Chapter 3: Blinded by the Light
Outside the Loud House, in the middle of the driveway, lied Luna Loud staring up at the sun. It was a (failing) attempt to get her brain working again and end her terrible writer's block. Unfortunately, her writer's blocks always seemed to sync with the rest of the bands' writer's blocks. Sully and Mazzy weren't interested in writing lyrics but pitched some ideas once in awhile, while Sam had been writing lyrics since she could pick up a pencil.
Luna sighed happily. Sam. As the sun baked her skin, she thought about all the music she wrote with Sam as her inspiration. Sam was her muse, her partner who easily bounced-off of Luna's own ideas for music. She just wished she could use the inspiration she got from Sam to think of something now.
"Luna?!"
Luna blinked against her blurry vision and turned her head slightly to see Sam clutching a bunch of newspapers, face filled with concern. Beside her, a nonchalant Lola also looked down at Luna.
"I told you she was being weird," Lola sighed as she walked away. "I don't know what you see in her…"
Sam waved the newspapers at Luna's head like a fan. "What are you doing lying out here?"
Luna sighed drearily, "I can't shake this writer's block, Brah! Please tell me you've cured yours?"
Sam plopped down besides her girlfriend and sighed, "Nope… This is really frustrating. Simon and I tried playing video games to see if that would help, but all I got is that I'm terrible at rhythm games, which, y'know, no big surprise there." She looked down at the baking Luna. "…Is lying in the sun actually working?"
Luna was quiet for a moment before she asked, "…Do you see the rainbow spots too?"
Sam stood up, pulling Luna up with her. "I'll take that as a no. Come on; let's go inside before you pass out."
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Once inside, Luna lied on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on her forehead. Sam sat by her on the arm of the couch, looking down at the newspapers she brought with her.
"Okay, so, you know that song 'Jeremy'?" Sam began. "Well, Eddie Vedder based the song off a newspaper article he read about a kid and what happened to him."
Luna reached out with one hand while the other held down the peas to her forehead. Sam handed her some newspapers and settled back down with her own.
"In fact, a lot of rock and roll songs are inspired by real events, so, I figured, we can look through some local newspapers for inspiration," Sam explained.
Luna sat up, letting the peas fall onto her lap. "I dunno, Sam. I really doubt we'll find anything interesting in Royal Woods news."
Sam was already reading through one of her papers. "You never know." She grinned playfully at Luna. "Small towns have a lot of secrets…"
Luna chuckled and shook her head, unfolding one newspaper to read through it. "You watch way too much tv if you believe that."
The two girls read silently. After a few minutes of flipping pages and sighing, Luna looked over at Sam.
"Anything?" Luna asked.
Sam looked bored. "The Mayor got a new instrument she's introducing at the Royal Woods Marathon… You got anything?"
Luna peered down at her paper. "Local kids break the World Record for the biggest used gum art piece."
Sam stuck out her tongue. "Bleh..." She began to desperately flip through the papers. "There's gotta be something in here!"
Luna tossed her papers over her head. "Face it, Brah. We live in Lames-ville, USA."
Sam jumped off the arm of the couch. "Yeah…maybe you're right. We gotta think of something else."
Suddenly, Lynn Jr. jogged down the stairs, huffing and puffing loudly as she swung her arms. She jumped off the last three stairs and began touching her toes at a rapid pace. Once she noticed Sam and Luna were watching her, she stopped and began doing arm stretches.
"Hey Couch Potatoes! I overheard you two need a way to cure your writer's blocks?" Lynn Jr. greeted as she began to squat.
"Yeah, we're in big trouble, Dude. We gotta think of a new song for our next show," Luna explained.
Lynn Jr. nodded in understanding and put her hands on her hips. "Well, nothing gets the blood flowing like a good run!" She inspected Sam and Luna's clothing. "Hmm…well, you two aren't dressed for a run… Luna! Let Sam borrow some shorts and put on some of your own! Let's go, Ladies! I'm going to run your brains until you think of something good!"
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Sam picked at the shorts Luna gave her. Because she was taller than Luna and had slightly larger hips, the shorts she was given were riding up her legs. She winced when a hand slapped her hand away from her shorts.
"Ow!" Sam complained, withdrawing her hand to rub it with her other one.
Lynn Jr. blew a whistle near Sam's ears, making the blonde stumble away painfully. "Quit picking and start running!"
Luna rushed over to Sam's side and took her shoulders. "Dude! Take it easy on Sam!"
Lynn Jr. scowled at them. "Taking it easy doesn't get the blood flowing! Now come on, let's start off in a jog!"
Sam shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears and gave Luna a shrug. Luna sighed as Sam jogged around her to follow Lynn Jr. who was already jogging down the street while blowing her whistle. Luna sighed and reluctantly began to follow Sam in a pace slightly slower than hers.
As Luna jogged, she looked around at the trees, the houses, the children playing on the street, the elderly couples seated on their porches watching the world go by…nothing inspirational. She sighed and turned her attention to Sam jogging infront of her. Without the view of her teal-streaked hair, and without any skulls or rock and roll accessories, Sam looked…normal. It was strange, seeing Sam look like every other girl in their school that Luna didn't find as interesting and cool as Sam.
Her mind wandered to a distant future: would they be a normal suburban couple in a boring town too? Sam would probably be an animal doctor and Luna…well, all she knew was rock and roll…what would she be doing if she was "normal" too? Would they end up two old ladies just sitting on their porch, bored and tired all the time? Luna felt her heart begin to race even harder than it was from jogging. She paused and thought: this sense of dread, an unknown future, the thought that her dreams of being a rock star could never come true…
…Inspirational.
The hopelessness and feelings of frustration about life was almost every 90s/early 2000s alternative rock's anthem: Green Day, Nirvana, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine...
Luna gleefully cheered, "Sam! Lynn! Dudes! I think something's coming to me!"
Luna checked around her body: she needed paper and a pen, fast! She patted herself down and came to the horrible realization that she didn't have any. Luna then checked for her phone…she had left that in her skirt back in her room when she changed into a pair of shorts…
"Sam-!" Luna called out to her girlfriend, silently praying she had the sense that Luna lacked to bring any of those things.
Sam turned to Luna with a bright smile, sweat glistening on her soft skin, her cheeks a pretty shade of red.
Luna blushed hard at how gorgeous her girlfriend was…and then tripped over her own feet. "Woooah!"
She fell over onto Sam who then knocked into Lynn, sending all three girls crashing to the ground with a yelp.
Lynn Jr. glared up at Sam and Luna who were sprawled out on top of her. "Luna! You ruined it! Get down and give me twenty, Missy!"
Luna leaped into the air and landed on the sidewalk, arms stretched out in front of her as she bolted back towards the house. "Sorry Lynn, Sam and I gotta go! I need a paper and pen now before the feeling leaves me!"
Sam raised an eyebrow as she watched Luna speed back down the street. "…Feeling?" She shook her head and rushed after her girlfriend. "Wait up!"
Luna heard Sam call out to her and turned to see the blonde closing in on her. Luna's mind thought about when she and Sam would playfully race each other when they went out on dates and how much fun it was. She would sometimes be merciful and let Sam win and-
"No! Think about the rage! The hopelessness! Dreams shattered, Dude!" Luna pled to her brain.
Sam panted and watched Luna leap up the stairs to the Loud House porch before the girl stopped, both hands on the door and her head slumped between her outstretched arms. Sam skidded to a halt after climbing the stairs.
"…Lunes?" Sam asked.
Luna sighed, "…I lost it…"
Sam sighed too and patted Luna's back.
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After changing back into their regular clothes, Luna and Sam sat slumped against each other on the couch. A whistling came from inside the kitchen and suddenly Lynn Sr. appeared holding a frying pan.
"Hey Girls!" he greeted cheerfully.
"Hey Popstar…" "Hi Mr. Loud…" Luna and Sam greeted unenthusiastically in unison.
Lynn Sr. looked at Luna and then at Sam, confused. "What's wrong, Girls? You two are usually so energetic!"
"Writer's block," Luna sighed.
"Hmmm…well you know what inspires me? Trying new kinds of food! Here, come in the kitchen and I'll show you what new recipe I'm working on for the restaurant!" Lynn Sr. said.
The two girls dropped off the couch and sulked into the kitchen. When they entered the kitchen, they both stopped and smelled the delicious aromas in the air. Lynn Sr. grinned as he opened the lid to the boiling crockpot seated on the counter.
"I'm making Greek lemon chicken with potatoes!" Lynn Sr. announced. He grabbed two small bowls with two forks and then handed them to Sam and Luna. He then scooped some of the food out into each bowl. "Try it, and close your eyes…"
The two girls tasted Lynn Sr.'s creation with their eyes closed.
"…And imagine Greece. The beautiful ocean views, the rolling green hills and valleys…the ancient wonders above and even more hidden beneath its surfaces and down the depths of its clear blue waters…" Lynn Sr.'s voice was like the butter he baked with.
Sam could vividly see it, and soon she found herself sitting on the beach with her guitar in hand, looking out over the ocean. She suddenly heard lyrics slowly begin to form in her head as she strummed a peaceful tune.
"Wow!" Luna gasped, suddenly seated next to her with her bowl. "You've really outdone yourself, Popstar! This is the best chicken I've ever tasted!"
Lynn Sr. appeared on the other side of Sam. "That's what the farmer guaranteed…" He held up a chicken in one hand by its neck. "…When he sold me one fresh off the butcher's block!"
Sam's guitar screeched to a halt, her eyes wide and her pupils small. She was thrown back in reality, hands trembling as she held her bowl.
Lynn Sr. continued, unaware of Sam's current horrified expression. "Yup! While your mother and I were participating in the Astonishing Quest, I made a few deals with that local farm we had to pick eggs from!"
Sam slowly looked into her bowl, imagining all of the cute chickens she saw on that farm with Luna.
"What do you think Sam? Good, right?" Luna asked, finally turning to her girlfriend. Luna looked surprised when she saw Sam staring into her bowl. One of Sam's lower eyelids twitched. "…Sam?"
Suddenly, the reason why Sam looked so upset clicked for Luna and she quickly took Sam's bowl away and placed it back on the counter with her own empty one.
"Thanks for the meal! I think that really helped!" Luna lied as she quickly turned the frozen-in-place Sam around and pushed her out of the kitchen.
Lynn Sr. waved after them. "Glad I could help!" He put his hands on his hips and chuckled. "Lynn Loud, you are the world's greatest father and chef extraordinaire…"
Once back in the living room, Luna stepped infront of Sam and waved her hand infront of her girlfriend's vacant stare. Sam's eyelid twitched again but she remained still.
"Hey Luna!" Lincoln greeted as he and Clyde entered the house.
The two boys stopped and looked at Sam, confused. Luna looked at them, then at Sam, and then chuckled nervously with a shrug.
"That is a look of someone with serious emotional trauma," Clyde said with a sad shake of his head. He reached into his pocket. "I think I have Doctor Lopez's card here somewhere…"
Lincoln, his laptop under his arm, looked at Luna and motioned to Sam with his thumb. "What happened to Sam?"
Luna sighed, "She got scarred-for-life while Popstar was trying to help break our writer's blocks."
Clyde gave up his search and turned to Luna happily. "Oh! Those are easy to break! All you got to do is listen to someone who really inspires you talk about their own inspirations!"
Lincoln nodded in agreement. "Yeah! You and Sam like Mick Swagger, right? Push Sam over to the couch – I'll pull up an interview with him on my laptop!"
Luna shrugged and pushed Sam after Lincoln and Clyde who ran off towards the couch. Lincoln sat down and set down his laptop on his knees. He began to type as Luna pushed Sam behind the couch to face on one side of Lincoln and then stood behind her. Clyde sat down on the couch next to Lincoln, watching his friend type in 'Mick Swagger interview inspiration' into the search bar.
"I found one!" Lincoln announced and clicked on the video.
The interview was with a much younger Mick and a female reporter.
"So tell me, where does the famous Mick Swagger get his inspiration from?" the giddy, blonde reporter asked.
Sam snapped out of it and leaned closer to the laptop with Luna, both listening intensely. Lincoln looked smugly at Clyde, believing their idea was going to work.
"Inspiration? Why, the entire world is inspirational! Any musician that can't find inspiration in everything isn't a musician in my book, Luv," Mick bragged.
Luna and Sam's faces fell. Lincoln and Clyde looked worriedly at them.
"W-well, he was young in this interview! I bet his ideas have changed a lot!" Clyde reassured.
"…And my belief about that will never change! No matter how old I get!" Mick continued.
Luna and Sam looked completely devastated as Lincoln slammed his laptop down to cut off the rest of the video.
"…M-maybe that was a bad idea! I mean – people believe different things! Mick was just…uh…born inspired!" Lincoln said quickly as he got up and scooted backwards towards the stairs with Clyde by his side.
"W-well, catch you later! Good luck with those writer's blocks!" Clyde called out before the two turned and raced up the stairs.
They passed Lori, Leni, and Rita who were walking down the stairs with laundry piled in their arms. The three made their way into the living room and almost tripped over Sam and Luna curled up on the floor behind the couch, their hearts shattered into pieces.
"Uh…?" Lori said as she carefully stepped over Sam and Luna. "Are you two okay?"
"Hm…" Rita inspected the two girls. "I know those looks…writer's blocks, am I right?"
Leni perked up. "Ooo, blocks! Can I play too?"
Luna sat back up. "We might as well hang up our guitars! Mick never has these problems – he sees songs in everything!"
Rita rolled her eyes. "Did he really say that?" Luna and Sam nodded sadly at her. Rita clicked her tongue and put one hand on her hip. "Please, everyone gets blocks. Writers, artists, rock stars, everyone. Of course he's not going to say 'I sit in me bloomers and eat ice cream when I can't think of anything to write,' but everyone does that."
Sam lifted her head off the ground. "Is that what you do, Mrs. Loud? Does it work?"
Rita eyes popped wide open as she froze in place. Her eyes darted to Luna and Sam, then over at Lori and Leni, all four girls waiting curiously for her answer.
Rita finally let out a nervous laugh as she quickly gathered the clothes from Leni and Lori. "N-no, not me! I definitely don't do that and certainly not while crying! Anyway! I have to go do laundry now, bye!"
The four girls watched Rita hurry away with confused stares.
Lori shrugged and nodded to the kitchen. "Well, I know what gets my mind going – Dad's food! Maybe you and Sam can get some inspiration from-"
Sam whimpered and curled back up in a ball. Luna quickly slid over to Sam and hovered over her.
"Uh…we tried that already," Luna quickly interrupted.
Leni bounced onto on foot. "Oh! Oh! You know what food really inspires me? The sushi from Flip's! You know, those little sushi containers with the dates crossed off and 'Expires Never' written on them in black marker? Eat some of those, and you'll see lots of pretty things!"
Luna's face turned green and she slapped one hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting.
Lori stared at her sister with her jaw dropped. "Leni! You will literally die if you eat those!"
Leni looked confused. "But, I'm alive! …I think…" She gasped. "Oh no! Is this all a dream?!"
Lori sighed and led Leni into the kitchen. "Come on, Leni. Let's get you some real food."
Luna watched her sisters go into the kitchen before she stood up with a groan. "Well Sam, we tried. I guess we'll just have to cancel the show…"
Sam stood up and held Luna's shoulders. "C'mon, Lunes! There's gotta be some inspiration in this town!"
Lucy was now standing behind Sam. "Try the graveyard."
Sam and Luna shrieked and jumped into the air. When they saw it was Lucy, they calmed down with a sigh of relief.
"The graveyard? Nah, that's too dark," Luna said.
Lucy was holding a black journal in one hand, and a pencil with a bat eraserhead in the other. "There is a lot of history and interesting stories in the graveyard. The people buried there all have stories...stories that need to be told."
Luna frowned. "Hmm, I dunno…"
Sam turned to Luna and spread her arms at her sides. "It's worth a try – we got no other ideas."
Lucy's face grew dark and her eyes seemed to blaze behind her bangs. "At the back of the graveyard, is a witch's stone. Seek it and you will find all the inspiration you need."
Sam and Luna stared down at Lucy with matching frightened expressions. Luna hugged Sam and Sam clung back as a crash echoed and a flash of lightning lit up the room behind them…or so it seemed.
Lori flopped out of the kitchen, her phone in one hand and a bunch of pans spilled besides her. "Ouch! Dang it! That's the last time I try doing a kitchen selfie…"
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Sam and Luna approached the Royal Woods Cemetery slowly, eyes widening as they approached the creaking gates. They stopped under the gate entrance and peered inside.
"Dude, I cannot believe we're doing this," Luna shuddered.
"We're desperate, Lunes," Sam reminded as she began to walk under the gate. "Besides, it's still light out. We won't see any ghosts."
Luna nervously followed her girlfriend. "I-I don't think that's how ghosts work, Sam…"
Sam paused, turned to Luna, smiled and reached out her hand. Luna gratefully accepted it and they walked hand-in-hand towards the administration building. Once inside, they saw an old man sweeping the floors.
"Excuse me, Sir," Sam called out to him. When the old man looked up, she continued, "Can you point us to the general direction of the historical side of the graveyard? We're looking for a certain stone."
The old man raised his bushy eyebrows. "You girls interested in Royal Woods history?"
"Something like that," Luna replied. "My lil' sis hangs out here all the time with her friends, and she told us if we can find the Witch's stone, it will help us write music again."
The old man chuckled as he wiped the sweat off his dark forehead. "I don't know about that…but I'm happy to help...as long as you two aren't here to cause any shenanigans infront of that grave!"
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
The old man shook his head sadly. "You kids act like there isn't a person under that grave… Bringing candles, and those Wii-Gee Boards, a-and the costumes! 'Trying to disturb the dead and the peace of the graveyard for some cheap yucks!"
Luna shook her head and reassured, "N-no sir, not us. We're just here to see what my sister was talking about."
"We promise we won't do anything that will disturb anyone, living or, y'know, dead," Sam agreed.
The old man eyed them hard, but eventually he rubbed his chin and slowly nodded his head. He nodded at them and led them back outside.
He pointed down one of the paved roads with a bony finger. "You girls just keep walking that-a-way and you'll come to a big, blue old-looking sign where the entrance to this graveyard use to be way back when. The Witch is with the unmarked graves by an old church."
"Thank you!" Sam thanked.
"Yeah, thanks Brah! You're a life saver!" Luna thanked him as well.
The two girls began walking at a brisk pace down the road.
"Just be careful! Sometimes there are some real weirdos that hang out in that area! Don't want nothing happening to you polite, young ladies!" the old groundskeeper called out to them as they hurried down the road. "And don't disrespect the Witch!"
Luna glanced over her shoulder and then turned to Sam with an uneasy look on her face. "…How would we know if we're disrespecting a witch?"
Sam laughed lightly, "Don't worry; he's probably just trying to scare us."
Luna gulped and turned back to the road. [Already done…]
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Sam stood on a small hill and cupped one hand over her eyes to look into the distance. They had passed the old graveyard entrance sign a few feet back, and now they just had to find the church. She glanced up at the sky: it was getting close to evening time. Then, off in the distance, she saw a small steeple that looked like it was ready to cave in at any time.
"There!" Sam called to Luna who stood at the bottom of the hill, fingers nervously clasped together.
"Phew! We're not lost," Luna sighed with relief as Sam slid down the hill to join her side.
Sam grinned. "Have I ever gotten us lost before?"
Luna laughed and hugged Sam's neck with one arm, bringing Sam down to her level. "Uh, yeah! A lot, Sam!"
Sam's grin stretched. "Well, if you don't like getting lost with me, don't let me lead."
She playfully tossed her hair at Luna, causing Luna to let her go with a giggle. Sam marched off towards the direction of the church with a satisfied smirk.
Luna laughed again and chased after Sam. "Who said anything about not liking it? I like it, I like it, I like it!"
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a shadowy figure dash between graves. Luna froze and whirled around to see what it was. There was nothing there. She rubbed her eyes, shook her head, and dashed after Sam. Once she was by Sam, she grabbed Sam's hand with both of hers and checked around them. Sam looked at her, confused.
"What's up?" Sam asked. "You look pale."
Luna ignored her for a second and looked closely around them. Seeing that there were no other movements, she sighed with relief.
"I'm good," Luna lied. "Let's keep going, sorry."
Sam smiled gently. "Stay close to me, I'll protect you."
Luna laughed and let Sam haul her off. "With what, your hair?"
"Uh, just so you know…I am a ghost and zombie expert," Sam joked in a fake bragging voice. "Simon taught me how to play 'Resident Evil,' and I only screamed ten times during the game. And out of those ten, only twice were with tears."
Luna laughed; Sam always knew how to lighten the mood. "Wow… My girlfriend is so brave…"
"I know," Sam giggled.
They came to the church and looked up its crumbling walls and half-caved roof. Then they turned and looked at the stretch of unmarked graves and graves that were so faded, they were now illegible.
"Dude…how sad is this?" Luna asked as she squatted down to one marker that just had a small, orange flag on it. "They're in the back of a cemetery, completely forgotten about."
Sam wanted to joke that she didn't think corpses cared about being forgotten, but knew it would be in bad taste when she saw Luna's sad expression. "Yeah… And what's up with the whole 'Witch' thing?"
Luna turned her head slightly and then paled. On a stone much larger than the others were the words: Here Lies a Witch. She shrieked and fell backwards onto her bottom, then kicked herself backwards to wrap herself around Sam's legs.
"I-I-I-I think I know why!" Luna wailed and pointed to the stone.
Sam looked at the stone, jaw dropped. "W-why isn't there a name on there?"
Luna shot up and grabbed Sam's hand. "I think I've been inspired to run away, Dude!"
Suddenly, out of nowhere, came a sharp hiss.
"Ssh!" it was a female voice.
Luna froze and clung to Sam who was too scared to make a move.
Another voice, this time a croaking male's voice. "Let her rest. She did not deserve this fate…"
Sam's knees knocked together as Luna crawled up her body to wrap herself around Sam's torso. "W-who's there?!"
A shadowy figure darted behind the church, causing Sam to gasp and turn her and Luna to that direction.
"Oh cruel world…" a whispery girl's voice mourned.
Luna finally pulled herself together and jumped off Sam, clutching her girlfriend's hand in her own. "W-whoever this is, this is not funny, Dudes! Have some respect for the dead!"
Sam found her strength and squeezed Luna's hand. "Yeah! How would you like it if people were playing games over your graves?!"
"Gasp," Lucy deadpanned from behind them. "You two understand."
Sam and Luna screamed and jumped forward into the air with surprise. Luna landed on her face while Sam stumbled onto her feet but then fell over the Witch's gravestone, landing right infront of a brown, medium-sized historical marker with a paragraph of text on it. Sam blinked as she looked up at the marker they hadn't seen before.
"DUDE!" Luna shrieked as she sat up on her knees to face Lucy, wheezing and clutching her heart. "Are you TRYING to give us heart attacks?!"
Lucy's face remained emotionless, but Luna could hear regret in her voice. "I'm sorry; we got excited because you two were going to write a song about Celine."
"We?" Luna asked, gulping in another breath to still her rapidly beating heart. "Celine?"
Out from behind the church and the stones, the Mortician's Club stepped into the light of day.
"We apologize as well," Haiku said. "We didn't mean to scare you, we just got too excited someone wanted to know the story of Celine, or, the Witch."
Luna looked between the dead expressions of all the members and wondered how anyone would know whether or not they were excited. Sam rolled backwards to Luna and grabbed the end of her shirt.
"Lunes! Check it out! There's a whole story here!" Sam said as she pointed to the marker. "It's really...sad."
Lucy stepped past the girls and squatted down to the marker. "Before the graveyard got the new groundskeeper that you met before, nobody was curious to see who was actually buried here. Back during the days of the Salem Witch Trials, a young woman from Royal Woods went to Salem to replace a doctor there who had passed. She was intelligent and ahead of her time, so the people thought all the new medicines and treatments she had was witchcraft."
"They found her guilty of witchcraft at a joke of a trial and sentenced her to death with others," Dante croaked.
Persephone motioned to the grave. "They brought her back here, but the town would not let her family put her actual name on the gravestone."
Lucy stood and clenched her fists. "We were the ones who researched the story behind the grave, to find out the truth. When we found this grave, it had been ruined by people coming in and disrespecting it. It made us angry. After all, if we lived back then, we would've been found guilty of witchcraft too just by our looks and our interests."
Sam touched her heart with both hands. "So then the groundskeeper made this marker?"
Lucy nodded. "Yes." She turned to Luna. "We're sorry, we just want her story to be known…and we knew you two could write something amazing, but, we didn't want to wait to hear it."
"You touched our icy hearts when you stood up for the dead too, thinking we were playing cemetery games," Haiku added. "We couldn't sit still and be silent any longer."
Luna scratched the back of her head. "Dudes…wow…that was really cool of you guys." She grinned and waved them off. "It's all good! Sam and I are two chickens anyway, we get scared by everything!"
"Uh, says you!" Sam teased. "You were crawling all over me…not that I minded very much…"
Luna gave her an embarrassed grin and blushed. "Eh heh…"
"Hiss! Love!" Robert hissed as he shielded himself with an arm and took off blindly.
Luna and Sam blinked after him and then turned back to each other.
"Well, I don't know about you, Lunes, but I'm pumped to start writing some lyrics!" Sam cheered.
"Heck yeah, Dude! I can hear the shredding of our guitars now!" Luna agreed enthusiastically.
"Hurray," Lucy deadpanned with a slight hint of cheer in her voice.
"For Celine," Haiku also "cheered" with an equal lack of enthusiasm on her face.
The other club members hissed and groaned in agreement. Suddenly, a golf cart zoomed up to them driven by the groundskeeper. He grinned at the scene and stepped out of his cart.
"You found it! I was getting worried I got you both lost!" he laughed. He nodded at the sky. "Come on, I'll give you all a ride back! It's getting dark now."
Luna sighed with relief. "Thanks, Brah! …Not that we would've been scared or anything…heh…."
Sam playfully elbowed Luna. "Let's face it, fellow chicken: we both would've ended up scared and crying the entire night."
Luna laughed, "True!"
The groundskeeper laughed and then turned to the Mortician's Club members. "Okay, pile in everybody!"
Lucy took a step backwards in sync with her club. "Don't worry about us; we have our own way to get back."
Suddenly, a flurry of bats blocked Sam, Luna, and the groundskeeper's views. When they looked again once the bats were gone, the Mortician's Club members were also nowhere to be seen.
The groundskeeper leaned over to the stunned Luna and Sam. "…I told you there were weirdos out here…"
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A few days later, Sam and Luna raced down the street towards Mazzy's house, guitars strapped to their backs.
"Aw man! I really love what we wrote! Mazzy and Sully are going to flip!" Sam panted.
Luna grinned. "Yeah! We did it, Dude!"
Sam smiled and leaned over to give a quick kiss to Luna's cheek. Luna whooped happily and ran even faster with the new burst of energy she got from the simple kiss. When the two girls got to Mazzy's open garage, they skidded to a halt, both panting hard and holding their knees. Sully and Mazzy looked up from their instruments, also grinning.
"D-dudes!" Luna panted breathlessly. "You're…never…gonna-!"
"Hey, Dudes!" Sully greeted, throwing his arms out into the air. "Mazzy and I got a huge surprise for you two!"
Luna and Sam were too busy trying to catch their breath to question Sully.
Mazzy stood up from her drummer's seat with a toothy grin. "Sully and I felt bad that we always put so much pressure on you two to write new songs! So…we wrote one ourselves!"
"W-wait…what…?" Luna panted.
"Surprise!" Sully cheered. "Turns out, Mazzy and I are pretty good at it! So we wrote…drumroll please!"
Mazzy grabbed her drumsticks and tapped on her drums to make a drumroll sound. She hit her symbol when Sully held up a bunch of papers into the air.
"…Ten songs!" he announced.
Luna and Sam stood stunned, both gawking up at their friends. Sam's long bangs unstuck themselves from her sweaty forehead and covered both of her eyes.
"Woo! How great is that?!" Mazzy cheered as she tossed her drumsticks behind her head, letting them crash somewhere behind her.
Luna and Sam remained bent over, holding their knees, hair in their faces, and mouths hanging open in the breeze.
Sully and Mazzy waited for a response, but got none.
"Uh…dudes?" Sully asked. "…Are you two okay…?"
Meanwhile, in the graveyard, by the Witch's stone, Lucy placed a red rose down on the ground. She sat down next to the stone and smiled upwards. A small orb of light slowly lowered near the flower curiously, and then darted up back into the sky, happy and free. For some reason, Lucy could have sworn she heard Celine giggling.