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Chapter 16

Both Ends

"TALLER WITCH!"

Helgamine jumped and dropped the book she was in the process of setting back on the shelf. She shouted and lost her balance from her perch on her broom when a cold mist caught her under the arms.

Unfortunately, she phased right through the misty form and fell the six feet to the ground.

Her landing rattled the shelves.

The Soprano Ghost winced and leaned over the counter the look at the witch. "Sooorry Helgaaamiiine."

Helgamine stared up at the ghost. "I'll give you credit for the scare if you help me up."

The ghost let out a nervous wavering chuckle, "Um…booooo?"

Helgamine huffed and took the ghost's outstretched hand, stretching her back like an old woman as she stood. "Maria, if you're going to jumpscare me in the middle of the day, at least have the Halloween decency to pretend like you did so on purpose." She winced in pain and set her spine back into place with a sickening crack.

"I did noooot thiiink it ooouuut," Maria admitted, her sheet like form opening up in resemblance to a sad smile. It suddenly closed. "Deeear me. I gooot siiiide traaacked."

Helgamine frowned as she picked up the book. "Is there a problem, or do you intend to buy something, dear?"

"Nooot toooday. Quickly. The Mmaaayors hooouuuse!"

The witch sighed in irritation, "I swear if that stultus excors nailed his own hand to the wall again in the name of renovation I'm…"

"It's the neewwwcooommmer!"

Helgamine jumped, dropping the book again, "Is she hurt?" She hadn't seen Anna all day.

Zelda had expressed concern, but Helga wasn't nearly as worried.

"…."

"…Maria…" Helgamine said warningly.

If something happened to Anna, Zelda would never let her live it down.

"I doooon't knooow," Maria said sheepishly, her mist curling into itself, "I heard yelling, and Jack came ooouuutside the Mayoooor's hooouuse and said Aaaanna needed yoooour help. He tooold me toooo get yoooouuuu."

"…And you didn't think to check what was going on?"

"I was a little panicked!" Maria shouted in Latin, the only language she could speak quickly in.

"Alright," Helgamine sighed speaking in Latin as well. She scratched her long nose, "I'll be there soon."

The ghost nodded and wispily twirled off.

"Use the door, please," the witch said. She was too late. The ghost simply phased through a wall.

By the time she got to the Mayor's house, Anna had apparently stopped her shouting, and there was a small crowd at the porch.

The front door was wide open, so Helgamine just walked right in, pushing past the Vampires, Harlequin, the Zombie Band, and several other citizens. They let her pass. They were apparently not being allowed inside themselves.

"What happened, babe?" the sax player asked.

Helgamine turned back with a slight shrug before continuing.

"What in Halloween?" she muttered when her eyes laid on the mess.

Every room she passed in the hallway, was trashed.

In the library, every book was pulled off the shelves, the hallway walls were paint splashed by red and pink (where did that color possibly come from), and there were deep scratches in the wood flooring. There were also a few childishly crude phrases painted on the walls.

She pulled up short when she passed the kitchen and blinked.

"Well, somebody died in here…" she quipped cheerfully.

Blood everywhere.

The Mayor was in there, and he stepped out of the icebox at the sound of her voice with a bundle of ice wrapped in a cloth held atop his head.

"…Helgamine, please tell you brought some scissors…" He pleaded, spiral eyes small and pained. He had his white face.

His sharp teeth were pulled into a tight snarl, and his jacket was off and draped over one arm.

Helgamine didn't answer for a long moment as he walked around the broken dishes as best he could. "Two things. Firstly, no I didn't. Second? I find that bump quite fetching." She grinned teasingly, her voice cracking in mockery.

The Mayor rolled his eyes and winced. He gestured to the back of the house, with a thumb. "They're in my study. Them and their needle fingers." He eyed the bloody broken dishes in frustration.

"Helgamine! Is that you?" Anna sounded…distressed.

"Coming," Helgamine called. Needle fingers?

"We're back here," Jack's voice drifted from the open door.

"Ow! You're making it worse," Anna complained.

"Sorry… ah..Anna stop squirming, please!"

Even Jack sounded cross.

"What is going on…" Helgamine trailed off at the sight.

No. Nothing scandalous. But Helga wasn't sure what to think with Anna sprawled on the ground biting at her wrist as Jack crouched in an odd position working at something under a table nearby

Jack saw her, and his sockets widened. He tried to straighten quickly but tripped on something.

Whatever he tripped on yanked a surprised Anna to the side and nearly knocked her skull against the desk.

Helgamine saw that it was a rope. Not a thick one, but certainly not thin enough to be easily snapped. She frowned when she recognized it as one she gave to Anna at the skeleton's request.

Jack righted himself. "Helgamine, you're here! That was fast." The King brushed himself off and straightened his suit, not noticing Anna glare at him for tripping on the rope.

Helgamine eyed a bookshelf near Jack that seemed a little tilted forward as if someone had climbed it to pull books off. It wasn't in danger of tipping currently, so she put it in the back of her mind.

"Glad to be of any help, Jack. Maria fetched me. She said Anna was…a little tied up?"

The witch giggled at the amused smirk Anna tried to hide and the personally affronted expression that twisted on Jack's face before the Pumpkin King composed himself.

"I diiiid noooot maaake such a coooomment," Maria poked her head through the window to defend herself.

Helgamine ignored the ghost and came closer.

Anna held up her hand for inspection. The skeleton seemed to be tied to a table.

Helgamine took Anna's hand and tried to undo the knot.

"What is this? I don't sense any magic keeping it tied this tight," she complained after failing to loosen the knot. Here she was thinking she was pretty good at untying things, upside of having long, thin fingers.

Now she understood what the Mayor meant by "needle fingers." If anyone could untie a knot, it would be the skeletons.

"We already tried that," Jack said.

"It's not magic," Anna groaned, "Just boss rope skills…" She muttered that last part sheepishly.

"Anna, what did you do?" Helgamine stubbornly continued to try prying the knot apart to no avail.

"I didn't do this!" Anna protested. She faltered, "W-well, I did the one on my wrist…b-but I didn't wreck everything and tie myself up."

"Then who did?" Helgamine looked at the skeleton with a slight glare. She was rather fond of the newcomer, but it's only been a few days, and she's already stirred so many things up. The excitement was appreciated, for the most part, but the Mayor's house getting destroyed took the novelty a little too far. At least it wasn't the shop.

Anna tried to say, but her own voice caught in her throat, and she couldn't get the words out. "I- I…."

The lanky teenager huffed and clicked her teeth, a habit Helgamine noticed her developing.

Jack sighed, "I arrived to visit the Mayor only to find him unconscious, his house a mess, and Anna unable to explain what happened."

"Surely you recognized a muting spell?"

"Yes. I was hoping you could break it. Or at least find who put it on her?"

"Pencil," Anna said, "The fact noggle, went bye-bye too num-num nugget. Cheese smells." She clapped a skeleton hand over her mouth and looked at them wide-eyed in horror.

Helgamine stared at the girl for a moment and snorted in laughter.

Anna whined and covered her face in embarrassment.

"Apparently," Jack said with a straight face (somehow), "In addition to being silent about what happened here, every three minutes her words are…nonsense for an additional three minutes."

"Anna," Helgamine giggled, "Say 'Apple.'"

Anna glowered at the witch.

"I'm serious dear. As a witch, I need to find a basis for which word get turned into which."

Anna shifted, deciding not to mention the play on words, and nodded. Hesitantly she mumbled, "Jack's..."

What came out of her mouth next shouldn't be repeated.

Helgamine lost it and burst out laughing before she could stop herself as Anna gasped and covered her face in mortification once again.

She somehow had a faint purple blush going on as she sank into the floor, daring it to swallow her up.

Maybe Helgamine imagined the purple because it wasn't there when she looked closer.

"I...need…a moment…" Jack said carefully and walked out the room, passing the Mayor as he went.

The Mayor was still holding an ice pack and looked confused at the expressions on everyone's faces as he moved out of Jack's way. "Every sharp object in my entire house is missing," he reported with barely concealed annoyance. His head was still on his unhappy face.

"So, we can't just cut it off," Helgamine guessed, embarrassed about laughing at Anna's random, yet inappropriate, comment. She should have expected it. 'Apple' is one of the first words a witch would use for a language basis so of course the spell-caster could have planned for Anna's response, knowing someone would ask her to say that particular word.

"See why I asked if you brought scissors with you?" the Mayor said once Helgamine got her useless gulp of air to recover from the laughing.

"Don't get snippy with me, good sir."

"Sandy Claws is a Tasty Lobster," Anna said, then groaned in frustration.

"I'm going to assume you meant 'excuse me'?" the Mayor guessed. Both he and Helgamine couldn't help but notice the choice of words.

Anna nodded. She looked like she wanted to hang herself on the rope that had her trapped. "I." She breathed and squinted in concentration. "Am. So-ggy Lolipop. Oh, bathtub!"

"Oh, I'm sure the Mayor will forgive you. This obviously wasn't your fault." Helgamine glared at the Mayor meaningfully.

The Mayor scowled, "Give me a bit."

Anna winced, and Helgamine's glare hardened.

"It's taking all I have to not start ranting again," the Mayor defended.

"Perhaps you should go outside for a bit, Mayor," the witch suggested.

"And leave my house as it is! Have you looked around! Maybe it wasn't her fault, but she's involved somehow!" the Mayor lost his composure and broke off into the very rant he was trying to avoid.

"Mayor, calm down," Jack called from down the hall.

Anna frowned in confusion and tried to lean around Helgamine to see where Jack went.

The Pumpkin King…was hiding out at the end of the hall?

Anna winced. Probably for the best. That phrase was embarrassing.

The Mayor took in a sharp breath.

Helgamine took Anna's jaw and turned her face this way and that.

"Have you tried giving her something to write with?" Helgamine said, slapping Anna's hand when the skeleton girl tried to push the witch away.

"Yes. But she can't keep a grip on the pen," the Mayor said. He was holding his hat in his hands and twisting it around as he paced, muttering under his breath, pausing only to answer Helgamine.

"Hey. Don't sit on the chickens!" Anna said, "Oh, shut me up please."

"At least the spell's cycle is wearing off," Helga muttered. She twisted a strand of her hair around a crooked finger, "Assuming you meant that last sentence. Just be still for a moment, dearie. Maria?"

The ghost who had been quietly watching while trying not to laugh looked up, "Uh yeees?"

"Go find a knife or scissors, please? Harlequin or a neighbor should have a pair. There's some in the shop too."

"oOoon iiiit."

Anna watched the ghost fade, "She's tooting."

"Maria is lovely. And a good scarer. But she can be absentminded at times," Helgamine said the last part under her breath.

Suddenly, Helgamine seemed to notice something and giggled, "Ha! You're lucky I keep the basics on me." The Witch pulled out a couple vials from her pocket and looked through them. "Fairly simple spell. Whoever made it put a lot of thought into it, but they're inexperienced…ah here we go. Drink…do not think about the taste."

Before Anna could do it herself, the witch stuck the vial's mouth to Anna's bony jaw.

Anna's eyes had been looking around half-lidded through most of the exchange as the Deadly Nightshade wasn't completely worn off. But as she tasted the potion her eye sockets shot open, and she started hacking, her cough dry and grating. As she did, the monsters didn't notice the bookshelf tilting just a little more.

Jack came back in leaning against the doorframe tiredly.

"Well?" he prompted.

Anna got her cough under control and pushed the vial and Helgamine's hands away. "Gah! That's so bitter." She cleared her throat and said a little raspy, "I..love jelly beans." She sighed in relief and relaxed that something about mouse farts or whatever else didn't escape her mouth.

"Hmm. That should have worked…" Helgamine took off her hat and scratched her head in confusion.

"Oh no, it did. I was just testing," Anna assured. "Three kids. Lock, Shock, and Barrel. They…" She trailed off at the expressions on the adults' faces.

They just looked at her, deadpanned and tired.

"You don't seem surprised," she said slowly.

Jack shook his head. "No, we already knew it was them."

"…You didn't say anything," Anna said with a slight groan at the implication that she didn't actually need to subject herself to quotable embarrassment in the first place.

The Mayor muttered something about rules and needing to make sure.

"We needed to fix your voice anyway," Helgamine said, putting her potions away.

"Who are they?"

"Dead meat," the Mayor grumbled. "I have half a mind to…"

"Mayor, please," Jack said. "I'll handle it. They aren't getting away with this."

The Mayor continued to angrily mutter. He held the ice pack with on hand and walked around his study picking up intact objects with his other.

Jack turned to Anna. "They're…just some trouble making children."

"Lock stabbed Barrel for fun and smeared the blood all over the kitchen," Anna deadpanned. "That's a little more than 'trouble making'."

"I know. They have such potential," Jack sighed regretfully while Anna stared at him with a grimace.

When she was alive, she would have laughed at that.

Helgamine glared at nothing in particular, "Those Boogie's Boys. Why we haven't banished them is a mystery to me."

Jack started. Surely, she didn't mean that. "There's still just children."

"They've been children for the past fifty years," Helgamine said, forgetting her usual worry about opposing Jack.

Anna carefully held a blank face as she listened. She didn't know those three kids enough to jump to conclusions, she thought, but being drugged and framed certainly gave her some opinions.

They were mean. They didn't care that they could hurt people or about personal property. Their pranks were so severe that even other citizens were wary of them.

Helgamine, who spent an hour giving a serious critique of Anna's pranking ability with Zeldabourne, was bringing up banishment.

Anna didn't know what that implied, but it couldn't be good.

And who the heck was Boogie (kind of a stupid name) and why was Lock, Shock, and Barrel his or her boys? Especially when one of them is a girl.

"We'll discuss this at a later time," Jack said, shutting off the conversation. "I'll make sure they're disciplined today in addition to having to help clean up in here. Let's get you untied Anna. Do you think we can try detaching your hand?"

Anna shuddered and glanced around, "I don't think so Mr. Skellington."

"It's just Jack, please. And that's alright. We'll just...we just have to wait." Jack glanced out the window.

Maria was taking a while.

"Did you hear me earlier, Jack?" the Mayor asked, furiously gathering a stack of papers and setting them on the bookshelf.

"About them taking every knife in the house? Yes."

"Not just my knives!" The Mayor's spun around completely around, landing back on the unhappy face, "Anything that can be used to cut! Letter opener! My chainsaw!"

"Chainsaw?" Anna said.

"MY CHAINSAW!"

Anna backed off as Jack calmed down the Mayor again.

"They must think this hysterical," Anna grumbled, biting at the knot again. She held her tongue, but she had to admit it was a pretty creative prank if one wasn't concerned with knocking people out and wrecking someone's home. Gears were turning. What to do in retaliation that wouldn't be inappropriate…

Helgamine stood up and dusted herself off. "Maria's taking too long. I'm going to look for something."

Something shifted and caught Jack's socket. He straightened suddenly.

"Look out!"

The other three monsters looked up at his shout as the bookshelf Helga noticed earlier tipped a little more at the weight of the papers the Mayor placed on a shelf.

Anna gasped in a terrified breath as the bookshelf start falling, a dull creak echoing through the room. The rope was keeping her in the path of it, and there wasn't enough time for the adults to try pulling her out if they could.

She panicked and pulled at the roped as the shelf tipped. She needed to escape! "Come on! Come o—."

The air was knocked out of her ribcage as she suddenly came loose and her momentum threw her out of the path of the furniture.

It crashed to the floor with a solid crack that rattled the house. A picture frame fell to the ground after a moment.

"Are you alright?!" Helgamine said. She was too short to help Anna up but did her best to check for fractures.

"I-I'm fine," Anna said stunned as Jack helped her up quickly. She stared at her wrist.

She didn't expect it to be there, thinking it was her arm that popped off.

"Did the rope break?" Jack asked upon noticing Anna in one piece.

He and the Mayor looked at the heavy furniture, the Mayor a little more concerned about the floor damage and cracked shelves. But the newcomer was important too.

It would have broken several bones had it fallen on Anna.

"N-no…" Anna bent down and pulled out the rope. She froze. "That's weird. It untied on both ends…"

"Let me see," Helgamine took the now loosened rope, standing on her toes to reach it from Anna's hand.

Both ends were undamaged and knot-free.

"Perhaps we loosened it," the Mayor suggested.

"But both ends came apart at the same time?" Anna asked. She was in far more disbelief than the adults, knowing just how tight that knot could be.

"Perhaps," Jack said, taking his turn inspecting it. After a moment, he handing it to Anna. "You're very lucky Ms. Anna." The skeleton chuckled, "I should introduce you to an acquaintance of mine. Luck is his thing."

"I guess," Anna mumbled staring between her previously bound wrist, the table leg and the rope that trapped her to it. She probably imagined it, but she thought she saw the rope untie itself.

Helgamine busied herself with straightening a distracted Anna's wrinkled new dress and muttered. "I think that's enough excitement for today. Let Jack handle those imps."

Anna mumbled something.

How does a rope untie from both ends at the same time so perfectly? It doesn't make sense. Even with two supposed "weak" spots, something has to give first.

Why was she so bothered by this?! That's just silly. It probably just slipped loose…somehow.

Now her headache was back…great…