The Magicians' Realm Chapter 68: Ghostly Encounters, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 68, everybody! Of which I had a chunk written a long time ago—one of the first pieces I ever wrote for this story, honestly—and of which the rest was written before today, so I take that as a personal success. :D

There's a house we stay in at the Outer Banks that has a spiral staircase in it, which I tried multiple times because Jack Skellington has a set. :D It may not be indicative of spiral staircases as a whole, but that set at least was narrow even for my skinny self and had me in real danger of bumping my head. Now picture a guy seven foot seven on a spiral staircase and you get Yami's concern.

And while we're at it, Yami is referencing Stephen King's book Thinner when he talks about the rhubarb pie—that movie came on once, and rhubarb pie was on sale at the Sam's Club the next time we went. D:

One more thing—how much a person weighs soaking wet is a term used by my parents, and, oddly enough, my history teacher, who was the one who really got me into history and is probably at fault for laying the foundation for this story by getting me interested in history. So my history teacher ought to get a big thank you for this.

Movie this week is Disney's Tangled—Maximus and Pascal are still my favorite characters in that, and my Mom and Dad's too. :D And I honestly think 'Mother Knows Best' should be sung by all mothers to their children (THE PLAGUE!). I just love how happy Mother Gothel is when she says that line.

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! You know, they were just comparing our election to your Brexit the other day (and Word recognized Brexit how…). That is definitely true—Trump may be a millionaire, but he's closer to the ground than the politicians are and therefore has some idea of what we're going through (say it with me now: taxes taxes taxes!). Even if he's only able to get a fraction of what he says done, we'll still be better off (and a solid red White House, House of Representatives, and Senate—this will be good, hopefully). Review: I remember CDs and cassette tapes (I found a cassette tape the other day—now if only I still had a player that worked…). My Mom has records all over the place (and in similar straits, a record player that doesn't work) so I knew what a record was early on, but what really threw me was an 8-track—that was the one I had to ask about. Good question—we might get a hint about it this chapter….

Fromtheashtrees, thanks for the review! Yes, Teana, please….You would think. And I would think too, but I've had enough experience walking into a room and forgetting why I did to last me for quite some time. Someday….And yes it is—I've got the next few chapters written up, and I'm so excited (I just can't hide it) to get to the big climax I've been pondering for…two years almost, my goodness. Now here's hoping it turns out all right….Yes…if it comes. We've got a stiff cold strong wind blowing through and lake-effect snow further north—if I'm cold, I want snow to go with it. Ooh, hate those cold-wet days. :(

FluffyIdiotIsI, thanks for the review! Me too…and to be honest, I kind of scared myself at one point in this chapter….Me too….

References:

Casper © 1995 Brad Silberling (the house in general is honestly based off of Whipstaff Manor)

Jurassic Park III © Joe Johnston (the stairs scene is inspired by the scene in the aviary—but without the man-eating Pteranodon)

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

The stairs creaked upon being stepped on.

"Maybe we should take these one at a time," Yami said, having an unfortunate mental image of the whole thing collapsing.

"Sure thing," Kels said. "But if your head comes rolling down, I'm diving out the window."

"Don't be silly. Use the door."

With that parting missive, he gingerly walked up the steps, wincing at every creak, gingerly making his way up….

And looking down a dusty hall.

One end opened out to the parlor, the other end opened out to the living room, and there was another flight of stairs that led to the more winding third floor. Doors sat ajar the whole length down.

"Well, my head's still attached," Yami called down. "I'd say it's safe enough."

"See, you say that now," Kels countered, as Yuki followed. Yami simply rolled his eyes and gingerly paced to the first room, nudging the door open and stepping back quickly. When nothing happened, he carefully stuck his head around….

A half-curtained window let in some grimy light, enough to see the general shapes of a bed and other furniture. There would be a wall switch—reach in….

Something seized his sides, yelled out—Yami screamed and nearly leaped out of his skin—

And then very nearly throttled a laughing Jonouchi.

"That's not funny!" he thundered.

"Aw, come on!" Jonouchi gasped, collapsing to the floor. "I've been waiting for someone to do that to me the whole time we've been here! You're just mad because someone got to you first!"

Yami glowered, but went back to his original business of flipping the light switch.

Dusty four-poster, dusty furniture, general look of disuse. A guest bedroom, but maybe not one regularly used.

"Skellington's bedroom and workshops might be upstairs," Yami guessed, stepping back and crossing over to the other flight of stairs leading up. It struck Yami as odd that someone as famously tall as Skellington made use of a spiral staircase—it seemed too narrow for someone so tall.

It was also dangerously off-kilter—like someone had slammed into it at some point.

"I don't recommend going up there," Honda said from beside him, causing Yami to jump. "What?"

"You're Jo's best friend," Yami said calmly. "You know the best way to dispose of his corpse, right?"

"Of course," Honda said, not missing a beat. "I'm his best friend."

"I love you too," Jonouchi called.

Yami sighed, walked down the hall. Now that he was looking, the hall seemed…not ransacked. More like someone had had a fight in here. Did some of Thomas Montgau's agents manage to breach Skellington's security?

Or….

Administrator Carter had been on that film. That film had been made in the parlor.

The Administrators had had a mole.

Who was also working with his father.

Who had also told him precisely how to get to the Administrator Library.

Yami slowed to a halt, thinking.

What kind of game was Administrator Carter playing?

Whatever he was up to, it wasn't being very helpful. Or maybe that was the point—try to snare him at the Administrator Library, but that obviously didn't work. He had been eyeing him when he went to see his father at work—maybe he had made Bakura entering the lobby, blew the whistle on him? What?

Yami turned, looked down the hall to see…not a head of white hair. "Where's Bakura?"

"Not listening," Anzu said, climbing the stairs. "He's busy pocketing all the reels and records."

"Idiot," Yami muttered, making quick strides down the hall so he could yell over the balustrade. "Bakura! What do you think would happen if you were found with those?"

"Ah, but you don't know the oldest and noblest of thieving traditions," Bakura yelled back. "Primarily: 'you're only in trouble if you get caught.'"

Yami scowled, walked back to Kels, who was looking at the spiral staircase.

"Who do you think is lighter?" she asked when he reached her side. "Me or Yuki?"

"Why?" Yami had to ask.

"I was thinking—if a couple of you held the stairs steady, someone light enough could make their way up there."

Yami considered the stairs in a new light. "Well, if anyone was to go up there, I'd rather it be me—we weigh about the same."

"You're ten pounds heavier, actually."

"What makes you so sure?"

"You mentioned it in passing."

"Did not."

"How much do you weigh soaking wet?"

Yami opened his mouth—closed it just as quickly. "Fine, fine. I still say I go up there."

"Are you going to lose ten pounds in the near future?"

"Only if I eat a slice of rhubarb pie."

"When did you see that movie?"

"Read the book. My parents have a bunch of Stephen King books lying around."

"Okay, that's horrifying. If something happened to you, it would be more high-profile than if something happened to me."

"That's no excuse for you to go up there."

"Those stairs may barely hold me—they won't hold you."

"Then I guess we're not going up them."

"Question," Anzu said, cutting into their argument. "Can't you repair the stairs? Magically?"

Yami considered this.

"The Administrators turned to the Civic Branch to take down Skellington," Yami said finally. "That's pretty odd for a bunch of control-freak Magicians. That makes me think that maybe Skellington's manor is booby-trapped—just against Magicians. It may be why the preservation spells are decaying. And I, for one, would rather not find out."

"So I guess I'm getting Honda and Jo to hold the stairs for me," Kels said.

"We just had this discussion—no."

"What'd I miss?" Bakura asked, finally arriving.

"Put them back, Bakura."

"Make me."

"Before I do, how much of the conversation did you hear?"

"A surprising amount, considering I know Magicians like their sound-dampening spells."

"More evidence that the place is booby-trapped against Magicians."

Anzu looked at the place in a new light. "That's why it looks like there was a fight—Skellington was expecting a bunch of old fat guys to come after him, so even if he handicapped himself, he'd be handicapping them worse, and like you said, we don't know what he did; the casting Magician could have exploded, for all we know. But with Civil Agents…."

"Commoners in their prime, armed with guns," Yami said. "I'm surprised we're not finding bloodstains everywhere."

"Consider the dust," Kels said, indicating the house as a whole.

"So there could be ghosts here," Yuki said, causing Miho to meep in alarm again.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Yami maintained. "And who's to say Skellington's own floor doesn't have its own share of traps?" he continued, looking back at the spiral stairs. "There might be something waiting to lop our heads off the minute we stick them up there."

"So no stairs for you?" Kels guessed.

"No stairs for you," Yami confirmed, shooing them down the hall. "Keep looking."

Satisfied that they weren't going to try the stairs, Yami wandered into another room. It, like all the others, had a thick layer of dust and an air of neglect. He glanced at the dusty four-poster—another guest room.

He turned, caught sight of movement, and jumped.

He chuckled when he realized it was himself in the mirror.

"Idiot," he muttered to himself; all that talk of ghosts and traps and bloodstains had spooked him more than he would have liked. He walked over to the dresser harboring the mirror and began examining the drawers. Locked. He bent down, one hand on the dresser table, running his other hand beneath the dresser. No key, as far as he could tell. Maybe if he used the skeleton key….

He brought his head back up and glanced at the mirror.

He took a double-take.

It wasn't him in the mirror.

There was a young woman there instead, a little older than he and his friends, mirroring his movement. She had brown hair cropped short around her jaw line, as was the style a long time back. Pale skin, blue eyes, faded lavender coat…and a sad look, like maybe he reminded her of someone.

He blinked. She had a faint blue aura as well. He cautiously looked behind him. No one. Did that mean…she was a ghost?

Not possible. Ghosts didn't exist.

He looked back at the mirror to see her, both arms crossed on the dresser, one eye closed in a wink. Ghosts didn't exist. And yet there she was.

"Hi," Yami breathed, not sure what else to say.

She gave him a little smile and stood up. Within the mirror, she crossed over to the opposite side of the room. She turned back to make sure Yami was still watching her, then held up a finger. She pointed it at him, and then at herself. The message was clear: Watch me.

She reached down and pulled on one of the doors opposite him. One he had tried. It opened.

Behind him, he heard the corresponding door pop open.

All the little hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

She pulled out a little envelope and let it sit on the lip of the shelf. She turned back to him and gave a little smile.

Yami couldn't resist; he turned and looked.

There was the open cabinet with the little envelope sitting on the lip of the shelf.

He turned back to the mirror.

And saw himself.

The woman was gone.

He glanced around the room, rubbing the back of his neck frantically to rid himself of the pricklies. He went back to the mirror, glancing around the mirrored room.

Nothing. She was gone.

"Hey."

Yami spun his head towards the door.

Kels was standing there, a picture in her hand.

"Have you seen this one?" she asked.

Yami edged over cautiously, still glancing about the room. His gaze landed on the small envelope as he reached for the picture.

"Hold on," he told her, and went to get the envelope instead.

Kels looked at the mirror. "What were you looking at?" she asked.

Yami bit his lip. He didn't want to voice it, but the ghost-woman looked an awful lot like his girlfriend Anzu.

He brought the envelope over to the dresser and opened it, upending it over the dresser table. A key, some buttons, a flower, several small photos, and a couple of little folded pieces of paper fell out.

Yami flipped over the photos so the pictures showed. Some had people he didn't recognize at all, but a few had pictures of….

"Her," Kels said, pointing at one of the sepia pictures. She handed the framed picture she was holding to Yami. He looked to see the ghost-woman and Skellington, Skellington seated in a winged-back chair, she to his right, hanging on one of the wings. "She looks a little like Anzu, doesn't she?"

"Yeah," Yami said, taking the picture from her and trying to fish the picture out of the frame.

Anzu walked in. "Find anything?" she asked; it was a loaded question, of course.

Kels handed her one of the smaller photos. "She look familiar?"

Anzu accepted the photo. "It's me with a shorter haircut," she announced.

Yami finally got the picture out and checked the back. "'Teana Gardenier'," he read.

"Teana," Anzu echoed, flipping the photo she had back and forth. "Pretty name."

Yami glanced sideways at her. Pretty woman, he thought, mentally comparing the similarities between her and Anzu.

Kels picked up the folded pieces of paper and unfolded them. They leaned in to read.

They were two letters, written in neat, looping cursive.

Dear Ms. Gardenier, the first one read. I'm sorry to hear that. There's plenty of room here, with the added bonus of no irate neighbors. I won't push the issue, however, and sincerely hope you change your mind at some point. Sincerely, Y.S.

Kels flipped the second one onto the top.

Dear Ms. Gardenier, it read. I'm thrilled to hear the good news (not that being evicted is good news). You'll have your choice of roo—here there were splotches in the ink. Sorry about that—Miss Wicks informs me that her room is off-limits. Heph and Vul say their rooms aren't, but I told them you would most likely respectfully decline the offer. We'll be over first thing tomorrow to help you move! Sincerely, Y.S.

Kels held the two letters apart and compared them. "Look at the dates," she said. They did so. "They moved fast back then, didn't they?"

"So this was her room," Yami muttered.

Anzu looked up. "Her room?"

"I fou—the envelope was over there," he said, pointing. "This room definitely has something feminine about it—I think it's safe to say this is her room."

"Only one way to find out," Anzu announced, striding over to the wardrobe.

Kels gave him a funny look.

"What?" he asked.

"You started to say 'I found' but changed it," she said. "Why would you change your wording like that?"

Yami was about to answer when Anzu exclaimed.

"Bingo!"

They turned to look. The wardrobe was open revealing several women's outfits. Anzu had pulled down a lavender coat with blue trim and held it against her. "This is a woman's coat," she announced.

Not only that—it was the woman's coat.

The ghost was Teana Gardenier.