3 in the morning. The witching hour approaches.
At 3 am, the majority of the residents of the Loud House were fast asleep. But for one member of the clan, this was no time to be getting any shuteye. The hour was too important.
Lucy Loud, the seventh child of Lynn and Rita Loud, was preparing herself spiritually. She had done her research into the best times for summoning spirits and consorting with the dead, and while her many sources disagreed, the mean seemed to be about 3 o'clock. So Lucy had made sure to be awake for this occasion.
At about 5 minutes til 3, Lucy took one look at her roommate, her older sister, Lynn Jr. She saw that her sibling was completely hidden under her blanket, though she could still hear her snoring. Feeling a bit encouraged by this, the young Goth grabbed her mystical crystal ball and her purple turban. She sat on the floor, as far away from Lynn as possible, so as not to disturb her.
She checked the clock for the time. It was exactly 3.
Go time.
"Oh spirits," said Lucy in quiet, monotone whisper, "If there are any of you present, make yourselves known."
There was a silence. Lucy waited in bated breath for some phantasm to respond. Nothing for ten seconds… twenty… forty… a whole minute passed without any reaction from the spirit world.
"Sigh," said Lucy as she often did. She found herself disappointed. She was sure that this would be the ideal time to ask the spirits the questions that she had burning inside her. Perhaps the time period she had chosen was wrong, and it was midnight instead. Lucy lifted her turban off her head, ready to go back to sleep, when suddenly…
"Luuucccyyy… Luuuuccccyyy Laaa-ooooodd…"
Lucy did not often feel happiness, but in this moment she was positively ecstatic. She quickly slammed the headwear back onto her obsidian hair. She then snuck another glance to Lynn, to make sure she hadn't disturbed her. The jock let out a extra loud snore, encouraging Lucy to continue with the séance.
"This is her," said the young girl, thrilled to be speaking to one of the dead, though it didn't show in her voice. "Who am I speaking to?"
The voice paused for a second, before responding in a hoarse voice, "Neil."
"Neil?"
"That's my first name. My last name is… Madincheena."
"Neil Madincheena? That's a weird name."
"It's Dutch. I'm sure your name would sound weird if you left the States and went to somewhere like… Hawaii."
"Hawaii is in the States."
There was a small pause. "In my defense, I died during the 1934 World Cup, so I might not be caught up on all the border changes."
Lucy sighed internally. "Listen, I have a few questions I need to ask. May I present them to you?"
"Ask away, young La-ood girl."
Lucy nodded and looked at a small list of questions she wrote down for this occasion. She took a deep breath, and asked her first question, praying to the Elder Gods of Lovecraft that this spirit could provide her with answers.
"My first question is," said Lucy in her unemotional voice, trying to make this séance somewhat like the others, "What are the answers on tomorrow's test?"
The spirit responded, trying to sound like it wasn't laughing. "I don't know. I kind of assumed that these spirit sessions were for personal questions and stuff."
Lucy sighed again. "This kind of relates to it. I like to write poetry. It's the best way I've found for expressing myself. But sometimes I spend too much time trying to come up with rhymes that I don't study as much as I should. So when I come with a less than stellar grade, Dad forbids me to write unless I do better on my next quiz, and it's the most tortuous time of my life, and not in a good way."
The spirit, which before was making noises like it was on the verge of laughter, instantly stopped. It responded, in a voice that was still raspy, but with undertones of caring and compassion.
"I'm… I'm sorry. The best course of action for you to take right now is to ask that smart sister of yours to explain to you some of the core material. I wish I could help you more, but… the rules of the afterlife prevent me from helping you in this situation... It's not fair to the kids who studied hard."
Lucy nodded, surprised at the good advice and the sudden tone shift of the phantom. She decided to push on.
"Sigh, you're right. My next question is a little more personal, so that might be more up your alley.
"Sometimes, I feel like I make no impression on my family at all. That I might not even be there in their view and that, aside from my brother and roommate, the rest of my siblings forget that I exist. They usually make some reference to how I 'sneak up on them' when in reality I've been standing there the whole time. One time, when I had enough, I made them all lose their voices, and they promised to start listening to me, but I guess they reverted back to their old habits once they stopped feeling guilty. How do I make them notice me, and acknowledge my presence?"
The specter was silent for a spell, probably thinking about how to respond. Finally, it answered: "Lucy, the ball is in your court now. You've made it known to your siblings how you feel, but old habits die hard. But I guarantee you this; they aren't doing it on purpose. I'm sure they love you as much as you love them, but are just as unsure about how to approach you as you are. Maybe you should spend one on one time with one of your sisters. Make-up an excuse, anything will do, to get them alone with you and try to connect with them the same way you did with Lynn and Lincoln."
"But what can I talk about with them? Luan prefers comedy to tragedy, Lola won't touch anything that isn't pink and Lori seems more occupied with her Boo Boo Bear than anything else."
"What about Lana? She likes animals, so show her your bat collection. And maybe you can interest Leni in some alternative style clothing, that's all dark and junk. Even the sisters you mentioned aren't out of your grasp. There is such a thing as Black Comedy after all."
Lucy nodded, smiling slightly, thinking about the rather morbid comedy skits that she could find on the internet.
"My next question is also about my family, but specifically her," she said as she pointed at the bed of her roommate, "My sister, Lynn."
"Yeah. I took a look at her. Strong. Athletic. Attractive. Yep, if we had a girl like her on our team, then maybe we wouldn't have lost to Switzerland."
Lucy did her best to ignore the fact that an 84 year old ghost just referred to her sister as "attractive."
"Sometimes, I feel as though we're far too different. I'm quiet and stealth-around the house unnoticed, while she gets noticed by everyone. We're into completely different things; I'm more artsy while she's into sports and exercise, and it's hard for us to participate in each other's hobbies. How can I bond with her more, get closer to her?"
Neil said nothing. The raven-haired girl waited for a few moments before noticing that the blanket that was covering her sister was moving a bit. She went over and pulled the blanket off to see her older sister wiping a small tear out of her eye.
"LYNN!" Lucy yelled, which was not exactly at the volume or of the force of the yell a normal person would make, but it was still noticeably a yell.
Lynn jumped up, shocked. "No, you're crying!" she said as she pointed an accusatory finger at her sibling.
Lucy paused for a second, realizing what had happened. There was no Neil Madincheena. There were no spirits in this room at all. Her sister had just decided to stay awake to play a mean prank on her. Although Lynn couldn't see how her eyes had begun to water, she could see the hurt on Lucy's face.
"Lucy, please, let me explain," begged Lynn. Lucy was still shocked by what Lynn had done, so she said nothing. Lynn took this silence as an affirmative, and begun explaining herself.
"Look, I saw that you researching "The Witching Hour" on the internet and in some books, so I realized you were planning some sort of summoning thing. At first, I wanted to stay awake and prank you, but then, when you asked your questions, I realized I couldn't do it. But I had already talked to you as a ghost, and I knew you would be disappointed if I suddenly stopped, so I tried to do my best," the tomboy finished her explanation and looked at her sister.
Lucy considered this. It would have been very easy for Lynn to mock her while pretending to be Neil, but she didn't. She tried her best to give good answers and not let her feel any bitter disappointment. At the same time, she had listened in on a conversation that she was not supposed to have any part of. After what seemed like an eternity of consideration, Lucy looked her sister dead in the eyes (to the best of her ability, what with all the hair).
"Lynn, I'll forgive you for this if you can do one thing for me?"
Lynn gulped. "What's that?"
Lucy gave her sister a weak smile. "I'll forgive you if you can answer my last question for me."
Lynn Jr. stood there, trying to process what the Goth had just asked of her. Her lip slightly trembled, and she gave her sister a smile. She responded in her ghost voice:
"I think the best thing would be for both of you to get into each other's interests. Maybe in Lynn stopped acting like a self-centered jerk and at least tried to help with your poetry, and maybe if you would…" Lynn's eyes moved to the ground, "…play a game of basketball with her, you two would feel more closely connected."
Lucy paused for a moment as Lynn waited patiently for her response. She suddenly grabbed the tomboy and embraced her.
"I think I would like that a lot."
Lynn smiled, and hugged the vampire girl back.
The two of them went back into their beds. It was almost 3:10, but for the two of them, it had been a long arduous ride. Lucy sat in her bed, and realized that even though no spirits had shown up to answer her queries or give her advice, that it didn't matter, seeing how she had a sister whom she could ask at any time, 3 in the morning or not.
"Hey Lynn."
"Yeah, Luce?"
"When you made up the ghost's last name, did you just look at your blanket's label, see "Made in China" and decide that was good enough?"
Lynn let out the most realistic sounding snore she could manage.