A Phantom Awaits You

Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Phantom Manor is the property of Disney and the Imagineers who thought it up. Kim Fox, her friends, and her world are all my own creation.

The next day, the sun shone brightly and a slight breeze tempered the warm early September weather. It was a Kimberly Fox kind of day. Well, a Kimberly Fox kind of day in September. Really, my perfect day is a really hot one, with no clouds in the sky whatsoever, and I'm at the beach, splashing around in the water…Never mind. There are jellyfish at the beach, and let me tell you, getting stung is no, well, no day at the beach. I cried, no, make that sobbed, when I got stung. It was really embarrassing, especially since I was 20 when I got stung. Thank God my friend Tracy remembered to bring meat tenderizer that day or else I'd have been screwed. Would you believe meat tenderizer, of all things, helps jellyfish stings? Who the hell thinks of bringing meat tenderizer to the beach???? I'm just lucky Tracy's so paranoid about everything. So I guess my perfect day would be at a pool instead of the beach. Luckily, in Texas, pool weather sometimes lasts into October, so there are tons of my kinds of days in a year. But…this day was a really nice day anyway.

Before I headed over to Ravenswood Manor, I decided to take a look around the rest of Thunder Mesa.

It was a typical ghost town straight out of the movies. There were abandoned saloons and there were tumbleweeds blowing. Every building looked like it was falling apart, and the paint on the buildings and signs was peeling. The ground was dry and cracked. There was also an eerie silence and stillness to everything.

Believe it or not, I thought it was sort of cool. It's like being on a movie set or something. I used to dream about being a movie star when I was a kid. It was the 1980s and campy movies were at their height, and I used to want to be in a campy movie because they always had the coolest pop songs during the end credits…

But…um…that's enough of off-subject stuff for now.

It was a short distance to Ravenswood Manor, so I just walked there. When I got there, I was walking through the gates when I noticed something. There was a tarnished oval-shaped brass plaque with an inscription on it.

Ravenswood Manor

Non omniar moriar

Hmm. I wonder what that means. It sounds sort of like Latin.

Sounds sort of spooky. I wonder if it got put up to further the creepy ambience about the place.

I shrugged and walked through the gates. Before I entered the house, I stared up at it. When I got here yesterday, I didn't pay much attention to the exterior. The manor was built of light-brown wood, with a fading black roof that looked purplish. The windows were edged in mahogany. Gray, stone steps led to the Manor's porch. All of the windows were cloaked in white curtains, but The building was really, really tall, though narrow-seeming, and just looking at the height of it made me sort of antsy, although I'm not really afraid of heights. The Manor also looked as if it was ready to collapse at any second. I'm sure it was really pretty back when it was new, but now it's just spooky-looking.

Ms. Meyers was there, but she was talking to a group of tourists. Now, I'm sorry, but that's just silly. Who'd want to go on a tour of a haunted place during the daytime? It totally loses the spooky atmosphere! I guess the daytime tour is for the people who are too chicken to go at nighttime. Ms. Meyers waved at me, and I sat down in an old leather It took about ten minutes for Ms. Meyers to finish, so while I waited I amused myself by examining some old photographs. One I noticed had the girl from all those paintings, Melanie Ravenswood, in the arms of a young man with light hair and a big smile on his face. I'm guessing that was her fiancé who was killed on their wedding day.

Sheesh. What is it with these haunted houses and people who got murdered on their wedding day? First there was Emily Gracey over at Gracey Manor and now there was Melanie Ravenswood's boyfriend.

It was too bad. They made a really cute couple.

"Hello, Ms. Fox! How are you?" Ms. Meyers asked once she was done with the tours.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Would you like me to show you more of the house before you start working on your article? We have a room upstairs where we keep old articles and information about the house. I'm sure you'd find the answers to any questions you have there." Ms. Meyers offered.

"No, that's okay. Maybe later on, but um, I'd really like to see that old article room." I said. For once in my life, I had the drive and initiative to do work. I was in such a good mood that I was determined to work hard on my article and to write the best damn article that the Carr News Service San Antonio Bureau's Travel Department has ever seen before.

And I've also got that initiative since I recently found out that Carr News Service has an award for outstanding travel piece of the year or something and I really, really, really want to win it! The grand prize is a trip to Hawaii. I've never been to Hawaii, but I've always really, really wanted to go.

"Okay. Sounds good." Ms. Meyers said with a friendly smile on her face. She led me up a beautiful, though dusty, dark wood staircase that was covered in cobwebs and overlooked a grand ballroom that was dank and quiet. The floor was completely covered in dust. The furniture looked to be in excellent condition, though cobwebs were draped over it like a blanket. and had decaying wedding decorations up everywhere, including what looked like the remnants moldy wedding cake.

Eeew! I mean, okay, so the poor, unfortunate soul was completely convinced that some day her fiancé would return home to her and they'd get married like they were supposed to, but didn't it ever occur to her that they'd need a new wedding cake? Okay, so just say her fiancé came back ten years later. Was she just planning on eating that disgusting old thing? She had to have gone insane to have thought that.

"This is the library." Ms. Meyers said, leading me into a room with books, notebooks, and folders everywhere. "As you can see, it doesn't have a card catalogue or the Dewey decimal system, but the name works anyway."

"Um, okay." I said.

"If you need anything, I'll be downstairs talking with a group of tourists."

I nodded. "Thanks, Ms. Meyers." Then, I settled down in a chair, picked up a folder, and read its contents.

The house was built in 1849 by Henry Ravenswood, son of Thunder Mesa's mayor, for his wife Martha and their ten-year-old daughter Melanie. Henry owned a railroad company that was very prosperous, and he kept his family living in total luxury. Henry's daughter Melanie grew up into a beautiful young woman, and many young men wanted to marry her. Melanie, however, only loved one of them. His name was Lawrence James, and he worked on her father's railroad. Lawrence proposed to Melanie in 1859, and she accepted, much to her parents' chagrin. Henry and Martha disliked the fact that Lawrence wanted to move to California after he and Melanie got married. Henry tried to convince Melanie to marry another guy, Derek Hawthorne, but she refused. Eventually, Henry gave up, and gave his blessing to the marriage. But on June 15, a few days before the wedding, the fatal earthquake happened and Martha and Henry were killed. Melanie was so sad, she put off the wedding until October. But on the day of the ceremony, Lawrence never showed up. Even though all the guests left, Melanie insisted on staying dressed in her wedding gown, because she thought Lawrence would come back to her. Apparently Melanie stayed dressed in her wedding gown for the rest of her life, and spent her nights and days wandering the house, singing and reassuring herself that someday her groom would come, and they'd get married and have kids and move to California and live happily ever after.

I felt so bad for her. I mean, that totally sucks, having your fiancé just not show up on your wedding day.

Lawrence was never seen again, but some local townspeople claimed that they saw him enter Ravenswood Manor on the day of the wedding. One day, some of Melanie's family came to visit her, but she wouldn't talk to them. She just walked around the house, holding a candelabra and singing. They made their way into the portrait gallery, when suddenly most of the candles got blown out. Next, the people heard a wild, evil cackling sound, and they looked up and saw a skeleton in fancy clothes up in the rafters. Before they knew what was happening, they saw a decaying corpse dangling from a noose being held by the skeleton. The corpse was that of Lawrence James. The people ran out of the house screaming and never returned.

As the years passed, people saw glimpses of Melanie Ravenswood walking around distractedly through the house's windows, and people could hear her singing from outside the house. Supposedly, people still see her through the windows and still hear her singing. Hmm…if those people saw Lawrence James's corpse hanging, then why didn't Melanie? I mean, she was roaming around the house all the time. You think she'd have eventually wandered into the portrait gallery and seen the dead body.

My cell phone rang.

"Fox here!" I said.

"Kim?" It was John, my boss.

"Hey, John. What's up?" I said nonchalantly.

"Kim, Carr News is participating in an internship program with St. Joan of Arc High School,"

"Hey, I went there!"

"Yeah, I know, Kim. Anyway, I was thinking about which of our reporters would be the most interesting to follow, so I came up with five names."

"Who are they?"

"Well, you're one of them!" John said brightly.

"Um, cool. I'll be back in San Antonio in,"

"Well, I'm sending them over now and,"

"YOU'RE SENDING THEM OVER NOW?" I screeched.

"Yeah! They're both two great kids. I think you'd really like them."

"John! I don't want interns! Not right now, anyway. That's just more unnecessary responsibility!" I cried.

"Come on, Kim! Interns are great! You can really learn something from them."

"I thought they were supposed to be learning from me."

"I thought you'd really appreciate having some." John sounded totally crestfallen.

Ugh. Total guilt trip. Why do I always have to feel like the bad guy?

"Okay, John. I'll do it."

"Great! Their names are Charlotte O'Connell and Nathan Evans. They're both high school juniors, and they both write for the school newspaper, like you did."

"Um, I didn't write for the school newspaper." I said. "I spent high school playing basketball, having crushes on guys, and convincing Ben to do my math homework for me."

"Well, anyway. You're a professional journalist now and that's all that matters. Well, anyway, I gotta run, Kim. Ben's interns are starting today and I gotta get them situated."

"Okay, whatever. Bye John." I said. I wrote some notes down on a notepad and got up to look for Ms. Meyers. I figured that I should probably tell her about the interns.

As I exited the room, I took a look around the hallway. The walls were covered in this really strange wallpaper…the background was purple, and it was covered with this odd design that looked like a bunch of pairs of eyes. Across from the doorway was a window draped in a graying white curtain below a burgundy curtain topper thing. Next to the curtain was a chair with green padding and next to the chair was some sort of deceased house plant. Above the late member of the plant kingdom was Henry and Martha Ravenswood's wedding picture. I closed the door to the library. Next to the door was an old hat tree, with an old umbrella, shawl, and hat on it. I spied a candelabra on a table at the far end of the hallway. At first, I thought nothing of it, but then I noticed something really, really weird. The candelabra lifted off the table and started moving towards me.

I held my breath. It was then I noticed that there was a hand around the candelabra. It took a few seconds, but the form of a young woman materialized. Her long, flowing red hair was gently curled. She had totally flawless, acne-free skin, and although she was looking down, I could see she had big, deep green eyes. A wedding veil was perched upon her head, and she was wearing a long, really old-fashioned wedding dress. She was totally beautiful…but not in a supermodel/movie star way, but, I don't know, in a fairy tale princess way. Like she was a fairy or something ageless. Melanie gripped the candelabra tightly and was singing to herself with a hopeful look on her face. There was something quite odd about her, though. Like she wasn't quite real…

Like she was a ghost.

I gasped. It was the ghost of Melanie Ravenswood! The lonely, possibly crazy bride who spent eternity searching for her long-lost love, her murdered fiancé Lawrence!

The room got very, very cold. I was frozen in my tracks. I couldn't speak. I wanted to run as she approached me, but…I couldn't. I was THAT freaked out.

Oh my God. Oh my God!

Right as she came up near me, she looked straight into my eyes, and disappeared.

I let out a yelp and jumped back.

"Oh, shit." I muttered as I caught my breath.

Okay, just calm down, just calm down. Everything's gonna be okay, I reassured myself.

I took a deep breath and moved on. I had taken a few steps when I got a chill. My heart started to race and I got really, really scared. I shivered, and I could feel that something was very, very wrong…but I couldn't figure out what.

Suddenly I heard a low, strange noise that vaguely sounded like a cackle. My heart slammed in my chest. I started to hyperventilate. Then, the noise went away as freakishly suddenly as it came. I let out a deep breath and looked around the hallway. I felt like…I don't know…like something was watching me.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe things won't be alright.

Author's End Notes: There is no library on the PM ride, I made that up.

Those of you familiar with PM may already know the meaning of Non Ominar Moriar. Kim's not going to find out what it means for a few more chapters.

Kim's interns Charlotte O'Connell and Nathan Evans won't be showing up for a few more chapters.

Thanks to the reviewers!

For more PM/HM related reading, check out Crescent Venus's Tribute, found in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch section of Fanfiction.net!