The blighted manor of Evergarden was haunted by a festering cabal of spirits, and they too were haunted, haunted by all the free time they now had in the afterlife. Nearly a hundred years had passed since they departed from the tangible world, and they had watched the world move on without them. While most made peace with it, living in a permanent stasis had infuriated one particular spirit to no end. One who was particularly uppity and high strung when she was alive.

This spook peered through mildew frosted windows with a pair of haunting black eyes. She moaned restlessly until she detected a pair of mortals standing by the rusted gate and bushes. The flames inside their hearts (a sign of life only a ghost could see) burned passionately as they peered through the shrubbery. It was a pair of children, a blond girl and a ginger boy, no doubt stoked by the ghost stories they heard in Harvestbloom. Their pink cherubic faces reflected how young and naive they were.

A glove of black velvet materialized beneath the ember eyes and a mirthful voice whinnied like an excitable fily: "Oh me, oh my, look what we have here…?"

A posh and refined voice answered her bray.

"I do believe we have some unwanted guests, Miss Charlotte!"

"Scare dee dee, Mortimer," Miss Charlotte answered. "Guests are always welcome here as long as they don't mind a righteous howdy-boo!"

The strange presence waited at the front door of the manor. Even if it took the children time to work up the bravery to approach her ghoulish haunt, nothing compared to the tedious timespan of the last 100 years.

Still, Charlotte grimaced, It shouldn't take them their whole lives to git up here!

At last, she heard their prepubescent voices bickering at the door. The first one belonged to a boisterous and infantile young boy.

"I hear there's a hot waydee who died here, Sidney. Miss Charlotte O'Scara. I hear she's hot and rich. Sounds like girlfriend material to me!"

He rapt obnoxiously at the door. This inspired the other voice, a cautious and sarcastic mewl to speak up. "You do realize, she's dead, Buck."

"Exactly!" Buck exclaimed. "She can leave her fortune to me!"

"Ugh…" Sidney said disgusted. "Buck, you are insufferable. If she's a proper lady, she'd want a gentleman to knock at the door like this…"

There were a few polite taps at the door.

Buck started slamming the door even harder. Sidney gasped in horror. "Buck?! What are you doing?!"

"Maybe she's sleeping!" Buck shouted back. "I'm being loud enough to wake the dead."

Miss Charlotte's flaming eyes brightened. This was her cue. She had a hundred years of haunting experience waiting to horrify them.

"It's time for the ol' spooky door with added sound effects!"

Using an invisible hand, she slowly pulled the door open and added a creaky "eeeeee" with it. Both of the children shuddered. Buck pulled his overalls up over his body and Sidney hugged her bright green sundress. The two stood with their mouth's hanging ajar.

"Whoa! Sidney?!" Buck shouted. "Did you hear that door?"

"I-I-I don't think that's the door, Buck!"

"I got em right where I want em," Miss Charlotte smiled in the darkness. "Now it's time for a little ill wind."

With a deep inhale, Miss Charlotte collected the frigid air around her and blasted the children with a loud woosh from the interior.

They both let out a helpless cry and their hair stood on the ends of their scalps. Once the merciless gusts had ceased, Sidney glared at Buck. She placed her hands on her hips. "And you still want to go in there? It's clearly haunted up the ding dang dell!"

Buck crossed his legs like he really had to go to the bathroom. "Er…uhm," he fretted, revealing his chipped tooth.

The ghost woman gave a mischievous whinying laugh from the darkness of the antechamber.

"This is like scaring candy from a baby," she thought confidently. "A whole carriage full of em."

Buck's ears perked up excitedly upon hearing the laugh. "I want to see the ghost waydee! Her laugh reminds me of the bucking broncos on my farm!"

He winked at Sidney." Maybe she will be my girlfriend."

His cynical female friend rolled her eyes. "You can't even pronounce what she is, let alone date her!"

With a sinister swish, the candles on the wall brightened with eerie green flames.

"See!" Buck said, gloating. "She's welcoming her new hubba hubba hubby into her pad."

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"Or luring us to our d-doom," the farm girl stuttered, nibbling the tips of her fingers. "She is a ghost after all…"

As the two children stepped inside, Charlotte pulled another trick.

"It's an oldie but a goodie,"she thought, and she slammed the door behind them, leaving them alone in the glow of the candlelit calderas.

"Now," Charlotte chortled, her voice rising out of the darkness, "It's time for my favorite hobby. A real scream and a pastime!"

The children nearly lost their composure as a figure of a woman materialized out of the shadows in the foyer. A powder blue aura Illuminated the shape of a gaunt, yet elegant figure of a young woman. A purple hoop skirt tied up with laces and bows formed her age old attire. Her glowing pumpkin orange hair spilled down in curls and was covered by a floppy hat designed for protection from the sun. Yet, there was no sun for miles within the darkened glade of Evergarden and the deepest recesses of the O'Scara manor.

"Are…are you the ghost gal…?" Buck whimpered.

"Howdy boo," she answered cooly in her upper class, country drawl. "The name is Charlotte O'Scara, head mistress of the O'Scara residence, and well, y'all see what I mean in a second."

Buck moved his mouth to talk, but before he did, Charlotte whipped out a glowing orange fan with the face of a Jack o' Lantern emblazoned on it. "Music, Mortimer!"

The ghost belle grinned away from her guests. "We cannot have a meeting of the living and the dead without a suitable atmosphere!"

A disembodied hand with a cuff link flew towards a dusty victrola. It removed a record from a nearby sleeve that read, "My Tombstone Valentine" and placed it on the top. Following a drop from the needle, an eerie country waltz began to play.

The kids held their ears as a violin scraped nastily out of tune.

"The orchestra is as dead as their harmony!" Miss Charlotte snickered.

"Now, Mortimer," Charlotte ordered, "I want you to fix these two youngins up with some seats, while I think of a game we can play."

"Yes, m'dear," a deep voice sighed in the darkness. "Anything for the ghost with the most!"

Two cuff-linked hands seized a pair of dusty wooden chairs lined up against the wall. With deft aim, Mortimer scooped the children with the chairs and they screamed as his hands brought them straight to Charlotte.

The belle did not turn around. Instead, she fanned herself in bone chilling temperatures. "Should we play Zombie Charades?" she asked. "Hang Man's Bluff? Bobbing for poisoned apples?"

Buck's stomach rumbled. "Can we please get something to eat?" he complained. "All this absolute terror is making me hungry."

Sidney nudged him. "You really want to eat food made by a ghost? It's probably as transparent as they are!"

Charlotte smirked beneath her sunhat. "Why yes," her voice sweet and deadly like a dollop of poisoned honey. "I have just a morsel for a pair of mortals. Mortimer, whip them up my favorite recipe!"

"A la moan," she snarked to herself.

Charlotte disappeared leaving the two children alone. "Good job, Buck!" Sydney exclaimed. "Now we can run!"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Much to their surprise, Charlotte did not reappear, but rather a towering, middle aged man with a neatly combed head of white hair. A matching white mustache curled at extreme lengths on both sides of his face. He was dressed in a grody grey tuxedo with a pale white handkerchief. In his hands, he carried a tray with a ceramic plate. A rusted steel dome covered the top. "Masters…ahem…" he said, his sunken eyes pointing at the two kids. "Your name's please?"

"Buck!" Buck said proudly. "Buck Hayseed the Great! And a total waydee's man!"

The snooty Sidney looked up shyly. "Um..Sidney Sycamore," she answered and added. "Please don't kill us. My daddy is the the richest man in Harvestbloom and he will be pay an exorbitant fee to get me back."

"What is exorbitant?" Buck asked, looking at his friend.

"I don't know," she whined, her knobby knees knocking together. "But I'm sure Daddy will pay it!"

"Master Buck and Mistress Sidney," Mortimer answered. "Please just take the lid. My head mistress will get very impatient if you don't…"

Now for a real head-game, Charlotte thought excitedly

Buck excitedly grabbed the lid. Upon lifting it, his eyes widened in slight amazement.

Perched on a plate of lettuce was the beautiful porcelain-white head of a young woman. She had her curly orange hair fixed with skull bows and spherical pumpkin shaped earrings on her ears. Her brown chestnut eyes burned with spectral energy and surprising wit.

"Now, y'all see why I'm the head of the house," she said and started laughing like a pleased horse.

The children looked at each other and then back at her disembodied head.

"Er…umm…" Miss Charlotte muttered and smirked. "Were you expecting head cheese? A head of lettuce? Too bad, y'all got the head mistress herself!"

The two kids were quieter than Charlotte's grave.

If a ghost could sweat, Charlotte would have.

Her head rocked excitedly on the bed of lettuce. "When it came to scaring mortals, I really know how to get a-head!"

There was a vindictive glare on young Sydney's face. "Is that really the best you can do?"

"What do y'all mean?" Miss Charlotte squealed angrily.

"The buildup was good," the snotty farmgirl said. "But all this for the head-on-a-platter cliche and a couple of cheesy puns?"

Buck crossed his arms and laughed. "We got a ghost in the tavern who pulls the same schtick every night! I really thought you were gonna do something super scary, Miss Charlotte. You have such a reputation as a scary waydee!"

Charlotte's bowed her head in sorrow.

I could die of embarrassment, Charlotte thought. Too late for that. My repute is as dead as I am.

Buck and Sydney stood up to leave. Sydney gave a polite curtsy. "Thanks for your time, Miss Charlotte, but I guess we have to look elsewhere for our scary thrills this season"

Lackadaisically, the two strolled out of the house. As they did, Miss Charlotte heard Buck muttering, "If you really want scary, Sydney, you should see my mom at 3 in the morning! She wears facial cream and curlers!"

"Sounds scarier than Miss Charlotte!" Sydney snickered.

The door slammed and they were gone.

The proud and quite literal head of the manor sat in the darkness. She had been haunting for such a long time that perhaps her tricks were getting a bit stale.

"What's wrong with me?!" she screeched from the platter. Her headless body threw a temper tantrum behind them. "I'm the scariest ghost in all of Evergarden."

"I do believe, my dear mistress," Mortimer remarked. "You are having what they call an…afterlife crisis!"

With an anguished howl, Miss Charlotte scowled and flew towards her bedroom.