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A few days after moving into what your friends called ‘the creepy, old house at the end of the lane’, you start exploring and notice a trapdoor in the ceiling of the closet in the spare room. You: [[Decide to leave well alone]] [[Open the trapdoor and explore]] This story is written by Philip Milnes-Smith

After a few months of bad dreams and unfortunate events, your mind wanders back to the trunk. Do you: [[Go back to the attic and try to get it down->try to get it down]] [[Decide enough is enough and go and stay with a friend]]

In the attic you find nothing but a locked trunk that has no key. You: [[Decide to leave well alone]] [[Try to get it down->try to get it down]]

When your mobile rings in the middle of the night, you are unsurprised to hear it is your neighbour advising you know that ‘the creepy, old house at the end of the lane has burned down’. The only item left mysteriously untouched is a trunk that you certainly did not own. Curiosity never harmed anyone (aside from the cat). [[Start again.->Start]]

After a couple of hours of lock-picking and brute force, you are no better off than you were before. [[You decide to call a friend.->call a friend]]

You realise the chest is too heavy to move on your own. You: [[Try to break in, in the attic]] [[Call a friend to give you a hand->call a friend]]

Between you, you manage to get the chest down, and decide to [[call a locksmith]].

The locksmith costs a fortune, but she does get the chest open. It is tightly packed with old documents. If you decide to start with: [[an old family bible]] [[a packet of photographs]] [[diaries]] [[bundles of letters]]

The cover is unstable, and a strange red dust comes off as you handle it. As you turn the pages you spot a partially completed Trescott family tree and some listings of baptisms, marriages, and deaths. You: [[Decide to search for the family online]] [[Put the bible out with the paper recycling]] [[Decide to donate the bible to a charity shop]]

It looks like there could be more than fifty photographs. Do you: [[Keep them in order and look at them one by one]] [[Tip them all out on the table and look at the ones that really interest you]]

On closer inspection, there seem to be two sorts of diary. One kind are more like scrapbooks - with newspaper cuttings and old cards and handwritten notes. The other are more like ledgers with names of people and lists of payments. You start studying: [[The scrapbooks]] [[The ledgers]]

[[You notice an odd slippery substance coating the paper. You don't pay it any mind.]]

The family appear to have been quite important in the area over several centuries. You: [[Decide to contact the local history reading room]] [[Decide to contact people with the surname Trescott in your area]]

The next day, you are surprised to see the bible in the middle of your kitchen table. You: [[Decide to put it on a bookshelf and forget about it]] [[Study it again, trying to make sense of it]] [[Try to convince yourself that you hadn’t remembered to put it out and try again->Put the bible out with the paper recycling]]

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The people you track down are mostly not interested in talking to you. One person wants to know what happened to all the silver. One person suggests you meet her elderly aunt who has dementia. [[You decide this could help->Meet aunt]] [[You decide you now need professional help, and contacts the local history room->Decide to contact the local history reading room]]

The archivist taking your name wants to know what you would like to see. Do you want to look at: [[Digitised newspapers]] [[Maps showing the land where the house stands]] [[The papers of the Trescott family from the 1700s]]

The archivist gives you a box of records to look through. Curiosity piqued, you [[open the box]].

The box is empty. Befuddled, you make your way out of the local history centre. Why keep an empty box? In your confusion you never noticed the car that has lost its brakes careening towards you. It seems curiously did kill the cat. [[Start again->Start]]

The address you were given led to an empty lot. In your confusion you never noticed the car that has lost its brakes careening towards you. It seems curiously did kill the cat. [[Start again->Start]]

[[You turn your attention to the packet of photographs.->a packet of photographs]]

[[It is blank. You put it out with the paper recycling.->Put the bible out with the paper recycling]]

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Some of the photographs have labels identifying people, but not by their whole name. You notice a couple of photographs have been defaced. Trying to make sense of this you decide to look at the other things from the trunk. You: [[Pick the diaries.->diaries]] [[Pick the letters.->bundles of letters]] [[Pick the family bible.->family bible]]

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The cover is unstable, and a strange red dust comes off as you handle it. As you turn the pages you spot a partially completed Trescott family tree and some listings of baptisms, marriages, and deaths. You: [[Try to match names to photographs.]] [[Give up the challenge, and look at letters instead.->bundles of letters]] [[Give up the challenge, and look at diaries instead.->diaries]]

On closer examination, you notice that a whole page has been carefully removed with a knife. Your curiosity piqued, you wonder if this is related to the defaced photographs. [[Deciding it is now time to seek professional help, you contact the local history reading room. ->Decide to contact the local history reading room]]

[[You notice an odd slippery substance coating the paper. You don't pay it any mind.]]

The pages were coated with poison. One of the rare times gloves were justified and you didn't wear any. You will take the secrets of the Trescott family to the grave. It seems curiously did kill the cat. [[Start again->Start]]