Paul sat in his darkroom, developing his photographs. His darkroom was his sanctuary. It was the only place where the other kids couldn't make fun of him and call him Harry Potter. (Oh, how he hated that!) He couldn't help that he had messy black hair and glasses. Okay, well, maybe he could, but he never felt like combing his hair neatly and contacts scared him. He wasn't about to stick a little, round lens onto his eyeball. That just sounded too gross to him.

The darkroom had once been a small office, but Paul's father had a larger office built shortly after the Burton family had moved into the house. Paul had begged his parents to let him use the tiny room as his own darkroom, rather than as a third bathroom as his mother had suggested. He quickly set to work, blocking the window and putting up a clothesline to hang his pictures on so they could properly dry. After he dragged a tiny, kiddy wading pool into the room, everything was complete. He spent more time in there than his own bedroom.

He held up a photograph and stared at it. It was a picture of a small group of women in very old-fashioned bathing suits playing and splashing each other in a river. The women, he noted, were wispy and transparent, and looked as if they hadn't known someone was taking a picture of them.

Gracey, you've got issues, Paul thought as he shook his head. Another picture, this one his favorite, was of Courtney and Myrriah. They seemed to be giving a short ghost with a long beard a makeover. The male ghost was holding up a little hand mirror and the two girls were laughing as they put curlers in his hair and beard. He felt a stab of guilt as he thought of his two new friends. He tried all he could to convince his father to not build the mall where Gracey Manor stood. After pleading and begging his dad, he did something he regretted. He started arguing with him. They often fought a lot, anyway, so that was nothing new. Of course, he'd never actually won any of those arguments, and the same thing happened that happened every time: He was grounded for a week.

He looked over all of his pictures as they dried. One in particular caught his attention. It wasn't a great photograph and he almost threw it away. It was a blurry image of the bride with one hand in front of her face and the other hand in front of the camera and somebody in the background holding something. That somebody was his father and he seemed to be holding up a sheet of paper. Paul grabbed a magnifying glass and peered closer at the paper. At the top of it in bold calligraphy was the word DEED.

"Oh dad how could you?" And I defended him too! Paul walked into his father's office and searched through the filing cabinet where any important paperwork was kept. Five minutes into his search, he found it, the deed to Gracey Manor. He grabbed it and the photograph and ran outside. He got on his bike and peddled as fast as he could, not caring that he would get into even more trouble later. There were some things that were a little more important than being grounded.

The clouds had turned a poisonous green as if the sky was nauseous. The storm raged on and the wind whipped furiously, sending the remaining construction workers fleeing for safety. Mike, however, remained rooted to the spot.

"What's going on Gracey?" he demanded. "Is this another one of your 'tricks of the light'?"

"No!" George yelled. "I'm not doing this! Leota must have gotten out! But how?"

"Courtney's still in there!" cried Myrriah. "I've got to go get her!"

"No," said Cody. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'm dead, there's not much more that can happen to me!"

"Then I'm going in with you!"

"No, you and your friends should leave. Think about how mom and dad would react if something happened to you. Without one of us there, they wouldn't be able to live anymore." With tearful eyes, she gave him one last hug. "Bye Cody."

"Bye sis. Good luck."

"Thanks." She watched as he reluctantly climbed back into the van. "I'm going to need it." She turned back to the mansion. She couldn't bear watching them drive away.

As she headed for the mansion, Dustin cried out, "You can't be serious!"

"My best friend is in there!"

He looked fearfully at the mansion and gave a nervous sigh. "Oh, I'm probably going to be torn into little itty bitty bits of ectoplasm and scattered to the four corners of the earth for this, but…" He reached down and pulled her up onto the horse. "Giddy-up, Rolly!" The horse reared up and then took off, surprisingly in the right direction. "I'll get you there fast. Hold on!"

"Hey," said Phineas, nudging Ezra's side, "we can't let the kid fight off Leota alone. Come on!"

"Well, nothing better to do," Ezra muttered as he ran after Phineas.

George watched his friends as they disappeared into the house. "I'll deal with you later," he said, glaring at Mike. Michael was trembling with fear as the ghost walked away. He screamed and ducked just in time as the sign for the Liberty Square Mega Mall flew towards him.

"Ha!"

Then the tree branch hit the back of his head and he was knocked out.

The foyer was eerily calm as Rolly slowly clomped in. Everything looked normal, with the exception of George's portrait, which hung above the fireplace. Rather than the image of the young man with the wistful smile on his face, it depicted a skeleton in a tattered tuxedo.

"It's quiet," said Dustin.

"Too quiet," Myrriah added.

Right on cue, a shrill scream came from the direction of the ballroom. Rolly whinnied and snorted and stepped back and forth nervously. Dustin patted his head. "Stay here boy," he said as he and Myrriah climbed down from the horse. Rolly seemed perfectly content with that order as Myrriah and Dustin quietly headed to the ballroom.

"What's the deal with Leota, anyway?" asked Myrriah.

"Madam Leota was a sorceress of sorts, and a very wicked woman. She was extremely bitter and jealous as well."

"Jealous of who?"

Dustin smiled. "Anyone who had Master Gracey's attention."

"She had a crush on him, huh?"

"It was more of an obsession, really. I don't think she loved him so much as she just wanted to be the center of attention. I'm probably not the right person to ask, though. I died shortly after she arrived at the mansion as George's live-in psychic." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "They say though, that she's the one who killed Emily, as well as many others."

Myrriah remembered what Emily had said to her when she and Courtney had been in the attic. "I was murdered on my wedding night. I was locked in this trunk." She tapped an old trunk with her foot. "Some jealous, horrible person shut it and locked it while I was playing hide and seek with my new husband." "I guess she wasn't making that up after all. So why is Leota stuck in the crystal ball?"

"It's said that George tricked her into imprisoning herself in it when they died. He never speaks of it and I certainly have never asked him about it." He was interrupted by another scream, this one louder. They ran to the ballroom and gasped at the sight before them. Wispy specters with decayed faces, fangs and claw like hands flew around the room, snarling and shrieking. The wraiths from Mr. Baker's organ were trying to fight them off. Sewell and Huet were there as well, trying to shoot the ugly ghouls.

"What's going on?" asked Dustin.

"We got here shortly after things were gettin' weird," said Sewell. "We figured something was up when that storm started brewin'."

"Baker had already taken quite a beating by the time we got here," added Huet. He nodded toward the organ, where Mr. Baker was sitting. His cape and hat were askew and he had a black eye. Victoria was sitting by his side, fanning him and fussing over him.

"Whomever these guys are," Huet continued, "they don't want us to get near Leota's room. She's the one behind all this."

"We know," said Myrriah with a sigh. "But I've got to get in there." She looked up at the flying specters and at Leota's door. It was so close… "I'm going in. Cover me."

"Oh dear," muttered Dustin as he watched her dash out of the room. One of the ghouls had caught sight of her and flew after her. "Hey! You, you, uh, poor excuse for a flying sheet!" The ghoul turned and glared at him. "That's right I'm talking to you! What kind of tough guy are you, chasing a little girl, huh?"

"I hope George gets here soon," Myrriah whimpered as she stepped into Leota's room. "Because I have no clue what I'm doing!"