A Phantom Awaits You by Flashbeagle

Chapter Three: Kim Makes A New Friend

Disclaimer: Kim is my intellectual property, as are her interns and her world. Ravenswood Manor characters are elaborations of characters from the Phantom Manor ride, thought up by some brilliant Imagineers!

I was sort of distracted as I walked down a marble staircase, so I didn't notice when my foot got caught on something and I crashed to the ground.

"Ouch." I whined.

"Miss! Miss! Are you okay?" An unfamiliar voice asked.

"Oh, yeah, um, I'm fine." I mumbled. Someone offered me their hand and pulled me up.

I looked into the blue-green eyes of a rather cute guy. He was tall- as tall or taller than my 6'2 brother-, had sandy, short light blond hair, and the one of the nicest smiles I had ever seen. All his teeth were straight and white, except for one on the bottom that was slightly crooked. But there was something strange about him. Something I couldn't quite figure out…he had sort of an aura to him…and was wearing old fashioned cowboy-type clothes…

It hit me right then.

"You're a ghost, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am." He seemed sort of young and naïve, and looked to be maybe a few years younger than me.

I nodded. "Right. Um, I'm Kim Fox."

"My name is Lawrence." He said. "Lawrence James. Nice to meet you, Miss Fox."

"Just call me Kim." I said. Then I remembered him. "Lawrence James- you're the guy who got hung by the cackling specter in the portrait gallery!"

This could be…good for my article.

Lawrence hung his head. "Um, yes, Miss Kim. That's me."

"Oh, um, gee, sorry. I didn't want to make you feel…um…weird."

"No, Miss Kim. That's okay." Lawrence smiled slightly.

There was a pause.

"Okay, this is weird." I said.

Lawrence nodded. "Yes, um, I don't really have many run ins with live people. I normally stay away from them."

"I wish I could say the same for ghosts. Well, actually, it hasn't happened in a few months but trust me, what happened then was really…really…intense, I guess you could say."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Another awkward pause. Okay, time to do the journalist thing.

"Um, Lawrence, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure thing, Miss Kim."

"What's up with your girlfriend wandering around the house singing all the time?"

"Girlfriend? Oh, Melanie." Lawrence smiled sadly. "She's under the control of the Phantom. Just like all the other ghosts here."

"Phantom?" I echoed. "What Phantom?"

Lawrence's face turned grim. "The ghost who murdered me."

"So, he's the cackling specter in all those stories?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know. I don't know why he haunts this place. I don't know why he killed me." Lawrence said, shaking his head.

"Whoa, um, I'm sorry." This is actually getting interesting.

Lawrence smiled sadly. "I'm okay. Well, as okay as a dead person can be."

Lawrence and I then really started to talk. I found out that he was an April baby like me- I'm April 3, 1979; he's April 6, 1840- like me, he loves to write- and like me, he had an intolerably perfect older brother; his was named Freddie and worked as a banker in Boston; mine is named David and runs his own business in New York City- and. Lawrence and I got into a pretty deep conversation about that whole perfect older brother thing.

"And my parents just can't get enough of him. He was captain of the football and baseball teams his senior year of high school, and was valedictorian and class treasurer." I said. "And then he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and opened his own business and goes to church every Sunday and is the perfect father-to-be as well as the perfect son and the perfect brother…"

Lawrence nodded. "Yeah. My brother Freddie was like that. He was a total do-gooder, and always made me feel inferior, like I wasn't good enough for my parents or something."

"Same here!" I exclaimed. "But my parents refer to me as their little baby girl, and treat me like that. They refuse to let me grow up! They always make me feel like I should still be watching Sesame Street and wearing diapers and sucking my thumb."

"Are you the youngest too?"

"Well, I'm the 2nd child of 2 kids, so yeah."

"I'm the youngest too, 'cept I'm the youngest of five. There was Minnie, Daisy, Freddie, Bertha, and me." Lawrence said. "My sisters were all okay. It was just that my parents always compared me to Freddie, and no matter what, I could never be like him. I guess my parents always saw me as just a kid."

"A pain I know all too well." I sympathized.

After that, we actually had a deep talk about ghost-human relations, as well as a discussion on the inner workings of the psyches of ghosts.

"I mean, what is up with you ghosts and being all depressed all the time?"

"Well, to be quite honest, Miss Kim, a lot of us died in pretty nasty manners. A lot of us never got to do a lot of things we wanted."

"Well, yeah, that's bad and all, but what about the ones out in the graveyard who sing that song all the time, not the singing busts but all the other ones, or those guys who look like they're hitchhiking? They don't seem so depressed!"

Lawrence looked at me confusedly. "What are you talking about?"

I blinked. "Oh wait, never mind. That was another haunted mansion." This is so freaky. I'm having a conversation with a ghost and I'm not shivering or trembling or worrying for my life or trying to run away or, well, scared. Sure, it's weird, but it's also kind of nice. Knowing that foolish mortals and non-mortals can co-exist in piece.

"Another haunted mansion?" Lawrence asked me. Suddenly he looked really intrigued. "Do you have any good ghost stories to tell?"

I nodded. "I guess so. Yeah, it's interesting, but I don't really like to-"

"Would you mind telling it to me? I love a good ghost story!"

That was so ironically funny.

I snickered. "Hey, I'm the journalist. I'll ask the questions here." I said good- naturedly.

Lawrence sort of laughed. There was something about Lawrence that instantly made me like him. It was sort of innocence and sense of humor…I really can't describe it. Remember when I was at Gracey Manor and said that there was something really odd about Edward Gracey and Ramsley that really creeped me out that I couldn't quite put my finger on? Like that except for not creepy.

"Come on! Tell me!" Lawrence asked.

I shrugged and gave in. "Once upon a time, in a far away land called New Orleans, a pretty young reporter arrived at a gigantic haunted mansion called Gracey Manor. As she walked in the cavernous doors of the manor, she felt strangely lightheaded. Then, a creepy pale butler named Ramsley approached her, and she noticed how oddly the butler was staring at her…like he'd just seen a ghost."

"Ooh, this sounds interesting!"

So I continued telling the story. "…She pushed back the gauzy curtain, and revealed an old portrait of a young woman with dark hair. But it wasn't just any young woman with dark hair…the woman in the portrait looked exactly like the reporter!"

"Whoa!"

"…and then, the reporter's best friend insisted that the broken singing bust looked like the guy who sang 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch', not Walt Disney."

Lawrence blinked. "That poor reporter girl!"

"And do you know who that 'reporter girl' is?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Me."

"You?"

"Yep. Me."

"You mean…all that actually happened to you?"

"Yup."

"Whoa! Miss Kim! You must have been…wow, you must have been so afraid!"

"Afraid's an understatement. But hey, I'm alive, so that's all that matters."

Lawrence looked at me strangely. "Well, Miss Kim, I've never met the possible reincarnation of a Southern belle before."

"I've never met a murdered groom before. Though, as you know from my story, I have met a murdered bride."

"What happened to her? The murdered bride, I mean."

"Oh, Emily? Well, Emily was really rich, and Master Gracey's father, George Gracey, wanted to marry her to get her money. But anyway, Madame Leota, the disembodied head who told the reporter, I mean, me, about what happened to Katherine, was in love with George, so she murdered Emily on her wedding night by locking her in a trunk."

"That's terrible." Lawrence said.

"Yup." I agreed.

He suddenly looked really, really sad.

"Are you okay?" I asked him.

"I, well, I was just remembering things." He sighed. Oh, man, I've never seen a ghost look so sad…and that is saying a LOT.

"Lawrence?"

"Yes, Miss Kim?"

"Do you mind telling me what happened? I mean, between you and Melanie and leading up to…" I stopped and rephrased. "Do you mind telling me the whole story?"

"I don't know, Miss Kim."

"Hey, I told you the sordid tale of me nearly being killed so I could spend eternity with the ghost of a man who was married to a woman who looked exactly like me."

Lawrence nodded. "It's just…hard to say."

"I know. I mean, you're the first person I've told about the whole ordeal at Gracey Manor. The only other person who knows is my best friend Ben, and that's only because he was there!"

He hung his head.

"Look, you don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I know how hard it is to tell someone a story like that! Sorry for pressuring you, it's just-"

"No, it's okay, Miss Kim. I'll tell you."

"No, really, it's okay."

"No," Lawrence said, looking up at me with his big blue eyes that really did make him look like a little kid. "I want to."