Previously on Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall: Jessalyn Thornton has disappeared, right before her wedding to Southern gentleman Colton…I’ve already forgotten his last name. Savannah, the ghostbuster we hung out with in Japan, wants Nancy to solve the case because Savannah’s like thirty years old and still believes in ghosts. Nancy was all, “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!” and we rocked up to Blackrock Island, where weird shit promptly started happening. We’ve got a suspicious family to investigate, including an ice-cold matriarch who I already love to death, and an outcast cousin who likes philosophy, country music, and ghostbusting. Layers!
So we just unlocked Jessalyn’s phone. Let’s see if it helps us figure out what happened the night she disappeared. The first thing we look at are a bunch of audio recordings of the night. I understand the desire not to have to animate 7 videos, but let’s be real, they were definitely putting this on Snapchat.
Anyway, the first few recordings are of Jessalyn and Addison goofing off — Addison is mildly spooked by the house but they’re still just joking around about how creepy it is. At one point around 2 AM, Jessalyn wants to go look for the ruins where Charlotte died, and Addison’s like, “Remember when our other friends got married, and we hung out and watched romcoms for their bachelorette parties?” As the recordings go on, Nancy notes some of the things they mention — the rhyme to “call” Charlotte’s ghost, Jessalyn dropping something under some floorboards, the ruins, and a window in the crypt that might have a ~secret meaning~. And then, around 2:30, Jessalyn disappears, and Addison freaks out. The last track, at 5:15, is of Addison asking Jessalyn to say something, and Jessalyn merely snaps, “Leave me alone.” Spooky!
Next, we can look at Jessalyn’s text messages. Her texts with Addison are jokes about the wedding, and then a few texts from Addison after the disappearance, asking Jessalyn where she is.
There’s also a conversation between Jessalyn and Clara. “Did you get the invertabrates?” Clara asks. Then: “INVERTABRATES”, “NO INVERTABRATES”, and then, “I am typing slowly, and angrily. Did you mail out the things that tell people about the wedding?” Ha ha, autocorrect jokes! So topical!
Then there’s Jessalyn and Colton’s conversation, snarking on how Clara cares way more about the details of the wedding than they do. They’re actually kind of cute together? I think I ship it.
Anyway, we can also try to actually use her phone, but Nancy clutches her pearls all, “I can’t use Jessalyn’s minutes!” Personally, I think calling someone pretending to be the kidnapped girl would be a good way of seeing how our suspects react, but I must acquesiece to the will of Nancy Drew.
Then we wander back over to where we left Savannah’s book, and there’s a note on the table. “Charlotte requests a meeting with you,” it says. OMG, does Charlotte want to go out with us? Should we check yes or no?
So, per the note, we have to recite the rhyme to “call” Charlotte at the place where the “dreadful meter is at its peak.” That’s a reference to the ghost detector, so we’ll have to find a place with high ghost activity and say the rhyme. “SHE MAY JUST LET YOU LIVE.” Yawn. Another day, another death threat for Nancy Drew. Try harder, Charlotte.
So now we want to explore the house with the EMF meter, and figure out where the ghost activity is highest. I’m gonna take a stab in the dark and say that it’s the creepy-ass workshop with the cotton-picking aesthetic and random scythes hanging from the ceiling, but let’s cover all our bases.
We go to the parlor, and as we enter, we see a bunch of shadowy ghosts appear, then disappear. SPOOKY! This is where Jessalyn and Addison where in one of the recordings, and when we look down on the floor, we can see the floorboard that they were talking about. So we pull it up, and find a spider (gross), and a paper with a puzzle on it.
Since we’re here, let’s solve this puzzle. Charlotte can wait, right? I mean, it’s not like she’s going anywhere. The instructions on the puzzle tell us to draw a path through the letters without drawing the same path twice. This will give us the word “YELLOW.” Then, when we flip the paper over, there’s another puzzle, telling us to draw a path through all the squares of the aforementioned color. When we do that, we get the phrase “Ethel’s grave.” Nancy will note that Ethel’s grave must have something to do with the drawing in the corner of the puzzle.
Since we’re in the parlor, we also need to take another napkin from the tea table.
Then we set off to find the ghost. We go to the workshop, and the needle on the ghost detector will jump to the red zone when we stand in front of the door. Well, yeah, I bet a lot of people died here, given that a scythe will behead you if you try to open the door.
Alrighty, so we gotta make a blindfold out of the napkin, and then we have to pick the correct rhyme to call Charlotte. Wade told us the rhyme earlier: “Fire so red, night so black, dear sweet Charlotte, please come back.”
Someone shows up and starts taking Nancy somewhere. Nancy’s like, “Uh, I don’t really want to go to a second location with a stranger,” and the person — who’s female — says, “Give me a reason to let you live.” Well, that’s aggressive. I thought Southern people were supposed to be nice 🙁 You can pick any of the responses that you want. I choose to have Nancy say, “You can’t scare me,” because that is true. Nancy Drew feels no fear! She should probably be studied! “Help me find Jessalyn or get out of my way,” Nancy adds. “Very good,” the woman says, and takes the blindfold off.
And it turns out that we have a whole other suspect hiding in the workshop. This is Harper Thornton, the one who ran away after Charlotte’s death and her family had a gravestone made for her and kept it even after she was found alive because this family is kind of messed up emotionally.
Harper is both delightful and not entirely sane, as you can see from her facial expressions and exaggerated hand motions. She asks if Nancy can be trusted, and Nancy’s like, “I don’t know, can YOU?” and Harper’s like, “Not really.” Good to know! “You probably want to know why I’m hiding under the house,” Harper says. Nancy: “That’s at the top of my list of questions, yes.” Heh. Harper tells us that she doesn’t want anyone upstairs to know that she’s here, as Harper is a “grandly unbalanced sociopath, with delusions of grandeur and a history of erratic behavior and violent tendencies.” She adds that people in town used to stare, and kids used to call her “witch lady.” “Until my dedication to the ironic led me to bake cookies for the sweet darlings. But it was my love of the dramatic reversal that won out in the end, and I threw the little runts down a well…Oh, I’d never do such a thing. But it would be funny! Not funny ha-ha. But funny, ‘Aaah, help, I’m in a well!’”
I love her, you guys.
Anyway, Harper is all salty that her family is ashamed of her, and tells us not to tell anyone that she’s down here. Then she kicks us out of her lair, and we’re back in the workshop.
So, yeah. The Thorntons have a crazy relative in their basement. Hey, we’ve all been there. Some of us have even been the crazy relative! #relatable
We leave the workshop, and as we walk away from the door, the scythe falls on the floor, so we can officially go through there now without being beheaded. Progress!
Harper’s given us a note telling us how to find her again, if we were so inclined. The note says to look to the portraits. Ugh, but Harper, there are like a MILLION of them. So what we want to do is go check out all the family portraits, and use our turpentine-soaked rag on them. This will rub off some of the paint and reveal letters, which are automatically entered on Harper’s note.
When we’re done, the letters from the portraits can be unscrambled to create a message: “COTTON GIN GET SEEDS BALANCE SCALES.”
Back in the workshop, we can look at this cotton gin, and it’ll turn into a puzzle for us to solve. The combs on the side of the screen have to be put on in the right order to make the gin work again. Then we take the bag of cotton we found in the hallway and run it through the gin, and collect the seeds that come out.
Then we put the seeds on the scales on the table, and balance them like so.
The scary scythe door slides up — why is an ancient cotton processing workshop rigged like a Scooby Doo castle? — and reveals a secret passageway. We follow it down until we find a blue backpack. Nancy notes that the backpack looks new, ergo, it’s probably Jessalyn’s. Or…Harper’s? I mean, she’s gotta eat while she’s down here.
But as we know, Nancy Drew is never wrong. The backpack is indeed Jessalyn’s, and it’s full of secrets. We find a family tree — note that Clara’s father isn’t listed there.
There’s also this paper full of wedding notes, with Colton’s responses in red. Note that Clara is overbearing and Colton is kind of a dick.
In the side of Jessalyn’s bag, we also find a key. Ah, is this the key to Charlotte’s room? Let’s steal it. Shouldn’t have gotten kidnapped and left your bag just lying around in secret passageways, Jessalyn! Once we put it in our inventory, though, it’ll be labeled as a “Key Part”, so I guess we have to find more.
Aaaand five minutes later, we’re back in Harper’s hiding place. What up, Harper! Long time no see!
We can ask about all of our various suspects now, so let’s do that. Harper is suspicious of Clara: “Ask her about Jessalyn. See how she reacts. Not like the caring mom she’s pretending to be. Not if you really look.” Oh. I thought maybe that was just the low-level game engine and bad voice acting in these games. Harper snarls that she’s down here and Clara’s “up there,” and she can’t help hating her. I mean, Harper, you don’t HAVE to live in the basement. Still, she acknowledges that she and Clara got along when Clara first came to live with them. Jesus, I hope so, given that Clara had just been made an orphan.
Harper claims to have seen Charlotte’s ghost, and that Charlotte’s spoken to her. “What did she say?!” Nancy says, all excited. “Boo,” Harper deadpans. “Oh, and also she hates you and wants you to get out.” Take a number and get in line, Charlotte. Harper won’t tell us any more about Charlotte, though: “When Char died that was the end of my family. I was left completely alone. All I have to call home are those memories…If I share them, they won’t be mine anymore.” That’s very sad. Nancy tells Harper that her mom is dead, and sharing memories usually makes her feel better. Harper, like Miwako, does not want to bond with Nancy over having dead relatives. She adds that Charlotte’s ghost has become something…unpleasant.
Oh, and she hates Wade. He probably voted for Trump, so I’m not surprised.
That’s the end of that particular conversation tree for Harper, so let’s poke around a bit. We find this green book, the owner of which we don’t know yet. The notes inside show that Charlotte was trying to find out more information about Jackson, who was her (and Clara’s) grandfather.
We also find some tiles. Everything in these games is better with random tiles!
After we give Harper a minute, we can talk to her again. We can ask if it’s safe to have the furnance on down here. Harper’s like, “Why wouldn’t it be?” and Nancy’s like, “Well…you know. Fire? Fumes?” “Sounds like upstairs people problems to me. I’m downstairs people,” Harper snarks. What? Harper, the fumes will get you first. Whatever.
We also see this puzzle, but Nancy will note that it’s missing a piece, so we’ll have to come back to it later.
Back upstairs, let’s see if this opens up any new conversation options with Clara. We have the option to tattle on Harper, which we’ll leave for the end, as it’ll cause the conversation to end. But hey, it’s been a while since we insensitively asked a suspect about their missing parents! What’s up with your dad, Clara? She predictably is not too happy that we asked her that question, and snaps that she doesn’t know who her dad is. Her mother never told her — or anyone — and while Clara thinks she might’ve told her one day, she died before she got the chance. Yikes.
Okay, now let’s tell her about Harper. Yeah, we told Harper we wouldn’t tell anyone, but you know what? Sometimes Nancy Drew lies. It’s for the greater good!
Wade and Clara go to investigate, but Harper has mysteriously disappeared. Clara gets mad at us, because she thinks we’ve made it up. Clara, why would Nancy lie about meeting a person that you guys barely even mentioned? Anyway, we can ask Clara a little more about her — Clara will tell us that Harper is convinced that Clara was somehow involved in Charlotte’s death, and she also thinks that Clara stole part of Charlotte’s locket. A missing locket, you say? It sounds like something that we might find over the course of the game! Harper got really mad at Clara and pushed her off of the widow’s walk of the house one day (dude! Harper!), and by the time Clara got out of the hospital, Harper had been sent off to the “loony bin,” as that ferry dude told us. Yikes.
After all that, though, if we try to insist that we really did see Harper, Clara will get mad at us (again, some more) and end the conversation.
(Nancy’s journal will now say, “I met Harper. She’s completely normal and not disturbing at all. For example, that was a completely normal way to meet a new person.” HEE! I love Nancy’s new, snarky personality.)
Let’s see if Colton knows anything about Harper. He tells us that he heard she went to a psych hospital, but he doesn’t know for sure. Jessalyn seemed afraid of her, but he doesn’t know why. Damn, Colton, weren’t you supposed to be Jessalyn’s bestie since you were kids? Were you even paying attention?
Wade, on the other hand, is bursting with conversation options. Let’s ask him if he thinks Charlotte’s death was an accident. He muses that the night before he died, he saw her carrying a mysterious package, skulking around and acting generally sketch. He thinks he should’ve asked her what it was, and maybe she’d still be alive. Or maybe she wanted it to be a secret, Wade. Maybe she ordered a vibrator off the Internet or something.
Wade has apparently decided that Nancy is trustworthy enough to be given a note from Charlotte’s last days. It’s a puzzle, apparently, and her note says that the puzzle will help us understand what she did, and will lead us to what she’s hidden. OOOOH.
He’ll open up a little more about Charlotte and her death at this point, so let’s ask about that. Wade waxes on about how Charlotte was everyone’s favorite in the family, just like Jessalyn is now. He tells us that in the dark, sometimes you can still hear Charlotte singing. SPOOKY! He also tells us that Charlotte died the night of her twenty-first birthday party — she went off to “the ruins”, the fire started, and nobody knows exactly why or how. Hmm. The fire made Clara grow up faster, but it tipped Harper over the edge. Charlotte and Harper’s parents also died in a plane crash sometime…afterwards, maybe? It’s not clear.
We bring up his arrest, and how Clara says she didn’t mean for him to go to jail. Wade snaps that Clara used to visit him “just to laugh at [him] through the glass.” I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t laughing at him being in jail. Maybe when they were saying goodbye, he was all, “Aeeee-dios,” and she started cracking up, because I wouldn’t blame her.
Alrighty, that’s it for Wade so far. I tried Jessalyn’s key on the crypt, just to see if it worked, but it didn’t.
Let’s see if Addison has anything to say about all this. She actually tells us that Clara was the one who wanted Jessalyn to stay away from Harper, and Jessalyn was kind of like, “Whatever” about the whole thing. Addison also tells us that Jessalyn had a key to the crypt, but she doesn’t know where it is. And it’s definitely not the one we have now, because I already tried that. Damn, Jessalyn, get a keyring!
We can also call Bess and Ned, just to check in. Nancy muses that she’s getting more and more convinced that ghosts are real, and Bess is like, “Okay, but they’re not though. You know that, right? It’s important to me that you know that.” Nancy says that she probably just needs to clear her head, as the Thorntons are really spooking her. It’s true, the graphics quality makes this game much scarier than like, Message in a Haunted Mansion. I don’t blame Nancy for not believing in the ghosts in that game.
We can also tell them about Harper, and Ned and Bess think that we should tattle to Clara about her. Already did that, so whatever.
We can call Savannah next, and ask her what she got from her book-learnin’ about the Thorntons. Savannah tells us that their OG matriarch was the Gray Lady, who Wade also told us about — she was the one who was maybe probably a spy for the North during the Civil War, and Blackrock Island was a gift in thanks for her service. Savannah opines that the Gray Lady started the Thornton tradition of “success at the cost of innocent blood.” I mean, not to whitewash the Civil War or anything, but A) it was a war, everyone involved had blood on their hands and B) she was spying for the side that wasn’t trying to keep slavery going, so I don’t really know what the game is getting at here. It’s not like she was an axe murderer.
Anyway, we can also ask about our old friend Logan. What happened to him? I was so looking forward to feeding him mixed messages about Bess. Savannah says that he got fed up with working for her and quit. Fair enough. Maybe he decided he needed something else on his resume besides “Ghostbusting Assistant.”
Upstairs, we hear more eerie singing. When we go to investigate, we find a new note from Harper. She’s left us a puzzle to figure out where she is now. The drawing refers to the bottles in the cellar, so we’ll have to go down there.
The bottles have to be clicked on in the order of the letters indicated in the note — in this case, B-I-L-E-O — and a secret passage will open up. We walk down it, and we pass under a section of the porch, where we hear Colton. What you up to, Colton?
Colton’s on the phone with some girl named Lexie, asking, “What was I supposed to think? One day you were just gone.” I guess he doesn’t like her answer to that, because then he tells her, “I hope you understand how much that makes me hate you right now.” O…kay. The likelihood of him having murdered Jessalyn and dumped her body has suddenly jumped to like 60%.
Further down the passageway, we find an abandoned digital camera. Ah, 2012, the last year before we completely transitioned to using the cameras on our phones. We can flip through all the photos, and tasks to investigate all of the photo locations will be added to our to-do list.
We try to walk further down the passageway, but then Nancy starts feeling woozy. “I’d better get some rest,” she says. Jesus, Nancy’s age is catching up with her. We used to be able to stay up and solve mysteries all night!
Nancy passes out, and we cut to a phone conversation with Ned and Bess. Nancy will say that she slept through the day — so at least two days have now passed with us at Thornton Hall — and Ned and Bess are like, “You don’t sound so good.” Nancy’s like, “I’m fine! You don’t know my life!” And then we immediately hang up, because we have yet another note from Harper. Did Harper see us pass out? That’s really embarrassing.
Ugh, Harper, we like JUST did one of your puzzles. Can you let me live?
Alrighty, so even my dumb ass can figure this one out. We have to go to the cemetery and put a flower on the Grey Lady statue.
On our way out the front door, though, we can hear that Colton is still on the phone with Lexie. Damn, Colton, it’s been like ten hours! He tells her that he wants to see her, and they could’ve ~found a way~.
Fucking Colton! He’s totally using his best friend and fiancee’s disappearance as an opportunity to try and hit up some other chick! What a fuckboy!
If we step outside, that automatically triggers a conversation with Colton. Nancy admits to listening to his call — in fairness, Colton, it’s not like you were in a private room — and asks who Lexie is. She’s his side piece, Nancy! You’ve only cheated on Ned with Frank Hardy like a million times, you should know how this works. Colton breaks down and tells us that he loves Lexie and he would rather be marrying her instead. I mean…that’s rough and all, but is this really the time, Colton? Can you muster up a little more sensitivity for your potentially kidnapped best friend?
Colton bitters that the engagement between him and Jessalyn was set up by their families — and probably Jessalyn, too. Again, isn’t Colton supposed to be her best friend? Why would he think so poorly of her as to assume that she was trying to trap him into marriage? He’s the worst. Nancy basically points that out, and Colton derps that it never occurred to him that Jessalyn wouldn’t have been in on it. Why would you even think — oh my God, whatever. Lexie can have Colton. I mean, we haven’t even met Jessalyn and she might be evil, but even a Nancy Drew villain doesn’t deserve to be stuck with this dude until death do them part.
Colton tells us that he’s always felt ~out of step~ with the world (what an emo kid), but Lexie made him feel more alive or some shit. Then one day she randomly dumped him out of the blue, and he recently found out that his parents drove her away so that Clara could matchmake him and Jessalyn. My other question here is, if Colton and Jessalyn are besties, how did he not know about her crazy-ass family? Anyway, he says that he loves Jessalyn, but not romantically. He hopes they can still be friends if she ever comes back. Okay, that’s a slightly nicer sentiment, but I don’t feel like letting him off the hook so easily, so I have Nancy point out that it sure would be convenient for Colton if Jessalyn disappeared. “Do you really want to ask me that?” he says. “Yes. I do,” Nancy sasses back. Actually, you have the option to back down a little here, but I feel like backing down from an aggressive interrogation is v. out-of-character for Nancy. Colton yells at us to go away. You can’t handle our truth, Colton!
Also weirdly, in the middle of this conversation, apropos of nothing, he says that he came out here (“here” meaning Blackrock Island or “here” meaning the porch, I have no idea) to forget something. Nancy’s like, “Okay…to forget what?” and he says, “I guess it must have worked.” What? Colton, you can’t just bring something like that up and leave me hanging like that. Although seeing as he was apparently going to leave Jessalyn hanging on their wedding day, I guess that is just how he rolls.
Colton is pissed and won’t talk to us anymore, so we can keep doing whatever we were doing before he distracted us with his love drama. I think I forgot that we were going to the cemetery, and instead I went over to where this pillar is. Nancy will recognize it as one of the pictures from the camera, and we’re now able to walk past the pillar.
And the path past the pillar leads to…spooky ruins! Let’s just waltz in there, shall we? I bet we definitely won’t encounter any ghosts or weird creepy shit.
There’s a fountain off to the side, and along the edge is this panel. The panel contains the puzzle that Charlotte’s note gave instructions to. My screencap is in no way helpful, but basically you click the white tiles on the board, and they change to orange and blue dominoes, like in Clara’s note. Then you have to arrange them according to the orange and blue numbers on the side of the board, and…look, I don’t really know. There are numbers involved. I feel like whoever was involved in these later games really liked math.
When we finish the puzzle, a secret compartment will open up at the base of the fountain. We find a plate with a tile puzzle on it, and another note from Charlotte. We can’t use either of these quite yet, so let’s keep exploring.
We walk into the ruined house, and OH HI THERE CHARLOTTE. She walks past us and out of the house, and Nancy freaks out that she didn’t imagine that. Charlotte’s not a very social ghost, is she? Like the ghosts in Message in a Haunted Mansion were all like, “I CAN SEE YOU” and shit. I feel ignored 🙁
We go over the staircase where we saw Charlotte, and when we look down, we can see this key at the bottom. It’s too far to reach, but we can finally use one of those farming tools we took from the workshop to reach down and pick it up. Dig the skull on the handle! The Thorntons are a bunch of mall goths. Also, if you can’t tell from the skull, this is the key to the crypt. The inventory also helpfully labels it “Crypt Key.”
There’s a reel of film on the table, so we can pick it up and take it back to the house with us. Once we’re back, we can use the film player in the workshop to watch it. It sure is handy that the Thorntons have one of those just lying around! So we watch the film, and it’s of Charlotte’s birthday party — presumably the night that she died — interspersed with ~*~SPOOKY~*~ shots of the ruins. As the ruins were burned down that night, they must have been shot after the party. Mysterious!
Aaaand then Clara barges in and catches us. Oops.
Up next: Nancy somehow doesn’t get fired. I gotta say, Clara is possibly the most chill of all of Nancy’s bosses so far. We find Harper for like the third time, and Wade drags us into his love drama.
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