Page 16 of Halloween Haunting
“And Anna,” she pointed to the swishing mermaid, “this entire night, there wasn’t one unusual thing about her, was there?”
“But –”
“Holiday Hollow is a place for special people to have a haven,” Caroline interjected. She held her chin up pridefully. “Yes, Anna is a mermaid. Olivia is…well,” she placed a hand over her friend’s shoulder, “I’ll tell it how it is. She’s a vampire.”
Olivia sheepishly raised one shoulder and parted her lips, offering a sideways smile. Her top row of teeth looked normal, till Grace noticed the sharp fangs that were growing out of them. As fast as they revealed themselves, they shrank back into regular teeth, and Olivia was smiling with her lips firmly pressed together.
“And,” Caroline continued, the hesitation written in the worry lines coursing across her forehead, “I’m a witch, Grace. Not the green skinned, ugly nosed, mole-ridden witch you know. I’m real.Weare real. And you – you’re the most real one out of all of us.”
“M-Me?” Grace shook her head till everything was shaking. “You’ve got the wrong girl. I’m not like you!”
Caroline inched forward. “That ‘dream’ you had wasn’t a dream at all, Grace.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There is a word for those in our world capable of seeing glimpses of the future,” Caroline continued relentlessly, wading through the water to get closer to her. The moon positioned itself behind Caroline’s head, ominously casting a silvery frame around her tall figure. “Psyhic.”
“No,” Grace blurted, thwarted by a rising anger. “You’rewrong!”
Caroline pressed her lips together and flourished her hand. Golden light that resembled falling sand fell from her fingertipsand sprinkled down over Grace’s head, like a shower. The specks started to spark till they were exploding like neon fireworks, lighting up the darkness. But while it might’ve been a beautiful spectacle, Grace was far from the point of appreciating magic for what it was worth. There were only alarm bells going off in her head, and they were all saying one simple thing.
Get out of there!
Before they could say another word, Grace leapt out of the water fountain and sprinted toward her car. Her bare feet slapped against the rugged pavement till she arrived at the convertible, flailing with the keys till she managed to jump inside. Within the same minute, Grace was speeding off, returning to a home that now frightened her more than she could ever understand.
8
Grace burst through the front door of the Lantern House, still dripping. The door swung close behind her, slamming and engulfing the entire place with darkness. She stalked through the rooms, feeling at the walls and stubbing her bare toes, till she managed to climb up the stairs and take shelter in the quiet and secluded loft. She thought that the creepy lantern was the last place she would want to be in the entire house, but there was something comforting about the dark thing. The light no longer came to life, but knowing that it was once meant to guide someone back home was enough to bring some sort of warmth to Grace’s trembling chest.
The windows overlooked the lake, where the moon could be seen reflecting off the undisturbed surface. The sound of crickets and owls echoed through the house as Grace hunkered down beside the tall lantern, her entire body riddled with relentless shakes.
“You’re not crazy,” Grace whispered into her knees. “But…but you’re something.”
Something happened back there. She couldn’t deny that. Maybe they drugged her and she was hallucinating. Or maybe Grace had been sick for a long time, and her night of drinkingand letting loose was the final straw. Perhaps she was in the downward spiral of her life, set to only get worse from there.
But it wasn’t like she was harmed. It wasn’t like she was bullied or beaten or wounded. Sure, Grace had been thrown into a new reality, but…she was alive. Grace was alive and had lived long enough to see a real mermaid. She felt the scales beneath her fingers, felt the muscles flex and tighten. She saw the creature lurk beneath the water, moving in a way no human would ever understand.
As her thoughts clung to the wonder of the moment, Grace quickly remembered that it was not a creature she captured in the wild. It was Anna, it was Caroline, it was Olivia. They were people she thought to be like herself, people she wanted to lean on. How could she look at the same, after knowing what truth lied below the surface? Grace pressed her hands to the side of her face.
“Maybe you are losing your mind,” she whispered. “Because that would be the only logical way to explain all of this.”
Beside her, the lantern came to life.
Light burnt within the center, a simmering flame whipping back and forth at the wick. Grace straightened as she watched it, inherently scooting away and to the opposite side of the loft. A soft light echoed around the lantern within the surrounding darkness. Perhaps it wouldn’t be anything to fear, if only it hadn’t meant that a flame had suddenly sparked from within it.
“O-kay,” Grace drawled to herself. “That is weird, but –”
Every light in the entire house turned on.
Grace had let them stay dimmed when she first came in, not bothering with them after what she had experienced. But they were all awake at once, illuminating every nook and cranny. She was standing then, two hands pressed over her chest as she stared over the entire house. There wasn’t anyone lurking around the halls or hiding behind the corners. With the openfloor plan, the loft gave her a perfect bird’s eye view of everything inside. Nothing would be able to get by without being spotted by her. Which didn’t explain a damn thing. Grace gripped the railing to the loft, about to try and take her trembling legs back down the staircase.
She only managed to wobble one step over when the lights all snapped back off. That time, Grace released a startled shout, the sound echoing across the empty Lantern House. She whipped back toward the lantern to see the familiar light echoing out of the center and drew closer to it, craving the comfort it had once brought to her. As she came to its side, taking a seat against the windowsill, Grace caught a glimpse of something moving near the lake. Though she didn’t quite want to see what was out there, her eyes lunged toward the window, already fervently scanning the quiet surface.
At the opposite end of the lake, directly across from where she sat within the loft, a wispy figure appeared within thin air. Its features were unrecognizable but one thing was for certain: its feet did not touch the ground, it passed through trees as though they were made from air, and its aura radiated with something that was not from the land of the living.
An inhuman chill rolled through Grace’s body.
A ghost.
