Chapter 4.20 – The Chicken is Alive!

Lilith had been staring at the ceiling of her small wooden prison for hours, with only a slightly dazed chicken for company. But she’d had worse nights.

The chicken had spent the last few hours trying to get its head through a tiny knot in the wood and Lilith had quickly tired of freeing the stupid creature. She was watching it once again approach the knot as if it had never seen it before, and was debating draining the damn thing, when she heard footsteps outside the door.

“Are you awake, vampire?”

Lilith groaned. “Forever and always.”

The door unlocked and that raven-haired witch entered. She snaked in, low to the ground, her eyes trained on Lilith. Her hands at the ready, held before her like weapons, eyeing Lilith suspiciously.

Lilith barely glanced. She was used to witch antics.

As the door opened, the chicken looked around fixing its gaze on the exit route that darkened with a large shadow. An overly musky scent filled the space announcing Bruno’s arrival. He strolled boldly into the shrinking room as if he was getting a casual snack from the refrigerator, without any of Leyla’s trepidation.

“We have about thirty minutes to— Oh!” he exclaimed, as he spotted the brainless bird flapping about wildly. “The chicken is alive!”

“Unfortunately,” Lilith muttered without moving. “We have thirty minutes to do what? The squatty witch dance?”

“Watch that mouth, Vampire,” Leyla spat, wriggling her fingers and giving Lilith a flash of light in her mind’s eye. It was probably a way for the witch to show that she was not to be messed with but after Sage’s fireballs, earthquakes and sibling-disintegrating barriers it was nothing. Lilith bit her lip to stifle a laugh or a sob; she couldn’t be sure which.

“To get ready for you meet with the elders…” Bruno said, answering Lilith’s question, albeit belatedly and with a fixation on the chicken. He suddenly looking wary as he watched the chicken bumbling about and flapping to be freed. “The chicken it – did you not drink from it?”

“She’s probably on hunger strike,” Leyla whispered, squatting a little lower and raising her hands a little higher, her eyes starting to glow.

“Why would she do that?”

“Thirst makes them rogue and more powerful.” Leyla raised her voice as Lilith guffawed at the inaccuracy. “What are you laughing at?”

“Probably delirious from thirst,” Bruno whispered.

“I can hear you when you whisper, you know?” Lilith sang, becoming more convinced by the second that this village knew even less about vampires than the Windenburg witch coven did.

“If you won’t drink willingly we will force you. Your games won’t work here, vampire.”

This was ludicrous. Still, Lilith didn’t want to ruin her chances of finding the secrets of this place before she’d started. She needed to be on her best behaviour, as hard as that was. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I drank from that thing,” she thumbed towards the chicken.

“Was it suitable?” Bruno asked, as Leyla shot him a brief look that said really?

“It was unpleasant,” Lilith replied. “I still have bits of feather in my teeth. Hey, you didn’t find my stuff did you?”

“No,” Bruno confirmed. “The wolves had gotten to your bag long before I got back. There wasn’t much of anything. They really liked those prune bars Broof was carrying – who’d have thought it?”

“Damn. I could have really used some toothpaste and brush right about now.”

“She’s lying. Vampires can’t brush their teeth; fluoride causes their fangs to erode,” Leyla whispered to Bruno.

Lilith slowly got to her feet. “Actually, I—“

“Stop!” Leyla snapped, sending a full on jolt through an unsuspecting Lilith.

“Stay over there, vampire!”

After the brief – but admittedly painful – shock had subsided Lilith took a few shaky steps back, watching Bruno from the corner of her eye as he watched her back.

“Ah, if she can’t brush her teeth I’ll bring her something else to drink from. Something less feathery,” Bruno lifted his chin toward Lilith, addressing the vampire directly, if tentatively. “Would you prefer a piglet or a calf?”

Leyla muttered under her breath something that sounded like ‘ducking well’, “She doesn’t need either. She’s got plenty of leftover chicken.”

“But the feathers—” Bruno started.

“I don’t give a damn about the feathers.”

Her fingers flexed in what Lilith assumed was supposed to be a menacing way, sending another tiny zap.

“You don’t need to remind me that you’re a witch every five seconds. And I know it doesn’t fit your narrative, Leyla, but not all vampires are fluoride-fearing savages.”

Bruno looked to the chicken and turned to Leyla imploringly. Clearly everything he knew about vampires came from her. Lilith resisted the urge to try and tune into what the pair were thinking; she understood that they thought she had Broof under some sort of mind control, so knew it wasn’t wise to try any brain invading. She didn’t want to hinder her case that she was a wholesome, non-controlling monster of the night. Instead, she tried to read the unspoken cues between the pair, subtle as they were. The witch narrowed her eyes and slightly shook her head.

Lilith wondered what their relationship was. If they were a couple, they lacked affection. They didn’t look anything alike so probably weren’t related. There was some sort of history between them, beyond a simple friendship. But more than wondering what the pair were, she wondered what Bruno was.

He was definitely alive, but his scent wasn’t human, it was more… feral? He always sent Leyla into the cell first so if he had any magic, he likely couldn’t, or wouldn’t, use it against Lilith. He also seemed to be coming round quite quickly to the idea that Lilith wasn’t quite so bad. In fact, he seemed quite intrigued by her.

Perhaps they were a couple after all, or perhaps Leyla wanted them to be. Perhaps her over-defensiveness was a fine mask for her jealously.

Ignoring the glaring witch, Lilith turned to Bruno and tried to make her face look soft and harmless, which was difficult, filled as she was with rage and resentment. “If I have thirty minutes, may I please freshen up? I don’t want to visit your elders like this; I’d feel like I was being disrespectful.”

Bruno started to nod but Leyla stopped him with a quick glance, and another tiny zap to Lilith.

“No,” she snapped. “And you, vampire, stop with the mind fiddling.”

“I’m not fiddling with his mind.”

“I really don’t think she is,” Bruno admitted. “And you can’t just let her fester, Ley – a quick shower won’t hurt.” He lowered his voice but Lilith could still hear it, of course. “Besides you know how my mother will react if she arrives smelling like that.”

Smelling like what? Oh.

There was a certain musty aroma lingering on her clothing, but she wasn’t surprised. There was shed fur all over the scratched and chewed up sofa she’d been lying on, as if someone had once housed a pack of dogs in here.

Bruno had adopted his own version of Lilith’s earlier expression; soft around the edges with a definite plea in it.

“Fine, she can shower and I’ll find something for her to change into,” Leyla muttered, gesturing for Lilith to follow as she backed out of the room. “But I’ll be watching you very carefully, vampire.”

It had taken the group since sunrise, and a few wrong turns along barely trodden paths in the Forgotten Hollow forest, but finally they had reached the fork that Jessica had seen in her visions. She’d not been wholly convinced that they would find anything, after all the satellite images of this area showed there to be nothing but an empty clearing anywhere nearby. But buoyed on by the exuberance of her cohorts, Jessica had tried to keep up while they traipsed through dense thicket and patches of stinging nettles, chasing the dream. It was hard not to be swept along by the nervous energy of her fellow GliTS who chatted animatedly to each other about what they would find or, perhaps, who.

The dense woodland seemed to thin and the forest became still and eerily quiet around them. Jessica noted the bow of a particular tree and knew that this was it, the end of the pathway of her memory. The vampire house waited beyond.

“This is it,” she whispered, her words echoed amongst the others with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Morag stepped forwards, arm raised, and hacked through the undergrowth, machete in hand, maniac grin on her face. The group followed, a safe distance behind the blade-wielding woman, following her along a path that had clearly had been well trodden, and that led to…

…an empty clearing.

Jessica let out a breath that she hadn’t realised she had been holding to a chorus of disappointment and relieved sighs around her.

There was nothing here. Nothing at all.

Jessica’s initial reaction was relief, followed hotly by confusion as her budding detective skills kicked in, forcing her to analyse the space her and her clown company had found themselves in.

It was not only that the ground here looked like it was regularly disturbed, it was that the shape of the clearing was almost perfectly squared off. Tracking her eyes up towards the gap in the trees, she noticed how the canopy had grown, angular and clipped, as if the trees were, or had been, growing around something. It gave her many more questions than answers.

Credit to her companions, they also seemed to be identifying that something was amiss in this space. Jessica watched the trio walking around making um and ah noises as they studied the footprints preserved in the mud, the complete absence of grass in what was essentially a tiny field. They turned to each other, almost in unison, but it was Morag who spoke.

“There was something here, until very recently, wasn’t there?”

The others concurred, a general murmur of agreement, that was abruptly brought to an end by a male voice.

“There’s a whopping huge house here. How are you not seeing it?”

Jessica whipped round but she’d clearly been the only one who’d heard this voice as her fellow GliTS only responded to her, holding up their garlic wreath and wooden stakes and facing the area Jessica was facing.

“What did you hear?” Morag and Pixie hissed collectively, while Yibbo only whimpered.

“Hey babyface,” Paul winked at Jessica and cast his eye down her body. “Woah, baby body too, check that out.” He gestured at Jessica’s bump.

Jessica sighed and lowered her garlic. “It’s only Paul.”

“Guten morgen, Paul,” Yibbo called out brightly to the wrong spot.

“For the last time, I’m not Spanish,” he muttered, and clapped his hands together. “So, what brings you lovely lot to the vampire house? The vampires are long gone. Looking for more ghosts?”

“No, we’re looking for the house itself,” Jessica replied, glancing over her shoulder at the empty clearing. “Any idea what happened to it?”

“Literally nothing, it’s right there.”

“Right where?”

“Literally right behind you, Jess.” He laughed. “Seriously, you can’t see it?”

Jessica turned back around, unsure if the half-naked ghost was teasing her. “No…” She turned back. “Describe it to me.”

Paul made a noise that suggested Jessica’s request was absurd, but he glanced up at the apparent house and tilted his head. “It’s big. Housey.”

“Big and house-y.” Jessica relayed to her friends. “You’re winding me up—”

“I’m not,” he snorted. “Look, I don’t know, much about architecture…um, it has boards on it – sidings? And those frilly things that trim the roof. Oh and a turret-like thingy, like a church or castle. Steps leading up to a big porch. It’s pretty gothic, looks like it should be haunted,” He shrugged as Jessica relayed all this to her bemused company. “You really can’t see it, huh?”

“No,” Jessica reiterated, “Although that description does match that… vision I had…”

“You had a vision? And it got you all the way here? Yep, Jess you are a much better psychic than your buddy there.”

Jessica chose not to relay this. She turned towards the clearing, sensing Paul behind her. “Where is it?” She asked. “Can you stand at the bottom of the front steps?”

Paul swiftly drifted around an invisible obstacle and positioned himself a few feet away. “Here.”

Jessica walked over and stood directly in front of Paul who grinned at her. “Would your baby daddy mind you standing so close to such a hot, naked stud.”

“I doubt it – he’s dead.”

“Oh, I see,” Paul swept a hand through his hair. “Spectral fellas are your type then? ‘Cause y’know, I’m still single…”

“I’m going to try and climb the steps,” Jessica announced, ignoring him and lifting her foot. “Where’s the first one?”

“A little to the left.”

Jessica moved her foot forwards and down. She hadn’t expected to actually be able to stand on the step, but it was still a shock when her heel hit the earth. Paul watched her, wide-eyed. “Spooky,” he gasped. “You went right through it, like you’re a ghost. Wait. Maybe you are the ghosts and I’m the living.”

By this point, the tinfoil trio had gathered around Jessica, curious about what she was doing. “This is apparently the bottom step,” she explained as she lifted her foot and tried again with the same result. She looked to her companions. “Maybe you can try?”

Eagerly they stepped up, coaxed into position by Paul via Jessica, to attempt to climb these invisible steps. Morag and Pixie went straight through, like Jessica had, but as Yibbo brought her stylish footwear down over the area she was instructed to, the sole of her sandal stopped a few inches off the ground with a gentle thud.

“Um…”

The four GliTS looked at one another and then back at Yibbo’s floating foot in amazement. Tentatively, Yibbo pressed her weight onto her flying foot, until she had lifted clean off the forest ground.

She brought her other foot to join the first, looking for all intents and purposes, to be levitating a few inches off the ground.

Yibbo nudged the air in front of her foot, locating a second step and taking it, rising higher into the air. She repeated this careful exploration of the invisible staircase until Paul confirmed she’d reached the top.

“Now walk forward two paces and you should feel the front door,” Jessica instructed, passing on Paul’s directions. Yibbo did as told, inching forwards gingerly and fumbling around blindly until her fingertips contacted solid wood.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I can feel it! I… Oh wow! I can see it! I can see the house! Can you see it?”

The others shook their heads, Pixie still trying to land her foot on the bottom step in frustration.

“How is that possible?” Yibbo asked, strolling confidently along what Jessica assumed was the porch. She paused and turned towards her friends, giddy with an idea.

“Maybe I’m a witch!”

Jessica heard two enthusiastic voices and one sceptical scoff behind her. Assuming it to be Paul she turned to him to point out that he was a ghost standing before an invisible house – the idea that Yibbo was a witch wasn’t that far-fetched, in context. Only it wasn’t Paul’s disdain.

“She’s not cool enough to be a witch.”

The face who greeted her was young, very young, yet worn with the weight of the world. Her jaw-length hair was neatly plaited and the gown she was wearing, well, Jessica immediately knew where that was from and she knew who this girl was.

“You’re Rose. Rose Smalley.” Jessica turned to her fellow GliTS. “There a new ghost.”

“Hello!” came an excited chorus.

The ghost girl seemed taken aback but only for a moment before her scowl returned. “Do I know you fashion disasters?”

“No,” Jessica assured the ghost girl, “but I know of you. You went missing in 2001 when you seventeen. What happened to you?”

“I joined the circus. Obviously.” Rose snorted and gestured to Paul in a ‘can you believe her?’ way. She rolled her eyes. “I died, duh. And don’t ask how; I hate talking about it.”

Paul chipped in, “Vampire got her, too.”

“You’re so lame, Pants Perv,” Rose moaned and held up her hand as Jessica opened her mouth. “I. DON’T. WANT. TO. TALK. ABOUT. IT.”

“You don’t have to talk about anything,” Jessica assured her. “I’m Jessica Spoon, an officer with the Woodland Borough Police Department and part-time paranormal investigator. Pleased to meet you.”

“Whatever.” Rose still looked suspicious. Jessica couldn’t blame her. If what she’d read in Rose’s file was accurate, the girl had had been raised in less-than-adequate care and ran off the rails in her early teens. Not to mention the sixteen years she’d been wandering as a ghost in a forest. Enough to make anyone constantly have a guard up, Jessica would wager.

“Are there many ghosts here?” Jessica asked instead to the rhythm of Yibbo’s stomping in the background; the sound of her trying a door.

“Not anymore,” Rose huffed.

“They all got to cross over,” Paul said. “Disappeared about the time the vampire siblings did. But I guess heaven doesn’t want me or little Rosie here.”

“Shut uuuup, Pants!” Rose whined. “Ugh! Why do I have to be stuck here with this loser? It’s not fair!”

“Would you rather Will had hung around a bit longer?” Paul smirked.

Rose’s smile fell and she shuddered, looking slightly paler for a moment, if that was possible. “Eff off, Paul,” she whispered before vanishing, leaving nothing but a gentle wisp of smoke in her wake.

Paul looked awkward and scratched his head. “Yeah, I forget that’s a real sore spot. Although she never says why. You know, I reckon if she opened up she’d probably cross over. Hey, maybe that’s my mission, to get her to open up! Gotta run! Enjoy the house!”

“No, wait, Paul!” Jessica cried out but he too had gone.

“What’s happening?” Pixie asked.

“They’ve gone,” Jessica sighed. “Some ghost drama. Now how are we going to – oh!” She looked up at the house. “Oh my,” she gasped. “I can see it! It is big and housey!”

“I can see it too!” Morag said. “Is… is that a crypt?”

“We can all see it!” Pixie gasped. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go explore!”

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