LJ Idol, Season 9 - Week 12
title: The Witch in the Bathroom
topic: Barrel of monkeys
When Kirstin and Thursday dropped out of college four years ago to hunt monsters, neither of them could have guessed the weird places their new career would take them. Swamps, forests, a deserted island or two, several wheat fields, canyons, ruins, industrial buildings converted into housing, houses converted into businesses, two corn mazes, three public schools, a cube farm, a peach orchard, and more abandoned buildings and middles-of-nowhere than either of them want to count.
And now they can add "girls' bathrooms" to the tally.
At least this is just a simple haunting. They figured one ghost, no problem. Thursday suggested that it could even be fun.
We need to reevaluate our criteria for "fun", Kirstin thinks now, because the last time she checked, hanging out in a suburban girl's small suburban bathroom with the door closed and the lights off was not anywhere on the list.
Kirstin has never been much of a fan of small, dark, enclosed spaces. But she has a job to do, and Thursday is on the other side of the door, and they've settled on a signal - if Kirstin needs help, she'll scream.
But still. Small, dark, enclosed space. It smells overwhelmingly of air freshener.
Two months ago they passed through Tucson to visit one of Thursday's innumerable cousins, and the cousin's little girl gave each of them a tiny orange plastic monkey for luck.
"Because they're silly," was the explanation, when Thursday asked why a monkey. "If you're laughing, you can't be scared."
Kirstin has a pretty good idea that the ghost will show its face whether she's laughing or not. All that matters is that she say the words.
She fingers the tiny plastic monkey in her jeans pocket and bangs on the door.
"What's happening?" Thursday asks from the other side, sounding a little muffled.
"Nothing," Kirstin tells her. "Just making sure you can hear me."
"I can hear you. We should get on with it."
"Tell me again why I have to be the one who has to call her?"
"Because if the door sticks, I can kick harder." She kicks the door lightly to prove her point. "And she won't come for more than one person."
Kirstin is slightly reassured. And really, they've chased ghosts before. They've watched ghost hunter shows on TV and laughed when the ghost hunters get something wrong. Ghosts never scared her, and even if they did, she has salt with which to banish the thing. This should be routine by now.
She takes a breath, angles herself so she's mostly facing the mirror over the sink - or at least she assumes she is, because the darkness is disorienting - fondles the open jar of oddly nice-smelling salt which is resting on the edge of the sink, and takes a second to be grateful that the family who lives here took the girls' advice to stay in a hotel.
Although with something apparently trying to kill people in their daughter's bathroom, who could blame them?
It's a local haunt, Kirstin reminds herself. You've chased things like this before.
She closes her eyes, opens them, stares at where the mirror must be.
"I hate the Bell Witch I hate the Bell Witch I hate the Bell Witch."
Nothing.
Shit. Did she have to say it four times?
And then she sees a reflection of light in the mirror, the light that's growing behind her, and in no time at all it resolves into the emaciated face of a woman, hair straggling out from under a colonial era bonnet, features twisted into pure homicidal fury.
The ghost raises a knife, long and rusted and bloody.
And Kirstin screams.
She flings the salt over her shoulder - A pinch to ward off the evil eye, she thinks wildly - and spins around as the ghost seems to disintegrate and then pull itself back together. Kirstin can see the wall through it, but the knife looks very solid.
She can hear Thursday kicking the door. It must be stuck.
Kirstin can't remember what she's supposed to say to banish the ghost. They went over this probably twenty times, and now she's too rattled to remember.
Some monster hunter she is.
The door bangs open and Thursday cries "Rest in peace, Kate Betts! We never meant you harm!"
The ghost wavers and hisses.
"If we've wronged you, we beg forgiveness!"
Kirstin holds her breath. The ghost is half-turned towards Thursday, but it can still look at both girls.
"Go from here and be at peace!"
The light around the ghost dims and Kirstin thinks Shit, it's not working, now what? Then there's a flash of light, a rush of brittle-cold air, and Thursday stumbles into her, momentum and Kirstin's already unsure balance pulling them both down.
"Is she gone?" Kirstin asks, after a minute. The tiles are cold underneath her back. Her heart is still racing.
"I think so." Thursday rolls over and sits up on the bathmat. The bedroom is dark through the open bathroom door, but light from elsewhere in the house and from outside means that Kirstin's eyes are starting to adjust.
"I can't believe that worked. That was way more elaborate than it had to be."
"No, I think it was just right. We both knew you'd forget your lines." In the dim light Kirstin can see Thursday grinning at her. "You're a terrible ghost hunter."
"I know! I freaked out. I'm sorry. Somewhere the TAPS guys are shaking their heads in sympathetic embarrassment."
"You should've heard yourself shriek."
"You should've kicked the door harder! She was going to stab me! Did you see that knife? That was, like, two hundred years of dead people, right there. I thought I was going to have a heart attack." Kirstin puts her hand on her chest, just to make sure her heart is beating at a slower, more normal pace. It is.
"I think you need a beer," Thursday says. She stands, turns on the bathroom light, and extends a hand to help Kirstin up.
"I think I need two." Kirstin turns to look at herself in the mirror. She doesn't look like someone who hunts the things that go bump in the night. She looks like she just stared instant bloody death in the face and shrieked like she was already being stabbed. She giggles.
"What?" Thursday says.
"Do I look like a monster hunter to you?"
"No. But I don’t either. This is how we take them by surprise." She grins. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink and you can buy me a pizza."
Kirstin picks up the now-empty salt container and follows Thursday out of the bathroom, flicking the light off behind her.
They turn off the hall light, go downstairs, turn off the light in the foyer, and head outside.
"You know," Thursday muses, "that was kind of fun." Kirstin stares at her. Reevaluating our criteria for "fun". "It was! I got to kick in a door. How often does that happen? Not enough, that's how."
"And I got to panic and forget everything."
"You remembered the salt."
"Reflex." She giggles again. "It had potpourri in it. We banished the best-smelling ghost in the whole state."
"I told you. Fun."
Thursday looks triumphant. Kirstin decides that next time she can wait outside and Thursday can be bait. Or maybe the next thing they chase down will just happen to live somewhere near a beach, in close proximity to cold drinks with umbrellas and hot people in bathingsuits.
Because that would be fun.
note: this bell witch is not exactly the bell witch of legend, but rather the bell witch of my tennessee childhood, who was summoned by standing in front of the mirror in a dark bathroom and saying "i hate the bell witch" an indeterminate number of times - in truth, i don't remember how many - at which point she would appear in the mirror, standing behind you, and stab you to death. i did however take this witch's name from the "real" bell witch, who was supposed to have been a woman named kate batts.
topic: Barrel of monkeys
When Kirstin and Thursday dropped out of college four years ago to hunt monsters, neither of them could have guessed the weird places their new career would take them. Swamps, forests, a deserted island or two, several wheat fields, canyons, ruins, industrial buildings converted into housing, houses converted into businesses, two corn mazes, three public schools, a cube farm, a peach orchard, and more abandoned buildings and middles-of-nowhere than either of them want to count.
And now they can add "girls' bathrooms" to the tally.
At least this is just a simple haunting. They figured one ghost, no problem. Thursday suggested that it could even be fun.
We need to reevaluate our criteria for "fun", Kirstin thinks now, because the last time she checked, hanging out in a suburban girl's small suburban bathroom with the door closed and the lights off was not anywhere on the list.
Kirstin has never been much of a fan of small, dark, enclosed spaces. But she has a job to do, and Thursday is on the other side of the door, and they've settled on a signal - if Kirstin needs help, she'll scream.
But still. Small, dark, enclosed space. It smells overwhelmingly of air freshener.
Two months ago they passed through Tucson to visit one of Thursday's innumerable cousins, and the cousin's little girl gave each of them a tiny orange plastic monkey for luck.
"Because they're silly," was the explanation, when Thursday asked why a monkey. "If you're laughing, you can't be scared."
Kirstin has a pretty good idea that the ghost will show its face whether she's laughing or not. All that matters is that she say the words.
She fingers the tiny plastic monkey in her jeans pocket and bangs on the door.
"What's happening?" Thursday asks from the other side, sounding a little muffled.
"Nothing," Kirstin tells her. "Just making sure you can hear me."
"I can hear you. We should get on with it."
"Tell me again why I have to be the one who has to call her?"
"Because if the door sticks, I can kick harder." She kicks the door lightly to prove her point. "And she won't come for more than one person."
Kirstin is slightly reassured. And really, they've chased ghosts before. They've watched ghost hunter shows on TV and laughed when the ghost hunters get something wrong. Ghosts never scared her, and even if they did, she has salt with which to banish the thing. This should be routine by now.
She takes a breath, angles herself so she's mostly facing the mirror over the sink - or at least she assumes she is, because the darkness is disorienting - fondles the open jar of oddly nice-smelling salt which is resting on the edge of the sink, and takes a second to be grateful that the family who lives here took the girls' advice to stay in a hotel.
Although with something apparently trying to kill people in their daughter's bathroom, who could blame them?
It's a local haunt, Kirstin reminds herself. You've chased things like this before.
She closes her eyes, opens them, stares at where the mirror must be.
"I hate the Bell Witch I hate the Bell Witch I hate the Bell Witch."
Nothing.
Shit. Did she have to say it four times?
And then she sees a reflection of light in the mirror, the light that's growing behind her, and in no time at all it resolves into the emaciated face of a woman, hair straggling out from under a colonial era bonnet, features twisted into pure homicidal fury.
The ghost raises a knife, long and rusted and bloody.
And Kirstin screams.
She flings the salt over her shoulder - A pinch to ward off the evil eye, she thinks wildly - and spins around as the ghost seems to disintegrate and then pull itself back together. Kirstin can see the wall through it, but the knife looks very solid.
She can hear Thursday kicking the door. It must be stuck.
Kirstin can't remember what she's supposed to say to banish the ghost. They went over this probably twenty times, and now she's too rattled to remember.
Some monster hunter she is.
The door bangs open and Thursday cries "Rest in peace, Kate Betts! We never meant you harm!"
The ghost wavers and hisses.
"If we've wronged you, we beg forgiveness!"
Kirstin holds her breath. The ghost is half-turned towards Thursday, but it can still look at both girls.
"Go from here and be at peace!"
The light around the ghost dims and Kirstin thinks Shit, it's not working, now what? Then there's a flash of light, a rush of brittle-cold air, and Thursday stumbles into her, momentum and Kirstin's already unsure balance pulling them both down.
"Is she gone?" Kirstin asks, after a minute. The tiles are cold underneath her back. Her heart is still racing.
"I think so." Thursday rolls over and sits up on the bathmat. The bedroom is dark through the open bathroom door, but light from elsewhere in the house and from outside means that Kirstin's eyes are starting to adjust.
"I can't believe that worked. That was way more elaborate than it had to be."
"No, I think it was just right. We both knew you'd forget your lines." In the dim light Kirstin can see Thursday grinning at her. "You're a terrible ghost hunter."
"I know! I freaked out. I'm sorry. Somewhere the TAPS guys are shaking their heads in sympathetic embarrassment."
"You should've heard yourself shriek."
"You should've kicked the door harder! She was going to stab me! Did you see that knife? That was, like, two hundred years of dead people, right there. I thought I was going to have a heart attack." Kirstin puts her hand on her chest, just to make sure her heart is beating at a slower, more normal pace. It is.
"I think you need a beer," Thursday says. She stands, turns on the bathroom light, and extends a hand to help Kirstin up.
"I think I need two." Kirstin turns to look at herself in the mirror. She doesn't look like someone who hunts the things that go bump in the night. She looks like she just stared instant bloody death in the face and shrieked like she was already being stabbed. She giggles.
"What?" Thursday says.
"Do I look like a monster hunter to you?"
"No. But I don’t either. This is how we take them by surprise." She grins. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink and you can buy me a pizza."
Kirstin picks up the now-empty salt container and follows Thursday out of the bathroom, flicking the light off behind her.
They turn off the hall light, go downstairs, turn off the light in the foyer, and head outside.
"You know," Thursday muses, "that was kind of fun." Kirstin stares at her. Reevaluating our criteria for "fun". "It was! I got to kick in a door. How often does that happen? Not enough, that's how."
"And I got to panic and forget everything."
"You remembered the salt."
"Reflex." She giggles again. "It had potpourri in it. We banished the best-smelling ghost in the whole state."
"I told you. Fun."
Thursday looks triumphant. Kirstin decides that next time she can wait outside and Thursday can be bait. Or maybe the next thing they chase down will just happen to live somewhere near a beach, in close proximity to cold drinks with umbrellas and hot people in bathingsuits.
Because that would be fun.
note: this bell witch is not exactly the bell witch of legend, but rather the bell witch of my tennessee childhood, who was summoned by standing in front of the mirror in a dark bathroom and saying "i hate the bell witch" an indeterminate number of times - in truth, i don't remember how many - at which point she would appear in the mirror, standing behind you, and stab you to death. i did however take this witch's name from the "real" bell witch, who was supposed to have been a woman named kate batts.