"Boo hoo hoo!"

Five minutes later, a loud wail came from the master's suite. "Boo hoo hooooooooo!"

Miss Charlotte threw her ghostly body across her rotten mattress. Her bed was once frilly, pink and fit for a princess, but now it had been infested with mold, lice, mites and other creepy crawlies.

"Mortimer?!" the head mistress snapped, writhing and whirling on top of the bed. "Boo hoo hoo!"

From deep within the floor, the lanky butler rose from the depths, his eyes half lidded as he clutched a plate of rotten food. "For who the belle tolls!" he muttered, non plussed by his master's antics. "And that is clearly me. May I offer you a plate of rotten caviar for condolences?"

"Oh boo hoo hoo," Charlotte sobbed loudly. "I'm in no mood for discomfort food."

She whipped out a fan and started fanning herself impatiently. "Tell me, Mortimer. Why don't I scare the pants off mortals anymore? Am I getting too old?"

Mortimer sighed, leaving the plate floating. "We're ghosts my dear lady. We don't wrinkle or grow old. How we died is how we will remain forever…"

The butler coyly held his left hand to his cheek and sighed, "Oh, how I wished I died a dashing bachelor in my twenties."

Charlotte rolled her eyes and looked through her hand. "Am I fading then? I don't recall my complexion being this invisible yesterday."

Mortimer shook his head. "You may be transparent as ever, mistress, but you are not fading."

"Then why…" Charlotte howled, her scalera cracked and red. "Why am I not scary? Why do I not make them quiver like a bowl of human jelly?"

"Perhaps, mistress," Mortimer answered. "You're not seeing the haunted hollows for the trees. It is not you that has aged…but your scare tactics!"

Charlotte's eyes illuminated and a fanged smile spread on her face.

"You must admit…" the old butler answered. "The old head beneath the platter is a bit more reserved for a gossamer ghoul."

"Well yeah," Charlotte said and turned her eyes to her servant. "I learned it from one…"

"Perhaps," Mortimer nodded and he shook his head. "Wait…are you calling me an old ghoul?"

"Boo hoo hoo, Mortimer," Charlotte said, rising from her bed. "You may be an old ding bat, but you've given me an idea. I'll give myself some good scarapthy!"

Miss Charlotte O'Scara, now floating, cleared her throat. "I'll prove to y'all, you can teach an old ghost new tricks!"

Knock…knock…

She heard a firm pound at the door. She did an excited pirouette in the air.

"My my, more mortals!"

She had a new chance at spooking, but little did she know, what was behind the door would scare her within an inch of her afterlife.

Charlotte glid excitedly from the upper balcony, her head followed by her heels. Her restless soul puzzled over the mysterious visitor knocking at the door. Had the two runts returned for scary seconds, or was it the town drunk, haplessly mistaking her haunted manor for a tavern? Either way, she hoped she could be a proper scaress like her dearly departed daddy had taught her to be.

She flipped excitedly through the air, forgetting her tantrum entirely. There was another knock up on the door. Again, it was very reserved, not at all like the usual yokels who'd knock on the door. Upon reaching the entrance, Charlotte peered through the rusty, yet elegantly shaped keyhole. Even ghosts, or at least ones with proper manners, liked to inspect their company before allowing them in.

Much to her surprise, it wasn't the farmers' children or the town drunk, but rather a stubby, stocky man dressed in regal attire. A pink pageboy's hat covered a blond bob and he wore a matching uniform. His pants were the most outrageous sight, poofing around his pelvis like a pretentious poet.

"Boo hoo who? Charlotte asked, curiosity stoking the flames in her ember eyes

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Aside from the strangely posh little man. There was a whole ensemble behind him. Through the keyhole, Charlotte's eye darted from one strange character to the next.

There were three young women, as fleshy pink and vital as mortals could be. Each wore dresses of silky fabric and they were as blond as a stalk of fresh wheat with near identical faces. Only one of the women did not follow the standard beauty trend the others clearly relished. The odd girl out had eyeliner drawn around her eyes and they resembled those of a forest raccoon from the woods of Evergarden. While the others wore dresses of primary hues, the outlandish girl wore a night black dress that was jagged at the seams.

At least someone dressed appropriately for my house, Charlotte thought to herself.

A pair of young men accompanied the ladies. Both were incredibly thin with hooked noses that curled upwards in maximum snooty fashion. They were aristocrats, decked out in ruffled suits of turquoise and pink. Their towering powdered wigs made them look like a pair of well groomed poodles.

I dub thee, Fifi and Fido, Charlotte smirked wryly.

Last, and not least in size, was a gigantic man who put all of their colorful outfits to shame and he strutted like a proud peacock. The man was massive, a combination of sheer bulk and muscle and he towered over his last friends and his fellow gentlemen. His pants, much like the pageboy were unbelievably pink and puffy, but he also wore a large iron breast plate and shoulder pads (to protect his mortal hood, no doubt, Charlotte thought to herself). His cleft chin was as thick as a broadsword and a blond bob wig was fitted on his head.

And they think my sense of fashion is dead, Charlotte thought, Get a load of this mortal menagerie.

The towering man stepped forward and reached into his trousers. He boasted in a heavily accented voice, sounding like a distant relative of the Toccata royal family. "This abandoned mansion fills me with an ardent desire to have a great, big …" he slyly eyed his cohorts on both sides and whipped an enormous feather quill from his trousers. "Poetry writing session together!"

He made two large muscles, one with his quill in hand. "Get a load of these sonnets I can pen for you… with these puppies!

The two frilly girls looked at him with dewy, doe eyed stares. The third just rolled her eyes.

"Did I mention it's in iambic pentameter!" he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

The two ladies looked at each other and screamed. (The third merely yawned.)

My stars, Charlotte remarked sadly, he's better at making people scream than little ol' me.

The man turned from the swooning women to his cohorts. "Take note boys. I'll show you how to entertain the ladies…"

He took a dramatic pause. "With techniques they don't teach at the university!"

The two men looked at each other and screamed to the heavens too.

Wow, he seems quite 'bi-scary' appeal, Charlotte sighed.

The third girl who had not said anything, simply groaned in a much deeper voice than her sisters. "Can we just go in the haunted house already? Before this turns into a prose measuring contest?"

The beefy poet glared at the other two women. "Did you really have to bring your kid sister, Flores and Dolores?"

The two women exchanged looks. "She's like 17," one of them answered in a flighty voice. "I know they have babysitters, but I've never heard of Teensitters before."

The younger girl glared daggers at the pretentious poet, but he merely shrugged his shoulders. "What-thou-ever," he chortled. "But don't expect me to write any sonnets. Maybe a haiku about how annoying thou art."

The man faced his loyal subject who stood on the porch. "Anywho, let our little woods rendezvous commence. Percival. If you would so kindly get the door!"

Charlotte's eye darted to the pageboy who continued to knock and jostle the door. It refuses to budge.

The wily belle thought to herself. Perhaps it's time to gain a little Intel.

"Who is it?" she asked in a voice of false sweetness.

Her voice took everyone off guard. "I say," one of the gentlemen asked. "I didn't know there was a lady here…"

"Percival…" the large poet growled. "This is my manor. Tell whoever is in there…that it belongs to me."

His manor…Charlotte gasped, completely stupified. This is my haunt!

The stocky man cleared his throat, and spoke in a weedy voice. "Ahem…Dear whoever currently lives in this manor, my name is Pageboy Percival Patterson..."

"On behalf of Lord Rutherford, our great and oh-so-winningly ruler…we have come to repossess this manor..."

Repossess… Charlotte thought, her powder white cheeks puffing up with indignation. Only I can possess this manor! I am a ghost after all.

"Noooooooo one…" she howled in response. "Is possessing this manor but me!"

Percival shuddered over Charlotte's banshee like shriek. "Did you hear that?!" the pageboy cried, covering his head with hands. "SIRE…" he exclaimed waddling back to Lord Rutherford. "I think this place is cursed!"

Rutherford merely scoffed and blew air from his gorilla like nostrils. "Ghosts, Percival? Balderdash! Are you a child like this snot nosed brat, believing in ghosts?! There is no such thing!"

How mortalist of him to say that! Charlotte fumed.

Much to her surprise, Lord Ruthford stomped all the way up the manor himself. He continued to rant and race incessantly like the concept of afterlife was nothing but a fairy tale. "Unlike you and the child, I believe that the only thing that remains when you die are the gallant eulogies someone writes when you are as noble and handsome as me!"

Lord Rutherford peered through the keyhole. "Tis nothing but an old vagrant woman, coming to squat my fine gothic piece of real estate!"

As Charlotte peered through the keyhole, she was about to bring out the heavy duty ghosting and possess the man to pound himself over the head with his knuckles, but when their eyes made contact, she changed her mindset entirely.

His eye was as cold and grey as frozen steel in the middle of a snow storm. A crack of lightning blasted through her soul. She had seen that cruel eye before, but her memory had become warped over a hundred years of afterlife.

All she knew was, it wasn't her who frightened him, but he that frightened her. With a ghostly gasp, she turned tail and bolted for the bedroom.

There was nothing she could do to prevent a strange group of humans from breaking and entering her haunt–she had failed at her soul's remaining purpose