By the time the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, eerie purple shadows across the landscape, Isabella arrived at the rusted iron gates of the Ironwood Estate.
The place was magnificent in its sheer, terrifying desolation. The grass was dead and black. The massive stone manor loomed against the twilight sky, its windows shattered like jagged teeth, the roof partially collapsed, and a thick, unnatural fog rolling across the front steps. The air was freezing, devoid of any birdsong or insect noise.
It was the most beautiful thing Isabella had seen all week.
"Praise be to the terrifying unknown," Isabella whispered, pushing her way through the squealing iron gates.
She marched up the rotting wooden steps and shoved the heavy front doors open. The interior of the manor was a cavernous, dust-choked void. Cobwebs hung from the crystal chandelier like thick gray curtains, and the temperature inside was at least twenty degrees colder than the summer air outside.
Isabella didn't care. She strode right into the center of the grand parlor, spotted a dilapidated, moth-eaten armchair that looked like it hadn't been touched in a hundred years, and threw herself into it.
Poof. A massive cloud of dust plumed into the air.
Isabella let out a long, shuddering sigh of absolute, profound relief. She leaned her head back, closing her eyes. It was quiet. It was cold. There were no sweet pheromones, no jiggling assets, and no one demanding a spiritual awakening.
"I made it," she whispered, a tear of pure joy slipping down her cheek. "I am safe. Even if the devil himself is in this house, he doesn't have the physical density to pull my skirts up."
For ten glorious minutes, Isabella sat in total, uninterrupted silence. Her heartbeat slowed. Her frazzled nerves began to settle. Even her massive, demonic curse finally began to cool down, retreating into a soft, dormant state of rest beneath the heavy wool.
But then, the temperature in the parlor suddenly plummeted.
Isabella’s breath began to puff out in visible white clouds of vapor. The shadows in the corner of the room seemed to lengthen, twisting and curling against the faded wallpaper.
Creak.
The sound of a floorboard groaning echoed from the hallway.
Isabella kept her eyes closed, completely unbothered. She simply clutched her rosary, a smug, exhausted smile on her face. "Nice try, phantom," she murmured into the freezing air. "I am a bride of the church. Your parlor tricks cannot frighten a woman who has survived the outer pastures."
Whoosh.
A sudden, freezing gust of wind circled the armchair. But it wasn't a normal draft. The air felt... heavy. It swirled directly around Isabella’s ankles, completely bypassing her upper body.
Slowly, the icy draft crept upward. It slipped under the ruined hem of her habit, swirling around her bare calves, sending a shiver of cold goosebumps up her skin.
"Spirits of the damned, I command you to find peace," Isabella yawned, shifting comfortably in the chair. "And please close the door, there's a draft."
The draft didn't stop.
The icy, swirling vortex moved higher, slipping past her knees. Then, to Isabella’s sudden, dawning confusion, the incorporeal cold air began to... condense. It pooled directly over her lap, swirling with an intense, localized pressure.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in the parlor. It didn't come from the hallway. It didn't come from the ceiling. It echoed directly inside Isabella’s head—a breathy, echoing, incredibly sultry whisper of a woman who had been dead for a very, very long time.
“Oh my... what an incredible... vital life force... you've brought into my home...”
Isabella’s eyes snapped open.
Floating directly between her parted knees was a glowing, ethereal, and stunningly gorgeous phantom. The ghost was wearing a translucent, Victorian-era corset that showcased a massive, heaving, spectral chest. She had glowing, predatory white eyes and a wicked, translucent smile.
But the most terrifying part wasn't the ghost's face.
It was the fact that the ghost’s incorporeal, freezing, ectoplasmic hands were currently resting directly on Isabella’s lap. And they weren't passing through the fabric.
They were completely, solidly gripping the suddenly reawakening base of her curse.
Isabella’s smug smile instantly vanished. The absolute, undeniable truth hit her like a runaway carriage: she had completely forgotten about poltergeists. They could move physical objects, which meant they could definitely handle the "shepherd’s staff."
"Such a rigid, heavy cross you bear, Sister," the ghostly Victorian lady purred, her icy, spectral fingers lightly squeezing the shaft, sending a freezing, electrifying jolt of sheer ecstasy straight to Isabella’s core. "Let me... possess it."
Isabella stared down at the glowing phantom between her legs, and the last shred of her sanity finally snapped.
"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, WOULD YOU DAMNED SPIRITS GIVE ME SOME PEACE!"
The sheer, tectonic volume of Sister Isabella’s furious roar rattled the remaining glass panes in the grand parlor's shattered windows. Cobwebs drifted down from the crystal chandelier like falling snow.
For the first time in over a century, the old Ironwood Estate fell into an absolute, stunned silence.
The Victorian phantom froze, her ectoplasmic hands hovering inches above Isabella’s lap, her glowing white eyes wide with genuine, spectral shock. No one had shouted at her like that since the influenza outbreak of 1888. Usually, when a terrifying spirit materialized from the netherworld to touch a mortal, there was weeping, there was screaming, and there was a frantic scramble for holy water.
There was never a deeply annoyed, sleep-deprived lecture.
Isabella sat back in the moth-eaten armchair, her chest heaving beneath her stained, ruined habit. She didn't look like a pious nun anymore; she looked like a completely broken woman who had reached the absolute end of her theological tether. Her hair was a bird's nest of straw and willow leaves, her face was smudged with dried cow manure, and her crooked veil was flapping limply in the freezing supernatural draft.
Beneath her skirts, her colossal, curse-endowed asset gave a hesitant, confused throb, its massive crown slowly retreating from the phantom’s icy aura as if picking up on its owner’s sheer, unadulterated rage.
The Victorian ghost slowly closed her translucent jaw. Her glowing eyes tracked from Isabella’s furious, bloodshot gaze down to the heavy protrusion tenting her lap, and then back up again.
Suddenly, a soft, echoing giggle bubbled out of the phantom’s chest.
"Oh..." the ghost purred, her form flickering with an amused, ethereal radiance as she floated backward a few inches, crossing her translucent legs in mid-air. "Oh, I like you. Nerves of steel. Most of the village boys faint the moment the floorboards creak, but you're sitting here demanding quiet hours like a grumpy landlord."
Isabella slammed her eyes shut, rubbing her temples with her wooden rosary beads. "I am not grumpy. I am physically hollowed out. I have been chased by horny novices, milked by aggressive livestock, purchased by the nobility, and drained by a thirsty oak tree. If you are going to damn my soul to hell, phantom, please do it quietly. I am trying to take a nap."
The ghost let out a theatrical, delighted gasp, her spectral hands flying to her heaving, corset-bound chest. "Ladies! Did you hear that? We have a celebrity in our parlor!"
Before Isabella could open her eyes to protest, the temperature in the room plummeted another ten degrees. The thick, purple twilight fog rolling across the floorboards began to churn and condense. One by one, more glowing, ethereal figures began to materialize from the shadows of the parlor.
From the grandfather clock stepped a sultry, spectral maid from the roaring twenties, her fringe dress shimmering with a faint blue light. From the fireplace emerged a stunning, medieval phantom in a flowing, tattered gown, her ghostly assets rivaling Lady Beatrice’s best dress. Within seconds, Isabella’s solitary sanctuary was occupied by no less than five exceptionally voluptuous, glowing, and deeply curious poltergeists.
"My, my," the flapper ghost whispered, her translucent eyes locking instantly onto the unmistakable, rigid mound beneath Isabella’s wool habit. She let out a low, breathy whistle that sounded like wind howling through a keyhole. "The Victorian sister wasn't kidding. That is quite the... vital life force she's packing under those holy layers."
"It’s magnificent," the medieval spirit murmured, floating close enough that the freezing aura of her spectral hips brushed against Isabella’s knee. "It possesses enough concentrated spiritual energy to power this entire estate for a century."
The original Victorian phantom floated down, landing gracefully on the armrest of Isabella’s dilapidated chair. She leaned in close, her breathy, echoing whisper vibrating right inside Isabella’s frazzled brain.
"Ladies," the Victorian leader announced, a wicked, entirely amused smile spreading across her translucent face. "This one has more than enough 'spirit' to go around. I'd say we let her stay."
Isabella slowly opened one bloodshot eye, staring flatly at the parliament of beautiful, hungry ghosts currently surrounding her armchair. Her demonic curse, triggered by the sudden, concentrated wave of five distinct supernatural auras, gave a massive, violent throb of pure, unadulterated panic, instantly standing straight back at attention against the tight wool.
"Let me stay?" Isabella squeaked, her voice cracking as the flapper ghost boldly reached out a translucent, freezing finger to trace the outline of the "staff." "Wait... you mean you aren't going to haunt me out of the house?"
"Oh, heavens no," the Victorian phantom purred, her spectral hands slowly sliding back toward Isabella's lap with practiced, poltergeist efficiency. "We've been so terribly bored in this old house, Sister. And since we can move physical objects... we intend to make your stay very comfortable."
Isabella pinned her head back against the cushion, a loud, helpless moan already bubbling in her throat as the room began to glow with unholy, ectoplasmic light. Isabella realized, with absolute mathematical certainty, that her "salvation" was actually just a multi-generational spectral gangbang.