A/N: Chapter 3 of Shadow Luck is here. As usual I own nothing, everything belongs to their respective owners. Except the Shadow Man, he belongs to me.
Setting up a ritual was not an easy thing to do, no matter what TV tells you, especially when you live in a house with ten sisters, one brother, four pets, and two parents. So when Lynn went to the batting cage to practice for her next game, Lori, Leni and Luna went out with Lynn Sr. and Rita to look for Lincoln, and Lola, Lana, Lisa and Lily watched TV to try and get their minds off of their missing brother. Lucy setup a summoning ritual in the basement.
Within the confines of her secret corner in the underground floor, the eight year old goth finished lighting the last of the black scented candles, drawing a pentagram with the necessary symbols, and opened the spell book of her Great Grandma Harriet. With three spaced out knocks on the ground the flames atop the candles turned blue as the ancient magic took hold.
"Sullied earth and blackened sky,
I call for a soul of the dead to once again rise."
The girl plucked out a single hair from her head and placed it in the pentagram.
"With hair of offspring still very much living.
May a spirit of old talk with a descendent still breathing."
As the pale child continued the spell, the hair in the pentagram vanished in a flurry of blue sparkles as a shadow began to take form on the wall.
"With a dead heart and blackened soul,
I make this magic completely whole.
Come bequeath your knowledge to me.
When that is done, you may go free!"
With the spell said and done, and the shadow fully formed, the flames turned white as it began to peel off the wall. With batted breath Lucy watched as the shadow twisted and morphed to take the form of her chosen spirit. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the transforming stopped, revealing the spirit to be a girl with the exact spitting image of Lucy herself.
"Hello Lucy," said the spirit with a warm smile.
"Hello Great Grandma Harriet." Lucy responded in kind as she formed a small smile of her own.
"I suppose you're calling me about your brother." Harriet said as her smile gained a melancholy twinge to it.
"Yes," Lucy said as her smile dropped, "yes I am."
"And you want to know if he's you know." Harriet said.
"Is he?" Lucy asked.
"No, he's not." Harriet answered much to Lucy's relief. "At least, not in the traditional sense."
Lucy frowned at that second answer. "What do you mean, "not in the traditional sense?"
"He's not dead as in blood spilt, heart stopped, no longer living dead." Harriet explained. "He's dead in a way modern technology will never be able to heal: spiritually. And even then it's a different kind of spiritual death."
Lucy paled making her appear more white than normal. "What do you mean?"
Harriet sighed. "His body is still functioning as it normally would. Brain is taking care of it's most necessary functions, still breathing, and his heart hasn't stopped. But his mind and soul have been removed. His body is nothing more than a puppet waiting for orders now."
Lucy paled even more, shocked by what Harriet had just told her. While she had wondered of the intricacies of magic, especially dark magic, she never wanted one of her family to face the brunt of that type of dark magic. Then she remembered the shadowy entity that waved at her from behind the tree in the backyard, and the skeletal being that outright picked up Lincoln's body and, probably, went into the house.
So, with shaky breath, she asked. "How? How did it happen?" Even though she could already gander a guess.
Harriet dropped her smile and gazed at her identical great granddaughter in full seriousness. "The Shadow Man," she said, "a being from another universe who searches for miserable people in deplorable situations in hopes of making a deal with them."
"Like Satan?" Lucy asked.
Harriet hummed in thought for a moment before answering. "Similar, but not quite."
"Ah." Lucy said in understanding. "Continue."
"Thank you," Harriet said before continuing, "I don't know much on how his deals work, sadly, but what I do know is what the general gist of it is."
"And what's that?" Lucy asked as she took out a notebook and pencil.
"Emotions and what they can turn you into." Harriet said.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Think of a deal with the Shadow Man as a scale." Harriet explained. "One one end are emotions such as Joy, Hope, Courage, and other emotions generally deemed positive."
Lucy nodded as she wrote everything down.
"On the other end are emotions like Rage, Despair, Fear, Envy, Sorrow and other emotions deemed negative." Harriet continued as Lucy jotted it down. "When someone makes a deal they go to either side of the scale depending on their emotions and emotional state throughout the course of the deal. When someone either fully embraces or becomes completely consumed by either sides emotions, they either ascend or descend into something other than what they were before."
"Like an angel or demon?" Lucy asked.
Harriet was about to answer but thought better of it and thought over her answer for a moment. Eventually she replied. "Those are options, yes." Lucy opened her mouth to ask before Harriet answered her unspoken question. "No, Lincoln is not a demon. He wasn't consumed by unjust or murderous rage, or obsession."
Lucy then asked. "Then what is he?"
"A Wraith." Harriet answered. "An abstract entity born of envy, fear, and-." She stopped herself.
Curiosity getting the better of her Lucy asked. "And what?" Harriet didn't respond. "Great Grandma Harriet, please tell me what else a wraith is born from. If that is what Lincoln is then I have to know." No response as Harriet turned from Lucy.
"You won't like it." She said.
Lucy sighed and did something she thought she'd never do. "Grandma Harriet," Harriet turned back to Lucy and gasped, "please tell me."
Fully turning to her great granddaughter Harriet softly smiled. "So you do have my eyes."
She revealed her eyes.
Silence dominated before Harriet sighed in defeat. "Alright, I'll tell you, but you must promise me that you won't mope about it and try to do something about it."
Lucy nodded. "I promise." She swore.
"Alright," Harriet said, "the last emotion a wraith is born from is despair."
Lucy was so white that she could be considered a ghost herself if someone saw her.
"D-D-D-Despair?" Lucy stuttered as tears began to well into her eyes.
"Yes." Harriet said.
"Ho-h-how?" She shakily asked.
"Tell me Lucile, have you and the rest of your sister gotten into genuine trouble with your parents and properly punished in recent times?" Harriet asked.
Lucy thought to herself for a bit before answering. "There was the time we got the family kicked out of the store we usually go to."
"But Lincoln was the one who got yelled at and punished, and while you did get him that cereal he wanted to get, you only got punished a couple days into Lincoln's punishment after Rita put two and two together." Harriet said.
"Uh, there was," Lucy said as she searched her head for any instance where they had gotten in trouble with their parents, got punished, and didn't somehow scapegoat Lincoln or drag him into it. "There was the sweet spot incident, but then again Lincoln did accommodate the seats for us, and we were the ones who made it a problem in the first place. The suite and sour incident, no, wait, Mom and Dad were the reason we were kicked out. Um, oh, the whole Princess Pony thing, that I still need to come clean about."
"Good, good, anything else?" Harriet asked.
Lucy thought harder and came to a realization. Out of those instances Lincoln was either not entirely in the wrong, not the source of the problem, falsely punished, or rightfully punished along with everyone who was wrong. So, in a diligent effort to find an instance that matched Harriet's quota, she thought longer and harder. Unfortunately, as she thought, she was racked with the shock and sorrow that spawned from this entire situation and thus couldn't think clearly.*
"What were the names of all the incidents in the past few months Lincoln coined, where he seemed to be the butt monkey for no real reason?" Lucy thought to herself. "Cereal Offender, Dance, Dance Resolution, Girl Guru, Study Muffin, Brawl in the Family, Sounds of Silence, It's a Loud Loud Loud Loud House, and then there's the whole luck thing that's been going on."
As Lucy thought over the events of the past few months the more she began to see Harriet's point. Despite some instances where she and the rest of sisters got in trouble. They, more often than not, just seemed to get away with it with no consequences on their part. Whereas Lincoln is treated like the plague for simply wanting some alone time.
"A bit off due to the guilt preying on her mind, but close enough to get my point." Harriet thought to herself before asking, "Do you see my point?"
Lucy nodded numbly.
Harriet's form began to twist back into the shadow it once was. "Then rectify it." She said. "The Wraith is in his room, and there's more information on them in the back of my spell book. Good luck, Lucile Loud." Harriet said as her form completely dispelled, returned to being the shadowy mass is was, and reattached itself to the wall as the flames on the candles snuffed themselves out.
As her hair covered her eyes once more the gothic girl quickly erased the pentagon, collected the unmelted candles, grabbed the spell book, and frantically traversed the vents back to her room. Upon returning the items to her shelves, the dark kid went back into the vents and entered Lincoln's room.
Only to see an ethereal and off-white tear in the wall that exuded melancholy and despair.
"'Bout time you showed up." Said a voice from behind the goth, who quickly turned around to see who had spoken.
Only to see the Shadow Man doing tricks with a deck of tarot cards and holding them out to her.
"Pick a card," he said, "any card." He finished with a chilling laugh.
A/N: Let me know what you think in the reviews.
*Edit - 1/6/18 - I noticed that this line was missing, and decided to add it. Without it, this fic would be seen as just another No Such Luck Hate/Family Bashing fic.