A/N: Thank you to everyone who has recently followed, favourited, read or reviewed this story. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. Just like to remind everyone that Ghost of a Kind is also cross-posted on AO3 under the same title and username on this site, just in case this site goes down again and you need to find this story or myself.
Chapter 13: Down the Plague Pit
From the moment she started working at Button House, Cordelia had lost track of how many little nooks, crannies or secret rooms she had either stumbled upon or been informed about by the other household help or ghosts. She was often reminded of the fictional setting of Thornfield Hall, half-expecting each new room she found to be housing a violently insane, secret spouse locked away from prying eyes. Thankfully, that was never the case, though had Cordelia been an author herself, especially one in this day and age, she didn't doubt that Button House would have made the perfect backdrop for a murder mystery or horror novel. Whether circumstantial, mysterious or downright bizarre, it was no secret to those who lived close to or on the Button Estate that the manor house was riddled with rumours thanks to the deaths of the ghosts currently residing here, with Cordelia herself being privy to those surrounding the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries and the Black Death (or 'the bubonic plague', as Cordelia later came to learn thanks to Heather) of the 14th century during her employment. Of course, it was the deaths from the plague that ultimately became the one to stick with Cordelia, not just because of Jemima, mind, but because of its link to one specific area of Button House that never failed to give Cordelia chills—the cellar.
The entrance to Button House's cellar was located in a small rectangular room at the back of the manor house, though it was hard to spot at a first glance. The tiny door was discreetly placed between the left wall-lining staircase and the right wall-lining bookcase, whose shelves were chocked to the brim with books galore, stowed away in the top right corner underneath the stairs ascending to the second floor. As the window to the room was located closer to the second floor, the natural light from outside failed to reach the ground floor, thus the bottom half of the stairwell was always left abandoned in the dark and gave off an eerie atmosphere around the cellar's entrance, something Cordelia never appreciated whether alive or dead. As a result, Cordelia rarely frequented the cellar when she was alive, much less upon her death. And yet here she now stood, in the doorway to the darkened room, with her hands clasped to her front.
However, it didn't take long for a faint and hollow feeling to strike her chest and tighten it, one that brought her out of her momentary search for the courage she was currently lacking.
'Hm, how strange.' The blonde-haired ghost unclasped her hands and lightly traced her fingers across the front of her shirt, her brows furrowing with thought. 'This feeling… Why would standing here suddenly cause me discomfort in this way?'
Cordelia only ever associated this empty sensation with anything related to her demise, but unlike the physical pain she usually experienced whenever she was in the common room, this feeling was different. This hollow feeling only ever sprouted up in relation to a certain someone she rarely thought about these days.
'Yet what could the cellar possibly have to do with her? I cannot fathom anything that would—'
Thudding footsteps walking down the right side of the corridor behind her disrupted Cordelia's train of thought with a wide blink and an involuntary flinch. She listened to the footsteps for several seconds before she bent her upper body backwards into the hallway with a raised brow, poking her head past the doorway to get a peek at the newcomer.
'How odd. I do not recognise the sounds of those soles.'
Her blue eyes soon caught Mike strolling towards her, dressed in blue coveralls (which she did recognise to be the type of clothing she had seen on various workmen frequenting Button House from time to time), a pair of black shoes and a white woolly hat on his head. A large duffel bag was being carried on his left shoulder, while he held a silver and square-like item in the crook of his left arm that Cordelia didn't recognise; although, she did recognise that the item on top of it was a thick, black wire of some kind.
'Oh dear!'
She hadn't been expecting company, but she supposed it couldn't be helped; at least they were living and couldn't see her.
As Mike drew closer, Cordelia retreated into the lower right corner of the room close to the shelves, allowing him to enter through the doorway without accidentally walking through her. She assumed Mike was heading up the stairs; however, when he instead moved in her direction again, she instinctively brought her arms close to her chest and tried to keep her body as close to the wall as she could without phasing through it, narrowly dodging him in the process.
'I forget this is one of the consequences of inhabiting the same living space as one who is still alive.'
Cordelia relaxed her stance once Mike passed her by and went straight for the cellar door, only pausing in his stride to push the latter open with a hand. The Victorian woman's shoulders tensed at the loud creak elicited as the door slowly swung open to the left, a frown forming shortly after.
'Michael is journeying down to the cellar?'
"Hmmm," Mike let out an uncertain hum, finally tickling Cordelia's curiosity and prompting her to approach him with caution. Cordelia stopped just to the left side of the biologically older and taller man with her hands clasped behind her back, observing Mike narrowing his eyes down at the dark-shrouded wooden stairs descending to the cellar, the sight of which left her own invisible hairs standing on end courtesy of the cold chill she could feel emanating from down there; she forgot about the terrible draught. "Don't like the look of that."
"That makes two of us, Michael," Cordelia commented aloud, merely doing so with the knowledge that Mike wasn't going to hear her.
It was a pointless thing to do, she realised, yet it couldn't be helped even when Heather was still about. There was just something about responding to the living that made Cordelia feel alive again.
After a few seconds longer of staring into the dark abyss cast into the stairwell, Mike sighed and straightened up. "Oh, well. That boiler isn't going to fix itself."
The Victorian woman watched Mike pick up a small, rectangular device off the top of his strange square silver item, a sight she tilted her head at with a squint of confusion to match. She didn't understand what he was trying to do until she saw a faint, rectangular light illuminate from the device's front, forcing a blink from her as he started to tap at it a few times. He stopped tapping once a tiny circular light flashed on from the back of the device's top right corner, prompting Cordelia to recoil with a hand to her chest when he directed the light to the darkened stairs.
"Goodness!" she exclaimed to no one in particular. "Is that supposed to be a modern and electrified invention of a portable lamp?! When did they become so small?!"
"C'mon, Mikey-boy," Mike muttered under his breath and moved a foot to place on top of the first stair. "There's nothing to be scared of…" He trailed off as the sole of his shoe pressed down and emitted an unpleasant groan, making both him and Cordelia wince and close an eye while the echo bounced down the stairwell. "Except for the creepy stairs," he remarked once it was quiet, causing Cordelia to shake her head dismissively.
"Oh, you poor, blissfully ignorant fellow." Cordelia watched Mike dare to take another step down the stairs. "What I would give to return to the days where the scariest thing about the cellar was the 'creepy stairs', as you put it..." She waited until Mike was at least five steps ahead before she cautiously strolled after him, keeping her hands clasped behind her back. "At least I have company in my latest quest—seeking out the spiritual presences lurking in the empty darkness beneath Button House…"
While Cordelia wouldn't deny the exaggerated tales weaved during her time of employment and thereafter had, indeed, fed into her dislike of entering the cellar, she could admit the lack of lighting didn't help. Venturing to the lowest room of the house with only dim candlelight to guide the way in the evening time presented a spooky and hair-raising atmosphere as is; however, the lack of natural light during the daytime gave rise to the additional worry of potentially mis-stepping and breaking their neck without a reliable light source. The installation of a light switch both where the boiler was and at the top of the stairs had given Cordelia the initial impression that the days for such concerns were over. But she was quickly proven wrong when the bulb to the stairwell light went out shortly after its fitting and nobody bothered to replace it, continuing to force visitors down into the darkness and blindly fumble around until they could find the second light switch.
The creaking stairs weren't any better. Despite no longer possessing a physical body, her inability to fall through the floor meant that every step she took was met with a harsh, high-pitched creak. This was intensified by Mike with each step he took, making the blonde-haired ghost hiss and hunch her shoulders every single time one of them made a sound.
'If the stairs were sentient, one would presume they were in unimaginable agony! Their creaky cries are practically penetrating my eardrums!'
Excited murmuring echoing from the darkness towards the cellar's left eventually drew the Victorian ghost's attention to the narrow corridor residing just off to the stairs. The content of the murmurs was difficult to make out, but from memory alone, Cordelia identified around twenty-something voices responsible for them, a fact she wasn't perturbed by in the slightest. Though it did cause her to perk up at the mental and satisfying click her brain did, as if she'd just placed the last piece of a jigsaw in the correct spot.
'Oh! I remember now! When I once accompanied her to the cellar, she regaled me with the yarn of the plague pit beneath its floor under the dim candlelight she held—should one dare to venture into the cellar alone on a quiet night, they could hear the pained moans and groans of the sick begging for the salvation only death could bring, she said.' A pained smile appeared as Cordelia's right hand slipped to her right cheek, a heavy sigh escaping her. 'Oh, if only I had known then how much of that exaggerated tale was actually true…'
As Mike continued ahead of her, Cordelia stopped once she reached the bottom step, her eyes having since adjusted to the darkness enough to observe Mike's outline disappear into the corridor.
'I shall wait for Michael to find the light switch before going any further. I do not wish to look upon the sickly faces of those poor unfortunates in the dark…'
Cordelia shuddered at the electrifying tingle that trickled down her spine at that last thought, choosing to listen to the retreating footsteps of Mike against the hard and barren floor to distract herself. Cordelia couldn't see Mike anymore, but she guessed where he was when the ongoing murmuring eventually ceased, swiftly followed by the echoes of Mike's footsteps falling silent. One loud click and electrifying zap later from ahead, a dim and yellowish light flashed to life, illuminating the corridor enough for Cordelia to see where she was going.
'There we are.'
With her hands clasped against her front and a quick intake and exhale of breath through her nose, Cordelia resumed her walk and followed the corridor from one end to the other one, ignoring the light echoes of her boots resounding off the walls. Her approach was drowned out by the collective shuffling of the twenty-something feet of the cellar's occupants, allowing the Victorian ghost to slow to a stop in the corridor's opposite entranceway and scan her dimly lit surroundings without her presence being noticed.
On the other side of the corridor was a wide and barrenly decorated room, which, outside of the wooden racks shoved into the bottom left corner and the large boiler against the back wall, housed mostly empty space. Underneath the dimly lit bulb hanging from the ceiling, Mike was standing in front of the boiler, but it was the backs of the twenty-something adults crowding around Mike in a semi-circle who Cordelia's attention was initially drawn to. The group consisted of a small handful of men wearing plain coloured peasant tunics, trousers and boots (some equipped with woollen hats) and women wearing long plain coloured peasant gowns (some with the addition of linen head rags on their heads, sleeveless tunics, or woollen shawls), all of which was covered in grime and muck. From behind, they looked like an ordinary bunch of village folk straight out of the medieval era, but Cordelia knew better. This was why she refrained from announcing her presence for the moment.
In the meantime, Cordelia's hesitation gave way for conversation to erupt amongst the ghosts, particularly the eight ghosts lingering at the front of the pack close to the boiler.
"'ey! It's the guy who was with the lady who wanted to get rid of ol' Betsy!" exclaimed a tall, male villager with light coloured and wavy shoulder-length hair styled neatly on either side of his head and a matching coloured and wavy beard standing close to the middle of the group, dressed in a light brown sleeveless tunic; 'Jeff', Cordelia believed his name was.
The referenced name caused Cordelia's eyes and shoulders to droop, her gaze instantly sideways glancing the boiler because… well, she knew that was 'who' Jeff was talking about.
'Good grief. They are still affectionately calling that noisy contraption by that name, I see.'
"Oh yeah!" said another tall male villager (who Cordelia knew was called 'Walter') with chin-length brown and wavy locks styled similarly to Jeff standing to the far-right of the boiler, wearing long red clothes and a dark coloured sleeveless coat held together by a black belt. "The idiot who didn't know what the valve for the filling loop was!"
"And who thought he fixed it when he just turned on the pilot light," added a small female villager with short and bushy black hair tied by a purple head rag standing in front of Jeff (who Cordelia recognised as 'Agnes'), wearing a long-sleeved, dark-blue gown and light brown sleeveless tunic. She snorted and shook her head. "How silly of him."
"You don't think he's come to get rid of ol' Betsy, do you?" asked a short, male villager with shaggy brunette hair neatly parted on either side of his head from somewhere to the far left of the group, wearing long orange clothes and a dark coloured shoulder covering; 'Nigel', Cordelia identified based on the highish tone of voice.
"I don't think so," answered a soft-spoken female villager (whose name Cordelia had yet to learn, due to being the least vocal of the eight) with long black hair covered with a black head rag, wearing a long-sleeved and white coloured gown with red across the front and sleeves and a woollen shawl over her shoulders. "He told the lady he was with before that he wanted to fix it."
A loud snort sounded from a short man with shaggy brown hair, an exposed bald spot on the front of his head and a matching coloured and styled beard standing in front of Walter ('John', Cordelia recalled—the husband of the unknown woman who'd previously spoken), wearing dark coloured clothes underneath a red-hooded garment.
"Yeah! Good luck with that one, mate!" he commented sarcastically.
"I know, right?!" said a woman (whose name Cordelia had yet to learn of, but whom was a recognisable face amongst the vocal plague ghosts nonetheless) with dark, shoulder-length hair covered with a head rag standing somewhere within the pack of gathered ghosts, wearing a long-sleeved purple gown with a dark front. "Don't know how he's gonna do that with that thing he's holding!"
Cordelia guessed the woman was referring to the silver item she'd seen prior to Mike's entrance to the cellar. She couldn't see what Mike was doing because of the group blocking her line of vision; however, based on the light thumps she heard from his direction, she assumed he was placing the objects he'd previously been carrying down close to the boiler.
"Looks fancy, though, dun it?" remarked the male voice of the final 'vocal' ghost of the eight whom Cordelia knew as 'Mick'—a man around Walter's height with messy dark-coloured hair, a visible bald spot on the front of his head, and protruding and misaligned teeth jutting from his lower jaw, some of which were missing. He was dressed in a long light-coloured tunic and a dark green cloak and was standing between Walter and Jeff. "Wonder what it is."
Shortly after Mick had said that, an intrigued chorus of 'Ooooooooh…' followed from the twenty-something ghosts at whatever Mike was currently doing (using the unknown item, Cordelia assumed), the sight of which caused Cordelia to close her eyes with a quiet huff.
'In hindsight, entering the cellar with Michael was not very wise.' Cordelia's eyes opened again at hearing loud and repeated low-pitched dinging noise coming from Mike's direction, only for them to droop following Mike's irritated huffing and puffing and under-his-breath grumbling. 'They appear to be too preoccupied with his irritable behaviour.' The Victorian ghost gave the corridor behind her a peek from over her right shoulder. 'I do not know how long Michael intends to remain down here, so perhaps it would be best if I wait upstairs until he has departed. After all, I have yet to be noticed by the cellar's residents. It's not like any of them will know I was here.'
But if only Cordelia had known that her last words were about to come back around and bite her, because no sooner had she faced forwards again and then took one step backwards into the darkness of the corridor… her right boot made contact with the barren floor harder than she'd intended, producing loud scraping from her heel that echoed in the air for three solid seconds.
Time seemed to freeze over for Cordelia the second her brain processed the situation. Her shoulders rose and stiffened in place, her blue eyes widened and instinctively focused on the group of ghosts by the boiler. And then… twenty-something bodies whirled round to look at the room's entrance with bulging and vein-protruding eyes under the dim light of the bulb, exposing the sickly pale skin and notable sores across the faces, necks and hands of the former villagers in all of their filthy, ailing and infected glory, just like with Jemima. Compared to Jemima's, however, the adults' sores were much more severe and putrid looking, their movement so in sync that it was like watching a group of disease-ridden meerkats warily checking for predators at hearing the faintest of sounds.
Nausea crashed into Cordelia like a vicious wave drowning a rock when her eyes locked with theirs, the reminder of how long it had actually been since she'd last laid eyes upon these poor souls hitting her in full force. The blonde-haired ghost whipped her gaze to the left wall and smacked a palm to her mouth when the urge to gag attempted to rise from her throat, her cheeks puffing out at the muffled sound that escaped her. As a ghost, she had no clue if she was capable of producing any fluids from her churning stomach despite still having the physical capability to feel sick, yet today was not the day she was looking to find that out!
'Fie! Why must my spectre form befuddle me so?!'
The plague ghosts, on the other hand, looked upon the newcomer without a single shift in their current expressions, giving Cordelia the same vibe a pack of wolves would towards their potential prey. That all changed when John became the one to speak up in a low voice, straightening out his posture and staring Cordelia down with narrowed eyes.
"Well, well, well, look what the living's dragged in!" A short round of silence followed, with Cordelia visibly shrinking at the thought she'd unintentionally offended them with her involuntary reaction. But John soon broke the icy tension that had enveloped the cellar with the raise of his palm and a wink at the Victorian ghost, an amused smile making itself known. "Ah! Just joking!"
The confirmation of his jesting earned John a few laughs from the plague ghosts who understood the joke, with some additionally remarking things like 'Ah, that was clever!' and 'Good one, John!'. Cordelia didn't share in that amusement, her eyes and shoulders drooping upon realising she'd been duped.
'Ah, yes. I forget this merry bunch sometimes jest with us from upstairs…'
Mick, however, briefly looked around when his friends started to laugh, eventually turning to John with a faint frown on his brow. "I don't get it."
"It's a play on words, Mick," John's wife explained, with Walter calming down from his laughter with a deep breath to give Mick a light shove on his closest shoulder.
"Yeah! It's like what one of those workmen who was here said before!" He frowned and clicked his fingers repeatedly on his other hand. "Uh, what was it again?"
"Look what the cat dragged in," Agnes answered monotonously, stopping Walter's clicking and producing a proud smile on the mentioned plague ghost's face.
"That was it!"
"Oh…" Mick said with a nod of acknowledgement. "Anyway…" He returned his attention to Cordelia with a goofy and misaligned teeth-bearing grin, raising a hand alongside some of the other quiet ghosts to give a wave. "'ello, Cordelia!"
A chorus of cheerful greetings rung out in turn as Cordelia swallowed thickly and removed her hand from her mouth after a brief inhale and exhale through her nose. Including, but no limited to:
"Long time no see!"
"Good to see you, Cordelia!"
"Hello again!"
"Been a while!"
Once she'd regained her composure and returned to her usual stance, Cordelia acknowledged the greetings sent her way with a stiff nod. "Greetings."
Jeff eventually became the one to break the cycle of acknowledgements while scratching at the side of his head. "How long have you been standing there?"
Agnes chuckled light-heartedly and tilted her head to the side. "Yeah! What are you hiding in the dark for?"
Cordelia's brow raised with a forced blink, suddenly feeling like a chameleon whose disguise had just been discovered. "What makes you think that I have not just arrived?"
"Because we didn't hear you coming," Jeff answered bluntly and jabbed a thumb in Mike's direction, who was still busy getting irritable with… whatever that strange item was. "Mister 'Fix-It' here has been making enough of a racket to cover you."
"And you're usually quiet," Walter added matter-of-factly, causing Nigel to look over at him with a raised brow.
"I thought it was because she doesn't like it down here."
"That is true," the unknown vocal female plague ghost remarked with the waggle of her index finger. "Each time she's come down here, it's 'cause she's following a living."
"But to be fair, she never liked coming down here when she was alive either," Mick added with a casual shrug. "I mean, we were there and saw it, weren't we?"
The other plague ghosts released murmurs of agreement to Mick's statement, making Cordelia's left eye twitch at the gathered ghosts speaking about her as if she wasn't standing there. Verbal reminders like this were perfect examples for Cordelia at how perceptive and knowledgeable the plague ghosts were nowadays despite their former uneducated backgrounds. Not that she was surprised; Robin was no different, after all, and it was inevitable seeing as they'd been around for a considerable amount of time in comparison to the rest of them.
"Touché," Cordelia countered through a huff, closing her eyes as she stroked a few dirty-blonde strands of hair away from her forehead. "Alas, my presence here this late morn is unrelated to Michael's quest to tend to the boiler—"
"Betsy," Jeff corrected.
Cordelia pressed her lips into a thin line to suppress the urge to groan at their insistence to use that name, squeezing her eyes shut tighter a few seconds more and counting to 'five' in her head.
'Oh, Lord, spare me…'
"… Right," she replied evenly after a short delay, only continuing once she opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on Mike's back past the sea of sore-ridden and sickly pale faces gathered round him. "Anyhow, it was mere coincidence this time. My purpose and his are not aligned."
"Oh?" Agnes spoke up with a wide blink, with the rest of the plague ghosts copying her reaction. "That's a surprise."
"Not really," Nigel replied bluntly. "Cordelia might not like being down here, but she doesn't look down on us like the ghosts upstairs do."
"Yeah!" Mick chimed in. "I've always said Cordelia was one of the good ones!"
"So has Jemima," John's wife added quietly.
"Maybe Cordelia finally got tired of those lot upstairs!" John joked with a loud snort. "And who can blame her?"
"Naw!" the unknown vocal female plague ghost objected with the flippant wave of her hand. "She's too nice to leave 'em!"
Cordelia pursed her lips when discussion about her presence in the cellar broke out and the ghosts began talking over each other, the Victorian woman once again not appreciating them speaking about her like she wasn't standing there. But when she opened her mouth to dispel the speculative chatter… a grating, high-pitched squeak sounded from behind the plague ghosts, dispelling it for her in an instant.
All the ghosts' attention whirled to Mike with a collective flinch, who was currently crouching underneath the boiler with his duffel bag at his feet. The same grating noise sounded throughout the cellar again when Mike turned a tiny, white, tap-like handle attached to the copper pipes connected to bottom of the boiler to the right once, resulting in a lot of eye twitches and winces from his invisible spectators. But whereas Cordelia's reaction was related to the squeaks harassing her invisible eardrums, everyone else seemed more preoccupied with what Mike was fiddling with, evidenced by the collective scowls that fell over the disease-ridden group.
"What's he doing now?" Jeff questioned.
"Fixing ol' Betsy, by the looks of it," John answered. He shuffled closer to Mike so he could lean round and get a better view of what the man was fiddling with, eventually tutting in disapproval. "And doing a right terrible job of it."
The other plague ghosts immediately started muttering in annoyance amongst themselves and moved to stand behind Mike in a compacted semi-circle, actions that Cordelia took to be the cue for her to not utter a single word. On the rare occasions she'd graced the cellar with her presence, she'd observed first-hand just how protective they got over the boiler whenever a living person meddled with it. So, Cordelia knew better than to interfere. After all, to cite a comparison, getting in between the plague ghosts and the boiler was no different to getting in the way of a pack of lions and their lunch.
Because the plague ghosts were blocking her view of Mike once again, she couldn't see what he was doing. Though the high-pitched squeaks that followed gave her a pretty good idea, making her shudder and stick a finger in her left ear with a harsh twist.
'Good Heavens! What is he doing?'
"Mate, you're doing it wrong," John calmly reprimanded Mike, even though the latter couldn't see and hear him. Coincidentally, the squeaking stopped shortly after, with Mike's head momentarily dipping out of Cordelia's sight as John continued to give instructions. "You need to prime the inlet pump, open the induction loop, repressurise the system, then connect the gas feed to ignite the—"
John interrupted himself when Mike's head suddenly reappeared in Cordelia's view, only for a resounding and dull bang to follow. Cordelia's brows raised with a startled flinch at the further three bangs Mike seemed to be inflicting on the boiler, listening to the groans and inaudible comments escaping the shaking heads of the plague ghosts. She saw John pinch the bridge of his nose and squeeze his eyes shut with an irritated sigh.
"Or just hit 'er with a hammer!" he remarked sarcastically. "Like that's not going to make it worse!"
Walter clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes at Mike when the living gentleman paused to admire his 'handywork'. "What a technophobe!"
And Cordelia could empathise with their frustrations. Their extensive knowledge on the boiler unfazed her despite not understanding a single word of the technical jargon. They lingered in the cellar all the time, and workmen frequently came in and out to fix the boiler; of course they'd picked up on its mechanisms and how to fix it! And yet here they were, forced to watch someone who didn't know what they were doing and unable to provide them with the key knowledge they held to help.
But then John's wife shook her head and placed a hand to her hip, her next words suddenly resonating with her current thoughts and almost causing her eyes to bulge from her non-existent sockets.
"It'd be simple if he could see and hear us. At least then we could actually do something to help him."
Wait a minute…
'I desire to help Alison, whereas the upstairs ghosts do not. This is the reason behind my conflicting loyalties.' Cordelia furrowed her brows as she observed the plague ghosts turn away from Mike and back to her with inaudible chatter and dismissive waves of their hands or shakes of their heads, the sudden realisation gradually beginning to dawn upon her. 'But the plague ghosts would help Michael if given the chance despite the opinions of the rest upstairs. So, would it not help to ease my inner conflict if I was to switch my sights on helping Alison rather than hindering the Captain and his selfish plots?'
"Sorry about that, Cordelia," John apologised and pulled the Victorian ghost away from her pondering, quietening the others down as he did so. "Where were we?"
But Cordelia didn't respond with the initial reason she'd ventured down to the cellar. With a rare smile of gratitude slipping onto her face, the blonde-haired woman clasped her hands together under her chin and bowed her head a bit, causing the group of ghosts to collectively force a few blinks each.
"You have all been most helpful," she stated sincerely. "Thank you for your time."
And before any of the plague ghosts had a chance to question her, they were watching dumbfoundedly as Cordelia righted herself and quickly swirled on her heels, bounding out of the cellar like a happy bunny with the way her footsteps bounced between the walls.
As she made her way down the corridor, she thought she heard Mick shouting after her with an echoing "You're welcome!", only to quietly follow up with "Not sure how we helped you, though."
A/N: Yeah. This chapter came a little later than I'd intended. Only by a couple of days. Got a bit of writer's block trying to figure out how to end the chapter, but I also got slowed down by other writing projects. I really wanted to make sure I got this chapter done before Series 5 airs next week, though, so at least I managed to accomplish that.
But yeah. It finally happened! The plague ghosts have been introduced and... they were hard to write, not gonna lie. Their wikis held very little about their personalities, as did the scenes in the show where they make their appearances, so I had to do a lot of rewatching and hoping I could get their characters as close to their canon portrayals as possible. XD Also, yes, only six of the main eight plague ghosts actually have names, apparently. Katy's and Martha's characters weren't given any names (or at least, haven't had theirs revealed yet), and while I could have made names up, I haven't just in case Series 5 or The Button House Archives book (which I have preordered and will hopefully be receiving at the end of October) does reveal names for them. So for now, I've played it off as if Cordelia doesn't know the names. But depending on what happens, I will give them names later on in the story, whether their official ones or made up. XD Either way, I will admit this chapter took a bit of a turn when I involved Mike, because honestly I wasn't planning on including him so early in the chapter. But I like how it turned out, because Cordelia's interactions with him were kinda funny, outside of feelsy. Still, the chapter has started to lead the canon storyline for Episode 2 in a little bit of a redirection, so I expect you all will be very shocked with what's coming up in the next chapter, because this isn't going to go how you think it will...