TIMING: Mid March LOCATION: Thea's house/Worm Row, directly after this thread. PARTIES:@longislandcharm and @notstinky and @the-lil-exorcist SUMMARY: A poltergeist is discovered in Thea's house. Winter calls Lil for help. CONTENT WARNINGS: None!
Lil had gotten the call and almost immediately took off to where Winter was, slightly annoyed and more so worried for the other. Mediums were often the targets of poltergeists and it sounded bad. Scary bad, and something that Lil needed to deal with now, before the other got hurt. So, with her socks half on and her shoes heelie-less, Lil had rushed out of the house to go get Winter and whatever was happening.
Arriving where the other had said, Lil couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening. Figuring that this was not the time to look around and not thinking that the owners of the place were going to fight her specifically, Lil kicked down the door, rushing in worried.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lil asked her eyes trying to take in the scene and find the other. Fuck maybe she shouldn't be a teacher, if this was the result. Still, she was probably the closest person that could do something. “Winter, where are you?”
It was utter chaos at Thea's house. Winter had tried to do something good for once in her life and look where it had gotten her: in the middle of a poltergeist tantrum that she knew wouldn't end anytime soon. The medium was huddled with the owner of the house inside of a closet in Thea's room after calling Lil to come meet them, Henry crouched down next to them if only to be a source of comfort while the ghost outside continued to throw things around. Loud thumps sounded against the door, the wood cracking under the weight of whatever objects were being thrown their way, when she heard another thud join in followed by the sound of her mentor's voice calling out for her.
“Oh, thank god.” Or...thank Lil, anyway. “Do you think we can slip out while it's on a rampage?” She wasn't sure who her question was directed towards, Thea or Henry, but she knew that there was only one answer for it. Either Winter had to yell loud enough for Lil to hear her above the racket the ghost was making or she had to face the thing that was outside trying desperately to get its claws into her...or whatever it was that ghosts did to harm others.
“I don't think there's any way to distract it?” Henry finally said it out loud and Winter let out a guttural sound, knowing this wasn't going to go her way no matter what she did. “Hopefully Lil will hear us if we both yell.” Her gaze turned to Thea, Winter not wanting to risk letting her go out there as much as she didn't want to risk herself. Thea couldn't even see it, she would be at a complete disadvantage. “On three we both yell for her. Maybe this thing will be concentrating on trying to get to us hard enough to allow her to stop it?”
She didn't know if that would work but they had to try. If they didn't do something soon the damage to Thea's house would be too much to repair. She'd already seen a huge chunk missing from the girl's bedroom wall before they locked themselves in with her clothes. “Alright...1,2, 3.” She took in a deep breath before screaming the other medium's name at the top of her lungs, making the poltergeist even angrier. The door started to rattle even harder, Winter knowing it didn't have long before the wood splintered completely and exposed them both.
Thea held her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth. She’d tried Wizard of Oz—knocking her feet together, mumbling that there’s no place like home—but that hadn’t worked. And why would it have? This was her home. Well, if the sorry state of her bedroom was any indication, it wouldn’t be her home for long. Tears streamed down her blotchy red cheeks. What was the name of the person Winter had called? It was something like Lola? Fuck. “Uh, okay. Fuck. Okay. On three? Okay…” Thea counted along with winter and bellowed in tandem, “Lauren!” Thea winced at the shrillness of their voices. Outside the closet they were huddled in, which was thankfully quite spacious, the thing—ghost, poltergeist, extremely elaborate and kinda mean prank—raged, throwing her furniture around like a tornado, taking chunks of her house with every loud clang and shuddering crack. “Lettuce! Little! I don’t know, whoever the fuck…” A crack splintered through the wood of the closet and Thea shrekied, flattening herself against her sweaters. “Help me Obi Lil Kenobi, you’re my only ho!” Humor was great for mitigating the horror that quivered through her.
“Winter…” Thea turned to her companion. “I-If we die I just want to say that I’m really sorry. For inviting you here…and, uh, also that your parents named you after a season. At least you’re not ‘Summer’, right?” She offered a thin smile, eyes watery. She really hoped Luna would be coming soon.
Lil, ironically, couldn't hear the ghost much. Sure the whooshing sounds were loud as it shook the door her eyes focused on hearing two people screaming - well one was Winter saying her name at least. If she hadn’t been so focused she would have laughed as the other seemed to not know who she was. It was easy to locate them and she moved through the house to where the screaming was happening. It wasn’t hard, the ghost throwing everything that the owner had around the room. It was pissed - and she wondered what the fuck Winter had done.
That was for later Lil to figure out. Now she had to make sure that the two screaming for her were okay. When it was between a teachable moment and safety, she was always going to choose the safe one.
Turning the corner and hearing a crash she realized what was going on. Cursing under her breath for a moment she turned back ground the corner dropping her back and pulling the chalk and salt she had she sighed knowing that this was going to suck and she was about to get thrown by a ghost again before she leaned over to draw a circle on the ground hoping whoever owned the house wouldn’t mind. If she annoyed it right she could get it to push her back to the circle and trap it.
Hearing the crash and knowing that she had to move quick Lil moved quickly calling out, “ I’m here. Sit tight guys. I’m going to get it. Ghost in there with Winter - get away from the door I don’t want you caught in what I’m about to do. Winter this fucker’s going to try to body hop ask your ghost friend in there to stop it from trying please!” She knew it was dumb but her handful of salt was going to at least stop the poltergeist from getting through that door. Still, if she asked the ghost who was attached to her to help, she might also be able to protect the not medium friend from getting jumped.
“Hey asshole! Get away from the fucking door idiot I’m the exorcist. You'd better pay attention to me. Cause I’m the one that’s going to hurt you,” Lil bellowed, moving towards the door, moving to spread the salt in a line before facing a very pissed off poltergeist. Good. She was better at handling an annoyed ghost than anything else and she wasn’t in the mood.
“Thea, we’re not going to die, get that out of your head right now.” Winter decided to ignore the comments about her name, now was not the time to go into her regular spiel about it. She knew she had pissed off this poltergeist but with Lil’s warning she now realized it was trying to get to the other girl for more nefarious purposes. Her eyes cut to Henry who shrugged, obviously not sure how to go about keeping the poltergeist at bay. “I don’t know! Just get in front of her and try not to let it through you!” Poor Henry looked exasperated but did as he was told, standing in front of the cowering girls and directly behind the door that was now opening wider from the split with each blow from the other ghost. It was ignoring Lil altogether, not surprising considering the goal.
She started to scan the contents of the closet, trying to find anything she could use to deter the ghost but it was highly unlikely she would be able to put the contents of the small space to use. Why hadn’t she bought her iron bracelet yet? She’d only wanted it to keep Henry away but she should have known coming into something like this she might need something other than the salt. “Thea, you don’t have anything that’s made of iron in here, do you?” It was a long shot but Winter was desperate. After seeing the state of the other’s room before shutting themselves in here she knew this was no ghost to tussle with and who knew how long it could take Lil to get inside.
“We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die…” Thea repeated as she rocked back and forth; the thought was not getting out of her head. Was the afterlife nice? Would she still be lactose intolerant in the afterlife? She hoped not; she’d really love heaven mac and cheese. Oh, who was she kidding? She was not going to heaven. She didn’t know the girl on the outside; Loba, Lora, Lasagna, whoever she was. She didn’t know if she could trust her or what she looked like or she was the one that facilitated the strange prank, but Thea realized quickly that she didn’t have a choice. She had to trust Laryngitis. “Body hop?” Thea turned to Winter. “Is that--that doesn’t sound fun.”
Her ears burned at the suggestion of iron. Quickly, she reached up into her small assortment of coats. “Yes, actually, I went to this vintage shop and…” She trailed off, deciding that Winter didn’t need the history. She’d found something with the cutest little buttons: iron, as she’d later found out. She ripped them all off, thrusting two towards Winter as she shoved the rest under the closet doors. “Those are iron buttons, Lactose!” she called out.
She didn’t know what they would be good for, but now wasn’t the time to question anything.
Lil realized after a moment it still wasn’t really noticing her the anger still not directed at her. Fuck. She’d have to do a backup plan - and she’d have to ask Winter what the hell they’d done to make it so angry that Lil couldn’t automatically pose a threat. Still, she moved into the swirling hurricane of a spirit. Figuring it might just be easier to get it trapped when she wasn’t the main object. It was harder to make a circle, the spirit’s motion closer to a hurricane then something Lil should reasonably get closer too.
Still, she gritted her teeth and pushed on dropping to the floor to do so and trying to not pay attention to the screams of the other two. Sighing and knowing that there was a chance she was about to get thrown she moved in front of the ghost completing the circle as it suddenly realized Lil was there.
“Oh fuck you man I gave you a warning -” Lil said suddenly being pushed away as it realized the circle was there, an object hitting her as she yelped ducking again before putting her hand on her necklace, starting to chant as the ghost now realized what Lil was. She was just glad she couldn’t hear what the hell the spirit was saying, curling into a ball and speaking as clearly as she could.
The question of body hopping momentarily had Winter stumped, not really sure what to say to the already terrified girl next to her. She could make it worse if she tried to explain so she just shook her head as the ghost kept crashing into the door. “I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s nothing really, just keep coming up with weird names for Lil. Lettuce…was pretty?” How the hell did someone comfort another during this situation? Or at all? Henry looked back at her, clearly wondering what the hell Winter was on about, but turned his attention to the door as it finally cracked completely open.
His hands were up in an instant, doing his best to hold back the furious poltergeist as it fought to get to Thea, but he wasn’t as strong as the other ghost. Shockingly, the other girl came through with the iron, Winter grateful as the cold hit her hands. She scooted so that she was in front of Thea and held out the buttons towards the two ghosts knowing that Henry was seconds from losing his grip on the other.
But Lil, sweet beautiful Lil, finished the circle around the ghost just before Henry got thrown to the other side of it slamming against the wall that was containing both of the girls. She watched through the cracks as the medium got thrown, Winter yelping the girl’s name in hopes of getting an answer. Luckily, her answer came in the form of chanting that the other medium didn’t understand but knew had to be some sort of saving grace for them all.
That was when the room started to shake. Her eyes widened as the poltergeist’s anger really started to manifest around them, clearly not enjoying the fact that it was trapped and close to being taken out. Lamps exploding, furniture being thrown through the plaster of the walls, a curtain now on fire from the sparks of electricity, it was turning into hell in that bedroom and if they didn’t get out soon it would end in tragedy. “Lil, please hurry!”
“I’m kinda out of words that start with L!” Thea admitted with a slight embarrassment. “What did you say? Lil? Is it because she’s little? That’s kinda mean, Winter.” It was worse than Lettuce, in her opinion. But Thea shut her eyes, recognizing that she had nothing to really offer her but her company—which wasn’t much. Winter moved closer to her, holding up the buttons, and Thea tried not to think (which was something she’d never been very good at).
If she died here, would she have lived a good life? Probably not. If the roof fell in on her, could she say she was happy? No, absolutely not. In her youth, Thea penned a list of her aspirations: go to university, get a degree, have a wife, be an astronaut. How could she quantify her life? She hadn’t done anything; she hadn’t become anyone. She was just Thea, in a closet, trying not to cry and having already failed at that. “Lady! Location! Loaf! Lion! Lamp!” She screeched the words, summoning them from the depths; that part of her that had really loved Scrabble. “I want to live,” Thea yelled, “I want to get out of here! End it! Finish it! Save us!” Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.
Lil concentrated on the words, keeping the chant up as the house shook ignoring the other’s who were asking her to finish it. It wasn’t out of malice or that she didn’t care - Lil cared a lot but at the moment the chant was more important. A sudden glow happened as she pulled herself back up looking at the poltergeist a focus that in day-to-day life Lil never had.
In the middle of chaos Lil often found some sort of peace, something she wasn’t particularly found in exploring as she watched from the ground her hand gripping her necklace she looked absolutely calm in the moment as she reached the end of the chant seeing the poltergeist looking screaming mad.
The floor shook the weird tornado of things swirling around trying to hit Lil and then suddenly there was a light - and like everything else in her life things crashed down.
Then suddenly it was quiet - at least for Lil, she didn’t know what the poltergeist said looking at her and disappearing. For a moment she said nothing until she called out “You two okay - You can come out now.”
Lil’s voice was a little weaker than she liked it to be and there was a bruise forming where a lamp hit her, but other than that she was pretty sure the living room took most of the beating. “And my name Is Lil - Winter what the hell happened here?”
“It’s because that’s her name!” Why was this girl so insistent on yelling out everything that started with an L? They were kind of busy trying not to die! But it didn’t help that she was starting to lose it too so Winter took a breath to try and calm her nerves. Thea had no idea what was going on here, she couldn’t blame her for trying to concentrate on something else entirely.
She could hear commotion outside the door and she peaked through the crack again to see what was going on. The poltergeist was angry as Lil continued to chant but then there was a light and the crash of all of the belongings floating through the air. The ghost was gone with a simple “But it’s my house…” Everything was calm with the exception of the fire that had started the flicker of the flames glowing through the crack in the door, which prompted Winter to crawl out of the enclosed space as quickly as she could.
Standing, the girl tried her best to look composed as she smoothed over her shirt but she wouldn’t meet Lil’s eyes. “I thought I could handle it. I didn’t know it was a poltergeist.” There was no shame lacing her words, more like defiance, but she sure as hell felt it along with the relief that had taken over her panic. A headache was forming as her adrenaline started to rush out of her body but there was something else to worry about here. “I think we’re okay though…Thea, are you okay?”
She looked back at the open closet door, watching Henry as he got to his feet and moved out. Then her eyes went to the person who actually lived in this house. “We might want to get out of here and call the fire department…”
Smoke was all Thea could smell. It was almost comforting, like autumn nights by a crackling fire, almost. She burst out of the closet, crawling around the floor. After going around another torn floorboard, Thea pushed herself up. Her room was a mess; as if a localized tornado had run through, splintering and pulling everything in its path. “I’m sorry I called you ‘lettuce’,” Thea said to the woman who’d saved them—Lil. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and hoped neither woman noticed, but knew that they had. Winter and Lil couldn’t have been that much older than her and still, somehow, she felt like a kid. Still, somehow, she felt like this was her fault. “Winter was trying to help me,” Thea said; she wasn’t going to dissect the ‘poltergeist’ part of Winter’s sentence. “And she did! I probably would’ve been crushed, since she’s the one who insisted it might be ghosts. And I guess it was ghosts. So, yeah, Winter helped me.” Thea felt the need to defend Winter to Lil, it didn’t sound like Lil was scolding Winter, but there was some sort of dynamic between them that pushed up her need to soothe turbulence.
“Am I okay?” Thea pointed to herself, incredulous. “Is she okay?” She pointed at Lil, and the bruise forming. “Are you okay?” she asked Winter, expecting that the answer for all of them was a ‘no’ that they’d lie about and call a ‘yes, I am okay’. “Do you think I’ll get my deposit back?” As Thea asked, the ceiling cracked and a small section of drywall and insulation fell into the flames. “Okay, maybe not.” She turned her attention back to them. It was a small miracle that her important documents were with Van—now who was being financially irresponsible by renting out a room she didn’t need? It was less of a miracle that some things she loved were still here: the coat she’d come into Maine with, bits of jewelry, shoes and memories. Despite all its faults, she’d loved this house. It was the place that had made her feel normal. Now, it was anything but. She was cursed; this was all her fault.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, pushing out of the room. The door had been ripped from the wall, thrown into one of her roommate’s rooms—who wasn’t here, because they were never here. “Let’s get out of here.”
