undergrounds | not your ideal haunted house

The house has become hostile.

Before, it was just the odd thing. A door swinging shut, lights flickering perhaps. The real estate agent had been successfully waving off any concerns, explaining that an inspection would be performed before anyone moved in, but that was before a plate flew across the kitchen and nearly hit her in the head. Now she doesn't like to show it - she tells anyone that asks that the house is not for them.

But it's starting to attract attention. There are rumours of a curse floating around - some kid from Redbright lives in the area and starting spreading word of a cursed house, but in the week leading up to the 23rd the rumours start to gain a little bit of steam. Is it a curse? An angry ghost? In any case, something strange is happening here.

[This is the thread for people to interact with the ghost or the house before Arthur arrives. I can play the ghost if you like, just note it in the subject line!]

For one reason or another, Arthur finds himself outside the house.

It's a typical suburban house - bigger than he could hope to afford and trying very hard not to look like a carbon copy of the houses around it. The 'For Sale' sign on the front lawn has a picture of a pretty, optimistic woman on it, but Arthur knows this particular house hasn't been shown for well over a week. The reports of unexplained accidents have driven away any prospective buyers and attracted the supernatural community.

Arthur doesn't usually deal with ghosts or curses, but something about this particular case seemed... interesting. Or familiar. He doesn't really have a plan as he walks up the stairs and tests the front door. It's unlocked, so after a quick glance up and down the street, he steps into the house.

There's the sound of a closet door shutting, somewhere in the next hallway.

"Damn it..." Elizabeth whispers to herself in the dark, dusty closet. She'd seen something upstairs, and felt something before that while looking at the old house. Something familiar, something she'd felt before. And being who she was, curious and just a little DeWitt-Brand-Reckless, she'd come inside.

And now that nice Realtor Woman on the sign out front was going to find her and call the police and she'd get slammed for trespassing and maybe deported. This had been an incredibly bad idea, now that she's counting out the consequences.

But maybe she's okay. Maybe if she just stayed quiet and waited, she could leave once the house was empty again.

Her phone goes off.

hay roomie hay!!! froyo??? :)

Oh God, she'd thought her roommate was going to be in a weed-induced stupor for at least six more hours.

The closet door could easily have been attributed to the supernatural activity in the house, thought it does make Arthur pause. He's unarmed, but his hand's on his phone in case of an emergency as he slowly walks down the hall.

The ringtone dissipates his curiousity and definitely raises alarm bells, though.

"Who's there?"

His voice is even but commanding, and he stops and looks in the direction of the sound, waiting for its owner to reveal themselves.

Nobody. Elizabeth thinks with her eyes shut. Nobody but an American exchange student, trying not to be kicked out of the country and thrown back to the wolves. Please just keep walking Strangely-American-Sounding-Clearly-Not-the-Realtor.

Her phone goes off again.

no froyo?? :(((

Elizabeth is going to swear off frozen yogurt now. But first, escaping time. Throwing open the closet door, she bursts into the hallway, checks where Arthur is, and runs down the hall the other way. She yanks the door at the end open-- it's another closet. Damn.

"Look--" she turns around, holding her hands up. "I know I'm not supposed to be here, I just thought I saw a bird inside, I was going to let it out."

Arthur frowns deeply. "Was the bird in the closet?" he says, ready to grill her about why she's here. He doesn't approach her but he stands at the end of the hallway frowning, wondering what to do with her.

That's when a door upstairs creaks and then closes. Arthur turns his head in the direction of the stairs, his frown going from unimpressed to concerned.

"Did someone else come in here with you?"

Oh he looks mad. He looks really mad. This could be worse than just police, what if she's trespassed into somebody's home? The sign could be old, she doesn't know how these things work, she hadn't gotten so bored in Comstock's house that she'd resorted to reading about the wild world of realty and its signage policies.

"Uh..." Alright, well, maybe it's time for the tears. Big fat fake tears and a punch to the nose.

Mysterious noises trump escaping. Elizabeth looks nervously at the ceiling. "No... and you came in about fifteen seconds after I did."

Arthur waits for another noise, turning back to look at Elizabeth again when one doesn't come. He takes a closer look at her; he knows witches have been visiting the house trying to find out who or what has been causing such a fuss, but he's never been able to tell a witch from a regular human just by looking.

He raises an eyebrow. "Did you know this house was haunted when you broke in?"

"...Well, that's the rumor around campus," she says with a little laugh. "But ghosts don't exist, it's just drafts or the house settling or--"

The sound of breaking glass emanates from upstairs, and again Elizabeth looks at the ceiling. Whoever they are, they're angry. Despondent. Maybe even scared. Elizabeth can feel it, and it reminds her of when she'd locked horns with her mother-- metaphorically. There is a ghost here, and if their feelings are any indication, things could get violent.

"I think we should go." She's not worried about herself, but if this man caught the wrong side of a ghost, he could get hurt.

He narrows her eyes at her in suspicion, but he's lost the initial gruffness that he came in here with. Her presence is a bit of a mystery. She could just be some kid wandering through here on a dare, but in this context it's just as likely that she's a witch drawn by the mystery of the house.

"You sure you don't want to find out what made those noises?"

On cue, another door creaks shut upstairs. And then another, somewhere on the main floor. The house seems to be closing itself up.

The next morning, Arthur's sitting in a coffee shop staring unhappily at his laptop. Knowing who the ghost is and why she's angry the first vital step to solving this mystery and making sure she moves on in peace, but Arthur's stumped.

He found the names of the couple who lived there, but beyond that it's hard to make a connection. He might just drop it if this were any other case, but something about this one is nagging at him. He needs to figure this one out, or else it'll bother him and he'll always feel responsible for it.

That's probably why, after an hour at this coffee shop, he looks just a little bit frustrated. Nothing's turning up. He needs to come at this from a different angle.

Ringer isn't usually one to bother people, even if she recognizes them from around Hillingdon. There's something about seeing people she knows to be hunters in the natural world that she finds uncomfortable, like seeing a secondary school teacher at the market. When she catches sight of Arthur in the coffee shop window, however, not having moved in the last hour or more since she was first on her way to class, she wonders what he might be working on.

After a moment's hesitation, she steps inside the shop. Arthur isn't quite a stranger - they met once, spoke briefly, got along decently - but he isn't really a solid ally either. For now, he's a professional acquaintance and Ringer focuses on the hope of turning that relationship, thin as it is, into another job. She orders two coffees and waits until she has both in hand to approach the table, setting one near him and keeping hold of the other. "You look perplexed."

Arthur isn't so much startled by the coffee on the table so much as he is shaken out of the stupor he had fallen into staring at his laptop. He looks at Ringer as if he's just woken up, shaking his head to bring himself back to reality.

"Oh, I'm... just working on something," he says as he drags a hand down his face. He indicates the chair across from him and adds, "I could use a break from it, actually."

A break from staring at his laptop, more like. He gives Ringer a moment to sit down and then asks, "have you heard of this haunted house, up north?"

Ringer takes a seat when indicated, setting her own coffee on the table before folding her hands into her lap. She furrows her brow at the vagueness of his response until he finally looks at her and seems to be elaborating. It's not like he owes her anything, but it would be nice to be useful.

"Rumors," she replies dryly. Rumors aren't worth much in Hillingdon House for how few of them turn out to have a degree of truth to them, let alone that extremely rare event in which one might turn out to actually be entirely factual. It makes her wonder at his deep research.

"I went there," Arthur says as he closes his laptop and slumps down in his chair. The frown on his face is thoughtful and tired; he's definitely been thinking about this far too long.

"It really is haunted. By a little girl. I think she used to live there."

Ringer's expression changes. She gives a small nod in acknowledgment of his experience, trusting it much more than House rumors. Her eyes search his face, surprised to see such anxiety and dedication there for the ghost of a little girl. She wonders if it's a job and his potential failing that bothers him or if he actually cares about the fate of the girl. Ringer doesn't know Arthur well enough yet to have any clue.

"A ghost." She thinks back to her conversation with Clara. "Does she have an anchor? Someone living who might remember her."

He shakes his head. "The house has been empty almost a year. There was a couple who used to live there - they must have been her parents - they moved out last December and the real estate agent hasn't been able to sell it."

Arthur picks up his coffee and sighs. He's still frowning, thinking back on his time at the house. He feels obligated to get to the bottom of this somehow. "I don't deal with ghosts a lot but it seemed like she was reacting to me being there. I just can't figure out why."

"You might be able to talk to them if they're still alive," she offers idly. Clara said something about anchors and people remembering her helping to keep her sane as a ghost. If the little girl is angry, it might mean that not enough people remember her. On the other hand, it might also mean one of any number of other things, which makes the thought less helpful. "It could be unfinished business, or a gruesome death. Do you know how she died?"

Ringer's no expert and she has a feeling that Arthur is probably as skilled a researcher as she is, if not more so. If nothing else, she figures she can try to help by acting as a sound board to organize his own thoughts and ideas.

"No, I don't," he says with a sigh. "I looked back through news reports for five months before her parents moved out and I searched through missing children bulletins but nothing matches her last name or her description."

He takes a long drink from his coffee cup before he continues. "There should be something. Why would a little girl's death be covered up like that?"

"A hundred reasons," she replies with a soft shrug. Ringer turns her cup idly in her hands, keeping it to roughly the same position on the table. It's something for her hands to do while she thinks. "Politics, the murderer engaging in other crimes, something supernatural. I saw a film where a mother accidentally killed her son and he haunted her to lead her to the realization."

A beat. "Maybe she wants you to find the truth."

Armed with knowledge, Arthur returns to the house. He knows this ghost now. A little girl, barely 9 years old when she died, killed by a out of control vampire that Arthur hunted about a year ago. It was one of his first bounties, and higher profile because a child was killed, but Arthur had only seen a list of the victims' names and had never interacted with this girl or her parents. Typical, considering the fact that it was a vampire on the first place was covered up successfully by the supernatural community.

But Arthur's here because he wants to find out why this girl is lashing out now. Unable to talk to ghosts with no supernatural powers of himself, he's brought a long a bit of help. As he walks up the steps to the house for the second day in a row, he pauses and turns to his companion.

"Thanks for coming. Just to warn you - she's a bit hostile. Not keen on visitors."

"It's not a problem," Nancy said calmly, looking at the door in front of them. She could tell something was off about the house to begin with. A few charms and potions and what-have-you are tucked away in her bag. "I'll be careful. You said she was a child, right?" Which was just perfect, because Nancy happened to be amazing when it came to kids. She gave Arthur a reassuring smile.

"I'm really just happy you thought to ask me. Now I've never done this sort of thing, so I can't promise many results, yeah?"

Arthur pauses at the door, waiting for Nancy. It's usually polite to open the door and let your companion walk through, but in this case it may seem like he's walking Nancy into a potentially dangerous situation. He scans the door thoughtfully as if it'll reveal some answer to him, but it doesn't and he sighs.

"Listen, if you can do anything it'll be more than I can do. She's strong enough to communicate a little, but not enough to do it well with someone who has no sense for magic at all."

He opens the door and takes a step inside slowly, listening for any disturbances before he takes another step inside, leaving the door open for Nancy behind him.

"Alright." All of this is taken into account as she steps into the house, keeping a close eye out for anything odd. Of course, the whole front room just feels off. She can feel it in her shoulders, a heavy weight, and something odd prickling the bottoms of her feet. She shakes her head.

"Probably best to go to the place she's got the strongest connection to- her room, maybe?" She shuts the door behind them.

not your ideal haunted house

OCT 18-23; OTA

OCT 23; Open to First Response

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OCT 24; Open to First Response

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OCT 24; Open to First Response

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