#hooso

It wasn’t their first haunted house and it absolutely wouldn’t be the last.

Nico was naturally drawn to restless spirits, and this house had been calling to him for years. H would probably have found his way here sooner, only this was the first time an owner had actually sought him out, and trespassing is illegal after all. Nico wasn’t one for breaking the rules too many times.

Jason said that Nico was a restless spirit, that maybe that was why he was drawn to them.

Given everything, Nico could hardly deny that.

Usually the ghosts of a house like this rushed to meet them; sometimes maliciously, sometimes because they sensed that Nico and Jason were there to help. For better or worse, Nico was their kin, and that always made ghosts curious.

Hill house was silent, still. To Nico, it was eerier than phantom creaks and things moving about on their own; ghosts were never silent the way this house was silent.

There were spirits here, that was certain, but they seemed almost as scared as the living.

At least the living could leave.

“Hello?” Nico called, poking his head into the living room, looking around at the dusty furniture and old wallpaper, peeling from lack of care. “We know you’re here. We just want to have a chat.”

A little fair-haired girl flickered in the dining room doorway; her hair in plaits and her transparent body clothed in a neat little dress, with white socks and polished shoes. If she hadn’t been a ghost she would have been cute, but Nico knew ghosts were often not cute – not matter how endearing they looked.  Suddenly the girl wasn’t hovering there anymore, she had disappeared as if she was a falling leaf in a gust of strong wind.

“Hey,” said Jason, nudging Nico and nodding toward where she’d been, “come back!”

They didn’t come all this way for the ghosts to be evasive and uncooperative. Unfortunately, this wasn’t unprecedented – ghosts were always ignoring them or trying to chase them away.

An echoey female voice chided, “Don’t tease the mortals, Asha.” Nico couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, it seemed to echo around the whole house with no source – that was the way ghosts usually spoke when they didn’t want to be found.

The girl appeared again, this time just in front of Nico. She looked up at him expectantly with her once brown eyes.

“We just want to help,” Nico said gently, his heart beating fast. Haunted houses didn’t usually scare him, but this place gave him the creeps. The girl – Asha? - looked terrified, but not for herself.

“No, no, no, you have to go,” replied Asha, her voice echoing a bit as well, “You cannot stay, Nico di Angelo!”

Nico was tempted to ask how she knew his name, but he knew from experience that he wouldn’t get a straight answer, the ghosts just knew, and they never explained.. Instead, he opted for: “Why shouldn’t we stay?” in a quizzical tone.

“You cannot stay here, for here monsters be. / They’re coming to get you, just like they got me,” Asha answered.

“Monsters?” Jason repeated, looking confused. “What kind of monsters scare ghosts?”

Asha shook her head frantically and vanished. Nico had a feeling that she’d been forbidden from answering.

“There are supposed to be three ghosts here,” whispered Jason. “That’s what the owner said; a little girl and two teenagers, all siblings.”

“That other one was one of the siblings, had to be,” said Nico. “Bianca used to use that voice on me. Must have been the older sister.”

“Nobody’s ever heard them before. Any of them,” Jason said, frowning. He checked the notes he’d taken on his phone when they talked to the owner of Hill house. “Since the first sighting – that’s sixty-four, so this is fifty years of this stuff – not one of them has ever spoken.”

“But the little one –“

“Not even her.”

Nico dropped his backpack on the last step. “That’s weird.” It was all weird.

“This whole thing is, don’t you think?” Jason said, gesturing around. “We’ve never been asked to a house this –“

“Quiet?” Nico guessed.

“Yeah.”

Asha appeared again. “You really can’t stay here, you have to go soon, / or the monsters that keep us will come for you, too!”

“What monsters?” asked Nico.

Asha opened her mouth, closed it, and disappeared again. It was like she wanted to tell them, but couldn’t.

“Let’s forget about it for now,” said Jason. “We still have to look over the house.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Nico. Even beside the too-quiet ghosts, there was something weird about Hill house. A creeping, eerie cold had taken hold of him. He didn’t say anything to Jason, though. He would fret, and they didn’t have time for fretting. They had important things to do.

Lounging in an armchair in one of the upper rooms, they caught a glimpse of the older brother – who looked at them for a moment before blinking out – and they found the older sister apparently sleeping in one of the bedrooms.

Both times, they tried to talk to the ghosts. Both times, they were more or less ignored.

“Talk all you want, but they won’t talk to you,” Asha said after their second try, “most dead don’t acknowledge if you aren’t dead, too.”

“Then why do you do it?” asked Jason. He sat down on a window seat in the upstairs hall.

“Because, stupid mortal, you two need to leave,” the little girl replied, flopping rather dramatically onto the floor. “I just want to help, is that hard to believe?”

Nico knelt next to her. “But we’re here to help you. To move on. It’s what we do.” He smiled at her. “Don’t you want to move on, to go to a better place?”

“We can’t, Nico,” Asha said, “the monsters are strong. / And you’ll see just how strong if you stay too long.” Nico was pretty sure they’d already stayed too long, but he wouldn’t mention that to Jason – they had a job to do.

“You keep saying that – you’re kept by something. What does that mean?”

Asha shook her head again. “You’re missing the point, man, get out of this city! / If they get to you, it will not be pretty.”

She looked at something over Nico’s shoulder, then vanished again. Nico whipped his head round, but saw nothing.

“So the ghosts are scared,” Jason said. “Or, at least, the pipsqueak is. And she knows who you are, but that’s not new.” Nico sighed.

“But what kind of monster would scare a ghost?” Nico said again.

The kind that left a faint uneasy feeling in the back of Nico’s mind, presumably. Made him think of Bianca and childhood and – no. Now was not the time for dwelling. Why’d he even think of that? He had work to do; he had neither the time nor the energy for a spiral of miserable thoughts today.

Nico glanced out the window. They’d gotten a late start today, planning to stay the night in the house, and the sun was already starting to sink toward the horizon.

“ – the history of the house,” Jason said. He frowned at Nico. “Did you catch any of that?”

Nico shook himself. “What?”

“Didn’t think so. Are you alright?” asked Jason. Nico shrugged. “We can always do this another time. You look pale.” He sounded worried, but then Jason never stopped worrying about him so Nico didn’t take much notice.

Nico raised his eyebrows. “I always look pale. I’m half-dead.”

“You know what I mean,” said Jason. “You look sick.”

“I’m fine. Let’s head upstairs.”

The three ghosts were in the attic, talking in low voices. When they noticed Jason and Nico, the two big ones blinked out.

“Hey!” said Nico, “come back!”

Asha rolled her eyes. "My siblings won't talk; they just talk to the dead. / But trust me, you don't want to hear what they said."

"Why, do they speak in verse too?" asked Jason, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, that's not funny! You're not being nice!” the little girl replied, waving a hand through his upper arm like she was trying to hit him. “I'm trying to help you, don't make me think twice."

"I'm sorry,” Jason said sincerely. “Why do you talk like that, anyway?"

"Dude, I can't help it; it's part of my curse. / To speak to the living, I must speak in verse."

"That seems overly complicated,” commented Nico.

Asha shrugged.

“So you’re cursed?” asked Jason. Asha nodded. “And that means you and your siblings can’t leave?” Asha nodded again. To Nico, he whispered, “So what do we do?”

“We – ” started Nico. He stopped abruptly, as Asha had run through him to look out the window. He lost his balance, having to steady himself with a chair. Well that was new. “What was that for?”

“It’s nearly nightfall, you really must go!” Asha said urgently, looking Nico right in the eye. “The monsters are coming. The monsters will know!”

“What monsters?” snapped Jason.

“They see your worst fears and sing them through the night / but if you two stay, you’ll get more than a fright,” Asha answered, speaking quickly. “The monsters are anger and sadness and fear, / and I’ve seen Nico’s soul, he shouldn’t be here.” She turned her attention fully back to Nico. “They’ll feed on your terror and heartbreak you see, / and I can’t protect you, the monster is me!”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked, giving Nico a concerned glance. Nico could see a hint of fear in his blue eyes.

Asha frowned, squeezing her eyes shut. She looked like she was struggling for words – or perhaps she was just struggling for words that rhymed. “The monsters – take over. They f-feed on us, so / we’re trapped and we’re hurting, and you have to go.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” asked Nico. “That’s why we’re here.”

He sat down. Jason gave him a curious look; Nico shook his head.

“This house isn’t just haunted, moron, it’s possessed. / But you two came anyway, thinking that you knew best,” Asha said, crossing her arms. “Some hauntings, some problems, you just can’t prevent! / But this can –“ she gestured to Nico “ – or it could, if you took him and went!”

Jason looked at Nico, frowning. “Maybe we should.”

“No,” said Nico, “we came all this way. We should help them. It’s what we do Jason. We help.”

“How?” Jason asked. “You don’t even know what’s going on! For once, Nico, put yourself first.” From the look on his face, Nico could tell that he said it a little more maliciously than he meant to.

The sun was setting quickly outside. The darker the room became, the stranger Nico felt; like he was less and less a part of its reality.

The last thing he saw were the two older ghosts appearing behind Jason, who lunged toward Nico just as he lost consciousness.

--

Nico woke up somewhere else entirely, at least ten hours later, given that the sun was just starting to rise.

“Where are we?”

“Cemetery,” Jason answered. “When you passed out, the Hills all started shouting at me to go, so I grabbed you and left. Apparently that’s how it started for them – the oldest one just collapsed in the middle of the kitchen one day, and then they were all dead by sunrise.”

“So why are we in the cemetery?” Nico asked, confused.

Jason shrugged. “I figured if we couldn’t save them, we should at least remember them. But we didn’t ever catch the older ones’ names, so…” he trailed off, gesturing to the headstone nearest to them.

“Oh.”

HILL

William Alphonse                 Abigail Patricia                      Aisling Brigid

7 July 1947 -                         13 April 1947-                      26 October 1955-

16 November 1963              16 November 1963              16 November 1963

  "Look on to tomorrow, up skywards, to sea