Chapter Text
The looming, barren, vastness seemed to grow even more infinite with every inch of distance onward. Waverly stares out the window with her forehead against the cool glass. She takes a deep exhale just to watch the window fog. The feeling in her gut growing as the car soldiers on to its destination.
“You know, I totally call the big room.” Wynonna says to her left. She had pulled herself forward between the front seats to reveal her special announcement.
“As if.” Willa scoffs from the passenger seat. Wynonna immediately launches into a series of long winded and poorly thought out protests.
Waverly thumbs the pages of the novels in her lap. It’s long and, to most, quite bland, on The Epic of Gilgamesh focusing on, not just the tale, but the king himself. Rife with comparisons to biblical texts and opinions from respected historians, it had been absorbing a lot of Waverly’s thoughts.
Until Willa returned home, of course. She had gone far away to a school that the nice lady had said was “far better suited for someone of her ilk.” Apparently, it was some sort of au naturel, all-girls school for girls who “need a little more guidance to become fruitful members of society.” Now, she is home, which made Daddy decide to move homes, again, to re-accommodate the Earp household. Ward Earp was, well a drunk, but also a paranormal investigator which, of course, lead to the choice in a new house. A two floor, complete with a basement and attic, abandoned ranch house. When Waverly had looked into her new home, she found the facts. It had been abandoned on and off for the past 139 years with no record of people actually living in it for an extended period of time after that, other than the brief notes of renovation before each unsuccessful move in. The barn was a little younger than the rest of the house built just six years BMHV (Before Mysterious House Vacancy) and sure, it came with a lot of fenced in land, but Waverly would bet Steph’s skimpy skirts and her favorite book on the origins of Latin that it was not structurally sound.
Of course, Wynonna had chuckled at her theory and proceeded to immediately make a bet with Willa over who would break a leg first. Waverly smiles down at her book, Wynonna tends to be so easy-going.
“Babygirl, look up! We’re almost there!” Wynonna tugs on her sleeve, she had finally quit her habit of delivering a series of excited slaps.
Waverly looks up, and oh boy. The paint is faded and peeling, the wood of the porch looks like it holds more than enough potential to be rotten. She forces a pained smile at Wynonna. “Oh, joy. But, what a shame, it seems I’ve forgotten all my trust in drunken housing decisions back at home. How about you guys settle in while I go get that?”
Wynonna throws an arm around her little sister. “Just trust me, Waves. It’s gonna be great. If you’re still scared of ghosties, we could totally room together like the good old days.”
Waverly pats her hand stiffly. “As much as that assures me, you haven’t been here before either.”
Willa twists around in her seat. “Don’t be such a baby. It was only mildly haunted when Daddy took me to look at it earlier.”
Wynonna leans forward and gives Willa a friendly slap on the arm. “Willa, don’t kid. Not cool, bro.”
Willa looks Waverly dead in the eyes, with a straight face. “Who said I was kidding?”
Waverly pulls Wynonna back to her. “Please, take me back now.” Waverly just wanted to be in something structurally sound, and in town. Way out here the other kids are definitely going to think she belongs to a tribe of reclusive freaks. Ghosts aren’t that bad. Daddy hunts them. She’s been reading texts on them since she figured out how to sneak into Daddy’s study.
Wynonna sympathetically strokes Waverly’s braids before lifting her hands with her wrists ‘stuck’ together. “Sorry, Waves. My hands are metaphorically tied. Not literally, of course, that was two Friday’s ago with Justin Murphy.”
“Oh, gross. Wynonna.” Waverly pushes herself as far away from Wynonna as possible.
Willa turns around with a wicked grin. “I bet you I can sleep in the super haunted attic without having to move out for one whole month.”
Wynonna immediately jumps to the challenge. “Bet you that I can go for two.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.”
It really isn’t safe for them to sleep up there. “Guys, I really think that the attic would be the super unsafest place to sleep. It’s just that the high mo-“ Waverly begins explaining.
“-Quiet, Waverly. The big kids are talking. Anyways, Wynonna, I bet you my good pair of jeans.” Willa interrupts before returning the conversation to betting. Wynonna gives her an apologetic look and Waverly quietly seethes in her seat in spite of it.
“Don’t be too cocky. You’re as likely to win as Xavier Dolls is to break dress code at school. I bet you my favorite leather jacket.” Wynonna says, flush with confidence.
“Oh, it’s on.” Willa holds out a hand to shake. Everything she does is like the time Waverly sat on a fire ant hill, but times a bajillion. Just plain irritating.
“On like drunken Donkey Kong.” Wynonna shakes and Willa’s smirk only seems to grow stronger.
“I bet you I could room there until the next house.” Waverly blurts out. She immediately slaps her hands over her mouth.
“Waves!” Wynonna exclaims in shock.
“I didn’t think you had it in you, little girl. Alright, you’re on. If you can do it, you can sit at the big kids table with the rest of it.” She holds her hand out to Waverly. “C’mon and shake it, goody two shoes, unless you’re lying?”
Waverly puffs out her cheeks and lets out a little huff of air. She gives Willa her firmest handshake, looking her in the eyes. The car hits the rocky road of the driveway and Willa pulls away, turning back around to the front in her seat. She holds eye contact as long as possible.
“Waverly.” Wynonna says again, but much quieter.
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” She spares a glance at Wynonna. “I bet there’s asbestos.” She puts a hand over her face. “I hope we have enough menthol rub for when the mold gives us all chest infections.”
Wynonna gives her a couple of back pats. “We’ll probably move again before half a year passes like always. It’ll be fine. On the plus side, we are still in the fine town of Purgatory.”
Waverly peeks at her through her fingers. “Haven’t you run away seven times?”
“Probably, I’m too cool to keep count.” Wynonna says wistfully, nodding to herself.
Waverly coughs. “I’m sorry I think your ego is taking up all the oxygen in the car or it’s the future interstitial pneumonitis from all the asbestos!” Waverly says pointedly.
“I’ll get you some masks, like they wear in Japan.” Wynonna gives Waverly a couple of motivational arm touches. Waverly glares at her big sister. “You like Japan!”
The car jerks to the halt. “Alright, girls. Get out an’ help.” Ward announces as he throws open the door of the car. “I’m g’nna go check on things roun’ th’ place.” He mumbles half to himself, half to his daughters. He waves half-heartedly at the moving truck behind him, which grinds to a halt and immediately, Doc Holliday, his ‘work assistant’ and Wynonna’s classmate and fellow miscreant, pops out of the driver seat.
“That’s a mighty fine structure you got yourselves there.” He says, staring the house down as Wynonna exits the car and wanders over to him, stretching all the while.
“Thanks, now come help me lift heavy things.” Wynonna says with a yank on the collar of his shirt.
Willa gives Waverly another look before heading to join Wynonna. Waverly sighs and pops open the trunk. It’s full of the stuff that needs to be out immediately that she and Wynonna remembered to repack. Groceries, plates and utensils, lightbulbs (you know, just in case) cleaning supplies. Waverly pulls out the large bin and begins to carry it in. She pulls open the screen door which has ensnared many unfortunate insects and pushes open the actual door. She heads towards the kitchen, it has the newest updates along with the bathroom, like an actual refrigerator. She drops the bin onto the kitchen counter and begins unpacking, setting off to work into figuring out what goes where. She cleans as she goes, spraying and wiping down each surface before putting something down on it. She stuffs the second hand fridge with food and alcohol, because Ward Earp is much less fun without a cold one. She peeks out the window to the struggle in unloading. Wynonna looks like she’s berating Doc for accidentally being sexist in an attempt of being ‘gentlemanly’ and Willa looks bored of it all. Waverly sets off to scrub down all the surfaces she can, methodically starting with ‘most likely to be used’ to least. The broom didn’t fit in the trunk, thus she brought a small brush and dustpan. She cleans up the floors a little too, and luckily the window turns out not to be broken, just a little cracked. She works around the heavy lifters, occasionally lending a hand and laughing when Wynonna flexes after a particularly heavy item.
When Willa half-heartedly comes in to tell her that the moving truck is halfway empty is when Waverly immediately gets to work on lunch. She begins testing out the new/old stove by warming up some soup and sets to work making sandwiches as it warms up. She hums to herself and mentally checks to see if she remembered to pack the hygiene projects. Wynonna briefly runs through the kitchen holding Doc’s hat over her head while Waverly is setting the table, which is when, in a stunning move of multitasking, Waverly scolds Wynonna for running in dangerous areas and tells her lunch is soon. Wynonna jets out of there with a quick plead for “triangles not squares” for her sandwich. She also pops her head back in with a promise that the dining chairs for the table would be delivered soon.
Waverly has finished pouring soup out for each bowl by the time Wynonna comes in, panting and dirty, with the proud announcement of every item moved into the house. Waverly laughs and hands her a beer.
Wynonna throws herself down into her seat before shouting for Willa and Doc. She opens the beer against the table and lifts her drink in the air. “Why does beer taste so good after a hard day’s work?”
Waverly questions the placement of the table for a moment before taking a seat and eating her sandwich. “The same reason going to bed feels good after walking through a storm.”
“Ah, yes. The sweet satisfaction of not having to do that shit anymore.” Wynonna says with a grin.
Doc appears at the doorway, he removes his hat for a moment to place it over his heart. “Waverly! What a fine feast you have made for us here today.”
“Shut up and eat, Doc. No one cares.” Wynonna says through a mouth full of food. He takes his seat with a chuckle as he puts his hat back on.
“Is Willa going to join us?” Waverly asks as she grab Doc a beer from the fridge.
“Nah, I think she’s gone wherever Daddy is.” Wynonna says dismissively.
“Wynonna here says you are going up in the attic?” Doc asks after draining his soup bowl.
“What, you think I can’t do it?” Waverly challenges, nervously. She begins to inhale her meal.
“No, not at all, Braveheart. I was just trying to conversationally open up the opportunity to ask help move your boxes up in the attic right after this delightful meal you have made for us.”
“Oh, yeah, totally.”
“You won’t have to lift a finger. You’ve done fantastic cleaning up the place, Waves. Me and Doc’ll get everything up there.” Wynonna takes a thoughtful bite of sandwich. “Dude, you should totally go pick some flowers to brighten up the place or add a pop of color or whatever the fuck those home design mags say.”
Waverly grins ear to ear. “You saw flowers?”
“Yeah, there are lots of ‘em growing around the fence. Pretty colors and everything, not just Dandelions.”
“Score!” Waverly gets up and pushes in her chair. “And Wynonna?” Wynonna looks up from scraping the bottom of her soup bowl. “Please be careful with my things. The bindings to some of the books are old and fragile.”
Wynonna gives her a thumbs up. “I gotcha, Waves.”
She shoots her sister two thumbs up back before putting her boots on and heading outside. She mumbles to herself as she tries to remember where she put the vases. The grass is tall and uncared for, all yellow and sickly. The fence isn’t anything spectacular. Just logs of wood placed on top of each other to keep anything larger than a goat but smaller than a bear contained. Wynonna’s right about the flowers, Waverly thinks as she begins picking. It isn’t that she particularly loves flowers or is spooked by hard labor. Wynonna just likes protecting her, even in little dumb ways like not letting her put her boxes into her new attic room, it’s also probably an excuse to check it out. It’s okay, Waverly can let her do all these little things if it puts Wynonna’s mind at ease. Her big sister’s been nervous ever since Willa got sent away. Wynonna blames herself for the whole ordeal, she had been with Willa at the big inciting incident. It wasn’t like Willa was the picture of innocence beforehand. Some kid, Carl what’s-his-name had teased Waverly about her nutty family and her wackjob Daddy. Wynonna overheard and was more than a little pissed. It wasn’t unusual, all seven of the redneck families who lived on the fringes of the small town always had something to say about the Earps. The fathers, the kids. Carl’s dad had spat in Ward Earp’s drink when he had gone to get a drink from Shorty’s just a week earlier. Wynonna had told Willa, and Willa had gone on and on about the proud Earp name and how they need to teach the others to respect it. She pulled Wynonna into her ridiculous plan to set free and wild all of the redneck’s cattle. Wynonna agreed and so off they went into the night.
They broke every fence gate open and yelled and hollered them out of their fencing. The minute the porch lights came on they ran away to the next house. On the second to last house, the crazy farmer had shot his gun into the night instead of turning his lights on. Like a smart girl, Wynonna took off, thinking of her safety. She was halfway to their old house when she noticed Willa wasn’t behind her. Turns out that one of the guy’s farmhands had nabbed Willa up and kept her there until the Sheriffs came. Wynonna thinks she could’ve saved them both if she hadn’t run.
Waverly twirls the flowers in her hands. The past always seems to suck. There’s a rush of movement in the grass near the barn that Waverly whips around to catch a glimpse of. Hopefully there isn’t an infestation of possums or something. She creeps over to the grass, pausing a small distance away. Quickly, she sweeps her boot through the grass. Nothing, a breeze must’ve moved the grass around or the creature’s already run off. She notices some purple daisies growing around the barn, Smooth Blue Aster, actually. These would look nice in her attic, she hoped. She picks a handful, careful to leave the root system so they can grow back. She heads back to the house, a bundle of flowers in each hand.
She kicks off her boots at the front door, no need to track more dirt indoors. She quickly looks around the first floor for the box labelled ‘decorations’ in her own writing. She found it helpfully deposited on the coffee table. She pulls the small knife out of her pocket and stabs it open. She leaves the flowers on the table and rushes to fill the vases with water, she can add sugar when she finds it later. She places one small bundle of flower on the windowsill at the front of the house and the other on the table. She fills the last vase with her aster and climbs up the stairs. She hears the thud and the “Goddammit Doc!” before she sees it.
“Wynonna! You better have not broken one of my things or I won’t give you beer for a week.” Waverly calls out.
Wynonna’s head pops, upside down, out of the attic entrance. “This isn’t my fault for once.” Beneath her, Doc lays on the floor underneath a mattress. “Holliday, here has the grip of an armless amputee. He wasn’t holding your mattress right when he was passing it up to me. Everything’s all up here, we even found the time to reassemble your bedframe before trying to get the mattress up. And look, Waves.” She vanishes from sight and a ladder drops down from the ceiling, straight onto Doc’s exposed kneecap making him groan out. Wynonna’s head reappears. “Look at this. You have a ladder. It’s really- uh what’s the word, Doc?”
“Snazzy, I believe is the word you are looking for, Wynonna.” He says, sitting up and moving the mattress off of him.
“Sounds stupid, but sure. Anyways! Come on up, kid.” She extends a hand to take the vase from Waverly. Waverly passes it off to Wynonna and ascends the ladder.
“Tada! Ye olde humble abode.” Wynonna announces as she passes the vase back to Waverly. Waverly pulls the vase to her chest and looks around. The ceiling is low at the sides. Someone a pinch taller than her would struggle to stand straight that close to the walls. There’s one window that faces out into the vastness of the wild, on the other side, just behind the entrance in the floor, is a small door with a rusty knob. Wynonna had already pushed her bed near the window and into the corner. It’s a little dusty and dirty, but not as bad as Waverly had feared. Maybe Daddy had actually inspected it well. The small border of wallpaper mid-way up the wall is faded and peeling and the floor seems to have one old rug that the Earps definitely did not bring. Waverly put the vase down on one of boxes and goes to inspect the door as Wynonna struggles with Doc to get the mattress up. She reaches out and grabs the knob, curious as to what is on the other side. After all, her room isn’t big enough to take up the entirety of the house. She jiggles it and it doesn’t give. She pulls and pushes before letting go.
Wynonna falls backwards with a thump with the mattress in her home “And the last piece has arrived!” she announces, pulling herself back up and dragging it over to the corner. She plunks it down on top of Waverly’s box spring. She sits on it for a moment before noticing what her sister is transfixed on. Wynonna heads over and crouches next to her. “Oh, that? That doesn’t open.”
“Well, I know that now.” Waverly says, mindlessly scratching at the paint on the door.
“Willa said she scrubbed off some of the drawings and writings on the wall when she was here before us. The ghost presence here is strong, isn’t it? Like the dead people are giving major vibes.” Wynonna sits down and leans back on her hands. “No wonder she was willing to bet so hard that she could outlast me up here.”
Waverly shrugs. She’s not like her sisters. She doesn’t sense ghostly vibes like they can. She doesn’t mind. Sure, it makes her feel a little excluded for not having the all-important Earp gift. She tries to make up for it by understanding it scientifically. “I’m sure, from what I’ve read about this place and in paranormal text. This place could be rife with undead entities. What if we have another burial ground incident on our hands? I doubt we could deal with that.”
“I dunno, kiddo. I’m not sure if I feel comfortable leaving you up here with so many ghosts. There’s gotta be more up here then I have fingers.” Wynonna says. Waverly rolls her eyes.
“You need to be getting your bed ready. You have a math test tomorrow and I promised you I’d bake you a cake if you achieved a minimum of seventy as a final grade in any of your classes and you need at least an eighty to achieve that. So, come on. Shoo. Scoot your boot. Send Doc home and get off to bed.” Waverly says rising to her feet and making shooing motions.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Wynonna gives Waverly a hug before shimmying down the ladder and yelling at Doc to get out of the house before she rips the molting squirrel off his face and sets it on fire.
Waverly wanders back to where she abandoned her flowers, still studying the room. With a smile, she plunks it down on the dusty windowsill.
Oh, Willa is so going to eat it.
She finds the box and begins making her bed, starting with that damned fitted sheet. By the time she flopped down on the bed wrestling with the last corner, the sun’s already begun to go down. She plugs her lamp into the extension cord running up through the hatch in the floor. After getting the other sheets on and the comforter she finally stops to relax.
She looks back out the window, only to pause. Wasn’t the vase not that far to the left a few seconds ago? She pushes it back before starting to shove her pillows back into their cases. Wynonna had helpfully leaned her whiteboard against a wall, accidentally in the perfect place to be mounted. She pounds the nails into the wall that she left in the whiteboard with the heels of one of the boots she found. She sets to work writing the schedule for tomorrow on the wall after she finishes mounting the damn thing. She freezes again, at a strange noise, she turns to look at the vase. She could swear she saw it move. It’s balancing precariously on the edge of the windowsill. She rushes over, shoving it back in place. She pats it once or twice, silently begging for it to just stay. She turns around, hands on her hips, with a loud huff, and begins taking a few steps away. She hears the noise again. She spins around in time to witness it happen.
It plays in slow motion in her mind.
I bet it’s going to fall.
Oh look, it’s falling.
I better go catch it.
CRASH!
Waverly recoils her extended hand that tried to rescue it.
“Waverly!” Wynonna shouts as she rushes up the ladder.
Waverly spins around to stare at her, wide eyed like a kid with its hand caught in the cookie jar. Her face immediately splits into an awkward smile and she scratches the back of her head.
“What the fuck happened? Are you alright?” Wynonna grabs her arms to inspect her for some sort of injury.
“I’m fine. It’s just me being classic ol’ clumsy Waverly.” She grabs Wynonna’s hands off her. “Trust me, I’m fine. No pesky ghostly activity.”
Wynonna gives her a look of disbelief.
“If you really want to help, you’d go get me the broom and dustpan downstairs.” Waverly says pointedly.
Her big sister hesitates for a moment before heading back downstairs.
“Alright, so a little haunted. That’s fine, I can deal with that. I dealt with Champ Hardy pantsing me on the playground in first grade. I can deal with a little preternatural infestation.” She stomps her foot to the ground. “You hear that, ghostie? I’ll make you bow to me.” She announces, crossing her arms.
Yeah, she got this.
Maybe.
Probably.
She can only hope.