Chapter 8: Fright Night
We finally caught up to Toadsworth at the end of the dirt path and in front of an intricate iron gate. Standing in front of us was a formidable three-story mansion that looked too good to be stranded in this unforgiving forest. And somewhere in that mansion was the answer to Toadsworth's problem in putting together the greatest resistance movement to Dark Bowser and Fawful since they came into power.
"Lady and gentleman, somewhere in there is the answer to my problem in putting together the greatest resistance movement to Dark Bowser and Fawful since they came into power."
See? I'm not making it up! We went through that gruesome ordeal in the forest for a good reason.
Before any of us could approach the iron gate, a very pale Boo with an even paler mustache appeared above us.
"Welcome to Lady Bow's Mansion. Are you expected by Her Ghouliness or any other patron of the mansion?"
"Why yes as a matter of fact we are. I don't suppose you currently host a Toad by the name of Toadbert, eh Bootler?" Toadsworth answered.
The Boo named Bootler paused a moment. He straightened out his mustache as he asked who was speaking and how they knew him.
"I am Toadsworth, former advisor and administrator to former Princess Peach Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom. I have with me two guests from Toad Town. And come on, Bootler. You know me; you still owe me coins for that one poker night before the whole Blorb incident occurred."
I watched as Bootler's eyes grew wide in fear. He's dead, what more does he have to fear?
"Oh, dear," he said, "I've forgotten all about that." He nervously gulped. "It-It's good to see you after all these years. You will forgive me if I do not repay you immediately, will you?"
"Of course, my friend. I've been gone twenty years. Do you think I came back just for a silly old wager oh so many years ago?"
"Of course not. Please, right this way, all of you. My apologies, this is just a routine check in case those unlawful leaders of ours decided to visit our hideaway."
Like magic, the iron gate swung open and allowed us access to the mansion. We slowly crept forward—I hid behind Kory, who was just as awestruck as I sort of was—until we reached the stairs up to the front door.
"One more thing: I'm so sorry, but the lady has decided to test any visitor with the task of reaching the top floor."
"What? That's not fair!" I objected. This was a bad thing for me to do, as Bootler grew three times his size and opened his mouth so wide that it ran chills down me. I screamed and knelt down behind Kory's legs.
"As I wanted to say before being interrupted, this is not my rule; if you have a problem, please take it up with my lady. Grambi speed as you try to navigate the mansion."
With that, he disappeared.
"I bet he's at the top now. Man, I wish I could teleport like that!" Kory protested.
"I remember Master Mario having to do something similar to this oh so many, many years ago. But that was before I was Peach's advisor…" Toadsworth sighed. "I suppose we should enter and start our journey ever upwards."
"Oh yeah!" Kory cheered.
"Yaaay." I whispered.
Toadsworth opened the door, and we entered to find a rustic and rundown entry hall.
"Wow, talk about needing Spring Cleaning…" I mused.
"Look at that couch." Kory said. "Finally a place to sit." He walked over to the obtrusive green couch. "I wonder why there's a brown cushion… oh well."
As Kory sat himself down on the couch, Toadsworth and I walked around to take in our surroundings. Yes they needed cleaning; yes they needed repairs. I already told you all of that. I didn't say that it was all grey (save the couch, of course), there were few furniture pieces scattered around, a vase here and a bookshelf on the back wall, or that there were stairs leading up to the second floor.
"Oh sure, have stairs for the second floor, but not the third?" I asked out loud.
"Careful, Miss Hope. Remember that this was designed to be a test for us."
Just then, Kory started screaming out of nowhere. We both looked back to see that he had been launched from his seat and onto the ancient chandelier overhead.
"Kory! How did this happen?" It was finally my turn to panic about him.
"I dunno!" He yelled down to us. "All I did was sit on that brown cushion and now I'm up here. Uh-oh!"
Suddenly, the chain he grabbed onto started lowering itself down to the floor.
"What's happening?" He yelped.
"I believe, if I'm correct," Toadsworth began, "that you are acting as a counterweight for the chain, thus resulting in the lowering of the chain. The only question now is what the chain does for us."
"The bookshelf!" I squealed in delight. "It's moving!" I watched as it rumbled over to the left, revealing a door where it once stood. "This is excellent! We'll be up there faster than they expect." I couldn't stop grinning at my discovery, until…
"But Hope, wouldn't that door lead downstairs or something?" Part of me wanted to tackle Kory to the ground for popping my theory. Of course I didn't! Shame on you for thinking I did.
"Master Kory may have a point. As this door is on the ground floor, I doubt that there are stairs here that skip the second floor and lead to the third floor. It seems most illogical."
"Well, I'm gonna prove it to you two!" I shouted, still in disbelief.
"If you're going somewhere, you should at least let us come." Kory said, getting off of the chain.
I only know that he got off the chain because the bookcase started moving back to where it was before.
"No. No! NO! Stop—ooph!—moving—grrr—bookcase!" I ran over to it and strained myself trying to keep it from locking in place. What happened was that it pushed me back. I slumped to the ground when it finally stopped, folding my arms in disappointment.
"It's not fair." I mumbled.
"C'mon, Hope. Get up." Kory gave me a hand in standing back up. "We've got the rest of the mansion to explore anywho."
"What about this door over here?" Toadsworth asked, pointing to a door right of the bookcase on the other side of the room.
We walked over to it only to be scared witless by an Atomic Boo.
All: AAAAYYYYYYIIIIIEEEEEEE!
We all held each other very tightly, fearful of what might happen next. Was he going to swallow us alive? Would he possess us for all of eternity until he satisfied himself? What would he do to us?
Surprisingly, he disappeared; it took more than just a few minutes for us to recover from that.
"I wonder what the purpose of that was," Toadsworth finally asked out loud. I don't think he meant it specifically for anyone.
"My question," Kory started, "is if we go back to that door?" His question was answered with a sullen silence. What we decided eventually was to retry the door. To our luck, the Atomic Boo did not appear, as we feared he would. However, we were disappointed when we entered.
"There's nothing in here but boxes! What's so special about boxes?"
To say the least, we were all as stunned as Kory was. What was the big deal about having such a big Boo guard those dumb boxes?
In short, we never found out. We left the room after discussing some vase opposite the door; it seemed pointless as well.
We wound up back in the main entrance hall with nowhere to go but upstairs. Up there, we found two more doors and an empty painting frame. We decided to investigate the painting to see what was up with it.
"What a strange piece of art." Toadsworth commented, almost sounding like a posh art critic.
"Weird. I think the artist forgot to finish his painting."
"I think he forgot to paint at all, Kory."
We left the tattered, empty tapestry for the door closest to it. No spooky surprises when we tried to enter, so that was that and we simply walked in.
"Oh boy! A bedroom! With beds!" I cheered. I remembered that the last time I went to sleep was early this morning; I figured I was overdue for sleep. I don't even know if the boys got any sleep that morning! This was just a really weird day. It was then when I started to feel an exhaustion that would last me the rest of this mini adventure through the mansion.
"And look at these magnificent cupboards. I wonder what lies inside this one?"
Toadsworth swung open the doors to the middle cupboard and we all jumped in fear as a whole slew of Boos flew out of it. Our shrieking fits filled that room up more than the Boos who formed a large circle in the middle of it.
"HAAAA HA HA HA ha haaa!" it cackled over our shrieking. "So glad you could make it this far in the mansion! I doubt you big bunch of scaredy cats won't make it past this little game of ours though." He let out another loud fit of cackling before floating down in the middle of the ring of Boos.
"Wh-what are you going to do with us?" shivered Kory. The Boo simply deadpanned.
"What are we gonna—? I just told you we're going to play a little game! Sheesh, are you three that fearful of us?"
"Well when you pop out of a cupboard unexpectedly…"
"You're in a haunted mansion, for Luvbi's sake! It's all just for effect; besides, we all know you're not associated with Dark Bowser and Fawful."
"So why are—" I started to ask, while we all clambered up on our feet, in a strange mixture of terror and exhaustion, but the Boo finished my thought perfectly.
"Why are we doing this to you? You guys must have the memory of Blubi or something to forget we're testin' ya!"
I didn't look, but I felt like I was getting glares from both of the boys for my dumb question driven by tiredness. The Boo chuckled softly this time, and then went on to say what the game was.
"Alright, I know it's late at night so I'll keep the rules of this simple. You guys most likely found that empty portrait on the outside of this room? Here's the missing portrait." He pulled out of his… well, I'm guessing what would be a pocket—he pulled out a physical portrait of a very old and posh Boo; old because it was obviously weathered and saturated of any color if there was any to start with, and posh because of his top hat and monocle. I stared at it; the desire within me to just snatch it out of his hand so we could end this night and this test and then go to bed was growing. Right before I even thought to pounce for it, he put it back.
"Wish I could just hand it to you, but orders are orders. Here's the deal: These Boos here are gonna circle around for a bit in one direction, and I'll be hoverin' over the other way. Pay close attention because sometime during that I'm gonna drop it off to a Boo below me. Your job is to find that Boo. If you guess correctly, you win as simple as that."
It seemed simple enough to tired me.
Until the Boos started throwing the portrait around the circle to each other.
"Hey, what gives? You never said anything about this!" Kory's protest went unanswered; the Boos continued. "Well, then I've already lost where it is…" I heard him mutter under his breath.
They finished passing it around among them, and I thought I caught a guilty smirk on one of the Boo's faces. Toadsworth murmured quietly to himself, but too quietly for me to make out what he said. Our friendly Boo floated back to the center of the circle.
"Alright, time's up. You gotta pick now." Commanded the lead Boo. He then reached into his pocket again and pulled out what looked like an ordinary wooden hammer. "You'll be needing this to choose which Boo you think has the portrait. Just bonk them on the head and if they're the one, they'll drop it. Since there are three of you, you guys get three chances." He threw the hammer to Kory. I blame the lateness of the night for his poor hand-eye coordination that caused him to get bonked in the head with it.
After moaning the pain out of him and rubbing his forehead for quite a few seconds, he picked up that Dusty Hammer (I recognized what it was after I got a closer look at it), and randomly bopped the first Boo he came to.
"Wrong pick, buck-o!" our chatty Boo chuckled. Kory shrugged it off and walked back over to us. I remember he was a little more upset than he let on to be, and I only noticed it because of the way he plopped himself down on the floor and the way he aggressively folded his legs over so that they criss-crossed. His pensive leaning forward, supporting himself up with his elbows on his legs, only helped me conclude that he really did feel bad about the whole thing.
"Looks like it's your turn, my elderly friend." Toadsworth grabbed the hammer that Kory carelessly left on the ground in front of him and took his time picking a Boo. I guess he was glad that there was one less Boo for him to pick from out of all the Boos in the circle, but there were still too many for any of us to be sure just which one held our key to the third floor. He took his time choosing, examining each Boo carefully and with a distinct eye. None cowered in fear as he glared down each one.
Something that surprised me about this whole ordeal is that when we looked at these Boos, they didn't seem to disappear like most of the Boos I've read about in the library or we learned about in school. They're known specifically for their ability to appear and disappear; a scientist devoted his entire life studying and perfecting a way to mimic that curious ability of theirs! Yet, as strange as it was, they didn't seem to even flinch at us. This gang seemed to want to lock on to our gazes. I was way too tired at the time to realize it, but that was a moment where I witnessed how different and interesting the world that's outside of the books and classrooms really can be. It's one of those things you really have to experience on your own.
Enough of me rambling on about those Boos though. I've gotta get back to the story. So there Toadsworth was, staring down one of the Boos near the back of the bunch, and WHAM! He hits that Boo.
"Sorry old timer, but you're wrong too. Good try though." It was nice to know that our game host had a nice side to him. I don't think he would have complimented Toadsworth just because he's old; that would have been really shallow of him, and so far he's proven completely otherwise.
Toadsworth walked back to us and sat himself down with the extra help of his cane. He leaned up against Kory, in need of some support for his old, tired bones. Based on how I saw him last night, I wouldn't have expected such an active elder to need a bedtime. I guess we all need some time to rest and recharge though.
"Your turn, girlie." The Boo finally said after giving Toadsworth a chance to settle himself down. I took a big gulp, afraid I'd mess up all of this for us. I slowly stepped forward on the creaking floorboards and took a pause to acclimate to the surrounding Boos who all turned to me. These were really good Boos; they scared me and didn't even have to do anything!
At this point I was trying to figure out which Boo it was that I caught smirking early on, but this overwhelming fear of the Boos and of failing to guess the correct one was really getting to me. On top of all that was the overwhelming tiredness, too. Not to mention I was now getting hungry. I was feeling like a wreck, and I'm sure I can say the same for Kory and Toadsworth. I was secretly hoping to the Stars for a break or some kind of long resting period after this dumb game. There was only one way to get that though.
A deep breath or two later, I was focused on my objective. It probably annoyed all the Boos that I was taking my time, but so what. If they really wanted us to win, they would have given that portrait to us at the beginning. I guess this Lady Bow is spookier than all of the Boos put together if they fear her.
I stopped in front of each one and stared for a good few seconds or so. I guess, looking back now, I was trying to break each one to rediscover the one who gave the tell early on. There were only two Boos left, and from the corner of my eye I saw it. The one Boo I saw earlier shifted and stifled a giggle. New life sparked in me and I jumped over to him, hammer over my head. I whacked him head with a heavy strike. Upon impact, the portrait fell out and that Boo shrieked. I wonder if I went a little overboard…
"Congrats, you did it," the leader Boo said. His tone was dry, likely an effect from me taking way too long choosing, but we didn't care because we finally had our key to moving on forward.
"To be honest, though, we would have just given this to you if you lost." A new Boo piped in.
"He's right, ya know. Bootler told us that Toadsworth is with you guys and he's a really great friend to us."
"Yeah! And our other guest keeps talking about him, too. You're, like, a celebrity now."
"Lady Bow even thinks highly of you. She still wanted to test you because she doesn't believe in special treatment. That's why we had to keep with this little game idea of ours. It was nothing personal, we swear."
"Like I said at the beginning of all this," the talking finally returned to the leader Boo, "We wanted to just hand it to you, but we couldn't because we were given orders. And like my friend said, yeah Lady Bow really does want to meet with you but she has standards and one of them is no special exceptions to anyone ever. To help you all feel better about yourselves, she even had the great Mario go through something like this many years ago, and he was a great hero and celebrity and everything else good for the Mushroom Kingdom. So don't feel bad."
We all stayed quiet; I at least didn't really know what to say, and I'm guessing that neither Kory nor Toadsworth did either. The Boo caught on to this and then told us rather awkwardly, "Go on and take the portrait. You've earned it."
That's what we did, and we left the room very dazed and somewhat stunned. It took us all a moment to regain our momentum.
"Okay, so we have this portrait… thingy. Now what?" Kory asked.
"If I'm not mistaken, all we have to do, my boy, is walk up to that portrait and place this long lost artifact inside of the frame. The rest is beyond even my own comprehension, unfortunately."
"That sounds like a good plan, Toadsworth." I said. I led them over to that barren frame and reached into my pocket for our prize. Without even having to do anything else, if floated out of my hands and placed itself neatly onto the canvas.
"Oh it feels SO good to be back in my frame! Thank you all for this. As debt repayment, I shall carry you all up to the third floor whenever you wish… provided that I'm here when you come back. That Lady Bow keeps taking me out of my frame more than a Koopa's shell is kicked off accidentally in a year. Come on! Hop into me!"
I was skeptical, but then Toadsworth proved to us that it was perfectly safe by demonstrating for us first. He leapt up and in and disappeared. I got over my shock and followed after and there he was a few feet away in front of a door. Kory came soon after.
"Hey, do you smell that?" I asked. Taking more sniffs, I realized that it was fresh food and it was behind that door. We walked in to find a set table for food and three short figures waiting patiently.