The Curse of the Baron Roderick
by Bottou-chan

Part Five

Bronwyn gave a little stifled shriek and jumped; Neon wasn’t quite sure if her friends’ disheveled appearance frightened her, or if it was a delayed reaction to the thunder. But she made a beeline towards them. "Why didn’t you come in sooner?" she scolded. "I was worried!"

Raiha smiled ruefully at her. "It takes more than a little water to keep us down," he chided her gently.

Neon stepped back and took a good look at them. Their clothes and hair were plastered wet; water dripped generously and pooled at their feet; and somehow, mud and seaweed seemed to have attached themselves to their clothes. "Whatever happened to you?"

"Our boat," explained Joker, picking off a long strand of slimy plant and flicking it to the carpet. Caitlyn gave a soft grumble of disapproval and made a movement to fetch the carpet shampooer, before remembering the electricty was out. "It was a sieve. Not to mention, the oarlocks fell off."

"Both of them?" Neon’s eyes widened.

"Both of them." Raiha kicked off his slippers, and placed the sodden masses in front of the now-blazing fireplace to dry.

"That’s impossible. Keefe takes good care of the boats, and keeps them in topnotch condition," argued Bronwyn, her eyes flaming in indignation at this slur. "Why, just last week, Caitlyn and I went out in the very same boat to catch fish for dinner. We had no problems at all."

"It’s the ghost. Their revenge has begun!" Peter sounded awed. "I told you not to say such things!"

"At least ‘Miss Neon’ didn’t get hurt, huh?" scowled Joker. "We’re going upstairs to find something dry to change into, and then we’ll come back down and rejoin you in this cozy little room. But we just wanted to check in and let you guys know we’re all right."

He and Raiha bowed slightly and left for their rooms, their way lit by a candle Raiha had taken from the library. As they passed through the front hall towards the stairs, he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and stopped.

"Did you see something?" asked Joker curiously.

Raiha peered at a portrait hanging on the wall. "Sorry. The light’s playing tricks on me… it just looked like the person in the painting was watching me."

"You’re getting paranoid in your old age," smiled Joker, lightly dismissing the subject.

~later~

"I don’t want to have a repeat of this," said Raiha, very seriously. He was trying to be serious, anyways, but suspected that the staff—-all assembled, minus Keefe—-was too distracted by the black and scarlet silk kimono robe he was wearing. Either that, or his slippers, which were in the shape of giant gorilla feet. "It was very dangerous. We couldn’t even keep up bailing with our bait-can, and it was impossible to steer. We almost capsized a few times, and ended up swimming the last fifty yards to the shore in the middle of the storm. We ended up on the far side of the lake, and had to walk at least twenty minutes to get back to the house."

"Why didn’t you take refuge in the boathouse, sir?" asked Harold. "If you don’t mind my saying so—that would have been the obvious choice."

"We thought about it, but decided that Neon would worry about us if we did," smiled Joker.

"Just don’t catch a cold," sniffed Neon, trying to look indifferent. But she felt touched.

"Speaking of cold, the water is. Very," said Raiha. By way of explanation, he added to no one in particular, "Joker and I had a little bet going on."

"Almost too cold to swim," agreed Joker, shuddering at the memory. "Anyhow. What I want to know, what’s this curse you keep talking about? Where did it start? What can we expect? Has this sort of thing happened before?"

"So now you believe!" crowed Peter. Caitlyn shushed him, and Joker shot him a dirty look. But he refrained from comment.

"The curse began with the first Baron, Roderick O’Sullivan," said Harold, deciding to tell the story. "Before he was a Baron, he was all set to marry a certain woman. Because of local politics, he ended up marrying another, and obtained his title and land that way. The first woman, whose name is lost to history, was furious. She had loved him dearly, and couldn’t bear that she had been set aside for another, solely on the basis of wealth and power."

"I can see it," suggested Joker, and Raiha shushed him. Neon shot him a dirty look.

Harold only quirked an eyebrow before continuing. "This rejected woman had a grandmother who was quite old and cunning. A witch, some believed. She complained to her grandmother, and asked for a curse to be laid upon the family, whereby a premature death would befall the women of the Baron’s family who lived on the estate.

"The first Baron’s wife accidentally fell one day, into the well. She died, and the old well is haunted. It’s currently boarded up… but some say her spirit still haunts the site."

"You have a haunted well," repeated Joker. "Say, shouldn’t someone be making a list?"

Harold politely ignored him. "The first Baron’s daughter, too, died under sad circumstances. She was painting a portrait of her father, seated on a horse. It had come time to paint the horse’s picture. Well, the horse was startled by something—"

"The Ghost of the Lady of the Well?" whispered Joker.

"—And he reared up, lashing out with his hooves, and ended up killing the poor girl instantaneously. Now, the second Baron’s daughter—I told you about her. Not too many years later, the second Baron’s wife committed suicide. She hung herself in her own bedroom. It turned out she was pregnant at the time of death."

"That’s not enough to drive her to suicide," objected Neon practically.

"It wasn’t the Baron’s," explained Harold. "The Baron had been gone for a year, traveling in France. She was mortified and desperate and didn’t know what to do."

"Except kill herself," smiled Raiha. "Neon-san, the women in your family are certainly given to melodrama."

"The mysterious thing is… her room is the room Miss Neon is currently sleeping in," said Caitlyn, her voice soft. She checked the hot cocoa pot and saw that it was empty. "I’ll get more," she murmured, and left the room.

"Do you think those green lights I saw might have been related to the second Baron’s wife’s ghost?" asked Peter curiously.

"Could be," agreed Bronwyn. "Anything’s possible."

"So, before we get to the other women—do they usually end up playing pranks?" inquired Raiha.

"Calling that a ‘prank’," mumbled Joker, sipping his hot cocoa. He was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, warming the soles of his feet. He absently smoothed out the wrinkles in his robe, which matched Raiha’s nicely. He wiggled his toes happily.

Harold nodded. "Sometimes, they’ll just wander around the hallways, looking lost, or perhaps reminiscing. You can never tell with spirits. Other times, they’ll rearrange little objects—I can leave a candlestick on one table, and the next morning, it will have moved to the mantelpiece. I suppose perhaps that the candlestick, or a similar-looking one, might’ve originally been placed on the mantel during the spirit’s life. On occasion, we’ll feel like we’re being watched… other times, I’ll feel like I have hands on my shoulders. It’s rather eerie." He shook his head sadly.

"What do they want?" asked Joker. "They’re not just roaming because they need the exercise."

"Their lives ended prematurely," explained Bronwyn. "You can’t expect them to be content to just be dead. They’re perhaps looking for what they were missing in life… for a lost love, for understanding, maybe even for a second chance."

"For respect," piped up Peter.

They suddenly heard a shrill scream and the crash of something falling. Raiha, Joker, and Neon leapt to their feet, almost before the scream had fully registered with Peter, Harold, or Bronwyn. They dashed off towards the source.

Caitlyn stood in the front hall, with the hot cocoa pot lying at her feet. Fortunately, it was empty—otherwise, she and Bronwyn would have had a new set of stains to remove.

"The armor," she sobbed. "The suit of armor—it was walking—it stopped and it _looked_ at me!" She pointed a trembling hand to the suit of armor. Indeed, it was not on its usual pedestal. Rather, it was on the opposite side of the hall.

Neon went and knocked on the side. It echoed hollowly. "No one’s in it," she said. "Are you sure you saw it move?" She gazed at the younger girl skeptically.

Caitlyn glared. "I know what a walking suit of armor looks like!" she growled. "Miss Neon," she added, suddenly remembering the respect due to the Baron’s heir. "And it walked, and it LOOKED at me!" She broke out into a fresh set of wails.

Raiha took her by the hand and steered her gently away. "I’ll take care of this," he said to Joker and Neon, who were still staring, puzzedly, at the suit of armor.

How would anyone be able to fake movement? There wasn’t enough time for someone to dress up in it, frighten the girl, take it off, and reassemble it. But the thought of ghosts was ludicrous.

There weren’t really ghosts in this mansion.

Were there?

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