.:New Orleans Square - Part 1:.
Mom: "Oh, I should have prayed to the ancestors for luck."
Grandma: "How lucky can they be? They're dead."
~ Mulan
Renesmee stared at the old, cryptic house. She remembered seeing it on their way to Tom Sawyer Island, but there were too many people around and not enough time to actually get a good look. It was ominous-looking, sure; yet, it hadn't seemed as creepy as it did right now. She wondered why that was.
The rest of the Cullens, however, did not hesitate to start their way up the path that led to it. They were clearly excited, not even seeming the slightest bit frightened. Still, Nessie was reluctant to follow her happy, chattering family. Edward slowed to the back of the group and held his hand out for her. She darted for it instantly and held tightly as they made their way up the walkway.
"A haunted mansion, huh?" Emmett was saying with a devilish grin. "If they want haunted, here we are." He waggled his eyebrows.
The others chuckled, but Nessie remained cautious.
I don't know about this... she thought.
"It will be fine, honey," Edward assured her quietly. "It's just a house filled with immortals. We live in one every day."
Jacob snorted. "Yeah."
"Ours does not look like that," Nessie countered.
It was true that the Cullens' polished, bright, three-story home was far more inviting than this shadowy, mysterious manor with the tombstones in the front yard. You couldn't see inside the house at all, and there were no lights on, no homey aura of welcome. It wasn't quite as inviting as the happier looking Disneyland attractions.
"Well, this house is very, very old, and not everyone can have an Esme, you know?" Bella said.
Nessie nodded slightly to appease her mom, but inwardly she was far from content with the idea of going inside a place that looked fitting for evil creatures to go lurking behind the walls. She wasn't used to scary-looking things. This house had a beauty to it, but a dark one, and Nessie could easily picture the Volturi—the most frightening thing out there, in her eyes—occupying a building like this.
Edward tried to assure her once more that it wasn't as bad as it seemed; of course, it only helped so much.
If Nessie wasn't so preoccupied with dread due to the appearance of the ghostly house they were about to enter, she would have noticed what the others were having so much fun laughing about while they waited in line. There were many memorable tombstones around the yard, such as the little mouse grave markers surrounding a sly cat, and the tombstone that read Freddie the Bat 1847, which had 'We'll Miss You' written upside down.
"O-ho, there's mine." Emmett pointed to another that read, Dear Departed Brother Dave; he chased a bear into a cave. He grinned then, and said, "Don't worry, Dear Departed Dave; I ate that bear the other day."
Rosalie sarcastically applauded her husband, for he had been very pleased with his joke.
Further down the line, there were numerous puns upon the graves in the brick wall. Some of their favorites were:
Theo Later
M. T. Tomb
U. R. Gone
Lev Itation
and, I. L. Beback
"We should put some of these on our Halloween decorations this year," Esme suggested, and the Cullen kids started plotting their (good and bad and just terrible) ideas.
Not long after, they made it to the front door of the house and were let inside.
The foyer was lit by flickering candlelight. The guests all waited for one of two doors to be opened, and while they waited a haunting voice filled the room as an introduction.
"When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls... Whenever candlelights flicker"—the candles flickered in emphasis—"where the air is deathly still... That is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight."
"Ooooo, eerie," Emmett said.
"Feels like home," added Jasper, smirking.
They were soon ushered into a large, dimly lit room with a handful of other guests that were whispering amongst themselves. They looked up at the paintings on the wall as the room continued to fill up. The place was freezing cold, to add to the spine-chilling ambiance. The Cullens and Jacob weren't affected by it, of course, but Nessie shivered once. Edward scooted her closer to Jacob.
Suddenly, a deep, booming voice echoed throughout the room.
"Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion!"
"Who's he calling foolish?" some teenage boy remarked loudly.
"Who's he calling mortal?" Emmett retorted. Several guests chuckled, oblivious to how serious Emmett was truly being. The Cullens got a good laugh out of that one themselves.
"I am your host... Your ghost host. Kindly step all the way in please and make room for everyone. There's no turning back now.
"Our tour begins here in this gallery where you see paintings of some of our guests as they appeared in their corruptible, mortal state. Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis..."
And, indeed, a disquieting metamorphosis was occurring. As the Cullens continued to observe the happy portraits on the wall, the room started getting longer and each picture began stretching to reveal that there was more to its story than met the eye. (The lovely young woman was revealed to be balancing on a tightrope above an alligator pit; the smiling man was on the shoulders of another man, who was on the shoulders of another man, and they were sinking into quicksand; the old woman was shown to actually be a widow, sitting on her faithless husband's tombstone, holding a knife...)
Nessie found it all creepy and pressed herself against her father's leg.
The ghost host's haunting voice continued.
"Is this room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination, hmm? And consider this dismaying observation: This room has no windows and no doors... Which offers you this chilling challenge: to find a way out! Muahahaha!
"Of course, there's always my way..."
Thunder clapped and the room went pitch black. Lightning flashed from the skylight above their heads, illuminating a skeleton that was hanging by its neck from the ceiling.
Many guests, Nessie included, let out shrieks of terror. Actually, Emmett had screamed, too (all girlie-like). His scream lasted long after the lights faded back on and Rosalie had to smack his head to shut him up, mumbling something about being worse than a teenager.
"Oh, sorry," the deep voice of the ghost host chuckled. "I didn't mean to frighten you prematurely; the real chills come later.
"Now, as they say, look alive, and we'll continue our little tour."
One of the walls opened up to reveal a long, dark hallway where haunted pictures awaited them.
"You okay, sweetie?" Bella asked Nessie, who had not only screamed when the lights went out but had also jumped into Edward's arms, burying her face in his neck. She had done it so fast that it was a good thing the humans in the room were blind to her abnormal speed.
"Yes," Nessie whispered unconvincingly.
"Don't worry, Ness, you're half-vamp," Jacob said, low. "These ghosts can't get you."
"Besides, they're actually fun ghosts," Bella told her. She bit her lip as she paused, glancing up at the ceiling. "Well, I'm not sure about our host... But the rest of the ghosts we're going to see just like to have fun."
"What kind of fun?" Nessie slowly lifted her head up. It was clear she was wary of their idea of the word.
"Dancing, singing, and, yes, scaring," Edward chuckled. "Like when you jump out from around corners and try to scare us."
"That is fun," Nessie murmured.
"That's what the ghosts do," Bella said. "Try to scare us for a laugh. Just joking around."
"What else is there to do when you're dead, eh?" Emmett grinned, leading the Cullens out of the Gallery and into the hallway with the other guests.
"I guess so..." Nessie said, still uncertain. She leaned into Edward and whispered, "But I'm keeping an eye on that ghost host."
He smiled and told her he would, too.
As the family walked through the hall, they passed pictures of what seemed like ordinary people, but when the storm—happening outside, of course—flashed with lightning, the pictures would reveal a frightening transformation. (And when the lightning stopped, the pictures went back to normal.) Jacob pointed to the last one on the wall and laughed loudly.
"Hey, look, it's Blondie! Hahaha!"
The last picture was of a beautiful, wealthy young woman... who turned into Medusa (with the bared teeth and snake hair) whenever the lightning flashed. The family tried not to laugh, especially when Rosalie narrowed her eyes at them.
"Very fitting," Edward agreed as he passed the portrait, and Nessie giggled quietly in her hands.
Next, they all passed the statues whose heads turned to watch them wherever they went. The Cullens tried jumping, ducking, quickly moving back-and-forth, but the statues always turned, never taking their menacing stares off them.
"I can still feel them watching me," Alice shuddered when they had to continue on in the line and had left the statues far behind them. Nessie turned to look back over Edward's shoulder, and the statues were still watching! She squealed and turned back around. Edward laughed.
When they reached the moving walkway, Edward was going to hand his daughter over to Jacob so he could keep her warm throughout this cool ride, but Nessie wouldn't let go. All three of them ended up having to squeeze into a Doom Buggy. It wasn't that hard, really, as the seats were made for three people; but Edward was lucky he wasn't the size of Emmett, or he'd never be able to fit in with Jacob, let alone with Jacob and Renesmee.
As they got settled, Nessie sandwiched between the two, holding both their hands, Edward reached out to pull the lap bar down. But the ghost host was back, and his voice suddenly sounded in their ears, saying, "Do not pull down on the safety bar, please... I will lower it for you", and the bar lowered by itself. Nessie gasped, and Edward and Jacob shared a look.
Jacob snickered, "That's a nice touch."
All the Cullens thought so, each making a comment when the ghost host lowered their own bar. "What nice service," Esme had said, making Emmett guffaw.
The Doom Buggy wound around the track through the dark halls of the mansion. They went through a hallway with door knockers that pounded and handles that shook all by themselves. There was a long passageway with a candelabra floating in circles on its own; a haunted father clock whose hands were spinning round and round, and each time the big hand passed the 12 a shadowed claw would descend down the wall. Eerie voices echoed off the walls, and the wallpaper stared at them the whole way through... At one point, Jacob asked Edward if the ghoul trying to break its way out of the nailed coffin was a cousin of his.
The ghost host was suddenly in their ears again.
"All our ghosts have been dying to meet you. This one can hardly contain himself! Unfortunately, they all seem to have trouble getting through. Perhaps Madame Leota can establish contact. She has a remarkable head for materializing the disembodied."
The Doom Buggy did a sudden, smooth one-eighty, and they were now in a dark room, facing a floating crystal ball. A woman's face appeared in it; she started chanting spells that would call upon the spirits of the house to show themselves.
"Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat; call in the spirits, wherever they're at!"
Nessie's eyes wandered to what hovered above their heads. Different kinds of instruments flew silently about, bobbing around and sounding off whenever Madame Leota called upon them to awaken the spirits.
"Ghost fiends and furies, old friends and new; blow in a horn, so we'll know whether it's you!"
The glittering horn hollered.
The woman in the crystal ball recited one last spell.
"Creepies and crawlies, it's time to respond; let there be music, from regions beyond!"
And from the right of their buggy, Nessie heard the playing of a song.
"Hear that?" Edward asked her as they began to leave Madame Leota's room. "It sounds like the ghosts have heard our calls."
Nessie squeezed Jacob and Edward tighter. She was slightly excited, a little wary, but very, very curious, too.
Then they entered the dining hall, and Nessie couldn't believe all the ghosts she saw.
The dinner hall was filled with dancing, twirling ghosts. They paid no attention to the furniture, floating right through any objects in their path. There were ghosts swinging from the chandeliers; ghosts chasing each other in and out of the house; there was one playing the piano; some sat at the table, where one little ghost was having a birthday party and was blowing out his candles (probably for the millionth time). Even the paintings were ghosts, and they came alive! And all the while they sang their song.
When the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake,
Spooks come out for a swinging wake.
Happy haunts materialize, and begin to vocalize.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize!
"How many ghosts are living here?" Nessie asked, entranced.
"Nine-hundred ninety-nine, I believe our ghost host said," Edward answered. He grinned and added, "But there's room for a thousand."
Nessie's eyes widened. "Who are they going to take?"
"I'm hoping Jacob."
"Ha! If anything they'll take one of you vamps, since you're already dead. I'd pray Blondie, but they probably don't want her, either."
There was a hiss from the buggy behind them. Jacob smirked.
"Actually," Edward said, as they rounded a corner and into another room of the house, "there seems to be plenty of Rosalies in this house..."
In this room, there were ghostly wives who were dressed in their wedding gowns (some blood-stained). Pictures of their numerous weddings surrounded them, and as the Doom Buggies passed the pictures, the grooms' heads disappeared. "Till death do us part", one bride said in a suspiciously sweet tone. It was clear these lady ghosts had a vendetta against their partners.
"Oh, now this brings me back..." Rosalie said, and Edward couldn't help but chuckle. Jacob seemed confused and, now, suspicious, but he felt he might not want to know.
The ride continued, bringing them into the mansion's graveyard, where silly spooks and happy haunts were everywhere.
Now don't close your eyes and don't try to hide,
for a silly spook may sit by your side.
Shrouded in a daft disguise, they pretend to terrorize.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize...
The Doom Buggy spun and shifted in an unpredictable demeanor, and Nessie was really beginning to relax and have fun. She especially liked the evil-looking oak trees with the black crows, the poor old human man who was shaking by the entrance of the graveyard with his dog, and the tiny ghost heads that popped up out of nowhere and then disappeared just as quickly. At the end there were singing statue heads.
As the moon climbs high o'er the dead oak trees,
spooks arrive for the midnight spree.
Creepy creeps with eerie eyes start to shriek and harmonize.
"Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize!" Nessie, Jacob, and Edward sang in harmony.
"Ah, there you are," their ghost host said; he was back. "And just in time! There's a little matter I forgot to mention."
"Yeah, what's that?" Jacob asked.
"Beware of the hitchhiking ghosts!"
They were shown a warning of what the ghosts looked like, each one trying to hitch a ride.
From a buggy in front of them, they heard Emmett cry, "Esme, I told you we were not picking any up! I don't care how sad they looked." Esme's laughter followed.
"Oh my gosh, I'm hideous!" Alice shrieked next, as her, Bella, and Jasper's buggy joined Emmett and Esme's.
Nessie's group was next. Their buggy spun in a circle again, until they were faced with a wall of three mirrors. As their buggy faced the mirrors, the largest hitchhiking ghost appeared in the buggy with them, covering Renesmee comletely.
"We got the happy fat one!" Nessie squealed with delight. They started laughing, especially when they could see that Esme and Emmett had gotten the tall, skinny one, and Alice's buggy got the short, bearded one who covered Alice so perfectly it looked like she had transformed into it; Jasper and Bella couldn't contain their laughter as Alice grumbled her complaints that this was rigged and she got this ghost on purpose just because she was short.
After they passed the mirrors, the ghost host raised the safety bar for them and warned that their hitchhiking ghost would now follow them home.
"Oh, great," Jacob muttered. "Just what our crypt needs."
As the Cullens gathered on the moving walkway that was taking them to the exit, the ghosts sang one final goodbye that told the guests to hurry back and join them in the jamboree. A young ghost, who was floating by the wall next to the exit, hauntingly said, "Hurry baaack. Hurry baaaaack... Be sure to bring your Death Certificate."
"Carlisle didn't make us any," Emmett retorted.
Then, finally, everyone was blinking in the daylight again.
OoOoOoO
"Take it from an old spectator—life's not a spectator sport. If watchin' is all you're gonna do, then you're gonna watch your life go by without ya."
~The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I love the Haunted Mansion! It's such a classic.
Thank you for your reviews! Your feedback is so appreciated, and I'm happy that you enjoy this story. :]