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unto-myself-together · 5 years ago

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Of Stories and Songs: Ch 8

A lot of author notes, I know, but there’s no avoiding that. A TON of stuff happens in this chapter.

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Author notes: I really REALLY need to stop making long chapters. 22 pages! Like I never get them out and I get “fatigued” or something when I make them super long like this. I also wouldn’t have to make such long author notes.

Inb4 my family thinks I’m creepy for breathing into my phone while recording.

I actually couldn’t figure out how to get the audio files off my phone, but you’re really not missing much anyways. Just when you get to the part of the story, take a deep breath in and listen to how it sounds when you take a deep breath in. Change it up by changing how fast you breath the air in, and listen. Yes, that was exactly what I was going for.

Character names and the Imagineers they were named after:

Claude = Claude Coates Michael Davis = Mark Davis Karen Anderson = Ken Anderson Solomon Gracey= Yale Gracey Rolly Mortimer= Rolly Crump The Atencio company = X Atencio Nell is named after the main character of the Haunting of Hill House *(as well as named after the author of that story). And Galloway isn’t anything important or a reference; it just sounded cool at the time.

Yes, I did indeed try to draw that creepy hand that passes over the grandfather clock. I’m sad it didn’t turn out quite right, but I dislike the act of drawing too much to actually bother fixing that piece up.

“Closing your eyes” : When I was young, my mother would always close my eyes when the Ghost Host would show his body hanging from the rafters. I thought she did it because I was afraid of the thunder and lightning, and she was known to hold my eyes whenever something I found scary happened on other rides. Even though thunder is a SOUND and not a sight, it did feel comforting to have her put her hands over my eyes anyways. It took me a long, long time to figure out the real reason she closed my eyes was because she didn’t want me to see the hanged man. Part of that was because I didn’t know it was a hanged man, even when I had a chance to look at it. It just looked like a weird clump of clothes hanging from the ceiling. So I guess in some ways, she didn’t even need to hold my eyes close to begin with (because I would not have known even if I looked at it); but I still appreciated that she went through the effort.

The idea of three people creepily coming closer and closer to you after having cornered you is kind of what I imagined the Cast Members would totally do to guests that don’t listen and leave the ride vehicles without permission. You know...if security didn’t have to be involved and they were allowed to be theatrical.

So in the actual ride, there are TWO stretching rooms for all Haunted Mansion locations. In WDW, they exist on either side of the Aging Man portrait. They are exactly identical, and I always thought it would be fun to imagine that they are the EXACT same room, and that the house just moves rooms around.

The door hidden in the darkness of the foyer is an actual door in WDW that I’ve been through. It connects to the small pet cemetery area right outside the exit doors of the ride. I’ve been through it before and it was totally awesome; might talk about it in another post.

There are actually two versions of Nell; the one in this story and the one that I roleplay. For all intents and purposes, they have the exact same personality, likes, and etc, but they just have different backstories and reasons for being at the mansion. In case anyone was confused.

I struggled, for a long time, to figure out what year this story ought to take in (as in, what year the two teens come to the mansion). There are benefits and downsides to both “modern era” and 1960s, the two time periods I considered. On the one hand, the 1960s could avoid the idea of under age drinking because the age was 18 back then (in the state of Virginia). The reason why I mention this is because there was a plot point that I...really don’t want to have to avoid all because the main characters don’t drink. I think I pretty much solved this dilemma in this chapter though, without underage drinking (even if I had to do so in a bit of an unrealistic way, sorry about that). Additionally, there would be no cell phones 1960s to ruin the story (as they call for help). On the other hand, it also means I cannot use modern day slang, ideas, memes, and etc....I think I’ve decided to kind of....let this story be in the modern day....possibly. I don’t know, I just might change my mind later. The struggle is real.

I may have forgotten a few author notes, in which case I apologize beforehand.

FINALLY, I dedicate this chapter to my dear friend, @asktheghosthost . Thank you for always listening, thank you for all the good times and good stories we’ve made together, thank you for reblogging these story chapters, thank you for pulling me back in the Haunted Mansion fandom...and thank you for helping to inspire this story.

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Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, domestic violence, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

This chapter: underage drinking (except not really. You’ll understand when you get to it)

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Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , Chapter 5 ,

Chapter 6 , Chapter 7

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CH 8: Dust and Ashes

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All of my life I spent searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings

~ Now at the end all I know that I've learned is that all that I know is I don't know a thing

~Dust and Ashes, from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

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Karen pulled the blanket closer to her as they descended downward. It was warmer in the stairway, but only just so; the more they descended, the closer the temperature got to the frigid room she’d woken up in previously.

“…Mr. Mortimer…I’m confused.”

“I can’t blame you none for that. I’d probably be the same, were I in your shoes.”

He kept pace beside her, his cane ticking with every step.

“What I meant was: Why are we going down? Shouldn’t we be going up?”

“We’re already up as high as we can get, young’un. Nowhere for us to go but down.”

“Wha--?”

She stopped, and Mr. Mortimer’s cane clicked to a halt as he, too, stopped a little ways in front of her.

“Where was that? The place we were before with all the junk?”

“That would be the attic.”

Karen considered this.

“Mr. Mortimer…why…did you go through all the trouble of carrying me up to the attic? What was the point if we just have to climb all the way down again?”

Mr. Mortimer chuckled, his gold teeth glistening in the act. The warmth of his tone, however, hardly made the sight terrifying.

“I certainly would not have gone through the trouble of gettin’ a living body all the way to the attic…You were already nearby.”

She gaped at him, trying to keep up with his logic.

“But I fell down a chasm of staircases…”

“No, you fell up a chasm of staircases.”

“That’s not even physically possible!”

“Talking about the physical in a house of ghosts, hmm? Trust me, young’un. Those sets of staircases you’ve been hanging about in are the very opposite of possible. Don’t think too hard about it, as it doesn’t make much sense even to us.”

He gestured for the two of them to continue, and she numbly caught up to his pace.

“If I…” She adjusted the blanket as they walked side by side. “…If I had fallen all the way…”

He frowned. “…Best not think of things like that. Won’t do nothing but worry yourself.”

She gave him a startled look, and he returned it with solemn nod.

She went quiet again for a bit, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. This stairway, at least, seemed to be relatively normal. Contained on all sides by walls, yet the rickety nature of it still threatened to trip her should she neglect to watch her step. Tiny spiders crawled along one of the walls. Tiny red spots on their backs that made them look like drops of blood circulating around them.

“…I’m sorry I didn’t say it before but…Thank you for saving me, Mr. Mortimer…”

“I’m afraid I can’t take all the thanks, young’un. Because I’m not the one who stopped yer fall.”

“Then who did?”

Mr. Mortimer paused again, and his gaze followed the trail of spiders.

All of them, the exact same appearance. All of them, traveling the exact same lines. Single Filed. Mindless and unnatural.

“Are those really spiders?” Instantly, she regretted the question, just as she was sure she’d regret the answer.

He sighed. “No. They aren’t. But that’s a right hard topic to talk about, and I ain’t too sure it’s my place to say. We better press on.”

His tone suggested that he’d prefer a change in subject, and his cane clacked as he continued forward again.

But Karen lingered a while by the spiders, watching them go from one end of the wall to the other. Black beady bodies with bright red spots each. A larger one was lingering above the traveling group with the same shade on its hairy exoskeleton as all the rest.

She looked from the tiny creatures lining the wall to the little bites that still lined her hand. These had to have been the same sort of spiders that fixed the window…and the floor…and attacked her for trying to interfere with their work.

The spiders stopped. Unanimously and simultaneously, they all turned towards her and lifted up their front two legs.

She took a startled step backwards.

“I’m sorry!” She said, wondering if they actually understood her. Her legs compelled her on to catch up to Mr. Mortimer, and a quick glance behind her told her that the spiders resumed their mindless trek once again.

“They’re so creepy…” She muttered as she was once again beside him.

“That they are,” The skeletal Mr. Mortimer said.

“Have they always been part of the house?”

“As far as I’m aware. Mr. Gracey told me he remembered seeing some of them back when he was alive, though it’s difficult to say whether they’d been upkeepin’ the house back then the way they do now.”

“How could he…not remember whether there were strange spiders rebuilding the house from underneath his feet?”

Mr. Mortimer gave a snorted laugh. “If you ever meet Mr. Gracey, I think you’d do well to keep that comment to yerself.”

“I already have, and I already think he doesn’t like me.”

Mr. Mortimer raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“He was just…”

She thought back to all the memories she had of Solomon Gracey, and the contrast it stood to her own personal experience meeting him. The resulting earthquake he seemed to summon right then and there in the hallway.

“…Really grumpy.” She settled on that, although it seemed a severe understatement.

“Likely was just angry with that Mr. Claude. He assumes all mortals that come this way are the result of that man luring them here. And he’s usually right.”

“Mr. Claude?”

“Ah...” He tutted to himself. “Sorry. Tried to remember not to call him that around you; I don’t think he likes the mortals using that name. But you would know him to be the self-proclaimed ‘Ghost Host’.”

Karen tightened the blanket around herself. “He has a name?”

“Just the one. No surname, no title names, no family names. Just Claude. Doubt it’s even his real name, the wretch does like his little nicknames, but it’s the only one he’s ever given us to address him.”

The Ghost Host, imagined as a once real and living person. Even in the one memory where she saw him as a mortal, it was hard to think of him as human. Having something of a name attached to him did almost nothing to wave away the inherent ethereal nature of his existence. In fact, it almost felt…discomforting that he should have a name at all.

“Him and Mr. Gracey didn’t much like each other even way back when,” Mr. Mortimer continued, “And their fightin’ didn’t get any better in death either. If anything, it got worse. Sometimes see them go at each other’s throats like starving bears maulin’ each other over a fresh kill.”

They stopped at a landing, and Mr. Mortimer opened up the door into another hallway.

“As it happens, Mr. Claude is the one who likes to lure in unsuspectin’ mortals, and occasionally shows them off to Mr. Gracey because the ol’ wretch knows it will get the master of the house right and proper pissed at him. Mr. Gracey doesn’t approve o’ tricking mortals into the house, you see. It’s all a lot o’ prime entertainment for Claude. ”

“So Mr. Gracey isn’t really angry at me, then?”

“I’m sure he’s a bit peeved. Mortals shouldn’t hang about here. They can get themselves hurt, and there ain’t much of a good reason for them to be fraternizing with the dead. Leads to all sorts of things, like ghost hunters and….not so good expectations about what it means to die. So I can’t say he’s much happy that you’re here. But he’s a right sort, a good man, and even though he’s a little, as you say,…”

He gave her an aside, his sea green eyes glittering at her as he smiled.

“…Grumpy, he won’t hesitate to help you if you’re in need of it.”

They wandered down a hallway that she could only describe as splattered with crimson; red carpets all across the floor, red wallpaper with a strange floral design, and even the lights seem to glow a bit red. Or maybe that last was simply a trick of the eye.

Mr. Mortimer suddenly slowed his pace, and as she peered at him she could see his ghostly brow furrowed in concentration.

“Speaking of, young ‘un…”

The sound of the wind drifted through the halls; strange as it was since there were no apparent windows about.

“….If anything should happen to me, you’ll need to go and find Solomon. The wretch Claude will try to stop you, he’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way, and you’ll need to swallow your fear and go down the scariest looking path to find Solomon. Solomon will help you.”

She was staring at him. “What….do you mean….?”

His eyes squinted; they looked off into the hallway and did not pay her heed “…It seems the wretch is about…Might be comin’ our way…”

“You can tell?” She tried to look down the hallway as well, but could see nothing out of place. It got colder; the wind shifted to breeze past her.

He shifted the hatbox to his cane hand so that he could grab her arm.

“Quickly now, young’un.” He said, pulling her along back the way they came. “We best be making our way back to the attic.”

“But why?”

“He never goes into the attic.”

And Mr. Mortimer left it at that, a note of finality in his tone that assured her he was not going to give her any other explanation.

They made their way, at a much quicker pace, down the red rimmed hallway again and back into the stairwell. He urged her to go up the stairs two at a time, a frantic pace that she was sure she wouldn’t have managed if he had not kindly helped pull up her weight with him. But even as they made it up their way up floors, the stairs seemed dauntingly and sadistically too tall.

“Can’t understand why he’s this dogged insistent… Plenty o’ mortals, psychic and not, have come by before and he never seemed this obsessed…What’s different here…? If I had known…if I had known…Ah, what a fool ya are, Rolly…” Mr. Mortimer muttered to himself. “Should have kept her in the attic, ya should…”

They made it to their third landing, before she suddenly buckled; an eerie, freezing sensation traced her spine and filled her with dread. And almost immediately as the feeling came, Mr. Mortimer spun her behind him and….

…And he was thrown against the wall.

She never saw it coming, for there was nothing to see. The invisible entity rammed the greenish hued Mortimer up against the wood of the stairwell; she could see Mr. Mortimer struggling against it, his “body” glowing and misaligning and fading a bit as he fought. She clenched her ears at the horrifying sound it seemed to produce, a cross between a woman screaming, a metal screw turning, and a set of nails rippling down a dry chalkboard. It penetrated her head.

Mr. Mortimer seemed to throw his attacker off him, as his feet were then on the floor. His glow sputtered as he slammed his cane onto the floor in an effortful movement; the screaming chalkboard sound returned again and she stumbled against the wall to hold herself up.

But it did not seem to last long. Mr. Mortimer was back and pinned against the wall again, his glowing form turning to glowing fog, and the glowing fog obscuring her from seeing him properly.

Until the fog cleared, but there was no sign of Mr. Mortimer.

There was a painting of him instead.

“Mr…” She gulped his name back down, afraid of what she was seeing. Her hand shakily reached up to touch the elaborate frame of the perfectly painted portrait of the man who had just been beside her.

“Crying for the dead is encouraged in this house.”

There was a twinge of anger that she couldn’t just brush away as she turned to the empty air.

“What did you do to him?!”

“Don’t feel so bad. It isn’t as though I killed him. Merely punished for trying to kidnap you away from me.”

“He wasn’t kidnapping me!”

“Oh but that is precisely why I have to frame him for it… Ahmmh mhmm hmmm ha ha haaaa HA!”

She went back to the portrait. Mr. Mortimer’s jaw seemed clenched in anger, his eyes glowering.

“Young….un….” She was surprised to hear a whisper coming from it, barely audible over Claude laughing over his own stupid joke.

“Solomon…..find….run….harder….to….catch….moving target…”

“But….what about you?” She whispered back.

The edged colors around his face seemed to soften a bit. “I…am...fine…”

She looked back at the open air; the damnable voice was still laughing as though his greatest enjoyment was to hear himself.

A quick adjustment of the blanket…Karen took a deep breath….then charged right through the nearby landing’s doorway.

The Ghost Host stopped laughing. “Oh? Are we playing the running game now? A bit of cat and mouse? What fun.”

She spun around the corner of the doorway, but was pulled back for a moment by an invisible force of vice-like cold. She struggled a moment, trying to twist it off her, before finally shoving off the blanket towards her attacker.

A tall figure.

The blanket outlined against a tall figure, where there had previously been nothing before. Its head was bent in a sickening angle, like the neck had been broken.

But she did not give herself a pause to absorb this; the grip on her had loosened and she took the opportunity to bolt down the hallway.

Red carpet, red walls, and as she propelled herself forward, her lungs drinking air, little spider spots came pouring down from the corner edges of the hall. First in a sprinkling, then in buckets as she traveled onwards.

Mostly, they spilled over the walls themselves, but a few occasionally dropped down from the middle of the ceiling and landed on her head. She brushed them off, again and again.

Her feet came to a halt at the junction, and her heart skipped a beat to see that one of her optional paths involved statues. A LOT of statues. The same kind of statue that had chased her before. But this path had a whole horde of them, scattered all the way into the darkness of the furthest she could see.

The other path looked clear.

He’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way.

Mr. Mortimer’s words rang in the back of her head and she balked. How was she to know whether this were an illusion or a genuine herd of statue ghosts?

The shadow of a clawed hand, The Ghost Host’s distinctive chuckle phased in around her. The shadow claw circled her like a shark, twitching its fingers in anticipation of a single mistake on her part.

Karen cursed under her breath; not just directed at the Ghost Host, but herself. For the next thing she knew her adrenaline had already made the choice to charge. Straight into the hallway of statues.

It took a few ticks for her mind to catch up with her; the moment she thought this choice wasn’t a bad one after all was on the heels of the moment she noticed the statues were turning to face her. Grinding sounds of stone on wood and fifty pairs of stone weary eyes straight on her. She dipped and dodged around them, too scared to look back to see if claw hand or statue was following.

But she could feel them all pressing in around her. The sounds of scraping surrounding her...then one of her arms got caught. She managed to wretch it away.

But it happened again….and again…And until the other arm was snagged…and then her waist….her legs…stone hands grabbing her neck…her head….pulling her down with them….the restraints too strong…

She turned to look down the hallway to a vanishing freedom…took a deep breath as much as the stone arms would allow…And yelled:

“SOLOMON GRACEY!”

The statues froze in their grasp of her. No longer did they push to pull her to the ground.

And she swore she heard, to her great satisfaction, a grunt of annoyance coming from her long-standing invisible tormentor. Anything that annoyed the Ghost Host couldn’t possibly be a bad idea.

Sure enough, the walls began to shake. Vases on nearby corner tables toppled over, specks of dust trickled down from the ceiling. That sickening, cold spine feeling that she was beginning to associate with the Ghost Host began to dissipate…..and the statues started dissipating with it. One by one, as the earthquake rippled across the hall their forms smudged like a blurry photograph, before disappearing altogether.

Her body was released and she fell to the floor with a thud. The feel of rough stone was replaced….with a distinct taste of licorice. She swallowed to try and get the strange, sudden taste from her mouth, but it persisted. And the earthquake slowly died down.

She was alone and it was fantastically quiet.

“You…” A whisper on the air breathed. She looked up, only to distressingly find a pair of vivid, blue glints glaring down at her from the darkness of the far hall.

“You shouldn’t be here…” It continued, blue eyes moving towards her.

It sounded like someone taking in a long, deep breath.

And there was dust and ash.

Dust and ash….

It was like dust and ash….

Swirling together….coalescing….combining….until she could make out a face….a mouth….a nose….from the dust and ash came also the sleeves of a suit….a hand formed from the particles….legs….a person….

An angry person. A furious person.

The breath sound that lingered on the wind exhaled just as he was fully realized.

Though she had been rooted in the spot, in awe of watching a ghost forming himself in front of her, her adrenaline was still strongly beating in her veins. And it was this drive that caused her to stumble back, a frantic yearning to run screaming in her head.

As he advanced even closer to her, that internal screaming fueled her into dashing down the other hallway.

A candelabra blocked her way. A floating candelabra.

Another sound like someone taking a deep breath in….Dust and ash swirled around the candlesticks, the smell of roses, the wax dripping alongside the specks, until the figure of a woman appeared. Grey eyes, black hair, green dress; the head maid from the memories.

The breath exhaled.

She, too, advanced towards Karen, candelabra in her now mostly formed, dust dripping hand.

“P-please…” Karen stammered. But she herself wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to ask for.

Her feet took her down the last hallway, only to be cut off by a third figure.

Deep breath.

Dust and ash…

Dust and ash swirled once more, and a man in a green suite formed. Birds chirping. The breath exhaling…The dust settling off his shoulders as he guarded her final escape route and proceeded forward towards her.

Trapped on all sides. The master from the left, the head maid from the front, and the head butler from the right all converging on to her location, one step after another. A marked pace that noted they had all the time in the world to reach her.

And what would they do once they’ve accomplished this? She pressed her back against the wall, sliding gradually down to the ground as her head whipped from one of the trio to the other and the other. Her breath heaving in her ears. From Mr. Mortimer’s descriptions, she had imagined something much friendlier. Than again, she also had never imagined Mr. Mortimer was dead.

“No more running,” Mr. Gracey said with a sneer.

Right as she could see the hem of the maid’s dress a few feet from her eyes, she shut them tight. Waiting for…something to happen. The uncomfortable nothing that followed made her squint her eyes open once more.

They were just standing there. Waiting.

“You...really don’t need to do that….” Mr. Gracey said, frowning down at her.

“Do….what?” She breathed, finally releasing the breath she’d been holding in.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Act as though you’re about to face your own execution.”

“Well how am I supposed to react then?! You make a show of…of forming yourself all angry like that and just…” She stammered. Her nerves were too frazzled for this. “I only just avoided a bunch of statues grabbing me and…! And that Ghost Host taunting me and….and the running and…and earthquakes…”

She looked up at him again with the strongest glare she could muster. Solomon looked unimpressed.

“I don’t care what Mr. Mortimer says about you. You could have at least told me what you’re going to do to me after you finish chasing me! I don’t know what you want!”

“What I want is for you to leave my house.”

She gave a side glance to his posse before turning back to him. “Alive or dead?” She said, with no small amount of sarcasm in it.

“Considering that dead would result in you NOT leaving my house, I would assume you already have your answer,” he said, the sarcasm almost as equally strong.

She exhaled through her nose. “Then you could have just told me that like a normal person!”

“Honestly, all of you dead people don’t even remember how to act nicely…” she muttered under her breath as an aside to herself.

He must have heard that, because he stiffened considerably and looked more than a bit miffed.

“It’s done on purpose, child,” his eyes narrowed at her, “Just a little intimidation to scare you from any ideas about ever coming back. I will admit, though, you reacted a bit stronger than I anticipated...”

“Well yeah! Because you’ve just wasted your time! I’ve already seen PLENTY to convince me to never come back to this horrible place ever again! Evil murderous invisible men, statues that chase you, people coming out of the walls, falling down giant chasms full of staircases-“

“You fell down that infinite stairway?” The woman interrupted, looking more than a little bit concerned.

“Yes. Not long after I met you back in that other hallway,” she said, jutting out her chin accusingly at Mr. Gracey.

To Solomon’s credit, he looked downright horrified. Which was a nice change from his usual sour demeanor.

“Good lord, is that where you went previously? Are you all right?” He asked.

“Yes….No…I mean. I don’t know! I’m alive and everything seems to work…”

He gave a sigh that suggested both relief and frustration. “This is exactly the reason you need to leave. It’s too dangerous for the living to go skipping about these halls without a care in the world. Now child, if you wo-“

“Karen.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She stared him down, unflinching even as she held the gaze of those eerily, glow-y blues. At this point, she was beyond tired of getting pushed around by ghosts.

“My name is Karen. Karen Anderson. And I’m eighteen.”

“How good for you,” he said with a wry smile. “And I am well over a hundred. So you’ll have to forgive me if I cannot help but see you as a child, Miss Anderson. Nonetheless, I do apologize if I have caused you any offense. I meant it merely as a descriptor, and not as any indication that you are somehow lesser.”

One hand folded behind his back and the other hand over his heart, he gave her a short incline of his head.

“Allow us, further, a chance for introductions. I am Solomon Gracey, and this is my family estate. Primary estate, that is.”

He gestured to the other two spirits. “My associates….”

“Abigail Galloway,” The maid said, giving her a polite smile that would feel friendly if it didn’t seem a little too polite.

“Edgar Galloway,” The butler said, making neither a bow nor a smile. For all the world, he seemed straight up bored. After regarding her carefully with a quick glance, he went right back to stand there with a distant gaze.

By the shapes of their faces, and their matching names, eyes, and hair, the two were most definitely related.

Solomon coughed, and her attention returned to him. He offered a hand. She stared at it blankly.

His lips twisted a bit into a mischievous, almost boyish smirk. “To help you to your feet. Which I know are still working…because I just saw you use them.”

She opened her mouth to give a smart aleck retort, but realized she had nothing. So she begrudgingly took his hand instead. Freezing cold, like ice. Something she had already come to expect by now.

“Come along, then,” he said, releasing her as soon as she was steady on her feet to turn and walk down the way he originally came.

She could feel the two servants pressing closer to her; they weren’t going to give her an opportunity to disobey.

They walked silently and casually. Karen couldn’t shake off the feeling that their pace was measured and set specifically for her, because any hesitance on her part was met and matched by them. Even Solomon, who was facing forward, seemed to eerily slow-down whenever she did. That did more to evidence the fact that this was a supernatural situation than even their appearance; unlike Mr. Mortimer, who had a skeletal, glowing visage to him, these three people seemed to make every effort to give off the illusion they were alive.

“Um…” she started, looking at the back of Mr. Gracey’s head.

When he did not pay her heed, she turned to the maid beside her instead. Abigail smiled with a strange mixture of motherly affection, strict politeness, and a tinge of pity.

“Something wrong?” She asked.

“What about Mr. Mortimer?”

Abigail frowned. “What about him?”

Karen looked nervously towards the back of Solomon’s head and then back to Abigail.

“The Ghost Host trapped him in a portrait in a stairwell.”

Solomon spun quickly to face her, forcing the party to halt.

“Claude did what?”

Rumbling in the walls nearest to her made her ease a step back. The boards shook, but it wasn’t nearly as disorienting or terrifying as before.

She could see his hand shaking, fingers slowly furling into a fist then releasing. The walls seem to respond to that, working up in a frenzy with each tremble of his hand, getting stronger with every moment they closed in on themselves. And finally settling down, when his fingers gently unfurled themselves to a relaxed state.

“Miss Anderson…” he said, his voice struggling towards calm, “Would you…be so kind as to describe what this stairwell looked like?”

“Um…” her body tensed a moment, regardless of the fact that he was clearly not angry at her. “Narrow...creaky old wood steps…thin railings… and it was all enclosed by purple striped pattern on the walls. It was down that way…”

She gestured vaguely the way she came.

Mr. Gracey listened intently to her, face as expressionless as he could obviously muster.

“Edgar,” he said.

“Sir,” Edgar replied.

But when Karen turned to look at the butler, he was gone. She turned to look towards Abigail, who smiled politely back at her.

“He’s gone to help Mr. Mortimer,” she said.

“More of a courtesy to him,” Mr. Gracey said, and already he had turned to continue on. “Mr. Mortimer is powerful; he’s likely already freed himself by now. Something like this could only ever hold him temporarily, where lesser souls would be forced to spend weeks. Which means Edgar is mostly only going to inform Mr. Mortimer that you’re safely with us.”

“So…he’ll be okay?” At the maid’s non-verbal urging, she followed Solomon.

“He’ll be just fine. Don’t worry,” Abigail said.

They walked in silence after that; Karen was given time to think things over as they passed oak doors and flickering electric lights caked in cobwebs.

The taste of licorice. The smell of roses. These were sensations that had been clinging to her from the moment the spirits appeared. The soft sigh of birds singing disappeared when Edgar vanished.

Claude too. It dawned on her that whenever the Ghost Host was around, she’d feel a tingling down her spine. Mr. Mortimer always seemed to carry the smell of the sea. And the statue had that horrible burnt smell.

Spirits, it seemed, came with some sort of identifying sense.

She broke out of her reverie when they stepped into a room bathed in a familiar dull blue-green light. A slight panic bubbled up within her at the sight of stairways going any which way possible.

“Wait…why are we here? What are we doing??” The panic snuck into her voice too.

“This is the fastest way back to the foyer,” Mr. Gracey replied, before taking a stairway straight down.

As in, the stairway was literally going vertically down, with the ghost before her now walking with his form completely horizontal.

The maid seemed prepared to press her towards the same path, but she balked and backed up.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kill me!” she accused, looking back and forth between Abigail and Solomon.

“We aren’t trying to,” Solomon said, already having turned to look up at her. Neither his tone nor his face suggested maliciousness.

“Then what do you call this?!” She gestured to the sheer drop.

“Looks can be deceiving,” he walked towards her, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. “It’s ironic that mortals, so grounded in reality, would fall prey so easily to the illusions of the dead. You trust your eyes too much; not all believing comes from seeing.”

On that advice, Karen took an experimental step. She could feel her weight shifting, her stomach dropping with the gravity, her body threatening to fall forward, and every nerve in her body screaming at her that this was suicide. Her mind “helpfully” played out for her the fresh memory of her fall in her head.

“No…No I can’t do this. I can’t do this!” She made to back away several steps, but Abigail kept her in place.

Karen turned to her. “Please, I can’t do this! I ca-”

“It’s all right.”

“Don’t make me do this, please! Don-“

“Miss Anderson,” Mr. Gracey said, and he was already back on their stairway. The stairway with the CORRECT stairway orientation.

“Please, I just had a fall, I can’t—“

“You won’t fall. And if you do, I’ll catch you.” Mr. Gracey said.

“I can’t! I know gravity when I feel it! That isn’t just a trick of the eyes!”

“Miss Anderson, please. You won’t fall. I give you my word: As long as you remain with me, I won’t let you die.”

She looked from the maid still holding her to Gracey, who gave her a small smile of reassurance.

That did not make her feel better. She turned to Abigail, and there must have been pleading in her eyes because Karen could see her slowly relent.

“Here,” Abigail said kindly, turning her around. The feeling of cold fingers on her eyes. Karen’s sight went dark.

“Wha-?”

“Just step to the edge,” Abigail whispered at her ear. It was a bit unnerving to know that ghosts had frigid cold fingers, yet somehow (someway) managed to have hot breath. As if ‘breathing’ was even a thing with them.

“But I ca-“

“Just relax and step towards the edge. I’ll let you know when you’ve arrived there. If you cannot stand to go further than the edge, then we’ll find another way,” her voice had hints of softness despite the formal tone, “But try this first.”

“And if you’re just leading me straight off…?” It was a doubtful statement, but one that still managed to worm into the back of her mind.

“She’s not,” Mr. Gracey said.

She took a few experimental steps forward, completely blind. Solid wood met her feet each time.

“It’s all right; go a little further,” Abigail encouraged.

So she took a few more steps, larger steps this time, and still met solid wood. She also met with the realization that her ghostly companions made no footsteps; only HER steps rang against the chasm-like walls.

And yet, they HAD to still be there; she could still feel ice fingers covering her eyes. Her eyelids, in fact, were getting a little numb from it.

She took a few steps further, smaller this time because she was quite sure the edge would be there, and yet once again met with solid wood. Perhaps the direction change was farther along the path than it originally looked. Dimensions really were difficult to discern when you couldn’t see a thing.

“Where’s the drop? Is it much farther?”

“Keep going; we aren’t quite there yet. Take a few more full steps.”

She did as she was told, her shoulders heaving as her anxiety calmed down. And she continued to walk (tapping her foot experimentally in front of her before putting all her weight into it), until Abigail suddenly tugged her back a bit to stop her.

She could hear a door slam shut behind her, and she twisted to escape Abigail’s grasp. The maid let her go without a fight.

…Karen blinked. She stared at the sight long enough for Mr. Gracey to delicately raise an eyebrow at her.

“Are you all right?” He questioned, and there was a tug at the very corner of his lips that threatened to tease over into slight amusement.

Gobsmacked, she stared at him, then back to the scene in front of her.

She was in the first hallway. The very FIRST hallway. The hallway where the Ghost Host took Michael away from her.

“But…the stairway…” She looked around and spotted a door in the dark corner of the hall, across the way from the stretching room. She was sure she had tried that same door much earlier that night; it had been locked before then.

“You already made it through. Alive, no less. I guess we’re not very good at killing people, are we?”

His voice was dripping in sarcasm, and it both irked and amused her to the point where she, again, tried to find a clever response.

But her mental exercise was interrupted as the aforementioned door banged back open with much enthusiasm.

Nell Jackson, green pinstripe dress and all, stood in the doorframe, excitement frozen on her face at the sight of Karen as if she weren’t quite expecting her. Karen was sure the ghosts would remark on this, but they stood still and said nothing.

“Oh is it a party?” Nell cheerfully said, bounding into the room and shutting the door behind her. Karen caught a glimpse of twisted staircases encased in green light.

“Nell, what’s that all over your dress?” Abigail sternly said.

“Hm?” Nell picked a speck of dull grey from her apron. “Oh. It’s just a bit of sand.”

She did a twirl with gleeful grin on her face, and the sand fell off all in a circle around her.

“NELL!” Abigail cried, looking insulted.

“What??”

“The carpet!”

Nell looked down at the ground, faux inspecting the carpet.

Karen did a double take. Had there ALWAYS been carpet in this hallway? She thought there had only been floorboards before.

“Good news! The carpet doesn’t seem harmed by it.” Nell said.

“You’re still going to pick that up, young lady,” Abigail seethed through her teeth.

“I can do that later.”

“Nell.”

“What? It isn’t like the sand is going anywhere. Sand isn’t sentient…” a beat, “…I think.”

Abigail gave a pointed look at Solomon, who in turn looked a little uncomfortable.

“It’s just sand, Abigail. It won’t stain,” he said.

Abigail gave him a hard stare akin to betrayal, and he coughed before venturing into the stretching room.

“Come along chil- erm, Miss Anderson.”

She made to follow him, but dust and ash swept across the floor, and as she stood to watch she saw Edgar appear from the flurry.

“Edgar! Perfect timing. Help me clean up this sand,” Nell said, smiling.

Edgar gave one, long, bored stare at the mess on the ground before returning to a flurry of dust and ashes, particles picking up particles and the sand coalescing right into him.

“What? No! Edgar, stop that!” Abigail said.

Edgar half formed himself, just enough so that his face was showing. Eyebrows raised at Abigail in quiet confusion.

“Thank you, Edgar. You’re the best!” Nell smiled cheerfully at him.

“Nell, you needed to clean up the mess.” Abigail said.

“As long as it’s clean, why does it matter? And really, I wouldn’t have ever been able to do it that fast. Besides, Edgar doesn’t mind. Do you, Edgar?”

“I don’t care.” Edgar said, glassy bored look already returning to his features as he reformed himself.

“You see? It all works out!” Nell gestured towards Edgar.

Abigail gave a long-suffering sigh. “You disappoint me, Nell.”

“Well that isn’t unusual.”

“Nell…” Abigail sighed again, before finally turning to Karen and gestured her to enter the next room.

Karen gulped away her questions under the gaze of the still-irritated Abigail and went inside; the silly little drama of what she just saw was in stark contrast to the life threatening fear the Ghost Host had constantly subjected her to.

Solomon Gracey was waiting for them in the center of the room. He nodded in acknowledgement as the rest of the party joined him.

And what a stark contrast that was here as well. The room had changed since she’d last seen it; the differences were minor, yet remarkable in how they affected the mood. The gargoyles looked less threatening due to the fact that the room was lit up brighter, and the portraits had reverted back to their original, un-stretched appearance. It was just as cold as earlier, but infinitely less creepy. She couldn’t feel the gaze of the hanging man hidden above them, and the general air didn’t feel nearly as oppressive as a result.

As strange as it was, she felt safer, in spite of the fact that this time she walked alongside practical strangers.

They came back to the foyer, and as she turned to look behind her she paused.

“….Wasn’t the portrait room on the other side?”

It was true. She distinctly remembered Michael and herself being forced by the Ghost Host into a room to the left of Solomon Gracey’s portrait. Yet as they exited this very same room, they came out to the right of the portrait.

She checked; nothing but a blank wall to the left of Solomon’s painted visage.

“Ah. Well you see…” Abigail said, hesitant.

“The house moves rooms,” Nell interjected, grinning excitedly as she hoisted herself up one of the cabinets, “Isn’t it cool?”

“The house does what?” Mouth open and eyes wide, Karen stared back at her. The word ‘cool’ was the furthest thing from her mind.

“What the house does or does not do is of no concern to you. You’ll be on your way back to town shortly…as soon as we find your friend,” The actual Solomon turned towards her, “There is another mortal roaming around the house, correct?”

“Y-yeah… My boyfriend, Michael. We were separated when that Ghost Host dragged him underneath the floorboards.”

A flick of anger on his face sprung up before fading into sympathy.

“I am sorry about that. That filth is known to do things like that,” his stare towards her hardened just a tad, “I do hope this act as a lesson to you both not to intrude upon old houses, even if you think they’re abandoned.”

Now it was her turn to get a little angry. “We weren’t intruding!! We were just….we were just lost! And it was raining! And…”

She caught sight of Nell, happily sitting on the counter and eating from a jar of cookies. The sight irritated her a little more.

“And she!” Karen pointed an accusing finger at Nell. “She said we could come visit her if it ever started raining!”

All three ghosts slowly turned to look at Nell, who suddenly stopped mid bite. Both Abigail and Solomon had their eyebrows raised in the same exasperated expression. Edgar just continued to look bored.

Nell, still mid bite, looked from both Karen to the spirits and back again, before raising her head solemnly.

“Well I never said you could come in.” Nell said, quickly eating the remainders of her cookie as defiantly looking as she could.

“Wha—“ Karen began to protest, but Nell cut her off by wagging her finger towards her.

“Ah ah ah! I never said you both could come in! Now did I, Edgar? Edgar was there; what did I say to them, Edgar?”

The other two ghosts now turned their exasperated sights on Edgar, who took it in stride by looking especially bored.

“’If you’re ever in an unfortunate rainstorm, you’re more than welcome to hide underneath our awning.’” Edgar quoted.

Nell was triumphant as she turned back to Karen. “There, you see? I never gave you permission to use the front door, now did I?”

Karen glared at her.

Abigail, meanwhile, glared at Edgar

“You never thought to inform us of this?”

Edgar, with an utterly neutral expression, simply replied, “It did not seem important.”

“Edgar,” Abigail seethed.

“Nell,” Solomon groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“Master Gracey,” Nell said, tone treating the name-calling like a game.

“None of this ‘Master Gracey’. We talked about this,” Solomon said, looking a little more irritated, “You are not my servant and I am not your employer.”

“As you say, sir.”

Solomon grumbled on his way to a cabinet that looked like it had a wooden, intricate box built on top of its surface. When he took out a glass with a bulge in it and a strange, ornate decanter filled with eerie green liquid, Karen assumed it to be some sort of cubby hole for drinks.

“Abigail, Edgar,” he gestured to them aimlessly as he set up some extravagant drink that involved a strainer, what looked like a cube of sugar, water, and that sickly green stuff. “Could one of you be so kind as to find that other wayward mortal?”

“As you wish, sir,” Edgar stated, and he faded nearly instantly into whispy ash before vanishing completely.

“I could go too,” Nell offered.

“No, Nell. If I know you, you’d only hinder any effort to actually retrieve him.”

Solomon settled into an armchair that Karen swore hadn’t been there a moment ago. It was only a handful of feet away from the fireplace, and so faded that you only just barely make out its deep red color.

“What you could do, instead,” Solomon continued, “Is to get rid of that uniform and wear....well whatever it is modern mortals wear these days. Jeans and t-shirts, if I recall the words correctly.”

“You let Abigail go around in the uniform, even though she’s not your servant anymore either…”

Nell crossed her arms, but the ghost of a smile on her lips suggested that this had been brought up before. And her eyes occasionally darting towards Karen brought with it the implication that she was only mentioning it for the benefit of their guest.

Sure enough, Solomon stiffed in his chair, and Abigail looked just as equally uncomfortable as she busied herself with straightening papers on a nearby shelf.

“Nell,” Solomon warned, his tone deeper now.

“Alright, alright. I see how it is.”

Nell made to cross the room, but lingered out of Solomon’s sight. Karen caught sight of her gesturing to get her attention before pointing to the two ghosts, bringing her two fists to gently bump into each other while making a kissy face and giving a wink.

Karen stared hard back. What the hell did the girl expect her to do with this information?

Her staring morphed to horror when Nell took off her maid’s headpiece and made a sign as if to throw it at Solomon. Before Karen even had a chance to vocalize a sound, the headpiece went flying, phased straight through the middle of Solomon’s forehead, and landed quite obviously in front of him.

“Head shot! Yes!” Nell said while she fist pumped the air.

Solomon angrily shot out of the chair and spun to face Nell.

“Going, going, gone!” Nell said, grinning in that guiltless nervous way people get when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t.

She quickly exited out a door so hidden by the darkness that it was a wonder if it had itself materialized like these ghosts were known to do.

Solomon sighed, his anger abating as he settled back down in the chair and stared wistfully at his drink.

“God, I wish alcohol still affected me,” he muttered as he took a sip.

As he lowered his drink, he seemed to notice Karen was still standing. He motioned to the faded couch next to him.

“You’re allowed to sit, you know,” he said, smirking a little, “I imagine you’d need it after that self-induced workout you gave yourself while trying to evade us earlier.”

Karen clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a response even as her face burned a little out of embarrassment. She officially hated ghosts.

She instead focused her complete attention to the dead embers lying in the fire, her hands absentmindedly rubbing against her arms.

“Are you cold?” Abigail asked, coming back towards them.

“A little…”

“I imagine any mortal would feel quite cold around here,” Solomon said, getting up to move towards the fireplace.

“I’ve got that, sir,” Abigail curtly interrupted.

Solomon moved back to his chair, palms raised in surrender with a slightly amused smile on his face, “As you say, Abigail. Thank you.”

The fireplace roared up in a flicker of odd green flames, and the room began to grow wonderfully warmer. The remnants of anxiety faded as she sank into the couch, relaxation causing her mind to drift a bit. She felt the weight of exhaustion start to consume her, and she idly wondered what time it was. Her eyes wandered about, but were no apparent clocks anywhere on the walls.

She considered Solomon’s drink on the table near her. It didn’t have its greenish hue; it was more of a milky white with only a hint of green, and already halfway gone.

“How do ghosts even drink?” She asked in her absentminded state.

“Very carefully,” Solomon replied, with both sarcasm and a smile.

“But you can’t get drunk…”

“Such is the tragic nature of not having a body to intoxicate.”

“So what’s the point?”

Solomon took a sip, and made a show of smacking his lips as he stared into the pale liquid.

“Nostalgia,” He said, putting the glass back on the table.

She stared at the drink. “What even is that?”

“Absinthe,” he said, “Or the Green Fairy, as it was once known.”

He seemed to regard her as she remained transfixed by the glass.

“…Would you care for some?”

Her eyes grew wide at the offer.

“I’m only eighteen! Also, doesn’t...that stuff...cause hallucinations?”

Solomon’s smile bent at the edges a bit, and he looked towards Abigail. She was neatly standing near the other end of the couch from them both; she had been so silent that Karen had temporarily forgot she was even there.

“While I won’t lie; there were plenty of things we consumed back then that probably caused hallucinations,” Abigail stood with her hands clasped behind her back, a small quirk to the side of her lips, “But absinthe was not one of them.”

“At least, it’s not possible to get that effect with any amount you could feasibly drink,” he smiled bitterly, “Trust me on this.”

“This may be one of your only chances to try it,” Abigail added, “Since, currently, it’s very much misunderstood in America. That’s where your hallucination idea comes from.”

Karen looked back at the drink, her stomach queasy just staring at it.

“I…” she started. Solomon held up a hand to stop her.

“Please don’t feel like you have to drink it. You will not be missing much, I promise. It’s just another alcoholic drink, and you can get plenty of those once you’re older. I personally find it rather ridiculous that they increased the drinking age, but I respect that you aren’t comfortable with this. And if it will make you feel better…”

He made to get up, but Abigail was already on her way back to the drink cabinet. So he sat back down with a nearly unreadable (but distinctly defeated) expression.

The maid returned with something that looked just like Solomon’s glass; milky white. She offered it to Karen, but Karen hesitated to take it.

“This one isn’t alcoholic,” Abigail explained, “It’s made by a brewery in France, on special request and using the same kind of anise. As a result, it doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it has some of the same notes…”

Karen stared at it, wondering if she could not find shapes within the milky white liquid. The inkling of an idea had begun to gather at the edges of her mind, but the hazy warm room and the fact that it was likely the dead of night made it difficult to properly think. She kind of wanted to just sleep.

“Pomegranates...” She said.

The ghosts both looked perplexed, briefly side glancing each other before resting their eyes back on her.

She tried to gather her thoughts a little better so she could spit them out.

“In the story, there was a girl who had been kidnapped to the underworld and was tricked into eating the seeds of a pomegranate, forcing her to-“

“-To remain there, trapped, for several months every year. The story of Persephone.” Abigail smiled, “It is good to hear that present day mortals are still taught classic Greek mythology.”

“But your concern is a little misplaced,” Solomon added, a glint in his eerie blue eyes akin to an adult humoring a young child, “The food and drink here is not somehow magical.”

“And that would also be a little counterproductive to our goal of getting you to leave…”

“Oh yeah…” Karen said, trying to frown away her exhaustion. She partially wished she was still in that bed in the attic.

“Besides, this is not the underworld and I am not Lord Hades.” Solomon said, stealing another sip from his drink before setting it aside.

“This is nothing more than a mansion,” he said, gesturing around him, “which, for better or for worse…just happens to be haunted.”

She nodded to him; it was a bit of a foolish idea. If she had a little coffee, perhaps she would have thought things through a little clearer. Carefully, unwilling to trust herself, she used both of her hands to take the cup from Abigail and brought it to her lips.

….

It tasted of licorice.

#fanfiction #the haunted mansion fanfiction #haunted mansion fanfiction #fanfics #my fanfiction

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