Villainess 4: Janet’s Haunted Escapade

Red Pill 19: Gatherings, Cemeteries

As twilight lingered in deepening shades of starry nightfall, ushering a full moon from the East above Mariana House, Janet acquainted herself with her friends’ maids: Mindy’s gray-haired maid was Ellen Levy, and Jean and Saraya’s maids were sisters, Diana Anderson and Niana Anderson, respectively. After that, Janet informed Mindy and the Drevis sisters about tonight’s signing and asked them to be there, and they said they would. Then Janet supped with her friends at her tea table with their book bags hanging from their chairs, stress-eating sandwiches and drinking ginger tea and commiserating over today’s events. Also, her friends’ maids took turns with Baron Underwood checking on Janet’s maids at their bedside while eating sandwiches and drinking apple cider by the serving cart and commiserating over their collective evictions.

All the while, Janet’s sixteen clones occupied one corner of the room jabbering on and on about the Prince getting a good dressing-down during his summons from Margrave Sydney and Father Robinson and Baron Palmer and Viscountess Durham and Count Cosgrove and King and Queen Blaise and especially Marquess Fleming. The rest of the clones all wished they had been there to see it for themselves, saying that it served the Prince right for hurting their living avatar like that.

Then, after everyone had finished supper, Janet left the table and went over to her maids’ bedside and sat at the edge of the bed across from Baron Underwood, while her friends’ maids were in the middle of gathering the tableware and placing them in the cart and pushing it through the double doors, leaving the doors ajar behind them. All the while, Janet’s newfound friends approached her clones in their corner and tried communicating with them with yes-and-no questions.

Meanwhile, Janet said, “They’re still out of it?”

Baron Underwood said, “Looks that way. It must’ve been quite a shock for them.”

“That’s an understatement,” she said, looking at Susan and Marin sound asleep beneath the sheets. “I never thought anyone could faint like that outside of a romance novel.”

“I don’t think it’s that serious, though,” he said. “They’ll be fine with bed rest, but—”

The baron then looked past Janet’s shoulder.

So Janet looked back at the mirror between the armoire closet and vanity table, where the baron had a different reaction. Instead of fainting at the sight of ghosts in the reflection, he had carried Marin to the bed, while Janet and her friends’ maids helped Susan into bed beside Marin. After pulling the sheets over them, Baron Underwood then stalked back to the mirror, walking through the clones like they were made of nothing, and kept looking back and forth from the mirror to where the clones stood. And for a moment, Janet had thought he would faint as well, but he kept his composure, wiping the sweat from his brow, and introduced himself to Janet’s clones like a gentleman.

“It’s fine,” Janet said.

“Are you sure about that?” he said.

Janet nodded, saying, “Seeing ghosts isn’t unheard of.”

“I know,” he said, “but seeing so many doppelgängers of you is a different experience altogether.”

“Fainting is a one-time thing,” Janet said.

“Let’s hope so,” he said.

Janet was about to add something to that—

When six more of her clones passed through the double doors, rousing the other sixteen clones from answering more yes-and-no questions with nods and shakes of their heads, which in turn made Mindy Kessler and the Drevis sisters turn their heads towards the commotion.

As such, Janet and her suicide clone walked up to them, and her clone said, “What is it now?”

And one of the six clones said, “DeeDee and Kevin and Ridley are on their way here.”

“Already?” Janet said in her mind.

“Yeah,” another clone said.

Janet then pulled the doors open and entered the hallway, followed by her friends and the rest of her clones (twenty-two of them now), and saw the trio approaching. At the same time, Janet heard the clicking of a door latch and turned around only to see her friends’ maids coming out of the servants’ quarters room beside her dorm. Then she looked back to her three friends and her club advisor and her clones with her in the hallway, then looked past them through the doorway at her own maids still fast asleep in her bed before she turned back to the most recent trio of visitors to Mariana House and wondered if her dorm could fit so many visitors.

“What time is it?” Janet said.

“It’s a quarter to six,” DeeDee said.

“Isn’t that too early?” Janet said. “The signing is not till midnight.”

“I know,” DeeDee said, “but there’s no time like the present,” and she glanced at Janet’s twenty-two clones and said, “All of you, keep watch in the hallway. If there’s anything suspicious, let me know at once.”

“Will do,” Janet’s suicide clone said and directed her fellow clones in eleven pairs as lookouts along the first-floor hallway of Mariana House and accompanied them outside.

Then DeeDee said, “Let’s go inside.”

So Janet went back inside her dorm, allowing everyone to enter, and pushed the doors closed, till there was a click of the latch amidst the growing hubbub of voices. She turned around and saw her friends’ maids taking up their former stations beside the bed and looking after her sleeping maids, while her friends and Baron Underwood were explaining to DeeDee and Kevin and Ridley what had happened earlier in the hallway. To this, DeeDee clarified the situation, saying that it was because of the mirror she had sent to Janet the other day and pointed it out between the armoire closet and the vanity table, which roused more questions from Janet’s friends.

“Is that mirror enchanted?” Jean said.

“It is,” DeeDee said.

“Are you a witch?” Saraya added.

“I’m much more than a witch,” DeeDee said. “I’m the Guardian of the Aether, and Janet is my protégé.”

“No way!” Mindy said, turning from DeeDee to Janet and back to DeeDee. “You’re really a Guardian?”

“I am,” she said.

“Janet,” Jean said, “how did you get contracted with a guardian spirit?”

“It’s a long story,” Janet said.

“Wait,” Saraya said, “your mother was a saintess candidate, right? Was her affinity the same as yours?”

“It’s complicated,” Janet said.

“Then tell us,” Mindy said.

“I’d rather not.”

“But why not?” Saraya said.

Janet paused, then said, “It’s not something—”

“Does it have anything to do with how your clones died?” Jean added, looking to the closed double doors, beyond which Janet’s clone stood guard in the hallway.

“It does, actually,” Janet said, “but it’s more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?” Saraya added.

“It’s because,” Janet said but stalled, wondering if she should let her friends in on some of the finer details of her meeting with Celeste Graves in her office.

“Because of what?” Mindy added.

Janet then put her finger to her lips and said, “Keep this to yourselves, okay?”

So Jean and Saraya and Mindy all said that they would keep it amongst themselves, adding that they would cross their hearts and hope to die if they divulged Janet’s secret.

“I’m a saintess candidate,” Janet said.

Then all three girls crowded around Janet, saying they were so jealous and asking her several questions at once, but Janet said that it’s not something that she’s comfortable talking about just yet. But when they pressed her with more questions, DeeDee came to Janet’s rescue and said that her affinity with the spirits of the dead came about through circumstances far too horrifying to take lightly, which had its effect.

Mindy and Jean and Saraya covered their gaping mouths with their hands and apologized.

“It’s okay,” Janet said. “I can’t fault you for being curious. I’ll tell you when I’m ready. Is that okay?”

All three girls nodded that it was.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Ridley had been talking with Baron Underwood about Janet’s ghost clones that the Baron had seen through her mirror, as well her maids’ fainting spell. To this, Kevin and Ridley asked DeeDee if she could show them or at least one of them, but DeeDee said that they were spirits, not objects to be ogled at, which also had its effect.

Kevin and Ridley began blushing like shy schoolboys with Kevin saying, “Whoa, I’m not like that, I swear!”

And Ridley added, “We’re just curious, because we haven’t really seen them yet. I mean, we’ve gone legend-tripping before, but we haven’t seen any ghosts yet!”

“Everyone’s seen ghosts except us,” Kevin said. “That’s not fair, is it?”

“Just be patient, you two,” DeeDee said. “You’ll be able to see them after tonight. Which reminds me.” Then she turned towards the mirror, stretching out her hand and manifesting a lamp in her hand, and said to the other clones watching over Rosalie Edgeworth and Donavan Blaise and the as-yet unseen Joseph Reeves in their dorms, “The rest of you, come over and show yourselves in this mirror.”

“Why?” one clone said, blinking her lamplight.

“Because I have two boys here with me,” DeeDee said, “who have yet to see any ghosts, and we need to gather all of you for tonight’s signing, anyway.”

“Finally!” another clone said, blinking the lamp. “Watching over people is like watching paint dry, I swear.”

Then DeeDee said, “Sir Sydney, Lord Woodberry, come over here and look into the mirror,” and she waved them over.

Both boys did as requested.

“Don’t faint now,” Baron Underwood said.

“I don’t have another bed for you,” Janet added, “if either of you faint.”

Kevin and Ridley looked at her and the baron.

“Are you serious?” Kevin said.

“If it could happen to my maids,” Janet said, glancing over at Susan and Marin still asleep in her bed, “it could also happen to you, so be prepared.”

“It’s fine,” Kevin said. “I don’t know about Riddle, but I’m not the fainting kind of guy.”

“Hey!” Ridley said.

DeeDee shushed them with a finger to her lips, then faced the mirror and said, “Are you all there?”

“Yes, we are,” the clones said at once, blinking the light of her lamp again.

“Then show yourselves,” DeeDee said.

Then the image in the mirror reflecting everyone inside the room blurred out and manifested nine more of Janet’s clones in the mirror, and one of the clones dressed in a soiled linen gown (the one that had witnessed Prince Blaise’s dressing-down at his summons) waved at them.

Kevin and Ridley, for their part, were silent and just raised their hands and waved back.

Then Ridley looked over at a smiling DeeDee and said, “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“It’s not a dream, Lord Woodberry,” DeeDee said, then to the clones: “Say hello, girls.”

“Hello,” they all said, blinking DeeDee’s lamp.

“Don’t faint,” Baron Underwood said.

“We won’t!” they said.

Janet smiled at their reaction, wondering if Kevin and Ridley were so interested in ghosts because they needed to overcome their fear of them, while Mindy and Saraya and Jean all giggled with their hands over their mouths. Janet traded knowing glances with Mindy and the Drevis sisters, thinking that these guys were scaredy-cats on the inside, but she refrained from voicing her thoughts out loud.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Kevin said, catching their eyes with a glance, “it’s not like that,” and he and Ridley looked back at the mirror again, then turned back at the room, then back at the mirror again.

The nine clones then manifested in the room as they were reflected within the mirror, still invisible to the boys except within the confines of the reflection.

“They’re already with us,” DeeDee said, “and the others are on the other side of those doors,” and she pointed towards the double doors. “Come on in, girls.”

Then twenty-two other clones walked through the closed doors, visible to everyone inside the room save for Baron Underwood and Kevin and Ridley, who only saw them in the mirror.

DeeDee said to the maids of Janet’s friends, “You three, stay here and look after this room. If the guards come in later asking for us, just tell them it’s a test of courage. They’ll understand.”

The gray-haired Ellen and the black-haired Diana and Niana all traded glances, and Ellen said, “We will, Miss . . . ?”

“It’s Marionette,” she said, “but just call me DeeDee.”

“Will do, DeeDee,” Ellen said.

“Okay,” DeeDee said, placing the lamp on the floor. “Everyone else, pick up this lamp.”

Everyone just stared at DeeDee.

“DeeDee, how can we all do that,” Janet said, “when there’s just one lamp?”

“You’ll know when you pick it up,” she said. “Come on, we don’t have all night. We’ve got a lot ahead of us.”

So Janet went ahead and picked up DeeDee’s lamp, while the original lamp remained on the ground. Everyone except for the maids started crowding around the enchanted lamp, and DeeDee said, “See what I mean? Everyone, pick it up.”

And one by one, Mindy and Jean and Saraya and Kevin and Ridley and Baron Underwood picked up their own lamps. Then, when Janet’s clones were up next, all thirty-one of them started manifesting bodily in the room as they all picked up their lamps, leaving DeeDee’s lamp on the floor afterwards. At this, Ellen and Diana and Niana started debating in whispers whether DeeDee was an actual spirit guardian or not, while Baron Underwood and Kevin and Ridley just stared, wide-eyed and mouths agape, at thirty-one copies of Janet appearing in the room with lamps in their hands.

Then DeeDee picked up her own lamp, leaving one lamp there on the floor, and said to the three maids, “We’ll be gone till some time past midnight. If anything happens before our return, let me know through that lamp on the floor, and we’ll come back as soon as we can, okay?”

All three maids nodded, pale-faced and wide-eyed and now starting to sweat at their temples.

“Good. Everyone else, stay close and follow me,” DeeDee said and headed for the double doors and knocked three times, and its echoes fluttered through the air above their heads.

Silence reigned for a moment.

A folded sheet of paper slid out from beneath the door, so DeeDee put down her lamp and crouched to pick it up. DeeDee unfolded it and ran her eyes across its contents, then looked back at Janet and her companions and put her finger to her lips and handed it to Janet and said, “Read it to yourselves and tell me when you’re all finished.”

Janet took the paper and read, while her companions all read along with her. The letter said,

‘Dear Ghost Hunting Club,

‘I invite you to our humble abode in Elba House for tonight’s signing, but I have some ground rules. One: wherever your path may lead, do not stray from each other on your way to Elba House, lest you become trapped in the Spirit World. Two: whenever you feel or hear or see strange things, do not scream, lest you disturb the spirits. And three: whenever you speak amongst yourselves, speak only in whispers, lest you disturb the spirits. From tonight onward, be mindful of these rules and do not break them, unless absolutely necessary.

‘Yours truly,

‘(signed) Lady Celeste Graves’

When everyone had finished reading the letter to themselves, Janet said, “We’re all finished, DeeDee.”

With that, DeeDee snapped her fingers, and the letter in Janet’s hand transformed into a blue ghost flame shaped like a dove that hovered above their heads in fluttering wisps. DeeDee then turned to the maids and said, “Don’t tell anyone a word about this, you hear?”

Ellen Levy and Diana and Niana Anderson nodded their heads and gulped, all three whiter than ever now.

DeeDee then pulled open the double doors and picked up her lamp from the floor, and the whole group followed the fluttering blue dove into the hallway, where it flew towards the half-turn stairs at the end of the corridor and waited for them to catch up. With the light of their lamps casting their swaying shadows along the floor and the walls of the hallway, the group kept their footfalls light upon the floorboards and up the steps of the half-turn stairs. All the while, Janet heard DeeDee counting the steps under her breath, so Janet followed along and counted one step . . .

And two steps . . .

And three steps . . .

And then four steps . . .

And on and on she counted . . .

Till Janet counted up to thirteen steps, at which point she began feeling dizzy and nauseous and lost count, her feet faltering and her lamp swaying beneath her sweaty grasp. Yet through the vertigo, she managed to keep her footing and stomped after DeeDee, who was still counting steps.

But when DeeDee counted up to thirty-nine steps, she ceased altogether and waited for Janet, then took a hold of her hand and said, “We’re almost there,” and she led the way a few steps further over level ground.

And before Janet knew it, before she realized that her head had stopped reeling to and fro like a pendulum, she heard crickets chirping and found herself in an open field full of elm trees and flowerbeds and ornate mausoleums made of marble under a starry night sky. As her friends and her clones gathered into the field behind her, Janet and the rest looked up and saw the fluttering wisp of blue light flying in circles above them, flapping its effervescent wings.

“Okay, everyone,” DeeDee said. “Remember to keep your voices down while we’re here.”

As everyone nodded their heads, the fluttering blue ghost flame dived towards DeeDee and entered her lamp, turning its green spectral glow into a bright blue light.

Then Lady Graves’ voice issued from DeeDee’s lamp, blinking the lamplight when she said, “Janet, are you okay?”

“Just a dizzy spell,” Janet said.

“What about the rest of you?” DeeDee asked the group. “How are you all feeling?”

And Ridley and Kevin and the Drevis sisters and Mindy Kessler and Baron Underwood and all thirty-one of Janet’s clones said they felt fine.

“Now I see,” DeeDee said.

“See what?” Janet said. “Was this a test?”

“Yes, it was,” Lady Graves said, blinking DeeDee’s lamp. “Since you’re the only one affected during DeeDee’s Thirty-Nine Steps, it could only mean one thing.”

“What’s that?” she said.

“It’s your darkness affinity,” DeeDee said.

“Darkness affinity?” Ridley said and looked at Janet. “Wait, Janet, you have more than one?”

“But,” Kevin said, “your magic aptitude test—”

“I took a modified aptitude test in Lady Graves’ office,” Janet said, “and found out I had the darkness affinity. Just don’t tell his Highness about it.”

Ridley and Kevin promised not to tell him.

So Janet turned to DeeDee and said, “What’s wrong with my darkness affinity?”

“It’s been interfering with your aether affinity,” DeeDee said. “As such, you’re susceptible to hauntings and fainting spells and the visions about your clones’ deaths.”

“Then how do I fix it?” Janet said.

“That’s why we’re here,” DeeDee said and led the way across the field, passing by mausoleum after mausoleum. “Come along, all of you, and keep your voices down.”

So Janet and the rest followed in silence, walking across several walkways leading to different mausoleums, the glow of their swaying lamps casting their shadows along the grass and the brickwork of the pathways in their wake. Along the way, Janet’s girlfriends caught up to her and talked with her in whispers, and Kevin and Ridley fell behind and talked with their club advisor Baron Underwood in whispers as well, while Janet’s clones brought up the rear as they talked amongst themselves about something Janet could scarcely hear.

As such, Mindy and Jean and Saraya asked Janet if she’s gone out legend-tripping before, but Janet said she hasn’t and asked if they had. They all said they had during the daytime on the weekends but added that they’ve never gone out incognito after curfew, so they stared at her with sparkling eyes. And looking at their dreamy eyes and blushing faces, Janet wondered if they’ve read too many gothic romances if they thought incognito outings were really that romantic. So Janet said she’s only ever done that when she helped DeeDee move her stuff into Elba House, which then got Mindy and the Drevis sisters bringing up rumors of masked incognitos going out at night. In particular, Mindy went off on a tangent, saying that her mother’s next gothic romance was going to feature a masked protagonist and that her father wrote a series of articles about masked incognitos over the summer, but she added that it was just to drum up more publicity for his newspaper.

Janet thought for a moment about the way she had gone out last night as DeeDee’s older sister, as well as her weird encounter with that mask-wearing nun in her dream, but she refrained from saying anything about them.

Then DeeDee said, “We’re here.”

Janet and her friends and her clones looked at where DeeDee aimed her lamp, and they saw a mausoleum of black marble up ahead near the corner of a crossroads in the northeast part of the cemetery. Janet and the rest headed down the walkway towards the cabin-sized monument, where she saw its glossy finish fluorescing in the light of their lamps.

“Janet,” DeeDee said, “do you recognize this place?”

She shook her head that she didn’t.

“It’s Marchioness Fleming’s grave,” DeeDee said. “Your father Marquess Fleming took you here once when you were very little. Don’t you remember?”

Again she shook her head, then approached the monument’s sepulchral door and placed her hand on its surface, and something warm filled her chest as if she was on the verge of crying. She then looked back at DeeDee and the rest and said, “Have you met her?”

“Twice,” DeeDee said. “The first time was just after her marriage when she participated in a séance and channeled me to locate her little nephew for the Bartleby family.”

“Wait,” Janet said, “how did she—”

“She was a gifted medium,” DeeDee said. “In addition to seeing ghosts, she could also channel their spirits and their voices, but I never made a contract with her.”

“And the second time?”

DeeDee waved Janet over to her side, and when Janet came over with her lamp, DeeDee whispered into her ear, saying, “The second time was after your mother gave birth to you in prison. She begged me to save you with her last breath, and so I formed my contract with you and your clones.”

Janet then looked at her clones, remembering the hardships they all had to endure in their time at Lassen Academy when she first met them in the women’s bathroom yesterday morning, which felt like a lifetime ago.

After that, DeeDee placed her lamp on the ground and said, “Now that everyone’s here, we’ll start the ceremony. Celeste, come out of my lamp and greet everyone.”

And the bright blue light left the lamp, turning back to its original green light, and manifested before everyone in Lady Graves’ spectral shape and waved back at them. “Hello there, everyone,” she said. “I’m Lady Celeste Graves, the protector of all saintess candidates. DeeDee asked me to be here with you, so after we’re done here, we’ll go to Elba House to have you all sign my contract.”

“The rest of you,” DeeDee said, “form a circle around me and Janet and Lady Graves, then place your lamps on the ground in front of you and join hands.”

And so they did, with Mindy and Jean and Saraya and Kevin and Ridley and Baron Underwood and Janet’s thirty-one clones all forming into a circle and placing their lamps before them on the ground and holding each other’s hands.

“Janet,” DeeDee said, “place your lamp at your feet and don’t move from there.”

So Janet did, placing it there and remaining still, wondering what was about to happen.

Then DeeDee circled around and stood behind Janet and said, “It’s your turn now, Celeste.”

So Lady Graves approached Janet and said, “Don’t be scared now,” and once Janet nodded, Lady Graves waved her hand across Janet’s eyes . . .

That’s when Janet fell backwards into a falling dream as her body fell back into DeeDee’s arms, who lowered her onto the ground and said, “It’s okay, everyone, she’s fine. Just don’t move from your places and keep your hands together.” Then she nodded at Lady Graves.

So Lady Graves bent over and took Janet’s hand and pulled her up, and Janet’s astral body sat up as the lamps surrounding them started blinking off and on.

“Time to get up, Janet,” Lady Graves said.

Yet for a time, Janet just remained there in inertia, feeling like she had just woken up from a deep sleep, till she breathed in a full breath and exhaled in her astral form, and her eyes flashed blue as warmth flowed into her. And with Lady Graves’ help, she stood up amidst the gasps and ashen looks of her companions and her clones staring back at her, while her corporeal form lay on the ground.

“I’m up,” Janet said, her voice blinking the light of the lamp at her feet.

“Pick up your lamp,” Lady Graves said. “We’ve got a lot ahead of us.” And as Janet picked up her lamp, her guide said, “The rest of you, wait here and keep your hands together, till we come back out.”

“Where are we going?” Janet said.

Lady Graves smiled, saying, “We’re going to meet your mother, dear. She’s been expecting you ever since you entered my office.”

 

And so, hand in hand with her guide, Janet’s astral form passed through Kevin and Ridley’s clasped hands on their way towards the open door of Marchioness Fleming’s mausoleum, casting a spectral luminescence that caught the peripheral visions of everyone holding hands around Janet’s unconscious body. Kevin and Ridley and the rest now looked down to their feet at the luminescent light on the ground there, and both boys started sweating as if they were about to faint.

So DeeDee said, “Don’t faint, boys.”

“We won’t!” they said.

“And don’t yell,” she added.

And they both apologized in lower voices.

Baron Underwood and the girls and clones sniggered, yet when Mindy and Jean and Saraya and Kevin and Ridley and even Baron Underwood all turned their gazes to where Janet had gone off with her guide, DeeDee said, “Don’t look!”

“But why?” Mindy said.

“This ceremony isn’t meant for living eyes,” DeeDee said, knowing full well that they were all here on the sufferance of many restless souls: Hell hath no fury like a sleep-deprived ghost, after all. “Please, respect the wishes of the dead in this place and wait for their return.”

To Be Continued