Working at a Haunted Mansion Chapter 11

Part 2. In Most Old Stories

The sound of a running child’s footsteps echoed lightly. Lily, clutching a book under one arm, buried her face in Julia’s skirt.
It was a passionate greeting.

Julia thanked Mrs. Brown once again, then took Lily’s soft hand and climbed the stairs.

“What did you read today?”

“A dragon! A dragon appears!”

“Appeared.”

“Appeared!”

One word for each step. Lily climbed the stairs energetically, her ponytail swaying like a tail.

“The good dragon granted a wish, but the wizard, the bad wizard, changed his mind and didn’t keep the promise…”

“The wizard betrayed the good dragon.”

“Yes! He betrayed him!”

“So what happened then?”

“The dragon woke up, but the wizard was already dead, and the dragon thinks the wizard is still alive, and then the dragon breathes ice from his mouth! Wooooaah!”

Lily opened her mouth wide and shouted. Julia quickly bent down and looked into Lily’s eyes.

“Shh. You have to be quiet in the hallway.”

Lily covered her mouth with both hands.

“Quiet in the hallway.”

Julia stroked the child’s head as she whispered and unlocked the door with a key.

“A dragon that breathes ice—that’s a special one.”

“Yes! It’s special!”—but there was no reply.

Lily didn’t come in. She stood still, staring up at the stairs above.

“Lily?”

Even gently pulling her hand, Lily didn’t move.

“Lily, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Mr. Bain.”

Bain was the man who lived upstairs. He was a kind neighbor who didn’t mind Lily’s chatter and listened to her well.

‘Oh dear. I almost ignored a neighbor. I must really be tired today.’

Julia turned from halfway inside the room and looked up the stairs. There was no one there.

As Julia hesitated, Lily waved her hand toward the empty air.

“Hello, mister. You’re visible? Yes! I can see you! But mister, why has your skin turned gray? And your hair used to be brown—why is it black now? Did you dye it? Can you dye your skin too? Your face? Your arms?”

Julia looked back and forth between Lily and the empty air. Lily really seemed to be looking at something—her eyes were focused.

“But it must be really good dye. It doesn’t smell at all. When Mrs. Brown dyed hers, I held my nose! But now your hair looks good too. Though I liked it better before…”

Feeling a chill, Julia picked Lily up and carried her into the room.

As Julia locked the door, Lily whined.

“Grandma, I didn’t get to say goodbye…”

“Who were you talking to, sweetheart?”

“Mr. Bain! But he’s really weird now. Isn’t this what people call getting scammed? Ask him where he bought the dye. And let’s not buy from there.”

Julia put Lily down and crouched, holding both of the child’s arms.

“Lily, honey, there was no one there!”

“But there was?”

Lily blinked. Her eyes sparkled clearly. She wasn’t lying.

As they locked eyes, Lily suddenly looked past Julia’s shoulder, her voice excited.

“Grandma! He went through the wall! Wow! Mister, do it again! Huh? Come into the room? On the third floor? He collapsed? But he’s right here now? He didn’t collapse? He says he’s in the room? Huh? He’s here, but also in the room?”

Suddenly, the furniture in the room began to shake. The legs of the rough wooden chair and desk rattled against the floor, and the old window frame made an ominous sound.

“Uhh… I’m sorry. Grandma, Mr. Bain told me to tell you something. He wants you to call Mrs. Brown. He said the door’s locked from the inside. Is that okay? Did I say it right?”

Like a lie, the trembling stopped. Even as Julia froze in the eerie silence, Lily’s eyes still wandered in the air.

Julia came to her senses. She was the child’s guardian. She couldn’t lose her composure.

“Lily, don’t go anywhere and stay in the room. Okay?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

Julia lit a candle and stepped out of the room. Behind her, Lily said, “Goodbye, mister!”

“Hehe, I said goodbye this time.”

Feeling a chill, as if something were behind her, Julia locked the door from the outside. Then she went down the stairs to find Mrs. Brown.

She made up a story, saying Lily really wanted to see Mr. Bain and that she’d heard a sound like someone collapsing behind his locked door.

When she asked Mrs. Brown to come with her out of concern, the woman agreed readily and grabbed a bundle of keys. Together, they headed to Bain’s room.

 

****

 

 

Lily swallowed.

“So what happened next?”

“When we got there, Mr. Bain had collapsed. Blood was coming from his head. He passed away not long after.”

Lily couldn’t accept that she was the main character in this unbelievable ghost story.

“It happened one more time after that. Someone pulled me while saying strange things on the street, and when I followed, there was a passerby collapsed.”

“What happened to that person?”

Julia silently shook her head. Lily leaned back in her chair, stunned.

“I don’t know why this is happening to me. I’m not crazy. I swear I’m not. The ghost of His Grace is real!”

“Actually… my maternal grandmother went through the same thing. Or at least, I think she did.”

“What?!”

This was the first time Lily had ever heard of it.

“My grandparents came from Solmon. While visiting my aunt’s house, I happened to find her old diary, and I remember reading an anecdote about spirits.”

Lily’s eyes kept getting wider.

“At the time, I wasn’t fluent in Solmon yet, so I thought I’d misinterpreted a metaphor. But after seeing you act that way twice, the diary came back to me.”

That meant Julia had known for a very long time that her granddaughter was… different.

Yet she had never once shown it. She had raised Lily only with love.

Words from the heart suddenly slipped out.

“Thank you for not abandoning me…”

She truly meant it. A child who sees spirits—it’s creepy, unsettling, makes you question if she’s sane.

It was obvious that’s what other people would think, too. The only reason Wolfram kept her around was because he recognized that the child had seen someone as powerful as Kashimir.

If she had said there was a ghost who died in a horse accident haunting the stable, she would’ve been kicked out of the castle immediately.

Julia’s eyes widened like she’d heard something ridiculous.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Whether you see spirits or not, you’re my sweet and lovely granddaughter, Lily Dienta. That’s all that matters!”

Lily’s eyes welled up. She was so glad she hadn’t brought up her grandmother during the meeting in the office.

If Julia had been recruited on her recommendation and then fallen into Wolfram’s hands because of it, Lily would’ve never forgiven herself.

Julia, now serious, shared her past struggle.

“The real problem was your safety. If things had gone on like that, your fate would’ve been to end up locked in a mental hospital or a convent. That’s why I gave you mental training every single day.”

“Mental training?”

“Yes. To make you fear spirits, to keep you away from places they might be, and to make sure you fled quickly if you ever came face to face with one.”

“Wait. That was training? The scary stories you read to me in bed every night? That wasn’t just your hobby?”

Honestly, Julia back then had gone too far.

No matter how much Lily cried and screamed, she’d tell her a gruesome, terrifying ghost story every single night.

Bright red teeth, bony hands bursting out of the dirt to grab ankles, bloodshot eyes staring through keyholes…

Little Lily, with her vivid imagination, had pictured it all way too clearly in her mind.

In the end, those stories had settled deep in her subconscious, and to this day, they showed up in her nightmares.

Julia didn’t respond to Lily’s horror. She simply changed the subject.

“But in the end, you saw one again. And this time, it was the Duke Kashimir… What a tragic thing for someone so young.”

With that, the old tale came to a close.

Lily checked outside the window. Morning had long since ended. She gathered the empty bowls and stacked them on the tray.

“Exactly. May Lord Lumion watch over him! But Grandma, we really need to get moving now.”

Julia looked skeptical.

“I get the situation, but about this escape… don’t you think it’s a bit extreme? You know how close to impossible it is to relocate from one’s estate.”

Practically speaking, Julia was right. But Lily wouldn’t back down.

“If you had seen Baron Burnett’s face when you mentioned the carriage accident, you’d agree with me. That wasn’t just idle talk. The moment I become useless to him, he’ll get rid of me without hesitation.”

Julia frowned and stared at her granddaughter’s face. Then, finally, she sighed and said,

“Alright. If you’re saying this much, I suppose we should follow your lead.”

Lily nodded vigorously.