The dark daughter clasped her hands together like she was swooning over a puppy or a kitten or another cute furry creature rather than a deranged ghost of a headless belle haunting a manor full of dead people.

Feeling baffled and slightly ashamed, Charlotte shrunk her freaky ghost head back into a regular sized one. She was still powerless at scaring people, but for once, this girl was delighted by her out-of-date scare tactics rather than bored.

Charlotte narrowed her ectoplasmic eyes and asked in a confused drawl. "Okay, who the boo are you?"

The dark daughter merely gave a mirthful giggle and a dainty twirl in her jagged gothic dress. It seemed she embodied both the feminine essence of a noble woman and yet, applied it to things that were dreadfully gloomy.

"My name is Filles, but my preferred name is…Nova! And I am what you call a connoisseur of horror literature and a future paranormal investigator!"

Charlotte whipped out a fan and pursed her lips. "Horror literature? Does this look like a book club to y'all? We ain't fiction, we're a real life horror story!"

Nova bobbed her head and shuffled her black bob hairdo. "Of course! Why do you think I'm here? I came to witness the most ghastly mass death from a hundred years ago! The O'Scara household caught a blaze and took the lives of them and their extended family! Some think it was an accident, but others think it was arson"

"Arson…?" Charlotte said, her undead eyes growing wide.

Her memory had been washed out from the endless erosion of time. It blew her rotted mind to meet someone who knew not only of her, but of the way she died.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She flapped her fan open and blew chill winds at the excited teenage girl.

"So I guess, y'all are my FAN-girl?!"

Nova clasped her hands together again. "Yes. Nice pun too! I know the undead are rather fond of them!"

Without further prompting, Moss Charlotte held it to her mouth and began a snobby round of "ohohohohohoho's"

She gestured her fan in Nova's direction. "Now loyal fangirl. My first degree is for you to get rid of the interlopers in my house. You know them. They are living and breathing just like you!"

Nova gasped before realizing exactly who Charlotte was referring to. "Oh do you mean my dreadfully boring sisters and their dreadfully boring fops?"

"Yes," Miss Charlotte said cautiously.

She was shrewd enough she didn't want to alert Nova…or Filles of her distaste for those mouth breathers.

"Good!" Nova said, rolling her eyes like they were a pair of loose eyeballs. "They are as boring as death itself."

Charlotte placed her hands on her hoop skirt and scowled. "I'll take no undead slurs in this household, missy!"

"Actually," the gothic teen laughed. "Boring as life itself is better. You ghosts are so much more fascinating. Besides, I absolutely detest their lifestyles. All my sisters care about is finding some boring noble man to settle down with before they turn thirty so they act as flighty as possible."

The teen's eyes sparkled with her true intention. "Me? I want to meet someone after my life is over!"

Charlotte giggled and floated off the floor. "Me too! A death style is much better!"

As she floated, head above heels, she was really starting to like this gloomy mortal girl. Perhaps she had found a new comrade in her battle against those other mortals.

Immediately, she dropped to her feet and said, "How would y'all like to help me scare their poofy pants and pretty panties off!

There was a glimmer in Charlotte's dead eyes when Nova nodded and boldly thrust her hand in Charlotte's direction. "Oh I would love nothing more. Shake on it?"

Charlotte stuck her hand through Nova's pale arm. The gloomy teen shuddered nut smiled from the chill.

Charlotte agreed. "Shiver and shake!"