Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
“The speakeasy?” Sven asked in trepidation.
It made sense in a way, and he couldn’t help but wonder if that’s why the curse had rebounded.
Cold iron infused walls. It’s why graveyards often had wrought iron fences around them and why some homes hung horseshoes above their doors.
It wasn’t just about luck, it was about protection.
If she was cursed in an iron-infused room, then what kind of curse was she imbued with? Flo didn’t glow blue like the other spirits.
Sven didn’t want to go down that hallway, but he also wanted to know where Flo went. Maybe he could start to piece together what had happened to her, and then help her recover her memories. Then they could be together.
If she was imbued with cold iron and sort of undead like him, it could explain why the other ghosts didn’t like her and why she was invisible to most. He only hoped he could be with her and it didn’t repel him.
Although, that was a risk he was willing to take.
She didn’t care much about the hall or the speakeasy at the moment, but he was trying to help jog her memory.
In reality, it was taking all his energy not to rush into her arms and hold her close. When she reappeared after all the other spirits began to leave, it’s what he wanted to do. He’d missed her so much over the last century and there had been no other for him.
His heart completely belonged to Flo.
Always had.
The night they were supposed to run away together, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that his curse would’ve been broken.
Instead, she’d been cursed, and in a place that was supposed to protect mortals and norms from things like that.
Flo approached the hallway, and when she walked down it, she glowed in the darkness, like a golden flame reverberating off the wall. She wasn’t a ghoul, because she didn’t have red eyes or fangs, but she was something that was caught between dead and undead.
He took a deep breath and followed her through the narrow chamber. His skin tingled.
It was hard to walk through here and he couldn’t float at all.
It was almost like he was existing outside the boundary of his own curse, but amplified.
He followed her down a decline, through a long tunnel, and he knew that they were going underground.
It made sense to have a speakeasy under the foundation of the house, or at least a place to funnel the illegal booze during the Prohibition era.
There was a large wall of stone and iron. Flo spun around. “It’s in here. This is where I live. Although, I don’t think I’m actually living.”
“I can’t float through the wall with you,” Sven explained. “The iron.”
“The iron?”
He nodded. “But then again, if this was built as a vault or something, there has to be a way for people to get in. Humans usually can’t dissipate through walls like we can.”
“I don’t know, but I’ve never really looked at this place closely before. It was just an escape and a place I felt safe. For whatever reason, I am tied to this spot.”
Sven approached the wall. It looked as solid as ever. Of course, he never really spent a whole lot of time down here looking for a way in. He explored it briefly, then got out of there.
“There’s a break in the stone,” Flo pointed out.
“So there is.” He found a small crack. In it was a lever and he pulled it. The sound of rusty gears grinding and then dust blooming made him jump back as the stone and iron door slowly slid open, like a barn door.
There was no light in the abandoned room, but Flo illuminated the darkness.
It was dusty. There was a small corner where he could see rumpled, tattered blankets and a few books scattered.
The floor was dirt, but there were remnants of an old rug that was a rotting away.
On the wall were scratches carved as if she were counting the days.
It looked like a miserable prison. Flo was wringing her hands and glancing around.
A lump formed in his throat.
I should’ve protected her from this.
“This is where you’ve been?” he asked, finally finding his voice.
“Well, yes. I mean, I have free range of the whole house. I’m not always here, but this place pulls me back. No one ever followed me here, but now I guess I understand why, with the whole iron thing.”
Sven ran his fingers over the scratches she made in the wall. “You were counting days.”
Flo nodded. “I did.”
All he wanted to do was comfort her, but if he pulled her into his arms right now, he thought she’d panic. It tore at his soul seeing how she’d lived in this squalor for so long. “Well, you won’t have to stay here a night longer if you don’t want to.”
Flo looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“I have an apartment at the top of this house. There’s a room that was yours. I didn’t transform it into a guest room. It can be yours again.”
“Mine?” Flo worried her bottom lip. “I don’t remember a room being mine.”
“There were some of your belongings left behind and I saved them, the best I could.”
Because it had been a way to hold on to her.
“What happened to my family? I know they’ve all passed on from old age, but when did this home become abandoned? I remember people here, sort of, and then nothing, but I don’t remember why.”
Sven took a deep breath. “Well, when Prohibition lifted, your father didn’t really make much more illegal money.
He had some gambling issues and people in this town stopped trusting him, especially after your disappearance.
Your sister Petunia married and moved away.
Your brother ran this as a funeral home, but he always had a problem with gambling and paying his taxes—like father, like son.
He did go off to war, but never came home.
Eventually, the bank foreclosed, but no one wanted a haunted house and it was boarded up.
I guess the state was tired of the property just sitting there, and after the Great Revelation, it took some time for Magnus and I to be accepted.
When this house went up for sale, about five years ago, we bought it.
We’ve been slowly repairing it so that we could open this business. ”
“Well, I’m glad you both were able to buy it. I should be sad about my family, I suppose, but is it bad that I’m sadder that you seem so upset about where I’ve been living this last century. Is it bad?”
“No. It’s the state of this place. It’s that I couldn’t save you.”
Her expression softened. “But you didn’t know.”
“It’s no excuse.”
She smiled at him tenderly. “I thought you were disgusted how I lived.”
“No. Far from that. I lived in a cave close to the cemetery for a lot longer than you’ve been down here. I spent many years in the shadows before the Great Revelation, when everyone started accepting us monsters for who we were.”
Flo tapped her chin. “I do remember a cave.”
Sven smiled. He was glad she remembered it. Maybe there was hope yet for the curse to break. “That’s good, because that’s where we first met.”
“Oh? Can you tell me about that moment?”
“I can.”
It was an easy moment to relive because he never forgot it himself.
It was a core memory burned into his brain.
Every night when he closed his eyes, he thought of that moment.
The way she approached him without fear and how she talked to him like he was a human and not a cursed ghoul.
Her golden hair so fashionable, her green eyes sparkled like emeralds, her pouty full lips painted a perfect red.
She was always so put together. So elegant, and she was never fearful of him.
Only kind.
“You were in the cemetery visiting your mother’s grave, like you often did, when you saw me.
I tried to hide from norms and from you, because I didn’t want to scare you off.
You were so beautiful and so devoted to your mother’s memory.
I found it touching that you called out to me, and when I came out of the shadows, you didn’t scream or run away.
You spoke to me, and it had been a long time since anyone, besides my brother Magnus, had really talked to me. ”
Flo smiled, her eyes lighting up. “I’m glad I did. I can’t imagine your loneliness.”
He cocked an eyebrow, glancing around. “You can’t?”
She laughed softly. “Very well. I guess I can.”
“I’m sorry, though, that all these years you were here and you couldn’t speak to anyone. That must’ve been difficult.”
She shrugged with indifference. “It was, but I guess like you were watching me in the cemetery, I was here watching you and I don’t even know why I was.
Just that I would get angry if any other woman spoke with you.
I disliked Mercedes at first, even though she could see me and she was someone I could finally communicate with. ”
Sven chuckled. “So you were the jealous restless spirit then?”
“I suppose so, but I don’t know why. I just…watching you and protecting you calmed me.” She glanced down sheepishly, tucking back a strand of her golden-blonde hair.
What he wouldn’t give to take her in his arms again.
To never let her go.
Even if they had to stay this way for all eternity, even if the curse would never be broken for either one of them, he didn’t care.
Flo was back in his life and he was going to make sure that she was taken care of.
Even if she didn’t want him or remember him in the end, it didn’t matter, because he remembered enough for the both of them.
“Hello?” A call echoed out down the stone hallway.
Sven recognized it immediately. It was the Sullivans, his eager and paranormal obsessed guests.
“Is anyone down there?”
Flo gasped. “Oh no. I can’t…I don’t want them to find me.”
Without asking why, Sven pulled the lever, and the stone wall shut.
“Did you hear that?” Mr. Sullivan asked.
“Should we go find out?” Mrs. Sullivan responded. “A thud, like a door.”
“I think so,” Mr. Sullivan said firmly.
Flo was shaking and moaning a bit. Her face buried in her hands.
Without thinking, Sven pulled her into his arms. At first, he wasn’t sure if it would work, but it did.
He could touch her and he adored it. Her soft small body pressed against him.
He knew the moment wouldn’t last, so he just enjoyed being able to hold her again.
She buried her face in his chest, trembling.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “They can’t find you here.”
“What if they find that lever and they open the door?”
“All they’ll see is me standing here hugging myself.”
Flo giggled softly. “Right.”
He ran his hand over her back, reveling in the softness of her. He’d missed this. He’d dreamt about this time and time again. It was hard to believe she was here and back in his arms once more.
“It leads to nowhere,” Mrs. Sullivan stated. “That’s disappointing, but kind of cool they have secret rooms. I wonder what this was used for?”
“Who knows,” Mr. Sullivan responded. “Let’s go back, Sandy. We have a long drive to the next monster town tomorrow.”
“Right.”
Sven listened as the footsteps receded up the stone hall and then waited a few moments more before he was sure the coast was clear.
“They’re gone,” he murmured, not wanting to let go of Flo.
“That’s good. I’m glad. It scared me.” Her fingers were gripping his shirt, but she didn’t let go or relax. She just clung to him.
“We do have a slight problem,” he said, not really wanting to interrupt this moment, but knowing that he would have to eventually, especially if bits and pieces of him started to fall off because he was completely trapped by this iron room.
“What’s that?” Flo asked, raising her head off of his chest.
“I have no way out. This room traps ghouls too and if I stay here much longer, I might start falling to pieces, literally.”
Flo gasped. “Oh no. Should I go find Mercedes?”
Sven nodded, reluctantly. “Probably for the best. Are you okay that she knows your secret hideout?”
“Yes. It’s fine. You, Mercedes, and Magnus are okay. Even the other spirits are okay, but they never come down here. I just don’t want others to know.”
“Fair enough.” He let go of Flo and she began to shimmer and ripple.
“I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here. Waiting.”
Flo dissipated and he assumed she moved through the walls.
He was alone, trapped under the funeral home.
He lifted up the rug, looking for a trap door and there was one, but it was made of iron too and he could not budge it.
He couldn’t help but wonder where it ran to.
The old funeral home was fairly close to the river.
Maybe there was a tunnel and that’s how they ran the gin up?
He would have to go looking with Phineas later.
Except you just promised Flo no outsiders.
Sven set the rug back down and waited for Mercedes and Magnus to rescue him. He just hoped that nothing rotted off him in the time it took them to come here, because he was worried it would upset Flo.
And since she was trusting him, scaring her was the last thing he wanted to do, which seemed kind of ironic considering he was a ghoul after all.