Chapter VIII

Stanley woke, and the first thing that occurred to him was what an awful dream he had just had.

Really, how could any of that have truly happened? All that stuff about talking to hitchhiking ghouls, a head in a crystal ball, and a mansion stuffed to the rafters with ghosts…Utterly ridiculous!

But now, as the sunlight streamed into his room and past the dusty, moth-eaten bed curtains surrounding him, he could…

Wait a moment.

He sat up, and the happy moment of denial was gone in an instant. He was lying amidst the ornate bedclothes in a canopy bed, and beyond the purple curtains he could see the faded floral-patterns of the wallpaper – no one in his era would dare put up something so tacky, thus confirming he was still in the mansion.

Groaning, Stanley rubbed his temples so hard he almost hurt himself. His throat was dry, and his mind still groggy from sleep. The last thing he remembered was the Ghost Host saying the house had some ridiculous number of ghosts residing in it, and then…

He didn't know. Somehow he had ended up here. He really could not deny what he had bore witness to; his perception of reality was still upside-down and probably spinning in circles for good measure. There were ghosts, yes. He couldn't deny it anymore. He had seen too much to dismiss their existence any longer.

Not to mention there was a small, semi-transparent face peering at him near the foot of the bed.

Oddly, he remained calm and simply observed the spirit. Though he could only see the top half of a head and two small hands, he could tell this was an apparition of a little girl. Her eyes were a hazel sort of color, distinguished amidst the blue-green of her ghostly form. He could even pick out the darker spots of freckles near her nose.

They stared at each other - ethereal being and rattled skeptic – for a long moment. Finally, Stanley cleared his throat and said hoarsely, "Hi."

The girl shrank back a little, ducking lower so only the very top of her head could be seen. Ever so slowly, though, she poked her head back up to look at him. Despite himself, Stanley smiled. Ghost or no, she was sort of adorable.

"It's alright," he said. "I don't bite."

The girl blinked, than carefully rose upward. Stanley saw that she was actually levitating. The ghost, now that he could see her more clearly, looked hardly older than five. She was incredibly small, dressed in a sort of formal gown, with dark hair going down past her shoulders. She drifted down until her bare transparent feet were touching the bed and stopped, eyeing Stanley nervously.

Stanley pulled his feet in a little closer to himself, suddenly feeling nervous himself. The part of his brain that was nagging him that he was nuts had switched over to the rationale that this spirit might be dangerous; one must never underestimate the unknown, even if that unknown is a tiny phantom that seems just as on-edge.

"Hello," said the girl, in a tiny voice to match her form. "Um, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't wake you."

Stanley sat up straighter, realizing he was still wearing the same clothes as the night before. "I don't think you did," he said, yawning mid-sentence. "Gosh, what happened last night? How did I get here?"

"You fainted," replied the ghost girl, and there was no hiding the mischievous smirk that flickered briefly across her face. "Your friends brought you in here to rest."

"Oh, that's good." Stanley stretched, and only then did it dawn on him where he was and just how many questions he had. He clambered out of bed, untangling himself awkwardly from the thick covers, and crossed to the dirty window. The sky outside, from what he could see through the bare tree branches, was a clear blue, broken here and there by dark masses of cloud left over from the storm. Below and through the trees, Stanley could see crumbling stone monuments amidst the muddy earth; a cemetery.

The ghost girl watched him curiously. "I heard you had a bad night, so I wanted to come and wish you a good morning."

Stanley turned, running a hand through his hair (it was tangled mess by this point). Again came the tumult of emotions. He wasn't angry, per-se; he was still too tired for that. "Lost" was probably the best way to describe it. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

It was a new day, and he would take things slowly, one thing at a time.

He said, "So, who are you supposed to be?"

"Lil," said the girl shyly. "It's short for Lillian. I'm your, uh, 'ghostess,' I suppose." She giggled.

Stanley smiled. "Ghostess, eh? How old are you?"

He saw this was a bad question to pose, because she looked downcast. "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"I died when I was ten," muttered Lil. She smiled weakly, but it was a sad one. "I've been a ghost for a long time, though."

"Ten? I thought you were younger."

"That happens a lot," the ghost sighed. She sat down, little legs dangling off the edge of the bed. As she swayed them back and forth, they passed through the bed frame. "I'm short for my age."

Stanley felt insensitive, in a weird way – how did one get used to conversing with a dead person? "Sorry."

"It's ok," replied Lil. She floated off the bed and settled onto the floor, now smiling. "I'm, uh, supposed to show you around some more. Ready to go?"

"Huh? Already?"

Lil nodded. "Yep. You didn't get to finish it last night. The Master asked me to give you the tour during the day, after you woke up."

By "Master," Stanley assumed she meant the disembodied Ghost Host. Thinking about poking around the mansion more did intrigue him a bit, but his wounded skepticism in the supernatural still stubbornly clung on. Even when there was no denying the existence of the undead, he did not have a huge desire to go mingling with a multitude of them right now. And the whole place seemed to be jammed with wraiths.

Stanley's stomach, which growled loud enough the both he and the ghost girl noticed, made the decision for him. He chuckled weakly. "Can I get something to eat first?"

Lil giggled. "Sure. I'll take you to the kitchen." That said, she floated over to a large wardrobe on the opposite wall, pulled open the oak doors and stuck her head into the dusty space beyond. The wardrobe was empty, but Lil fumbled about inside for a moment and, with a loud click, the back of the wardrobe opened inward into darkness.

Stanley stared. This place really was full of all the haunted house clichés. "A secret passage?"

"Yep!" said Lil brightly. She floated a little ways in, her ethereal form giving off a blue glow that faintly illuminated the walls. "This is the fun way to go…Uh, if you want to go this way, that is."

"I dunno." Stanley stood fully, walked over to the wardrobe and peered into the shadows – right through Lil's essence. "This doesn't lead to Narnia, does it?"

He laughed at his own joke, but saw the ghost girl's confused look. "Nevermind," he said. "Can't we just go the normal way?"

"We could," replied Lil, "but this is a shortcut."

Stanley felt his hunger claw at him again, and that made up his mind. He carefully stepped into the wardrobe and followed Lil as she began to drift down the narrow, cramped tunnel. Lil's ethereal glow acted like a torch, lighting Stanley's way. The walls were bare masonry and wood back here, and he could smell the dust and mildew. Old cobwebs, so old that the spiders who made them were likely long dead, filled much of the space, and Stanley had to bat the desiccated threads aside as he shimmied down the passage.

"So what's the deal with these passages, anyway?" asked Stanley, as the corridor took a sudden left and descended a flight of narrow steps that creaked when he set foot on them.

Lil spun round to face him, floating backwards with ease. "Oh, we used them for servant passages back in my time, but I don't know what they were for before that."

Stanley hesitated to ask. "When…When was that, exactly?"

"The 1860s," she answered matter-of-factly. "I died in 1869." And without prodding (not that Stanley would have) she added, "It was a little, uh, surprising." She managed a weak, almost embarrassed smile before turning back down the corridor.

Stanley simply set his jaw and kept shuffling through the dark.

Thankfully, only a few moments passed before the ghost girl paused at a section of wall that was solid wood. She passed through it effortlessly, and a second later the wall opened with a click. Stanley crawled through and found himself in an empty pantry, looking out into a kitchen that had clearly seen better days. Frayed and ancient floral curtains had been pulled away from the dusty windows to allow daylight into the room.

"Morning!" This came from Martin, seated at the round kitchen table. There was a plate of pancakes in front of him. He waved energetically as Stanley stepped out of the pantry, but his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. "Glad to see you're doing alright, cuz. You hungry?"

Typical Martin. Stanley nodded and set himself to move to the table, but was distracted by an odd sight: an antique wood-burning stove, tucked in next to the pantry he'd just exited, and a frying pan suspended in midair just above it. As he watched, feeling the heat of the stove, the frying pan flipped a pancake into the air, caught it again, and settled onto the stovetop.

Stanley gulped. "Yeah. Starved." He practically fell into a chair, which pulled itself away from the table for him; Lil giggled as she materialized again. Stanley almost wanted to laugh himself, but what came out was a hiccup.

Martin smiled and took a bite of his breakfast. "There's a whole larder downstairs. Lots of the food there is still well-preserved. Must be the cold air. Anyway, how are you feeling this morning?"

Stanley thought about it.

"Like I've been put through a psychological wringer." He looked from cousin to apparition-of-small-girl and sighed. "This is gonna take some getting used to."

"Yeah," replied Martin. "Look, I'm sorry. I mean, I knew this place was haunted, but I didn't expect…quite this many phantoms."

A plate and silverware had set themselves on the table in front of Stanley. They were old, probably antiques, but at least they were clean. Stanley looked at Lil questioningly.

"Poltergeist," she said. "It likes to haunt the kitchen. Don't worry. It's just a little shy."

"Not to mention a good cook," chuckled Martin. "My compliments to our unseen chef!" He raised his fork in salute to the frying pan, and the pan gave a little flourish as it tossed the flapjack.

"Anyhow," Martin continued, "I can't say I understand what you're going through, but I feel for you."

It wasn't very comforting to Stanley, but it did help a little. "So what did I miss last night?"

"Lots," said Martin. "Mind, I cut my tour short to get some sleep – it didn't help that I hardly got any sleep, I'm so excited - but I got a pretty good lay of the property after we found a safe place for you."

Stanley nodded, than fixed his attention on Lil. "So between the two of you, you can give me some straight answers?"

Ghost and mortal shared a look between them. "We could try," said Martin hopefully.

"Finally." Stanley breathed – he'd been preparing for this, and now it was a matter of getting them all out one at a time. First, he turned to Lil. "Alright…Why are you here?"

Lil looked puzzled. "Pardon?"

"You. I mean, why are you a…Well, you know. A ghost and all."

Even as he knew it was a callous question, it had worked its way to the forefront of Stanley's mind. Thankfully, Lil seemed undaunted with it. "To be honest, I don't know."

Stanley blinked. "Um…" he said.

"It's weird, I know," Lil continued. "It's like waking up one morning and realizing that you've forgotten something really important the night before. For me, its not having a body anymore. I know I'm still me, just…floatier." She giggled and did a midair summersault.

"But you don't know," pressed Stanley, "why you're still here?"

The young apparition frowned. "No. I remember dying, and then I was…somewhere else for a little while. A strange place. There were lots of spirits there, wherever it was. Next thing I knew, I was like this."

"Take from a ghost hunter," Martin added, "but from what I've seen, most ghosts don't know what keeps them tied to this plane. There's lots of different theories, but nothing concrete."

Lil nodded. "All I know is that some people I knew in life aren't here, and some are. Most of the people that die here on the mansion grounds end up coming back, though."

So much for a life-changing answer, thought Stanley with some disappointment. He was expecting to at least learn some great mystery of the afterlife or a hint at the nature of the universe, and all this confirmed was that the dead were just as clueless as the living.

But, he had to admit, there was a small comfort in knowing there was life after death, even if it was as a spook.

"Do you think Madame Leota would know more about, erm, that part of it?" he ventured.

"Oh definitely," said Lil, and she brightened. "She can tell you just about anything, if you ask her nicely."

Well that was a good sign. He'd make sure to go speak to the Madame later, get some more facts straight. But speaking of which…

"Okay, so if that's the case, why are so many ghosts here? Right before I passed out, the Ghost Host said there were…" Stanley paused, tried to recall the number.

"999 of us," finished Lil helpfully.

Stanley almost choked on the first bit of pancake he was chewing. "That many? What is this, the Murder Mansion?"

Martin stepped in. "Ah. That's the part of the tour you missed. Our host explained that this is sort've a…halfway house for the undead. Not all the spirits haunting this mansion are local."

"Yep," said Lil. "Most of the ghosts here are dislocated spirits from crypts and tombs all over the place! They come here because they have nowhere else to go."

"How does that work?" ventured Stanley.

"Well, it's like this," said Martin. "You work in the construction field, right?"

"Highways, yeah," replied Stanley.

"Exactly. And think about all the old houses and buildings that have been demolished to make room for new constructions, like highways. What do you suppose happens when a place like that is haunted?"

Stanley shrugged. "I never thought about it before."

"It means there are a lot of misplaced ghosts floating around," said Martin. "And a ghost needs somewhere to haunt."

Lil nodded. "We're one of the few haunted places on Earth that opens its doors to all wayward souls, living or dead." She spoke as if reciting lines from memory. "All are welcome to come in and settle their bones here at the Gracey Mansion…That's why we're all so happy you're here! We don't often get mortals visiting."

Stanley chewed his food thoughtfully, letting this fact settle in. "So this is basically a retirement home for ghosts?"

"You could say that," said Martin. "Thing that confuses me is, from my experience, ghosts usually have a psychic link to the spot they haunt. It's supposed to keep them bound there." He looked hopefully at Lil. "How is it that they all get here?"

"I dunno," she said, embarrassed. "I never had to move anywhere. You might have to ask one of the ghosts that came from the outside, or Madame Leota."

"I'll keep that in mind," muttered Stanley. He took a moment to eat his food, which was surprisingly good, if a little dry. Every answer he got raised more questions. It was clearly going to take him awhile to really pin down what was going on here.

"OK," he said. "Next question: what's the deal with the Ghost Host? Who is he?"

Lil's reaction was a little surprising. Her smile dropped, and a little of the color faded from her already pale, ethereal cheeks. "Oh. Uh, you mean the Master."

"Yes," said Stanley, but gently, for he saw that the little ghost was just a little on edge.

"He's a spirit of great power," Lil explained, fidgeting slightly. "The Master is the one who opened our grounds up to the lost souls of this world. He is very kind, and very noble."

Clearly Lil was uncomfortable discussing the Ghost Host, and it fit with what Leota had told Stanley about the master of the house. He decided to drop the subject, figuring this was another area of questioning better handled by the lady in the crystal ball, but only after he asked "Where is he now?"

"Oh. He comes and goes," replied Lil. "During the day, he's usually elsewhere. I'm not sure. That's why I'm the one giving you the tour."

"Speaking of," Martin said, "you might want to get on with that as soon as you finish breakfast. I already got a bit of the house layout, but there's a lot more to explore. And anyway, I think it'll help you feel more at home."

Stanley grimaced. "Home?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, we are going to stay here for awhile, aren't we?"

This was met with silence. The skillet that had been floating over the stove moved across to the washbasin and clattered into it.

"I think," said Stanley slowly, "I could stand to get out of the house for a bit, actually. Get some fresh air."

Lil nodded, her smile returning. "Sure! I can take you around the grounds first. Sound good?"

The gears in Stanley's head had started turning again. Like hell he wanted to stay here that long, but he could not deny that his curiosity was on the go. It was a part of him he didn't think he still had, yet there it was: he wanted to dig deeper, get the facts straight, learn what the Gracey Mansion had in store for him. The unceasing whirl of questions had settled in his mind, and he was going to sort through them calmly and rationally.

And maybe, just maybe, discover what had possessed Uncle Yale to give the place to him.

"Yeah," he said. "Sounds good to me."

The tour, thankfully, was devoid of haunted corridors and ghouls trying to escape from their coffins like last night. Lil led Stanley out of the kitchen, down a short hall and out a door leading to a patio on the side of the house (Martin had remained behind, stating that he was going to conduct a couple interviews). In the daylight, with the morning sun brightening the whitewashed walls of the manor, Stanley found it hard to believe that this was the same property which had scared him so badly the night prior. He took a deep, welcome breath of the damp and earthy air, and felt refreshed.

He noticed, too, that Lil had disappeared – or, rather, was little more than a wispy shadow. Trying to look at her directly, in the sunlight, revealed nothing; he had to screw up his eyes to even catch a shimmer of her. She giggled, noticing his expression.

"Just follow my voice," she said. "It's hard for us to keep a solid form in the sun. That's why ghosts come out at night."

So he did, following her around the house toward the front. He occasionally caught his reflection in the standing puddles left over from the rain, and saw Lil clearly outlined in them as well. Ah. That explained it.

When they reached the main drive that connected the house to the front gate, Stanley caught sight of Richard O'Dell. The groundskeeper was just beyond the fence, putting what looked like an urn on top of one of the empty brick columns. Catching sight of Stanley, his eyes widened and he nearly dropped the urn, a look of shock on his face. Then he smiled nervously and tipped his hat.

Stanley waved back, while whispering sidelong to Lil, "Do you know much about that groundskeeper?"

"Richard?" Lil's voice whispered close to his ear. "Oh, he's a really nice man. Jumpy, but nice. He's been working here for…ten years now, I think."

"Why, though? Do you pay him?" He watched the groundskeeper step down from whatever he was standing on to reach the column and trudge away into Sedgwick Park. "Am I supposed to pay him?"

"Huh? Why would you say that?"

Stanley thought of the deed, still on his person, and changed tack. "I mean, what's he doing here?"

"He keeps everything nice out here. We want to make a good impression to any ghosts that arrive." There was a rush of air as she moved invisibly past him. "I think we used to pay him, but now he works here for his own reasons."

Stanley would have probed further, but he felt a small and cold grip on his hand, tugging him gently. "Come on! We've got lost more to see!"

Reluctantly, the mortal followed his spectral guide down the front walk and toward the huge oak at the front of the house. There, Stanley got a closer look at the pet cemetery: a little lawn covered with small monuments to all number of animals. There was a stone cat, surrounded ironically by a number of little stone birds, an upside-down bat, and a poodle. Most of the markers bore amusing epitaphs, and Stanley took the time to read a few of them.

Old Flybait, read one with a frog on top. He croaked.

Another, with a skunk statue, read Beloved Lilac: Long on curiosity, short on common scents.

Stanley could not help chucking at these. "Did the owners of these pets have some morbid sense of humor?" he asked, as he finished reading a long, winding marker that outlined the fate of a snake (whose fatal mistake was frightening the gardener that carried a rake).

Lil giggled. "The maker of the tombstones was a man who didn't want to take death too seriously, or so I've heard. It's alright, because the Master tends to like a good sense of humor."

Stanley nodded, feeling considerably better until he laid eyes on the tallest tombstone of the bunch. It was a pedestal of a grave, with a statue of a skinny basset hound sitting dutifully on top. The epitaph read: Buddy – Our Friend 'til the End.

For some reason, looking at this made Stanley feel sad. It was like the dog was his dog, and he felt a sense of mourning, of longing for an old friend.

A gentle voice, Lil beside him, asked "What's wrong?"

Stanley blinked. He could remember how it felt to lose a pet, but he hadn't thought about that for many years. Not since…

He shook his head, turning away from the dog's grave. "Nothing," he said. "Just distracted, that's all…Let's keep going."

Lil seemed to understand, and continued to lead Stanley through the expansive grounds around this side of the house. He was taken to a statue garden, where dozens of different stone faces peeked out from among the ivy, and then through a forgotten greenhouse, which smelled like a wet compost heap and whose plants were either dead or wildly overgrown. They went to the vine-covered fence, and through the bars Lil pointed out some of the visible parts of Sedgwick Park that had, once upon a time, been a gorgeous place where children played and couples strolled.

"I remember sitting over by the bandstand when I was little," the ghost's voice said wistfully. "The band used to perform every night in the summer. I loved hearing them play." And she imitated the sound of an oompah-pah band, breaking into giggles when Stanley smiled.

Finally she took him to the edge of a steep hill, which seemed to run the length of the property. It ran practically against the back of the house, and was covered with gnarled trees and scraggly bushes. Just at the edge of the hill was a rusting iron fence, and as Stanley stepped through the low gate, he noted that he was entering some sort of family plot, a number of tombstones on the level ground just before hill.

"This is only a small part of the graveyard," Lil explained. "Most of it is on the other side of the hill. That's where most of us are during the day."

"Do ghosts need to rest?" asked Stanley.

"Yep. I'm actually, uh, staying up past my normal bedtime, so to speak." She laughed.

Stanley smiled at this, now looking at the tombstones. It was definitely a family plot, and again the epitaphs carried a singsong quality to their prose: At peaceful rest lies Brother Claude, planted here beneath this sod, or: In memory of our patriarch – dear departed Grandpa Marc. It definitely led credence to Lil's story that the grave maker had a strange sense of humor.

He was trying his best to not ask so many questions and simply go with the flow for now. She was just a little girl, after all, although a surprisingly mature one. She's probably had decades to mature anyway, he thought, morbid as it seemed.

Half-reading the tombstones, his willpower failed, and he asked, "Lil, how did you die?"

There was silence. Immediately he realized what an awful question it had been, and mentally kicked himself. Nice going, you insensitive jerk! She's just a kid!

He heard a little sigh. "I drowned. Fell into the river one night. I…can't swim."

Now Stanley felt even worse. He shook his head and sighed himself. "Sorry. I, um, I didn't mean to bring something up. I just…"

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. I don't remember much of it. It's like a bad dream, dying. Eventually you wake up, and the bad part is just a memory."

Stanley grit his teeth and decided to leave it at that. He would relate all of his "sensitive" questions to Leota later.

Meanwhile, he finally took notice of the headstone he was half-staring at. It wasn't so much that this tombstone stood out from the others, but that someone had also laid a fresh-cut red rose atop the marker, dew still clinging to its petals. Stanley read it slowly:

MASTER GRACEY

LAID TO REST

NO MOURNING, PLEASE,

AT HIS REQUEST

Farewell

He read it again, feeling as if one of those cartoon light-bulbs was lighting above his head. There were no dates on the tombstone; just those lines, and the rose. He wondered, with what little knowledge he had, if this was indeed the grave of the "Master" of the house, the Ghost Host that Leota had warned him of.

"Can we explore the rest of the graveyard, beyond the hill?" he inquired.

"Not yet," said Lil. He could still see little of her form but a hazy outline, and her voice was without expression. "We have to wait until nightfall."

"Why's that?"

"Because that's when all the spirits come out to socialize," Lil said. "And they'll definitely want to meet you."

(Woo...First and foremost, I want to apologize for not updating this in...well, pretty much a year. It's been a very hectic year, with its ups and downs and such. But hopefully I'll be able to get back on track with this story. I also apologize for the slow pace of things: I am still trying to get a feel for the pacing of this. Now, eight chapters in, I intend to finally get the full forces of the mansion up for a swinging wake!

Of course, you'll have to wait for the next chapter for that. X3

Thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed, and hopefully will continue to read and review even after all this time. I will be going back through soon, fixing spelling errors and those weird changes that FF sometimes makes to the formatting of my older chapters.

Until next time, happy haunting!)