Page 24 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)

By the time they drifted into the living room, someone had already shoved the coffee table aside and rearranged the furniture into an impromptu stage-audience setup.

A throw blanket had been crumpled into what might have been a boundary line, and a bowl of paper slips sat in the middle like a summoning circle.

“Team One,” Jem declared, sweeping her arm with all the showmanship of a carnival barker. “Ezra, Goldie, Sig, and Nell!”

Nell shot Goldie a look of pure betrayal, but her friend only clung tighter to her elbow.

“Team Two!” Jem continued. “Myself, Hollis, Carol, and Dev!”

Ezra was already stretching, which was somehow the most threatening thing Nell had seen all night. He’d pulled his curls into a messy topknot and was doing calf raises like he was prepping for the Olympic Trials.

Jem leaned toward Goldie and stage-whispered, “Ezra plays to win. Prepare yourself emotionally.”

Goldie groaned. “Gods help us.”

Sig, for his part, was standing at the edge of the room like he wasn’t entirely sure what charades was, but was committed to learning. His wings flexed slightly as if testing whether they could be used to mime something. Probably not.

Nell sighed and sat on the floor, folding her legs beneath her with the resignation of someone awaiting jury duty. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

Ezra cracked his knuckles. “That’s the spirit.”

“All right!” Jem announced brightly as everyone settled into place. With a theatrical whirl, she stopped in front of Nell’s group and held out the bowl toward Ezra. “You first, Ez!”

“Happy to,” Ezra said, as if accepting a divine challenge. Jem pressed the timer button.

Ezra took a dramatic pause before drawing his slip.

Then he gasped, clutching it to his chest with the full-body conviction of someone either falling in love or having a cardiac event.

Without another word, he dropped to his knees and launched into a floor-bound, hyper-theatrical pantomime.

He swooned. He clutched his chest and pointed heavenward.

“Hamlet?” Goldie offered cautiously.

“A… ghost?” Nell guessed.

Ezra collapsed onto the carpet in an exquisitely slow-motion death spiral, mouthing I’m dying! with the intensity of someone doing a farewell scene for an invisible audience.

Sig said quietly, “Consumption.”

Ezra sprang upright like he’d just been resurrected by applause. “Yes!” he cried, pointing at Sig. “That! That right there!”

Every head turned to stare at the mothman, who sat with unruffled calm, gently tapping one clawed finger against his knee like a metronome.

“How—how did you get that?” Nell asked, half laughing, half incredulous.

Sig turned his head slightly toward her. “His gestures resembled a woodcut I once studied. And his floor motions were highly specific.”

Ezra beamed at him like a proud mother at a piano recital. “You beautiful bastard.”

A laugh burst out of Nell’s chest, sudden and real, and she had to slap a hand over her mouth to stop the second one from following.

The bowl passed to the other team. Dev stood with a shrug, drew a slip, and gave a nod like he’d just been handed a basic arithmetic problem.

He then proceeded to deliver the single most confusing charade anyone had ever witnessed. He flailed. He pointed to his foot. He mimed…fishing? Or possibly conducting an orchestra on a roller coaster.

Hollis guessed tap dancing . Carol guessed electrocution . Jem guessed bees.

The timer buzzed just as Dev made one final, sweeping gesture that may have been a cartwheel or a desperate cry for help.

He dropped his hands. “It was mailman. ”

A collective groan swept through the room.

“Really?” Hollis said. “That was mailman?”

“Okay,” Dev muttered. “Well. Our mailman does parkour.”

“Score check!” Jem called cheerfully. “Team One: one. Team Two: tragically zero.”

Goldie. She plucked a slip from the bowl like she’d been waiting her whole life for this moment, read it, and immediately burst into cackling laughter.

“Oh no,” Nell whispered.

Goldie didn’t answer. She simply rose to her feet and began to stalk slowly around the coffee table, shoulders hunched, eyes darting dramatically, like she was either hunting or having an existential crisis.

“Oh god, is she doing Cats again?” Nell groaned. “Goldie, no .”

Goldie stopped suddenly and threw one hand across her brow. Her other hand curled into a claw and hovered near her mouth. She dropped to one knee with operatic flair, reached toward the ottoman, and then jerked back.

“Hot oven?” Ezra guessed.

Goldie bared imaginary fangs, did one slow, seductive air-lean, and mimed brooding into the middle distance like a man whose every thought was a sad guitar riff.

“Goldie,” Nell gasped. “Is it Twilight ?”

Goldie struck a final pose of tortured celibacy.

“It’s Twilight,” Nell confirmed. “Please stop.”

Goldie bowed in acquiescence. Ezra howled with glee. “This is the best night of my life.”

Sig, who had been watching with the polite bafflement of someone observing a complex mating ritual, tilted his head. “Is this the one with the sparkles?”

“Yes,” Nell said solemnly. “And the trauma.”

“My turn!” Jem sprang to her feet like she’d just been called into battle. She grabbed a slip from the bowl, read it with a smirk, and cracked her knuckles like a woman with a plan.

The moment the timer started, she went into motion—shoulders hunched, hands curled into claws, her whole body vibrating with eerie commitment.

“Werewolf!” Carol shouted.

Jem shook her head and dropped to all fours, crawling in a circle before throwing her head back and miming an anguished scream.

“A banshee?” Hollis guessed.

She pointed wildly at Hollis, then mimed drinking something and immediately recoiling like she’d swallowed lava.

“Hot sauce ghost?” Dev tried.

Jem leapt to her feet, arms flailing, then made a comically exaggerated boom gesture and mimed a body flying backward.

“Poltergeist!” Hollis yelled again.

“Yes!” Jem whooped, flinging her arms in the air as the timer buzzed right on cue. “Team One: two. Team Two: finally one.”

Round Three began with Sig. He rose with a slow, almost ceremonial grace. The bowl looked absurdly small beneath his clawed hands, but he selected a slip with delicate care. He clicked as he read it.

The timer began. At first, he stood perfectly still.

“Is that it?” Ezra stage-whispered. “Is the answer mothman in repose? ”

Sig moved. He extended one arm slowly, fingers curved, as if cradling something delicate in his palm.

With the other, he mimed twisting something.

His wings twitched once behind him, a flicker of concentration.

He bent at the waist, brought his face close to the invisible object in his hand, and made a minuscule adjustment—then another.

“Is it... a ritual?” Goldie guessed, biting her lip.

“A librarian?” Ezra tried.

“No, it’s—it’s something careful,” Nell said, watching him with narrowed eyes.

Sig lifted both hands now and mimed fitting tiny items, one after another, snapping them gently into place. He made a slow, circular gesture with his fingers, like winding something tight.

“Music box?” Ezra tried again. “Surgery? I bet it’s surgery.”

Sig shook his head once, slowly. He crouched, drew an invisible ring in the air, then delicately traced markings along its edge with his fingertip. Ezra looked like he was about to guess again when Nell suddenly leaned forward.

“It’s…balance,” she said. “Or no—threading a needle?”

Sig looked up sharply at that. Met her eyes. Tilted his head.

The buzzer went off at the same time that Nell blurted, “It’s—a watchmaker!”

Sig smiled, slow and warm and pleased. Like she'd passed a test she didn’t know she was taking. “Correct.”

“Point or no point?” Dev asked.

“Half point,” Hollis said. “She got it, but late.”

“Team One: two and a half,” Jem declared. “Team Two: one.”

Next up was Hollis. He rose like a man heading into open heart surgery with only a spoon and a positive attitude. Jem clapped him on the back and handed him the bowl like a baton in a relay race they were already losing.

“Channel your inner drama kid,” she whispered.

“I was in band,” he muttered. He read his slip of paper. Then flipped it over, just to check that there wasn’t a helpful illustration.

The timer started.

Hollis took a breath and threw himself into motion, starting with what appeared to be an enthusiastic attempt at flapping. Then he switched abruptly to crawling. Then back to flapping. He stopped, reconsidered, then stood up and began miming something being…pulled?

“Eagle!” Dev shouted.

“Tractor?” Carol offered, uncertain.

He made a violent swirling motion with both hands, grimaced, then mimed getting knocked over by a sudden gust of wind.

“A blender?” Jem guessed.

“No—wait—he’s…weather?” Dev tried.

“Yes!” Hollis gasped, pointing at him like a lifeline.

“Oh my god,” Nell whispered. “Was that supposed to be tornado?”

Goldie applauded politely. “Respect the effort. Ten out of ten commitment. Zero out of ten clarity.”

“Still counts!” Jem grinned. “We’re tied up, baby. Team One: two and a half,” she declared, marking down the count on the scoreboard. “Team Two: two.”

Round Four was Nell’s turn. Jem held out the bowl with an expectant smile, and Ezra was chanting her name like a sports fan summoning a quarterback from hell.

“Nell. Nell. Nell. Nell.”

“Oh gods,” she muttered, standing up with grim resolve. “If I die, bury me with snacks.”

She plucked a slip from the bowl. Read it. Groaned.

“What is it?” Goldie hissed.

Nell looked at her. “I can’t tell you that.”

Goldie narrowed her eyes. “You’re stalling.”

“I’m coping. ”

The timer began.

Nell inhaled, stepped forward… and panicked.

She began with interpretive jazz hands—because why not—and then transitioned into an extremely confusing crouch-waddle, paired with erratic pointing at nothing.

“Uh… spider?” Ezra guessed.

“No,” she wheezed. “That’s not—hang on.”