Chapter 2 - The First of the Three Spirits
Rose awakened to deathly silence, disturbed only by the constant, metronome
tickticking of a clock somewhere in the chamber, which made the quiet shrouding
it seem all the more eerie.
Perhaps there was something to be said for the yuletide spirit - the clock,
with its faux brick face, in the shape of a long, decrepit house, with skulls
in the place of numbers and a hanged man swinging back and forth on the end
of a rope as the pendulum, was a Christmas gift, after all...
As her eyes drifted open, and she rolled away from the earth-filled cushions,
nudging the coverlet aside and sending the folds of her sable robe wantonly
askew, she took a quick, apprehensive survey of the crypt. All appeared to
be in order... the dogs were sleeping soundly at the foot of the bed... a
few guttering candles burned low in carved recesses... in fact, the only
incongruity was a stripe of congealing crimson running down a portion of
one wall, from a beating she'd given earlier in the evening... or had it
been the previous evening?
Regardless, there was nothing apparent that could have roused her so suddenly
- only the unnatural inner clock that regularly announced twilight's approach,
and a nervous fluttering in the pit of her stomach told her that Christmas
night was probably still hours away.
Sitting up slowly, her traveling gaze still cautious, she nudged the inferno
of curls into place behind each ear and swung her legs over the edge one
by one, the point of wearing a robe all but lost as the velvet slipped to
the side, revealing the long, milky-white stems in all their glory.
With a sudden cry of alarm, the clock began to chime, its carillon tones
trembling once, twice... a third time, and then a fourth, each strike of
the bells vibrating into the next, right up until the twelfth, which seemed
to linger with a last, desperate gasp, before the hollow tremolo finally
died away.
"Twelve?" she murmured, fingertips rising instantly to her lips as she pondered.
If it were midnight, then she had overslept by several hours - that would
account for the discord of her inner timing. But if it were noon, then something
was monstrously warped in the very fabric of the universe. She hadn't been
so alert at *noon* in decades.
As though on cue, in answer to her unvoiced query, a phantasmal echo whispered
through the chamber, rounding itself off at intervals to form the syllables
of her name...
"Blood... Red... Rose..."
Yes, something was definitely not right. Not wholly wrong, but certainly
not right. Someone was in *her* private chamber, and there had been no alarm
raised by the guard, and Rudolf and Gregor were sleeping as though at rest
back in their mother's womb.
"Rose..." came the hushed summons once more, this time closer, perhaps from
just over her shoulder.
As she snapped around, her first instinct was for defense, and even though
the movement left her in something of a vulnerable half-crawl that stretched
across the bed, her nails were flexed and ready, digging into the coverlet,
her eyes bristled with emerald awareness, and as succulent crimson lips drew
back in a feral snarl, a shaft of light glanced across the tip of one of
her fangs, creating a brief flash, a tinkling pinwheel of starfire
brilliance.
But what appeared before her seemed harmless enough, despite the fact that
its presence registered on none of her senses, save sight, and even that
was prey to some doubt, as the shadowy form seemed to waver in and out at
random, like the picture on a television without cable hookup.
In its more lucid moments, the apparition bore some passing resemblance to
a bloated pig of a woman she had known once, centuries ago in Ravenna. She
was portly enough, her hair the same frazzled russet, sticking out on all
sides as though she had been caught in the throes of a passionate moment
with her Vibro-Matic 5000+ (the model with three speeds: slow, medium, and
"Who Needs a Man?"), when a sudden power surge changed the destiny of her
coiffeur forever. And though she wore the phantom brocades and fringes of
a Victorian evening gown, rather than the muddy wools of a camp follower,
her bulbous figure appeared much the same, like a sausage stuffed too tightly
into its skin.
"Are *you* the spirit Azrael told me about?" Rose crooned, the corner of
her mouth tilting up in amusement.
And then, the ghost did something remarkable...
It *coughed*.
She had seen phantoms in her lifetime, more than she could count, but never
one so uncouth as to choke on its own ectoplasm.
The movement caused ethereal shoulders to shake, and for the first time,
she noticed the dusting of cobwebs that peppered the rotund figure.
"I... (coughcough) ...sure am... (cough)" Ghostly, soul-swallowing whispers
had been replaced by grating, off-key accordion notes.
"And you're here for...?" Rose continued, easing back on to her haunches
with an expectant lift of her brow.
"I'm... (coughgasp) ...ugh... (wheeze) ...from the Past... (coughhackgasp)
...the Ghost of Christmas Past..."
The spirit flapped her arms desperately as she spoke, clapping a meaty,
translucent hand across her barrel-shaped chest.
"Long past?'' Rose warbled, the question lilting at the end, in a tease.
She could care less what kind of ghost had intruded on her sanctum - she
just wanted to force the choking spirit to talk some more.
"No... (wheeeeeeze) ...*Your* past.''
"But of course," Rose muttered under her breath, finally settling back on
her haunches, and swinging her legs out from under her, to step down to the
floor. "And you're here for...?"
"Your welfare!" huffed the apparition.
"Well, I should think it would be a great deal better for my welfare if you
were to let me have a day of uninterrupted rest," was Rose's tart reply,
punctuated by a snap of her robe's belt into the air as she strode towards
the wardrobe.
"Listen, sister... (cough) ...I have a job to do, same as you... I'm just
trying to make a living... er... well, you know what I mean.. Anyways, you
don't sleep until I'm done here..."
"I have money. I'll pay you, just leave me alone and let me sleep." She didn't
expect that her entreaty would exact any results, but she had to try, and
even as the words left her lips, she shrugged the mantle of velvet and ermine
over her shoulders, peeling it back to let it slither over her bare curvature,
and pool on the ground at her feet.
The ghost didn't even answer, just rolled her eyes, and let out another
quivering, stifled cough. With a nonchalant fanning of her stubby fingertips,
the wall opposite them suddenly sprouted a gaping wound that began at no
larger than a saucer's width across and bled outward, its perimeter stretching
like a rubber band until it spanned the full height of the chamber, and was
equally wide.
The rough-hewn ring appeared to be a portal of some kind. At its center floated
a gaseous cloud, and occasionally, through gaps in the mist, could be seen
glimpses of other places, other times... it was something like that Star
Trek episode - What was it called? City on the Edge of Forever? You know
the one, where McCoy goes nuts from an overdose of cordrazine and vanishes
through this giant talking donut-shaped rock, somehow changing the past so
that, for some reason, the Enterprise and Star Fleet no longer exist, but
the crew that are on the planet still do...
Well... anyway...
"You want me to go through *that* thing, I take it?" Rose exclaimed, turning
away from the wardrobe still nude, and pointing towards the opening, a few
flimsy, shapeless strips of red rubber draped over her arm.
"Uh, no, we're gonna go through a rabbit hole." Again, the apparition rolled
her translucent eyes. Her coughing seemed to be under control by now, but
if she didn't control her attitude, Rose thought to herself, she might find
those eyes sealed with a little spectral super glue... there's more than
one way to torture a ghost, you know...
Lifting one foot out of the pile of black velvet, Rose arched her toes and
began to slide one leg down into the red rubber catsuit, but her dressing
took an unexpected pause when the spectral sausage roll began rooting around
in its bustle, destroying Rose's composure almost immediately, and causing
her to stumble forward just slightly. Bubbling laughter chiseled away at
the alabaster sculpture of her features from within and caused her posture
to sag.
And then, what to her wondering eyes should appear, but a twinkling wand,
of the dime-store kiddie variety, wrapped in holographic paper and capped
with a burst of mylar springs. The ghost took one look at it and tossed it
to the side, wisecracking, "A fairy godmother I ain't..."
Back into the folds of fabric she dove, leaving Rose to shiver with barely
contained amusement, and quake in some kind of wry fear over what she might
produce *next* from the... er... bustle...
Luck was with Rose and her composure that day, as the next object to pop
out was a slender, rectangular box. As Rose wriggled her way into the other
leg of the suit, and eased it up over her hips with a playful squirm, the
ghost pointed her zapper at the wall, pushing impatiently at a series of
tiny white buttons along the top. Up and over Rose's shoulders went the
sleeveless catsuit, and as she shifted her torso inside the layer of clinging
rubber, and adjusted the wide lapels, the fog began to clear from the center
of the portal, revealing a grainy picture of treetops above a charming little
Alpine village.
(zzzzzzzziiiiiiiiippppppp)
"Okay... (cough) ...next stop... erm... whatever this place is..." Squinting
into the portal, the ghost studied the picture before her, then took a few
steps closer, and peered at it again. "Hmm... is this the right place?" Lifting
the remote control unit up before her, she gave it a whack against her palm,
muttering something about equipment you couldn't trust, and how a spook was
expected to do a job without the right tools...
"Looks fine to me," Rose uttered dryly, and gave the scene only a cursory
glance. She recognized it immediately, but could hardly have cared less about
going there - she was far more concerned with adjusting the tilt of her belt,
so that it hung at just the right rakish angle.
"Well, then... any time you're ready, princess..."
In spite of herself, Rose was beginning to find some amusement in this spirit's
sour demeanor. She struck Rose as being like the bitter old aunt that no
one really takes seriously, and everyone tolerates with an indulgent smile
and a nod, then snickers when they've left the room.
"Yeah, yeah..." With an impatient wave of one hand, she reached for a pair
of gloves from the wardrobe shelf with the other, tugging them down and slipping
her hands into them one by one, and wiggling her fingertips for a snug fit.
She stepped into a random pair of stiletto heels littering the floor, as she crossed the room in a sultry sway, to follow along behind the ghost, half of whose body had already melted into the liquid landscape of the portal.
For a moment, she was tempted to push the ghost the rest of the way in, then stay behind and go back to bed, but something of a curious streak tugged her forward... through the looking glass...
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At first, Rose was forced to throw a gloved hand up to her eyes, to ward
off the blinding glare of a broad field of pure white snow. The scents of
evergreen and cinnamon mingled with hearth smoke snaking out of every chimney
greeted them, drifting up from the bowels of the gingerbread village, through
its cobbled streets and over thatched rooftops, finally rising to Rose and
her guide as they stood on the mountainside.
The brightness of the midwinter's sun at first caused Rose to start, in the
beginnings of a fit of panic. But it soon became apparent that no fatal warmth
was to be derived from *this* sun, and she fell into an easy stroll alongside
the ghost, moving down the mountain and towards the village, on steps that
seemed to float, making no crunching sound, and leaving no impression behind,
in the snow.
The progress was brief, achieved in the seeming blink of an eye, and as they
rounded a corner, coming up on a crowded town square, the picture of storybook
peace was shattered by the sobs of children and the shouting of soldiers.
A gruff-voiced, squat little man with a pug nose and lederhosen of solid
black stood at the top of the steps of what appeared to be a sort of town
hall, his stubby little arms flapping out on all sides, as he directed the
conscripts in their mayhem. Lanky, lean figures with black coats and pointy,
Prussian-style helms moved through the assembled crowd, ripping toys from
the arms of babes and tossing them onto a crackling bonfire leaping up from
the center of the square. Wooden ducks on rollers, their sunshine yellow
bills half-charred, peered out of the mountain of flame with their remaining
soulful, painted-on blue eyes, and dollies in gingham dresses screamed their
silent agony with mouths stitched into tiny rosebud o's.
"Get all of ze toys... get zem all...," screeched the little man, waving
a staff and shaking his ruddy little fist.
Suddenly, a scuffle broke out at the corner of the crowd. One child had the
audacity to struggle with the Burghermeister's officers, and in the melee
that ensued, over little more than a ragged toy tugboat, more children jumped
in, as did more of the soldiers, and soon, babes were being skewered on halberd
tips, and soldiers were having their booted ankles nipped at by the gnashing
teeth of desperate little brats.
And Rose was loving it.
As the Burghermeister Meisterburger rang out the hue and cry, a squad of
heavy-footed troops came plowing around the corner, bumping past Rose on
their way into the carnage. As they passed, one of the Kaiser helmets tumbled
to the ground, and the young, fresh-faced recruit to whom it belonged actually
stepped out of the flowing stream of the bodies of his comrades, and chased
after it.
Rose, aroused to join in the festivities by the display of carnage, took
a step forward, unhooking a silver choke chain from the clasp at her belt
in the same fluid motion. Quick as a whip, that silver circlet was out, arcing
into the air and glinting like magic in the midday sun, then descending,
widening out as it fell towards the soldier's head.
At that moment, the boy glanced up from his crouch, one hand on his hat,
and glanced just past Rose. A trick of the light made it appear as though
he were staring right at her, agog, but as the silver collar dropped out
of the sky, instead of settling around his neck with a delicate clink, as
her chains were wont to do, it slipped right through him, down into the snow.
Without even skipping a beat, the fellow snatched up his hat and took off
at a dead run past her.
"These are but shades of the things that have been... they can't see
you..."
For the first time since coming upon this little vignette of mayhem and cruelty,
Rose's lips pursed into a cupid's bow pout, and she crossed her arms over
her chest, shifting one hip to the side with an indignant toss of her
curls.
"But... I was never here...," she grumbled, somewhat reluctantly. She was
loathe to leave the holiday scene, but failed to see the point of staying
if she could not take part.
"You sure??" The ghost pulled the remote out of her pagoda sleeve, smacking
the side of it with such force that her whole body, every inch of fringe
and dust and rucheing and contained cellulose, shook like the proverbial
bowl of jelly. The atmosphere around them distorted for a split second, then
righted itself, and this time, there were no soldiers, no blessed fires,
no beautiful smoldering piles of toys, only a few ice-covered lanes, candlelit
shop windows, and snowflakes drifting to the ground, landing with a thunderous
whisper.
~ Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht ~ alles schläft, einsam wacht ~ nur das traute, o, heilige Paar ~ holder Knab' im lockigen Haar ~ schlaf in himmlischer Ruh', schlaf in himmlischer Ruh' ~
A few cloaked travelers came and went, huddled up against the cold as they passed through the lanes, yet still radiating blissful laughter, a laughter that made Rose's stomach curdle, as though she were not already nauseated enough by the chorus of sweet angels' voices drifting through the streets.
~ Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht ~ Gottes Sohn, o, wie lacht ~ Lieb aus Deinem göttlichen Mund ~ da uns schlägt die rettende Stund' ~ Christ, in Deiner Geburt, Christ, in Deiner Geburt ~
Emerging from the phantom mist pervading the scene, a pair of young girls skipped, hand in hand, passing right through Rose and her ghostly guide, and flooding her senses with an unearthly chill that passed, thankfully, the moment the pair had moved on.
"You know them," whispered the ghost, as though afraid to raise her voice for fear that the pretty picture of two young sisters might not have the same effect on her protégé's soul were she to disturb it with her statement.
"Of course I do," Rose snapped. Even beneath the covering of matching grey cloaks, two matching complexions, of purest alabaster, glowed like spotlights, one sweet cherub's face framed in ringlets the color of hell's furnaces, the other shaped by silken night; one pair of eyes glowed golden, the other blazed emerald green. Aside from those outward differences, the girls were matched height for height, gait for gait, and even shared the same sappy, cheerful demeanor. The memory brought to life nearly caused Rose's stomach
to lurch.
More than a little irritated by now, and growing impatient to return to that lovely village, where all the toys were being lit up, Rose fluttered her fingertips, a careless gesture to disguise the thoughts she entertained of snatching the remote control away and taking off on her own adventure.
~ Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht ~ Hirten erst kundgemacht ~ durch der Engel Halleluja ~ tönt es laut bei ferne und nah ~ Christ, der Retter ist da, Christ, der Retter ist da ~
"Can we go now? Please?" she huffed, rolling her eyes heavenward.
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They had only to turn away from the two girls to find themselves suddenly in the thick of an overgrown forest, and the light of day became night's pitch with an alarming lack of transition. It simply... was... The occasional clump of pine needles poked from the snow blanketing the ground, but beyond that, there was no clear indication of the season. Still, Rose had not been born yesterday - not hardly - and she was quick to conclude that the ghost was about to escort her to yet another sappy, sugary Christmas scene.
The spirit pointed through a tangle of trees, to a row of A-shaped tents, and asked Rose if she knew it.
"Know it??" Rose squeaked. "I learned my trade... er, *a* trade, here..."
The trees parted for them like open arms, and they stepped soundlessly across the underbrush, into a camp whose only life seemed to be the dancing of candle flames' reflections against canvas. But when a beribboned and heavily painted grande dame stepped out of the shadows, swinging her tea-cozy panniers to one side to make her way between the tents, Rose seized a sharp intake of breath and clapped her hands in delight.
"It's Mesdames Cyprian, alive again!"
Almost on cue, Mesdames Cyprian snapped out a garish, spangled fan, a motion that caused her tall, powdered wig to bobble and threaten a mutiny of its upright position. But the snowy crown held on, and in a gesture more drakish than delicate, she lifted her fingertips to heavily rouged lips and produced a shrill whistle.
Rose recognized herself among the girls that came giggling out of the woods like capricious faeries on a midsummer's night, all in bustles and bows, and wrapped in just enough fur to bring a hearty glow to every pale cheek.
"Ah, there's Cecile... and Emily," Rose exclaimed. "Two of the finest, er, girls... they turned a pretty profit for me in later years..."
"Halloo, boys," cried Cyprian, waving the girls to gather around her. "It's Christmas Eve... Time to lay down your arms and lay down with... well..."
The camp exploded to life as though a shell had been shot through it, and men in various stages of undress spilled out of every tent, some with suspenders hanging down around their knees, some actually taking the trouble to struggle into their coats.
"Halloo...," came the rousing tenor cheer, a curious sort of mating call from the one man who, judging by the decorous cut of his coat and the pluck of his pigtail, was apparently in charge of this troupe of soldiers, reduced to a ragtag bunch of starvelings by the presence of a few ladies of dubious character. "Clear away the benches! Bring out the musicians! Make room, boys! Make room!"
Those soldiers hardly needed the order to comply - they could likely have dug a hole to China in their enthusiasm to make a clearing. Armaments and racks were wheeled out of the way, tent flaps were drawn neatly down, and the top layers of soil were swept away, all to make as suitable a dance floor as could be fashioned for the twittering ladies gathered 'round.
Out came a fiddle, and someone had a recorder, and the regiment had been entrenched long enough outside of Cowpens to have acquired a serviceable pianoforte. Though the frigid temperatures made every note a jarring torture, like nails on a blackboard, it was music all the same, and to Tarleton's regulars, who had not seen a real woman in months, any excuse to be close to those feminine curves was good enough.
There were lines, and rounds, and square dances, so that everyone got the chance to partner everyone else, and when the stodgy old quartermaster insisted, they even tried a minuet, though the influence of too much roast, and far, far too much cold beer and warm cider turned poetry in motion to an undignified farce that had the whole assemblage near to rolling on the ground with laughter
at themselves.
Mesdames Cyprian, once she had dispensed with the financial arrangements, was a popular partner, and though powders and creams could not hide the wrinkles around her world-weary eyes, it was of little matter - her affability was legend, and she outstepped every one of her young protégés, leaving them all panting in her wake. And woe to the partner who could not match her virility...
"Now, see there? See how full your heart once was with joy?" declared the Ghost, dishing up a very smug, self-satisfied grin.
As this jolly scene played itself out, the Ghost turned towards Rose, expecting to see cadaverous features lit with the flames of fond memory, but instead, her charge had scampered off through the crowd of twirling, whirling dervishes like a shiny red bullet, bypassing even her own shadow image without so much as a curious glance, and disappearing into the woods through a crevice between two of the canvas huts. Her features were glowing with ruddy delight, all right, but for all the wrong reasons, and the Ghost, with a disgruntled hitch of her skirts, took off in clumsy pursuit, stepping through tent poles and melting in and out of the ropes.
Her chase brought her up short, staggering to a stop almost at Rose's back.
"Now *here's* some sport!"
The Ghost's jaw nearly dropped from its hinges as she followed Rose's gesture, words, and gaze, to take in the sight of two British infantrymen, their uniforms torn and bloodied, reeking of drunkenness, rolling about on the ground like a pair of rabid mongrels as they beat each other senseless with flailing arms and legs, and the occasional flashing silver dagger.
Rose sensed the spirit's disquiet and turned slowly, tearing her eyes away from the spectacle with ribald amusement creeping over her lips.
"Something wrong?" she chirped.
"Oh... uhm... no, nothing at all," replied the Ghost, ambling a few steps back, her features breaking into a disheartened pout, as though it had just dawned on her that Rose's redemption would not be an easy task.
"You sure?" Rose taunted, one brow rising smoothly into a curious point.
"No...," said the Ghost. "No... in fact..." With a sudden, inspired snap, she pulled the remote control device from her belt. "I know... I have just the thing to give even *you* a twinge..."
And with a firm nod, of renewed determination, she positioned one plump thumb over a button and pushed...
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The effect was instantaneous - just a brief flash of white noise in the corner of her vision, and Rose found herself face to face with her own visage. She recognized the fast forward in time by the glint of greed, the stunning dementia, that had already taken hold of her features.
She paced the floor, the tails of a leather trench coat dancing out behind her, and in the shadows cast by her moving figure stood a man of equal austerity, whose eyes blazed the ill-concealed anger of betrayal.
"How can you even think of returning to Malphader? Does it mean nothing to you that you have your life back, that you have to risk it once again?"
"What risk is there?" Rose snapped impatiently, throwing gloved hands to the air. "He's no match for me now..."
"I see...," the gentleman sighed, averting his gaze. "I see that I've been replaced in your passions..."
"Replaced?!?"
"...by Vengeance."
This comment caused a sudden, impenetrable hardness to form over the emerald of her eyes, a hardness that would be imprinted there forever after, and with a jaunty uptilt of her chin, she uttered a single word, hissed so as to give it the guise of an epithet.
"Nonsense."
"Indeed?" was the fellow's reply, and he took a step towards her, tossing a long curtain of ebony silk over one shoulder. "Your need for revenge consumes you... consumes me..."
"Nonsense," she repeated, this time with a resolute nod. "It hasn't changed a thing between us. It hasn't changed how I feel about you at all."
"Really?" The shadow-Rose held firm, and her lover continued, undaunted by the arrogant tilt of her nose. "Suppose you were forced to make a choice... sacrifice me, and win your pride... or leave well enough alone, and spend the centuries to come in my arms..."
Rose stiffened - both participant and spectator, one facing the initial blast of that ultimatum, the other reliving the torture of the question in her own mind - but neither answered. Now, as then, there was no answer but the burning hatred in her undead heart, and the only sound in the chamber was the steady drip-drip of a rivulet of intruding water, leaking down the cavern wall.
After a long pause, fraught with the silent, battling wills glaring in three pairs of eyes, the man turned, and made his way out of the room. He was never to return again.
While Rose looked on in mournful silence, the shadow that she once was only stared into the rocky walls, as though looking for some answer in their miniature, moss-draped ravines.
"But there was more to the story..." she sighed, turning to study the smug expression plumping the Ghost's chubby cheeks. The spirit hardly had time to lose her smile, before Rose's hand was out, taking hold of the remote control and clicking an arrow that pointed up.
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They were in another place, a room not unlike the one they had just left, decorated in all its nebulous glory to suit the tastes of the undead. As the pair appeared on the scene, a loud whooping and hollering sounded from an adjacent hallway, and the room was littered momentarily with the stray beams from a set of torches, as they retreated and disappeared down the corridor.
"Look... there...," Rose whispered, unable to contain a dim, throaty chuckle as she pointed the remote towards the floor.
"What is it?" the Ghost gaped, wide-eyed, lifting her skirts and kicking out at the pool of gritty, grey dust with one thick toe.
"That's what happens when vampire hunters learn where you take your
rest..."
With a shudder, the Ghost withdrew her foot, and jumped a nervous step back. "Then that's... but how did they know where to find him...?"
A tranquil smile settled onto Rose's features, then, and she crossed her arms over her chest, bouncing the remote nonchalantly in one hand.
"You should do your homework next time," she purred, the silk of her voice curdling into a low, self-satisfied growl.
Shock and indignance displayed themselves in every angle of the Ghost's rounded face, and she made a grab for the remote, pushing in indiscriminate haste at the array of buttons. She was gambling with their next destination, she knew, but anything, anything at all, had to be better than this...
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"What the...?" The transport through space and time was so sudden as to cause Rose to lurch forward, and she found herself spilling out onto a patch of muddy ground, with the portly apparition sprawled beside her, scrambling to keep a hold on the remote control now grown slippery from the rain trickling down on top of their heads.
"What the...?" Rose repeated, her eyes narrowing to slivers as she glanced up, to find herself surrounded by the bare, soiled feet of vagabond flower children, dancing in the mud as though it were new-mown grass. What Rose found startling was not the wild array of psychedelic colors, or the swinging of fringes and long, unkempt hair, but the fact that there was no music...
"Uh, to get back to the, uh, the warning I've received... you may take it with how many... however many grains of salt you wish... that the brown acid that is circulating around us... is not specifically too good... Uh, it's suggested that you do stay away from that... Of course, it's your own trip, so be my guest, but, uh, please be advised that there is a warning on that one, okay?"
"Oh. My. God." She had likely never spoken that name before, and would certainly never use it again, but for now, the declaration, taken in vain, was the only word strong enough to express her outrage, and she rose, sputtering, from the ground, tossing her curls indignantly as she towered over the frightened spirit.
"I was never even here! What is this??"
"I... I don't know...," stammered the Ghost, clambering to her feet and swatting at the side of the remote. "It's just going... haywire..."
"Give me that!" Rose hissed, taking hold of the remote once more and muttering under her breath something about incompetence. "I want to go home this instant! *This* is sheer torture!"
The Ghost's mouth dropped open and shut again, but no sound came out, and just at that moment, a hippie chick came whirling by, sending a spray of daisy petals into the air. Blessedly, the flower pieces passed right through Rose's form, but the moment provided just the impetus she needed to begin hammering her fist against the collage of buttons. With a sizzle, and a snap, the remote began to hum, and a thin tendril of smoke crept out of one corner of the device.
"Oh, noooo...," the Ghost wailed, but her voice was swallowed by a thunderous roar...
Every color of the spectrum exploded around them, twirling into a pinwheel spiral that forced Rose to close her eyes against the lightheadedness that flooded her senses. She felt herself spinning, tumbling head over heels through dimensions unknown, and when, at last, she felt some solid cushion beneath her, and the movement came to a screeching halt, it was a jolt to her nerves that caused her every muscle to cringe.
She waited a brief moment, pressing her eyelids closed lest the dizziness should return. But all was still, and when she allowed one eye to creep open, it was to take in the sight of her own room, absent of ghosts or flowers or shades of anything but her own deliciously spiteful existence.
With a heavy sigh, and an annoyed roll of her eyes, she sank down into her cushions, and was soon settled into sleep once more.
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