Remember "Home is Where the Haunt is"? Well, I have this headcanon theory surrounding Creepie and the Timsins. My theory is that they're her biological parents. And I have more to say but I'm on the clock with other matters, so this is all for right now.
I'm sorry if I rushed with it. I wasn't sure how to wrote the part where Creepie meets the Timsins; I've never spoken to ghosts. *chuckles nervously* This has got to be the longest chapter I've ever written. O_O
She remembered. She remembered correctly. When her parents went out to find a new house to live in. And left Creepie to stay with Bunny Hollyruller. Creepie remembered when she brought over the Timsins'.
"Oh, but it couldn't have been too many years. You both look so young!"
That's what Mrs. Hollyruller said that day. And Creepie believed her. But...what didn't make sense was why they didn't appear ghostlike. They both looked so real—not real—no, that's not the word. They were real but they were so lifelike. Creepie wondered why they came to her house in the first place.
It was nighttime, and she and Melanie and Carla were headed for the cemetery. They were going to find the spot where the Timsins' were buried. Coming to the cemetery was logical since she couldn't think of anything else more legitimate to finding out the truth. She couldn't ask her parents since they didn't know where she came from. They just found her on their doosrstep. Creepie always had questions that couldn't be answered. Even from before she started wondering.
After finding out about the couples' names Creepie was just completely floored. She was just thrown. She remembered that goth couple who came to her house and she didn't even think once about them being her true parents. She didn't think about them much after that day. Having discouraged Bunny Hollyruller from selling her house and convincing her parents to stay. But now that she was here she had to find out. How they met and what happened. That's the question that kept exploding in Creepie's mind. What happened, and why they left her on that doorstep.
"Do you see their grave?" Carla said.
"No," answered Melanie, stooping before a tombstone. Creepie didn't have much luck either.
Carla snapped her head to the right, catching on to a lingering feeling. A feeling of being watched.
"Let's look over there," said Creepie, pointing to a spot somewhere to the west.
The three roamed through the graveyard, looking over grave after grave but none bore the name of Creepie's deceased human parents. It was like they would be here for the rest of the night.
Creepie squinted her eyes. She knew this cemetery had three mausoleums. But to guess which one was the Timsin mausoleum was the challenge.
"Let's check the mausoleums." she said.
"But what if they're not there?" Carla asked. "What then?"
"We keep searching until we do." Creepie said. "Even if we stay here all night."
"Then we would miss school." Melanie said as an optimistic hope.
"Hehe. Yeah." Creepie retorted.
They wandered past a tombstone whose name did not bear the Timsins' name. The three wished they gone for flashlights before coming here, but Creepie was so overwhelmed about the revelation that there was no time for these necessities. They would have to do the best of it without a flashlight. But Creepie remembered she could talk to bugs. She could find a moth or firefly, and ask if they've seen the Timsin grave.
"Hold on, I'll try to find a bug who'll tell me where they're buried." Creepie said to Melanie and Carla.
"Okay." said Carla.
Creepie wandered off. Her ears picked up wingbeats. She looked up and spotted a moth flittering past her head.
"Hey," said Creepie, following the moth, "wait."
The moth fluttered above a tombstone (the engraving read "Best Forgotten").
"Yeah?" asked the moth. It had a high-pitched voice, but she knew it was a male.
"Do you know where I can find the Timsin grave?"
"Oh, that would be the mausoleum in the very back. Over there." the moth replied. Creepie looked in the direction the moth said.
"Okay, thanks." she said before wandering back to Melanie and Carla. She saw that the two were already waiting for her.
"What did the moth say?" Carla ventured.
"He said the mausoleum is that one"—Creepie pointed to the mausoleum in the very back—"over there. Way in the back."
Carla and Melanie looked over their shoulders.
"Let's go." Carla said.
The three walked there. When they were halfway to the mausoleum Creepie had to stop.
"What's wrong?" Carla asked.
"Could you wait a while?" Creepie replied. "I need to think."
"What's there to think about?" Melanie said. "They're your parents. You've wanted to meet them. What's the deal?"
"The deal is." Creepie said. "I don't feel ready. I've been waiting for this my whole life. And now I feel like turning back." Creepie held onto a headstone, breathing in. She looked back at Melanie and Carla and sighed. "I guess it's the nerves." She didn't know what was real and what wasn't anymore. She sat down, back against the headstone, hugging her knees. "Just...give me a minute."
"Sure." said Carla understandingly.
So they waited. Carla and Melanie sat down beside Creepie and enjoyed the silence. The moon loomed overhead, hidden behind black clouds. The trees cast sinister shadows. All the while Creepie's mind exploded with questions upon questions. What would they be like? Would they recognize her? Of course they would recognize her, they saw her at her house. But this time would be different. She would be approaching them as their long-lost daughter, and they would be her long gone parents. She'd been playing this in her head a thousand times and now that she was here, she felt like she was in a dream. Or awake in a dream. All her life she never wondered about what meeting her human parents would be like. But now, she was standing on the precipice to her unsolved mystery.
Creepie thought back to her bug parents, Caroleena and Vinny. They certainty loved her like their own, like any bug child in the manor. But she also reminded herself that she was adopted, and human for that matter. But they did raise her. Creepie was so grateful for all they've done. They gave her a home, fed her, clothed her, sent her to school. They've done everything and anything for her and more. She was so lucky. Creepie was sure no one was as fortunate as her.
The goth girl rose, fists clenched at her sides. Carla and Melanie watched for any signs of motivation. Creepie stood, rooted to the spot, teetering between staying or going. Debating with herself. She opened her eyes and looked at the mausoleum. Her questions were about to be solved any minute. All she had to do was go in.
Creepie took a step. Easy now. No rushing. Deep breath. Relax.
She smoothed down her dress, checking herself out. She wanted to look presentable for her human parents.
"Do you have a comb or something?" Creepie asked either one of the two.
"I've got one." said Carla, standing up. She pulled out a comb from her skirt pocket. On the way over here, Creepie ruffled her hair out of the overwhelming pressure. Carla combed down Creepie's pigtails. It wasn't hard to stay still, she let her do her hair in the Diva Off awhile back.
When Carla was done, Creepie turned to her and Melanie and said, "I need to do this alone."
"We'll wait for you out here." said Carla.
"Yeah." Melanie said.
Creepie gave them one last soulful look before walking up to the mausoleum. She looked at the golden plaque. Timsin. it read. Creepie sighed and opened the iron door, creaking. A gust of wind blew out of the mausoleum. The goth stepped inside, fear surrounding her but also a reassuring vibe. Creepie had never been in a mausoleum before, not even on a dare. But this was important, she reminded herself.
"Hello?" she called out. Nothing. Creepie closed the door halfway so she would be able to open it later.
She stood there. Waiting. How long would this take?
Then suddenly, a white mist wafted out from the tomb. Followed by a second white mist. The two coalesced into two forms Creepie could discern. And then she saw them. Lilith and Edward Timsin. They were the same as the day she saw them at her house.
"Are you...?"
Edward and Lilith didn't say anything.
What should Creepie say? I miss you? I love you? She didn't know. All these years spent imagining this moment and now she wanted to turn back. The feeling that she was in a dream overtook her. She just couldn't accept that she was having a hard time believing it was real.
"Do you hate us?" Lilith spoke up. Creepie looked at her. She had the same eye shape as her. She was without a doubt her mother.
"I don't know," replied Creepie. "I want to...but part of me wants to forgive you. And, uh..."
Get to the point. "Why did you leave me there? On that doorstep?"
Lilith looked to her husband, both sighed and turned to Creepie. "We met in college," said Lilith. Seemed like she was going to be doing all the talking, but Creepie accepted. "It was love at first sight. I was studying philosophy."
"And I was majoring in occultism." said Edward. That was the first thing he's said. Creepie was impressed.
"Well, we were in our senior year, and Edward had already proposed to me." Lilith saw that this was getting dull to Creepie and she decided to get to the very point. "We had already graduated and that was when I found out I was pregnant. It was unexpected, but we were also scared."
Creepie titled her head, eyebrow raised. "Scared?"
"As much as we were excited about having a baby," said Lilith, gently. "We were also not ready to have children. We were young. Too young to be anyone's parents. We were both in agreement to give you away the moment you were born."
"What happened?" asked Creepie, trying not to sound hurt.
"It was the night Lilith went into labor." Edward said. "We were in our mess of an apartment and we didn't have any way to get to the hospital and we found ourselves alone." He looked at his wife for reassurance. Lilith quickly nodded to give him encouragement. "We were by ourselves, not even a midwife. When you started crowning we thought our hearts might leap out of our chests." He looked at Creepie. "When you finally came out it was like a moment of peace swept over us."
"I remember when Edward handed you to me you grabbed my finger with your whole fist," Lilith said. "I cried." If Lilith could cry right now she would.
"How did you two die?" Creepie asked, trying not to sound so eager.
"Well, after we had you, we knew what we had to do." Lilith explained. "We didn't have much money, and raising a baby was going to be a struggle." Lilith closed her eyes in resolve. "We walked the streets, looking for someone who would look after you. We saw the mansion and we thought they'd be able to provide the care you need."
"We walked up to the mansion," said Edward. "We quickly wrote a note, asking the owners to take care of you. And well, we left you and the note on the front doorstep. And we left."
"I was so overcome with grief that I broke down crying." Lilith interjected. "I ran into the street, regretting it all. I wasn't looking where I was going, I had my face buried in my hands. Edward came to comfort me. We forgot we were standing in the middle of the street, and then the car came at us, and the next thing we knew everything went dark."
Creepie knew they died; they didn't need to say it.
"Next thing we knew we woke up in this very mausoleum." Edward said. "We were dead and there was nothing we could do about it."
Creepie slunk over to a corner. She sat on her haunches. She looked down at the floor as she took a moment to recap all the things they've said. She spent her fourteen years trying to figure out where she came from and here it was now—in front of her. Now that she knew the truth, there was some thing this didn't add up.
"Why did you come to my house?" she asked them, her purple eyes locked on them.
Lilith and Edward exchanged looks. It was only fair they tell her why they went.
"We were in agreement to watch over you as much as we could." Lilith answered. "We watched you from a distance, unseen by anyone."
"Perks of being a ghost." Edward said.
"We heard about you moving away, so we decided to check out the house and see how you've turned out." Lilith explained. "We saw that you were happy and well-adjusted. We were hurting on the inside, but we knew you were alright."
"So, you just came to my house...to check up on me?" Creepie tried not to make it sound so obvious, but it was not to. Why did it have to be so concrete?
"Yes," said Lilith, catching Creepie's tone. She was a mother after all. "Oh, Creepie, we're sorry we were never there for you."
"We didn't mean to put you through all this." Edward chimed in. "We're sorry for all of this."
Creepie sat there, not knowing whether to accept their apologies or not. They told her their story of how they met and how she came into the world. It was all she ever dreamed of...but she still felt lonely. She got her mystery solved, so why did she feel so off?
"Are you okay?" Edward pried.
"Yeah." Creepie relied.
"Do you need to think about it?," said Lilith.
They've certainly been watching over her alright. All her life, it seemed. Did they know she was raise by bugs, or did they think they left her with a wealthy human family? Whatever it was, it looked like the Timsins were proud of how their daughter turned out. And Creepie was proud of herself too.
"Do you know about my bug family?" Creepie queried.
"Yes, honey." Lilith said. "We thought they were a human family, but we were surprised they turned to be bugs... I'm so proud of you, Creepie."
"That was the name my mom gave me when she found me." Creepie said. "What name were you going to give me, if you decided to keep me?"
"I was thinking of 'Serena'," said Lilith. "Edward was thinking more along the lines of 'Alessa'."
"It was my grandmother's name." Edward said proudly.
"Well, I like 'Creepie' better," said Creepie, chuckling at the end.
A deep pause.
"How do you feel?" Lilith asked.
"Well," said Creepie. "I felt this empty space inside for a long time." She looked at them, finally accepting them as her true parents. For a long time she resented her parents for leaving her. Thinking they abandoned her on purpose. Even after hearing their story she still felt lost. Was it because she was talking to her parents' ghosts? That had to be it. But for all it's worth, she got everything answered.
"I guess I feel...okay?" Creepie responded. She didn't know how she really felt.
"You can visit us anytime you want," said Lilith. "If you want."
Creepie considered her offer. "I think I'd like that."
"And that's alright." Edward said.
Creepie stood up. "Well, it's been fun and all, but Melanie and Carla are waiting for me." She walked up it the entrance. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I'll see you guys later."
"We'll be waiting." Lilith said.
Creepie opened the iron door and stepped outside. She closed the door, wincing when it creaked. When she turned around she saw Melanie and Carla waiting at the same spot they were. She'd expected them to leave her, but she was surprised. She walked up to them.
"How'd it go?" Carla asked.
"It went...good." Creepie answered. "And kind of..." She thought of a word, but in the end she couldn't. "Well, it went good, and that's all that matters."
"Are you okay?" Melanie spoke.
"Yeah," said Creepie. "Yes, I am." She smiled. "Come on, let's go."
The three walked away. For a long time, Creepie had always been questioning who she was and where she came from. And now she knew. She was Creepie Creecher, daughter to a big family. But she was also Lilith and Edward's child, raised by bugs. And that was all she needed.
Next chapter is going to be an epilogue.