LFA Episode 1.2 Transcript - The Blaire Witch Child


 * music starts*

Will: If we don’t record this, no one will believe us.

Quinn: If you don’t help us, we don’t know what will happen.

Will: The disappearances keep coming-

Quinn: And coming, and the forest keeps its secrets

Will: So, as always, dear listeners:

Quinn: Grab some tea-

Will: And your conspiracy board-

Both: Because we are: Live From Averno.

* music swells*

Quinn: So at the end of the last episode, um, we asked our dear listeners to send us their thoughts and ideas to help us out, and-

Will: We sent out a massive S.O.S. and said please help because we don’t know what’s going on! And we got some great responses, including from NerdyKitty3-- who does not have a name on their account which seems a little sus, maybe it’s an agent of the enemy-- but they asked-

Quinn: Really? An agent of the enemy?

Will: What? What does that mean?

Quinn: Just- sounds a little dramatic.

Will: D- Quinn, do you know where we live?

Quinn: We don’t know anything yet-

Will: Our world is a little dramatic! NerdyKitty3 asked about James’ family and said that we should investigate. A little recap for anybody who doesn’t remember the first episode: uh, our mayor disappeared, mayor James Turner.

Quinn: Poof.

Will: Poof. Kapoof, into the ether and the abyss. And so NerdyKitty3 said that we should investigate, which means that I sent Quinn to the basement. Our little basement gremlin. So Quinn, what did you find? *laughs*

Quinn: Thank you for that wonderful introduction. Um, so I did some digging in the archives and I- *sighs* from what I can tell they look like, they’re like, real Roswell?

Will: A what?

Quinn: Like a- like a Roswell? Like um, one of those scary white families that seems like, really good but kind of isn’t, like- like alien imposters, like- I don’t know, a friend of it- a friend of mine said it- it once, like, they’re a- a Roswell.

Will: Friends? What friends?

Quinn: Really?

Will: *laughs* I’m just teasing, but Roswell? I still don’t- oh, a Rockwell. Like the 60’s paintings, the- the family and the big turkey, they’re all white...

Quinn: It’s… art, got it? I knew that, I- okay I didn’t- I didn’t know that, I’ve been kind of thinking of that for… a while. Um…

Will: You’re telling me you’ve been wondering about something for… how long? Months? And you didn’t think to Google it?

Quinn: I don’t know, I just, I thought- I kinda liked not knowing exactly what I meant. Like, if I Googled it, it would change the memory and it’d be different afterward? Like you know, like, the memory would be different, and I don’t really like changing those memories. So I like- you know like-

Will: What-

Quinn: A friend of mine said it and I didn’t know what it meant and so I just kinda like rolled with it and now-

Will: What memory- what are you talking about? You have a secret double-agent life, what other friends? *laughs*

Quinn: *laughs* I don’t know… I have no other friends.

* pause*

Quinn: Uh… okay, yeah, anywho, I’m a marshmallow and- and I have nostalgia, it’s fine. Um-

Will: You’re crying about marshmallows? I’m so lost-

Quinn: Okay, so back to the Turners.

Will: They’re a real Roswell-- Rockwell, Rockwell-- uh, your typical white religious family that casually owns an entire town and has for generations and generations. Uh, we’ve already done a basic history on who they are, and, you know…

Quinn: So I did a bit more diggling-- digging-

Will: *laughs* ''Diggling? Diggling'', is that like digging and tickling, what, like this?

* sounds of Quinn being tickled*

Quinn: Hands off.

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: Um, so… I did a little bit more- *laughs*

Will: Diggling? *laughs*

Quinn: Um, I did some more digging into the family, and- just some Googling and stuff, um, first, and it looks like the mayor was obviously Republican and-

Will: Conservative Republican.

Quinn: Yeah, I mean…

Will: Here? In small town Virginia? Never.

Quinn: So he and his wife have 7 children together and are Baptist, I’m guessing they can trace their lineage all the way back to the Puritans and all that crazy stuff. Um, but I did find some stuff that was interesting in the archives, and I- I mean- I guess maybe it’s weird, maybe it’s interesting that- *sighs*

Will: I- what- you-

Quinn: So I don’t have access to the birth or death records-- I think those are probably in a box somewhere in the corner-- but I tried going through the old newspapers just to see what I could find, and… thank God for small miracles, because some poor intern probably spent hours and hours digitizing them, I could actually Google. And I realized that a bunch of the fancy families in town still do like, birth announcements and obituaries and like, all that stuff, and they have for generations, like-

Will: Okay, but that is so wild, because that’s a thing that like, the rest of the families aren’t doing and it’s- it's this whole like, small-town royalty thing where the Turners and the two other like-

Quinn: Announce the births of the next-

Will: Elite they’re like, ‘townspeople, hear ye hear ye, your next king has been born’.

Quinn: Okay, let me tell you- let me tell you what I found though. Um, okay, so, well- well actually I kind of- I kind of didn’t find anything? Um… does that make sense? Like, they’re- they’re-

Will: What? No, what?

Quinn: Their family just makes sense.

Will: I’m so lost.

Quinn: They have birth announcements and they have death announcements, and they have- I don't know, it’s normal, it- everyone there is born, and then they die at like, the ripe old age of like, 92 or- like, a couple of people maybe die, there’s like, one women who died from childbirth, but- there’s nothing weird at all in their family. No one’s gone missing really, or- or even died a little bit mysteriously, apart…

Will: From James.

Quinn: From James, the- the latest mayor. Like-

Will: Okay but like, that actually is really weird in this town. The number of like- and this is like, not even something that we know for sure yet, but just from the number of other disappearances we’ve seen about in the newspapers, the fact that the Turners seem to be immune to it is… very odd.

Quinn: I mean… I- I don’t know, and- and Averno is just really weird, like I- I can’t find out who else went missing without reporting because I don’t think most families could afford the birth and death announcements- like it just isn’t normal for many other families? Um, one thing I did find in the newspaper was- were more and more missing person articles? But they’re kind of all the same as the one we saw for the mayor- they’re really short, like, a little almost announcement. It’s almost like a different kind of obituary, like, ‘this person went missing, we have no leads, like’-

Will: *laughs*

Quinn: ‘Send your condolence casseroles to the family at this address’, and then there’s nothing else. Like, there’s no follow-up articles, there’s no we-found-them articles, there’s no yeah-so-this-guy’s-been-- you know, I don’t know-- ran-off-to-Vegas-and-welcome-home, it’s like, there’s-

Will: There’s not even bodies articles. There’s never-

Quinn: There’s no bodies, there’s just people missing. And this goes all the way back to like, the founding of the newspaper, which was in 1835, and like, the records get pretty spotty after that, um, but from what I can tell… no one was ever found.

Will: Well…

Quinn: So-

Will: On that cheery note, we decided that it was a good idea to go interview the mayor’s family. This idea actually came from a listener- Elody, I think is the name, Elody? It’s a pretty name. And-

Quinn: Elody.

Will: Elody. And so she asked us to dig deeper on the Turner family, try interviewing them again. As you guys know, I called on the last episode and did not get a friendly response and- you know, but nothing gets in the way of good investigative retorting, so I went to their house. How did I find their house, you may ask? *laughs* I’m not gonna answer that question, but I did find their house and decided to go for a good ol’ fashioned interview, you know, the ding-dong-can-I-have-a-moment-of-your-time kind of interview.

Quinn: *singing* Ding-dong. My name is-

Both: *singing* Elder Price. *both laugh*

Quinn: Uh, anywho, uh, so what’d you find?

Will: So yeah, our- our town is really weird, like, architecturally. And I mean, I know every town is kind of odd architecturally, but we have kind of these three districts. There’s the sort of normal, suburban, what you would expect out of Virginia housing, and then there is this small part of the neighborhood that is all Art Deco, which is, for those of you who don’t know, a god-awful, in my opinion, architecture style from the 1920s. And when this town was being founded-- or, refounded-- and they were trying to sell a lot of houses they decided it would be a good idea to make a bunch of these sort of in-fashion, in-vogue houses that are now just horrifically ugly and very cheap and tacky and have never been refurbished. Or been refurbished at all.

Quinn: Tell me how you really feel.

Will: Excuse me, I can have opinions on architecture! Have you seen Art Deco? It is ugly! Like, butt ugly!

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: Anyways, and then when they realized that nobody wanted their Art Deco houses they turned a corner of the neighborhood into these massive, like, McMansion Colonial-style houses, which is weird because they- they were rebuilding Colonial-style houses in the 1920s, which is just odd. And-

Quinn: And back to the interview…

Will: And back to the- well- this is- I’m setting the scene of the interview.

Quinn: Mm-hmm.

Will: So you know, I wandered through the normal suburban areas, the house-farms where everything looks the same, and then through the kind of weird Art Deco neighborhood where all the old eccentrics live, and then you turn the corner and suddenly you look like you’ve stepped into like, the 1800s. And it’s all of these really tacky modern rebuilt Colonial McMansions, and that is where the Turners live. And not only like, Mayor-James-Turner-recently-missing-or-deceased family…

Quinn: But all the Turners-

Will: All the Turners, like, in this little freaking compound. They own like, 3 blocks and it’s all, just, all of the Turners live in these old Colonial houses like they’re trying to be some kind of modern American gothic royalty… Anyways-

Quinn: Tell them how you really feel.

Will: *laughs* *whispers* I don’t like the Turners.

Will: So anyways, I get to their house which is actually the biggest out of the awful McMansion Colonials, and- I mean, I guess it would have to be if you have 7 kids- the weird thing is it doesn’t look like there’s 7 kids. They have this immaculate yard, there are no toys anywhere, like, you cannot tell that children live there.

Quinn: There’s a certain kind of minimalism that only goes with really, really rich people.

Will: It’s the kind of minimalism when you have 8 people to clean your house constantly.

Quinn: Hmm, that might be it.

Will: And so I went up to the front door, rang the doorbell, the door opens- there’s no one there, until I look down and see Blair, who is-

Quinn: Blair.

Will: Blair, who is the youngest of the Turners. She is this- I mean, to put it bluntly, creepy child.

Quinn: Hey, be nice.

Will: Have you seen her?

Quinn: No.

Will: She’s got these big, big eyes and she just looks up at you as if she’s trying to like, read your soul.

Quinn: Is your soul guilty?

Will: I- we don’t have to discuss that on air-

Quinn: Blair knows your soul? *laughs*

Will: *laughs* Blair knows my sins. And I was- I was very polite, I was like ‘hello, I hope you’re having a lovely afternoon, uh, can I talk to your mother?’ And I was, you know, kind of peeking behind her into the house-- they’re rich, they’re capital R Rich. There are, like, no cluttered surfaces, spotless white carpets-- do you know how rich you have to be to have spotless white carpets? Anyway-

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: Blair looks up at me and she goes ‘Mother is resting’, and in my head I’m like ‘run, this is the moment that the creepy child kills you-’

Quinn: You watch too many horror movies.

Will: Okay, horror movies are preparing me for my life apparently. Do you see where we live?

Quinn: Okay, maybe a murder mystery, but not a horror movie.

Will: Whatever. And I was-

Quinn: Or is it?

Will: -you know, ‘whatever, Mother is resting, sure, maybe she just calls her mom Mother’, and then she’s like ‘but I can talk to you’. And I’m like, ‘okay, we’re getting into some funky legal territory here, I don’t want to be arrested for, I don’t know, talking to children,’ and you know, whatever-

Quinn: I can’t believe you actually- you went inside-

Will: I didn’t-

Quinn: Without the parent’s permission-

Will: I didn’t go inside, I stayed on the doorstep having this conversation! I was very careful, I don’t know what happens in there-- there were 5 Vera Bradley backpacks in the entryway. Did- tell me that doesn’t sound scary to you, anyways: I start asking her questions, but as soon as we start talking, the oldest kid, Cora, who is-- 17? 18? However old kids are when they’re in senior year of high school... babies… okay don’t look at me like that, I know I was a senior in high school last year, but that is irrelevant, I am an adult now-

Quinn: Mm-hmm.

Will: And Cora came in, got very mad, turned to Blair and is like ‘Blair! You know that we’re not supposed to talk to them!’ and I’m like ‘who is them?’ and then the door just slams shut.

Quinn: This sounds like quite the journey you went on.

Will: It was! It was a whole journey- like mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally-

Quinn: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Will: I had to see Colonial houses and Vera Bradley backpacks- it was a lot.

Quinn: You poor thing, you’re lucky you didn’t get beaten with a broom. I would have beaten you with a broom.

Will: Yeah, whatever Quinn, do you want to know what she told me or not?

Quinn: Spill.

Will: So she looks up at me, and I’m like ‘so, you know, do you, you know, I’m sorry that your father went missing’-- you know this is an awkward question to ask a child, like ‘do you know where your dad went’-- and so I just say like, ‘oh with your father missing it must be really hard’. She just looks up at me and she goes, ‘he isn’t missing. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.’ And that is the moment-

Quinn: Dun-dun-duuuun.

Will: -where I was like ‘run, RUN,’ and then she just completely changes pitch and she holds up this ratty elephant toy and goes ‘Mr. Snuffles and I heard someone talking in the hall’ and I’m like-

Quinn: Thaaaaat’s not creepy at all, nope, nope. Kids are delightful.

Will: Kids are the most-

Quinn: Kids are terrifying.

Will: Kids are so scary. So, that was the interview! *laughs*

Quinn: So what do we think?

Will: I think that kid is possessed.

Quinn: Of course you do. We can now add ‘ghost’ to our list of suspects.

Will: I mean honestly, at this point I would not rule out the supernatural.

Quinn: Will, you know evidence of the supernatural is wobbly at best and usually based off of pseudo-science?

Will: Okay-

Quinn: And like, why am I- okay, we’re not taking that seriously. Some- someone goned this guy-

Will: Okay hold on, but-- actually, no, remind me to go into the story -- but before somebody goned this guy-

Quinn: I- I mean that’s what the kid said.

Will: Somebody goned this guy. So… so we- we say that somebody goned this guy. What do we really think happened to him then? We are left with a creepy child who seems to think that, based off something that she and her Mr. Snuffles overheard in the hallway, that he’s gone forever.

Quinn: I mean… from the research I’ve done, he is.

Will: Yeah but it’s weird, because the Turners don’t go missing. Why this Turner?

Quinn: Why this time? I don’t know.

Will: If we have had a whole-- what, 200, 300 years of people going missing at a rate of like, two a year? And, except for the first two Turners who disappeared, no Turners have disappeared since then, why would he go missing now? How do we know- okay- you know, this kid is like, ‘he’s not missing, he’s gone forever, he’s not coming back,’ what if she just heard him on the phone with his mistress in the hallway or something? Maybe it’s just something as simple as that!

Quinn: So let me think- so you’re going back and saying maybe it’s not ghosts, maybe it’s not supernatural, maybe he’s not part of like, a murder rampage-

Will: Maybe it’s just adultry!

Quinn: -serial killer that’s been alive for the past 250 years- maybe it’s just adultery?

Will: Maybe? Well, I mean like, what else- what else could it be? You have 300 years of everybody except the Turners going missing and then suddenly a Turner goes missing.

Quinn: Okay fine, maybe- maybe Mr. Turner- Mr. Turner-

Will: Mr. Turner-

Quinn: Okay, so maybe Mr. Turner did just… leave. But what about all the other disappearances? Like-

Will: That’s true.

Quinn: He’s not the only one who’s gone missing. *sighs* He’s not-

Will: ‘If you hear hoofbeats and see stripes, it’s probably a zebra.’ Actually I think that saying’s wrong- *laughs* Oh noooo… *laughs* The saying is supposed to be ‘if you hear hoofbeats it’s a horse, not a zebra’ or something like that.

Quinn: I think- yeah.

Will: But- *laughs* I definitely just assumed it was a zebra,

Quinn: Of course. You think everything’s a zebra. But I-

Will: Okay, so- okay, going back to what we have is a lot of disappearances and suddenly a Turner disappearance, but- I mean, I guess it does make sense that it would be more in line with the other disappearances than a different thing…

Quinn: So maybe we need to start investigating other disappearances?

Will: Yeah. I mean there was that one- Ava wanted us to research Alfred, but we didn’t have time on this episode, but I guess we could look into that next episode?

Quinn: Yeah, we could look at Alfred.

Will: And also, like, the mom? I think we haven’t researched the mom enough, because the other thing it could be is if this kid hears someone in the hallway talking, and from that gets that the dad is gone forever…

Quinn: Maybe it’s her?

Will: What if it’s the mom?

Quinn: Maybe (inintelligible)-

Will: Mother- Mother is resting? Like… what’s up with that?

Quinn: Turners are sus.

Will: Turners are sus.

Quinn: What do you guys think?

Will: Yeah, so, for our next episode send in your theories, tell us who you think we should be investigating. I definitely think that we’re going to need to do some more digging on the other disappearances, but Alfred? The mom? Cora? Who do you think we should be investigating?

Quinn: Will?

Will: Will- hey!

Quinn: *laughs*

Will: I am new here. I am exonerated of all this.

Quinn: I mean you did get here right before-

Will: *laughs* Maybe the Turners only started disappearing because I arrived.

Quinn: Dun-dun-dun.

Will: Dun-dun-dun!

Quinn: Okay! So one of our listeners Calvin suggested we do some digging on the locals in Averno, um, just trying to get to know the area better, see who the players are. And we haven’t had enough time to really get into that today, so what we thought we would do is read the Averno town newsletter.

Will: So-

Quinn: Without further ado: the Averno town newsletter.

Will: “We are proud to announce that local pie is back on sale at the Crumbly Crust, the town’s premier baked goods establishment-- *whispers* AKA the only bakery. Dolores urges you to come pick up your slice today- once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Quinn: “Averno Elementary will be putting on its annual production of The Crucible on Thanksgiving weekend-- an event for the whole family!”

Will: Wow. “The much awaited, but previously unannounced Museum of Redacted Information pop-up event is coming soon on an undisclosed date at an unspecified location.”

Quinn: “50% off all red meat townwide.”

Will: “All hunting permits are suspended townwide for 3 days. Please do not attempt to show them to officers of the law.”

Quinn: “Averno High’s homecoming will be hosted in an abandoned grain mill, a refurbished warehouse at the edge of town. If you are interested in hosting your next event there, please contact the Turners or bring a deposit directly to Town Hall.”

Will: “The town has voted down the appointment of a second church service or a replacement pastor, choosing instead to continue their revolving location self-run church.”

Quinn: “Please don’t forget to buy your turkeys early, as salmonella is now-”

* phone beeps*

Quinn: Sorry I thought I- wait-

Will: What?

* pause*

Quinn: Can you- can you look at this? *pause* I mean I- it’s probably- it’s probably nothing, but-

Will: Oh. That’s weird.

Quinn: Okay- *sighs*

Will: Quinn just got a message from some anonymous account on Instagram that says ‘stop looking’.

* phone beeps again*

Will: Oh.

Quinn: *sighs* Can we- can we- I just- *sighs* I just need a moment-

Will: It’s probably fine-

Quinn: I just need a moment-

* microphone cuts off*

END TRANSCRIPT

Trivia

 * The Rockwell painting mentioned by Quinn and Will is most likely Freedom From Want, which was painted in 1943.
 * The line 'Hello / My name is Elder Price' is a reference to the Tony Award-winning Broadway music The Book of Mormon.
 * The saying Will is trying to remember, according to Quote Investigator, is 'when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras'.
 * The transcriber (Rosenwood) does not recognize the reference to a 'Mr. Turner', so if anybody does, feel free to delete this bullet point and replace it with the correct reference.
 * There is a mix-up in the identity of the town's bakery and whether it is named the mentioned Crumbly Crust or Dolores' Pie Shop, as both have been mentioned in the Averno canon and seem to be run by the same Dolores.
 * It should be noted that as of August 2020, there is more evidence suggesting that the correct name should be Dolores' Pie Shop.