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Louis doesn’t believe in ghosts. Disembodied spirits unable to move on to the next plane? Give him a break. When you die, you’re dead. Boom. End of story. Or is it?
“I’m telling you, this is legit, mate,” Niall is saying, Louis barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes every five seconds. “This place is haunted by a real live ghost!”
“If it’s a ghost, it’s not alive,” Louis points out. “And besides—”
“Ghosts don’t exist, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Niall finishes for him with a dramatic sigh. “I’m just saying, it seems like a creepy story.”
“Yeah.” Louis can’t disagree with that. He stares down at the little booklet with The Ghostly Hauntings of Harry Styles: The Guest Who Checked In…And Never Checked Out written on it. The story itself is pretty interesting. Young man, only twenty-three, married to a woman almost ten years his senior, whom he was allegedly estranged from. Rumor has it he came to this very hotel, the Braxton, an old and beautiful building along the coast, for a rendezvous with a lover (the story doesn’t specify his lover’s gender, which is a bit interesting in and of itself).
Anyway, apparently the rendezvous never happened, and a few days into his stay, Harry traveled by carriage (it was the 1800s, after all) to the nearest town and bought a hand gun. He was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his hotel room the next day.
Although Harry’s physical body hasn’t been in the hotel for almost two hundred years, guests have reportedly witnessed ghostly goings-on in the time since his death, from inexplicable cold breezes to lights and other electronics turning themselves off and on, centered squarely around his old hotel room, #208. A little note in the booklet informs Louis that Harry’s hotel room is the most commonly booked one, probably for ghost hunters and people who have nothing better to do than let themselves be “haunted.”
Of course he doesn’t believe it. It’s a nice story, but breezes can be easily created with cleverly hidden vents, and electronics can be on timers. Even strange sounds can come from speakers put out of sight. It’s a loud of crap.
“There’s no way this is real,” Louis insists.
“Okay. Wanna bet?”
He should know better than to bet against Niall. He shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t—
“Sure.”
Damn it.
Niall grins. “Great. I’ll bet you ten pounds the ghost is real.”
Ten quid over a ghost? Easiest money Louis will ever make. He’s definitely winning this bet. “Alright, but to really make sure, we should stay in #208,” he says, and watches the color drain from Niall’s face. “And,” Louis smirks, “we’ll need a Ouija board.”
“No way,” Niall says, shaking his head. “Can’t we just—”
“Do you want my money or not, Horan?”
Niall gulps. “Fine. #208 is probably booked anyway, though. Remember, it’s the most common booking?”
“We’ll see.”
It turns out #208 is not in fact booked at the moment, as the nice lady at the front desk informs them with a wide grin.
“All yours, boys,” she tells them. “Have fun in there.” She leans forward as if letting them in on a secret. “Harry likes fun.”
There are so many possible meanings for her words, but Louis tells himself not to think about it. Equipped with their room keys, Louis and Niall climb the stairs to the first floor, and then the second. By the end, Niall is huffing and puffing like he’s just scaled the Eiffel Tower.
“Why…couldn’t we…have just…taken…the lift?” he pants, lifting his suitcase up to the landing and then himself. He waves off the hand Louis offers, and Louis shrugs.
“The experience. Who wants to look at metal walls when we could have this view?” he gestures to the walls surrounding the staircase, which are adorned with a wallpaper so old and classic it looks like it might be original to the building. It’s peeling in quite a few places, completely ruining his point.
“What a view, indeed,” Niall says dryly, then shoves past Louis and down the hall to #208.
Louis does notice a change as they make their way through the corridor. For one, it’s colder up here on the top floor of the hotel, but that’s to be expected. That’s just how heating systems — particularly in old buildings — work. There’s a strange atmosphere surrounding them, too, a kind of paranoia settling in Louis’ bones. But that’s just the placebo effect, he tells himself. He’s been told there’s a ghost, so obviously his brain is going to trick him into thinking there’s actually a ghost. Even though there’s not.
“Do you feel that?” Niall asks, his voice shaking slightly.
“What?”
“I don’t know…it feels weird up here, mate. Maybe we should go and book another room.”
Louis rolls his eyes. #206…#207…here it is. He stops in front of their room door and forces a smile, looking over at his friend. “Don’t be silly. Everything’s fine. They’re simple tricks.”
Niall does not look convinced, but Louis just takes out the key and puts it in the keyhole. Only to find…the door’s already unlocked. Weird. Okay, maybe he’s starting to get a little creeped out now.
“The cleaners probably forgot to lock it,” Louis says, but it sounds false even to his own ears. But, never one to back away from a challenge (or lose a bet), Louis continues into the room, which looks…surprisingly normal.
He’s not sure what he was expecting, exactly. Blood on the walls? Creepy notes? He’s not living in a fucking horror movie, for god’s sake. It’s a perfectly normal hotel room.
“See?” Louis says, gesturing Niall in after him, who’s looking around like an axe murderer might jump out at him from somewhere. “C’mon, Nialler, there’s nothing strange about this room. It’s—” He cuts himself off as a low hum sounds through the room, coming from the closed closet door. Fuck.
Louis drops his bags and shoves past Niall out of the room. “Let’s go get that Ouija board, yeah? Come back later. Maybe…” Louis swallows thickly. Maybe whatever that is will be gone by then.
Niall and Louis practically run down the stairs after Niall’s dropped his own bags and the door is safely shut (and locked) behind them. If ghosts do exist, it’s not like a locked door would really stop them…but that’s beside the point.
Downstairs in the lobby, Louis looks around and sees through the front windows of the hotel that there’s a store across the street specializing in the supernatural. So it’s not only the hotel capitalizing off of their resident “ghost,” then. They’re likely to have a Ouija board — in fact, Louis is pretty sure he can see one through the window of the shop.
A bell over the door chimes as they walk into the store, which is called Something Strange, and both Louis and Niall jump slightly. So maybe they’re a little scared still. It doesn’t matter. They’re on a mission.
“Hello, loves,” a beautiful middle-aged woman with dark hair and glasses with thick green frames, bringing out the green of her eyes, calls to them from behind the shop’s counter. “What can I help you with today?” Her smile is genuine and sweet, very motherly. Louis finds himself wanting to trust her.
“We need a Ouija board,” he says, cutting straight to the point. The woman’s smile doesn’t falter; instead, it seems to grow.
“Oh? Trying to communicate with a spirit, are we?”
“He’s trying to prove ghosts don’t exist,” Niall blurts, hooking his thumb in Louis’ direction. Louis glares at him. The last thing they need is this lady who might have connections to supernatural beings angry at him. Not that he believes there are any supernatural beings in the first place, just…better to be safe than sorry.
The woman just laughs, though. “I wish you the best of luck,” she says, eyes shining with amusement. It doesn’t feel mean, though. “I would recommend this one.”
She pulls a box from under the counter. It is indeed a Ouija board, but instead of the serious, colorless design Louis had been expecting, it looks like a board for little kids. It’s covered in rainbow colors and boasts a curly cursive font.
“Um…” Louis doesn’t quite know how to say I’m not sure this is really what we had in mind without sounding like an asshole.
“Trust me, he’ll like it,” the woman says, and is already ringing up the purchase on the cash register. How did she know…? “I’ll throw in a nice candle, too. He likes sandalwood.”
Louis shakes his head and fumbles for his wallet. A Ouija board is a Ouija board. Maybe these bright colors will scare the ghost away, and then problem solved. There isn’t a ghost, Louis reminds himself. That’s why they’ve got the Ouija board in the first place.
“Thank you,” Louis tells the odd woman, handing the candle to Niall and tucking the box under his arm.
“My pleasure,” the woman replies. “By the way, my name is Anne. Let me know what he says.”
Louis resists the urge to ask what the hell she thinks she knows, but he bites his tongue and just nods, pasting on a polite smile as he walks out of the store, Niall following him like a puppy.
When they’re outside, Niall turns to Louis. “How did she know about Harry?”
Louis tries to subtly glance back at the shop, and finds Anne’s gentle eyes on them. He shivers despite himself. “I don’t know. This is creeping me out.”
“So you admit ghosts do exist,” Niall says. Louis shakes his head vehemently.
“No! Definitely not. I’m not losing this bet.”
Niall sighs.
***
This is it. Louis is going to prove once and for all that ghosts do not exist. That is, if he can stop shaking long enough to properly set up this damn Ouija board.
The signs are overwhelming. The room feels like it’s tilting. There’s strange breezes coming from strange places. Inexplicable noises, an overall feeling of paranoia. This is the part where Louis admits defeat.
Except he won’t.
“There,” he says. “I think I’ve got it.”
He and Niall stare down at the board, unsure what to do now. The lights are off and the candle is lit, the smell of sandalwood filling the room.
“I think we put our fingers on the pointer,” Niall says. “Right?”
Louis shrugs, checking the instructions. “Yeah.”
Their eyes meet over the board, and they both take deep breaths before resting their fingers gently on the planchette. Nothing happens for several seconds.
“Don’t we need to ask a question?” Niall points out.
“Right,” Louis agrees. “Oh spirit,” he starts dramatically in as posh an accent as he can muster. “Do ghosts exist?”
It succeeds in making Niall laugh, and he looks a little less terrified. Still, nothing happens regarding the board.
“Louis,” Niall whispers after a moment. “The candle.”
Louis turns to see that the candle’s flame is flickering back and forth slightly, like something is moving through it. Mind tricks, he reminds himself. There’s a breeze now, stronger than before, but no noises. He’s not sure how well he’d do with the noises, honestly, now that they’re practically in the dark.
Everything settles for a moment, the normal room temperature returning, and Louis blows out a breath of relief. That is, until the planchette starts to move. It inches across the board, settling so there’s a single word under the small circle.
“Niall?” Louis asks in a very quiet, very scared voice. “What was the question again?”
“Do ghosts exist,” Niall supplies in an equally terrified tone.
They both stare down at the answer. Yes.
“Are you sure you didn’t move the pointer?” Louis says, and Niall looks up at him, a hurt expression on his face.
“No! Of course not. I’m just as scared as you, mate.” As soon as he finishes speaking, his hair is ruffled by wind that comes out of nowhere. Niall scrunches his nose and laughs a bit. “It tickles,” he says. Louis just watches with wide eyes.
“I have another question,” Louis says. He looks around the room, like a spirit might appear. “Are you Harry Styles?”
The planchette doesn’t move.
“Maybe he’s saying Yes again?” Niall offers, but Louis isn’t convinced.
“Or maybe this is all just a crazy coincidence—”
The planchette moves to No, then back to Yes.
“Oh,” Louis breathes. “Fuck.”
The planchette comes to life again, this time moving to the letters. It starts with an L, then moves to A. An N, followed by a G, and a U…
“Oh my god,” Niall laughs as another A is added, and the word is completed with another G and an E. Language.
“No way he just told me off for cursing,” Louis mutters to himself. “I can’t believe this.”
“I like this ghost,” Niall asserts. “He’s funny.”
The planchette moves to where Thank you is written in small letters. Louis shakes his head, still in disbelief.
“I’m dreaming,” he says. “I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming.”
No.
Louis groans. “Okay. Niall, you ask a question now.”
“Right,” Niall says, then clears his throat like he’s about to address a nation or something. “Spirit — sorry, Harry — do you think I could convince Louis to pay me more than ten quid, now that we know ghosts do exist and he’s lost our bet?”
Louis rolls his eyes, hard. Of course Niall would ask that. He’s kind of curious what this ghost thinks of him, though, so he stares at the planchette, waiting for it to move.
It starts moving to Yes, then No, then back to Yes…but finally settles on No.
“Darn.” Niall looks slightly disappointed, but also strangely comfortable talking to a literal fucking ghost. What even is life?
“Why did you kill yourself?” Louis blurts, and Niall shoots him a look. “I mean—sorry. That’s also probably too big a question to answer.”
The planchette is already moving, though. F, L, I, P. A pause, and then B, O, A, R, D.
“Flip the board?” Niall wonders.
Yes.
Louis and Niall trade a glance, but then Niall shrugs and they both move their fingers from the planchette, and Niall flips the board. Louis gasps.
On the back, in neat little block letters, there’s a message.
“That wasn’t there before, was it?” Niall asks Louis, who shakes his head in wonder.
“I don’t think so.”
The message says:
My parents were wealthy, and arranged a marriage for me with a woman I did not love. She was not awful, but we did not see eye to eye. It is difficult to explain to a well-bred woman of society that the only place you would like to be is in bed with other men.
“Holy shit,” Louis says. “I was right.”
“How did you know he was gay?” Niall asks. “How can your gaydar possibly be that good?”
Louis shrugs and keeps reading.
I fell in love with a man in this town. However, I was pressured by my family and my wife’s to produce an heir, so I returned to her for a time. When I came back and stayed at this hotel, hoping to reunite with him, I found out he had died in an accident out at sea. My love was all-consuming and I did not see a way out of my sadness — depression, you call it now. So I put an end to it all.
Louis stares at those words. I put an end to it all. He feels sick to his stomach. “Is your soul…unfulfilled? Is that why you’re a ghost?”
“Louis,” Niall hisses, breaking Louis out of his own mind. “We need to turn the board back over so he can answer.”
“Oh. Right.” They flip the board back and replace the planchette. It starts to spell Flip again, so Niall does. There’s new writing this time, replacing the old.
No. I am reunited with my lover in the next plane. I come back to this town to check up on my family.
“Your family lives here?” Louis asks, already turning the board again.
Yes.
Something nags at Louis, tickling the back of his mind. A picture he can’t get out of his head. “Niall, do you still have that booklet from the lobby?”
Niall glances up at him and nods, moving to his backpack. He hands the booklet to Louis, who immediately starts flipping pages.
“C’mon, c’mon…Bingo!” Louis shows the page to Niall, who looks confused. Louis turns it back to himself and studies the grainy, black-and-white picture of Harry Styles from 1892. There’s something familiar about his eyes, his nose, his dark hair…
“Doesn’t he look a little like Anne?” Louis asks, and Niall’s eyes widen.
“Um…I guess? But Louis — isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”
Louis sighs and slumps, his excitement gone. “Yeah. You’re right.” Then he realizes there’s an easy way to confirm or deny his theory.
“Hey, Harry,” he says, already moving his fingers back to the planchette. “Are you related to Anne? That woman who works at Something Strange?”
He waits for an answer. An answer that never comes.
“What?” Louis says, groaning in frustration. “No! This isn’t fair.” He leans back against the side of one of the room’s beds and scrubs his hands over his face. When he removes them, he finds Niall grinning at him.
“What do you want?” he asks, a little more bite to the words than is really necessary.
“I won the bet. Ghosts are real. Pay up, Tommo.”
***
The next morning, Louis is ten pounds short and Niall is happy as ever. Louis is still quite shaken up from their supernatural encounter last night, but he tries his best not to show it. They go down to the hotel’s buffet for breakfast, and Niall piles his plate high with all kinds of food, but Louis grabs a single piece of toast and nibbles on it while Niall inhales his own meal.
“What to you want to do today?” Niall asks with a full mouth. Louis resists the urge to scold him for it. “We could go on a hike, go on a sailboat tour of the coastline…”
Words flash behind Louis’ eyelids. I found out he had died in an accident out at sea. He shivers.
“You know what? You can do whatever you want, but I think I’m gonna stay in today.”
Niall eyes him. “You’re not going to try and contact Harry again, are you? Because I know it was fun and all, but I don’t want to bother him and make him angry with us. Who knows what magical powers ghosts have?”
Louis spares Niall a small smile. “I won’t try and contact Harry again. Promise.”
He does keep his promise. After Niall’s gone to do whatever it is Niall’s gone to do, Louis picks up the Ouija board — safely back in its box — and the half-burnt candle, and leaves the hotel room. He probably looks strange, but he can almost guarantee the people of this town have seen stranger.
His feet carry him down to the lobby, out the doors of the hotel, and across the street to Something Strange. He takes a deep breath, trying to get up the courage to walk in, when the door opens. Louis startles.
“Hello,” Anne says with a grin. “Thought you might come back today. Come in.”
Louis does, and Anne walks back behind the till. Louis drops the box and candle on the counter’s surface. “Explain, please.”
Anne laughs. “You’re going to need to be a bit more specific, love.”
“Who are you? Why do you know so much? How—”
He’s cut off by the sound of boxes falling. Anne holds up a finger to say one moment, giving Louis an apologetic look before craning her neck to look down one of the store’s aisles.
“You alright, darling?” she calls.
“Fine, Mum, sorry!” a deep voice answers, and Louis wonders who it belongs to. He doesn’t have to wonder very much longer, though, because just a few seconds later, a lanky man holding three large boxes walks out from the aisle and drops the boxes gently — if somewhat gracelessly — next to the till.
“Found those night vision goggles we were looking for—oh, hi.”
Louis just takes him in for a second, clocking the similarities. A head of chocolate curls. Green eyes just like Anne’s. That nose. Oh, and he’s got dimples. Well. He didn’t need that to see the resemblance, given that people in the 1800s didn’t generally smile for pictures, but—shit. It’s him.
The man stretches his hand towards Louis, a wide smile still proudly on his face even though Louis hasn’t said a word to him, and is probably staring at him like he’s grown a third arm.
The man opens his mouth. “I’m Harry.”