Do you know how I’ve been going on lately about all of the odd things that have been going on around here?

There’s definitely something untoward happening. Maribel being nailed to the tree for starters… that brick wall outside the Vestibule for another thing… The Witch vanishing as she did… the animals gathering in the Grinds… well, I have one more thing to, unfortunately, advise that has *ahem* happened.

How, exactly, it ‘happened’ is beyond me.

Down beneath the Cellar is an old heavy wooden door, deep within the Catacombs below the Mansion. The door must always remain locked as beneath that is a raging torrent of a hot and steamy lava river. I’ve heard some describe it as Hell on Earth, but I haven’t been down to check. I had a quick look through a crack in the rocks down there and saw the lava, but that’s as close as I’d like to get.

Obviously, if the door is the ‘Doorway to Hell’, it must remain locked at all times, to keep out what must be kept out. And locked it has been kept. And, before you fly off into a panic-fuelled panic, don’t panic… it’s still locked… I’ve pushed and pulled the door and rattled the latch and it will not open; it refuses to budge.

Previously, I’d safely put the key to the door inside a Jar on the shelf beside the door. It looks odd, the shelf there in the middle of the Catacombs, but then again so does the heavy wooden door.

The Jar was the only thing on the shelf, not counting the cobwebs and dust mites and the like. Now a perfect dust-free circle remains where the Jar once stood.

Yes: the Jar (and therefore key) has vanished.

How, why, when… I know not.

I’m sure the Mansion’s up to its tricks, it does like to provide the odd Trick or Treat around Halloween… but to remove that key… I’m not sure the Mansion would take things that far.

I now need to lie down in a darkened room.

And then, I shall commence my Jar hunt. That Jar must be found…