Chapter Seven:

A Slight Haunting

One afternoon while Ciel was in school, Sebastian discovered that the bathroom was haunted.

"You'll have to wash up in the kitchen," he told Ciel when he returned. "The bathroom is haunted today."

Ciel cleaned up at the china washbowl, then sat opposite Sebastian at the table and began, without asking, to help him grate cheddar for an omelet. They were making breakfast for supper that day.

"Why only the bathroom, and not the rest of the house?" Ciel wondered.

Sebastian gave an airy shrug. "I can't persuade her to leave," he said. "I told her that plenty of other rooms were quite as nice and equally welcome to her, but she seems to prefer the bathroom."

"She?" said Ciel.

"A young woman," said Sebastian. "Just recently dead and hiding from the reapers… afraid to be judged, I expect. Very polite but a little confused, I think. I had no choice but to let her be. Exorcisms have never precisely been my specialty."

"I wouldn't expect so," replied Ciel.

Sebastian stopped beating the eggs for a moment to frown. "I do hope she doesn't lead the reapers here. We would have to invite them in, and they make such tiresome houseguests."

"I'll speak with her," said Ciel, who had never met a ghost before and was curious. "What is she like?"

Sebastian considered for a moment. Then he answered, "Red."

Ciel blinked. Then he ran. Skidding to a halt at the bathroom door, he took a breath and opened it without hesitating. If he hesitated, he might not have been able to.

"Ciel!" exclaimed the ghost, clapping her pretty hands and smiling with red-painted lips. "Oh, how happy I am to see you."

"Hello, Aunt Ann," said Ciel, for it was his aunt Angelina and no other, looking just like herself. Stylish and chic in her smart crimson suit with a belt of black crushed velvet round her waist, and her wide-brimmed crimson hat overtop her silky scarlet hair and warm auburn eyes. She had been his mother's younger sister, a socialite, a well respected female surgeon; one of the first, and therefore a trail blazer, and she looked very much alive, for a dead woman.

"How did you die?" he asked numbly, as Sebastian joined him at the door.

"Oh, my butler did it," answered Madam Red with a careless wave, as if it were unimportant.

"A butler?" interjected the demon, looking scandalized. "How shameful."

"It's all right, really," said Madam Red comfortingly. "I rather deserved it." She lowered her eyes from her nephews' then, and stared, shamefaced, at her own hands lying palm-up in her lap. "I've been here for hours, you see, washing my hands over and over, again and again, but…" she trailed off, and Ciel saw that her hands were stained as red as her dress.

"The blood will not wash from your hands," finished Sebastian knowledgably. "That can happen sometimes. When one has committed… or would you rather I not say in front of your nephew?"

"Oh, go on," said Madam Red, with the air of a guilty child.

"Murder," said Sebastian, with a grin that neither Ciel nor his aunt appreciated. "The blackest of all sins." And Ciel looked at his aunt more closely than ever before, as if there were something he had missed.

"Sin isn't black," said Ciel's aunt. She looked too young and beautiful to be a murderer. "It's red."

"Have it your own way," smiled the demon with a nod.

"Nevermind about me," insisted Madam Red, looking plagued. "Have you been behaving, Ciel? Minding your lessons; saying your prayers?"

If Ciel had known the word 'hypocrite', he would have applied it to his aunt. He didn't know the word, but he thought it just the same.

"He is one of the best in his class," said Sebastian.

"I do not say my prayers," said Ciel, with emphasis. Ciel sometimes found himself kneeling at his bedside out of pure ingrained habit, but he had not said his prayers since he came to live on the glass hill. Saying prayers in a demon's house seemed… well, sort of blasphemous, for lack of a better word. "What's the word for someone who doesn't believe in God?" he asked Sebastian.

"Atheist," Sebastian supplied.

"I'm an atheist," Ciel told his aunt. It was a satisfying word to say, like a curse word, almost, but much more poetic.

"I'm sorry," said Madam Red with sincerity. "That's too bad. It's nice to have something to believe in."

Ciel began to lose his temper. He had really taken in quite a lot for one day. "Well, you believe in God and I don't," he said impatiently. "And here we both are, so what difference does it make? I think this is silly. Dead or not, come out of the bathroom."

"He is right," said Sebastian calmingly, placing a hand on Ciel's shoulder. The gesture was not lost on Madam Red's sharp eyes. "That blood will never come off. And I think if you came out, you would find this an exemplary house for haunting. There are long winding passageways and no end of dark corners. We both know that the color scheme in this bathroom" (a tasteful off-white and lilac) "is too light for haunting. Come out, Madam."

She did eventually leave the bathroom, and, after exploring the house a bit, decided that the sunny, cleverly decorated library was to her liking, and asked permission to haunt it for a while, to be near her nephew, whom she had missed. "I won't get in your way," she promised with a wink. She would not, however, tell Ciel the circumstances of her murder, or why she had been a murderess herself, and he was often annoyed and angry with her for it.

Sebastian found no qualm with her for the first week. But after that, she was abruptly joined by another ghost. A large, white, loveable hulk of a dog named Pluto took a liking to effervescent Madam Red, and moved into the library with her. He doted on Ciel, and he cowered before Castalia, and he adored Sebastian with all his canine heart. Sebastian despised him, and was sharp and hateful towards him.

"I will not have this house be a gathering point for ghosts," he told Madam Red firmly. "One ghost is quite enough for a demon's house. And I loathe that dog. He is not even related to anyone here, as you are. He should find his rightful place and get there, before I am forced to take more drastic measures."

"Those who live on glass hills should not throw stones," quipped Madam Red, with a saucy glace at the demon as she scratched Pluto's ears.

"I hate dogs," said the demon threateningly. Madam Red looked quite calmly and fearlessly into his eyes.

"You hate dogs because they feel things more strongly than you ever will, and that makes you bitter," she said. "Don't take it out on Pluto, Sebastian, just because you'd like to think yourself better than him."

Sebastian was brought up short, and Ciel's aunt smiled. "Dying has made me very intuitive," she said.

Having the two ghosts living in the library did liven up life on the glass hill considerably, and the irony of that was not lost on anyone, except perhaps Pluto. But then, one day, Ciel awoke to find that the sly and amiable ghost of a Chinese opium dealer named Lau had moved in to the library as well. After this new addition attempted to sell Ciel opium, Sebastian decided that enough was enough, and threw the lot of them out. It was not an exorcism so much as an eviction order, but Sebastian could be very frightening when he made an effort.

Madam Red blew Ciel a farewell kiss as she departed, and laughed as Pluto licked Sebastian goodbye from collar to forehead. Ciel knew to stifle his laughter, but Sebastian heard it anyway and glared, livid.

In truth, both the boy and the demon were relieved to have the peace, quiet, and order of their normal life back. Ciel would miss his aunt for a while, but he would get over it, he knew. Sebastian was happier still, since ghosts, in essence, are souls, and no one suspected quite how hungry all those souls had made him every day. "I had to draw the line somewhere," he told Ciel.

But the cat was happiest of all, as she curled herself into the library's window seat to doze without the threat of an overzealous dog to disturb her nap.

A/N: I always liked Madam Red. She was such a fun and interesting character, and I wish she had been given more of a role before, you know… the homicides.

I considered having Ranmao join Lau, but then I thought, 'Let the girl hold her own while she's still alive!' So Ranmao is alive and well and making her own way now. In fact, she just might show up later for a cameo…

And as for Madam Red's partner in crime… well, you'll have to wait and see.

I promise there won't be such a long wait between chapters this time!