"Aw, come on..."

  "Roshambo you for it!" Cassie stuck out her lower lip and fumed at her cousin.

  "What?" said Izzy.

  "You heard me. Stone, Sword, Shield. On the count of three. One, two, three, go!" She held out her flat palm. Izzy, surprised, had only her fist ready. "That settles it, then!" Cassie declared. "Your lead, cousin!"

  Really, she thought as Princess Isabel reluctantly took her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor, her cousin must truly be caught in the midst of shock. Normally the girl was far too ready to take charge, as she'd shown the other day.

  Somewhere else, Bianca and Flora were having a much quieter time. They really didn't have much of a choice. When they'd fallen through that side door, it was into the manor's library. Towering piles of books reached from floor to ceiling, the tomes fitting asymmetrically to form strange, spiralling pillars. In the spaces between them, mouldy scrolls and palimpsests floated, rolling and unrolling at the touch of unseen hands.

  At a writing desk in the center of the room, the translucent outline of a woman sat. Occasionally a book would fly through her to join one pile or another, but she did not react. Her attention was taken by a glowing sheet of parchment that was about as much there as she was, and upon it she wrote with ink from a ghostly quill.

  "Um, excuse me?" Bianca said softly.

  Everything, every floating scroll and flying book in the room, suddenly froze in place. The ghostly woman did not look up, but put a finger to her lips and let out the lowest of sibilant whispers: "Shhh...."

  "I don't think we should bother her," said Flora quietly. "She looks busy."

  "She's a ghost. How busy could she really be?" Bianca shot back. "For all we know, she's been writing the same exact word over and over again in that book for a hundred years! What we should be doing is interrogating her for answers. A place this haunted doesn't just appear randomly, after all. Something's gotta be causing it, and where better to investigate than in a library?"

  "Maybe you should be keeping your voice down..."

  "Why?" Bianca shouted. "Who's around to be bothered besides us? It's not like this library has any patrons or anything!"

  With a thud like a tombstone toppling to the ground, the librarian shut her ethereal tome and spun around to face the two girls. Pale, glowing wisps of fog curled about her as she moved, and black tears flowed from deep wells where her eyes should have been. She ripped a tattered scrap from the edge of her clothing and then stabbed herself in the face with her quill. Without a word spoken, the phantom penned a message, inky black on ghostly white, and presented it to the two horrified princesses.

  The word leapt from the scrap and through their eyes to reach the back of their brains, where it wailed louder than a thousand screaming, brawling cats. Bianca fell over in shock, and Flora nearly crushed her shortly after. They both clung tightly to their heads, hands locked over ears that had not, could not have, heard the word now clamoring inside their minds. Jinkies and Mr. Chitters, both blessedly illiterate, could only nuzzle and prod their mistresses as the two girls shivered and tried not to make a mess of themselves.

  Satisfied with the lack of noise, the librarian returned to her task.

  Two small chess pieces, pawns with their tops painted respectively orange and purple in cheap nail polish, were knocked over by Uncle's finger. They wobbled and rolled a bit before the magnets in their bases noticed each other, and then they stubbornly refused to stay where he'd placed them. Much girlish giggling provided a laugh track to his annoyance. "Okay..." he said once he'd gotten them set in place and safely distant from any other magnetic item on the table. "Selvi's going to be out for at least another round, so we'll find out what predicament she's in soonish. I think we can agree we've got plenty enough going on as it is."

  "And this is all necessary for the story you're making?" Señora Hernandez demanded. "Why, if I may? Or do you like to make people suffer."

  "Not I, ma'am, though I know some people... Anyhoo, need adversity before you can really call it an adventure. Right, ladies?" A ragged chorus of agreement floated past. "So, let's get on track to overcoming our problems and figuring out what's going on."

  Claire's grandmother got up and stretched. "Where is the powder room, young man?"

  "Over by the cash register, ma'am."

  "My thanks." With a stern look at the girls that shut them up instantly, the lady left the table in silence. As soon as she was safely out of sight, all eyes turned to her granddaughter.

  "Um... sorry?" Claire apologized preemptively. "My parents are out for the weekend, and Tata was the only one available for babysitting, and I know I should've just called in absent today or something but I didn't realize she'd be like this, even though now that I think of it, she's never really liked any of my hobbies, and..." The tiny girl took a huge gasp of air, only to let it out in one last "Sorry!" before she bowed her head so sharply that her forehead hit the table, shaking over what few chess pieces were still standing.

  "Dang..." Shelby was speaking for everyone in that moment. Katelyn was hugging Claire while Cynthia checked her forehead for damage. "So, what's the old lady so worked up about, anyway?" the dark-haired girl continued. "It's just a game."

  "I think so, and you think so, and most of the world agrees," said Uncle. "Now, that is. When the first game of this type came out, back in the late 70s and most of the 80s, things were different."

  "What, really?" Helen asked. "Why?"

  "It was a crazy time," Uncle explained. "Or at least, so I've heard. I'm not that old. But anyway, it was at the height of the Cold War, and everyone was stressed over everything, and when enough people get stressed together, they tend to find a target to let it out on. There was this sort of paranoid mania that spread all over the country, where people were convinced there were secret devil-worshipping cults in kindergartens and stuff like that. Google 'Satanic Panic' sometime, and you'll see."

  "So... what's this got to do with us, Uncle?"

  He ticked the items off on his fingers. "One, new game with strange rules. Two, book cover art with monsters and demons. Three, frequently played by young folks with little social life, in basements and other out-of-the-way locations. Four, concerned citizens with more free time than good sense... You do the math, ladies. There was a public clamor, some tragic stories taken waaaay out of context, and even some sensationalist Christian comics and a truly atrocious made-for-TV movie that portrayed our hobby here as a literal threat to moral and mental health."

  Claire groaned. "And that's the image Tata's got stuck in her head."

  "Yup. Hopefully she'll change her mind a bit once she's seen it all for herself, but..." He lowered his voice as he saw Señora Hernandez leave the restroom. "I wouldn't count on it."

  "Were you waiting for me?" the lady asked as she resumed her seat.

  "Just going over a few details. Okay, Helen? You're still sitting on that natural 20, so your princess escaped getting gazebo'ed, but it's time to make things interesting. Ready?"

  "Ready, Uncle!"

  Good sense had won out over sore legs, though barely. Gwen's backflip off of the steps of the gazebo would have received accolades from the Academy fencing instructor, Mistress Mehl. Her sword was out and ready, but... she stepped back a moment to consider. Where could she hit it? The thing was, well, a gazebo. No eyes, no vital organs, nothing she could chop out and reasonably expect to cause damage. Really, it wasn't much more than a semi-ambulatory pile of --

  Ah. Her ears pricked at that thought, while her pack went down on the ground for her to sift through. The gazebo hadn't moved from its position, and she suspected that it couldn't. Its behavior was that of the classic ambush predator, a wolf in sheep's clothing that used its harmless demeanor to trick victims into coming closer. With nothing else around to attack, Gwen was about as safe as she could ever expect to be in this accursed place.

  At least, so she was thinking when the ground between her and the decrepit old structure was slammed by a tangled mess of old rose vines, spun and knotted on themselves until they were a solid tentacle of woody thorns that brought itself back to earth with a force that made her legs shake. When she ran around the gazebo clockwise, the tentacle followed, and the gazebo itself pivoted to try and face her. Her hands were empty because she'd been searching the pack, and now she was cursing herself for letting down her guard for even a moment.

  Then the second tentacle came down upon the barren earth, only to rise up again with her pack caught in its thorns. Her curses switched to high elven, with multi-leveled nuances of meaning and double entendres implying horrible things about the sourcing and ancestry of the trees that went into the gazebo's construction.

  She darted in, daring the gazebo's wooden jaws to crash down. Running to the right, she grabbed onto the trellis that formed its sides, ignoring the remaining thorns of the dry rose vines covering it. As fast as she could, she clambered up, despite the creaking and crunching of old wood breaking under her weight.

  The tentacles arched up and over the structure, poking blindly. Wherever the gazebo's eyes may be, whatever they might be, they couldn't see her up there. She held her body low to the shingles, watching the tentacles search as they went. Her pack still dangled from one of them, swinging back and forth.

  Her eyes tracked it as she counted down the seconds between each move of the tentacles. Three... two... one... Gwen leapt from the gazebo roof, grabbing and holding onto the pack as it flew around, until its clasp could take no more. Then she and it were falling to the earth, landing with an oof! that knocked the air out of her lungs.

  That's when the thing got Gwen by the ankle. A tentacle looped around her leg and hoisted her upside-down into the air. Frantically she dug through the pack, ignoring those items she didn't currently need as they fell out. Then she let the pack itself go, while in her hands she had exactly what she wanted. In the right, a small bundle of oiled cloth and odd-smelling chemicals that Bianca had assured her were perfectly safe as long as they didn't get too hot. In the left, a package of sulfur-tipped alchemic matches.

  Gwen hadn't been too happy to accept them, back in Pazh Milna when the little witch had been studying her new craft. Her fellow princess had the worst tendency to explode things, but Bianca had insisted on sharing. As she struck one of the matches on the rough surface of the tendril, Gwen was thankful she'd been talked around. The little stick flared into life, dropping red blobs of heat down into the gazebo's maw, but its true merit lay in what happened when applied to the alchemic bomb.

  The bundle of rags began to fume and fizz, and the ranger dropped both it and the matches straight down. They landed on that ratty old couch in the center of the gazebo, and then the wooden jaws closed down on it. An explosion rattled the structure, and Gwen was once again falling. She rolled as she landed, but even so it still hurt.

  Perhaps, she thought as she watched the gazebo go up in flames, she should burn those portraits after shredding them. Bonfires were always cheerful things.

  Left foot, left foot, right foot, right. Pivot, sidestep, twirl. The dance was not particularly difficult, once you had the hang of it, Cassandrella had found. The rhythm was simple, the steps familiar, and the speed none too fast. The problem was that it didn't seem to ever end. She and Isabel had circled the room three times now, but every time they came close to the exit, the flow of the dance had spirited them away again.

  She tried not to look at her fellow dancers, but it was pointless. The harder she urged her eyes to stay locked on her cousin, the more often they strayed, to find some gentleman with only half a head upon his shoulders, or some young lady whose throat was graced with a necklace of her own blood.

  Isabel was having her own problems with keeping her eyes forward. "Something wrong here," the former paladin said quietly.

  "You don't say."

  "I'm serious," said Izzy. "Some of the people here are sporting serious damage, like they were killed in battle, but they also have full evening wear on. So, did they wear all that into a fight, or did the fight come to them?"

  Cassie mulled that over as they traipsed through the next set of steps for the fifth time. Her feet were getting tired. "They didn't, um, really teach much about ghosts at temple school," she admitted, "but aren't they, er, don't they often repeat their last act before they die?"

  "Maybe..." Her cousin's strength was flagging quickly; the previous night had really taken its toll on her. Cassandrella could almost feel sorry. "But..."

  There was no chance to finish the thought. The whispery music faded, to be replaced by the loud tolling of a bell. Two... three... four... Cassie counted the booms up to twelve, though it couldn't possibly be midnight outside yet. The spectral dancers stopped in place, and the two living princesses in their midst almost waltzed through their nearest neighbors. Every ghostly, disfigured face was turned towards the great doors.

  As the final bell's echoes retreated into the distance, a squad of soldiers appeared at the entrance. They were clad in simple chain mail and casket helms, with serviceable swords at their hips. Over their right shoulders they bore a blue sash with a red rose embroidered upon it. In contrast to the flowing grace of the dancing spirits, these dead men moved stiffly, limbs jerking oddly as they drew their weapons and charged the crowd.

  "What's going o... mph!" Cassie cried right as Izzy pulled her back to the wall.

  "Think we're seeing why all these people are ghosts now," her cousin said darkly. "Watch 'em go. All hack and slash, no discipline but no resistance either."

  That much was true. None of the dancers had been armed in life, it seemed, and the soldiers were mowing through them with ease. "W... will they stop when the dancers are done with, or...?" She didn't want to to finish the question.

  "Dunno, and I don't wanna find out," said Izzy. She growled in frustration. "And I dunno if we can even hurt them, either, seeing as they're ghosts."

  "My moon sabre might be able to..."

  "Yeah, and I'm supposed to be the fighter here, and I've got nothing."

  Cassandrella almost asked whose fault that was, but she bit back her words before they could escape to cause more trouble. "I could... bless your sword?" she suggested. "That might help a little."

  "Maybe..." Her cousin tugged at the headband over her brow, with its diamond-shaped sunstone. "Nope, can't use this thing at all."

  "What's it supposed to do?" asked Cassie. She'd seen the sun princess use it to cast a defensive spell against lightning the other day, but she couldn't see how that would be of any use here.

  "It lets me use one spell a day that's bigger than my magic will allow... well, would allow. Can't use magic now, so it's no good for me, but..." The former paladin quickly doffed the headband and jammed it over Cassandrella's hair.

  "Huh?"

  "Quick! They're almost finished with the ghost dancers, and we don't wanna join them!"

  The stone now pressed against her forehead throbbed with power, but darned if she knew how somebunny was supposed to use it. The prayers she had memorized didn't seem nearly enough to take out a group of ghost soldiers, at least none that actually matched the level of power the stone seemed to promise. In fact about the only thing she could do with it now was...

  Huh. That was an idea, at least. Gripping the holy symbol of her scepter firmly in her hands, Cassie stepped out onto the dance floor once again, with a boldness she in no way actually felt. If it were not for her cousin's solid presence behind her, in fact, she might have just keeled over right then. Instead, she stood strong in the face of those ghastly warriors, their broken bodies twitching and shuffling as they approached.

  With the pointer finger of her right hand resting upon the stone, she willed its power forth, drawing it and pulling at it until her hand was filled with a moonlit crescent of bright energy. All she needed to do, she now understood, was to flick her wrist and send her oversized moon blade through her foes. But that lacked a certain panache. Deep in her little bunny soul, she constantly obsessed over how best to announce her goddess's true power made manifest, and from thence came the three perfect words to shout:

  "Moon Tiara Magic!"

  The ragged revenants never stood the ghost of a chance.

  "Moon Tiara Magic!" Claire crowed as Uncle swept the plastic skeleton figurines from the board. The little anime fan was about to shake the sofa seat to pieces from exuberant jubilation. "Woo-hoo! Yah!"

  "Ahem." From behind her came just the one, small sound, but it hit Claire's mood with the force of full paragraphs. Once her granddaughter was properly seated, the lady continued. "What's all this about?"

  Uncle took a moment to reorder his pieces and his thoughts. "Claire's princess sort of reflects her love of a particular cartoon show," he said finally, "and that line is something she's been hoping to say for five weeks now, I'm betting. I gave her the opportunity, and she made the most of it." He didn't bother to explain how Isabel's Headband of Precocity gave Cassandrella a free third-level spell slot, or how she could convert that spell slot into a general burst of bright magic; it would've flown right over Señora Hernandez's head.

  "When are we gonna get to my princess?" Shelby was grumbling.

  "All in good time, sunshine. Selvi had her moment in the spotlight last week, so let's give everyone else a chance. Only one more scene to go, anyway."

  Cynthia and Katelyn were exchanging excited whispers back and forth, with a few pieces of scrap paper covered in scribbled notes. "Um, we've been thinkin'," said the louder one, "and we figger it's not a good idea to attack the librarian or anything." Beside her, the quieter one nodded. "I mean, we could shout 'Get her!' all we want, but she'll just scare the pants off us again, and it's not like we've got anything to hold her in, so...."

  In the corner of the library farthest from its librarian, two princesses quietly squabbled over what to do. Princess Bianca's immediate response upon coming out of shock was to bomb the place, but her love of books and literature made her hesitate. Princess Flora was less enamored with the written word, but neither did she wish to provoke another stern rebuke from a spirit that used her own eye sockets as inkwells.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8