Bogel and Weerd were fated to be frustrated. As it turned out, Vincent did spend the night sitting up, the Chest beside his chair, and Matches at his feet. When the sun started to peer over the horizon, he rose to his feet. In a quick flourish of green magic his evening suit and cape disappeared, to be replaced by his blue mage's robe and purple, high-collared cape, emerald pendant displayed prominently on it.
Matches stretched, yawned, and got to his feet as the octopus butler came in to pile wood up for the fire. It was starting to get cooler in the evenings and mornings. The dragon trailed the warlock out of the room and up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, he met Daphne about to go down. "Good morning." she told him.
"Good morning," he replied.
"Shaggy and Scooby are teaching their morning gym class," Daphne went on. "They said they'll be available for whatever needs to be done once that's finished. Do you need any help?"
"I am going to scour the library for any books that Helewise might have that will show me how to repair the broken crystal. She thinks the book is in Latin, but it's been some time since she's seen it, so she may be wrong about that. You're welcome to help search for it."
"Alright," Daphne agreed, then paused. "We'll have to find the library, though."
"Yes, and it's been a very long time since I've been here. I don't remember exactly where it is. We'll have to look," Vincent agreed, but as he started to walk back the way Daphne had come, Matches reached out and clamped his teeth onto the edge of Vincent's robe.
The sorcerer turned just enough to look at the dragon. "Yes?"
Matches didn't let go, instead making aggressive eye contact with the sorcerer.
"Alright. Show us what you want," Vincent said. Matches let go of the man's robe and headed down the hall, opposite the direction Vincent had been planning to go. Vincent and Daphne followed.
The dragon headed down the hall until he came to the door he wanted. Then he stood, scratched at the door, and sat down to look at the pair expectantly.
Vincent reached forward and opened the door, revealing the library beyond. Matches marched into the room, to a fluffy white rug in the corner, and started to scruff it up into a pile before settling down on it with a huff.
"Thank you, Matches," Vincent said. He walked over to one of the tables and set his crystal ball up on it. "You might start looking at the books in English."
"I've been wanting to ask," Daphne said as she started looking at one of the shelves. "How did we all lose our memories? And how did we get them back?"
She looked at Vincent, but the man was feigning attention on a book. "Mr Van Ghoul?"
"It's..." he finally closed the book, sliding it back onto the shelf. "It's a long story. And I'm afraid I don't have time to tell it right now."
Daphne considered it, and decided for the present to be patient. Whatever story was there, sooner or later, they would find it out.
(-)
"What are you working on, Flim-Flam?"
Flim-Flam set a mid-sized, hinged box down in the middle of the room. "Miss Grimwood gave me this box I found upstairs. I thought we could make it over so it looked like the Chest. You never know when you might need a decoy. I thought we had one once, but I don't know where it went."
"That's a great idea! And when we get it put together we can put the Vacuu-Spook 2000 inside and catch those nasty ghosties when they come for the Chest!" Scrappy said. Then he thought about it. "But maybe we'd better wait until we leave Miss Grimwood's first before we turn it into a trap."
"Agreed," Flim-Flam told him. "Grab the real Chest, will you?"
Scrappy scampered out of the room and came back with the Chest of Demons held over his head. "Here it is!"
Flim-Flam considered it. "This is going to be quite a job."
There was a cackling laugh behind them, and Phantasma came through the wall. "What are you two working on?" she asked.
"We're gonna make this box look like that one," Scrappy said. "It's a trap."
"What's it for?"
"Evil ghost demon," Flim-Flam said, at the same time Scrappy said, "if someone like Revolta tries to steal the Chest!" They looked at each other. Then they looked at Phantasma. "Yeah, in case someone like Revolta tries to steal the Chest," Flim-Flam amended.
Phantasma dropped to the floor, looking at the two boxes. "You're going to have some work to do on this!"
"Maybe Sibella could paint it for us!" Scrappy suggested, putting a hand to his chin. "I was thinking she might be able to do it, since she's so good with sewing."
"Ooooh, her embroidery is top-notch!" Phantasma suggested, drifting up into the air. "I'll go find her!" she added as she drifted through the ceiling.
Flim-Flam and Scrappy watched her go, and the turned their attention back to the box. "Let's see what we can find for handles," Scrappy suggested.
By the time he came back with handles, all of the Ghouls were there, examining the Chest of Demons and the box Flim-Flam had found.
"What happened?" Scrappy asked, setting the handles he had found down.
Flim-Flam shrugged. "You got me. Summon one, summon all, I guess."
Elsa was looking at the Chest. "You're gonna need a head that looks like this for the Trap Chest," she announced. "Come on Tanis. Let's go see what we can do. Goonie, can you find something to use as eyes?"
"Sure," Goonie chirped, following the others out of the room.
Sibella was looking the blank box over. "Hmm, I'll have to mix the colors carefully to get that shade of red."
"Check out the pattern on this thing," Winnie muttered, kicking the Chest of Demons lightly with her foot.
Scrappy was trying to figure out to how to get the handles onto the sides of what Elsa had dubbed the Trap Chest so that they matched the placement on the Chest of Demons.
"Yes, it's not too complicated though," Sibella said thoughtfully. "I'll do it. I'd like to try my hand at painting. I'll need to find some paint, though."
"I think I found some paint earlier in one of the room upstairs," Flim-Flam told her.
"Oh yeah! The arts closet!" Winnie said. "I'll show you where it is. One set of paints, coming right up Sibella!"
"Fang-tastic!" The dhaympr proclaimed. "This will be lots of fun."
(-)
There were a lot of books in Miss Grimwood's library, and lots of them dealt with magic.
"This is one heck of an interest," Daphne noted, working on putting a shelf's worth of books, written in Old English, back where they belonged.
"Helewise is a witch," Vincent said absently, flipping through an illuminated manuscript written in Latin.
Daphne considered it. "I guess that makes a lot of sense."
"Like, you didn't know that?" Shaggy and Scooby had entered, just in time to hear the end of the conversation.
"No. You didn't mention when we were on Moonscar Island that you were working for a witch," Daphne pointed out.
"The zombies rwere renough trouble," Scooby protested.
"Yeah, like, who cares about what Miss Grimwood is when we've got a bunch of zombies to deal with?" Shaggy asked.
"Fair enough," Daphne said. "Help look through these books. We've got to find a spell that will repair the crystal ball."
On his way to the bookshelves, Scooby tripped over Matches. The dragon glared at him, starting to turn red and breath smoke as he did.
"Rsorry," Scooby giggled. Matches stopped turning red, but left the library, grumbling under his breath as he did.
"How about that mystic repair shop that fixed the crystal ball when Flim-Flam messed with it?" Shaggy suggested.
"That won't be able to help now that the ball has broken," Vincent told him. "That shop can only repair minor damage."
"We'll just have to keep looking," Daphne said.
(-)
"You're doing great, Sibella!" Scrappy said, watching as she painted the detailed lines on the Trap Chest.
"Fangs, Scrappy," Sibella said. She carefully dabbed her brush on her pallet, getting more black paint on the tip of her brush. "Mm, painting is so relaxing. I think I might take it up as a hobby," she said as she painted another line.
Elsa stomped into the room, holding a package in her hands. Tanis and Goonie followed. "We got the monster head for the front of the Trap Chest." Goonie announced happily.
"No one will ever know the difference," Tanis said. As she did, Phantasma popped out through the floor again, jostling Sibella's elbow and leaving a splotch of black paint on the front of the box.
"Phanty!" Sibella protested.
"Ooow-wooooooo! Watch what you're doing!" Winnie howled.
"Sorry. I didn't mean it!" Phantasma protested.
"Maybe you can repaint that part?" Scrappy suggested.
"I'll have to wait until the first layer of paint dries," Sibella said as she set her brush and pallet down.
Flim-Flam had unwrapped the package that Elsa had come in with. "This looks pretty good. It's gonna be hard to tell these two boxes apart."
"Thanks. Mary's camera helped, once she took some pictures of the Magic Chest," Elsa said.
Mary nodded, holding up her prized possession: a Polaroid camera.
"Goonie went diving in the moat to find us some nice rocks to use for the eyes," Tanis volunteered.
"And Tanis helped with the model. She's great at paper mache," Elsa added.
"We'll put it on once the chest is dry. Thanks, everyone!" Scrappy said.
"We're happy to help!" Winnie said.
Scrappy looked at Flim-Flam. "Let's go put the Chest back out in the other room."
"This way they won't get mixed up once we get this second one put together. Good idea." When the pair had left with the Chest of Demons, Phantasma floated back down and into the Trap Chest, cackling as she did.
"Look! This one I can get into!" She laughed.
The ghouls looked uneasy. Elsa frowned. "Phanty, I don't think you should joke about this. This all seems pretty serious. And remember what Miss Grimwood said yesterday? And Mr. Warlock warned us to stay away from the Magic Chest too."
"Rather dry subject matter for a joke anyway," Sibella noted.
"I'm going out to the garden," Winnie decided. She hopped off the stool she had been sitting on. "Come on! Let's go!" she proclaimed, and the other ghouls followed her out of the room.
(-)
Matches was napping in the main room when Flim-Flam and Scrappy came in to deposit the Chest of Demons back where it had been sitting earlier that morning.
"You think it's safe to leave it here?" Flim-Flam asked.
"Sure. I'm sure Mr. Van Ghoul's got a protection spell on the place by now. And Miss Grimwood keeps one on the house, too," Scrappy replied.
Flim-Flam shrugged. "Should be safe. Listen, I know we're not gonna make the Trap Chest into a real trap until we leave, but we'd better start thinking about how we're going to get the Vacuu-Spook 2000 into the chest. We should set it up so that it comes on automatically when the Trap Chest is opened."
"That'll take some doing," Scrappy said as they left the room, and their talk drifted away.
As soon as the last sounds of their conversation was no longer audible, Bogel and Weerd appeared in the room.
"So much for that protection spell!" Bogel cackled.
"Never mind that!" Weerd snapped. "Grab the Chest! We've got to get out of here before anyone comes back."
The two ghosts hefted the Chest up and ran out of the room.
Matches, snuffling away on the rug, felt something scratching his back. He was awake in an instant, and saw a ghost standing in front of him. Not recognizing the newcomer, he seethed and started to turn red.
"Pardon me," the ghost said. "I wouldn't have woken you if it wasn't important. But the Chest of Demons is being in stolen."
Matches looked out the hall, and saw the retreating forms of the two ghosts. "I would have dealt with the matter myself, if I could," the ghost went on. "But circumstances at present prevent me from doing so. If you would…?" He trailed off as Matches, muttering angrily under his breath, was on his feet and racing out of the room.
[A/N:] Get 'em, Matches! I must confess that as much as I loved the Ghouls as characters in Ghoul School, I do think Matches was probably my favorite character. Also I think he's adorable. The reference to the other trap chest is a reference to the episode "That's Monstertainment" where Zomba opens the safe where she things the Chest is hidden and finds a fake one there. It's gone missing in the recent upheaval for the Gang, hence the need for a new one. And yes, Vincent can read Latin. I don't know what that crap in the Curse movie was all about - a word in ancient Sanskrit would not confuse him. And that's all I'm going to say about that.