Very soon, an interesting collection of relatives started to arrive at the hotel. Vaggie's mother Inez was a moth demon just like her daughter but she had a large set of greyish-brown wings. Niffty's grandparents had gone to Heaven when they died so they resembled their younger selves, Husk's sister and her children had also gone to Heaven. Poor things, they were killed in a house fire which according to Husk was the exact moment he had lost the ability to love. Luckily though, that feeling returned whenever they were in his presence.
"Uncle Husk!" A very pale yet rosy-cheeked girl with a circle of glittering silver set in her auburn hair ran straight for Husk as soon as the front door opened. For the first time ever since anyone at the hotel had met him, Husk smiled with bright joy and cheerfulness, and for a split second, it looked like he was about to cry.
"Anya, oh I've missed you so much." He immediately picked up the child and hugged her tight.
Two more children came up to him, a boy who also had auburn hair and a slightly older girl who had strawberry-blonde hair. Husk held them both as tight as the youngest child. The group hug was then joined by a lovely strawberry-blonde woman who greatly resembled the oldest child but had green eyes like the two younger ones.
"So you really did become a giant cat." The woman giggled. "Honestly, I like this look for you. You look just like Sergei, the stray cat we used to feed."
"Ha-ha! Very funny Bridget ." He said with a sour tone.
His sister turned toward Alastor.
"Excuse me, where are the restrooms in this place?"
"First one is just down the hall." Alastor said.
"Alright, Eva." She spoke to the oldest child. "Take your brother and sister to wash up for dinner while I get us settled into our rooms."
"Alright Mama." She said, ushering her younger siblings down that hall. Alastor and Husk then escorted Bridget to the room had been reserved for her and her children. As soon as Alastor left them alone in that room, Bridget threw her arms around her brother in a much softer embrace and allowed a few tears to shed from her eyes.
"Oh Harlin, you can't imagine how much I've missed you."
"Me too baby sis." He said. "Me too. I never thought I'd see you or the kids again. How is it up there?"
"It's wonderful. Really it is." His sister said. "You know there's this beautiful field where the children play and they can run around for hours without ever getting tired. Jesus will come by and play with them and he's every bit as magnificent as I knew he'd be. More so even."
"So there really is nothing wrong up there?"
"Well those cherubs can be a little annoying." Bridget admitted. "Especially this deer one. I think one day she might end up falling."
The two siblings laughed, but then Husk's face became one of guilt and shame, tears were now in his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"Can you ever forgive me?" He asked her.
"Forgive you?" Bridget asked him confused. "For what?"
For a moment he was silent, trying to figure out the proper words to use and almost afraid to what her reaction would be once he spoke them to her.
"That night..." He choked out. "The night of the fire...It wasn't an accident...I...I owed money to some people...Money that I borrowed for gambling...They said that if I didn't pay them back, they'd make me sorry. I thought they were going to kill me so I skipped town. But it turns out they...They made me suffer by doing something far worse. They set fire to your apartment building, they killed you and the kids to punish me."
He was now down on his knees, unable to look his sister in the eyes.
"Bridget I'm so sorry." He sobbed. "When I chased away that wife beater of yours, I promised you that I'd take care of you and the kids in his place, but then I let gambling takeover my life and it got you all killed. I hated myself so much, I spent the rest of my life punishing myself. I gambled, I drank, I got into fights, I killed people, I even committed blasphemy. I couldn't forgive myself, I just wanted to make myself suffer for what I did to you."
Bridget slowly crumbled to the floor and took her older brother into her arms.
"Oh Harlin, no wonder you're so tortured." She sobbed along with him. "Harlin we love you and we never blamed you for what happened. It wasn't your fault."
"Yes it was. If I had just stopped gambling-"
"You didn't set the fire and you didn't know those men would come after us. You didn't know. Oh my poor big brother." She held him tighter. "You've been punishing yourself all these years and there was no need to. Please forgive yourself and maybe...Maybe someday you can join us in Heaven."
"I don't know if I can ever forgive myself."
"At least try." She pleaded. "Try. Try for me and for my children."
"I'll...Try."
He wrapped his arms around her and held her so close.
"Now I think that's enough tears for now." She said wiping her eyes. "Listen you know what my kids haven't been talking about non-stop since I told them that we'd be seeing you again?"
"What?"
"Seeing one of your magic tricks." She smiled. "Will you perform one for them?"
"I'll perform as many as they want." He smiled back.
Meanwhile, Niffty was having an equally sweet reunion with her grandparents. They complimented her cleaning skills and went on and on about how to them, she was still the prettiest girl in the world. And not once did they say anything about her one-eye.
"You did a marvelous job Natalie." Said her grandfather who appeared not much older than his granddaughter.
"I wanted everything to be perfect just for you two." Niffty said.
"Well it is." Her equally young looking grandmother said.
"Good. Now is there anything I can get you? Something to eat or drink?"
"No dear. We just want to sit and talk with you. We haven't seen you in so long."
"Okay." They sat down in the drawing room.
"So what's new?" Her grandfather asked.
"Not much. I'm still unmarried but I'm working on it."
"Well there's nothing wrong with not being married."
"Not according to Mother." Niffty giggled. "Remember what she always said? To have the perfect life, you must become the perfect wife."
Her grandparents briefly looked at each other regretfully.
"Yes we know."
"And that's something we've been meaning to discuss with you." Her grandmother said. "Honey, we saw the way your mother and father raised you. Now I don't mean to speak ill of my daughter but...She...She..."
"She and that louse she married ruined you." Her grandfather said.
"George!" His wife scolded.
"I'm sorry Eugenia, but it's true. Our daughter married that beast and she allowed him mistreat her own daughter and worse, raised her child to believe that she would be nothing if she couldn't become a housewife, and look where it caused her to end up."
"You're disappointed in me?" Niffty asked.
"No." George said lovingly. "Not you. We're disappointed in your mother. She knew what she was doing to you was wrong, we raised her better than that. But she was desperate to please your bastard father, that she ignored her values and morals. That's why we tried to get custody of you. But your father was a rich lawyer and it was the 50's so...We lost the case."
"And even worse, after that your mother kept us from you. Saying we'd try to poison you against her." Eugenia said. "Which we never did. Despite our disproval, we never spoke ill of her."
"I know." Niffty said. "I remember. In fact this is the first time I've ever heard either one of you say anything negative about Mother."
"But maybe we should of." George said. "Excuse me, maybe we should have just spoke the truth about her to you. Then you wouldn't have followed her example."
"But that could have led to Hillary taking her away from us sooner." Eugenia said. "And we didn't want to turn you against your mother, we just wanted her to realize the mistakes she was making and raise you right."
"Do you still love Mother?" Niffty asked.
"Of course we do. She's our daughter, we'll never stop loving her." George said. "And we've forgiven her, and we've tried to contact her but she still blame us for everything that went wrong in her life."
"Do you forgive me?" Niffty asked. "I know you couldn't possibly be proud of the things I did."
"Well you're right." George said. "We're not very proud of the fact that you stalked and terrorized half the unmarried men in town, but there's nothing to forgive. You never did anything to hurt us. But we hope that you can forgive us."
"Me forgive you?" She said surprised at the notion. "What do I have to forgive?"
"We didn't try harder to get you away from your parents. We should have appealed, we should have fought harder."
"Grandpa there's nothing you could have done." Niffty said taking his hand. "If God himself had ordered the judge to grant you custody he still would have ruled in my father's favor."
"Maybe it was the way we raised Hillary." Eugenia said. "We did spoil her but we were strict. But perhaps, not strict enough?"
"Grandma, sometimes it's not anything the parents did." Niffty said. "And in the end, Mother was an adult. She could make her own decisions. She made them and she has to reap what she sewed. As do I, I can't blame Mother and Father for how I ended up down here. And neither should you."
"We know but...You definitely wouldn't have ended up down here if we had raised you. We would have raised you to believe that you were special no matter what you did. That getting married and having a family was something done out of love, not obligation. And a woman's opportunities may have been limited back then but there were still other things she could do. I served in the Red Cross during the war, you know?"
"Yeah and that's how she met me." George said before kissing his wife's cheek. "Marriage and family didn't cross our minds until after we fell in love. Before that, all we cared about was committing to the war. Though, in some cases maybe that's not the best goal."
Niffty laughed.
"Well you'll both be happy to know that I'm getting better." Niffty said. "I still want to get married but I'm not stalking people anymore. And I have friends now. Really good friends that care about me."
"That's great Natalie. We're very proud of you."
The once elderly couple stood up from the sofa and embraced their beloved grandchild.
"You know I can't get used to how young you two look now." Niffty teased.
"Well we can't get used to you having one eye." George said, which led to both of them laughing out loud.
From the shadows, Alastor was watching them with a smile. In all the years he had known Husk and Niffty, he had never seen them so happy. The smiles they made upon being reunited with their families was unlike anything he had ever seen. He didn't think such joy was even possible for them. At least down here. But as someone once said,
"Never question miracles."
Speaking of miracles, it would be one hell of a miracle if Charlie still wanted to pursue a relationship with him once he met his father. As much as Alastor loved both his parents, his father had a long history of influencing what people thought of his son. You could say, his father was the reason Alastor never had friends as a child.
"Hi! We're back!" Charlie said entering the hotel with extreme excitement. She had made herself all dolled up for dinner. Her blond hair was curled up into a little bob and she was wearing a cream-colored sundress with a cherry-red sweater jacket. Alastor thought that she looked absolutely beautiful.
"Judging by the parked cars outside." Charlie continued. "it seems we have other guests coming in."
"Yes we do." He confirmed. "Where are your parents and your uncle?"
Charlie sighed.
"Not even five minutes in the limo and Dad already picked a fight with Uncle Gabriel. They're fighting about God's views on drinking...Again."
"For the millionth time Lucifer!" They heard a voice call from an open window. "Drinking is not a sin. It's just drinking too much that's sinful. Jesus himself could turn water into wine for goodness sake."
"Oh yeah?" They heard Lucifer argue back. "Then how come I was punished for drinking at that wedding?"
"You weren't punished for drinking! You were punished for getting so drunk that you tried to sexually harass the bride!" The first voice counter-argued.
"Wait, you sexually harassed another woman? When did this happen?!" They heard Lilith's voice enter the conversation.
"Aeons ago, long before I met you." Lucifer said.
Charlie put her hand over her face and slowly shook her head in embarrassment.
"And you thought your parents would be bad." She told Alastor.
"No, just my father, and believe me, he's probably way worse than your father could ever hope to possibly be." Alastor replied.
"Oh come on, how bad can he be?"
Suddenly there came a familiar knock at the hotel door which sent an all too familiar chill down Charlie's spine. Her gazed looked toward the door and she could make out a tall shadow looming over the glass. A mix of hesitation and intrigue stirred inside of her, just like when Alastor first came to that door. Only this time, she wouldn't be the one opening the door.
Alastor would be the one committing that act and before today, she had never once seen him look nervous or unsure. He was body sweating as though he had been locked in a sauna and he forced himself to swallow down a large lump in his throat. Finally, his hand rest on the handle and he opened the door. However what they saw on the other side made all of Alastor's melt away and turn into an innocent happiness that one would see in a child.
"Hello baby." Came a most gentle voice.
Standing in the doorway was a very beautiful young woman of mixed ancestry, her skin creamy brown and her hair curled and Caucasian-like. Her eyes were like deep pools of violet and if you had looked into them, you would feel instant warmth and love. She was wearing a dusty-blue colored, ruffle and hem puff, sleeved dress. Alastor's favorite dress to be seen on her, and she accessorized it with a violet shawl and a pair of white gloves.
She smiled tenderly at Alastor and reached out to him. Alastor moved in to accept the hug she offered and his smile quickly changed to match hers. He could still smell her favorite perfume on her, gardenias and jasmine. He could feel the warmth of tears beginning to gather behind his eyes.
"It's alright." She whispered into his ear. "You can cry all you want. You don't have to hold anything in. Not with me."
He allowed three tears to escape his eyes. But only three. He then wiped the tears away and proceeded to introduce him to the love of his life.
"Mother this is Princess Charlotte Morningstar. A woman who's very special to me."
"It's very nice to meet you ma'am." Charlie said. "Please call me Charlie."
The woman's smile grew when she set her sights on the princess.
"Oh she's a beauty Alastor." She said with a tone expressing approval. "And she has kind eyes. I like her already."
That took a huge load off Alastor's back and Charlie's.
"Allow me to assist you with your bags Mother." Alastor said.
"Oh that's not needed dear. Your father has just arrived and knowing him, he'll insist on doing that chore."
With that said, they saw a figure step out from another car that pulled up. Alastor's apprehension returned and he held his breath.
Approaching the doorway with a suitcase in hand was a massively tall, and intimidating, bipedal humanoid with the skull of a stag in place of his head and antlers that were far more longer than Alastor's were. Glowing red beams of light were in the empty sockets of his eyes and the rest of his body was covered in blood-red fur. He was huge, beastly, bulging, and his teeth had twisted themselves into a smile that reminded Charlie of something she had seen on the killer clowns in horror movies.
"Hello all." He said before setting down his luggage and pulled a small can of nitrous oxide, which proceeded to spray up his nose, causing him to let out a laugh that made all who heard it tremble with unease.
"And there's Daddy." Alastor sighed looking downward.