Entry 2 - A Shift at the Grinning Moon

The next day I was working the desk alone, organizing the keys to our guest rooms. We have exactly 240 rooms, although it’s rare for them all to be full. Most modern-day hotels would have key card systems. But not us. When you check in, you get a rustic old key with a big tag on it that says your room number. We don’t do key cards anymore. A while back, a house spirit decided it would be funny to change every single room number by exactly one digit in our system. It ruined business for weeks.

Granted, the physical keys also have their own issues. You’d be surprised how often people lose huge, metal keys. I mean, they’re not small; these things are sometimes the size of your hand. Yet impressively, guests still manage to lose them. Thankfully, we employees have a ring of master keys that go to most things in the hotel, so when people get lost or can’t get into their room, we can let them in ourselves. But man, we’ve had to replace probably every single one of the physical keys at least twice since I started working here.

Anyway, it was getting later in the evening, and we hadn’t had many walk-ins, so I was taking the time to get caught up on cleaning tasks like cleaning and sorting the keys. They were kept in multiple drawers to the right of the main computers, organized by floor and room number in small velvet-lined boxes. Our in-house count was fairly low, only three or four people from the city. But with the mists coming next week, that was sure to change. I had to make sure we were ready and the more I got done now, the less I would have to do later.

“Hey Jhin, you see the news?”

My eyes went to Billy, the talking deer head mounted in our lobby. He’d dropped the remote again, but that wasn’t why he was getting my attention. With a dramatic wave of his head, he motioned toward the television.

I walked around the desk and out through the storage room, coming to stand beside him in the lobby. The channel was set to a local broadcasting station, the All Seeing Eyes. Their logo of six eyes in a runic circle sat at the bottom of the screen while a female reporter stood in front of what looked to be a jewelry store.

“Today the aristocratic Rayland family finally makes their first public appearance in Nultock Square to unveil their new line of charms and trinkets. These lovely little pieces of jewelry are fetching a high price at early auctions as they’re said to increase your vitality and happiness simply by wearing them!” The reporter motioned toward the store with one hand, where multiple advertisements for “Rayland Jewels” sat in the windows. I won’t lie, the jewelry was pretty. Gorgeous loops of silver and gold studded with gleaming gemstones. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d expect Billy to care about.

“Didn’t know you were a jewelry guy,” I said.

“No, you moron.” He complained, “Keep watching.”

I raised a brow, folding my arms. The camera panned to a large crowd of people surrounding a dozen extremely well-dressed men and women, bombarding them with questions. Every single one of them held matching black and purple parasols, shielding themselves from the sun as they walked toward the subway.

“Recognize any of them?” He prodded.

That was when I realized what he was talking about. The woman who’d come in yesterday. She was standing near the front of the crowd, holding the same parasol.

Curiously, I walked over to our ledger and picked it up with a grunt. I flipped to the proper page, slowly making my way back toward Billy. Sure enough, listed for next week was a woman named Lulin Rayland. “It’s the lady from yesterday.”

“Yeah, looks like we have some sort of big shot coming through,” Billy noted. “And of course it’s the Raylands of all people.”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“You haven’t?” Billy sounded incredulous. “There’s a lot of weird shit surrounding that family and The Rayland Corporation.”

“Like?”

The deer lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone, “A few years back there was a review outlet which was given a set of their charms for free. I think they were supposed to be gemstones that helped with happiness or something? Whatever the case, the guy who reviewed them said they were a bunch of ‘smoke and mirrors’ and that the jewelry wasn’t that impressive.”

I set the ledger back on the front desk, responding sarcastically, “Very interesting.”

“No, man, you don’t get it.” Billy sounded exasperated. “That review came out, right? And obviously the Raylands were all ‘that guy has no idea what he’s talking about, our charms are the best and have actual results.’ A week later, that reviewer went missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yeah, people say the Raylands killed him.”

“And where did you hear this?

He thought a moment. “Some online forum Mivara showed me.”

“Very reliable.”

“I’m telling you, man, the Raylands are bad people!” He warned. “They’re up to some shady shit.”

I folded my arms. “I think you’ve been reading too many conspiracy theories.”

Billy stared at me. “You’re talking to a mounted deer head, and somehow a group of famous aristocrats killing a naysayer is out of the question?”

“I think we need to revoke your computer privileges.” I remarked, “Those websites are frying your brain.”

He let out an irritated growl. “Man, you keep living in delusion. Some of us aren’t afraid to talk about the truth. You can’t silence me.”

“Sure I can. By ignoring you. That’s my own personal little internal mute button.” I walked back around the desk, returning to organizing the keys. Everything looked to be relatively in order, so I took my seat again and stretched, leaning the back of my chair against the wall. My eyes wandered to our newly acquired mimic, which sat next to our stamp book with the silver cross marked on it.

Then I heard the singing again. It had been starting and stopping all morning, and I’d heard it almost all day yesterday. Whoever was singing was certainly good; their voice rose and fell to a melody I couldn’t quite place.

“God, would someone shut that woman up?” Billy muttered from the lobby.

“I like it,” I replied.

He snorted, obviously unimpressed. “Sounds like a banshee shrieking to me. Isn’t it your job to check up on disturbances like that, senior groundskeeper?”

When he said the words “senior groundskeeper,” they were laced with sarcasm.

“You’re lucky my boss likes having you in the lobby. If I had my way, it’d be the storage closet.” I grumbled, standing up and stretching. He was right, though. Even if the singing wasn’t bothering me, I should probably at least check and see who it was. Especially since it had been nearly two days of the same song. Whatever was in the bathroom probably wasn’t human. Or it was, but it wasn’t alive.

I made my way toward the public restrooms, twirling my keys around a finger. Before I turned down the hall, however, something at the elevators caught my attention.

The pair of elevators themselves looked normal. One of Moon’s security ports sat in between the elevators, just above the buttons to select whether you were heading up or down, a currently static image of the Grinning Moon’s logo in silvery metal. That wasn’t where my eyes went, though.

Above the elevator, there was a black splotch that physically could not have been there. It was about the size of a large dinner plate. Maybe two feet across? I couldn’t quite tell from where I stood. An impossible shadow set against the wooden wall, black against brown wood that was only barely noticeable if one stared hard in its direction.

I put my hands on my hips, staring up at the thing, completely puzzled. Had it been there when I’d come downstairs? It certainly hadn’t been there yesterday. Nothing had changed in the room. All the furniture was in the same place, and the muted lighting hadn’t shifted.

So what was casting that shadow?

The longer I stared at it, the more uncomfortable I became. But I couldn’t bring myself to look away. It was just the sort of oddity that demanded my curiosity. I wondered if maybe I should have grabbed a stool and a broomstick to poke the thing, just to confirm I wasn’t hallucinating.

After a few minutes, the song from the restrooms tore my attention away from the black mark, and I glanced down the hall.

When I looked back, the shadow was gone.

A chill crept up my spine. Maybe I was imagining things. The Grinning Moon had a nasty habit of playing tricks on you, even if you were used to it. But the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that there definitely had been something there.

And then there was that song again, pulling me away. Reluctantly, I continued my march toward the restrooms, eyes on the upper sections of the hall. I didn’t see any other weird shadows, even with the electric lighting turning to wax candles about a quarter of the way to the restrooms. My eyes scanned the edges where the wall met the ceiling, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Well, save for the fact that I swear one of the paintings moved. But that was pretty normal around here.

I paused at the entrance to the bathrooms. Two doors, one with a stylized man carved into the wood, another with a stylized woman. The woman wore a dress and carried a large pitchfork, while the man held a sword and wore a farmer’s hat. Both were crude engravings, but they were enough to get the point across.

Without thinking, I reached toward the woman’s restroom.

The sound of wood being rapidly scratched suddenly split through the song. The door handle glowed red hot, and the crudely drawn woman began to dart across the wooden surface. She didn’t move as you would expect. Quickly, almost too fast to see, the image of the woman carrying the pitchfork disappeared before reappearing in a slightly different pose. She was heading toward the handle, her pitchfork held out in front of herself as though intending to spear my hand. It was like looking at a slideshow of the same person moving, a frame-by-frame of her charging my hand being repeatedly etched into the wood.

I leaped back, raising my hands. Immediately, the sound of wood being cut stopped. The woman regarded me, one hand on her hip, the other still on her pitchfork.

“You know me.” I hissed at her. “I work here.”

She folded her arms and shook her head, pointing at me with the pitchfork–her movements still that erratic, jittery frame by frame. With each step or shift of her posture, her image disappeared before carving itself back in place elsewhere.

“Always a stickler for the rules.” I sighed, reaching into my pocket and showing her my ring of master keys.

The carved etching appeared to lean in, as though examining the key ring to ensure it looked proper. I made sure to show her the tag displaying my name, shaking the keys irritably. “Can you let me in now? I want to know what’s making that sound.”

She stomped a foot and looked indignantly to one side, but she stepped away from the door handle and it stopped glowing.

“Thank you.” I gripped the door handle and opened the women’s restroom.

Despite how loud my entrance must have been, the song didn’t stop.

Now, before I describe everything in the room beyond, you have to remember the Grinning Moon receives numerous guests from all over the place. And because of our dealings with the odd and things that go bump in the night, some of our facilities have to specialize in non-humanoid body types. The interior of our restrooms are a little different because of that. The usual white tiling lines the ceiling and walls, but the stalls are where things get weird. On the right wall were a dozen stalls of varying sizes and shapes. Some stalls were minuscule, while the furthest three were each the size of a horse’s stable. To the left were a collection of sinks and mirrors at varying heights. A separate, larger door led to our baths on the same wall, another public facility we provided for both men and women. On the opposite wall of the door I’d just come through was a door that led to the outdoor courtyard. The entire space smelled of soap and herbs. Everything appeared to be in place, but the singing remained. I couldn’t quite make out where it was coming from, only that it was further in. Pulling me along incessantly. A tug in my gut I couldn’t ignore.

I glanced over at the door, but the etched woman had returned to her stagnant position in the center. So, I quietly slid it shut behind me, calling out into the empty room. “Hello?”

The woman, wherever or whoever she was, didn’t stop.

For some strange reason, the lack of a response sent a small jolt of fear down my spine. I hesitated where I stood. Nothing was stopping me from simply turning around and walking out of that room. I didn’t have to know what was making the sound. I could just report it to my boss later in the day.

But something pushed me forward. Morbid curiosity. The allure of the music. Shame at my cowardice. Call it whatever you want, but I puffed out my chest and walked. I passed the first stall, then the next. Then the third we had chained up with the label ‘toilet mimic’ engraved on the door. It was only after I passed the entrance to the baths that I realized the song was actually coming from the room beyond, not the back stalls.

“I’m about to walk in,” I called out, halting at the door. “I’m the groundskeeper here. I’ll give you a moment to cover yourself, but I have some questions.”

Again, there was no response. My brow furrowed, and I folded my arms. I counted to sixty in my head. Then ninety. Then a hundred twenty. When I was positive they had enough time to at least grab a towel to cover up, and I still hadn’t heard a response, I sighed and pushed my way through the door. Beyond was a small changing room that opened up into the baths, which I strode through while giving another warning. “I’m coming in.”

When I stepped into the tiled room, I paused. The air was thick with steam, and the water bubbled merrily alongside the woman singing.

No. Wait, it didn’t. She’d stopped. Every hair on my arms stood on end.

I scanned the room curiously, examining the fogged mirrors and open space. It was then I saw something moving in the water, somewhat obscured by the steam bubbles and haze. Frowning, I neared the water’s edge and leaned to look down.

What I saw sent me leaping backward with a yelp, a curse flying from my lips.

A pair of large, black eyes looked up at me. They were fishlike, the pools of darkness gazing up through the water, unblinking and wide. There were no whites in her eyes, only that endless pit of black. A grasping void that tugged me closer, forcing my march as my footsteps echoed through the room. Only once I neared the water did I finally shake my head and break free of the haze overtaking my mind, examining the thing before me more closely.

It was a woman. Which, okay, fine, that made sense; I was in the woman’s bathroom. But the woman’s face was uncanny. It was too long, too angular. Those eyes were too big; they took up too much of her head and face. Her cheekbones were far too high, and her mouth stretched just a little too wide–thin lips coated a deep, vibrant red. Long, green hair like kelp you would find washed upon a beach fanned out in the water behind her head. She was leaning back in the water, her skin reflecting silvery hues from the bathroom lights.

No, not skin. Scales. Silvery scales. A mixture of scales and skin along her arms and stomach and...not legs. From the waist down, she had a silvery fish-like tail. She had to be easily eight feet in length, lying back in the water and eyeing me with that glassy stare.

After the momentary shock, I composed myself. “So, uh…do you have a room here?”

She slowly turned in the water, swimming in a half-circle to reach the edge of the pool. Then, she pulled herself up and out of the water, resting her arms on the bath’s edge. Wordlessly, she crooked a finger, encouraging me to come toward her, smile widening.

“Charming, but I think I’ll stay here,” I replied.

The woman seemed surprised. Her gaze narrowed, her eyelids only barely covering the edges of her fishlike eyes. When she opened her mouth to speak, they were sharp and jagged. In fact, I was fairly certain I could see two rows of them–a longer front row and a smaller row behind them. Definitely not human. Her accent was foreign, yet strangely silky smooth. “You are not drawn to me?”

“Lady, I’m on the clock; I only came here to figure out why I’d been hearing singing for the last two days.”

“That was my song.”

I nodded, folding my arms. “It’s plenty beautiful, but how did you even get in here? I don’t remember checking in... what are you?”

“Lephashipan. I come from the sunken city beneath the waves.”

“Is that your name or your species?”

She stared at me like I was an idiot.

“What do you want me to call you, miss?” I tried to remain polite, but I didn’t like the way her teeth looked nor the implications behind her initial line of questioning.

“I believe you humans call us sirens.”

“No, I’ve met a siren. You’re different. Like a cross between a mermaid and...something else. Not a sea hag either; I had one of those here once. She made my fish grow legs.”

This seemed to amuse her. “Lephashipan. I am worldborne.”

“That literally does not mean anything to me,” I said, exasperated. “Okay, fine. How did you get in here? You’re clearly not a guest.”

“You use water from the river.” She looked over her shoulder at the bath, letting her tail curve up out of the water. “I came in through one of the large pipes. Then found my way here.”

I mused internally for a moment, regarding the creature before me. She wasn’t wrong; the water we used came directly from the river near the hotel. It was pushed through a filtration system before being pumped onto the property. We’d had things show up from the river before. Large fish. Some sort of strange, giant octopus. Other things. But every time I’d ever seen something show up, it came out through the large pipe in our outdoor courtyard. Usually whatever it was would get stuck in the pond we have out there. The octopus I mentioned earlier ate all our pond fish, and we had to buy new ones. Which also became a problem because the new ones randomly grew legs one day and started walking around the hotel after Mivara fed them some weird bugs she found.

But there was only one way to get into the bathroom I knew of, and it was through the door I’d come through and, perhaps, extremely small pipes which fed water into the bath’s basin. She would have had to be the size of a small fish to get in here, not an eight-foot woman with a huge, powerful fish tail.

“Come closer.” The woman said again. “I want to see you.”

I regarded her skeptically. “Are you going to drown me?”

Slowly, her smile widened. Her teeth bared and she cocked her head to one side, the water dripping from her kelp-green hair. “I was, originally. I’m quite hungry. But no, that can wait.”

“That can wait as in you’re going to drown me later, or you’re no longer going to drown me, and you’ll wait to eat? You know you’re technically trespassing if you don’t have a room here, right?”

Neither of us spoke for several seconds. I made sure to stay well away from the water, keeping my arms folded and never breaking eye contact with her. For her part, she simply shifted at the edge of the basin, an amused, almost playful grin on her face. “I won’t eat you.”

“Good, and maybe stop eating people in general, no?” I muttered, taking a step toward the water.

“I was teasing. I don’t actually eat people.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not from the southern tribes. They’re the ones you have to worry about. You taste too much like pig for my liking.”

I knelt at the water’s edge. “Which means you’ve definitely had human meat before.”

“One time, of course. A curiosity.”

“I’d ask if you killed them yourself, but I feel like I wouldn’t like that answer.”

Her shrug didn’t make me feel better.

I remained kneeling at the water’s edge, examining the strange being before me. I asked again, “What is your name?”

“Land dwellers call me Cersie.”

“Alright, Cersie.” I motioned toward the bath, still kneeling at her level. “So you got in here from outside. You can’t do that. This is private property and the baths are reserved for guests.”

Cersie hummed to herself, letting her tail splash in the water. “I could drown you, you know. I could have drowned you the moment you walked into this room.”

My eye twitched. “Do you want to book a reservation? We have aquatic rooms on the bottom floor.”

“You’re very calm about all this.” She said, her black eyes focusing on me. I felt them pierce through me, like she were investigating my innards to see what made me tick. Admittedly, it creeped me the hell out. But not in an “oh I might die” sort of way. More of an “okay, lady, please stop staring at me” notion. It was the sort of discomfort someone feels when unwanted eyes are burning into their back, trying to read every muscle movement and small shift in their posture.

“Weirder things have happened around here.”

Cersie pulled herself to look closer at me, using her arms to hold her upper body out of the water. I averted my gaze, folding my arms. I hadn’t even realized she was naked, although I didn't seem like she cared. She had gills running up her bare stomach, or something similar to gills. I didn’t take the time to examine it. Instead, I backed up, repeating what I had said previously. “Ma’am, if you don’t have a room here, you have to leave. I can escort you to the nearest...uh…”

I realized getting her out of the bath would be a task in and of itself. She was huge, and I doubted I could pick her up easily.

“That won’t be necessary.” She assured me. “I’ll take my leave. But I’ll be back.”

“What?” The question came out in a short bark, utterly confused by her response.

She was in the center of the basin now. With a wink, she leaped into the air, sending water splashing in every direction. A startled curse flew from my lips, and I raised my hands defensively. But there was no stopping myself from getting completely soaked.

In midair, she began to shine a blinding white. Through squinted eyes, I watched as her form changed before me. Smaller, smaller, smaller still, folding in on itself. Her body shortened, her arms and fish-like tail shrunk. Fins jutted out from where shoulders had once been, and her face morphed, shifting to a bullet-shaped fish head. A mixture of amazement and befuddled confusion filled me as what had once been an eight-foot-tailed woman became a small, silver fish.

This fish plopped back into the bath with a soft splash. It circled the bath twice, swimming so quickly that it was a mere blur of silver. And then it swam into one of the grates near the bottom of the pool and disappeared.

I stood there in silence for a few seconds before letting out a somewhat defeated, “What the hell?”

While I stood there, arms folded and a scowl plastered on my face, the door to the bath opened. A woman stepped in holding a towel to keep herself decent. One of the few guests we had in-house, I recognized her from when she checked in a few days prior. When she saw me, she screamed and ran straight back into the changing room.

“Sorry!” I shouted. “Maintenance issue, but it’s good for you to come in now.”

She reemerged a moment later, complaining that I’d scared her. I apologized and hurried to exit the bathroom, keeping my eyes on the tiles beneath my feet. Once I was back in the hall, I let out a sigh and leaned against the wall. I rubbed my face with a hand.

All I could do at this point was report the incident to management. So I walked to the other end of the hall and knocked on my boss’s door. The metallic knocker in the center sprang to life, and Moon bellowed, “Ah, Jhin! What can I do for you? You’re dripping water everywhere.”

“Not here for you, Moon,” I said.

“Well, the boss man’s out today.” The knocker noted, looking at me with that large grin. “So you’re talking to me for now. Unless it can wait.”

I frowned. “He’s out?”

“Prepping for his vacation, he said,” Moon explained. “He won’t be back until later tonight.”

“Fair enough.” I pointed at the bathroom. “You heard that singing, right? It was coming from some sort of siren. Something called a Lephashipan? She called herself Cersie. Does that ring any bells?”

Moon thought a moment, his metallic eyes arching upward and the grin morphing to a thoughtful frown. “Well, I’ve never heard of a Cersie. I’ll let Mando know when he gets back. You should get a towel.”

I raised my arms, looking down at myself. My uniform was sopping wet, water dripping from my gloved hands and hair. “I think we have some extras in the storage room beside the desk.”

“Scurry along then, little Jhin,” Moon said with a grin.

“I’m not a rat,” I muttered, but resigned myself to getting back to the desk. I’d probably already been gone for too long, and there was a chance someone would be waiting in the lobby. And having Billy talk your ear off while you wait for the desk worker to get back is a fate worse than most deaths.

When I walked back into the lobby, Billy was still watching the news.

“Song stopped.” He said bluntly.

I walked over to the vending machine, putting some money in and selecting a random snack that didn’t look disgusting. While I waited for my food to dispense, I looked over at him and replied sarcastically, “Oh, you don’t say?”

“And you’re soaked,” Billy noted. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I leaned down to grab my snacks from the vending machine, pushing the flap in to grab the bag of chips I’d bought. But my hand wrapped around something that definitely was not a bag of chips. I withdrew the object from the vending machine with a confused, “Huh?”

What I held was a bright pink ball full of glitter and slime. As soon as I held it up to my face, the ball exploded. I was knocked straight on my ass, grunting loudly. A viscous, sticky substance had suddenly coated my entire arm and the front of my uniform.

I sat there for a moment, staring at the vending machine.

Billy started laughing hysterically from behind me, a mixture of a baying deer and a humanoid chuckle splitting through the quiet, “Is the vending machine doing that thing again?”

“It just glitter bombed me,” I said dumbly, not moving from my position on the ground.

“Better or worse than the live grenade?”

“Honestly, I think I’d prefer the grenade,” I grumbled, looking down at my sticky hands. Between the water and the unknown slimy substance, the glitter had found plenty of spots to stick to. I looked ridiculous, a complete mess that definitely shouldn’t have been working behind a desk.

Not only that, the glitter had gotten all over the lobby.

With a sigh, I stood. “I guess I’ll go get the mop.”

“I’d offer to help, but…” Billy grinned from his position on the wall.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

He agreed. “You’re right, even if I had hands, this is a you issue. But I’ll definitely watch.”

I rolled my eyes and stood, walking to the storage closet beside the desk. But after searching for a good ten minutes, I realized the mop and mop bucket weren’t there. They were in the other storage room across from the desk.

This was a problem. You see, about a month ago, a family of what I think are possums snuck into the hotel and decided to make the storage room their home. I even wrangled them out of the building with a net at least twice. And there was a chance they’d be there again.

Now, why do I say “think” before the word possums?

Well, they’re vaguely possum-shaped. Only they’re hairless, and far larger than any possum I’d ever seen outside. I’m not sure how many there are, but one is larger than the others. We call him Arnold, and he’d become something of a recurring issue in specifically that storage room. Normally, most animals just go through our dumpsters in the back. But Arnold and his buddies kept getting in, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get them to stay out. One time, I saw a pair of them making off with a set of cushions from a couch in the lobby. Another time, one of the smaller ones jumped up on one of the chair mimics...and was immediately snatched up with a violent bite, completely traumatizing the eight-year-old girl who had been sitting across the room with her mother.

They weren’t necessarily aggressive, but I didn’t fancy the idea of going into a dark room where I couldn’t see super well with them. They were wild animals, and for all I knew, one of the damn things could be diseased. I wasn’t interested in watching my arm rot off.

So I armed myself with a new, thicker set of gloves meant more for gardening, and an old broom. Then I marched across the lobby to the secondary storage closet. Billy made some sort of comment, but I didn’t pay him any mind. I was too busy preparing for the journey ahead.

When I opened the door, I reached for the light switch immediately and flicked it. Of course, it didn’t work. Half the lights in the staff areas in the hotel never did. Muttering curses and mumbling about how I didn’t get paid enough for this to myself, I propped the door fully open to allow as much light from the lobby into the space as possible. This did little to actually show all the corners and spaces behind the piled boxes, but it was at least something.

I crept further into the room, holding the broomstick out in front of me. It was way too dark.

About a dozen paces in, I found scraps of cushions and blankets in a small circle near the wall. Obviously some sort of makeshift bed created by Arnold and his ilk. I muttered under my breath and kept walking, searching the darkness for my mop bucket.

Something scrabbled against the wood floor off to my right. I whipped toward the sound, pointing my broom defensively. But nothing was there.

“I’m going insane.” I decided, “Completely, utterly insane.”

I roamed through the darkness, moving aside a few boxes to make space for myself. This closet had definitely seen better days. There were cobwebs everywhere and more than a few roaches tried making themselves scarce whenever I shifted a box. Several of the boxes contained warning labels or directly had the words “do not open” on their sides.

What always baffled me was that neither of these storage rooms even contained everything we needed. There were several even larger storage rooms throughout the hotel. One on each floor and a couple additional rooms for events. But generally, everything I personally needed was on the first floor.

Eventually, I found the mop bucket. It was an old thing that had seen better years and only barely rolled on wobbly wheels. When my eyes fell on it, I let out a sigh of relief and reached for the handle. The bucket moved well enough, despite the wheels screeching in protest. I had to wonder why this was brought to the secondary storage room since the mop sink was in the main closet next to the desk.

But then I saw something inside the bucket. Something gray.

And then one of the naked possums came flying out at me in a fit of panic, letting out a shriek and leaping over my shoulder. It took off, scrabbling against the floor with its claws. I heard Billy shout from the lobby.

I ran out, broom in hand, watching as the beast jumped a chair and rolled over itself, hurrying to get back on its feet. The thing ran and ran, slamming into one of the vending machines and tripping over itself repeatedly.

“Get it, Jhin!” Billy roared from the wall.

His bellowing cry made the thing completely freeze. It stopped right where the glitter bomb had exploded, slowly turning to look at Billy. I watched its wide eyes glaze over. Then, it fell to one side, completely stiff.

Still standing at the closet door, I stared at the possum.

“Is it dead?” Billy asked. “What even is that?”

“It’s one of the possums that keeps sneaking in,” I replied, walking through the lobby. Broom in hand, I stood a few feet from the creature, debating what to do.

Billy was obviously incredulous. “That’s not a goddamn possum. Possums have fur. That thing looks like a man’s balls with arms and legs. And a snout. Seriously, what is it?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve been calling them possums. Haven’t you seen them before?”

“Maybe, but I don’t remember them being that ugly.”

Slowly, I poked the thing with the end of my broom. It didn’t move, tongue lolled to one side, gaze listless. While I didn’t see it breathing, I definitely didn’t think it had just keeled over in the middle of the hotel lobby. It was definitely just playing dead.

“What a morning,” I complained. “What am I even supposed to do about this?”

“You’re the senior groundskeeper,” Billy noted sarcastically. “Figure it out.”

So I did.

With no ceremony, I used the broom to push the possum outside. Its naked skin squeaked against the wooden flooring as I shoved it with the broomstick in small bursts. The thing turned slowly like a cooking chicken, slapping the floor with an arm and leg on each rotation. Despite this treatment, it refused to move. So I kept moving.

When I reached the door, a man was watching me from across the parking lot. He looked horrified, staring at my progress with a combination of morbid curiosity and disgust. All I could do was give a friendly smile and finish the job.

I pushed the possum through the front door and into the parking lot. Then, I shoved it off to the side before stepping away, leaving it lying spread out on the concrete. Hopefully, it would get up and skitter off to wherever it had come from.

Once the critter had been removed from the premises, I returned to the storage room to get the mop bucket and set to work on cleaning the lobby.

This was my least favorite part of the job: cleaning stupid messes. But considering what I’d had to clean in the past, this was nothing. At least the glitter didn’t look disgusting. And it didn’t smell either, which was another bonus.

Unfortunately, cleaning everything up took nearly two hours. The glitter had splattered across the furniture, the walls, the vending machines, and everything in between. Even after I thought I’d finished, I was still seeing specks of it here and there.

“Alright, I give.” I finally said aloud. “I can’t get any more of this crap out of the carpets in front of the desk.”

I checked the time. My shift was almost over, and I hadn’t even had lunch due to how busy it had been. Soon, my cover would be here. So I emptied the mop bucket in the storage room sink and walked back around the desk, printing out the morning paperwork and rubbing my eyes. We hadn’t had anyone show up to book a room, so that was all easy enough. Once my other duties were complete, I took the time to write everything that had happened in my memoir, just like my boss had said.

By the time I finished, I was still a mess. Damp from my excursion in the women’s bathroom, covered in glitter and pink slime from the vending machine’s sorry excuse for a practical joke, and smudged with dust from my initial chase with the fur-less possum.

While I was writing, I did actually check in a couple of guests, but one really stuck out. The doors opened and I heard the sound of footsteps slowly approaching. I didn’t look up from my memoir until they were close, but when I did, I couldn’t help but stare.

The man standing before me was almost colorless, not quite a black shade but muted enough that it was hard to make out any details on his person. I could see the edges of what I thought was a trench coat, and the white of glasses reflecting light on his face. From the waist down, his form faded into nothing. I wasn’t even sure what was making the footstep sounds, as he didn’t appear to have anything to be stepping with. In one hand he carried a briefcase.

I tried to examine his face a little closer, but it was impossible to make out any details. Not even the faintest hint of lips, although the bump of his nose was visible when he turned his face to glance toward the elevators.

“What can I do for you?” I asked politely, pushing my memoir to the side and standing.

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he simply raised his free hand and pointed toward the elevators.

“I’m going to assume that means you want a room.” I took the ledger from our counter. “Are you paying with cash or... other means?”

He set the briefcase on the counter.

I stared at it for a moment. This is probably a good time to mention our special policy regarding hotel guests. See, our rooms had nightly rates you could pay with normal money. But if you had some sort of occult artifact or something else of worth, I had been instructed by my boss to take it without question and give the guest a room key. Sometimes it was a dud, like the one time a specter thought it would be funny to give us a backpack full of toilet paper. We still accepted it and gave the wandering spirit harbor for the night. It was better than making a scene, especially with how powerful many of these entities could be. Whatever this briefcase was, the figure before me thought it was worth a room.

So I followed policy and took the briefcase. Once I’d put it behind the desk, I wrote “Glasses Guy” in the ledger as well as his payment method. He watched while I worked, silent as the grave.

When I tried to turn on one of the computers to sign him in on the system, the screen flickered for a few seconds before dying. I pressed the power button several times, but nothing happened. So I sighed and picked out the binder containing all our rooms and found him a clean one. Once I was sure he was good to go, I retrieved the room key and set it on the counter in front of him. “Room 306. You’re all set; if there're any problems, let me know. We have some open rooms, so we can move you to a different one if need be.”

The figure nodded, picking up the key. Wordlessly, he turned toward the elevators and walked out of the lobby. I watched him go. When he reached the elevators, he didn’t stop. Instead, he simply stepped through one of the closed doors and disappeared. A moment after his departure, the computers turned back on.

Sighing, I sat back down and got back to writing. Billy commented from the lobby, but I tuned him out.

Just when I’d finished the previous day and most of the events of the morning, I felt an icy breeze waft against the back of my neck. And then something touched my shoulder. I sat up straighter, shivering. It was a familiar sensation, and I had a feeling I knew who was standing behind me.

A fond, feminine voice echoed in my ear. She sounded as though two of the same person were speaking at once at slightly different intervals, her voice reverberating like we were standing in an echo chamber. “You look like you’ve been busy.”

I turned to look back, an excited grin sneaking its way onto my face.

The woman behind me looked over my shoulder through glowing, silvery eyes. Blackened mascara ran from her eyes, stopping at her cheekbones. A bemused expression was on her light blue face, purple lips tugging upwards at the corners. She was slightly transparent, like looking through a veil. The keyhole dress she wore was lavender, trimmed in dark purple frills with accompanying arm warmers. Wrapped around her waist and abdomen were dozens of brown ropes, each of which ended in either a silver bell or a wooden cartridge covered in runic symbols. Matching her dress, she wore a brimmed lavender hat that curled up slightly on one side. A purple bow was wrapped around the top.

She floated behind me, wearing a set of black stirrup fishnets, her exposed feet hanging just off the ground. Her long hair floated behind her, similar in color to her skin but slightly lighter. It moved as though she were underwater, billowing and flowing slowly with every tilt or turn of her head.

“Nyx!” I stood immediately. “You’re here?”

“I brought your cover.” She released my shoulder, motioning toward the desk beside me.

Next to me, one of the other employees, Dolly, was in the process of clambering his way up to the desk. As the name suggests, Dolly wasn’t a human or gnome or anything like that. Dolly was a living doll, not even six inches in height and shaped similarly to a burlap rag doll. He had no proper hands or feet, but a pudgy little body with arms and legs. The Grinning Moon’s logo sat on his face, much like the knockers Moon used to communicate with us. Currently, the logo was grimacing as the doll worked to climb up the drawers to the desk.

“Dolly!” I said appreciatively, picking him up and setting him on the computer. “You’re early!”

He spun around to face me, folding his arms and motioning toward Nyx with his head.

I should also note that whatever made Dolly unfortunately didn’t give him the ability to speak. So instead he would write on sticky notes to communicate. I leaned down, picking up a fresh set of notes and setting them in front of him.

The doll picked a random pen and wrote, using both arms to control his squiggling writing. While he wrote, I glanced over at Nyx, glad to see her.

Nyx was a spirit, if my description of her hadn’t been obvious enough. But unlike most spirits around here, she had a lot of agency and came and went as she pleased. Her form would go between ethereal and corporeal depending on the amount of energy she had. She didn’t work for The Grinning Moon, but was a permanent guest here. There was a deal between her and the boss where she had a permanent room up on the fourth floor, right across the hall from mine. It was basically her home between jobs.

I took out the note I’d found in the stamp book, showing it to her. “I assume this was from you?”

She nodded. “I left it on the way out. My last job ended quicker than I thought it would, so I’m back a little early.”

Dolly had finished his sticky note and was tearing it from the booklet, showing it to me with one hand. It read, “She was very eager to get here and see you. I just saw met up with her on the way in.”

“What were you even doing out?” I asked Dolly, “You know Mando doesn’t like it when you wander outside.”

The doll’s moon face grinned. Then he wrote, “Sightseeing.”

I chuckled and turned my attention back to Nyx, who was regarding me with her arms folded.

“What?”

“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to get something to eat.” She laughed, each reverberation echoing through the room. “But you look awful, so…”

I looked back down at myself, realizing I was still a complete mess from the workday. Embarrassed, I ran a hand through my hair. “Er, yeah. Yeah, it’s been a day. But I could definitely eat. Zozo’s?”

“Sure,” she grinned, floating over the desk with one leg over the other, “you can fill me in on your day while we're there.”

Billy decided to interject, “Wait, you’re leaving me with the doll?”

“It’s not all about you, you know.” Nyx turned in midair to look at him.

“But Dolly doesn’t even talk.” He complained.

Dolly wrote, “I resent that.”

I chuckled and stamped out for the day. “Whatever the case, not my problem now. I’m off with Nyx. I’ll come back down to check on things later.”

Dolly gave a small salute.

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