Shawn considered investigating the house further, but realized he didn't know the first thing to look for. So instead, he found a relatively quiet corner where he could see the front walk of the house and notice if anyone went in.

While he waited, he needed to have a chat with Mr. Clayton. He tried to relax his mind and let the dummy speak freely. "All right, what's going on with Ralph's mom really? We know who she really is, but what's she trying to do?"

OOC: Unfortunately, Shawn's got a chance die in Wits + Investigation, so he'll hold off on rolling.

Mr. Clayton perked up as if he'd been just waiting for Shawn to talk to him. A cold breeze blew by, rustling the leaves and chilling Shawn's skin as the Puppet spoke.

"We both know what Ralph's Mom is, Yucka-Yucka!!" Mr. Clayton said in his sing-song voice, slotted mouth opening and closing.

"I tried to destroy Mr. Cherrywinks, I really did. It was hard enough to get into the dreams to find him. Bradford was trying to do that for a while but he got all distracted. We were trying to get at the Clown and stop him from doing what he always does when he appears. But it didn't help when you burned Bradford's face off when you betrayed him and gave him away to Cherrywinks. I think he took it personally. He kind of never got over it. Right from the beginning everything was confusing for him. He wanted to get out of the Circus and he also wanted revenge."

"Imagine that? It's like trying to do a show and not having a good script! Everything was all confusing. We'd make it so far, kill off a Clown without the Order knowing about it, or burn a roller coaster in the Circus. Then next thing you know, Bradford's making me kill some kid that we were trying to protect from Cherrywinks, Yucka-yucka!" Mr. Clayton joked, as if killing a kid under those circumstances was so ridiculous, it could be laughed at.

"So everything I know has brought us this far. At least we found him again. At first I thought maybe Ralph's Mom is trying to bring the Circus back. But I know that's not possible, because I destroyed it. So....I don't know...." Mr. Clayton answered, his last words trailing off as if he was thinking about the possibilities. His eyelids clicking like some camera as he stared vacantly at those dull, red lights coming from the basement windows.

Shawn stung a little at Mr. Clayton implying that it was his fault that Mr. Cherrywinks was still around. He hadn't done it on purpose, and Bradford was the one who couldn't get over his revenge. But he didn't let that anger and frustration show. Instead, he tried to concentrate on what was going on right now. "But he seems really different this time. He didn't hide in people's bodies before, he didn't turn them into robots or whatever Leonard meant. Why has that changed? Could he always do this stuff and just didn't want to?"

"Because there's no where to go. There's no circus to go back to. I destroyed them all!!! Yucka! Yucka!" Mr. Clayton laughed like he had given quite the punchline.

"But just because the Circus is gone, doesn't mean that Mr. Cherrywinks doesn't have a job. He still has to come up with souls to lower into the ground. You know that, don't you? You're always playing with me! Hehehehehehehehe!!!" And he gave a little bounce on Shawn's like much like he was enjoying the conversation, like Shawn had given him a little tickle in the gut the way a doting mother might tickle a child.

"It could be that. But it could anything else. It's was never a real Circus. It was just hiding what was underneath. And who knows what Mr. Cherrywinks really is behind that thing veneer of the Circus. We've never seen it!"

Shawn didn't like the thought of there being a 'true' Cherrywinks under the veneer of the Circus. The one he'd met was bad enough! Still, while that was good to know, it didn't really help the immediate situation, at least not yet. "Can Greater Ventriloquism protect us from him? If he looks at us like Leonard said, will you be able to stop us from getting hypnotized and going underground?"

Mr. Clayton shook his head, a gust of wind blowing a large, yellow leaf across his face, before the breeze took it away."Probably not. Hehehehehe! Yucka-Yucka!"

"I don't think there would be anything that I could do." Mr. Clayton's hand came up to his mouth in a pantomime of thinking gesture, the effect slightly spoiled by the stiffness of his arm and rigid hands.

"That's why I think we should find a way to just take the whole house....and get rid of it. Maybe we could bury it some how with everyone inside."

"I know, I know what you're thinking! But if you want to make an omelette you need to break a couple of eggs!!! Yucka! Yucka!!!"

Shawn felt disappointed, but at the same time, he also knew Mr. Clayton sometimes didn't tell the whole truth. "Really? There's nothing the power of Greater Ventriloquism can do at all? I thought it was the most powerful thing in the world?"

He looked at the house and the red-glowing basement. He knew what Mr. Clayton was hinting at, but there had to be a better way.

Mr. Clayton's eyebrows drew inward with annoyance."Nothing is free, you know that. You want something done, you should have practiced more." He said, as if Shawn had not been practicing enough, even though it was clear that Shawn had spent hours and hours alone in his room. Truly, Shawn had practiced so often and so long, that his room had begun to smell terribly. Even his Dad had said so.

Then his look softened as he considered the situation. "But I suppose we could make up for it by sacrificing something. For myself, I'm willing to shut up for a while after this little investigation tonight is over. And believe me that ain't easy! Yucka Yucka!! That means you'll have to put me in my case before meeting your Mom tonight to go to your new, super-special neighborhood. And don't wake me up for at least a week, understand?"

"Now, what are you going to sacrifice?"

Shawn had tricked and been tricked often enough in this sort of situation that his first instinct was to look for ways he could be getting ripped off. "So that'll be protection from Mr. Cherrywinks' evil powers, right? And it's for me, Michael, and Ralph, so none of us get left out?"

He considered what he could offer in sacrifice, and abruptly realized he didn't have a lot. He spent all day practicing with Mr. Clayton, he barely had friends anymore, his parents hated each other...was there anything positive in his life that he could offer to give up? He'd have to think of something.

"Ha!" Mr. Clayton barked out a joyless laugh.

"I want to destroy him as much as the next guy, Yucka! Yucka! The more we sacrifice, the greater the results. The more something is important to us, the more the....benefits?" He finished, lamely.

Shawn wracked his brains, trying to think of something he could give up - or a way to avoid having to pay the price. "What about...the other me that Bradford killed? That was a sacrifice, since it only happened because Greater Ventriloquism made it happen. Bradford couldn't do it by himself. That's gotta count for something, right?"

"Stop being a fag!!" Mr. Clayton yelled at Shawn in sudden anger.

"I was the one who set all of that up because Bradford made me do it." He snapped in a savage tone. "It's not your sacrifice if I do it."

"The things I've done for Greater Ventriloquism, for Bradford, for you." He intoned the last word as if Shawn was being ungrateful.

Then he started naming things the way a disappointed adult would do to a child that wasn't appreciating the efforts Mom and Dad were doing.

"I destroyed the Circus and the Order you were a part of."
"I helped you get rid of Bradford."
"I got rid of Tiffany."
"I helped kill the other you."
"I switched places with you, so you could do your....things."
"I've told all of these funny jokes."
"I did a show with you to impress Junior."
"And I sat in front of the mirror over and over again to practice for hours and hours and hours and hours!"
"I even agreed to let you see Papa!"

"Don't call me that! And half of that stuff I didn't even want!" Shawn felt stung, more by the accusatory tone of Mr. Clayton implying he was ungrateful than anything he'd actually said. Shawn hated it when people implied he was ungrateful.

"I spend all my time with you, so I can't give up on doing other stuff for fun, and I can't give away my toys because you're the only one I play with now. My parents hate each other and me, all my friends are dead or missing or I'm tricking them so I dunno if they count anymore. I don't have anything left to sacrifice, thanks to you. So unless you wanna put me in a water tank like you did with Junior's show, or stick me full of cords like you did to Bradford, I'm all out of ideas, Mr. Clayton!"

There was a long pause.

In the distance the sound of kids saying 'trick or treat' was far enough off that it seemed to confirm Shawn being alone rather than provide comfort that someone else was out at night in the neighborhood.

Mr. Clayton's dead, vacant eyes stared up at the sky as if the Puppet wasn't really animated at all, but just some toy.

Then he finally spoke.

"Maybe we got off on the wrong foot." Mr. Clayton said in an apologetic tone.

"Why don't we, you know, start off small." His voice was soothing now, but still high-pitched, like a deranged grandmother trying to be kind.

"If you're out of ideas, then I have to do the suggesting. But you have to do it like always -- in the name of Greater Ventriloquism. And you have to say it. Give yourself to it."

He brought that hand up to his mouth again as if he was thinking.

"Let's see....." And then Mr. Clayton's eyes grew wide.

"Let's start small like I said. Tell you what, when you see your Mom tonight when she picks you up.." He quickly corrected himself "...Us up, why don't you say this word to her while looking her in the eyes..."

And then Mr. Clayton leaned in close to Shawn and looked him straight in the eyes and said:

"DICK-BAG."

Shawn's first instinct was a shocked refusal. He'd get in so much trouble for saying that to his Mom! But before he could tell Mr. Clayton that, he realized that was the whole point - that was the sacrifice. "I...if that's what I have to do, then I'll do it."

The Puppet nodded his head and then clarified his position:

"We can make it so that Mr. Cherrywinks can't use any of his special powers against you." Mr. Clayton's head bobbed up and down in a nodding gesture.

"But if he hits you with a Clown baseball bat or a cleaver all bets are off! Yucka-Yucka! Also, I can't do anything about him getting someone else to attack you. So if you find some strange kid in that house, you've got to iiiiiiimprovise!!!!" He said, and his heads spread out in a flourish.

Shawn  was hoping for a little more, but he understood that without paying a bigger price, he couldn't expect more. "What about Michael or Ralph? They're not strangers."

The Puppet considered Shawn's question.

"As long as you can see them, it should work for them the same." Mr. Clayton said.

"If they wander off or you lose sight of them in that big house....well, it's every kid for himself!!! Yucka! Yucka!!!" He laughed, as if it were really funny that some kids might die in there.

"Mr. Clayton, don't laugh at that!" Shawn had honestly gotten used to the puppet saying stuff like that, but at the same time he knew he probably wanted a reaction, and Shawn was willing to give it to him.

He thought about anything else he could do to prepare, or possibly get an advantage from Greater Ventriloquism, and an idea occurred, one which might require a bit of trickery. "Hey Mr. Clayton, Cherrywinks is hiding inside a regular person, right? That sounds a bit like the time you and me switched bodies. Does that mean you can hide yourself inside a person?"

Mr. Clayton rejoiced at Shawn's reaction with a titter

"Hehehehehe--desired effect achieved." He said, the last words coming out like a fake robot on a cartoon show.

Mr. Clayton paused at that second question. Paused would be an understated word for it: The Puppet seemed to recede inside and shy away from Shawn without saying anything or moving.

"Hmmmmmm...We can talk about that after this." And he gestured with one hand towards the house. "Maybe after you wake me up from my long sleep in my case. Then, after I wake up, we'll talk about the other aspects of Greater Ventriloquism."

Shawn noticed Mr. Clayton trying to weasel out of answering, and his reaction made him think he was onto something. He decided to push harder. "Are you sure? It's just, it'd probably come in really handy if you could. I'll need my hands free for the house, after all, and I can't just leave you by yourself outside..."

It was clear that Mr. Clayton didn't want to answer Shawn, or at least not right away. He paused before he spoke, changing the subject and intoning his words slowly and with emphatic foreboding.

"Someday soon, someone will ask about me. An adult. They will ask if I'm really real. They'll ask you if you hear voices or if you think I'm real. They'll ask you about Greater Ventriloquism." He said

Shawn wasn't sure if Mr. Clayton was answering his question, or changing the subject, so he played along for the time being. "What should I tell that adult?" He knew his first instinct would be to just lie about it. He'd tell them that he thought Mr. Clayton was just an inanimate dummy, and that he was just pretending. Maybe he's say it was an acting exercise or stage practice. But he also knew Mr. Clayton wouldn't be talking about it if it was going to be a normal situation.

"Deny, Deny, Deny, Deny." Mr. Clayton said over and over again. "They'll think you're crazy. They'll ship you off to some hospital."

Then he looked up at Shawn with furrowed, worried brows "You're not going to abandon me, are you? Outside here? Or whenever it suits you?"

"Well, of course I'm gonna deny. And that why I'm asking if you can hide yourself inside someone. So you come with us and I don't have to abandon you." Of course, Shawn did have an ulterior motive - if Mr. Clayton came along and they were in danger, he might use the power of Greater Ventriloquism to protect whoever he came along with, beyond what Shawn had already 'paid' for.