In the fall of 1903, on October 17th, a baby girl named Mabel Scarlet was born. Almost a year later another girl was brought into the world; her name was Ethel-Louise Peach. Their parents were long time competitors in the city. Both families owned private banks, and as result feuded for many years. However both children grew up happily, neither caring about the other’s existence.

Ethel-Louise grew up with only one friend named Florence Magenta, or Flora for short. When Flora’s family fell on hard times, the Peach’s took them in and helped them get back on their feet; feeding them, making sure they had clean clothes and even watching Flora while her parents were out searching for work. From the moment Flora and Ethel met, the two were close, and even when Ethel started to show interest in not only just boys but girls too, Flora kept her secret.

        The Scarlet family only kept the company of high-class individuals. Mabel’s parents always insisted on a marriage between her and Elmer Green, because his family came from a long line of rich and successful people. Elmer and Mabel were best friends growing up, and Elmer came to love Mabel over the years. Mabel cared for Elmer in a brotherly way, but she knew she could never love him the same way he loved her. She knew since she was a little girl that she was never attracted to men, this she only confided in her cousin William Peacock. However in her teen years, she tried “fix” herself and attempted a relationship with a boy named George Mustard. The relationship didn’t last long however, and Mabel accepted that she may never find love.

        One day, Flora ran into Elmer while shopping. Concerned, Elmer advised Flora that it was unwise for a lady to be out alone. He escorted her home and after a wonderful conversation confessed he wanted to see her again. He knew that Flora was on the opposite side of the bank feud so he insisted she bring a friend as cover for being out, and agreed to do the same.

        After much convincing, Mabel agreed to go with Elmer on his date with Flora. Secretly he was hoping to make her jealous and for her to realize that she wanted to be with him. Ethel quickly agreed to be the cover for Flora. Later that day they met at a silent film, Flora and Elmer sitting down together a row ahead of Mabel and Ethel. As the date progressed, Flora became quite smitten with Elmer, not seeing him become uninterested in her. While the date didn’t go well for Elmer, Mabel hit it off with Ethel and they almost instantly became friends. The next day, Elmer came to Mabel’s house and confessed his undying love to her, insisting that if she just gave him a chance she could love him too. Mabel felt cornered, and quickly blurted that she liked only women, and Elmer left angrily muttering about needing to clear his head. A week later he came back and apologized, saying he would support her no matter what.

        It wasn’t long into their friendship until Mabel began to fall for Ethel, who on the other hand, was confused by her feelings towards Mabel, unsure how to respond and never having acted on her feelings towards other women before. One night, Ethel confessed her feelings to her best friend, Flora, who, in her excitement told Elmer. Elmer knew Mabel’s feelings towards the same gender and told Mabel because he wanted her to be happy. Mabel and Ethel had plans that very night to go out to a silent film. Mabel arrived an hour early to the film and waited for Ethel patiently. When Ethel arrived, Mabel dragged Ethel into the shadows where no one could see them and gave her a passionate kiss. They ended up not going to the film and instead talked for hours, discussing if they wanted to try this out. That night, they became involved in a secret relationship with each other.

        After almost a year of keeping their relationship a secret, the Scarlet family knew there was something off with their daughter. When she refused to tell them what was going on, they decided to hire a private detective. It was decided that this would be Edward Maroon’s last case before the age of 18, when he would join the army reserve. It wasn’t hard for Edward to figure out their secret upon speaking to Mabel about it, but he decided to wait until Ethel’s 18th birthday to bring the news to the Scarlets. When the Scarlets found out they were furious. They tried to convince Mabel to find a boy but she wouldn’t have it. The Scarlets told the Peaches, demanding that they try to convince Ethel to change her wicked ways. The Peaches were at first angry at their daughter, but quickly realized they didn’t want to lose her over this and accepted her decision. Mabel was sent to an insane asylum and was released a month later, after the Peaches and Scarlets made a deal that they would keep this incident a secret. The Scarlets never truly changed their minds about Mabel going through a phase. Mabel never trusted her parents again, but she still loved them.

        A year later, the Scarlets held a family reunion and invited Ethel to the event to try to make amends. Mabel immediately went straight to her cousin William, and George Mustard her ex and close friend, who had also been invited. William had brought his girlfriend, Grace White. Grace and Ethel quickly bonded while both of their partners were busy reminiscing about the old times. Over the course of the evening, George developed a crush on Ethel. Across the dining hall, Grace introduced Ethel to her friend, Gladys Canary.

        Six months after the Scarlet family reunion, Ethel’s mother became ill. The family hired the best doctor in the state to cure her; Dr. Raymond Grey. He came to her aid but after weeks of treatment he broke the news that he would be unable to save her. A month after her passing, Ethel’s dad fell ill with the same disease and ultimately met the same fate. This left their business, money, and home to their only child, who was quick to bring her lover on board.

        Ethel hardly had any time to grieve her parents’ death because the business of bank demanded her immediate attention. Ethel inherited her family’s home and moved into it. She hardly ate or cleaned the house, so Mabel moved in as well to help her out. Ethel came home often stressed, and one night after work she verbally took her anger out on Mabel. Mabel was not going to take it and yelled back. After a heated argument, Mabel stormed out of the house and a pissed off Ethel followed closely behind. Unknown to the couple, Gladys was standing nearby in the shadows, there to give her condolences to Ethel for her parents. Ethel calmed Mabel down, and two had a quick discussion and kissed. Gladys, who believed it was a sin to like the same gender, ran away unnoticed by the couple. Gladys spent the next day obsessing over what she saw, and decided that Ethel was a demon, possessing Mabel and leading her in these evil ways. Gladys promised herself that she would save her friend from this dark grasp, and so she started to write death threats towards Ethel. She thought if she wrote prayers inside the letters, it would cast Ethel away from Mabel. The couple had no idea who it was, and they were scared for their safety.

A month later in June 1924, Mabel and Ethel decided to approve a bank loan and fund a business for a man named Mr. Paul Cobalt. They also approved a bank loan for the Rose family because they were running low on cash just like before. After another month, things started to fall apart yet again for the couple. Ethel began to receive letters from George Mustard confessing his love for her, and even a few notes from Elmer Green admitting he had never gotten over his affection for Ethel’s partner. On top of all of that, Mabel uncovered something that Paul Cobalt had tried to hide- he had been in jail for theft and embezzlement. Meanwhile a housing loan made from when her parents were still alive came up with a few missed payments under the name of Gertrude Lavender. After threatening the family with a foreclosure and receiving a particularly nasty phone message, the bank was a few days from following through with the threat when a note arrived, apologizing for the missed payments and the phone call and containing the last few payments of the loan.

In October of 1925, after a calm period, things began going crazy in their group of associates yet again. Mabel discovered that Edward Maroon, the private detective who had recently returned from duty and transferred his funds to their private bank, was spying for Russia and selling government secrets, he was now a very wanted man. When Ethel and Mabel confronted Edward he swore he’d turn himself in, but soon after he seemed to vanish from existence and no one heard from him again. The same month, the couple decided to cut off funding to the Rose family after discovering they were not in fact trying to get back on their feet, instead wasting the borrowed money on frivolous things and putting no effort into supporting themselves. On October 28th, Grace White confessed to Ethel that William Peacock had gotten her pregnant out of wedlock, and instead of doing the responsible thing he ran off and quickly jumped into a relationship with Gladys Canary. Within the month he proposed. Embarrassed and not wanting to hurt her friend Grace kept the pregnancy to herself and asked Ethel to do the same. In order to do this she left town quietly and kept the baby, cutting off all communication with her friends.

A week later in early November, a newspaper article was released titled “Finding the Grey Area in Medical Malpractice”. It reported that Doctor Raymond Grey and his wife Annie had been misdiagnosing and mistreating patients with the intention of making more money off of them. When Ethel and Mabel caught wind of this they immediately thought back to Ethel’s parents who had died so young, having been treated by Dr. Grey and his wife. They set up a meeting with them and announced they would be removing funding until the case blew over and they were found “Not Guilty” in court, to protect their business. They Greys were furious and though Ethel tried to keep up appearances and remain friends with Annie she was almost positive that her parents wouldn’t have died if they had been treated by another doctor. Another news article spoke of the Iris bank company, a contender for the banking business in the same town, and the investigation into a very large amount of fake money which had been discovered. A conversation with Vivian Iris placed an accusation towards Ethel’s bank for the origin of the false notes. Not a week later however, a second news article cleared all banks of the blame, stating the counterfeit bills had originated from a drug deal in a nearby town.

On the morning of November 17th, Ethel started her day as usual. Her and Mabel ate breakfast together, Ethel reading her book while Mabel read the paper and then the two got to work managing finances and accounts as well as filing letters and documents- everything that a private bank had to do. At 2pm Ethel got ready to go shopping with Florence, and Mabel dropped the two women off at the newest mall where they saw none other than Gladys Peacock, formerly Gladys Canary who had declined their invitation because she was "too busy to go shopping". At 4 on the dot, Mabel picked up the two girls dressed in her best cocktail dress so she could go straight to the business dinner after. She dropped off Ethel first and kissed her sweetly on the lips before saying goodnight since she would be home late, not knowing it would be the very last time she would see her lover alive. Mabel then dropped Flora off at home trying to ignore her obvious discomfort.

At 7:30 that night, Ethel was relaxing after a long day and reading a book when the doorbell rang. It was Gladys Peacock, she was wearing a new silk scarf and looking particularly vengeful. She started off the conversation calmly but quickly raised her voice to a yell. Not wanting to deal with the drama Ethel-Louise tried to close the door, however Mrs. Peacock put her foot in the way and pushed the door back open storming into the house and getting in Ethel's face. Frightened and frustrated, Ethel ran to the phone in the entryway intending to call the police. As she picked up the phone she grabbed a knife from under the table that Mabel had insisted she keep hidden in case anyone ever decided to attack them at home. Before Ethel could even finish dialing Gladys had knocked the phone out of her hand, and pushed her to the ground. Instinctively Ethel twisted her arm, cutting Gladys and in the process getting the knife stuck in the floorboards. Ethel kicked Gladys in a vain attempt to get away from her attacker and tried to scrambled down the hallway to the bedroom where they kept the gun. However Mrs. Peacock quickly regained her balance and stepped over Ethel, wrapping her pretty silk scarf around Ethel's neck pulling it tightly until she was sure the young woman was dead. Then Gladys released her hold, letting Ethel's body fall face first to the ground. She quickly wrapped the scarf around her neck, grabbing the nearest heavy object (which happened to be a metal candlestick off the closest table) and she bashed it into the back of Ethel's head to deter the investigators. Taking care not to leave anything behind, Mrs. Peacock fled from the house, leaving Ethel's battered body for her companion to find when she returned home that night… and that she did. Upon Mabel's arrival to their home at 11:30 pm she saw her partner's lifeless body on the floor of their entryway. Distraught, she screamed for help for several minutes, cradling Ethel’s body in her arms before calling the police herself.

A year later the case had gone cold and Mabel took it upon herself to find out who murdered her love. After much research, she came to the conclusion it could have only been one person; Elmer Green. He had come back to the house after she had dropped Ethel-Louise off at home, and not realizing the danger she was in until it was too late Ethel let Elmer inside. He decided that the two had fought and Elmer must have strangled Ethel-Louise in the heat of the moment, then realizing what he had done and with Ethel still barely alive, he had whacked her on the head with a candlestick to keep her quiet. So, armed with this story of what happened and a small handgun they kept in the bedroom, Mabel invited Elmer Green over. By this time, Elmer was married to a woman who looked remarkably like Mabel herself. When he arrived at Mabel's home she raised a gun to his head and went through her version of the story. Elmer denied all of it and just before Mabel pulled the trigger he pushed her hand away from him. The bullet went through the wall and Elmer ran for his life. Knowing she would be accused of attempted murder and missing her love so badly, Mabel took the only way out she could see. She raised the gun to her head and fired…

When the police came to the residence that was once home to the happy couple, they found Mabel collapsed on to floor with a gun by her hand. After reading through Mabel's evidence, Elmer was arrested for the murders of Ethel-Louise Peach and Mabel Scarlet. He was tried for the murders and found guilty. Eventually he was released and returned home to his wife who had remained by his side for all those years, but he lived the rest of his life convicted of two crimes that he did not commit.

As for Ethel and Mabel’s estate, the money in their privately owned bank was returned to their rightful owners and the house was preserved by the Scarlet family, passed down to Mabel’s cousin William and his wife Gladys, who couldn't bear to live in the house. Instead they turned it into a tribute, and it was carefully preserved, with only the occasional groundskeeper coming by to take care of the home. And yet, something in the house would not rest- or perhaps… someone?