Day Three:

There are six of them in total. 

True, there’s no way to know for certain, but it’s the best I can do for now.

I woke up yesterday with a hangover the size of Texas and vowed to never drink again, so that’s why I’ve brewed myself a large vat of coffee and have decided that I’ll become a caffeine addict instead of an alcoholic. As if you can make these decisions. As if you can control anything at all.

The music started yesterday a little after midnight and hasn’t let up for over 7 glaring hours.

Deep, dark, dramatic organ music.

Yes, one ghost plays organ music. Although I won’t be the one to tell him how ironic it is. How horror-movie it is. I don’t think Master Hellion, which is what I’ve decided to call him due to the very nature of his otherworldly being, would be very happy to know that he fits perfectly into a Halloween stereotype. 

And I won’t be the one to tell him because he’s one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen.

I also haven’t figured out where the organ is. If I ever do perhaps there’s a way to unplug it, although the organ more than likely isn’t electronic. Which actually makes sense considering I’ve been without electricity for three days.

I put in a request with the local Hilltown electrician before I even moved in, and they assured me they’d get the power set up well before I got here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I called in with my cell phone they said they’d gotten backed up on other orders and it might be as long as a week before they can came out.

It’s fine, I can manage on candlelight and fireplaces alone. It’s the fall, so at least I don’t have to worry about snow. At least… I don’t think I do.

I woke up this morning after a strange organ-fueled half-sleep, and in a remarkable blow to my sanity… it was raining.

I guess that’s not the insane part. The insane part is that when I walked down the long path to retrieve my mail there was a point at which the rain completely stopped and the sky was blue and sunny. I grabbed the bills from the box and noticed the same shift in natural systems in reverse when I made my way back up to my door.

It appeared as if a line of rain surrounded the perimeter of the manor. From the perspective of my mailbox I could almost make out the line of darkness in a circle above the hill.

It stopped, after a while, and it was finally sunny. However I can’t help but wonder if it’s really sunny, or if it’s actually rainy and for some odd reason the sun is shining over the house and the house alone.

Master Hellion has a wife, from what I can tell. I’ve taken to calling her Lady Hellion, and she’s the second most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

I stumbled upon her in one of the most lavish bathrooms upstairs in hopes that I would be able to get in a peaceful bath. The water was already drawn, and her ghostly figure, frilled dress and all, was sitting languidly in the tub as if she’d recently drowned and then come back to some sort of un-death without much fanfare inbetween.

She looked up at me with a wry smile on her blue lips, before turning the entire tub to ice. Her smile intensified behind her sapphire eyes as the ice started to spread down the bathtub and along the tiles. I could see my breath start to form in front of me as I backed away from the threshold. 

“Really, I just wanted a bath,” I told her, although I don’t think it helped. Her eyes began to emit a threatening light, casting long shadows on the surrounding furniture. Her silent smile, wrapped pointedly around frigid anger, was enough to send me running. But I staid as long as my bathrobe-ed body would allow before my toes started to become numb. I had chosen this house. I had to stick it out as long as I could muster.

Eventually I had to relent. I was iced out and made my way to the much less cozy bathroom on the third floor, where the water also had trouble reaching a comfortable degree.

I’m used to being constantly cold now. Cold and creeped out by organ music.

Their daughter, at least I assume she’s their daughter, appears terrifying but isn’t nearly as mean spirited as her parents. I met her in a landing trying to go upstairs to brush my teeth. She didn’t say much, but it did sound as if the wind howled through her long dark hair, rippling her nightgown and casting her ghostly figure in the moonlight. I think I’m slowly becoming desensitized to all the spook in this world of mine. I walked right past her and up the staircase to reach the sink.

That might be the oddest thing of all about the castle. The bathrooms seem to be broken up into component parts. One room might have a sink, but lack anything else that might define it as a bathroom. Another would have a toilet, another a bathtub, but heaven forbid they all make it into one room.

I’ve mapped out the most efficient route for all of my routines. And as long as I’m not on the fourth floor, which has no sink at all, I am able to survive.

I brought groceries from the town when I first moved in, but over the course of three days the majority of them have gone missing. That’s how I met ghost number four.

At first I thought it might have been the rats, but then I noticed that there weren’t any rats. That fact was surprising on its own. Even my incredibly overpriced Manhattan apartment would have a rat from time to time. I had assumed that the grungy castle would have been full of them.

But Whitlock Manor’s rats must have been scared off long ago. That doesn’t stop there from being any bugs though. The little beetles are on every windowsill and bedpost. I need to call the Hilltown exterminator, but I’m worried they mysteriously won’t be able to book an appointment for over a year.

Who knows if I’ll last that long with my groceries being slowly stolen right under my nose. What’s worse is that I’ll come into the kitchen and take my ingredients out of the cupboard, whatever ingredients I have left, and then set them on the wooden chopping table. Then I’ll turn my back for only a few seconds to grab a knife and everything I set out will be gone.

I only saw him for a second during breakfast, but as soon as my eggs and toast went missing out of the corner of my eye I saw a snapshot of the hunched figure of a man, his outline blurry with a hint of fog, rushing into the shadows. I decided to call him Pilfer. But what ghosts need food for I don’t have a clue.

I was on my way to do laundry when I stumbled upon the fifth ghost. The laundry room mostly consists of large barrels in which to wash your dirty clothes, and lines on which to hang them up to dry. I had acquired a large mass of things that needed to be washed mainly because I’d have to change three times a day at least. Not only were there cobwebs to walk into, dusty chairs to accidentally sit on, rainstorms to suddenly appear, or frozen bathrooms to escape, but very occasionally the ceilings would drip blood.

I know that even as I write this how bizarre and awful that sounds. But I don’t think it’s anyone’s blood in particular, so I’ve convinced myself not to worry about it too much. 

The large wash-barrels fill with tepid water through spouts from the ceiling, and there’s detergent powder that I’m assuming is at least half a century old. But I don’t believe that soap has the ability to go bad. Especially when it’s dry powder to begin with. So I worked with the tools I was given. 

I was halfway through the scrubbing, which is definitely the worst part, when a young woman’s voice started to whisper in my ear. At first I imagined it was just my own thoughts manifesting loudly in the organ-less silence. It barely startled me. But the longer the voice spoke the more my body tensed and the hair on the back of my neck bristled until I realized there was a spirit hanging right above my shoulder. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it was along the lines of, “The dripping of the blood signals a rebirth of the goddess. She will see to the extermination of your world, and all worlds that you love.” Or something like that.

I immediately turned to see a mousey girl in a maid’s uniform floating behind me, eyes wide in surprise that I could see her. She fled almost instantly, sailing off in the type of zig-zag pattern that might denote insanity. I’ve decided to call her Cassandra.

The last of them, the most familiar and the ghost I was most excited to see, was Dailey. I’ve made up names for all previous ghosts, which might be rude of me, but there’s no way to tell for sure without being more rude and questioning them. But Dailey told me his name.

I don’t know what urged me to return to the dressing room in the master bedroom, still full of antiques and not at all furnished with clothing, but I thought that maybe I could repeat history. Maybe I could relive that same pivotal moment from my childhood and everything would come together clearer than before.

I sat down on the settee, still broken from when I’d fallen years ago. It’s silly, but I sort of hoped that someone would have fixed it by now. It creaked as I sat, threatening to give way and fall apart completely. I was a large child, tall for my age, so most of the damage I could do to it was done nineteen years ago. The green fabric was falling apart. I took a piece and examined it in my hand.

It had probably been upholstered in the mid eighteenth century. The fabric looked French in make. I’ve been to France and admired the same heavy fabric on chairs in castles reserved for royalty. Whomever had decorated the manor wanted to seem as important as possible. I’m not sure if it was Master Hellion himself, or some long forgotten original owner. I’ll make a note to do more research when I don’t have to commit it by candlelight.

“So you’ve come back to ruin my furniture even further now, have you?” Dailey appeared floating beside me where a moment ago he wasn’t. I wasn’t frightened by his presence like I was the others. There was something about him that was comforting beyond his stern and upturned expression. His appreciation for old and useless antiques reminded me of my uncle.

“It’s my furniture now. If you haven’t heard I own this whole house,” however I did set down the broken piece of fabric, trying to push it into the space where it had come from as if it might magically reattach itself.

“Whitlock Manor isn’t something you can own,” Dailey’s posture stiffened. “She’s a wild beast in and of herself.”

“Well, I can own wild beasts too if I want,” I crossed my arms, “I have more than enough money.”

“You have a deed. A piece of paper that’s good in the legal realm and nothing more. You’re in the spirit realm now, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t reign destruction down in every corner of this place if you are serious about staying put.”

I couldn’t help but smile even wider.

“So you’re letting me stay?” 

“It’s not up to me. It’s up to her,” Dailey looked upward at the ceiling, and I couldn’t tell if he was referring to the house itself or another ghost entirely. 

“It’s because I can see you, isn’t it?” I had a feeling that he wasn’t one for sticking around for long conversations, so I hurried it up to get to the good part as quickly as I could.

“I can make myself known to intruders. As Quentin Dailey in life I would run this house, and as Quentin Dailey in death I shall do the same.”

“But that’s not what’s happening here,” I stood from the settee and felt a whole layer of dust cling to my backside as I detached. “Because you didn’t want me to see you. Something else is going on that you don’t know how to fix. I’m special, aren’t I?”

I wanted it to be true. It couldn’t be a coincidence, or an accident. It had to be a gift. It had to.

“I must have had my guard down,” Dailey was floating to my right, drifting slightly despite trying to remain stiff and resolute through crossed arms. “You’re nothing more than a snobbish investor who will soon tire of the manor and run back home and sell the property to the next person who imagines they can turn a profit at our expense.”

“Hey,” he might have been right about me being a snob, I can’t exactly help that part of my personality, but he was very wrong about me turning around and selling to the highest bidder. “I’ve been dripped on by blood today. I don’t know whose blood it was. But it dripped down my back and all the way down to my underwear.  And do you know what? I couldn’t even take a warm bath because that ice queen was hogging the one good tub. And when I went to go wash my clothes, do you know what happened then? A crazy little maid whispered apocalyptic prophecy in my ear while I was scrubbing. And to top it all off when I went to go eat I couldn’t even take a bite before everything was stolen, literally, right off my plate. I haven’t had a full meal in three days. And I’m still here. So if you think that I can’t handle six ghosts, one of which is just an uptight butler, then you don’t know me.”

Dailey laid a hand on his cummerbund and laughed heartily. “Six ghosts…” he repeated, shaking his head and chuckling. “We’re not a test you must pass,” he finally nodded. “We’re here for an eternity. We don’t give much care to what you’ll be doing for your brief stay.”

“Well, if you don’t care about what I’m doing, then you don’t have to admonish me for sitting on a settee, even if it is worth well over $3,000 broken.”

A spark of a smile ignited in Dailey’s eyes. Perhaps I was imagining it, but there’s a very real possibility that he even winked. “If you have such an appreciation for baroque upholstery I recommend, if only for your sake, you try not to ruin it.”

“I’ll try to keep my butt off of the good stuff,” I grabbed a railing post on the base of the spiral staircase that led upward and spun myself around. Dailey had disappeared by the time I’d made a full revolution.

So that was it. Dailey was the ghost that had sparked my hunt. The hunt had led me here. And so the moment I’d been wanting to relive for 19 years fell upon my shoulders and dripped down them, making me shiver more than disembodied blood ever could. 

It wasn’t the cathartic reunion I’d been hoping for.

I resisted the urge to sink back down into the decrepit settee. He wasn’t about to give me any answers. None of them were. It didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly sure what my question was. But one thing was clear- if I was going to find out anything I was going to have to find it out myself.