Chapter 15: Caught In the Act
Mariam felt the relief seep into her as she closed the door, falling off against the door. 'Well, that was embarrassing.'
She lingered on the door for a moment, before remembering her place and peeling herself off. Mariam swung the backpack to the floor, zipping it out, and unloading all her stuff. If she was going to do this right, she'll go all out.
In a series of a quick short movements, she managed to place the Rem Pod, that can detect motion; the Ghost Box, a little machine that can record a spirit's voice; and the K-ll (EMF), that can also detect changes in the electromagnetic field. Each machine was specifically placed in a special spot, all away from each other. Mariam just held onto the Ghost Box, switching on its screaming.
"Alright. Hello, spirits, my name is Mariam Ester. I also ask that only good ghosts of light and love reach to me, and will not touch me," She said. She added the latter in after what happened to her best friend, and she didn't want that to happen to her.
It was still eternally screaming for as long as it wanted, but she remained confident. The two were caught in a death match of staring before something came up.
"... excuse me..."
"Yes?"
"... who are you..."
She tried to think of her location; she was about near the main hall, adjacent to the stairs of the second level. Is this the same ghost that hurt Serena? Mariam straightened herself out and stood up, backing up to about three feet to the door.
"... hello?..."
"I'm Mariam, who are you?"
"... my name is Lucy..."
What happened? The ghost felt out of character. Mariam shifted to the left, where she felt oddly safe.
"Am I actually speaking to Lucy or this someone who is imposing as her? If so, you're not welcome here." The thing welt silent, and she felt a tingle in her hands, feeling the ground beneath her. 'Was it always this creaky?' She looked around wildly against the air before her, and checked around for any movements.
Her eyes caught on to a little orb darting around the room, before disappearing into the wall. 'It's smart; it's also able to show itself easily to human eyes,' She noted, trudging toward the middle. She went off to the end point of the orb, and was flashed with an unwelcome thought.
Two figures were bowed before a mess on the floor, their bodies convulsing rapidly as they screamed. The view changed every so often, but Mariam could only see the same image every second, bursting in and won't let go like glue.
When it finally stopped, Mariam looked around suddenly for any reason to explain it. But the answer was airy - it was invisible yet right in front of her nose, infuriatingly enough.
She picked up the Ghost Box again and thrust it to the room.
"Hello? Who was that?" She yelled. It took all of her strength to scream, making it rebound across and around the room. 'How's that, ghosty?'
"Who are you? I command you answer," She continued.
The air drifted slowly, creating a soft breeze. It tousled her hair softly like a little gentle hand coming to comb their fingers through. Once the wind was done toying with her, a lullaby rushed in. . It was soft, alluring - like a siren's song. At points it choked up like a radio caught offline, but at the same time, like someone crying.
The lullaby ushered in a silk scent of a fresh garden, baking in the summer sun; a dried papyrus scent Mariam recognized as paper, rusted out by a strong and overwhelming march of ink; that all swirled with a stiff smell of... blood?
Mariam unpocketed her notebook and continued to write furiously down as the scents swirled about. Once she had written a five page essay, Mariam put it away again and sniffed the air.
It was almost as if she was stolen back in time - to where, she doesn't know. The familial familiarity feel she felt in her bones warmed her but drained again once the stiff blood came around again, draining everything from underneath her and she almost felt like collapsing.
Like the two figures.
Mariam couldn't decide if this spirit wanted to taunt her, or just show themselves - but either way, it was working.
The woman plopped herself on the ground, Ghost Box awaiting in hand as she readied herself to face this pretty powerful phantom. Like when someone winds up a music box, Mariam slowly turned up the mechanical screaming of the Ghost Box until the spirit's focus turned to her.
As the seconds passed, the wonderful breezes diluted themselves to the cold, airy atmosphere of the secondary hall. Then, all fell silent.
'Take it slow, Mar, you don't know what they can do.'
"Hello, spirit. I'm Mariam Ester; I'm a ghost hunter, you see. I'm here with my group - Serena King and Xavier Thomas - and we're trying to help you. Do you know your name, Spirit?" Mariam, at a turtle's speed, offered up the Ghost Box to the ghost.
She watched carefully as the battery went zooming down, 89% to 65% in a matter of seconds. Mariam noted mentally that it's not very careful for using energy.
"... w-... en-... dy... Wendy..."
Wendy.
Wait.
Wasn't she supposed to be under watch of Lucy and Gray? How did she get away from them?
"... sorry..."
She was torn away from her inner monologue to the second comment by the now classified Wendy spirit, her gaze now locked on the Ghost Box. "What the-? Wendy, what are you saying sorry about? You don't need to apologize," Mariam said.
It was another few minutes before Wendy answered back.
"... i not strong like... Lucy and Gray..."
Mariam quickly wrote another comment in her book before replying. "Wen, you're very strong. You were apart of Team Salamander for kami's sake, don't say that!" She said. The girl knew she wasn't the best at comfort - that was Serena's forte - but she was sure as hell going to try.
"... not... team N-..."
Mariam's eyebrow flew up in an instant, and she leaned closer to the machine. She desperately wanted to try and pry all the secrets out of Wendy, but that wasn't it. That's not the right way and it took all of Mariam's being to remind her of that.
"Hey, could you say that again please, Wendy?"
"... N-"
Her words were cut out disturbingly fast as the line went abrupt, screeching to the heavens above before out in a flash.
"Wendy? Wendy? Wendy!" Mariam yelled into the air. She could still feel the presence of something else with her, but Mariam felt something happened; she wasn't safe.
"... im sorry... Mar.."
Mariam flew to the ghost machine, relief flooding into her system. She wiped her relief and exhaled. "No, it's ok. Do you know what happened?"
There was a lump in her throat forming and it was getting hard to swallow; she hated the feeling.
"... N- salamander h-heard me..."
Mariam went wide eyed, her hands flying up to her inhumanly agape mouth.
It seemed so irrelevant and weird that Mariam would be so ecstatic over a simple little word, but it was another clue to solving the mystery of the basement monsters.
She carelessly took out her notebook and separated her other notes to this one, finding her own separate page for the entities. It was the messiest page in the notebook easily, with scribbles sporadically placed around the page in barely legible handwriting that took a microscope and a whole ass textbook to process.
Basing her origin in the smack dab in the middle, she quickly scribbled an essay before pocketing it again. She dove down to the Ghost Machine and listened closely as she spoke again.
"Wendy, do you happen to know an E as well?" Mariam crossed every available ligament that this wouldn't trigger Wendy, but said happily when the spirit answered easily.
"... yes..."
"Do you know their full name?"
"... I cannot... answer... that..."
So, are E and N somehow repressing Wendy, Lucy, and Gray? Mariam dug out her notebook again, another quick note, and placed it on the floor besides her.
She then shushed the screaming and placed it inside the bag, grabbing the Music Box - a machine that, when something passes in front, it'll play music. Mariam can recall several instances when she - and her friends - had been scared shitless when they just randomly heard a music box play in the background.
Mariam choose the Music Box to test how well Wendy uses her energy and if she's powerful or not. She already got a taste of her capabilities earlier, but in order to confirm or deny her suspicions, she'd need Wendy to try this.
"Alright Wendy, so this is a music box machine. Simply just walk or... uh- float by? and it'll pick up on you. I promise, it's safe," Mariam added. Perhaps Wendy needed a little affirmation after the whole incident with Salamander or N.
"Ok? Good. Could you please walk in front about... five paces in front?" She grabbed the notebook and opened a clean page titled, Wendy Marvell. How the page was organized was a far cry away from N and E's note page - something that Mariam prized.
"Please start."
Mariam waited and waited and waited but the soothing siren music never came. She nodded and wrote it down. But when she looked up again,
She only saw air.
The soft presence that lingered in the air was gone, replaced by the white noise of the air drifting around. Mariam felt truly alone.
Before something filled that space. For a second, Mariam was sure it was E and N; it was the same foreign, intruding that pulled your insults out and around.
But it somehow felt different. What was the word... maternal, protecting? She felt attacked, all eyes on her; like if you touch my child, you'll get my claws.
She felt another challenger entered the atmosphere, building up the defense; Mariam was now playing solo team.
Mariam quickly retrieved her stuff but before she could turn, she spotted something.
Two little orbs caught in the reflection of one of the small, antique mirrors danced their way to the corner before sliding out of frame. Followed by a third one that hovered in the middle before zooming off.
Mariam blinked rapidly as she caught herself and pinched her skin. 'Holy shit - not one, not two, but THREE?' She snatched up the notebook and furiously wrote down on the page Interactions.
She calmed quite quickly after realizing she was making an obscene scene to any passing by. Once again - and hopefully, not for the final time - she pocketed her beloved notebook and went to go grab her stuff.
Before she heard a subdued, meager hum of a voice wallowing through the halls. At first, she thought it to be only a mere coincidence - most likely only a mother humming to her child to go to sleep.
So, she decided to make sure it was the mother and child thing before Mariam had another fangirl breakdown. She ran up and down the stairs that connected the secondary hall to the rest of the guildhall, but no sigh of life. No breaths, no tears, no hiccuping kid who scraped their knee on a wooden plank - no one.
Then, she reasoned, it must be coming from the main hall. Perhaps something of the same stature happened there and all the mages were belong this one kid. But when she peaked out from the leading staircase, down the flight of stairs and into the mess, there was no kids. Only fired-up mages happily chowing down on 10:00 am breakfast and running amok to find quests.
When she reappeared back into the hall, Mariam discovered it got louder. It was no longer a subdued hum but a crescendo of a yelping lullaby bouncing off the walls. Mariam dug out of her backpack her phone and quickly started to record the voice.
Once her phone was whipped out, the lullaby turned to a whole concert for the voice as it whizzed through the hall, making sure to leave no spot unheard for its voice to go. It was almost as if it knew Mariam was recording it, showing it's off for everyone to hear.
Before it slowed to an even beat, hollowing out the voice to relax the song. Then, as the last beats of E sounded our, it faded.
Mariam jolted to reality, funding herself pulled by the lullaby. She patted away her phone for her pocket and exhaled. 'What the absolute fuck was that?' She thought, ad she finished packing away her stuff.
Mariam shook her head. "Goodbye, spirits. Nice job, by the way."
Mariam exited.
Mariam closed the door.
"Goodbye, Miss Mariam."
"Missy!"
Mariam pivoted around to get a face-full of Ocean Breeze: Two-In-One Conditioner and Shampoo colliding into her from around the corner.
She yelped and pulled the intruder off immediately, getting into position for a verbal beat down of her attacker, before realizing it was an exhausted Xavier - who honestly looked content laying on the ground.
"Xavier?"
"Oh, hi, Mariam. Sorry bout that," He said. Or rather, croaked is the better definition. "No, it's ok. Here, let me help you up," She said, stretching out her arm. He took a second to realize there was a hand and took it with the strength of a beetle. Mariam pulled him up no problem, however.
"What happened this time?" Xavier squinted. "This time?! Hey, I don't get stuck like this every mission." Mariam nodded, her amused eyes dancing with unspoken laughter. "Sure, sure. Only every other mission, then."
"That's not helping!"
Mariam let out a small chuckle before gesturing to Xavier to continue. "Well, I was packing up from my session down in the hallways and I saw two little kids watching me. I waved at them and - you know, then being kids - were really shy at first and only said hi. One of the kids asked about the equipment and I explained them. And soon we were having a nice conversation - or so I thought. They were really-"
"Just get on with it."
"Fine fine. So after I explained to them the BooBuddy - you know the teddy bear? Well, uh, um, they kinda sorta took off with it...?" Xavier looked up to Mariam's stormy face looming over his; 'gods help me.'
"So, the very expensive teddy bear we won at a auction - that I need to remind you, isn't even in stock and/or production anymore - is now being thrown around by a bunch of three year olds right now!" She yelled.
Mariam tugged on Xavier's shirt, pulling him closer to her only one inch away. He tried to speak but being in close prolixity put him at a disadvantage of not being heard.
He finally reached his limit and pulled her back, sending her back a couple of paces off the ground. "Look, how about we just forgot this and go off and grab the bear before it's-"
The two kids came barreling back down the hallway, looking slightly concerned - for the teddy or themselves, Xavier couldn't tell.
The kids reared as they met the adults, the littlest one hugging the teddy bear tight to his stomach. The other kid, meanwhile, stepped in front and looked ready for battle - something Mariam didn't except a three year old knew how to do.
Xavier inches closer to the duo and crouched down, slipping into a no funny business face. The kids sensed the solemn mood of the man and followed suit, with a much deeper grin than before.
"I hope you know what you did wasn't good, kids. You're- what are you?" The kids looked back at each other then at Xavier and the older one spoke up.
"I'm four! My brother just turned two. We just started preschool for your information," She said, huffily like she couldn't be bothered with this stuck-up adult. "Cool, but it doesn't excuse you for your actions. But... maybe if I can get the story of how you got there in the first place and where your parents are, I'm sure I can let you go."
The girl still continued to act as representative for her brother and self. "I'm Heather Valla and that's my brother, Jacob Valla. Our mom is a cool mage and works for Fairy Tail. Our other mom is also a mage and they have an awesome team! It's called Team Spike and they're really, really, really good."
"We were over there because we thought we heard singing," She admitted. Mariam's lips tightened. "And we thought it was mom because she likes to sing to us a lot, and we figured it would maybe be her. So we followed her and it led to him." Heather pointed to Xavier, a large watery look accompanying. "And we saw the teddy bear and thought that it was coming from that. That's why we took it, Mr! I promise, we're really good the other half of the time," She cried, diving into Xavier's arms and bundling herself in.
The man's arms wrapped around the kid gently, as he whispered promising words. Heather's brother watched as his big sister sobbed her eyes out and also decided to cry. Adding to the heaping pile of ass that was this situation.
Mariam rushed to his side but, as a person who let everyone else deal with the kids, she wasn't much help. In realizing that, she stage whispered to Xavier that they need to go ASAP and find the kids' parents that was probably look for the kids.
And as she said that - like a gift from the gods above - an looking woman came running down the stairs, her cheeks all aglow from the shine of tears.
"Heather Andria Valla, Jacob Olly Valla: What are you two kids doing? You'll be late for school!"
The two year old peeked up from her crying session and immediately perked up, running into her mother's arms. Jacob followed suit, again, soon after.
"Oh goodness, I was looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?" Her kids pointed backwards to Xavier and Mariam, who shared a look. The mom held a face of surprise. "Ive never seen you two, who are you?"
Mariam took the reigns. "I'm Mariam Ester and that's Xavier Thomas. We're not mages, we're actually here to ghost investigate," She explained. The children's faces glowed white with fear as soon as Mariam uttered ghost.
"G-Ghost?! I thought you were playing with a teddy bear!" Heather shouted. "Why in all of Fiore would a grown adult be playing with a teddy bear?" Mariam muttered. Xavier give her a furtive glance before continuing. "Yeah, the teddy bear was one of our equipment-"
"-and a very expensive one as well. We'd very much appreciate you giving us back our thing, Heather." Mariam tried being patient with the young girl, and thankfully for her, she was holding out.
"B-But it's mine!"
Or maybe not.
"Kid, no it wasn't. It was ours and you just happened upon it. Please just give it back so we can go our separate ways, and just forgot about this," Mariam said, an edge of madness egging away. "No! Miss Mariam, it was still-"
Heather screamed like a banshee and held tight to her mother, her little fingers shaking as she pointed past Mariam and Xavier. The duo looked past them to a see an adorable teddy bear, complete with a blue bow around its neck. It stood in a perfect position: hunched over with its neck 30 degrees off to the side, almost as if saying 'I'm totally normal, look.'
Xavier and Mariam shared and look and the latter dug out her camera, snapping as many as she can before the spirit might leave. Her partner quickly took action as well and switched on the EMF Meter - a machine to detect high levels of electromagnetic energy - and zoomed with like a fairy wand.
After Mariam felt the amount of pictures was adequate, she opened up the drive and scrolled through fast before coming upon a series of five photos. She, as well, noticed how her battery went from 96% to only 5% in a matter of minutes.
It was around the 104-109 section of the photos, taken near the archway of the hallway. Funnily enough, it was nowhere near the bear. Actually, Mariam judged it was a few feet away - about three feet.
On photo 104, there was simply only a weird glare. Something that only obstructed the view from on top. 105, it grew like mold to reach about a half down from its starting point. 106, all the photo was comprised of was light and only that. You couldn't see past it.
107, it vanished and left its surroundings again. But the spirit wasn't fully gone from the photo. There was a transparent phantom hand that had wrapped itself against the archway. 108, a ghost hand jutted out from the hand.
109, it was apparent that this was a full-body spectrum.
A woman mage had her hand up against the archway, her other hand tucked against a simple brown pouch. Her hair was up in a long, flowing ponytail completely with a black bow and flyaways adorning her face. From what Mariam could see from the diluted black, her outfit was black with gold accents in spots; the top a turtleneck with the shoulders and arms cut out with two necklaces: red and pink gems that hung sadly against her collarbone. Her skirt was somewhat in a school-girl fashion but reached lower then what it's normally.
Everything else she presented what something that gave Mariam chills.
Her body was skinny - not the skinny all models and everyone strived to be. Deathly skinny. Mariam decided that the skin reminded her of rags.
And how could anyone forgot the giant missing piece of her stomach in the side.
Where her right side of her stomach was supposed to be, was only a large chunk of wood. Mariam swallowed hard, blocking up the theories her brain had already started to come up with.
Xavier had already saw the pictures and understood his unspoken assignment, heading over to the archway. Mariam followed, digging out her notebook yet again, and sat ready, pencil poised.
"Base temperature for the room is... 68 degrees Fahrenheit." His partner nodded and took a scribble. "Temperature near the archway is... holy shit!"
"Language!"
"Sorry!"
Mariam clung to Xavier, reaching over his shoulder to read it. The meter was rapidly going up after a few seconds of the disappearance, but it still maintained it's rare status.
The temperature read 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and you could tell how cold it was compared to where the Vallas' were standing because each came back from the archway covered in full-body chills.
"What was it?" Mrs. Valla asked, her hands still around her sniffling children. "Um, well, Mrs. Valla, we may have just captured a ghost," Mariam explained. Her eyes shifted down to the children, who were coming out of their cocoons. "G-Ghost? Can I see?" A still-red Heather asked, the first one to come off her mother's leg.
Mariam and Xavier fell into silence before the latter agreed. Little Heather, followed by Jacob, inched closer to Mariam's camera - who silently urged them to go faster because of the 5% battery - showed off the picture of the spirit. And of course te first thing out of Heather's mouth was,
"What's that on her stomach?"
'Shit.' She really didn't want to explain to a child that this mage probably had some life threatening, traumatizing injury thar caused her death. "It's just a small injury, nothing really."
"But a chunk is missing!"
"It could be the photograph and the camera. I'm putting away the camera." But Heather jumped for it and pulled it away from Mariam's clutches. "Hey! I want it, I want it! Let me get the photo, I want it!"
Due to the sheer strength the two year olds produced, she whipped it away and flung back a few feet. Once she realized she won, she hugged it closer and spit raspberry. "Haha, I won! See, Miss Mariam, I win!"
Her mother was mortified - and that's an understatement. "Heather Molly Valla, get your butt over to Miss Mariam and give Mariam her camera back!" She yelled, stomping over to her child. She looked ready for a fight. Xavier, meanwhile, looked ready to burst with laughter as Heather squared up against her mother.
Mariam had enough of her friend's languid and the mother-daughter brawl, and finally stepped in. "Ok, ok, enough! Can we just like relax for five seconds?" Her friend rolled his eyes. 'Mood killer.'
"Miss Valla, can I please have my camera back? It's very important to me and we need to continue our investigation. So please," She pleaded, throwing out her best maternal voice. Heather looked conflicted for a second before relinquishing her stolen ownership.
"Here, I'm very sorry, Miss Mariam." Her recipient smiled softly and patted her shoulder. "It's fine as long you ask next time. We gotta go now," She said. She nodded to Xavier and he sighed, pocketing the EMF reader and pulling up his backpack.
"See you later, Heather. And you too, Jacob." The man ruffled the children's hair, causing a bird's nest to summon. "Goodbye, Mister!" Heather called after the retreating figures of Xavier and Mariam.
...
"So, that was interesting."
"Hmh."
"Where do you wanna go now?"
Mariam surveyed the archway, her eyes lingering over a little crack at the top. "I don't know. Do you want to stay together or go alone?" Xavier shrugged. "Depends on what you say," He replied.
The duo sighed in unison. "I have no clue. Let's just stay together for now. If there's something we want to interview further, then we'll go separately," Mariam added. "Cool."
The two walked in silence for a bit, before turning down the stairs to the main hall. Mariam checked out the clock on the door, only about an hour to noon. They stepped in time to the front, near the bar, and stopped at the door.
"We were thinking the same thing, weren't we?"
"Hm. Serena's going to kill me, but really will a little check out going to destroy her?"
"No, we don't need to tell her anything."
"I still feel like a bad friend but... remember, this is for the investigation."
"Right."
Xavier opened the door, letting the darkness overtake his vision. Mariam stepped behind, the cool rush of air soothingly washing away the heat. They nodded to each other, and Xavier took the first step.
Have a good day/night and I'll see you tomorrow! Bye~!