Chapter Text
There was a legend about the old, condemned house on the outskirts of Afterever Hills. Or well, a very popular lie that spiraled out of control from the warnings of concerned parents, one that every teenager seemed to know. Don’t go into the house, they would say, don’t you know? People were murdered there. That was how it always started out; a crazy father high on coke or a great uncle liquored to the gills taking a cleaver to the family that lived inside. Floorboards damp and moldy from all the blood, the screams still echoing in the halls, the dark writhing with every dirty little secret.
To a journalist like Blondie Lockes, it was the carrot at the end of the stick. Every new permutation of the Tale of That One Haunted House only carved an itch deeper and deeper into her bones until she could hardly wait until dark to grab her bike and finally ride out to the place. It was a journey seven years in the making. Her best friends had tried to tell her, often, that it was a bad idea. Her mother would be livid if she knew that Blondie was not, in fact, sleeping over at Ashlynn Ella’s place like she’d been told; and Ashlynn would be furious if she knew that Blondie had never intended on staying in to work on her world history paper that was due in two days.
Who cared about world history that had already been captured, when there was actual history just waiting for her to make it?!
Blondie checked her phone’s battery--a whopping ninety five percent, better than usual--and zipped up her jacked. Pedaling a bike while in heels was far harder than any standardized test she’d ever taken, but never let it be said that Blondie Lockes was not a trooper when it came to a scoop. August nights in the Hills were cooler than the days by a wide margin, though they came just as wetly; her leggings were damp at the knees and her jacket clung to her torso like the worst kind of hug.
It’s for the blog, Blondie motivated herself. Do it for the blog, girl.
Easier said than done, especially when it came to actually riding uphill to get to the backstreet that would take her to her destination. Who needed sports to keep in shape when you had the spirit of adventure, right? The ride down was far easier, letting gravity take over as she took a fast turn. Afterever Hills’s streets were made like a grid; every main road was parallel to the other, and perpendicular to the streets that held her favorite shops and restaurants. She didn’t have to waste her battery on pulling up her mapping app, at least.
It was still a long way to go, avoiding cars who might have held her classmates or worse, their parents. She didn’t need Helen McTerrible Haircut blabbing to her mother that she’d seen Blondie tearing down the street on her bike at ten in the evening, after all.
Finally coming up on the house was a relief and a bit terrifying. It didn’t look so monstrous in the day. It sagged on its foundation and all of the windows were boarded up. The front door was marked with neon orange spray with a huge X on it, and taped over in bright yellow with the blocky letters spelling CONDEMNED. A breeze blew by, causing the old structure to creak; Blondie was certain she heard something like laughter coming from inside. Blondie shoved her bike into the hedges, brushed off her skirt, pulled out an actual flashlight, and grabbed her phone to start recording.
“Blondie Lockes here,” she said in a low whisper, advancing upon the house and practically wading through a lawn with a decades worth of weeds covering it. “Coming at you live--wait, no, this is a recording. Shoot.”
She stopped the recording, erased it, and tried it again.
“Blondie Lockes here, reporting for Afterever High’s most popular--” And only, she silently added, “--supernatural blog, Spectral and Spectacular as always. I am here at the famous...house. Infamous house. The haunted one.” She was too far into her recording to justify ending it for a third restart, and sucked on her teeth. “You know the one! I’m going to do what no Afterever High student has done and lived to tell the tale.”
Dramatic pause. Blondie held the flashlight under her chin and flipped the phone’s camera to record herself.
“I’m going inside,” she said firmly.
Her first step on the dilapidated front porch made it groan in agony. Combined with the possibly real, possibly imaginary giggling, Blondie was starting to regret wearing heels. If the house itself were sentient, then she wouldn’t want someone stomping around in high heels, digging them into her skin. And if the house wasn’t as anthropomorphic as she was thinking, and there was actually someone inside planning to chop her into bits, sneakers would have been more appropriate for running away.
Blondie hoped it was the former.
“So okay, my phone wasn’t on for this but, uh,” Blondie ascended a step, heard it shriek in protest, and quickly shot up the rest of the way, “there was definitely some giggling. Disembodied laughter rumor confirmed.”
She put her flashlight between her teeth, reaching out to the yellow tape over the door. The moment her fingertips grazed the old, decaying wood, she felt a jolt zap through her body. She inhaled sharply through her nose, jerking her hand back, and swallowed as best she could.
Another breath for courage, and she ripped off the first of the yellow tape. It pooled around her feet like ribbons, fluttering away on the next breeze; all of the hairs on her body rose and her heart made a nice little rhythm against her ribcage. It was odd, but she felt watched; like someone was peering at her. Or some thing.
Don’t you dare chicken out before you even open this up, she scolded herself. Expecting it to be locked, Blondie reached out and took the heavy brass handle of the doorknob and turned it. Squealing around her flashlight, Blondie pushed open the door and promptly gagged.
Molded floors, and the musty scent of an old, closed in space; moths and gnats flew away from the beam of light that speared forward and Blondie quickly took her flashlight out of her mouth, breathing through her teeth as she took her first steps over the threshold. Expecting more creaky, spooky wood, she was surprised to hear nothing of the sort; a motheaten and ragged old rug cushioned her steps just inside. If it had any historic merit due to its designs or its make, time had done its worst on it. Coughing a bit to clear her throat, and squinting hard in the gloom, Blondie took several more steps inside.
“I am now inside of the house,” she narrated to her phone, and to her future viewers. “So far, aside from the disembodied giggling, I have not encountered any further supernatural phenomena. Which kind of sucks? I was really hoping for something--”
The door slammed shut behind her. Blondie nearly jumped out of her skin as she whirled around, shining her light to the entrance as she heard a dulled thump follow it.
“--worse,” Blondie breathed, staring. “Oh, no. Oh crap.” She hissed, “oh, crap ,” and paused her recording to run for the door. The doorknob was missing, and the door itself--while as gross and old as her great uncle Horace--was thick and heavy. And she was five feet, four inches, and probably a hundred and seventy pounds when wet and with rocks in her pockets. There was no kicking it down and no suave, movie star worthy moves to get her out.
Blondie sucked in a breath, turned her phone one, and managed to crack out, “So, a ghost trapped me in the house. That’s fun!”
It had to have been a ghost. There had been a breeze blowing but it was a light one, and there was no way a light breeze could reach in, slam a heavy door with enough force to crack off the knob, and still be considered as such. Like it or not, Blondie realized with heavy dread, there really was something lurking in the Haunted House on the Haunted Hill™. Who would have thought.
‘Smart people, that’s who.’ Blondie closed her eyes, breathed out, and turned.
“So, only one solution to this. I can either stay by the door where there was definitely some ghost things happening, or I can go deeper into the house and see whatever else is in here. Might as well, right? I mean, already in the hornet’s nest. Note; edit in a better metaphor when I get out of here.”
Something tinkled on the edges of her hearing, like a girl’s amused giggle; Blondie snapped her flashlight around like a weapon, eyes darting and phone held up at the ready. The giggling stopped and Blondie heard something skittering away. Either a ghost, or a raccoon. Maybe both? Hopefully both. Hopefully not a bear. Blondie began to walk forward into the unknown, her ragged panting audible in the utter silence. With the windows boarded up, it seemed less like a house and more like a tomb. She moved down a long, dark hallway and curiously looked at the walls for any pictures. To her disappointment, anything that had hung on the walls before had been taken down by a mysterious party; only peeling, stained wallpaper remained.
“Hello? Ghost person? Not to be rude but, can you, can you do something else now? Please?” Blondie shuddered. “No offense but I’d really rather know you’re, y’know, here. I don’t care for jump scares, okay? Not my thing!”
That giggle, again, and something fell to the ground with a crash. Blondie jumped, spat a curse, and followed the sound. The closer she got the worse the smell of the house became, like rotting meat and spoiled milk and--
“Oh my god, the bodies,” Blondie moaned aloud, gnawing on her lip. “Oh god what if they were never recovered. Ohhh, my god, what if they were stuffed into--into suits, like robots; what do you think, viewers? Vote now on your phones! Bodies in the floorboards or bodies in robot animatronic suits.”
She was mostly rambling to keep from going into an all out panic. No one knew where she really was, after all; it could be days before someone realized that little Blondie Lockes had been a huge, raging idiot and went into a condemned house at night to try and find ghosts. All they would find would be a dead phone, and this would be the last bit of evidence showing that she died how she lived; rambling on about a video game and the reality of her situation. Which was being stalked by ghosts and also coming across the mutilated corpses of...
Blondie entered the kitchen, where the smell was strongest. An old bag with the faded golden arches sat on a little round table, a rotting, half eaten burger sitting on top of it. Aiming the light to an old style fridge and freezer revealed long spoiled meat and chunky milk sitting and staring at her.
“...Huh,” Blondie breathed. “Maybe it wasn’t bodies after all?”
She took a step forward, and something cracked under her foot. Squeaking, Blondie stepped back and looked down, seeing a child’s sized plate shattered into pieces.
“That must have been what fell,” Blondie murmured, then gasped. “I communicated with the ghost--ha! It communicated back! Oh man! Oh my god! Yes, yes, yesss , viewers, I made contact!”
She turned her attention to the burger, however, and tilted her head.
“That’s only a few weeks old, though...so, how--”
Something long, sharp, and cold slid against her neck. Equally frigid breath ghosted against her ear and she smelled something clean, and fresh, and contrastingly dead all at once. Something that didn’t belong near her, or on earth at all. Blondie went very, very still; her phone shook in her hand, her heart fell to the soles of her feet, and with her very last thought she prayed that the ghost took her quickly.
“Oh, man,” the ghost said, surprisingly cheerfully, “you’ve still got service?”
“Buwh,” Blondie sputtered, quite intelligently given the situation. “I--yeah.”
“Can you...can you get internet out here?”
“Unlimited data,” Blondie said quietly. “I don’t need to connect to wifi to get it. So, uh, yeah. I guess.”
The cold and sharp thing rolled around the front of her throat; fingers, ending in talons. Blondie stared straight ahead in the dark as the ghost pressed against her back, deathly cold lips near her ear.
“Can I check my Facebook,” the ghost whispered. “Pretty please?”
Blondie paused her recording. Saved it, and brought up the Facebook app on her phone. She signed out and held it limply in her fingers in offering.
“Oh, yay! Thank you so, so much!” Vicious looking claws swiped the device from her hand and the ghost moved away. “You are honestly the best visitor I’ve had in like, years. I’ll be really quick, I promise.”
Blondie whirled around with a yell, flashlight clenched in both hands, and pointed it at the specter who had taken her phone. It blinked back at her with bright blue eyes sunken in their sockets; clammy, dark skin plastered to their bones, with knobby joints. They didn’t have a nose--just thin little slits where a nose would have sat. Their skin, already a deep brown--though mottled grey, like a corpse--bled to a deep black at their hands, which ended in very sharp claws that delicately tapped and swiped at her phone. A thin tail whipped behind them, ending not in a demonic spade, but bloomed outward like a heart. Boney wings flexed from their shoulders, and their feet were as sharp and wrong looking as their hands. A tattered, off-white toga draped off of their emaciated body, which was oddly fitting in the end.
Overall; not exactly the kind of ghost Blondie had imagined. Maybe it wasn’t a ghost at all.
“Aw, Jules and Barkley are still together,” the demon said fondly, their mouth flashing with fangs. “I’m so happy for them! I knew they’d make a good couple.” A few more taps and Blondie stared as the creature offered her phone back to her, account disconnected. “Thanks, I just needed to check up on some things. It’s been a few years.”
Blondie stared. The thing stared back.
“Oh! Gosh, where are my manners. Hi! I’m Chariclo Arganthone Cupid, but that’s kind of a mouthful and super, super Greek. You can just call me Cupid, if you want to. You’re--Blondie, right?”
“How do you know my name?” Blondie was proud of her voice for not cracking into a hysterical shout.
“Oh, I heard you uh, narrating to yourself? You were really into your little ghost show.” Cupid’s eyes lit up. “Ghosts are pretty territorial, though, so you’re lucky that I’m the only thing here.”
Silence reigned and Cupid began to fidget. She played with long, shockingly pink hair, and blinked at Blondie. She almost looked shy.
“So...yeah,” Cupid said, slowly. “I’m uh, sorry if I wasn’t what you were expecting? I tried my best but I really, really haven’t had anyone to talk to in years, and I just thought, that I could...talk with you. Was that not an okay thing? I’m a dummy, I probably shouldn’t have done all the scary stuff first.” At the word scary , Cupid wiggled the dangerous points of her fingers for added effect. “I went overboard playing ghost, didn’t I?”
“I mean,” Blondie tried, her brain completely leaving the station. “You were a very convincing ghost.”
Cupid clapped with delight. “I knew you enjoyed it! I’m a much better matchmaker than I am a ghost but, well, we do what we must!”
The situation was already well beyond whatever Blondie had been expected, so in reply Blondie simply nodded. A small fanged smile graced the creature--no, Cupid’s--face, almost kind of...nervous? Shy? Rows of teeth made it hard to tell if Blondie was being honest. The more she looked, however, the more real it was and after a moment of internally exploding from fear and excitement, Blondie’s curiosity took over.
“Y-you’re a matchmaker?”
“Well, alright I’ve been known to dabble here or there every century or so.” Cupid gave some kind of a shrug. “Mostly a hobby, really.”
“ Century? ” Blondie’s voice broke on the word. “How old are you?!”
“What year is it? Not a day over 9,000 at least.”
“You did not just meme on me,” Blondie gasped out with a laugh.
“It’s not my fault humans are easily amused.” A kind smile reached Cupid’s eyes.
Blondie wiped a small tear and straightened herself.
“At the risk of sounding ignorant, what exactly are you?”
“Greek and Roman with little bit of Kenyan on my mother’s side, why?”
“I meant more, y’know, like…” Blondie paused and then vaguely gestured to all of Cupid with a hand. “ What are you?”
“Well, back in the day the humans saw me as some form of demigoddess, or an offshoot creation of Echidna and Eros.” Cupid shrugged again. “To be frank, even I don’t know what I am. I know I’m a shapeshifter, of a sort, at least.”
In the span of a blink, Cupid had vanished and instead a mirror image of Blondie was peering at her, leaning in a little too close. It was a perfect recreation, down to the little mole on the underside of Blondie’s own chin; she yelped, scrambled back, and nearly fell against the table. Watching herself smooth her own hair back and move forward to take her own hand was all kinds of mind boggling.
“Change back, change back,” Blondie said as Cupid did a little spin in place. ‘Do I really look like that from behind?’
“Are you sure? You were frightened of me earlier.” If that bothered Cupid, she certainly didn’t seem offended. Then again, Blondie was hearing herself speak to her, which made her dizzy, so she slammed her eyes shut to keep from completely flipping out. “I can be anything you want me to be, Blondie.”
“Just--be yourself! And not me, please!”
A thoughtful hum left Cupid, and with the muted sound of bones rearranging, and flesh rippling, she said, “How’s this?”
Blondie cracked open an eye. She didn’t see herself, or a skeletal beast with wings and a tail, but a girl about her age with brown skin dappled and freckled from the sun. Her hair was still very much pink, but full of wild curls that cascaded down her back, and the toga certainly fit a lot better now that there was meat to actually fill it out.
Wait, no. No filling of anything. Blondie felt her face heat up and Cupid giggled. Blondie coughed and thought of another question.
“Why are you here?” She asked, her eyes shifting away from Cupid’s new form for an entirely different reason. Blondie could feel piercing blue eyes searing through her but there wasn’t any malice there but amusement.
“Why are any of us here?” Cupid chuckled now at the glare she was receiving, “Again I don’t really know? I just go where the Fates take me. This place, y’know this specifically, is being pretty comfortable. Something about the air feels--”
“Different?” Blondie offered, looking as Cupid’s expression softened before she giggled.
“I was going to say lovely, but yes.”
‘Do you get lonely here in this empty house? ’ Blondie thought to herself.
“Are you offering to take me home?” Cupid replied with a quirk of her eyebrow. Blondie gulped. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“Well, I mean, Fates and whatever clearly brought me here to your door. Also my bike did, but that’s semantics.” Blondie tried for her most charming kind of smile, which was a little strained seeing as how she was also screaming at herself internally. “It’s...this place kind of, well, it reeks.”
“Yeah.” Cupid looked sheepish again, her expressions far more clearly articulated now that she had all the muscles necessary for it. “Sorry about that...I usually live upstairs and I don’t exactly come down that often.”
“I’d have to talk it all over with my mom, of course,” Blondie continued, already running the pitch for it in her head, “and you’d probably have to pretend to be your parents, or something, but we do have a spare room. I mean, do you have any luggage, or--”
“I am steeped with centuries worth of emotional baggage.” Cupid blinked at Blondie’s pained expression. “Oh! You meant clothes. No, this toga is about all I have and all I need. Oh, my, are you going to try and get me to go to high school? I’ve never been in high school! Oh, that’s exciting!”
“What--I mean, I guess?” Blondie shook her head. “That wasn’t exactly the first on my list of priorities, but...but if you want to, then I guess my dad can pull some strings?”
“Oh, this is going to absolutely fantastic!” Cupid exclaimed, rushing Blondie for a tight hug. Blondie patted her on the back since apparently this was her life now. Hello to her new normal. It was almost like a movie, the strangest kind of meeting.
“Oh, I do have some things to get from upstairs, though,” Cupid said, and with a groan she was back to the frightening specter that Blondie had first encountered. She leaped forward, skittering along the wall on hands and feet which was so utterly terrifying that Blondie had to sit down on the table and try to remember how to breathe.
“Holy moley,” Blondie whispered, pressing her trembling hand to the back of her forehead. That explained the scary crawling noises she’d heard before, at least. Though she didn’t know if it was comforting to realize that Cupid had get-an-old-priest-and-a-young-priest-exorcism’d her way around the walls and Blondie had never thought to look up, or that it was Cupid all along and not an actual demon thirsting for her blood.
Speaking of thirst, though. Blondie wished she had thought ahead and bought a bottle of water, or something. Her mouth and throat were dry and she was weary to the core; probably from all the adrenaline, and the biking.
Reality began to sink in; she really had nowhere to sleep now that she had to bring Cupid along with her. It wasn’t like she could go to Ashlynn, or Briar, and say hey so, funny story . And she couldn’t sneak home either, not when her pitch relied on having met Cupid--homeless, and all alone in the world--at a bus stop on her way back from Ashlynn’s.
Cupid dropped down in front of her, and didn’t it say everything that she wasn’t even afraid anymore?
“I got them,” she said, proudly, opening her hands. A necklace of gold, where a lone, shining crystal hung for decoration; a silver bladed knife with a marble handle, an etching of Greek gods into the smooth stone; and a simple ring.
Blondie looked up. “Is that...all you’re bringing?”
“They’re all I need,” Cupid replied. “I can shift into whatever I need, clothing wise--though modesty is such a modern invention--and I don’t really need money seeing as how I don’t need to eat. These, though, I...I couldn’t live without them.” She spoke and her voice carried a note of longing, and sorrow; Blondie’s heart ached.
“Aw, man. I’m...sorry, Cupid.” Blondie didn’t know what for, but it felt necessary nonetheless. “I’ve got some bad-ish news, though. I uh...I can’t really, go back home tonight, not with you. My mom doesn’t even know I’m here.”
Cupid tilted her head, then smiled. With a mouth full of shark’s teeth and eyes that flared red in the flickers of a flashlight, it was far less comforting than how it was probably intended. Something really stupid in Blondie’s mind still went, ‘aw, cute’ at it, though, which sparked an entirely new plethora of questions she wasn’t ready to tackle yet.
“Is that you’re way of asking me, then?”
“Asking you what?”
Cupid shifted back into a more human appearance, all dark skin and bright eyes. “Asking to share a bed with me. Isn’t there a custom against that on the first date?”
Blondie choked on spit she didn’t even have. Cupid laughed as she sputtered, took her hand, and lead her upstairs. The second floor was just as dusty and cluttered as the first, but Blondie began to smell something sweet--burning candles, or incense--and when Cupid pushed open a door, she saw a room decorated in mostly shades of pink. The wallpaper still peeled, and the rugs were still ratty and torn, but it was quite clean and it didn’t reek of dust. The bed wasn’t made properly--mostly it was just all fabric, made to cocoon yourself in and snuggle down for the night--but it looked nice and soft and perfect for resting. At Cupid’s encouraging, she took off her jacket, hung it up on the foot of the bed, toed off her heels, and collapsed face first into it.
It was just as soft as she’d expected. Blondie let out a little sigh and listened to Cupid shift, blowing out the candles before moving to the bed as well. She left one alight, and Blondie cracked open an eye to watch her.
Cupid’s back faced her, so all she saw was curly pink hair being swept over a shoulder to reveal dark skin and even darker tattoos, intricate and swirling over her shoulder-blades. A pair of wings, Blondie realized quickly, before Cupid leaned forward and blew out the final candle, plunging them both into the dark.
“Should I wake you in the morning?” Cupid’s voice was against her ear, which made her jump for a third time that night. “Sorry!”
“I-it’s alright! And, yeah, a little before five. That’ll probably give us enough time to put the plan into action.” Blondie lapsed into silence, before murmuring, “I’m...pretty sure it’ll work. You getting to stay with us.”
“If the Fates decide it, then it will be so,” Cupid replied, which made her sound quite old. Blondie made a face and was glad the dark hid her expression, but from the soft giggles that left Cupid, she had a feeling the girl knew anyway. “I’m really hoping it works too. It would be a fun new adventure, living with humans again in this age, and getting to go to highschool.”
Blondie turned her face into the coolness of the pillow, and sighed. “Cross your fingers, then. Goodnight, Cupid.”
“Goodnight.” Silence, comfortable and full of anticipation, stretched between them. After a moment, as if testing to make sure she was asleep, Cupid whispered, “Blondie?”
“Y-yeah?”
A beat. “No one has…” Cupid paused again. “When I told someone that I could be whatever they wanted, no one ever told me to just...be me. So thank you very much, for finally giving me a first something in such a long, long time.”
In the dark, Blondie found Cupid’s hand, and squeezed it. “No problem,” she said on instinct, not sure how to respond to that revelation. “Thanks for being such a good ghost.”