10-Oct-2000
For all those who wanted more, here is the next part. Enjoy!
Author: Tigress Pern
Type: Alternate Universe
Archieve: GW Addiction
Disclaimer: GW isn't mine. I'm merely borrowing it for the purpose of creative insanity.
Trowa spent then next few days trying to get the ghost to speak again. But as it had said earlier, it didn't have much energy. Meanwhile, Quatre dug up as much information about the house as possible. The death had occurred nearly fifty years ago, when the town was still very small. No one really knew the family because they were very reclusive. They had sold the house and left town only a few weeks after the death. It had stood vacant for two years before someone bought it. Every owner had reported something strange occurring and had sold the place soon after. Not a single owner had made it past October 31st in the house. When Trowa heard this, he decided he and Catherine would be the first.
Shortly after four on Friday, Catherine arrived home. With her were a woman and a boy about his age. He assumed the woman to be Ms. Sally Po, the woman who was in charge of helping the kids in Juvenile Hall. He was in the kitchen staring at the nearly empty cupboard wondering what to have for dinner when they appeared. Wanting Trowa to be part of the interview process, she urged him to abandon his search. The four retired to the living room, which had the fewest boxes, to proceed.
Sally Po was a nice enough woman, Trowa decided. She had a pleasant manner and was prone to smiling at him. Her light brown hair appeared blond in the rays of the setting sun that streamed in from the window directly behind her. It gave an almost halo affect to her, making her appear as if a saint sitting next to a silent brooding demon. The boy, for the most part, remained quiet as Sally pushed his good points. A judge had decided to make an example out of him and given him a stiffer sentence than the first time offender deserved. It had been so minor that Sally had originally believed that he would have only gotten off with community service. Unfortunately, she'd been wrong. Since then, she'd been trying to help him.
"He's an excellent mechanic and can fix almost anything." Sally said. "I've seen him strip a car in ten minutes. He's wonderful with computers and electrical wiring. Plumbing shouldn't be that difficult either."
"I would like to see a demonstration of his capabilities." Catherine said calmly looking as stern as possible.
"Of course."
Trowa remained polite and silent as the women talked back and forth. The boy sat across from Trowa still as a statue. His blue eyes watched the women intently for a while, then shifted to him. Trowa wasn't uncomfortable having the boy stare at him. He was used to similar looks from his peers. They would whisper in the halls about his loss. There had been all sorts of rumors passed around about him, but he held up stoically, never letting them see behind his façade. Only Quatre and Wufei had seen the real him. But that was so long ago, Trowa wondered if the mask had become the real him.
"I don't see any problem about letting him tour the house." Catherine was saying. "Under our supervision."
"Of course." Sally agreed. "Come on let's go." She stood as did Catherine and Trowa. The boy remained seated. "Come on Heero, let's go look about the house you'll be working at." Heero's eyes widened in surprise for a moment then leapt back to their stony glare.
"Hai, Po-san." He rose and followed Catherine and Sally out of the room. Trowa watched them go.
"I wonder about him." Trowa admitted to himself. Suddenly he felt a cold breeze sweep past him. "I know you wonder about him too." The breeze swirled around him once and was gone.
"Trowa!" Quatre called waving madly. The blonde was exceedingly cheerful this morning. Wufei looked like he'd just woken up. His hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, with ebony tendrils escaping here and there. Trowa hurried up to the gate and opened it. He'd been raking leaves outside while Sally and Catherine were going over rules with Heero.
"How are you?"
"Not bad. Kari lent me a ouija board, tarot cards, even a crystal ball." Quatre held up a black duffel bag that was full of objects they planned to use in the séance. "Not to mention a camera with very sensitive film."
"What sort of film?" Wufei asked yawning.
"I don't know." He confessed. "All she said was that it was very sensitive. God knows what she meant by that." They walked up to the house. Trowa leaned his rake against the wall by the door and the three proceed in.
"I can't believe I'm here." Wufei whispered.
"Neither can I." Quatre murmured.
"If you two are done gawking, we could have lunch." Trowa said a hint of humor in his voice.
"Lunch?" Wufei exclaimed. "I just had breakfast twenty minutes ago."
"When did you get up?" asked Quatre.
"11:12AM." He replied.
"Lucky, Kari got me up at the crack of dawn to run over a list of do and do nots with ghosts."
They crowded around the kitchen table while Trowa pulled out last night's celebratory pizza. It was in honor of Heero coming to live with them. Catherine had wanted to be as welcoming as possible.
"I hope you don't mind cold pizza." He said as he opened the half-empty box.
"It's the breakfast of champions." Quatre answered smiling. Wufei rolled his eyes as he accepted a plate from Trowa. As they ate, Trowa told them of the new handyman.
"Yuy? I've heard that name before." Quatre muttered.
"You've heard everyone's name." Wufei growled as they cleaned up. "His parent's probably have an account or two at your dad's bank."
"Maybe…" Quatre began, but he was distracted from any further thought on the subject by the sound of voices.
"Let's get upstairs." Trowa said urging his friends out of the room and up the staircase. He could hear Catherine continuing her lecture and the last thing any of them needed was to be caught in it.
They had agreed that holding the séance in the boy's actual room would give them the best contact results, or so they hoped. Trowa new that just about anywhere in the house would have been fine, but he didn't want Catherine to find out. She didn't believe in the supernatural, no matter how many times the ghost moved objects about or turned on the radio. Therefore, in the interest of avoiding a lecture on the silliness of believing in ghosts, Trowa decided not to hold the séance where she could easily find them.
Upon entering the room, Trowa fumbled for the light switch. Once found, he flipped it on and waited to hear the groans from his friends. The room was still a mess of discarded furniture and boxes from previous owners.
"This is the room?" Quatre asked staring hard at Trowa in disbelief.
"And I supposed we get to clean it before we hold the séance?" Wufei said. Trowa nodded. "Oh brother."
They began moving furniture out into the hallway, then hiked over to one of the empty rooms and stashed it in there. Trowa made them leave the bed, a set of dresser drawers and a nightstand. They were items that the ghost seemed particular to the few times that week he'd been up in the room. It took them an hour to clear the room and another to clean it. Quatre had a sneezing fit because of the dust and was forced to leave the room for a bit. While he was out, Wufei and Trowa sent him to find a vacuum cleaner. Willing to do anything to get rid of the mountain of dust collected in the room, he hurried down the three flights of stairs. At the bottom he nearly ran into Catherine and Heero.
"Hello Catherine." Quatre smiled.
"Hello Quatre. I assume Wufei is here too." Quatre nodded.
"Yes, we're helping Trowa clean out on of the bedrooms on the third floor. It's very dusty, were is your vacuum cleaner?"
"In the hall closet." Catherine said pointing to her right. Quatre nodded and waving goodbye hurried over to find it. "I'm glad you're helping out." Catherine called after him. Heero watched the blonde as he continued his quest. "That's Quatre Winner. He's a friend of Trowa's. He and Chang Wufei are spending the night tonight, so there will be five of us for dinner. They're nice boys."
Heero nodded, but his stony expression didn't change.
Quatre returned vacuum cleaner in hand and attacked the hardwood floor of the room. Trowa and Wufei got out of his way, deciding to let the mad vacuumer do his job. Once everything was clean, they began to lay out the stuff from Quatre's duffel bag. Once that was in order they were ready to begin.
"Trowa." Catherine's voice came from outside the door.
"Hai."
"How far have you gotten in there?"
"We're nearly done. We're just taking a break."
"Oh, good. I need you to run down to the store and pick up a few things. I need to finish some stuff with Heero." Trowa answered that he would while the other two groaned.
"I guess we'll have to do this after dinner." Wufei said.
Sitting on the floor, legs crossed, hands folded in front of them the boys stared at the ouija board. Quatre repeated the instructions his sister had told him that morning. Trowa's heart pounded, he wondered if the ghost was strong enough for this. It didn't even have enough energy to speak, let alone produce any sort of visible form. The most Trowa had ever seen of it was a glowing orb.
"Are we ready?" Quatre asked. Trowa and Wufei nodded at the same time. "Okay," Quatre drew in a deep breath. "Let's begin." Placing their hands on the triangular black plastic planchette on the ouija board, Quatre spoke. He summoned the ghost and asked it to speak through the board to them.
"Do you think he's here?" Wufei whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Trowa. He was about to answer no, when the air temperature in the room plummeted. Wufei visibly shivered and goose bumps appeared on Quatre's bare arms. He probably shouldn't have worn the short sleeved shirt, Trowa thought.
"Oh ghost who dwells here, tell us your name." Quatre said in a priestly tone.
"Why are we asking it? Don't we already know it?" Wufei hissed.
"Shh! It's for confirmation that we have the right spirit." Quatre growled. Trowa shook his head, this wasn't going very well at all.
Suddenly the tiny hairs on the back of Trowa's hand began to tingle. Beneath the three pairs of hands, the planchette moved along the alphabet. It glided to the D, then the U and finally the O. Then it paused.
"Duo." Quatre said aloud. The planchette began moving again, this time spelling out the last name.
"Maxwell." Trowa whispered. The three boys stared at one another. It was the right ghost.
"Can we ask it questions now?" inquired Wufei. Quatre nodded. Acting as the medium, he asked Duo how long he'd been dead. The planchette moved to 5 and 0.
"It'll be fifty years this Halloween." Trowa said softly.
"How depressing. To die when you were only sixteen." Wufei muttered. "We need to ask him how he died."
"Yes," Trowa said slowly. "We do. Quatre?" Quatre nodded. Once more the planchette moved across the alphabet, this time spelling out C-H-O-K-D.
"Chokd? What is chokd?" Wufei demanded.
"I think he means choked." Trowa said softly. "It's spelled phonetically."
"But the paper said it was a suicide, not a murder." Wufei stated. He turned to Quatre. "Ask him if he was murdered."
"Duo, were you murdered?" Instantly the planchette flew to NO. "Was it an accident?" This time it moved to YES. "What did you choke on?" It took nearly a full two minutes before the Trowa and the others felt any sort of movement from the planchette. Duo's spelling was getting worse. He spelled out M-B-E-A-R-A-S-N-G. Everyone was confused. It took several minutes of sounding the letters out to determine that Duo had meant "embarrassing". Meaning that whatever he had choked on was too embarrassing to reveal. They decided to change the subject. They asked if he got along with his parents, he'd spelled out S-U-M-T-I-M-Z. When they inquired about if he'd been a good student, it had taken two and a half minutes for him to reply.
"I think he's getting tired." Trowa pointed out.
"You're probably right." Quatre replied. He forcibly moved the planchette to GOODBYE and signed off. Afterwards the three boys sat on the floor just staring at the board.
"That was interesting. I wonder what he choked on." Wufei muttered.
"And why did the police and his parents think it was a suicide?" Quatre remarked running his hands through his blond hair. "Gr. This is aggravating. I mean it's great that we made contact, but we have more questions than we started out with."
"He's not very strong." Trowa commented. "He has never shown his human form to me, just a glowing orb and that only happened once."
"Probably." Quatre muttered. It would have been cool if he'd appeared though. Kari would have loved a picture."
"Your sister is weird." Wufei said.
"Look who's talking. You agreed to the séance." Quatre reminded. Wufei grinned.
"I like weird things too." Quatre rolled his eyes as Wufei laughed. Neither of them appeared to notice that the temperature in the room had risen back to normal. Duo's spirit had moved on to other parts of the house or had simply gone back to where it came from. Trowa hoped it was all right.
End Chapter 3
Tigress Pern