Hey readers! You guys are awesome! It's been almost a year since I first posted this story. I'm glad I'm keeping up with it now. I checked the stats on this story and they go like this. Ever since I published Chapter One March 28, 2016 this story has had 3,840 views, 19 followers, 22 favorites, and 16 reviews as of March 23, 2017. That's pretty good for a fandom that doesn't have regular year-long visitors. Still, don't forget to Fav, Follow, and Review. Let's try to even out those numbers! THAT'D be the day! That's a lot of views, but this site isn't so comprehensive with its stats. Not that many people actually like this story. And repeat visitors are counted in that number. Just this month there have been over 90 people who glanced at the first chapter but only about 30 kept reading. Yeah. I know. The first chapter is super long.

Also, can anyone make a good Jack impression? I was thinking of an acquaintance (I'd call them a friend, but we don't hang out enough) I know who has blindness and about how annoying Siri or Cortana is when they read Text-to-Speech. So, I'm thinking of having an "audiobook" narration on Tumblr. But I suck at imitating Jack and half of well…everyone. I recorded myself reading chapter one and it lasted almost a whole hour. Sorry about that. (Funny story: I stayed up late the other day and dozed off listening to it and scared myself awake when a part came where I yelled a line. Fell out of my own chair…I'm not making this up.)

If you're interested in voicing Jack (or anyone else) or you just want to gush about how awesome an idea this is, PM me or drop a review.

Ok. Long Author Note Over.

(Special request at the end.)

Chapter 15

It's Knot Funny

Anna thought her finger dexterity would be the death of her. Or second death?

She could still barely hold anything without dropping it the first two dozen times. Scissors. Spoons. A mug of cider.

She dropped them all.

She started to think the witches were getting rather cross with her, what with all the messes she was making.

Granted, it wasn't her fault. But being able to hold things would have saved a lot of trouble. Then she might have been more inclined to stay inside instead of going out to sit on the fountain with a length of rope Helgamine gave her.

However, she got in their way inside. She knew that. The witches were subtle, but she could tell they wanted her outside and…out of the way.

"Whatya doing?"

Anna jumped and yelped before swearing in her head for being so skittish. She really needed to get a handle on this fear thing.

She dropped the rope she was playing with, and a smaller hand reached out to pick it up from the cobblestone.

The monster child inspected the rope and the various knots Anna had tied.

"What you tying knots for Ma'am?" they asked, looking up at Anna with feigned innocence.

Anna frowned at the little girl but quickly snapped her skull back to a small smile. "Well…uh…my hands don't work very well so I thought I'd practice with some knots I know."

The little pale green girl looked at the rope she still held. "Do you know a lot of knots?"

Anna nodded with a grin. "I've always been really good at them." She took the rope back and tried her best to quickly untie all the knots before starting a new one. "My friends were Boy Scouts, and they got me interested. I always liked them. Well, I loved my friends of course, but I meant the knots. Some are really useful."

"What's a Boy Scout?"

"Um…well they're in an organization. It's like a club of boys who learn life skills."

"And knots are life skills?" The girl looked unconvinced.

"Yes?"

"Huh. That's hilarious miss, cuz I'm a girl, and I know one knot, and it's for killing people. Knot a very lifey skill."

The girl took the rope away from Anna's fumbling fingers and went to work, ignoring the flash of amusement Anna had from the pun.

Then Anna frowned at the girl's rudeness, but let her have the rope. She leaned back against the fountain, kicked off the ill-fitting shoes she had found among her box of welcome gifts, and watched as the girl deftly wrapped one rope end around an S-bend to create a head sized loop. Anna could already guess just what kind of knot she was tying.

"There. See?" the girl proudly held up a Hangman's Noose after less than a minute.

"That's pretty good," Anna admitted. "It's not just for hanging people, though. It can hold a lot of weight so sometimes rescuers use it to save lives."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Anna stared at the girl for a moment.

Is everyone here a psychopath?

The girl untied the noose and handed the rope back, "Here. You do one."

"A noose?"

"No, something else!"

"…" Anna looked down at the rope, trying to decide which knot to work.

Her long, ungainly fingers were shaking from the start as she struggled to hold the loops and bends in place.

The knot sprung apart, and Anna sighed in frustration. She began tying a simpler one.

"I was trying to tie a Celtic Knot. It's mostly for decoration," she explained at the girl's questioning look.

"Well, you suck at it."

Anna mumbled, hands not quite doing what she wanted them to. Her fingers were too long, and it was almost like working with gloves that were too big, with chopsticks for fingers as if these hands weren't quite her own.

Well, they weren't. This was a new body.

"I'm usually a pro at this."

"Well, you're knot now." The girl broke down into insane giggles.

"You're a fascinating personality, kid." Anna snickered. She felt something like a tongue poke out the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. She found it weird to have a tongue that appeared on a whim, but she was getting used to it. (Not really.)

"Me? A kid? Please. I'm probably, like, a hundred years older than you," the girl scoffed.

"Is that so…"

"Yeah. You're just a little baby."

"You're not a very nice girl."

The kid grinned. "I like you. You talk to me longer than most grown-ups here. They don't know how to have fun. What are you doing out here anyway?"

It was a little slow in the town square currently. Anna guessed it was just the ebb and flow of the town's strange natural schedule. However, the few people that were there were staring at Anna and the girl with strange expressions.

Anna was confused by most of their looks. There was disgust. Concern. Anger. Were they looking at her?

She wasn't inclined to believe so, not after they were so welcoming to her, unless not knowing how to rhyme was a horrible crime.

... Well, of course, the end of that sentence rhymed!

"I…came outside to walk. I'm a little restless. Still wound up from earlier."

"Ooooh, what happened earlier?!"

Anna eyed the girl suspiciously. "I got into an argument with the Mayor during a…lesson…"

She jumped when the girl burst out cackling, her pointy hat tilting haphazardly, and several other citizens looked even more uneasy as they tried to focus on whatever their assignment was.

"I knew I liked you! We've meant to get back at him for a while. What'd you do to him? Hmm?"

Anna looked at the enthusiastic seven-ish-year-old with a look that said she wasn't quite sure what to make of the witch. "I didn't know he wanted me to rhyme."

The young witch seemed disappointed. "Rhyming? That's it?"

"I didn't know how. Or why I had too."

"But rhyming's so easy, even Barrel could do it!" the girl complained, completely ignoring the fact that there was one tradition that even she followed, though she didn't know why.

Anna's brow bone twitched upward. "Who's Barrel?"

The girl rolled her eyes, "One of my stupid brothers. Barrel's the youngest. He's so dumb, he couldn't tell the difference between a lollipop and one of my scorpions."

"That's cause you put them in my lollipop box! It's not my fault they jumped at me!" a young voice shouted from a nearby alley before being muffled with a thud and harsh clanging noise.

Anna's hands were on a shaky autopilot, so she accidently was startled into giving a sharp tug on the rope. This tightened the knot while it was around her wrist.

She stared at it. "Oh, dang it," she muttered. She shook her left hand, though she already knew that wouldn't work. It didn't help that her wrist was so slender being all bone. Unfortunately, the knot she was tying gets tighter the smaller the object it's around. Plus, it's almost impossible to get off once tightened unless you cut it. It's called a Constrictor Knot for a reason…

Why on earth did she decide to practice that one?

Honestly…

She looked at the witch girl distractedly as she picked at the rope like a scab, trying to untie it.

"I take it that's him?" she said in amusement.

"Lock, you dummy! You were supposed to keep him quiet," the girl growled into the alley.

A snarling boy with bright red hair and a lashing demon tail stalked out of the dark, dragging a whining rounder boy with green hair by the ear.

"You never said that!" he snapped at the girl as they crossed the square.

"Yes, I did!"

"No, you didn't!"

"Yes, I did, you stupid face!"

"I hate you and your stupid face."

"Look in a mirror sometime you pig."

"Hi," Anna said simply, with a deadpanned expression. She could already tell these kids were mostly just talk, perks of being a big sister and being used to hearing arguments like this.

The redhead stopped in his tracks as he noticed the skeleton was still there.

"What're you looking at!" he said aggressively.

The girl hit him in the back of the head, "This is the new arrival, you idiot! Be..nice."

The way she said "nice" was more worrying than anything else.

Barrel, the green haired kid apparently, looked Anna up and down. "You?"

"Yes. The person you've been eavesdropping on?" Anna quipped.

"We weren't eavesdropping," Lock vehemently denied. "We just didn't care about Shock wanting to say hi like a girly-girl."

"Uh huh," Anna said, so far unfazed by their behavior as 'Shock' kicked Lock's shin. "You kids going to introduce yourselves or what?"

Oh, the looks on their faces…

"Lock!" the redhead crowed.

"Shock!" the girl giggled.

"Barthel," the 'youngest' spoke around a large piece of candy in his mouth.

Shock glared at him for ruining the introduction.

"Annalise. Nice to…I'm mean… horrid to meet you."

"Eh. Whatever," Lock said, with a scoff, "You don't look so scary. Barrel here was running around going on about how much like Jack you look. All super scary and stuff. Maybe he's going blind."

"Am not," Barrel scowled at Lock, swallowing his candy for the sake of speaking, choking be damned.

"Are too!"

"I'm not sure what you were expecting," Anna said with a sigh.

So, we have a snappy stubborn girl, tough guy kid and a bullied little brother. Huh…

Lock just shrugged with a mean-spirited glint in his eyes.

"So, I hear the Mayor's been giving you trouble?" Lock mentioned nonchalantly, trying to sound cool and older than he looked.

"It wasn't like that…"

"Don't let him give you a hard time. You'll be all right if you stick with us," Lock said.

"Yeah, no one messes with us," Shock crowed proudly. "We pretty much run this town!"

"Until Jack catches us," Barrel muttered.

Anna smirked at their antics as both older children swung at Barrel, but missed when he ducked. They ended up smacking each other.

"Nice duck, Barrel. Thanks, but I think I'll be okay," Anna said with a small smile.

Lock rubbed his sore nose and looked at her, "You sure, toots? I'll let you in on a little secret." He gestured for her to lean in. "Not everyone here is as cavity sweet as you think. Turn around for one moment, make a couple mistakes and WHAM! They stab you in the back." He glanced around with a glare.

Anna wasn't persuaded to take him seriously, much less believe him. But she was a little worried at the serious bitterness in his voice. He believed what he was saying.

"I'd rather see proof of such with my own eyes," she said calmly.

"...What eyes?"

Shock rolled her eyes again before they landed on the rope hanging from Anna's wrist.

Lock was milking it too hard. Time to switch tactics.

"That's one weird bracelet," she said with a high-pitched cute voice that made her want to tear her own throat out. Shock reached forward and tugged it lightly like a cat playing with a toy.

"It's not," Anna muttered, gathering the extra length in her hand to keep it out of their reach. "Look it's been…eh…awful…and all, but I need to go find something to cut this off with."

"Your hand?" Shock seemed a little giddy. Not quite where the skeleton was going with that, but okay then!

"…the rope."

"Oh, right."

Lock's grin widened ever so slightly as he caught on. "Hey! We have some scissors at our house. You could use those."

"…" Anna looked at him for a moment. "Your house?"

"Yeah! Mom and Dad actually wanted us to come get you for dinner," Shock added, smiling widely, one hand behind her back.

There are benefits to eavesdropping on the witches' house.

Barrel looked at Lock and Shock a bit confused but nodded anyway.

Anna snorted, "I thought you didn't think I was scary enough." She absentmindedly slipped the old shoes back on her feet as she listened.

"Well, you're not too bad. For a girl."

Anna considered it for a moment. Helgamine did say some families were looking to have dinner with her sometime. Would it be rude to ignore an invitation?

On the other hand, these kids were so rude and mean-spirited to each other that she wasn't sure she wanted to meet their parents.

She listened as they went back and forth, alternating from stressed whispers to nasty insults and back again as they schemed without worrying about her seeing them do so.

She was far less concerned about the whispering than she should have been, then again, she never met them before so underestimation was understandable.

Maybe these were the kind of kids that were bullies to little kids, tough guy/gal actors to a teenager, and innocent angels to adults.

Maybe it wasn't too bad. Maybe this is just how some kids act in this world.

The mummy kid from earlier was shy, though…

There was something wrong.

She didn't want to assume, but the way Lock, Shock, and Barrel spoke didn't really leave room for parents.

Anna stumbled when Shock grabbed the tail of her rope out of her other hand and pulled her along by the wrist like it was a leash.

"Ow! Stop. Shock, I can walk," Anna snapped, tugging back.

"You're too slow," Shock complained, while the boys followed behind.

Anna rolled her eyes but followed the little witch after harshly yanking away the rope, unfortunately tightening the knot even more by accident. She continued to pick at the Constrictor with her other hand.

One consequence of being dead was that she didn't have any blood to cut off to her hand. So, that was a plus, she supposed…

Had she known Lock, Shock, and Barrel, first of all, she would have run the other way. Second, she would have known something was up when instead of leaving town through the gates, they went farther into town toward their so-called "house."

But she didn't know where they lived. They knew this.

A few minutes later, she almost stepped on Lock when the group came to an abrupt stop.

"Here we are!" Shock said arrogantly.

Anna's black circles widened.

It was a huge mansion. Large and gray, it loomed above them like a mausoleum.

Anna was a little disturbed because it looked much smaller from a distance. She briefly wondered if Skellington Manor was the same way. She had seen the inky mansion in passing.

"It's big."

"Mom and dad are pretty important in town. Come on!" Shock quickly turned and whispered something to the boys who both grinned and ran ahead inside after sharp nods.

Shock took Anna's hand, making the skeleton bend almost all the way down due to their disparaging body sizes.

They went inside and immediately Anna felt something was horribly out of place.

Before she could figure out what it was, Shock grabbed the bottom of Anna's dress and pulled her into a kitchen.

"Mom's not home yet, but we can get dinner started for her," Shock said far too sweetly with a giggle.

Anna frowned. "Isn't it three in the morning?"

"What do you know?" Shock crossed her arms.

Anna put up her hands. "I'm not very hungry yet, how about a snack instead," she deflected.

"Shock! Shock! I did it! I got all the pictu—." Barrel was cut off when Lock ran in behind him and clamped a hand on the youngest's mouth.

Anna raised a browbone.

"The picnic stuff," Lock laughed with a nervous eye roll.

"Oh, we're going on a picnic now?" Anna said, in an odd voice.

"Nope. We were just..uh..thinking of one later," Shock saved.

Anna just glanced around the kitchen.

"No one's home," she noted.

"Well, we are," Barrel said. He held up a couple pieces of candy corn shyly, "Would you like some?"

Anna grinned. She took the candy and pocketed it, "Thanks so much. I just remembered, I didn't get any candy this year. I'll save it for later, okay?"

Barrel looked horrified at the idea of no candy for Halloween and nodded vigorously while Lock and Shock glared at him from behind the skeleton. He never shared his candy! Why share with her?

Anna glanced around unsuredly, "Where are the scissors?"

"Aw, that can wait! We wanna show you around!" Shock grabbed the bottom of the skeleton's dress again and dragged Anna out of the kitchen.

Anna tried to focus them back on the scissors, but gave up when she was drowned out by the three kids running around showing her the house.

She couldn't help but notice that, while they talked a lot, they didn't really say much. They were oddly vague about their home.

"Hey look- the office. It has officey stuff," Lock had said.

Anna frowned. She found it weird how they didn't have any stories about the place. They didn't mention things like their favorite hiding places, which couch they jumped on more, where their bedrooms were, which gargoyle was the weirdest, or any basic things that would make kid proud of their house.

"How long until your parents come home?" she said when they came back into the kitchen. They had been there nearly an hour and she was a little concerned about some of the things they rambled about.

"Oh, it will be a while," Shock said with a giggle, which the boys joined.

Anna was starting to feel even more uneasy.

"Maybe I should go outside and wait until your folks come back." She shuffled, stepping back toward the door.

"Maybe you can help set the table!" Shock said enthusiastically. She climbed up onto the counter. "Here, Lock! Hand her this plate why don't you." Shock smirked deviously.

Anna panicked as the dish was thrust toward her, forgetting about the rope around her wrist for the moment.

"W-wait! I can't!" she was forced to grasp for it when Lock "lost" his own grip and dropped it into where her hands should be.

Ever try picking up a glass marble with metal chopsticks?

She had it for a whole second before it slipped and crashed to the floor with an almighty shatter, fragments going everywhere.

The four stared at it for a moment before the three young kids burst into raucous laughter.

Anna winced, "I'll clean it up."

"Oh, don't worry about it! Mom breaks stuff all the time. She won't mind. You might hurt yourself being all thumbs like that," Lock assured, his worrisome grin back. "Just leave it."

"I don't know…"

"That was funny. Here, try again!" Shock reached out to hand Anna a bowl from the cabinet.

"No!"

It was too late. Shock let the second dish drop, and like the first, it shattered.

"Oops," Shock deadpanned.

"Oh, relax will you?" Lock said at the look on Anna's face. "The Ma…uh…I mean Ma has so many dishes that she wouldn't miss a few."

"Yeah. See?"

To Anna's utter surprise, Shock suddenly took an arm and carelessly pulled out an entire stack of plates and let them fall. She did the same to a pile of bowls before Anna could even react.

The floor was now covered in the fragmented remains of three dozen or so broken dishes.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Anna squeaked while Shock took another plate and broke it over Lock's head.

Barrel giggled and spoke when he got the prompt from his brother and sister, "You're a..a weirdo who remembers how the Real World works right? What makes you think we do things the same way here?"

Anna could see him shuffle a bit, but turned away before she could catch him glance at the door nervously.

"You don't seriously think I'd believe that it's okay to just go wrecking a kitchen for the heck of it," Anna said crossly as she stared at the absolute mess.

"Why not?" Shock reached into a drawer and curiously pulled out a very sharp looking knife.

"It's not…" Anna trailed off, eyeing the sharp object. "Y-you don't just go around breaking your parent's stuff like that."

Shock shrugged and rolled her eyes. Swiftly, with a scary level of accuracy, the little girl threw the knife, striking the wood of a cabinet door right above Barrel's head.

Barrel ducked and whined. "Hey! My turn!"

Anna was freaking out now, "Stop it! You almost hit him!"

Lock looked at her weird. "Soooo?"

He suddenly took another knife that Shock handed him, and with a flick of the wrist threw it at Barrel before Anna could wrestle it away.

The blade hit the green haired boy right in the chest. Deep. He cried out, more in annoyance than anything and shouted at Lock, "OW! Hey! I wasn't ready!"

"Oh, stop being such a baby," Lock said before walking right up and yanking the knife out, bracing his foot against Barrel's chest to do so. Both boys fell onto the sharp dish smithereens.

Anna felt a little sick and weak.

An alarming amount of blood for such a small body dripped…everywhere…

It ruined Barrel's shirt. It was on the crookedly tiled floor. It was on both Lock and Barrel's hands. It was on the knife that Lock tossed aside.

Anna couldn't help but shake and stare, skeletal jaw hung open. The blood was an odd color. Very dark and sickly looking, almost black.

That knife should have killed him.

The kitchen now looked like a murder scene as the boys wiped their hands everywhere without care.

Barrel didn't seem too bothered. He could obviously feel it, for goodness sake, yet he didn't seem to be woozy from blood loss either. It was as if he was so accustomed to the abuse that he didn't care.

That was the creepiest thing about the entire debacle. It reminded her of Gatekeeper.

"That's it!" Anna threw her arms up, her voice a higher pitch than she expected, and stepped to the door, avoiding the sharp shards as best she could. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew these kids were completely crazy. Crazier than she ever was when alive. She didn't know what to do. At the very least, getting the Doctor or Jack seemed like an okay idea.

"Wait. You forgot your tea!" Shock called.

Anna turned to sharply say "no thank you!" but suddenly got a face full of uncomfortably warm water. She had been so preoccupied with Lock and Barrel that she hadn't noticed Shock finding a teacup, filling it with water from the sink, and muttering over it until it boiled. Nor did she see the young witch dropping a few leaves into the water.

Anna sputtered and furiously tried to wipe the hot liquid away. It didn't hurt as much as she expected. She was almost….

Numb…

Uh oh.

Now she had another problem.

She was suddenly very drowsy.

As she stumbled, she realized now what had been bothering her when they walked in.

All the picture frames were missing…

It was much brighter, though cloudy, outside when she finally woke up, a crick in her spine in the neck portion.

"Oh, my head," Anna whined and rested the aching body part on the table, taking in sharp breaths in attempts to clear the fog away.

She moved her foot slightly and froze at the sound of something crunching.

She opened her eyes, wincing at the tearing skull ache and dared to look up.

"Oh…"

The place was a mess…and it wasn't even the kitchen.

She was in an office of some kind, sitting in a large leather office chair that was somehow too short yet too big for her.

It was Paper Hell. Everywhere. Papers…everywhere.

The already lopsided curtains were pulled down. One window was smashed. That was the crunching sound she had heard under her feet.

Books were pulled down and strewn around the room in a haphazard expression of a demon, ghoul, and witch's idea of art.

If the kitchen was the same as she last saw it and this room was so utterly chaotic, she could only fear what the rest of the house was like.

Anna stared blankly at the mess before a thought occurred to her.

She didn't know who's house she was in and the place was trashed with no sign of the culprits in sight.

And she was the only one there…

She needed to find someone to explain everything t—

Her attempts to stand up were immediately foiled by her own arm when she was humorously (humerus-ly?) yanked back with a shout. The socket almost came loose.

She cried out as her feet went out from under her and she fell to the floor, the chair tilting for a second before losing its hang time and crashing on her.

There was another crash as a lamp fell.

"Oof!" she huffed as the lamp hit her ribs and broke in half. She struggled the heavy chair off her, head pounding. "What the…"

She tried to tug her arm out, but it was stuck.

She looked to see what she was caught on and immediately wanted to hurt someone. Or three someones.

The Constrictor Knot was still around her wrist….and the other end was tied in a perfect copy around a nearby table leg.

She wasn't going anywhere.

The newly destroyed lamp that was previously on top of the table mocked her.

It was a heavy table too, and the knot was tied in that particular place that one couldn't just slip the leg out.

Anna was trying to think of a way out of this when the sound of a front door opening startled her.

A second later, an upset shout echoed through the mansion.

She tried to lift her head up, but hit it against the desk.

"Ow!" she hissed.

She heard hurried stomping and the angry house owner appeared in the office doorway, utterly speechless at the mess.

Anna froze at who it was when they locked eyes and eye-sockets awkwardly. Just great…

"I swear this isn't what it looks like…" she said sheepishly.

A paperweight that had been teetering on the edge of the door-frame fell on the owner's head with a dull thud, knocking them out. Softly, the paper it was on top of floated down.

It said, in terrible handwriting and with misspelled wording, "Yur Welcom! Trick or Treet!"

Those little….

This story's birthday is coming up so I've decided to do something special. I'm accepting an OC request. They can be new or someone from your own story. They can be in the Real World or Halloween Town or somewhere else. I'll decided how often to used them once I look them over. Please don't take it wrong if I don't choose your character. I'm sure they're all great and well thought out, but I need to put the flow of the story first and if they wouldn't work, then I can't use them.