Puppets

^THE PARTY^

The trail ended at a pair of double doors. We heard music and laughter and went inside.

We arrived at a big ballroom. There was light, music, and people. We had finally found the party, and I could relax.

There were a lot of people here, chatting and dancing. The decorations were out of the ordinary.

Smoke was coming out of a cauldron, covering the floor of the whole ballroom. Bats were flying around the ceiling, circling the floating green flames lighting up the room.

I soon felt Aurora’s embrace.

“I am so sorry, Bella, for scaring you. I really had no idea you’d be afraid of ghosts,” she said.

Damion, on the other hand, looked very amused.

I suddenly felt another embrace, from someone I didn’t know, with long, white hair.

“Bella, may I introduce my sister, Angélique. She’s come from France,” Damion said, giving me a curious look.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I got carried away,” the woman said with a French accent as she let me go.

She was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was tall and slender, but not without shape.

Her skin looked like porcelain. She had deep green eyes and full lips set in a sharp face.

“Sister?” I asked, puzzled.

“Angélique, this is Bella,” Damion informed his so-called sister.

Their hair and skin tones were very different, but you could still see a resemblance in the facial features. I didn’t feel any energy coming from her at all. It was very strange.

“Are you also a witch?” I asked Angélique.

“Oh no, I am something else entirely,” she laughed, but suddenly got quiet and looked toward the doors.

I noticed how her pupils widened.

Shortly after, Alex entered through those doors.

“Very creative, Aurora. I give you that,” he said as he joined us.

When he reached us, he totally ignored us. He was looking at Angélique.

“I’m Alex,” he introduced himself, offering her his hand.

“Angélique, Damion’s little sister,” she replied while watching Alex intensely, accepting his hand.

He was completely absorbed by her. He didn’t seem to notice us at all.

“All right, well, I guess we’ll just leave them to it and grab a drink,” Aurora said and pulled me along.

“I’ll just fix your makeup real quick. I’m really sorry about that,” Aurora said with an unusually soft gaze.

“~As you were~,” I heard her say.

“There, all fixed,” she said before we continued on.

We stopped by a fountain filled with a black, sparkling substance. A light fog was drifting around it.

Aurora grabbed a glass and put it under the flowing substance, then handed it to me. It wasn’t transparent but still thin, kind of like milk.

It smelled of pumpkin spice coffee.

“So, what exactly is in this?” I asked with curiosity.

“Mostly coffee and Fireball,” Aurora said while having a sip from the glass she’d filled for herself.

After watching her drink it, I dared a taste. It was delicious, like a pumpkin spice latté burning in my chest.

Aurora was such a liar, though. There was definitely another mood enhancer besides the alcohol in this punch.

I felt my mind wander away, becoming less. I dragged Erik with me to the dance floor and started to vibe with the music.

I let my body act as it pleased with the beats. We enjoyed ourselves and shifted between dancing and mingling.

We had more and more punch. I felt stranger and stranger.

Eventually, I no longer had any control over my body as I danced. The bats in the ceiling seemed to fly closer.

Suddenly, they looked dead and rotten.

When my gaze moved around the room, looking at the other guests, I caught sight of Ellie and Rebecka. They, too, like the bats, looked like decaying corpses.

While my gaze continued around the room, I noticed everybody looked dead. I was back to being terrified, but I couldn’t talk or control my body at all.

I just continued to dance to the music, which at the moment was ~Thriller~ by Michael Jackson. I knew this was another prank by Aurora, but even though I knew, it was terrifying.

The fear left me when we all started doing the choreography from the song’s music video. I would have laughed if I could.

When the song was over, the enchantment wore off, and we all applauded Aurora’s creativity.

It didn’t last very long, though, because soon after, a loud, ominous laugh was heard echoing in the room.

A clock was heard. It struck twelve times.

It was midnight.

Upon the last strike, my body felt heavy, and everything went black.

^Midnight^

When my vision returned to a dim candlelight, my body felt as if I were floating in water.

I gasped in surprise as I looked down at my feet. I was transparent.

I looked around, confused. I was no longer in the ballroom but in a much smaller room without windows, lit by candlelight.

I really was floating, but in the air. I was apparently a ghost, but I couldn’t be dead, right?

Aurora wouldn’t go that far for some Halloween prank, would she? I floated toward the door.

It felt really odd and surreal, like I was dreaming. When I tried the door handle, my hand just floated right through it, and the rest of me followed along.

I had probably been in a closet, because now I found myself in a bedroom. I saw someone lying on the bed. I floated closer toward the body but quickly backed away.

It was a corpse. I moved closer again to see if I recognized it, and I did.

It was Rebecka. Were we really dead for real?

I panicked as I floated out into the hallway, trying to find, well…anybody.

Moving through the rooms, I soon saw another ghost. I didn’t recognize it.

It looked like it was bleeding from the head and gave me a creepy smile. I screamed as I hurried away in the other direction. My scream sounded strange and hollow as it echoed.

I soon heard a familiar laugh. It was the ghost of the hag.

“You are ours now!” I heard her voice say as she laughed.

“If you don’t find your body before morning, you will be ours forever,” she continued.

I was filled with dread and ran away. I had gotten the hang of being a ghost and moved much quicker now.

I gasped in surprise when I rounded the corner and saw Alex and Angélique kissing in a window seat.

They were all over each other. With her white Victorian dress and his pirate outfit, they looked like they were taken straight out of a movie.

“Alex!!?” I called out.

He reacted instantly and withdrew himself from Angélique before looking around.

Angélique, on the other hand, was looking straight at me.

“Aurora really did turn you all into ghosts,” she said in surprise.

“Not the two of you though, it seems!?” I said angrily.

“What the hell happened to you, Bella?” Alex said, shocked when he finally saw me.

“Aurora talked about how fun it would be to turn everyone into ghosts and have them look for their bodies. I didn’t think she’d actually go through with that idea,” Angélique said with fascination.

“Why aren’t we ghosts?” Alex asked.

Angélique giggled. “Because we didn’t stay at the party very long,” she answered, looking at Alex like she was ready to eat him.

“Well then, Bella, you should hurry and find your body,” Alex said without taking his eyes off Angélique.

He was completely smitten. I had never seen him like this before.

“No, don’t be silly, of course we have to help her,” Angélique said, and got up on her feet.

“You didn’t hear this from me, but you never quite know with Aurora. She can be a little rash and unstable with her decisions and spells,” Angélique explained.

Her words didn’t help. What if I didn’t find my body? Would I be a ghost forever?

“Cockblocker,” Alex whispered when he passed me.

“Not at all, I wasn’t planning on sleeping with you just yet, Alexander,” Angélique called out. She was quite a bit ahead of us.

She must have amazing hearing to have heard that.

“It might take forever to find you in this house,” Alex sighed while we traveled through the corridors.

I heard Angélique giggle at Alex’s statement.

“Hello, Erik,” she said after rounding a corner.

“Hello, Angélique, you haven’t seen Bella around? She’s terrified of ghosts,” I heard Erik say. He sounded worried.

I floated around the corner too. Erik, of course, already had his body back.

He looked relieved to see me. “Your body is in here!” he told me suddenly, looking a little uncomfortable.

“Well, Bella, we will see you in the morning,” Angélique said and waved.

She then grabbed Alex’s hand and guided him along.

I saw my body lying on the bed when I entered the room. I recognized the room.

I’d stayed in it once when she’d invited Ellie and me over.

“She made it easy for me,” I sighed.

If I hadn’t gotten so scared of the ghosts, I could have found my body on my own.

I also noticed Erik was looking away. He probably didn’t like seeing me dead.

I could feel my body pulling me to it like gravity.

When I opened my eyes, I was relieved to find myself back in my body and very much alive.

Within seconds, I felt Erik’s arms around me.

“I was really worried about you, I thought you might be alone and frightened, hiding somewhere,” he whispered.

“More like floating around in panic,” I tried to joke.

“It is very dangerous magic Aurora is pranking us with. I hope your friends find their bodies,” Erik said on a serious note.

“Are you saying we’d actually stay dead if we didn’t find our bodies?” I asked, feeling a chill down my spine.

“It might be the case. I think it might be part of the appeal. She even got me scared, pulling a prank like this,” Erik admitted.