Chapter 3: A Portrait of the Ordinary
As Vivi dreamed, she saw Lewis for the first time.
It was a nearby memory, surfacing to the top of her mind from only five months prior at a home long since abandoned and probably better forgotten: the high school all three of them had gone to at one point in their lives, if graduating at different years. Arthur, a super senior by only a few credits, was forced to stay in the prison-like confinement by the pleading of his mother and uncle while Lewis, the straight A student, had despised the added stress and responsibility maintaining a stellar GPA had imposed upon him. To the girl in blue, though, her whole life had started in the high school of the small town they all originated from, even if she had this realization after she had graduated. With this high school, she had taken a step into becoming a ghost hunter, and had gained a valued friend along the way.
Arthur was by her side like he always was in these sticky situations, hands in his pockets as he smuggled the alumni into the school he was still, at nineteen, forced to go to, her having graduated three years before him. They had entered the school unnoticed with the custodians and teachers recognizing Arthur and probably assuming the very brightly dressed girl to be his sibling or friend, not caring enough anyway as the two wandered the halls in search of the fabled haunt, the mystery that Vivi had spent the entire week thinking about. She knew, with that sense of intuition she had always believed one hundred percent in, that this day was very, very important.
They tried to act casual and cool in the hallways with the few stragglers lagging behind, strolling to clubs and teachers' rooms for tests only a few minutes after the last bell had rung and they were out for the weekend. It wasn't until the two found their way into the boy's bathroom on the second floor, the English wing, that they began to pull out piles of equipment from their backpacks, purses, and pockets of all sorts. With laptop and machines in hand, they were ready to hunt for the supernatural that might lurk within the confines of this horrid institution. Vivi daydreamed of the angry ghosts of students working together to make those who were still victim to the horrors of learning into ghosts themselves, freeing tearful calculus and biology students from a fate worse than death; or, maybe, the gripping tale of a teacher who worked himself to death over grading papers, trying to warn his coworkers of the doom that would meet them if they tried to hard. Head swimming with dreams and tales, the two began working as quickly and effectively as two amateurs could.
"Okay, is everything set up, Arty? EVP recording? EMF beeping?" Vivi whispered to her companion with wonder filling her sky blue eyes, curiosity and awe rolling off of her in contagious waves of optimism and attempted professionalism. She straightened herself out, trying to present herself as a completely-in-control adult, "I'll try and talk to the ghost, try and communicate in some way. You ready?"
Arthur glanced around the bathroom he had skipped class in, not seeing anything that amazing in the tiled floors and poorly painted walls, "What is this, the case of Moaning Myrtle?" he scoffed silently.
The girl shot a sideways glance at her best friend, taking this moment very seriously as he began snickering at his own joke and trying his hardest to get her into his little bout of laughter. She faked a laugh, thick with sarcasm, and walked into the handicapped bathroom stall with her ridiculous coworker tagging closely behind. Once inside, she closed the door and set down the laptop and gear, grabbing only a laser thermometer as the devices the two had set up began to beep slowly and consistently, showing that they were ready for whatever the blue girl threw at them. Vivi swept her laser thermometer through the room, standing on the toilet in order to get a full view of the bathroom with the laser passing over everything. There was nothing yet.
She cleared her throat, somewhat terrified as she did so. If the descriptions were anything to go by, there was always some sort of banging about in the stalls despite there not always being someone inside, and people found strange and cryptic messages hidden in places that were impossible to reach without a ladder. This was all word of mouth, picked up by Arthur as he went by with his daily life in the school he so hated, and Vivi had the sneaking suspicion that he had lied to her in order to get off with an easy, non-existent hunt. Still, it sounded like pretty ghosty stuff to Vivi, and even if her first time ghost hunting was a lie, she would still appreciate the experience with Arthur. Her voice began to falter as she spoke up, fearing that she might not be addressing them correctly as she lifted her voice into the noiselessness of the bathroom.
"Is there anyone in here?" She asked, excitement filling the caution that had left her paralyzed before. As long as she could remember, Vivi had loved exploring the unknown and venturing onto the paths less travelled by those around her, but never had she ever dared to raise her voice to the supernatural. She was awaiting an answer in any form-a thump, a bump...maybe even a voice in the tragically empty bathroom-just something to show her that she wasn't in fact crazy and that, with a little time, maybe she could come to understand the world she was so curious and in the dark about. With every ounce of her tiny being, she hoped with the determination of a child that someone would answer back to her, that someone would help her to truly understand what she so adored and worshipped.
"...Yes?"
Vivi felt her excitement flare like a fire fed with gasoline, nearly stumbling off of the toilet as the burst of surprise overcame her and Arthur both in the flames of disbelief and wonder. With eyes bright as candles and her voice nearly squeaking with anticipation at the hunt ahead, she didn't take time to notice that none of the monitors had hinted at paranormal activity, and she definitely didn't stop to ponder that ghosts never actually spoke to humans in a way that they could truly understand upon hearing. She was so caught up in her joyful paradise, so stuck in the heat of the moment, that Vivi was lost in the possibilities that were now presented before her.
"Who are you?" She steadied her voice, trying to ask as quickly as her control might allow. This was no time to show that she was weak or easily swayed for fear that the ghost might latch onto that excitement, that willingness to expose herself to the supernatural-she had read that in one of the books at her work, one that had been recommended heavily by its seller. Even if the man had appeared to be lying, she didn't want to test the fates in a situation like this.
As she waited for an answer, there was a very disheartening silence, the voice hesitating for much longer than a few heartbeats to gather his thoughts before speaking back to the eager young woman. With every passing moment, Vivi began to lose faith in anything supernatural actually being in this stuffy little bathroom, wondering if maybe she had heard nothing. Had it just been a toilet flushing in the girl's restroom right next door? Were they standing on the toilet of the boy's bathroom for no reason? The blue girl honestly did not want to know the answer unless it was positive.
Then, from the silence there was a voice, divine upon her ears and more than enough to reassure Vivi that she was not, in fact, alone in this bathroom, "Uhm, my name is Lewis."
Whoever this phantom was, he sounded terribly uncomfortable and confused; not exactly the bumping and thumping monster Vivi had expected when she had pictured the job, but you can't always get everything in life. She guessed that maybe he was a very controlled spirit taking into consideration him having a clear, human-like voice and the ability to mimic emotions as he did. Her eyes closed happily, and she smiled wider than the world could possibly handle.
Arthur broke her glee, giving her legs a brisk shake as she stood their humming happily to herself, "Viv, I don't think-"
"Shush, Art! You might scare it away. I got this." Vivi defended, pulling her shoulder away from the grasp of her companion somewhat aggressively and without truly hearing him out, knowing he would want to bolt now that his rumors and speculation had ended up being true. Once again she raised her voice with her friend gripping her socks for dear life, "Now, spirit, what do you want in this realm?"
The pause was even longer this time, spanning several painfully slow and aching seconds with nothing but the beating of her wild heart and the grinding of Arthur's teeth. Vivi knew the ghost was there, she knew he had entered the bathroom and was willing to talk, but what would his purpose be? Her hands tightened their grip on the thermometer, and the voice began to answer back with speech a little quieter and just a tad embarrassed. Vivi knew that she would worship these words, the final wish of a wandering soul trapped within the plane of human existence, for the rest of her career in ghost hunting and possibly the rest of her life.
"I really just need to piss is all."
Arthur smacked his face hard and dramatically with a hand, looking at Vivi through the cracks of his fingers with mingled disappointment and a little bit of an 'I told you so' attitude. Despite these actions denoting superiority as though Arthur was bragging, his own embarrassment of believing for even a moment that there was a ghost in the bathroom seeped from his pores like a wild sweat on a sweltering hot summer day. Arthur was blushing just as hard, if not harder, than Vivi herself.
"Oh." she looked down with her eyes closed and her teeth biting her lip gently, avoiding eye contact with Arthur as her face began to resemble a ripe tomato, contrasting heavily with the blue of her hair and dress, "Well, go ahead then."
This silence was a lot deeper than anything she had experienced before, the many tones of embarrassment rendering it much longer and quieter than it should have been. You could hear a pin drop on the tile floors surrounding the three young adults, and after a few very long, awkward moments, the sound of liquid hitting porcelain rang throughout with the echoing boom of thunder, louder than it should've been without anything to cover it up. As a zipper snap, the sink run, and the door open and close in farewell, Vivi and Arthur broke into possibly the world's most ridiculous and uncontrollable fit of laughter, leaving the two gasping for air.
When they finally exited the bathroom, sides heaving and breathing heavy and laborious, a very well-built man with a face much redder than Vivi's had ever been was waiting for them to arrive. His amazingly pink hair accented the hues of blush upon his cheeks, and overall, the pompadour-wearing buffoon looked very goofy as he confronted the two on the happenings of the bathroom. With his appearance less than intimidating and the situation something to laugh at, he wasn't a threat to Arthur, and Lewis had entered their lives with stomach screaming with laughter and little to no warning or transition.
One day, he was non-existent. The next, a valued friend.
Even if Arthur hadn't immediately fallen head over heels for their new friend, visiting the school to find his younger brother and using the bathroom when he had failed to locate him, he had grown tolerant of their new coworker with time and even came to call him a friend as he learned that, just maybe, he could trust the oaf with the build of a weight lifter. He granted him privileges that even Vivi wasn't allowed, things that he felt he could only bestow to Lewis and Lewis alone, such as driving the Mystery Skulls van or sleeping in the motels with him as money situations required. They even sometimes confided secrets in each other, but mainly their time was spent screaming at a television set with Gamecube controller in hand. As the second month ended and Arthur truly felt that he could fully accept Lewis, he gave to him the greatest gift the socially awkward teen could gift, a shiny new nickname made especially for him.
Somehow and by some great chance, the three opposites had come together, and by some fate they just happened to fit together perfectly without force or struggle. If Vivi and Arthur were day and night, Lewis was the twilight in between that was neither and both at the same time. Without him, they had been the force that held each others world together, but as he crept upon them and embraced the two shorties close to his chest, Lewis had brought them even closer together by appealing to both. With him, they became more than a force necessary to survive: they became happy, purely, simply, and truly.
"Rise and shine, lazybones!" Arthur shouted, lifting a hand and banging loudly on the roof of the van with his metal rings and a grin lighting his usually frowning face, "Pinky, can you give her a shake or two? You know how that girl is."
She was still dozing, in that state of unfocus yet strange awareness and presence without a true plan or purpose in life, what to her was the greatest plane of existence. This came to an end as the words sank in and she realized her fate and what was to come. Opening her eyes swiftly and throwing her torso forward in a display of utter awakeness, Vivi cried out before anyone could lay a hand on her, "I'm up, I'm up!"
Lewis was leaning over to give her a firm push or two, planning in his head how he would wake her up this morning. He had to admit, coming up with new, creative ways to break her from slumber was always a fun activity, and her recent ability to rise at will was somewhat of a downer to the boy as he leaned back into the couch cushions. To Vivi, it was a relief.
Arthur was driving now, his orange teased hair sticking out from his short body and over the back of the seat like a beacon of flames calling to the Mystery Skulls and leading them onwards towards their next job. His hands, clenched firmly on the wheel, rocked back and forth just slightly, a very unique and interesting way in which he kept his car on the road with the slight wiggling of the van, back and forth. In the rearview mirror, Vivi saw his orange eyes flick up to look at her and fill with laughter as he steadied his gaze back onto the road ahead, finding something about his friend humorous as he continued to drive.
"Nice hair, Smurf. I daresay it rivals the mop of our friend Lewis in ridiculousness, A+ to you my friend."
She pulled her hands to her head quickly, knowing beforehand how silly her hair could turn out after a night spent tossing and turning in the van without the confines of a mattress and the fear of falling off. Her hands tussled the soft yet noticeable kinks and overall random placement of her fluffy locks as the van bounced along, her face sporting a bright new smile as she pictured how messy she must look.
"How long until we're there, Arty?"
The ginger looked down at the map on his knee, tracing the forest paths with his eyes while keeping trace of the road in front of him, a dangerous but fairly easy task. With venom in his voice, still a little bit offended by the hit on his proud hairdo, Lewis answered back quickly before Arthur could gather his bearings and report his findings back to their leader, Vivi, "About five minutes."
Arthur glared a little bit at the older boy, wondering if maybe he should retaliate himself but thinking better of it and looking back at the road with no more than a little bit of a glance. He'd get back at him later.
Vivi hadn't caught their little bit of bickering, more worried about how horrible she must look to actually care, "Shit. You got a hairbrush, Lulu?"
Lewis began to rummage through his personal duffel bag of toiletries, taking almost no time in responding to the girl's request as he plunged his large hands deep into the unknown endlessness within, "Only if you stop calling me that." he teased. By the depths his arm had reached, Vivi feared his arm would never surface again from the black hole he had so carelessly entered.
"No can do, ghost-boy. It's too cute a name to give up."
She snatched the brush from his hands with a flare of attitude and a grin to match, skillfully using the rearview mirror to adjust the roaring ocean atop her calm head, attempting to tame the wildest and bluest of seas as they pushed up against her defiantly. Each stroke of her hand was a wave in the water, but like waves, her hair went back to its original and messy state with every pulse she sent through it. She fought valiantly and without mercy, but after awhile, she gave in as she usually did and placed her head band on like a crown and watched as her hair swept dramatically forward. Someday, she was going to invest in a quality straightening iron.
The car was slowing down now, bumping wildly on the gravel roads they had turned on to. Lewis was fixing his own outfit carefully, always conscious of his appearance as he straightened his neckerchief and pulled his vest down tightly over his wide, barrel chest. He was an overload of pinkish purple, like powdered grape candy, and Vivi just had to snicker at how ridiculous he could look and act sometimes.
"You look fine, Lew. Relax, we're not even meeting our clients until we finish the hunt, and even then, I'll be doing the talking. The ghosts won't care how ridiculously adorable your hair is." Vivi reassured with a little compliment, straightening him up a little herself when she went over to hand him his hairbrush again. He shook his head at the misunderstanding, running the brush through his hair himself as he did so with the tenderness of a mother to a baby.
"That's not it, I just like to look nice," He looked down at his lap in thought, placing the item back into the bag of neverending abyss,"I never had time to take care of my appearance before, what with dishes and waiting tables and babysitting and homework. Now that I have the time, I might as well make up for the years lost."
"Fair enough." Vivi backed off a little, allowing him to finish pruning his feathers carefully and attentively with a goofy smile on her face. Even if she laughed at him, she loved how much the little things mattered to him, and secretly she respected his ability to always look perfect despite the situation-it may have come naturally to him, but that didn't mean his constant grooming didn't help. He was like a movie character come to life, always in the correct light and with just the right angle...from every angle.
The van had pulled to a stop, screeching slightly as it did so and, with a tinge of childish excitement, Vivi ran to the window of the van to catch the first glimpse of their new job just as she always did. With every hunt they grabbed, her body was filled with the anticipation and adrenaline of a little kid on Christmas Eve, that inability to sleep translating to the happy humming that everyone but she noticed as she suctioned her hands to the glass. She was painfully aware of the fact that, each and every time, the houses never ended up blowing her mind like she hoped they would with their usually timid and tame outward appearance, but she still couldn't help herself. Who in their right mind would buy a clearly haunted house? Not many was the answer, and so she was often left to gawk at the most mundane of houses when they began to investigate.
This time, she was left breathless.
In front of them, a heavily gothic-style mansion rose from a thick base of black thorns and into the grey sky like a tower to the heavens, boasting its two stories and boarded windows with silent pride and glory. The inside was hidden in shadow, veiling whatever waited for them within in silence and mystery: just the thing she loved, the thing she craved most of all. The black and grey base, highlighted only by the green grass below it, left a dark and menacing impression upon the team of four, and as she gazed lovingly upon it, Vivi reveled in her dream house straight from the distant past.
"It's...beautiful." She whispered into the glass separating her from her destiny, voice growing breathy and almost non-existent as she pulled a hand to the window. With her exhale, the mansion looked as though it were covered in dog, giving it that mystical feeling she so loved and adored. Definitely and without a doubt, Vivi had fallen in love with this house.
Arthur shrugged, pulling out his orange 3DS and powering it up, "Looks pretty broken down to me, but whatever floats your boat I guess. You two got this haunt?"
Reluctantly and without tearing her eyes from her dream within reality, Vivi nodded, using all of her power to break out of her awe to grab the notes from her phone call with the clients, "We got it. Client reported multiple, lesser ghosts haunting the mansion. They don't attack, but they try and scare away anyone who enters the house: not exactly prime real estate, the guy says."
The sound of Smash Brothers rose from the driver's seat as Arthur shut off the car and turned away from his friends, not caring to mute his game as Lewis and Vivi prepared to discuss their plan of action, "Well, if it isn't too dangerous, you won't need a mechanic anyway," he turned around slightly, gesturing a goodbye to his teammates without really taking his eyes off of the screen, "go ahead, stay safe, whatever."
Vivi nodded, taking the advice very seriously as she readied herself for the possibilities ahead of her and Lewis, "Do you think we'll need any gear?"
Lewis shook his head with confidence in his own judgment, "Sounds like they're pretty tame compared to our last job. I say my abuela's methods will work just fine."
Lewis lifted the back of the van noiselessly, hopping down with a hard thud onto the gravel beneath his feet and the car's tires while Vivi, who was more in control of her weight and gravity, landed with silence and grace. From outside with the light shining magnificently and the smudges of dog slobber on the window no longer impairing her vision, Vivi observed that the house was even more beautiful and majestic that she had originally thought.
The two began to walk forward with slow steps, approaching the vines that wrapped around the house as they began to tighten protectively around the house, hugging and embracing it lovingly. This place was without a doubt haunted, and no ordinary ghost had such control over nature-even Vivi, who had only read a few accurate books on the matter, knew that this was much more serious than she had originally thought.
"Was there anything else that the client may have mentioned to you, maybe a side note that you didn't write down?" Lewis pried, approaching the doorstep timidly now. Their last ghost hunt had been described as a mischievous, sprite-like spirit with a knack for pranks but who had never actually physically harmed anybody when in all actuality, it was a very strong and very angry demon who nearly killed the three and left all but Arthur with temporary blindness and muscle spasms that they couldn't figure out how to cure for over a week. Even Mystery was left to stumble about with no way of knowing what was going on, and though they were paid handsomely, it left the team somewhat bitter and without any jobs for a lot longer than they liked to go without work.
Vivi shook her head, recalling the event herself, "The ghosts hum when they think they have an audience, but they were described as your stereotypical bedsheet type. The client gave me no reason to suspect anything more or less."
Lewis had grown thoughtful, paused in front of the thorns while his eyes observed them carefully, "The reaction of the vines is curious. Either these are very benevolent or very strong phantoms, and by the sound of it, they aren't very friendly." Lewis recalled, leaving a wide gap between him and the taunting thorns as he began walking towards the entrance to the house again. Vivi followed suit, following close behind.
"What should we do?"
Lewis thought for a moment, lifting his hand to frame his chin dramatically as he bit his lip and looked up into the distance, in every way a portrait of the most typical expressions, "I'm hoping against all odds that these ghosts are benevolent, maybe young. If that's the case, they should listen to us without much trouble on our part."
Vivi sighed a little bit, knowing that none of what he was expecting was very likely, "And if they aren't"
"Well," Lewis smiled back, gripping the door handle bravely and bracing himself to push it open, "then we run."