The closet was filled with vintage clothing, handbags, jewelry, scarves, you name it. Mostly black, but bright pops of color here and there managed to peek out from the sea of sequin and lace gloom. It looked more like a cutting-edge couture shop or maybe the Dresden Dolls’ Gothic-punk cabaret-style dressing room than a high school girl’s closet.
“Everything in moderation,” Scarlet said, noticing Charlotte admiring her collection.
Scarlet walked over and pulled out a worn-out Strawberry Switchblade band tee and paired it with a tartan kilt and black iridescent leggings.
“Where and how did you get all of this stuff?” Charlotte said almost in an accusatory tone.
“From my victims,” Scarlet snapped. Charlotte looked slightly stunned.
“I work at Clothes Minded, the vintage store in town, during the summer,” Scarlet said as she got dressed, sensing Charlotte’s uneasiness.
“This is pretty,” Charlotte said, running her hand over a midnight blue sequin dress.
“You think so?” Scarlet asked excitedly, but then stopped herself. “Yeah, I guess it’s okay.”
Charlotte rummaged through some black chiffon blouses, some bright vintage camisoles, and then explored a section of tees as Scarlet finished dressing.
“Maybe you can see me… I don’t know… because you’re… well… different… or something?” Charlotte wondered.
“There you go, stereotyping,” Scarlet accused.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. Really. It’s just that if I could figure it out, it would help me with… well, with something I have to do,” Charlotte said, trying to calm Scarlet down a little.
“Why are you here anyway? You could be anywhere,” Scarlet asked suspiciously.
“I was just here for… your sister,” Charlotte responded.
“Don’t let me hold you up… down the hall to the right!” Scarlet said without missing a beat.
“I’m not the Grim Reaper, either,” Charlotte said, putting a damper on Scarlet’s hopes for a clean removal of her sister.
“Right…,” Scarlet said with extreme disappointment. “So why aren’t you backstage at a concert or in Heaven or something? I don’t know, somewhere cool?” she asked. “You’re wasting your… Afterlife.”
“What do you mean, I got to see Petula’s dress for the dance!”
“You did???!!!” Scarlet said sarcastically as she jumped up and down with fake excitement. “I can barely contain my fluids.”
“Who are you going with?” Charlotte asked, oblivious to Scarlet’s wiseass behavior.
“Going where?” Scarlet asked.
“To the Fall Ball,” Charlotte said anxiously.
“I’m not a part of the mindless herd that is the Hawthorne student body—in case you haven’t noticed,” Scarlet snapped.
Charlotte backed off.
“You know, you don’t look… or act like you’re dead,” Scarlet said as she looked Charlotte up and down. “You’re like a dead poseur.”
Charlotte tilted her head down in disappointment. The old feelings of inadequacy came rushing back.
“Great, I can’t even die right,” Charlotte said as she plopped herself down on Scarlet’s bloodred satin bedding.
“Wait, maybe I can help you, you know, look dead, at least?” Scarlet said.
Scarlet grabbed Charlotte’s arm and headed for the bathroom.
“Have a seat,” Scarlet said invitingly, plopping Charlotte down on the toilet seat next to the vanity. She opened the makeup drawer and immediately began her work.
“What are you doing?” Charlotte asked as Scarlet buzzed around her.
“You need a make-under. You know, live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse…,” Scarlet said, placing her instruments on a cloth beside Charlotte as if she were a surgeon prepping for a major lifesaving procedure.
“One for three,” Charlotte mumbled as she sat back and let Scarlet work her magic.
Scarlet was focused and determined, a girl on a mission, as she reconfigured makeup colors, all the while applying some matte crimson lipstick on herself and combing her straight black bob and her perfectly short bangs. She applied some pale foundation and white powder to herself for good measure, realizing there was no need to waste it on Charlotte’s already ashen complexion.
Scarlet looked Charlotte over cosmetic rep–style and planned her work. She laid out all the applicators, which were nestled in a makeup holster, and sprawled them out in front of her for easy access.
This is a pro, Charlotte thought, holding her hair back for Scarlet.
Before Charlotte could get any words out, any questions, Scarlet was heating up the tip of a kohl eyeliner pencil with a lighter, but every time the liner approached Charlotte’s cold, dead skin, it froze. Trying again, she put the flame too close to Charlotte and freaked out.
“Don’t worry, I’m no longer flammable,” Charlotte said, reassuring her.
Scarlet ended up leaving the flame on the liner like a mini blowtorch while simultaneously applying it to Charlotte’s eyes.
“Aren’t you, you know, even a little freaked out or afraid of me?” Charlotte asked as Scarlet scanned her extensive eye shadow palette, careful to make the right color combinations. She applied the shadow over Charlotte’s lid while Charlotte kept the other eye completely open.
“Aren’t you a little freaked out or afraid of me?” Scarlet asked.
“Well, I guess I’m a little freaked out because you’re not so freaked out,” Charlotte said.
“Yeah, me too,” Scarlet said with a little grin on her face as she prepared for the next procedure.
Scarlet scooped up some hot wax on a stick from a purple vat and proceeded to apply it carefully to Charlotte’s eyebrow. After a few seconds, Scarlet applied a little piece of cloth over the wax, pressed it down, and then ripped it off, anticipating a reaction of major pain from Charlotte, but she didn’t flinch at all.
“One definite advantage of being dead,” Charlotte said as Scarlet laughed and nodded in agreement.
Scarlet did some more work on Charlotte, including her hair, and Charlotte enjoyed every bit of the attention. The best part about it for her was that Scarlet was genuinely happy to be with her. Charlotte wasn’t used to that kind of attention, having been raised by a court-appointed guardian for most of her life.
After a short while, they were interrupted by Scarlet’s antique clock as a black raven popped out and trumpeted a hardy “F.U.,” “F.U.” instead of the standard “cuckoo.”
Noticing the time, Charlotte got up to leave.
“Where are you going? I’m not finished yet!” Scarlet yelled after her, her portrait incompletely rendered.
“I’m late for a dorm meeting—see you in school tomorrow!” Charlotte yelled back.
She ran down the hall, stealing one more peak at Damen, who was sleeping comfortably on Petula’s bed, exhausted, apparently, from their workout, while Petula continued to pin her dress. She left the house looking like a Mark Ryden portrait—her hair teased out, bleeding eyeliner, wearing crimson lipstick and dark nail polish—under the glow of the full moon.
Charlotte frantically continued down the sidewalk into the darkness, toward the moon, as the same black birds that had circled her head that afternoon converged on her again.
A dorm meeting? School tomorrow? Maybe death isn’t that cool after all, Scarlet thought, watching Charlotte fade from view through her bedroom window and wondering what the hell had just happened.
“Wait!” she yelled again after Charlotte, but Charlotte didn’t answer, she was well on her way, almost completely out of sight.
“Great. Not only do I see dead people, but now I’m needy on top of it,” Scarlet said as she slammed yet another door shut.
8
Heart of Darkness
Last night I dreamt, That somebody loved me No hope no harm Just another false alarm.
—The Smiths
Home is where the heart is.
It?
??s a place to be yourself and a place to let your hair and your guard down. But as usual, Charlotte was having a hard time belonging. Hawthorne Manor was a place for her to stay but it wasn’t a place for her to “live.” And right now, she was more interested in fi nding a place for her heart than for her soul. Charlotte may not have had an actual beating heart, but she still had heart.
The Dead Dorm, which is what the Dead kids called Hawthorne Manor, might have sounded depressing to someone else, but to Charlotte, it sounded like a community. She would never get the opportunity to live in an actual college dorm, and this, to her, was the next best thing.
Would she have a roommate? Would they stay up and talk all night long? Would they study together and have secret codes in case one of them had a guy over? Would they share clothes and have raging fits of unbridled laughter? Would they order pizza late at night when they were studying and then complain the whole next day about their weight? No. Deep down she knew that and it was just another thing that she had to let go, but it was a “dorm” nonetheless, and that meant that she wouldn’t be alone. That, to her, was enough.
All this and more raced through her mind as she sped to the meeting. It was odd, but even though it was her first time going to Hawthorne Manor, she instinctively knew how to get there, as if some spirit-world GPS had kicked in. There was no Pied Piper or, more specifically, no Piccolo Pam actually guiding her, but she was being called just the same.
As she came around the corner of the long, lonely street, she knew right away which house to head for. It was a rundown Victorian manse, still beautiful in a decrepit sort of way, the kind of high-maintenance property that was once the pride of the neighborhood, until the surrounding McMansions and Father Time had eroded its glory.
From Charlotte’s new “perspective,” however, it had incredible character—a still-magnificent structure, covered in creeping ivy, with towering gables, oriels perched on intricate corbels and pristine, pointed stained glass windows. All the meticulously detailed masonry was straight out of Gothic fairy tale.
There were ornate lanterns hanging all along the wraparound porch, and each porch post was strung together in gingerbread fashion. Unlike the basement intake office, which was sterile, and Dead Ed, which was dull and antiquated, Hawthorne Manor was magical.
“Home, sweet home,” she said somberly as she placed her hand on a rosette and pulled along the banister that led up to the heavy, dark double doors.
Charlotte walked up the steps and onto the porch, peered in through the leaded window, and noticed the enormous and very Phantom of the Opera chandelier that hung in the entryway. She entered and stood on the large black-and-white marble tiles.
She was amazed at all of the ornate cherry-wood carvings that adorned the arched doorways throughout the house. It was beautiful, unlike anything she’d ever seen, but best of all, warm. Even the grandiose foyer was welcoming. She was hoping that the bedrooms would be comfy too, because she was feeling tired. It had been a long, long day.
Before Charlotte knew it, Pam zipped down the huge, deep red–carpeted carved wood staircase.
“Where were you?” Pam asked, her tone more scolding than inquisitive. Pam already knew the answer to her question, and Charlotte, of course, knew that she knew.
“Oh, just livin’ it up,” Charlotte said, half-joking.
“Well, this is where you ‘live’ now and you’re late for our meeting. Hurry!” she said as she grabbed Charlotte’s hand and dragged her up the gigantic staircase. “Prue is not happy!”
Charlotte had never seen Pam so intense. In fact, Charlotte didn’t feel her feet even hitting the ground as she was whisked up the steps like a helium balloon.
Pam and Charlotte headed for the meeting room at the end of the hall, which looked like an Ivy League literature classroom straight out of Dead Poets Society. Prue was calling the meeting to order just as Charlotte burst in.
Even though she felt Pam’s hand in hers, pulling her along, she was startled to see Pam sitting there when she arrived as if she hadn’t moved a muscle.
Before walking in, Charlotte quickly surveyed the space and noticed dozens of sorority-fraternity-type artifacts and relics peppered around the room. There was a banner with the insignia “theta,” the Greek letter for death, strung across the wall over sepia-toned “class pictures” framed by the Ouroboros. She loved that she was in such a dignified place, almost like she was part of a secret society, even if she did not feel like a full member just yet.
As Charlotte timidly entered, her dorm-mates snickered at her new look, well, all except for Prue, who was beyond pissed.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” Prue snapped.
Charlotte, having forgotten about her make-under in her rush to get to the meeting, tried desperately to flatten her hair by licking her hands and running them through her ’do. She tried to wipe off some makeup as well, but she was short on saliva, being nervous… and dead and all.
“It’s not going to be so funny when this place is sold, is it?” Prue asked, commanding the room’s attention and taking the focus off Charlotte while embarrassing her at the same time.
Charlotte made her way over to the one and only friendly face in the room, Piccolo Pam, and sat down.
“What’s the big deal about saving this house anyway?” Charlotte whispered innocently into Pam’s ear.
“What’s the big deal?” Prue yelled before Pam could get a word out. “The BIG DEAL is that this is our home. It is where we exist.”
“But aren’t there a lot of other old houses in the world?” Charlotte asked sheepishly.
“Aren’t there a lot of other Dead kids in the world?” Prue spat, throwing Charlotte’s question back in her face. “It is not about other houses. It is about THIS house, which has been entrusted to us until the time comes.”
“What ‘time’?” Charlotte asked, making air quotes for emphasis. Pam, sensing a real problem brewing, jumped in.
“Everybody calm down,” she interjected. “Charlotte is new.”
This was a fact that carried very little weight with Prue.
“We need to be here, Charlotte, until the time comes when we can cross over together,” Pam explained.
“To where?” Charlotte asked. “I just got here.”
“None of us really know for sure,” Pam replied. “Resolving our personal issues is just one part of the process. Preventing this house from being sold is something we have to do as a team. It’s our assignment to work together and forget about our own wants and desires.”
“Unselfishness and obligation, Usher,” Prue chided. “Two things you obviously know nothing about.”
Charlotte bristled at Prue’s cut because it was totally untrue, as far as she was concerned. After all, she tried to sign up for cheerleading didn’t she? She had “team” written all over her.
“If we are going to save this house, everyone needs to pull their weight. If one person doesn’t, it will ruin it for all of us,” Prue said sternly as she repeatedly smacked a wooden pointer on her hand. “And I’m not going to let that happen,” she concluded, staring threateningly at Charlotte.
Everyone instantly got serious, that is, everyone except Metal Mike and Deadhead Jerry, who tried to lighten the mood by making lewd gestures toward Abigail, the drowning victim who, oddly enough, still wore her swimsuit despite her varicose veins, sickly transparent pasty skin, and bulging eyeballs.
“I’d like to dive into that,” Deadhead Jerry said to Mike, referring to Abigail; a puff of smoke released from his mouth every time he opened it.
“Hard to believe she drowned with flotation devices like those.” Mike snickered a little too loudly.
Charlotte tried desperately to keep her focus on Prue.
“So what can we do to save our house?” Prue asked.
There was dead silence as Prue began to make eye contact with each and every single Dead Ed student in the room.
“Anyone?” she barked like a mad dog.
In
the audience, Charlotte desperately tried to avoid Prue’s gaze.
“Please don’t call on me… please don’t call on me…,” she pleaded to herself as she tried to stay as much out of sight as she could, ducking behind Simon and Simone, the fraternal twins who shared a desk in front of her. They were suspicious and secretive, dark and twisted, and they moved with a creepy elegance as one. Charlotte was just thankful that they were so inseparable and hoped they would provide a protective shield from Prue’s accusatory gaze.
“Ah, if it isn’t our prized Darwin Award recipient,” Prue said, interrupting Charlotte’s mantra. “Since this is all so friggin’ funny to you, what’s your plan?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s funny,” Charlotte said meekly.
“Could have fooled me,” Prue said, once again referring to Charlotte’s new look with her eyes.
“Oh no, this, this was just…,” Charlotte scrambled for an alibi.
“Well…,” Prue said as she continued to grill Charlotte, trying to prompt some kind of answer.
Just then, Abigail popped her eyes completely out of their sockets, straight at Jerry.
“Oh my God!” Charlotte screamed.
Charlotte startled the entire class with her outburst.
Hearing the scream, Abigail snapped her eyeballs back into place and her face returned to its normal shape.
“You’re sick,” Metal Mike said in disgust to Abigail.
Abigail smirked as she tried to cover her mouth with her pale, bluish hands.
“Oh God!” Prue mocked Charlotte, affecting a high-pitched squeal. “Not even God is going to be able to help you if you screw things up.”
“No, wait! I think she just got an idea,” Piccolo Pam chimed in, trying to save Charlotte’s ass.