#hellshandbasket

@hells-handbasket​

Arthur’s brow arched at her reaction.

Jace hummed a little to himself as he hopped the trio of steps onto the porch. 

This house had been on his list of places to check out for a little while. It’d been rumored that strange sounds had come from inside and sometimes, a sooty handprint would appear on the panes.  A lot of places had pretty similar stories, though, and around Tempo, there were a LOT of stories. The place was either very haunted, or trying very hard to be. 

And that suited him just fine, honestly! At least it was interesting, trying to figure out if it was actually supernatural or not. And sometimes he helped when it wasn’t and made a difference! Like that time that antique store owner had a carbon monoxide leak.

So far he hadn’t had much luck with anything real, but with a place overrun with potential ghost stories like Tempo, it kind of made sense. If there were real ones, they’d be in a haystack. He’d really have to dig to find them.

Jace hummed as he looked around the first floor. Most wallpaper had been stripped and faded with time, where any of it remained. There had been a fire here decades ago, which was how the ghost story had started. And said fire had eaten away at most everything it had touched. Most of the furniture looked like it might crumble if you touched it, and the walls and floor had scorch marks, blackened now with a few patches of carpet or wallpaper as mementos of what it used to be. 

Opening a few drawers and swinging his light around the room, he didn’t see much of interest. Most everything fire hadn’t touched, time wore away. It was dusty enough to see his shoeprints on the floor, particles filtering through the beam of his flashlight where they’d been kicked up, and ashes discoloring the rubber soles of his shoes. He should’ve worn his boots really, but he’d come here right after work since it was a further drive.

But at least the place seemed stable. Only some of the floorboards creaked, and none of them did with the groan like they were preparing to give way. From what he’d read, the fire hadn’t done much structural damage, but the death in the family had been enough to ruin any chances of rebuilding. 

He could understand. If his mum had passed in some disaster at home when he’d lived there, he couldn’t see them trying to put the pieces back together without her. It would be painful to live in a place she was so obviously absent from.

He hummed as he continued through the house. A few more boards creaked underfoot, and through one of the hallways, he found a pair of doors and the continuation of the hall, like a T intersection. The left went into a bathroom, and the right was a study of some kind. 

He moved on for now instead, and arrived in a living room. The couch looked ready to dissolve into cinders with a touch, and the rug was charred beneath a coffee table that was half eaten away, but it looked like it would’ve been a nice setup once. The rest of the room was even darker than the first, even the ceiling burned away to the wooden supports beneath, which themselves were blackened in spots. The floor crunched under his feet and flecks of what might’ve been the floor came off and scattered, clinging to his shoes and then fluttering away. The only thing really untouched was the fireplace, but even that had soot stains. The ash bucket was still full, the contents white from the fine layer of dust. 

He continued looking around, and found a twin set of stairs. One went up, a long set of steps climbing over where he’d seen the study at. The others descended into what looked like a basement. Jace flicked his light between the two, before stepping from the landing onto the first stair up. It protested, but held his weight, and he took the next, all the way to the top with a hand tracing the wall. 

The top room appeared to be a hall of bedrooms. The walls were still a pale blue, stained an off color and the paint peeling near the ceiling from what he could assume was smoke damage. There were three rooms, and then what was clearly a bathroom, from the tile and the basin he could see, and the mirror above with bounce the light back towards himself.

Well. He might as well start from the top and then work his way down.

 He swiped the dust off his hands, and then Jace reached into the bag slung over a shoulder and nestled against his waist. He pulled out a video camera, waited for the light to blink on to show he was recording, and he spoke. “This is Jace Blake-- I’m inside the old Green Estate. So far, no sign of anything obviously supernatural, but it’s still early. We’re starting from the top and checking out some of the bedrooms now. While we do and keep our eyes out, I’ll be fill in anyone who doesn’t know about the history of the house.” 

He continued speaking softly as he trotted along over protesting floorboards and dusty rugs, eyes darting about with the periodic glance at the camera’s screen. He opened the door furthest from the landing, so he could work his way back to the stairs.

Fluster the Muse!

Send a flower to hear…

🌷… a compliment.

ANA

“I wish I was as capable as you are. You take stuff in stride and just-- handle it. I wish I was more like you.”

MANA

ana will shoot anyone who dares to come after this sweet boy on sinday