Chapter 1: The Invitation

Grace had been living in the house at the end of Mooney Crescent for around three months now, and had adjusted well to the conditions of the home. Like her, it was a dark and spooky place, and full of creaking stairwells and drafty corridors. It wasn't a mansion, by any means, but it was sizeable for a woman who had never owned her own home before, so she was well on her way to making herself comfortable there.

It was perched at the end of the cul-de-sac that was Mooney Crescent, and surrounded by five other houses along the circular bulb that comprised the majority of the street. On the left-hand side, going north, was the Pennywhistles' house, home of Mr and Mrs Pennywhistle, a nice old couple she hadn't heard much from yet; as well as Agatha Barrett's house. On the right-hand side, the houses were empty, and Grace for obvious reasons hadn't heard much from them either.

The lack of neighbors didn't especially bother her. As a travelling detective back in Inglenook, she had met more than her fair share of different people to talk to, so she wasn't lacking in social experience. What she was lacking in was a nice, stable house to call her own; now that she had one, the least of what she wanted was neighbors to talk to while she was putting down her roots, both figuratively and literally, in her house and the garden and land surrounding it.

She had spent most of her time indoors so far, decorating the walls, filling the shelves with books, stocking her wardrobe with her wide collection of black tops, grey sweaters, and pants in a variety of matching grey and black denim and leather (and the velvet shorts and fishnets she wore when she didn't feel like constricting her legs underneath pants quite that way anymore). When she wasn't tending to the homemaking and housekeeping affairs, she was sat in front of an aetheric projector that barely connected to the signals broadcast from Inglenook itself — the valley region surrounding the hidden pocket realm called the Grim Grove, where Grimshaw and several other towns and villages had been established by the Crucian Order in the 1700s — or bathing in the tub upstairs, lost amongst the smoky black tiles and pearl-gold fixtures resting in the bathroom.

Tending to the garden, which unfortunately was in an abundance of necessity due to the years of neglect from previous owners, was also something that took her time in the evenings, and mornings as well. She intended to place a bush of black roses there, and some hydrangeas, and hibiscus, for blood-red teas, if she could find the seeds for them, either in Grimshaw at Carraway's Potions & Goods or one of the townships or hamlets surrounding the area, such as Bastion Moor or the gift shop on the Cravenholm property surrounding Craven Manor.

She was just getting started with a pair of trimmers and a watering can around what was shaping up to be a perfectly nice patch of thyme, tomatoes, and a pepper plant when the shadow of one of ner neighbors, Agatha Barrett, loomed overhead of her.

Grace continued on, her trimmers in hand. "Hello, Agatha," she said, slicing away a few deadheads.

"What a wonderful bush," Agatha said. "Roses?"

Grace's silence couldn't be heard beneath the trickling of the watering can.

"In any case, the Pennywhistles down the way brought it to my attention that we've never had you for dinner at any of our places since you moved in."

"Oh?" Grace said.

"So, we've invited you," Agatha said. "We will. I am now. We're having a dinner this weekend with the entire Crescent, all six of us, and we'd love for you to be the seventh."

"You're not just trying to get information about what kind of witchcraft I'm doing over here at this house, are you?"

"Of course, we'd love for you to share with us," Agatha said. "This is a witch-inclusive zone, and all six of us have practiced it at one point or another."

Grace's shears continued trimming.

"But no, this is just a friendly extension of our hospitality for you as neighbors," Agatha continued.

"What will you—" Grace began, intending to ask about the meals being served, before pausing and shifting gears.

"Hm?"

"Nevermind," Grace said. "I'll consider it."

"Great!" Agatha said. "And I'm having a smaller one tomorrow, at mine, and you can show up for that as well."

Grace snipped another deadhead.

"It'll be just us, so we can get to know each other a bit more. Do you like wine?"

"Only if it's red," Grace said.

"It'll be the reddest. This'll be great!"

Grace watched Agatha leave, pausing her snipping for a bit, before gathering things up and heading inside.