This Episode of the Shadowbrook Files contains depictions of death, drinking, and sex.  If these topics are difficult in any way please stay away from these files and come back to us for a different investigation. Thank you.
[tape recorder crackles to life]
Juno: Apparently we’re all supposed to reveal our secrets now that Thea’s gone. Honestly, it’s a relief. Is that horrible to say? My best friend dying was a relief? But it was, since we’re all being so honest. The four of us worked because none of us ever talked to each other about the important things. We’d discuss classes and crushes and books and carefully skirt around the elephants in the room. We never really brought up Brittain’s drinking or Eloise’s money or lack thereof. We bring it up during arguments, sure, to make each other hurt. We’re excellent at making each other hurt, but otherwise, it’s all ignored. Swept under the rug.
Which is excellent for me, most of the time. I’ve got plenty of things I’d rather go unnoticed. We all have different ways of hiding. I do it by being loud. I draw so much attention to the parts of myself that I like that no one ever notices the parts I don’t. I’m a magician, directing attention towards the wand in my hand so the audience doesn’t notice me picking their pockets. Look at Juno, she’s so loud. Look at Juno, she’s so messy. Look at Juno, she’s so confident, so rich, I wish I was her.
It’s honestly fascinating that I’ve been able to get away with it for so long. I could submit my high school career to scientific journals as a social experiment. It’s such a well-kept secret, so perfect, that I haven’t even said it so far, have I? Damn. Alright. Here goes.
[pause]
Eloise and I have been fucking for the past two years.
[recording stops and starts again]
Eloise: We’re studying Jekyll and Hyde in my lit class and I keep trying to tell them that it’s a metaphor for being closeted in Victorian England, but they won’t listen to me.
J: Hang on, the one about the guy who splits himself in half? How is that a metaphor for being closeted?
E: You’ve got the side of you that has all the desires and none of the self-control that you’re horribly afraid of and then the repressed side that’s socially acceptable and horrified that the bad side even exists.
J: Me?
E: Universal you. You aren’t the centre of the universe, contrary to popular opinion.
J: You don’t have to be mean, it’s just us. I won’t tell anybody.
E: No, I don’t think you tell people anything about me, but that’s less about you being a gentleman and more about you being scared.
J: Maybe I just want to keep us a secret because I’m a hopeless romantic.
E: You’re definitely hopeless.
J: But you love me.
E: If you say so.
J: I do.
[noise from outside, maybe footsteps, Juno tenses up]
J: This was stupid.
E: As opposed to the other fifty million times we’ve hooked up?
J: We haven’t done it in broad daylight! In our dorm!
E: Oh come off it, Brittain’s in class, she won’t be back for hours.
J: What if she came back early? What if she walked in on us?
E: We’d say you passed out and I was giving you mouth-to-mouth.
J: This isn’t funny, El, we have to be more careful.
E: Or what? Somebody might find out the richest girl at school’s got something to hide? 
J: We all have something to hide. Our lives depend on those things staying hidden. 
E: You’re being overdramatic. What are they going to do, burn us at the stake?
J: My parents damn well might! It’s not worth the risk.
[pause]
E: Sometimes I wonder if you’re more ashamed of being gay–
J: Don’t say that.
E: Or of being with me.
J: …you imbecile. Why would I be ashamed of you?
E: Do you want the list alphabetized or chronological?
J: Stop it. Anybody would be lucky to have you, you’re lovely.
E: I’m a bitch.
J: A lovely bitch.
E: And you’d rather die than admit to anybody else that you might actually have feelings for me? You say all this shit, every time, about how I’m beautiful and smart and amazing, but the prospect of Brittain catching a whiff of…this, whatever this is, is enough to make you run for the hills. It’s hard to believe you’re not ashamed.
J: …I’m just not ready. You don’t know my family, you don’t know what it’s like, what they’d do–
E: Sometimes I feel like you’re a married man and I’m having an affair with you. I get compliments and gifts, but it always ends with ‘oh, by the way, love, let’s keep this between us’.
J: That isn’t fair, you can’t just tell me to out myself.
E: The problem isn’t that you’re in the closet, it’s that you’re keeping me in here with you.
J: Yeah? If it wasn’t for me, you’d be out and proud? Come on, El, you can barely answer honestly when I ask you how you are. I’m having trouble believing that I’m what’s holding you back from being open. You know what I think? I think you’re glad I’m keeping this a secret because it gives you an excuse to complain about it without having to do anything. You don’t want to come out either. You haven’t wanted to tell anyone anything since I met you. Even when I’m fucking you, you’re still a million miles away. You’ve got all these walls built up and you have the nerve to tell me that I’m what’s keeping you closeted. Come off it, Eloise, look at yourself. You’re three hundred pounds of complexes in a hundred-pound bag.
E: …fuck you, then.
J: Yeah, you just did. I’ll see you in chem and, by the way, love. Let’s keep this between us.
[slams door]
[recording stops and starts again]
J: I know, I know, it’s very cliche. Rich girl being gay and afraid to come out, but…honestly, it isn’t that I was afraid. I didn’t want to change my life because of this one thing. I was perfect. Not in the Brittain way of leadership awards and being a pleasure to have in class or the Eloise way of perfect scores on every exam, not a hair out of place. I was what they expected of me. I threw the best parties. I had inside jokes with everybody. They all knew me, they all loved me, I was fun. And to be fun, I had to be unreachable. That meant nobody could ever know.
I mean…it was fun. It was fun for both of us, we were good, but, honestly, I don’t think she had the right to ask me to come out just for her. She didn’t understand what I had riding on this, what I had to lose. She had nothing, nobody to pressure her. I had everything.
And before you think I’m just another spoiled rich girl, that isn’t it. I’m not like Brittain with her family name, I’m pretty sure they have a fucking coat of arms, no. She gets her money from generations and generations of land and, let’s be honest, probably slaves. My family got money from my father. My father, a university student from Israel, patented a design for a single bit of gear when he was twenty-three years old. That gear is roughly an inch in diameter and, when applied to oil drills, it increases their efficiency at an exponential rate. Nobody’s ever heard of my father and they likely never will, but he’s earned millions from one invention. He earned that, by himself, having grown up in a poor neighborhood in Jerusalem with his three siblings and single working mother. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps and he’s never let me forget it. I was born in America, but I was raised with the spectre of his shitty childhood in an underprivileged country hanging over me. I had to get good grades, of course, but I also had to be well-liked. I had so much more to prove than goyim girls with family fortunes. I was new money, they could smell it on me. I had to make them like me or else I was nothing and by the time I came to Shadowbrook, I had my image firmly in place. I was fun. I was perfect. I was untouchable. I was loud enough that nobody thought I was trying to drown anything out. The perfect illusionist, Juno Keisler. The girl nobody’s heard of who has everything. She shows them what they want to see. Liking girls didn’t fit into that. Sure, it’s the twenty-first century, but some things never change. When you’re different, even a little bit, people look at you differently. I was already different. I was a child of immigrants, new money, my hair just a bit too curly and my nose a bit too big. I had enough to worry about. And, honestly, did it really matter if anybody knew about Eloise and me? It was just a bit of fun, for both of us. It was just a schoolgirl crush.
And we managed it. We hid. We adjusted our schedules around Brittain and Thea’s classes, so they’d never find us out. She grumbled, but she went along with it. She wouldn’t have gone along with it if she wasn’t just as scared as me. And, let’s be honest, she’s never been told to go back to her country. She has no idea what my life is like. 
It would have stayed just a fun fling if Thea hadn’t died. She kept us calm, she kept Eloise calm and once she was out of the picture, Eloise started to get a little…bitter.
[recording stops and starts again]
Brittain: Can we talk about what the hell that was?
E: A vengeful spirit, evidently.
J: We should try again, maybe with a ouija board, maybe–
E: You’re just full of bright ideas recently, aren’t you.
J: You’re looking for a fight and I’m not going to provide you with one.
E: Oh yes, I forgot how mature you are, how emotionally intelligent. I’m just your silly girlfriend, aren’t I?
J: Eloise.
B: …what?
[pause]
E: …it was a joke. It’s like I’m your girlfriend. That’s how you treat me.
J: But you aren’t, obviously.
E: …obviously, I’m fucking not. Who’d want to date you, Juno?
[leaves, slams door]
B: …what was that about? Have I missed something?
J: No…no, nothing at all. She’s just being Eloise, you know what she’s like.
B: I know…
J: She’ll calm down, she always does, she just needs a moment to act out and get our attention. Like a child, honestly.
B: Do you think it might be better if you didn’t provoke her?
J: What did I do to provoke her just now?
B: Nothing, I just mean in general. You bring up her money a lot. I’m just saying, it can’t be easy for her…
J: Can’t be easy for her? What does she have to worry about?
B: Tuition, for example.
J: So she gets to be a bitch because she’s poor? Come off it, when’s that excuse going to run out?
B: It has to be harder for her than for us.
J: Us? There’s no us, I’m nothing like you.
B: Juno–
J: No, my family earned our money. You have no idea what it’s like having to work for your place in the world. I have to deal with shit you never even have to think about. People in my advanced English class have asked me if it’s my first language. They ask me where I’m from even now. I was fucking born here. I got pulled aside on the first day of school and asked if I was a child of the staff. Why do they ask me that, Brittain, do you think? Let’s look in the mirror and play spot the difference, shall we? What do I have that you don’t, hm?
B: That isn’t what I meant, obviously we all have problems.
J: Oh yes, we all have the same level of problems.
[sound of glass breaking]
B: …what was that?
J: …I think it was the mirror.
[door opens]
E: I saw her.
J: What?
E: I saw her, I was looking in the mirror and I saw Thea behind me and then it started cracking, god–
J: It’s alright, it’s okay, you’re fine.
B: Are you sure you saw her?
E: Yes, I’m sure, do you think I’ve forgotten her already?
B: Christ.
J: Yes, him.
[pause]
J: So ouija board?
E: Might be good. She obviously has something to share with the class.
B: She’s just going to be disappointed in us from the afterlife.
J: Why would she be? I haven’t done anything.
E: No, neither have I. It’s not our fault, it wasn’t our fault–
J: Love, it’s alright, I know it wasn’t.
B: But look at us! We’re all falling apart, she wouldn’t have wanted this–
J: Why don’t we get the goddamn board and ask her what she wants?
B: …fine, let’s.
E: Fine.
J: Fine.
[recording stops and starts again]
J: I don’t know what Brittain told you. That I’m careless or wild or…anything. I don’t know if she said anything about me at all, I think I think about myself much more than other people think about me, but…I did try. It was easier with Thea to help us not kill each other, but I always tried to help. Eloise never took it the right way, but all I did was try to get along. I liked her, really, bitch that she is. Maybe I liked her more because she was such a bitch. I wasn’t perfect, either, god knows. It was a good relationship, though, for a while. For both of us. But nobody could know about it. Nobody. It would ruin everything. Well, except…
[recording stops and starts again]
Thea: Are you alright?
J: Me? Oh, yes. Always. Why?
T: It’s really early. 
J: Is it? I thought it was late.
T: I’m usually the only one up. [pause] I was about to make some coffee, would you like some?
J: Oh god, you’re an angel. I’d love some.
T: [puts the coffee pot on] Would you like to talk about it?
J: About what?
T: Why you’re leaving Eloise’s room at five in the morning.
J: I…it isn’t…listen, it was just–
T: I can pretend I didn’t see anything, if you’d like. I won’t tell anybody. I just thought you might like to talk about it. It’s not good for you, you know, keeping all these secrets pent up. 
J: Why? The stress of it might make me break out in hives?
T: It might make it harder to keep friends, for one thing.
J: …what are you saying?
T: Eloise is very…sensitive.
J: Yeah, sensitive as a freight train.
T: She’s mean to stop people from getting close enough to hurt her. I think you might know what that feels like, having different fronts you put up to hide yourself.
J: …I’d really rather you didn’t psychoanalyse me before breakfast.
T: I’m sorry. 
[pause]
J: What do you think I should do with her? You’re the resident Eloise expert.
T: I think you should tell her how you feel.
J: How do I feel?
T: You care about her a lot. And you’re frustrated. You wish you could tell others about you and you wish she would accept your help or maybe even ask for it. 
J: …how do you know all that?
T: I’m just here. I’m always here. I watch.
J: You’re such a horror movie child sometimes, T.
T: [laughs softly] I’m sorry. [pause] It’s this school, I think. There’s secrets everywhere. They’ve been here so long they’ve baked into the core of it. They’re in the walls like mold and we all inhale them every day until we rot.
J: …what happens when we rot?
T: We die. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
J: What are you talking about?
T: That’s what this school does, it fills us up with secrets until there isn’t anything left of our true selves, see? It’s dangerous.
J: Are you saying we’ll all die, T?
T: Why not? Others have.
J: What others?
T: The other people here.
J: …T, you’re scaring me.
[tension builds until the teapot whistles]
T: Coffee’s done.
J: Thea–
T: Tell Eloise how you feel. It’ll be good for both of you.
J: Thea, I can’t.
T: …right. I did try.
J: You won’t tell anybody? 
T: [tired] Of course I won’t. It’ll be just one more secret.
[pause]
J: Why are you always up this early, anyway?
T: I can’t sleep.
J: Why not? Nightmares?
T: Secrets.
J: Whose?
T: Everybody’s. You’ve all got yours and I’ve got all of yours.
J: …that sounds exhausting.
T: It’s alright. I can handle it.
J: For how long?
T: I suppose we’ll see.
[recording stops and starts again]
J: I wonder if it would have worked out differently if we hadn’t been us. If I didn’t have a shitty Jersulem childhood breathing down my neck. If I had less money, if Eloise had more. If I could say I’m sorry without being asked to. If she could ask me for help. If she didn’t keep all her feelings locked away behind walls and walls of justifications and excuses. If I wasn’t so loud about mine. It might have actually been good, then. Sometimes I think about that. About us growing up, dating, maybe getting married. Getting to wake up in the same bed as her every morning, make her coffee. She wouldn’t have to work at all if she didn’t want to, I know my parents would make sure we were well off, but she’d want to work anyway. She might become an author or a teacher, something she’s passionate about that doesn’t pay well and I’d walk around the city while she was at work, thinking how lucky I am…sometimes I wish we were a bit different. I wish I didn’t love her quite this hard. Then everything might have been better. But, of course, I’m me. And Eloise is Eloise. And that was always our main problem.
[recording stops and starts again]
J: Each of us puts two fingers on each side. Leave room for one more.
E: I don’t think she needs space if she’s a ghost.
J: Still, it’s polite.
E: God forbid we’re impolite.
J: Exactly.
[beat]
B: So shall we start?
J: Yes, let’s– shit.
E: It’s moving. Are you doing this?
B: Not me.
J: Not me either.
E: …it’s gone to “Hello”.
J: Shit. Alright.
E: It’s moving again.
B: It’s spelling something out this time…hang on. “W-H-Y. A-R-E. Y-O-U. H-E-R-E.”
E: Why are you here? Wouldn’t she know?
J: What do we say? Fall break?
E: You aren’t funny. Let me do it… [slowly, as she spells it out] “To…talk…to…you.”
B: …alright, here it goes. “W-H-O… Who are you?”
J: …she’d know, wouldn’t she?
E: It isn’t her.
J: Who the hell is it then? You said you saw her.
E: Take your hands off it.
B: …it’s still moving.
E: Shit. Shit.
B: [pause] “Are…you…dead.”
E: …what does that mean? Why is it asking us? We’re not the ones who are dead.
J: Maybe it doesn’t know…maybe she forgot, it…
[crash, the girls scream]
E: Fucking shit.
B: It broke…the whole board cracked in half…
J: Wait, it’s…the planchette is moving on its own again…
J and E: “Not…yet…”
B: …fuck it, fuck all of this.
[picks up the board, goes and throws it in the hall and shuts the door]
E: …what did we learn from that?
J: …we learned Thea’s not the only one who wants to talk to us, I think.
E: Why does that mean, not yet?
J: I don’t know.
E: Why did it ask if we’re dead?
J: Goddamnit, El, I said I don’t fucking know, I don’t have all the answers to everything.
E: Yes, I know, believe me…
J: Do you ever think your life might be easier if you got off the offensive for once? Just once, be nice, just be nice to us, we’re your friends, we aren’t against you, not everybody is against you, El. We’re all in this together, stop being such a fucking cunt.
E: …yeah, that sounds really friendly, thanks.
B: Stop it, both of you.
E: Stay out of this. What did you say you want, Juno? You want me to be nice? Polite? Want me to know my place so I don’t upset the rich girls around me?
J: Stop twisting my words, that isn’t what I said–
E: Is that what you want? Someone who disagrees politely, who doesn’t raise her voice? Someone to laugh at your jokes and never question the stupid self-righteous bullshit you say? You want a goddamn trophy wife, Juno?
J: No!
E: What do you–
J: I want you, god fucking damnit!
E: This is me! This is what I’m like! 
J: I know.
E: Then stop asking me not to be!
J: I wasn’t! Fuck’s sake, it’s like we’re having two different conversations!
[crash]
B: Hey, guys, I don’t mean to interrupt, but there’s paranormal activity, so could you stop the bickering for one moment?
E: What’s it doing?
B: It’s spilled the coffee grounds all over the floor…oh, it’s writing, oh no.
J: Fuck, what now?
B: … “you’re stuck”.
J: More cryptic fucking bullshit.
E: Stop complaining about the goddamn ghosts! You complain about everything, not everything’s a personal affront to you.
J: You’re such a hypocrite. I’m not the one who takes things way too seriously, El–
E: You’re the one who keeps on saying stupid shit–
B: Guys.
J: We’re in the middle of a haunting, could you stop for just one second–
E: Why do you want me to change so goddamn bad, if you say you want me–
B: Guys.
J: I do want you, you’re just being a bitch!
E: I’m always a bitch, have you met me!?
B: Guys! Shut up! Look!
E: …what are we looking at?
B: The writing. 
J: And?
B: It’s hers. It’s Thea’s handwriting.
E: …she’s saying we’re stuck.
J: Stuck where?
B: In your stupid arguments, maybe! Could you try getting along for one second so we can solve all of this?
E: Get your nose out of our business.
B: You’re making it my business! You’re my friends!
E: Are we?
J: Yes, we are, stop it. She’s trying to help.
E: She isn’t doing a very good job, is she?
B: Well, I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m not Thea, but clearly she’s still here and she’s trying to reach out so just get your heads out of your asses and fucking listen to her if you won’t listen to me! I don’t know what’s been going on with you two, but…look, we’ve all got secrets. And maybe now that Thea’s gone it’s time to air some of them out.
J: How?
B: I’ve got a tape recorder…we can just put them on here for someone to find later. 
E: Absolutely not.
B: It might help, get our sides of the story down in case something happens and…honestly, we’ve all been lying for too long. We need to tell the truth for once. 
E: No.
J: Why not? 
E: Just no. 
J: What could you possibly have to hide that’s so bad?
E: None of your business.
J: …well, I’ll do it. I’ll record it. Where did you say you got the recorder, Brit?
B: It was over in the hallway.
E: The hallway? Why would there be one there?
B: I don’t know, I figure somebody left it behind.
J: During break? Who’s got a tape recorder these days?
B: Does it really matter? We’ll just get everything off our chests and maybe…maybe it’ll help us move forward and all of this will stop.
E: Yes, except the part where none of this makes any fucking sense.
J: El…
E: No. Leave me alone, just…leave me alone.
[slams door]
J: That went so well.
B: She keeps doing that.
J: She’s always done that.
B: …what’s going on between you two?
J: …I’ll record it on the tapes. We can all listen back and figure out the story, right? Isn’t that what you said? 
B: Right…secrets finally out in the open.
J: …everybody’s.
B: What?
J: Nothing…I just remembered something.
[recording stops and starts again]
J: No matter what happens…I want it on the record. Eloise is awful and bitchy and insulting. She takes everything personally and gets on my fucking nerves.
I love her so much. More than I ever thought I could love anyone who isn’t me. I wish I could…I wish I hadn’t kept her a secret for this long. I really wish I hadn’t. I wish I could grow up with her. I wish we had a chance.
I only met her because I went to this stupid cursed school. That makes all the rest of this shit almost worth it…it’s just the secrets. There’s too many goddamn secrets.
[recording ends]

This episode of The Shadowbrook Files  stars Olivia Spreen, Tessa Prodromou, Emma Rensin, and Rose Madsen. It was written by Thomas Malinovsky and edited by Olivia Spreen. Original music is composed by Val Zvyinatskovsky and the rest is from epidemic sound. Cover art is by our friend on instagram @scribblingsenate. Special thanks to our patrons, Tessa Prodromou, James Harper, and Jennifer Parlett. If you’d like to support The Shadowbrook Files and any future podcasts check us out on our patreon at @malinovksyandspreen and on our instagram at @malinovskyandspreen. We really appreciate it. Thank you for listening. Join us next week as we continue our study of the strange case of the Shadowbrook Files.