"Chapter 1: Bare Bones."
Note: I have rewritten a large portion of this story due to grammar mistakes and confused pacing.
Dr James Harvey tapped his pen against the hardwood desk. Deep in thought, he couldn't recall having a more difficult set of clients. It normally took three weeks of sessions before his patients felt that they could move on. These particular patients however had just completed their second month. Two long, annoying, hair-pulling, bad smelling, attempted murdering months of trying to simply convince them to cease haunting as they pleased.
Needless to say, after nearly 45 minutes of their usual mischief, Dr Harvey was beginning to lose his patience.
"So fellas." he began cautiously, not wanting to say something that could spark another 'disruption'. "As you may know, me and my daughter have been... assisting your journey to stop haunting for quite some time now. And as far as I can see, we've made little to no progress. Any thoughts?"
"Does my ectoplasm make me look fat?."
"Are you a natural brunette?"
"Do you know what happened to the remote? I lost it after Dallas."
Dr Harvey planted his face into the desk in defeat as the three apparitions cackled from their chairs. These three were like talking to a pile of rocks. The spiked kind that were all ways at the bottom of waterfalls.
"All right. I think that's enough for today." he stated, gathering his pen and paper into the desk drawer, as if the trio would be deterred from tossing them about the study when he left.
"Aw c'mon Doc!" Fatso whined, jabbing a finger towards the broken grandfather clock. "You haven't even been here an hour!"
"Could it be that we've finally...broken you?" Stinkie asked in amazement, a buck toothed smile stretching across his face.
The three brothers turned to give each other excited celebratory handshakes, loud ragtime music mock fireworks going off behind them.
"We did it boys! The war is over!" The eldest brother, Stretch cried in 1940's accent, wiping away a ghostly tear.
Dr Harvey had yet to understand just how the trio were able to create these strange spectacles, though he guessed it as being an addition to their shapeshifting.
"No you have not 'broken me'." he said firmly. This seemed to shut the ghosts up as their music and fireworks ended abruptly. They glared at the psychologist with disdain, daring him to even suggest another session. "Although I feel... disappointed by today's progress, it is my duty as a paranormal psychologist to help all three of you, including your nephew, into completing your unfinished business."
"There ain't no business to be finished." Stinkie scowled, his arms folding across his chest like a pouting child.
"'Sides Doc, we don't know what side we'll end up on. We haven't been exactly saints since we died." Fatso, the youngest brother, seemed much more worried by this thought then his siblings, who nodded in agreement but didn't dwell on the matter.
"Whether destined for hell or paradise Doc, we got a good deal being ghosts." Stretch rose a foot above the doctor in a threatening stance. " We ain't looking for a golden ticket into heaven."
"What if one of us don't pass on? There can't be a Ghostly Trio if you only got one of 'em!" the middle McFadden child argued. "Not to mention what will happen to bulb-head if we go."
"That's an unusual display of concern for your nephew. You don't normally bring him or any other family member up." Dr Harvey felt something spark, as if he just found a frayed wire in these spirits' memories. Most ghosts didn't remember much of anything post-mortem either through trauma or denial. Bringing up these three's family could prove fruitful.
"Eh. Kid needs a mentor." Fatso shrugged, shifting his place on the overstuffed armchair. "He never really had anyone since his Ma passed."
"Casper's mother?"
"Greatest dame you could ever meet." Stretch nodded affirmatively. After a few seconds he began to scowl. "Wasn't anything like our Ma. Ours was a demon."
"Careful there brother. She might come back and haunt us out of spite." Stinkie joked, shivering to add to the effect.
James sat down once more, thinking that any nugget of truth could be worth his time. Straightening his rumpled jacket, he readied a pen and paper. "How exactly did the McFadden family come to be? Not often that a family as... exuberant as yours simply appears out of nowhere."
The three ghosts scratched the back of their necks thoughtfully. The simple question seemed to completely stump them. Whether they honestly didn't know or it was an effect of being dead for so long.
"I... " the eldest began, his voice catching in his throat. "Don't remember. I haven't even thought of Ma till now."
"Dad had a really long moustache right?" the youngest recalled, digging through his brain for anything of use. "And J.T tried to imitate him but it grew really wrong?"
"Oh yeah!" Stinkie recalled, snickering. "Remember that time me and Stretch shaved it off just before that date with Casper's Ma?"
"Now I do!" Stretch laughed, but not in the way he usually did. While the trio's usual amused noises were loud cackles and honks, this was more like a breathless chuckle. A laugh at things long since past. "He was so mad with us!"
The three brothers took on a more friendly glow to them, obviously placated by nostalgic memories. Dr Harvey cheered internally. Finally a breakthrough!
"Did you three by chance grow up in Whipstaff?" he asked the most vanilla question he could muster. Anything too invasive could spell trouble (or a ruined batch of laundry).
"Course we did. Every McFadden was born and raised here. Right back to Great Grandpa Hamish." Stretch stared at the Doctor as if he was questioning their legitimacy. "We were all born here, we were all raised here, and we all died here."
"You must have some significant attachment to the manor then. It's hard to leave the only home you've known." James' eyes darted away, trying to push away a similar experience from his thoughts. "What do you remember of your early life? When you were all still flesh and blood."
The ghosts all sat in their chairs, hunched over in thought. Stretch held his hand under his chin, staring off into distance with an angry frown. Fatso's eyes occasionally lit up but fell back into confusion, the memories zooming past his mind. Stinkie was having the worst of it, after half a minute he covered his ears with his hands and started groaning at a brewing headache.
"Now this is an interesting reaction." James pondered. "It seems as though remembering is their greatest obstacle, to the point of causing psychosomatic pain. Surely their years of afterlife haven't erased everything has it?"
"Holy Kibosh..." Stretch mumbled, his violet eyes widening. "I freaking remember! We all used to be tiny and made of flesh."
The doctor smiled in triumph, close to cheering out loud. "And what do you remember?"
"I remember... " he began.
/X\
All four of the McFadden boys were brought into the world on April 1st. Not in the same year mind you, Ma wasn't Wonder Woman after all. There was at least one or two years in between brothers, but the coincidence was simply too bizarre not to be mentioned. At least it got them an article in that week's Sunday paper.
Stephen 'Stretch' McFadden was born at midnight exactly 37 weeks after the marriage between Master Jonathan McFadden and Mistress Margaret McFadden née Crittenden. Due to his rather early birth, every member of the extended family were convinced that he was a hell-bound bastard child conceived out of wedlock, but being irrefutably polite they didn't say a word. This set the tone for most of Stretch's upbringing.
Stewart 'Stinkie' McFadden was born in the wee hours of the morning a year later. Ma McFadden was going to the privy when her second child decided to make an appearance. It took two hours before the young mother realised that she didn't have bad constipation. Stinkie would always be teased by his brothers for being born in (and smelling like) a toilet.
Fredrick 'Fatso' McFadden was born in the afternoon during his brothers' birthday party (Stretch was 3, Stinkie was 2). According to Father's stories, both elder children had become upset that the event was interrupted and tossed cake at the obstetrician. Fatso came into the world through a Caesarean birth, two weeks too late and weighing in at nine pounds, poor Ma didn't stand a chance. Luckily she survived the procedure but the physical trauma made her swear that she'd never have another child. At least that's what they were told when they grew older.
Which brings us to the trio's earliest memory together. The very night of their birthday, they heard maids and butlers and midwives and doctors rushing around the manor. The brothers broke out of their shared bedroom with ease and began stumbling their ways down the halls. Ma and Father had been acting funny for a real long time now. Ma was knitting small powder blue hats, Father was going around telling his friends "'bout time we had a girl", and the room Fatso used to live in was completely refurbished with dainty blue furniture and toys.
Being careful to avoid one of their many nannies, the boys made sure that the coast of clear before making their way into the West wing of their labyrinthine home.
With Stinkie dragging their chubby two-year old brother behind them via a blanket, Stretch was the first to the reach their parents' doors. Only able to see through the gap under the door, he could make out the vague image of Ma and Father sitting on their bed, Ma holding a small bundle.
"I'm sorry dear." He heard Father sigh. "Seems that we have produced another boy."
"I was so hopeful that it would be a girl this time. After what happened with Fredrick..."
"No worries dear. The statistics of gender is 50/50 and we have loaded dice. Then again father said it was bad luck to only have one of the the two."
Silence reverberated across the room. Ma shifted so that she was lying on the bed, passing the bundle to her husband and mumbling about meaningless things.
"If all else fails we'll give two to our cousins the Addams. Sure they won't mind a few extra boys." he joked, gently rocking the bundle in his arms.
Those words froze the peeping tom's blood into ice. Ma and Father didn't want them? Being small children with no grasp of sarcasm and/or jokes, they tended to take what Father said as the gospel truth.
"What's hap-nin'?" Stinkie asked, still trying to master his speech. "What they say?
Stretch got up from the floor and stood tall over his brothers. He placed his hands on his hips like he'd seen Ma and Father do when they were bossing someone around. His younger brothers winced, knowing that this gesture meant business.
"They wanna get rid of two of us to make room for what's in there." He jabbed his thumb at the door, teeth clenching as he could make out the coos and babbles of IT. "And as eldest, I am ob-obli-... contracted to stay and take care of it."
"How come youse have ta stay?" The middle brother yelled, letting go of the blanket trailing behind him. "Maybe they don't want you cus' your too old."
"No way! They don't want you or Fatso over there cus' you stopped being cute. Plus ya stink like a rotten potato."
"Youse take that back! I'm still cute!"
The two eldest brothers tackled each other to the ground, kicking, punching, and on Stinkie's half biting. From his blanket Fatso gave screeches of encouragement, like he was watching two gladiators duke it out in the ring. As the brothers' fight raged on outside, the double doors to the room swung open, revealing their father.
"Boys! Cease this rabble immediately! You will wake your brother." Father was a no-nonsense man of good breeding who never in his recollection rough-housed or argued with his siblings, which made the animosity between his sons all the more confusing for him.
Grabbing them by the scruffs of their nightclothes, he tucked Stinkie under his arm, while Stretch was thrown over his shoulders. Leaning down with utmost patience and balance (difficult when you have two toddlers kicking and screaming down your ears) and scooped up his now second-youngest son.
All three hit their father with tiny, ineffectual fists and screamed like the dead. This did not deter him however and he opened the door of their bedroom with his foot. Plopping each child onto their respective beds, he stood tall with hands on the hips as his son tried to imitate.
"Boys I am very disappointed in you. Being awake after bedtime, wandering the castle without supervision, rough-housing, and around your baby brother no less!"
Fatso rolled down the length of his bed before landing on his stomach. "Ay-hm here!" He piped up, thrashing his chubby limbs.
Father looked unamused and relaxed slightly. Rearranging his son so that he was sitting up right. "It is not you to whom I refer. Your mother and I have... created a new brother for all of you."
"And you want two of us gone right?" Stretch scowled, kicking the blankets off his bed. "I ain't going."
"Not me either!"
"Nope!"
Father chuckled warmly, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "None of you are leaving. I had merely jested to your mother that we had an unusually high amount of male children. We had been expecting a girl you see and this is likely the only time your mother can have a baby."
"Sooooo... one of us has to be a girl?" Stinkie misheard, sharing confused glances with his brothers. "I ain't doing it!"
"Only if I still get the family bis-ness." Stretch bargained with a smug grin.
"Girls?" Fatso mumbled confusedly, having not yet grasped the concept of genders.
"Boys! Boys!" Father silenced them with a wave of his hands. "I did not mean we need a girl, simply that we would have preferred one. But we will still love you all equally. Your new brother will not impact or change mine or your mother's feelings for you. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Father." The brothers replied in half-understanding, reshaping their blankets and pillows for bed.
"Goodnight boys." Father said from the door. "You will meet your little brother tomorrow morning. Hopefully you will all behave around him."
With that he closed the door, making sure to lock it this time.
The next day the three McFadden boys were introduced to Jonathan Thomas McFadden, the youngest of all four brothers. The utterance of his full name would leave a bad taste in the trio's mouths for years to come.
/X\
"Jonathan-Thomas." Dr Harvey said absentmindedly, immersed in the detailed memory. "That would be Casper's father yes?"
"Yeah." Fatso confirmed, his eyes narrowed in discomfort. "You know what our dad said was a lie."
"Which part?" the psychologist asked carefully, he still didn't have a clear picture of their childhoods but from the bare bones of it he could tell they harboured some venom against their youngest brother.
"They didn't love us equally." Stretch growled, his violet eyes glowing brighter than usual. "Tell me Doc, isn't it tradition for the eldest son to inherit the dad's name?"
"In many old money families yes." James could see where this was going. It was likely that the McFadden parents held a not-so hidden favouritism for their youngest child.
"Then how come J.T got his name?"
The room became deathly (pardon the pun) silent. All three ghosts adorned angry frowns and furrowed brows at the memory of the forth McFadden brother. Dr Harvey could sense that today's session had gone on too long, judging by his watch they had been talking for at least two hours.
"I think... " He said clearly, drawing the ghouls' attention. "We have done enough for today. Thank you with sharing that with me. I hope we can meet tomorrow and discuss more but do not hesitate to tell me if a new memory resurfaces."
The three ghosts mumbled in half-hearted agreement, floating through the walls into the parlor room, leaving a gust of coldness behind them. Dr James Harvey slumped in his chair, taken aback by all the new information he had received. Perhaps mentioning family really was the ticket.
Of course some of the information was things he could have dug through the town's public records for, but it helped that the ghosts had placed at least some trust in him.
Perhaps next session he should ask about their parents and relatives. They seemed reluctant to tell him anything about them. Then again he wouldn't want to be too aggressive in his method less he lose whatever trust he gained. He'd bet that recalling all of that significantly drained their energy.
A large old blanket fell onto his head and completely covered the doctor with a musty odorous layer of dust. A cackling laughter from above his head had proved his theory wrong.