Work Text:
Galya stood before the paneled wood door of her neighbor’s house, wondering if coming was a good decision or if she should have listened to her mother.
“I know you walk Percy to school every day Gally, and that’s okay. He’s a good kid,” she always told her. “But I don’t want you to ever step foot inside his house. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
“But why not?” she always asked.
“There’s a ghost in that house. No. No, there's two of them.”
She didn’t know what that meant, and she sure as hades didn’t want to find out.
And yet, there she was.
“You should come over,” Percy’s father had told her. That afternoon, he’d been doing some gardening in the front yard when she had arrived there with his son. “Your mother won’t mind, will she?”
Of course, she did. When Galya called her to ask if she could stay, she answered with a rotund “no”. But when she learned that Arthur King himself was standing in front of her waiting for an answer, she chickened out and told Galya she could stay. The latter wasn’t sure why her mother was so scared of upsetting him, but if it meant she could have a fun night out of the house, she didn’t really care.
“Welcome to our humble abode!” Arthur said jokingly as he led them inside. “You can go wherever you like with Percy’s permission except for my room. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Dinner is at six.”
Just like that, he was gone. It was just her and Percy awkwardly standing in the middle of the hall.
Is that it? she wondered.
“It’s been a long time since I had someone over for a playdate,” Percy finally said, looking at his feet. “Wanna go to my room? That’s what I always used to do when I had someone over.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “But it’s not… a playdate. Only little kids use that word.”
“Oh?” he said, his cheeks flushing red. “I–I mean, I get it. You’re three grades above me and–”
“I just don’t want you getting made fun of later on. C’mon, let’s go hang out in your room.”
He nodded and led her to his room, which was situated upstairs. He opened a plain white door and motioned for her to step inside.
The interior of Percy’s room was far more… interesting than the rest of the house, for lack of a better word. The plain wooden furniture was covered in a strange combination of dirty clothes, assorted magazines, and vintage CDs, while the walls, which were covered in a drab flowered wallpaper, had dozens of neon-colored posters plastered over them, which ranged from promos for old cartoons to prints of heavy metal stars.
Galya looked around the room in awe. “Wh… You’re into metal too?”
“Wait… you… listen to music? You’ve never talked about that.”
She sat on his bed and looked around once more. “Yeah, I listen to a lot of music. I actually used to play bass too… fell out of practice though.”
“I play guitar!” he said excitedly. All of a sudden, he was strangely jumpy. “Look, let me show you!”
He ducked underneath his bed and took out a glossy black guitar case, which he plopped onto the bed. Moted of dust bounced off it and landed on the covers, but he didn’t seem to mind and swung it open.
“Here we go,” he said, taking out an acoustic guitar. He put the sling around his shoulder. “This used to be too big for me, but now it fits.”
“You’ve got a dust mote on you,” Galya said, picking it from his tuft of red hair. He blushed in response.
“Ah… thank you. I didn’t expect the guitar to be that dusty. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s really sick! I’m glad you showed it to me… though it’s a shame you let it get like that,” said, pawing at it. “Where’d you get it?”
“The music shop downtown. I went a few years ago with my mother, and she treated me to this…” he trailed off. “I used to go to practices on weekends, but I don’t anymore.”
“I haven’t met your mother yet. Are your parents, like, divorced or separated or something? Mine are.”
He gave her an awkward laugh. All of a sudden, his forehead was lined with sweat. “No, not divorced.”
“Oh. Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“It’s fine,” he said. Strangely, he seemed more scared than upset. “It’s fine. Just forget about it. It’s not a big deal. Let’s… talk about something else. Music! You like music?”
“Right, music. What songs do you play?” she asked, grabbing a plush from his bed, an axolotl. It had a strange yellow stain on it and was missing an eye, but it was a more pleasant sight than Percy’s face at the moment.
“I… used to play folk,” he admitted. “But I threw the sheet music out. The only good stuff we still have around is in my father’s closet, since it used to belong to my mother.”
“Oh, well, let’s go get it!”
“No, don’t you remember? We’re not allowed in his room.”
“C’mon, it’s not that big of a deal. We’ll just go in and get it. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“Yes, he will–”
“It’ll get you in a better mood,” she insisted. Really, she only wanted to do something, hopefully that required less talking. Something about Percy’s demeanor wasn’t sitting right with her.
“Well… you do it then,” he said. “I won’t.”
“Fair,” she said, getting up. “Your dad’s closet, right? I assume it’s the room next to yours?”
“Yeah…”
“Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She stepped out of the room and carefully took a peek at the kitchen. Percy’s father was cooking, carefully slicing a tomato with a sharpened knife. From the looks of it, he’d busy for at least another five minutes chopping vegetables.
Good. Galya quietly walked away and fiddled with the doorknob to his room. To her surprise, it opened rather easily.
Arthur’s room looked just about she had expected it to. Other than the queen bed placed against the wall, the nightstand next to it, the oak desk for work, and the family photos hanging on the wall, there wasn’t much going on.
Galya’s eyes drifted to the wall beside her, on which she noticed a set of beige double-doors. That must be the closet, she thought.
She placed her paws on the doorknobs and…
They were locked. Of course.
It wasn’t much of a problem though. She took a pin from her hair, jiggled it in the keyhole, and just like that, the doors had opened a crack. Without giving it much thought, Galya swung them open.
…Which might not have been the best idea.
“What the @#$%?” she mumbled, taking a step back.
Lining each and every wall of the tiny closet were dozens, no, hundreds of pictures of the same person, a friendly-looking young woman. On the floor were several boxes that seemed to be filled with her belongings.
Did Arthur King really take the time to store very single item in his house related to this woman in this tiny closet? Galya decided not to think about it too hard. As strange as the whole thing was, it would look suspicious for her to return to Percy’s room empty-handed.
She opened one of the boxes and began rummaging through it, but it only contained old papers and similar items. The next box contained makeup and hair products, and so on.
Galya continued to work her way through the boxes until she reached the last and largest one. Slowly, she opened the flaps and looked inside, where she found a cape, a set of armor, and a bedspread. The items themselves didn’t come as much of a surprise, as she knew Percy’s father had an important job at the GSA, so his mother must’ve had one too, and as for the bedspread… well, everyone had a bedspread.
Then there was the fact that they were covered in brown blood stains.
Galya barely kept herself from vomiting. Shutting the closet doors as quickly as she could, she scurried out of Arthur’s room and went straight to the front door. There was only one sentence burning in her mind, over, and over and over again.
I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here…
Her mother was right. She’d always been right. Gosh, the second she got home, she’d walk up to her and tell her that she was right all along, that there really were two ghosts living in that house.
Galya stumbled towards the door and reached for the doorknob. She had flung the door open and was stepping outside, when suddenly, she felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
She froze, a chill running up her spine. Oh lord…
“Galya? Leaving so soon?” Arthur asked her. She turned around, shivering at the sight of his face.
“Yes, well… my mother called me. She said I had to go home because something came up.” Her eyes drifted to his paw, which was still holding the kitchen knife from earlier. She gulped.
“Oh? And you’re not going to say goodbye to Percy?” he asked her.
“She did,” Percy said, coming out of his room. “She actually received the call while I was showing her my guitar.”
Thank you, she mouthed. He nodded in response, looking down at his feet.
“Alright. Well, see you tomorrow,” Arthur said, releasing her from his grip. “Tell your mother I say hello.”
“Aha… okay,” she said nervously. “Goodbye.”
Before he could say anything else, she hurried away from his line of sight as quickly as she could.
Never again.