Chapter Text
Shallow, rattling breathing filled the room. An elderly woman was lying on the bed, mere moments from death. To any outside viewer, it would appear that she was alone in her final moments. But on the other side of the veil, she as surrounded by sombre, caring spirits.
“It won’t be much longer now,” the ghost in Victorian dress spoke quietly despite knowing the woman on the bed wouldn’t be disturbed by his voice.
“At least she’s going peacefully,” the bowler hatted ghost mused.
“Well, there are certainly worse ways to go,” scoffed the ghost dressed as a prince.
All the ghosts in the room murmured in agreement, either gesturing to their own fatal injuries or shuddering at the memories of their deaths.
Their attention was quickly taken by a swirling white light which began to glow around the old woman. The light eventually morphed into a misty, transparent depiction of the old woman.
“It’s happening! The ghost in the scout master uniform gasped, “Oh I really hope she stays!”
Hovering above her death bed, the old woman looked around, regarding the six figures before her, “Who are you?”
The prince stepped forward, clearing his throat and proclaiming, “We are those poor spirits who dwell on, compelled for reasons unknown-” his speech was interrupted by the woman suddenly disappearing, collapsing into the light she was surrounded by, “-aaaand she’s gone,” the prince sighed.
The moustached ghost sighed, “Lucky.”
A heavy silence lingered over the room before it was interrupted by the scout master adjusting his glasses and suggesting, “Perhaps one of us should say a few words?”
When no-one spoke up, the emo ghost who had been lingering in the corner cleared his throat, “I guess I’ll say something,” he sucked in a deep breath before saying, “Dibs on her room.”
The rest of the ghosts groaned, protesting that she’d only just died.
“I’ll wait for them to move her!” he defended even though it didn’t make it sound better.
Silence fell over the ghosts once again.
The Victorian gentleman spoke again, “She was the last of the Carter family. Who’s going to take over the house now?”
No-one had an answer. Instead, the prince once again broke out into a speech, “The final Carter died today. Though where she goes, I cannot say,” he turned to the window, looking out dramatically across the grounds, “It seems but only yesterday she began her life, t’was like...a play(?). But with no children of her own, who then will come to call this place home-” he turned around, expecting to see the other ghosts applauding him but was only met with an empty room. He sighed and left to go and find the others.
But for the next few days that question rang out through the house.
Who will inherit the place now?
***
Thomas sighed again once the tour was over. He’d looked through nearly 20 apartments but none of them were right. Either they were fantastic but out of his price range or affordable and completely inhabitable. At this point Thomas was seriously considering asking his parents if he could move back in.
It was as he was leaving the apartment he had just been viewing that his phone began to ring, displaying a number he didn’t recognise. He answered it with a frown.
“Hello?”
”Hello, am I speaking to Mr Thomas Sanders?” The voice sounded like an older man, he sounded calm and authoritative.
“Yeah, that’s me,”
”Well, Mr Sanders, I was calling to inform you about a house,”
“Sorry but I’m only looking for apartments at the moment,”
”Well, this house isn’t for sale,”
Thomas frowned again, “Then why are you calling?”
”Because this house is to be inherited... by you,”
***
“And that’s you way over in the corner there,” The man pointed at a small square on a family tree labelled as, Thomas Sanders.
“Huh,” Thomas once again looked over the family tree, trying hard to wrap his head around what he’d just been told. Apparently, his lineage meant that he was related to the Carter family who had roots stretching back to the Victorian era and longer, “So the woman who’s just died, she would be my... great... step...aunt?”
“Well, there’s no real term for your relation,”
“And you’re sure there’s no-one else closer to her that can inherit the house?” It wasn’t like he didn’t want the house; he just didn’t want to be caught in any kind of fraud, “No children or siblings?”
“Well, she didn’t have any children, but she did have two sisters. One died a few years ago and I already contacted the other, but she rejected the offer,”
“Wow,” If Thomas had a nickel for every time he’d said ‘wow’ today he’d have enough money to buy the house himself!
The man reached into one of the drawers behind his desk and took out a collection of photos. He handed them to Thomas who began to flick through them. The ones on the top were pictures of Heather Carter, the woman who had recently passed, but soon they changed to pictures of an old manor house. Thomas paused when he reached those.
“This- this isn’t the house, is it?”
“It is,”
“No,” he clutched the photos in disbelief.
“Now, I can help to put you in contact with some people who can help with the resale process. There are many people who are going to want to buy the property after all-”
His words washed over Thomas who just continued to stare in disbelief at the picture of the house, “What if I keep it?” He blurted out.
The usually composed man faltered, “...I’m sorry?”
“I mean, I’ve been looking for a place for a while now and this feels like the perfect solution, no having to worry about if I can afford it,” Thomas rambled.
“But... but the house is in an extreme state of disrepair. It would take a miracle to fix it up enough to be inhabitable!”
“Well, I have done a bit of DIY in the past,”
“This isn’t simply DIY, this would take a full construction crew to renovate,”
“...But I can keep it if I want to, right?”
The man sighed, “I suppose... I suppose you can, although I highly advice against it.”
“Well, I think it would be nice to... you know... keep it in the family?”
The man didn’t seem amused.
***
It was a surprisingly mundane morning in the Carter House. Janus and Remus were sat playing chess in one corner, Virgil was sat on the windowsill looking out at the grounds. Logan and Patton were sat on the couch watching Roman perform a long-winded soliloquy of his own creation. Logan looked as if he was about to fall asleep and Patton was doing his best to look engaged, but it was hard considering that Roman’s speech was tricky to follow as it sounded like he was trying too hard to replicate Shakespeare.
Roman sunk to his knees, “Thou hasteth vanquishedeth me and now I shall succumbeth to death.”
Seeing that the soliloquy was finally over, Patton applauded loudly to stop him from starting again which ended up waking Logan who hurriedly joined the applause. Roman bowed with an incredibly proud look on his face.
Patton stood up, trading places with Roman who sat on the couch, “That was... great Roman,” He tried to sound positive, “And if no-one has anything else they would like to share or discuss then I suppose we’ll move onto our next activity. I believe we were going to listen to Logan give us a talk on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”
At this, Logan perked up and smiled, preparing to take his spot in front of the couch.
“Please somebody speak up and save us from that,” Roman called out to the rest of the room. Unfortunately, of him, Janus and Remus were fully occupied with their chess match. Remus’ face was screwed up in concentration, scanning the board with an incredible intensity which would have burst a blood vessel on any living person. Janus, however, was sat back with a satisfied smirk, watching Remus’ growing frustration with quiet joy. Roman turned his attention from them to the emo in the corner, “Anybody!”. Virgil continued to ignore him.
“Come on, Roman!” Patton smiled, “I’m sure it’ll be interesting.”
“If I had to sit through your monologue, you can sit through my actually interesting and actually informative speech,” Logan folded his arms across his chest.
“First of all, it was a soliloquy not a monologue, if you’re going to insult me do it correctly. Secondly,” he inhaled a deep, offended gasp, “how dare you call my performance boring!”
Logan smirked, “I did not call your performance boring, I simply called my speech interesting.”
“Don’t use your tricky language skills with me!”
“Or what?”
Roman leapt to his feet and produced his sword, pointing it towards Logan as if he was about to run him through with it. Since the two of them had been in the house for the longest, they were the ones who argued most frequently. All those years had built up a resentment between them which was worsened by their clashing personalities.
“Hey, guys,” Patton tried to get their attention to stop the arguing but was unsuccessful, “Guy? Please?”
“SHUT IT” Everyone was stunned by the outburst from the usually quiet emo, “There’s more important things happening than your petty arguments.”
“Like what, emo nightmare?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the car pulling into the driveway right now!”
With confused looks, the other ghosts all ran over to the window, crowding around Virgil. Sure enough, a car was driving through the gates.
“Maybe they’re lost?” Janus suggested
“No, look, they’re parking,” Patton pointed out as the car stopped. Soon, the door opened and a man, probably in his mid to late twenties got out. From this distance it was hard to make anything out.
“I thought they’d finished moving out all her stuff,” Logan mused.
“I don’t think he’s here for that, look, he’s got bags!” Remus pointed out.
The ghosts all looked at each other before moving away from the window and sprinting downstairs. When they reached the entrance hall, they saw the man from before pushing the creaking door open. A look of wonder filled his face as he looked around, taking in the crumbling architecture and faded paintings.
“Do you think he’s the new resident?” Virgil asked nervously.
“It appears so,” Janus replied, “That means he’s probably related to you.”
The man left his bags in the hallway and began to give himself a tour, unknowingly bringing the ghosts with him.
As he toured the house, the look of wonder never left his face. He made small comments to himself about the look of the place, about various repairs and sometimes just repeating the word, ‘wow’ to himself over and over.
The ghosts stood a few feet away from him as the man stood in the grounds, looking at the house.
“He seems... alright, honestly,” Patton smiled.
“I’m still not quite sure,” Logan said, looking at the man who was taking a few photos.
“Come on, Logan! He seems quite and respectful, I’m sure he’ll be nothing but a nice new roommate!”
“Wow, this place would make aa really great hotel,” The man mused.
The ghost’s mouths drop in sync.
***
“A hotel!” Roman cried, pacing around the living room, “He wants to turn OUR home into a hotel!”
Virgil curled into a ball, pulling his hoodie over his head, “What if the guests kick us out of our rooms? What if they change the whole place? I can’t deal with all this change!”
Logan interrupted the overlapping noise with a bang of his foot on the ground, causing the other ghosts to look at him, “I assume none of us are in favour of our home being turned into a hotel?” They all shook their heads, “Good, then I also assume that we would all be eager to make a plan to prevent this, correct?”
“But what can we do?” Patton asked
Just as Logan went to respond Remus interrupted, “We could kill him?”
“Absolutely not,” Logan shut him down quickly causing Remus to pout and sulk, “I believe the best course of action would be to attempt to drive him out of the house.”
“And just how are we going to do that when we can neither be seen or heard?” Janus asked rolling his eyes.
Logan took in a breath and went to respond but realsied he had no idea. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten that far in the planning stage.
They all pondered this question for a while until Roman suggested, “We could try... haunting? We are ghosts after all.”
“Excellent idea Roman,” everyone was shocked, Logan and Roman were hardly civil to each other, passing compliments was extremely rare, “Now we just need to discuss what methods of haunting are available to us.”
Patton raised his hand excitedly and began bouncing, Logan sighed and gestured for him to speak, “Virgil can do his thing with the lights!”
Virgil froze at all the attention suddenly being focused on him.
“Virgil? Are you comfortable doing this?”
Virgil gulped and stood, “Uh- yeah... sure,” Virgil raised his hands towards the nearest light source which was the lamp on the table beside him. The light began to flicker and hum, eventually going out. The ghosts clapped and cheered while Virgil blushed and shrank into his hoodie.
Janus lazily raised his hand, “I believe I have something to contribute,” when prompted to continue speaking he cleared his throat looking slightly embarrassed, “I was able to figure out a few decades ago that when I make a... a hissing sound it can be heard by the living.”
“How did you figure that out?” Logan asked
Janus glared at him, “That’s none of your business, all you need to know is that I can.”
“Can you show us?” Patton asked excitedly.
Janus blushed slightly, “I would rather not.” Patton looked disappointed but quickly hid it.
“And then, of course, we all know of Remus’ ability,”
Remus waved a dismissive hand and feigned embarrassment before stepping over to the side table when a small cup was positioned close to the edge. He raised his pointer finger and positioned it next to the cup. Silence fell over the ghosts as the watched in awe. Remus grunted as if it took a lot of effort. The first few attempts only ended in his finger passing through the object but eventually his finger remained solid enough the move the cup, fully pushing it off the edge of the table. The ghosts broke out into applause as Remus bowed.
“Well then, everyone, now that we have our plan, I suggest everyone gets some good rest. We shall ahve a full day of haunting ahead of us tomorrow,” Logan smiled.
***
The plan was put into action the very next day. In fact, it was put into action from the moment they were all awake. They had a quick discussion outside the bedroom the man (who they had learnt was called Thomas) had chosen where the plan was solidified. Stading to attention outside his door, the ghosts practically buzzed with excitement.
Eventually, they heard movement from inside the room and they got ready, all beginning to feel the butterflies in their stomachs.
When the door opened and Thomas stepped out, Logan called, “Now Virgil!”
Virgil nodded bringing his hands up to the overhead light outside the door. Sure enough, it began to flicker, crackle and hum. Thomas frowned and went over to the light switch, flicking it up and down a few times. The sudden reverse in energy caused Virgil to seize up and pass out collapsing to the floor. Patton rushed over to him.
Briefly shocked (pun intended) by the hiccup in their plan, the ghosts quickly recovered with Logan calling out, “Janus, Go!”
Janus nodded, hesitating slightly at the embarrassment before slowly beginning to hiss. He started quietly but grew louder. They weren’t able to figure out if he really could be heard by the living as Thomas began to play his own music loudly, swaying along and humming to it.
They only had one shot now, “Remus, you’re our only hope!”
The still conscious ghosts cheered and clapped as Remus put all his effort into pushing a rather large vase off the table. Thomas was getting closer to the spot where Remus was. If he passed by him before Remus pushed over the vase then all hipe was lost. The ghosts became louder, cheering with all there might. Eventually, the vase moved.
It moved less than half an inch just as Thomas passed by. The ghosts deflated. Remus sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “I’ve never tried it on anything this big before,” he explained.
***
Later that day the ghosts met again to discuss a new plan. Unfortunately, like most of their conversations that were supposed to be civil this also devolved into loud bickering and arguing. The one ghosts who stayed out of the argument was Remus. This meant that he was the only one to notice Thomas in the other room. So that he didn’t interrupt the others, Remus got up slowly and walked into the adjacent room.
Thomas was right by the window and by ‘right by’ I mean that he was leaning out of window. He seemed to be trying to shoo away some kind of bird. Eventually, was leaning so much that his feet were lifting off the ground.
In life, Remus had been plagued by troubling thoughts. Thoughts of danger, of harm, of violence. In death these thoughts hadn’t gone away.
As Remus slowly approached the window another one of these thoughts popped into his head.
The other ghosts wanted Thomas gone... right?
...
Right?
...
Thomas didn’t even feel the gentle push on his back.