Chapter Text
“I’m perfectly capable of hammering in a few nails without help,” Oscar muttered.
He placed one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder for good measure. He could do this himself. He'd show Zolf that he could be useful; he wouldn’t be dead weight during this renovation.
He shifted his weight onto the foot that was on the bottom run, bracing himself with his empty hand. The ladder creaked worryingly. Oscar took a deep breath. The shutters needed to be fixed before guests could occupy this wing of the manor. The rooms were drafty and cold, as expected in an old house that had been so neglected, and making sure the shutters were in place and closing correctly would help keep the freezing winds out.
Oscar gripped the next rung. His fingers were stiff, even with his gloves his hands were chilled through. He could do this; he could get some work done while Zolf was busy with lunch without disturbing him or making a mistake. It had been both of their decisions to turn the manor into a bed and breakfast rather than sell the place, so he had to do his share.
Three-fourths of the way up, one of the rungs came loose and he foundered for a few terrifying seconds as he reached for the next one. He tried not to look down as he waited for his breathing to slow. The ground below him seemed far away, hidden beneath a layer of snow. With the wind whipping around him, it wasn’t hard to imagine that they were clouds, and if he were to fall, he would fall for miles.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the window just above him. He’d opened all of the windows on this floor so that he could lay the shutters across the sills; one less thing to carry up with him. They were teetering ominously in the wind. Quickly, he made his way up the last few feet, grabbed onto the frame of the window, and put the hammer he’d been lugging up with him on top of the shutters, weighing them down.
See, there hadn’t been anything to worry about. He began inspecting the outer frame of the window, finding the holes where the shutters must have been hung previously. He pulled a nail from his pocket and lined it up. He set his feet on the ladder and carefully balanced, holding the nail and raising the hammer. A noise came from inside the room, making him jump. The ladder came away from the wall and he lost his balance. He dropped the hammer and heard it crunch into the snow below. He put out both of his hands and caught the window sill just in time. The ladder set itself back with a thud. Oscar’s eyes scanned the room, but there was nothing there.
“Zolf?” he called into the empty space, but there was no reply from the hall beyond.
With his heart beating wildly in his ears, he let out a relieved chuckle. Zolf would never let him live it down if he had fallen off of the ladder due to being scared by some noise. He wasn’t scared of some old manor, no matter how many people had died here over its hundreds of years of history. It was old, and old houses made noises. The scariest thing here was the asbestos they’d had to remove before moving in. He scanned the room once more. Just dust and out of date furniture. Right, he needed to get the hammer.
He looked down and placed his foot carefully on the rung below…
The ladder swung away from the window like it had been pushed…
The window was suddenly smaller than it had been…
His hair was rushing into his face…
His back was very cold and a voice was calling for him…
His head hurt and there were faces in the window…
His vision momentarily focused, blurry and black around the edges, on those faces and then all went dark.
Voices, soft and far away. The scent of stinging chemicals and a space kept too clean. A snore.
Oscar came back slowly into his body. It ached. Especially his neck. He raised his hand, trying to move the blankets that were keeping him trapped, but stopped when he felt the uncomfortable tug of a needle. He opened one eye and surveyed the room.
Hospital, he must be in the hospital. Only one place had walls this bland and uninviting. A head full of hair as white as the bed sheets was resting against his thigh. So Zolf was the source of the snores. One mystery solved. Careful of the IV in his hand, Oscar reached forward and brushed the top of Zolf’s head.
With a snort, Zolf jolted awake. “Wha’s it?” Zolf turned his head, an imprint of the sheet along his cheek, “Oscar, thank goodness you’re awake.”
“H-hey, Zolf.” He tried to sit up, but his neck twinged in protest. Something heavy and plastic was keeping it firmly held in place. He groaned in discomfort. “Maybe it’s best if I go back to sleep.”
Zolf lunged forward and took his free hand with a note of panic. A copy of When Passions Collide slid to the floor as he moved. Oh dear, so things had been bad.
“No, no, it’s good you’re awake. You had a bad fall, Oscar. The doctors said you’d be alright after a rest, but I thought…”
“I’m fine.” Zolf raised an eyebrow above a watery eye. “Ok, not fine, but alive.” He smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile at his partner. “What happened? I remember being on the ladder, then cold? Voices and faces? Then nothing.”
“I don’t know. I came around to ask you about lunch and you were laying in the snow, not–not movin’. If you’d fallen any further, you’d have impaled yourself on the garden fence.” Zolf grimaced, “What were you thinkin’ climbing up there without help?”
Oscar’s gaze slipped to the machines beeping the echoes of his life. “I was trying to get some extra work done. There’s so much to do before we can open and I should be able to get some of it done without you hovering.”
“Well, you’ll be very helpful now.” The sarcasm was clear, but there was an undercurrent of worry and fear in Zolf’s words.
Oscar sighed and started to apologise, but the door of the room suddenly opened and Oscar was greeted with an enthusiastic “Hello!” from a bright faced and chipper nurse. The topic was temporarily dropped as the nurse began a barrage of tests which tested Oscar’s patience.
“Doctor’s orders: rest, regular meals, and no stress.”
“Yes, yes, gods forbid I even look at an email?” Oscar leaned heavily on Zolf’s arm as he got out of the car. He was feeling better with plenty of rest at the hospital and the prescription he’d been given to manage the pain, but the neck brace meant any change in direction felt awkward. He couldn’t even see his toes while wearing it! He wanted to rip it off and burn it in the nearest fireplace, which conveniently, was now only a hundred feet away in the parlour.
Zolf scowled at him. “I know you get antsy when you don’t have somethin’ to do, but if you don’t rest, the doctor said there could be complications. Concussions are serious business, Oscar. This one’s already turned your hair such a fetching shade of white.”
Oscar turned to reply with a scathing retort, but he caught a hint of movement in one of the windows on the first floor. For a moment, he thought that he had seen a figure standing there looking down at them. Ridiculous, of course, Zolf wouldn’t have let anyone in the house while they were away. Perhaps he should rest.
Keeping a hold of Zolf’s arm, Oscar slowly made his way into the house, up the stairs to their bedroom off of the first floor landing, and carefully rolled himself onto the bed. Unlike the rest of the house, it had been fully renovated so that they could sleep there without catching their death of cold at night or falling through a floor board. The only other room that was equally restored was the kitchen because Zolf had refused to turn on the oven until all of the old appliances had been replaced.
“No point in remodelin’ the manor into a bed and breakfast if we blow the whole thing up in a kitchen accident first,” Zolf had remarked. Oscar could hear him clattering about in there right now. While the kitchen had been repaired, the pipes in the rest of the house still made a racket anytime the taps were turned on. Except…it sounded like some of the clattering was coming from the hallway.
Bracing himself for the pain, Oscar rolled over. He couldn’t see anything from his position on the bed and decided it was best to close his eyes and wait for Zolf to bring his tea. If there was some new problem in the hallway, he had been very clearly instructed not to do anything about it. The clanging sound came again, this time closer to the door. It wouldn’t hurt too much to look, what if it was an emergency? And if it was something minor, he could take care of it before Zolf even knew.
Oscar scooted himself off of the bed, wincing only once as his neck bit into the side of the brace, and peeked out of the door. A dusty rug and a few tools littered the hallway where the renovation team had left them several days ago. There was also, curiously, a suit of armor between the doors of the bedrooms across the hall that he didn’t remember being there. Even more curiously, it was missing its head.
Where had it come from? Zolf hadn’t mentioned moving anything out of the attic and he hadn’t seen it elsewhere in the house. Perhaps the builders had unearthed it from one of the crawl spaces and put it in the hall? It was a strange looking suit; huge and gaudy with falcons decorating every piece. Ridiculous in every way and not at all matching with the aesthetic he was hoping to bring to the Hope & Heart. He’d have to ask the builders to throw it away along with the bizarre taxidermy dog they’d found in one of the bedrooms; it would not be staying in the hallway.
He tapped the chest piece. Oscar’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. It didn’t sound hollow. Stepping closer and manoeuvring his neck to the right angle, he peered down into the armor. A ragged, bloody stump sat where a hole should be.
Oscar gasped and stumbled backwards, his head swimming in pain as it whipped back in shock. He braced himself for an impact with the wall behind him, but instead he felt a huge metal hand wrap around his arm. He screamed.
“Oscar?” came Zolf’s questioning call from the kitchen below.
Panicking, Oscar tried to get himself free of the suit. The hand let go and he fled back to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
“The doctor said that hallucinations were possible,” he mumbled to himself. He listened as footsteps quickly clanged their way down the hallway away from his door. “Visual as well as auditory. That’s all this is–ah!”
A knock sounded on the door. “Oscar, you alright? I heard you yell.”
Oscar sighed in relief. It was only Zolf. This was utterly embarrassing; first falling off the ladder so that he had to be taken care of, and now being spooked by his own mind.
“Yes, Zolf. I just...uh…bumped my head on the headboard while I was trying to move the pillows around.”
“Oh, and you’re sure you’re alright? That was a loud yell…” Zolf didn’t sound very convinced by his lie.
“Yes, Zolf, I’m fine,” he barked, a little more angrily than he’d meant.
“Right, right. I’ll leave you alone then.”
Oscar rested his head against the door. They’d been home for ten minutes and he was already getting testy with Zolf. This situation was so frustrating. There was another knock at the door.
He ground his teeth together and opened the door with mild fury. “Zolf! I told you…”
There were people standing in the doorway. A great crowd of people including, Oscar noticed, the headless suit of armor. In the front of the pack stood a halfling man with brown skin and a burned and antique robe. The air smelled strongly of smoke, which he had once read was a sign of a stroke. The man held out his hand and smiled warmly.
“Hello there! We are very sorry to disturb you after what must have been a terrible accident, but since you seem to be able to see my friend Bertie there,” the man pointed at the suit of armor, which waved, “I really thought it best to introduce myself. Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
As if on autopilot, Oscar moved to shake the outstretched hand. Rather than meeting a firm handshake, his hand passed right through the offered one, sending a chill along his arm. Hamid, Oscar had registered his name through the utter absurdity of this situation, shuttered as well.
“Ah yes, sorry about that,” he apologised. “We’ve never had a case of a person who was still alive being able to see us, so Cel did wonder if you could touch us as well.”
“Fascinating stuff, really!” said a tall, blond haired elf from the back of the group. “We’ll have to run a few more experiments, but this could change our whole understanding of the afterlife!”
“I–I’m sorry,” Oscar stammered as he inspected his hand. He must be having a stroke. No hallucination could be so real. “A–afterlife?”
“Oh yes,” Hamid confirmed, cheerfully. “You see, we’re all ghosts! This land has been haunted for almost 3000 years since Azu died. So we’re all going to be roommates; isn’t that grand?”
The group all nodded their heads excitedly in agreement. For the second time that week, Oscar blacked out.