The bookshelf was, once more, the very first thing I noticed as I sat up. My heartbeat had gone back down to normal, and somehow even the sight of the blocked windows felt warm and cozy. Anything over a horde of moldy demons, obviously.
My first instinct, as I looked around the room, was to wonder what the white light had been. Someone stronger than Bella, perhaps? Maybe the groom named Nathan, or the old man, whoever had been ‘taken’ by the mold. Perhaps it was the Ghost who had helped us all get out of the situation, and then someone had taken me to my room once I fainted.
It was the only explanation that made sense.
I got out of bed and looked down to find the same blue dress as before. It was ugly, but it wasn’t covered in black slime. I needed to keep reminding myself that as long as something didn’t have black mold on it at this point, it was good enough. Something to be treated with care and love, at least.
The room was weirder than I remembered. Or, possibly, I had been so distracted by Poltrick the last time I woke up that I hadn’t had time to get a good look. Now that I could pace myself, I could finally notice all the peculiarities.
The bookshelves were normal, and so was the bed. Even the table beside it, with the chair, had nothing special about it. But it was to the north of the room that I noticed the two main weirdo attractions.
The first was an abnormally large, almost comically humongous dressing table. And I don’t mean tall. I mean large. It spread out almost as much as an entire bookshelf and had basically every different type of makeup material that you could ever dream of. The mirror looked like it had been cleaned just moments ago, and the area behind the mirror functioned as the closet with more blue dresses in it.
Beside that dressing table? The exact antithesis. If the makeup heaven was the most personal, private space imaginable, it had been paired up with the face of greedy corporate overlords in fiction. Three lanes of miniature golf. By the time I got to them and knelt down, I had already started laughing at the absurdity of it all. All three lanes had different obstacles and patterns to them, but no balls or sticks to play with.
The rest of the room was carpeted, except this spot. The area below the golf lanes directly touched the wood. Wait. Had the room been carpeted before? I touched the soft rug and then shook my head. I don’t think it had. In fact, I had a very clear memory of touching the dark wooden floor of this exact space when Poltrick knocked on the door, and I fell down.
Did the super-powerful person who saved us also put a rug in this room?
Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I swiftly turned. There was no chance in hell I was going to let anything out of my sight this time around.
My eyes darted straight to the east wall, where the little visual flicker had been spotted, and then stayed there. Because there was, indeed, something moving. A slight bit of white cloth was floating right next to the wall. Actually, to put it better, it was clipping through it. The Ghost of the Northflame Inn, I assumed, was on the other side of that wall. And her dress, being not physically ‘present’, was just peeking straight through into this room.
“What the hell?” I crawled forward, staying on all fours as I got closer to investigate the thing.
It moved down the wall and into the bookshelves. As the piece of cloth breezed by any of the books, it caused it to move just a bit. Not enough to make it fall, but enough to make it feel slightly unnatural. What I’m trying to say is – I would not have noticed the books moving if not for the floating dress.
The lower it moved into the bookshelves, though, the more of the dress became visible. The Ghost had started moving outwards now. And soon enough, a hand appeared. Through the bookshelf, holding a lantern, came a pale white hand covered in the full-sleeved white dress. I covered my mouth, fell on my butt, and moved back while grabbing the rug for support.
The Ghost turned, and the rest of her body appeared at once. She was an older woman with striking facial features. Her face, despite being a spirit, had been perfectly toned to still look pretty. Her eyelashes, slightly overgrown, still added to the sharp orange tint of her eyes. Her slightly hooked nose was pointed straight at me the second she got out, and the crooked smile that appeared on her lipstick-clad mouth said more than enough.
Ladies and gentlemen. I present to you – the promised sultry female devil. And as I had claimed, I did describe every inch…of her face. Thank me later.
“Get away! Get away!”
I picked the first thing that my hand could grab and threw it at the scary woman. That thing, however, was nothing more than a few strands of the woolen rug underneath me. They flew in the air, and did nothing more than make her presence even more grand as they dramatically descended.
She moved forward, and her eyebrows twitched in what I could only assume was rage. I pushed myself up, scrambling backwards to the door in an attempt to open it. She opened her mouth, and her forehead creased. As if she were trying to scream, but could not. The lantern in her hand shuddered, the flame inside wavering with the movement.
“Stay…back!” I ordered the spirit as if she were under my command, and my hand tried to reach up to the handle. “Just…look. I have nothing to do with this place, and I do not want to get involved. Leave me alone. Go haunt, like, Gregson or someone!”
The Ghost leaned down, and her face stopped inches away from mine. Every one of my breaths made her form hazy for a split second before it went back to normal. As normal as a ghost could be, at least.
“Innkeeper? Is someone in there?”
A soft knock on the door made me calm down. Not just the knock, but the voice that accompanied it. The sweet, dependable voice of the hand cannon elf girl. Bella Garlove.
“Be…Belllaaa?” I moaned, knocking back.
The Ghost turned, and I turned with it, turning my back away from the door. Now crawling backwards towards the bedside table, I found myself unable to communicate. And yet, the merciless spirit kept coming closer, her mouth open and her eyes piercing straight through to stab my brain.
“Uh…yes?” She replied, almost surprised. “Can I come in for a second, innkeeper? Or maybe you can come out? We have some questions about whatever is…happening.”
“Oh…I…question…yes!” I muttered maybe one third of the words that I wanted to, “In! In! Come…”
“I think she said to come in?” The voice accompanying her was not as familiar, but I could still recognize it as one of the twins.
“Okay…” Bella agreed.
I kept moving back, and the carpet got more and more crumpled by the second. The door started to open. Just an inch at first, as the sweet, hesitant Bella probably thought it was rude to swing it open. But unfortunately, it wasn’t the time to be nice. The Ghost heaved, and her anger became physical. Her free hand reached out for my forehead, as she murmured something to herself.
Then, right as the door finally swung open, the spirit flew forward at full speed. Her face crashed into mine, and probably phased past my body without problem. But that wasn’t without consequence. The action alone repulsed me. Moving further back at once, almost with a jump, I hit my head on the bedside table, and a sharp pain quickly spread through my cranium. Following that… a small click, pop, and thud.
“Innkeeper!?”
Bella almost yelped once she saw me grabbing my head. Along with the twin, she rushed forward, helped me stand up, and placed me on the bed as quickly as she could. The burning sensation on the back of my head was bad, but not horrible, so I decided that some rubbing and kind words would suffice.
“Are you alright, innkeeper? Did something happen?”
“Ghost…” I whimpered, patting her shoulders. “Finally saw that Ghost you were talking about.”
“Whoa. You’ve been seeing ghosts, Miss Garlove?” The twin laughed, pulling the chair to take a seat.
“N-no!” She snapped and then turned back to me. “What do you mean, innkeeper? I…don’t get it. I don’t know anything about any ghosts. And…I don’t think we’ve even talked before.”
“Yeah, ugh.” I smiled. “Very nice joke, Bella. Can you just tell me what happened with the white light and stuff?”
“White light?” She tilted her head in confusion. “Innkeeper, should I get you some water? Trev, can you get her some water? I don’t think she is fine.”
Trev groaned behind her, tilting the chair backwards in annoyance as he looked towards the door with a frustrated expression. Then, as he rocked back and forth while making awkward sounds, I decided that I had had enough.
“No, it’s alright. I’m fine, trust me. I must’ve just become dumb or something, that’s it. Sorry. Happens all the time.”
“Oof…thank don.” The twin finally brought the chair back to its original position and yawned. “That’s very nice of you, innkeeper. Now, can we ask our questions, or does your dumbness need time to heal?”
“Trev!” Bella cried. “I’m sorry for his behavior. To be honest, I haven’t known him for very long either, but he’s just like that.”
Now. How do you deal with someone pranking you? You stop fighting back. And that’s what I did, because I did actually think they were just making fun of me. How else could you possibly explain why this girl had suddenly lost all of her memories of me, or why she was suddenly here to ask me questions, instead of it being the other way around? They were making a joke of me.
And Laura Mason was not going to give them the satisfaction.
So, I just looked at her and nodded. “I think it’s back. The brain is back. Dumb period is over. What did you want to ask?”
“Oh, then…I’m sorry. I’m too close.”
Being a good, kind, manner-minding elf girl, Bella Garlove decided to put some space between myself and her. And to do that, she moved back without looking. Her eyes on me, probably wondering if I was actually fine or just pretending, she did not pay attention to anything that was going on behind her. Even Trev, who had gone back to rocking the chair, just adjusted his position so as not to be in her way.
And then…she tripped and fell.
The first time, she hit the book that had somehow found its way to the floor. That caused her to lose her balance and hit the drawer on the table that had somehow opened. And that, finally, caused her to tumble and fall to the floor. Straight on her face, without anything between her and the carpet. The best thing that came out of that moment…was that she didn’t break her nose.
Not much, at least. Just a slight bruise.
“Owchhh…” She grunted, pushing herself up as Trev watched on without a care in the world. What kind of friend even was he? Or were they so much into this little joke that they were actually pretending to be strangers?
I helped the girl up and then picked the book off the floor. By the time she looked at her nose and got angry at Trev for not helping her despite being close by, I looked at the open drawer and the book. That’s what the click and pop must have been. My hitting the table caused the drawer to fly open, and the book then dropped out of it due to the force. The drawer was not that deep, after all.
It was a light brown, hardbound copy. The gold embroidery and lettering on it suggested that it must have been some sort of limited or expensive edition. But the actual title of the book suggested precisely otherwise. The book in my hand, which had made Bella trip, was titled – The Denied Tale of the Rejected Crustacean.
Nice. Very nice.
“Ok, maybe we should be angry at the innkeeper instead?!” Trev tried to defend himself. “I’m not the one who left that thick book just lying on the floor, alright? Come on, innkeeper. Don’t be so careless with your stuff now.”
“Trev! She graciously took us all in and is providing the best service in the land. Don’t make fun of her!”
“Oh no, make fun all you want.” I sighed. “I shouldn’t have left a book just lying on the floor. I’m so dumb sometimes, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, see?”
Bella fumed, “No! By Dons, you’re unbearable.”
By now, I had surmised that ‘don’ and ‘Dons’ probably referred to the same being. Said being, of course, being their equivalent of God around here. I ignored their banter and decided to just put the book back where it belonged. I didn’t have any interest in reading about a failure of a beetle or whatever, after all.
“And good service?” Trev asked me, “Are you kidding me? Why are the windows blocked? Why is the door blocked? Why is…anything happening? What’s with all that weird black stuff leading to the third-floor staircase? I can’t even call the damn chef to get some breakfast around here.”
“Oh yeah?” I looked at him for just a second before turning to the one empty spot on the bookshelf. “Well, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that I’m not going to be replacing that chef!”
I slammed the book in its place and turned with as much anger as I could hold in my face. It needed to be abundantly clear that I was not going to be making any more food for these people. Did I love doing it? Yes. But did that mean they were just to keep forcing me to make stuff for them for free? A million times…no!
The bookshelves behind me started moving.
Yeah, that’s it. They just…started moving. A loud creak led to one of the shelves groaning out of the way. The one right beside it also slid open at the same time. And the area that was revealed between them contained a simple wooden door. Bella gasped as I turned to see it, while Trev stopped rocking in his chair.
“Secret room!” He cried with joy.
“Secret room…” I repeated with confusion.
_____________
Innkeeper’s Room