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think they're gonna defeat the evil. The house becomes a house, and then they just kind of like toss them the keys and they're like, go at it. Have fun. So they're not directly gonna go against the evil people, like, who's clearly the bad people in the story. But they're gonna do everything that he wants to do because he has a goal. He wants to be the last warden. I don't even know necessarily what they need to do. [01:10:41] Speaker A: I feel like there we're still kind of missing parts of the story because I do feel like they'll have to work together in order to do it. And there is something about it being a gravely and it being a starling that work together in order to defeat the evil. I feel like. [01:10:52] Speaker B: Which is how it opened. [01:10:53] Speaker A: Right. [01:10:54] Speaker B: Because of the marriage. Yeah. [01:10:56] Speaker A: So I do feel like it has to do with something with them and being possibly together or having to do something together or having to work together, something like that, that will defeat the evil potentially. Maybe her being a gravely does go into the fact of, like, they don't actually want to kill her for any reason. So it's easier to wrap up the book if they're like, you know what? This is fine here. I'll give it to the rest of my family sort of thing. [01:11:20] Speaker B: Or she inherit, because she's a gravely. So she inherits everything, Right? [01:11:25] Speaker A: That's true. Interesting, Interesting. Interesting thoughts that we could be doing right now. Yeah. So that's it. [01:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Really? I think. [01:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's really my theory is that we're gonna get a really happy ending for these two. They're gonna be together. No warden is ever needed again. And the evil's gone. [01:11:45] Speaker A: Yes. [01:11:46] Speaker B: That's basically the. The summary of it. [01:11:48] Speaker A: I mean, I hope they have a happy ending. Do you think there's a possibility they don't end up together? [01:11:53] Speaker B: No, they've got to. I'm gonna be mad if they don't because we built like, they're such crappy communicators. [01:12:01] Speaker A: They really are. [01:12:03] Speaker B: You've already deprived us of them. [01:12:05] Speaker A: But granted, he has been alone in that house for, like, 10 years, so he doesn't really know how to communicate with people anymore. [01:12:11] Speaker B: That's so true. But he's so lonely. It's so sad if he goes back to being alone. [01:12:16] Speaker A: That's true. Yeah. I hope everything works out with her brother, too. I hope he isn't too badly fucked up because of whatever situation they're gonna put him in. [01:12:24] Speaker B: He's gonna get caught up in this. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know how. I'm assuming he'll be on the bad side for at least a little bit. [01:12:32] Speaker B: I guess we'll find out. [01:12:33] Speaker A: I do feel like he's going to get manipulated somehow, but who knows? [01:12:36] Speaker B: We're going to find out next week. [01:12:39] Speaker A: Okay, bye.