Frightful First Phantasms
There’s a pile of bones in these corners that I call friends.
There are such times I wish for them to reach out and touch me to make my mind sure that I am no more of a figment than their voices are. They speak to me, traipsing along the peeling wallpaper, their vocal vibrations making them flutter to the ground. Dusty, torn and mischievously rolled-up carpets haphazardly covered the old mahogany floors. I miss those hallways, for I haven’t left this bedroom in years.
I dream often of my friends that fill every floor in this mansion.
Perhaps that is where my peers have vanished; Alfonso, our first frightful phantasm, lost to the underworld of plaster and paper. He was a gentle soul who loved our mansion and cared for us as a biographer and historian. I believe he is crumpled in the living room; here, often I hear the oxymoronic raging roar of his fireplace.
Now that I reminisce, I can recall how much Alfonso liked our cleaner, Ferdinand. They used to roam those hallowed halls together until he grew too old from grief and sunk deeply into the crevices of those carpets. He seems to be less gentle than Alfonso, for last, I saw, he would curl his carpets to make those that may wander join him in death.
If any would deign wander the darkened halls, that is, for Ferdinand’s schemes benefit from Lysandre’s absence. Or, more specifically, his intermittent presence.
Lysandre was the listless electrician who found great comfort in Herald’s Mansion and its grandeur and camaraderie. He now spends his time giving those that remain frights as he flicks his filaments throughout our ancient home. Much to my chagrin, I struggle vastly to write this final document. I sure wish I could make use of Alfonso’s flame.
Lysander was convinced to stay around long after his shifts, eventually sharing a room permanently with his partner Phillipe, our carpenter and painter.
They spent much time together, making Herald’s Mansion what it is today; a beautiful and rustic bastion of our friendship and companionship. At least it was.
I liked Philippe; he had always such a dexterous and determined hand in painting these walls, although similarly strange is that I never once saw his phantasmal implications. These walls and his paint strokes aged just as they would without him; I’m afraid I’ll never find out what his spirit gets up to. I think I have my dearest and secretive groundskeeper to thank for that, and I do so daily with the flowers that still bloom despite his disappearance.
His name was Eustace, and he was the only one I did not kill.
I write this document in my occasional light to leave on my bed tonight for those that remain. Alfonso, as you’ve already heard, was my first phantasm.
I chose the sweetest and least necessary to leave us first.
He spent most of his time in the auburn-flavoured living room, working on his scribblings. Often enough distracted turning over the firewood to better see his letters, until I pushed him in with his failed works.
Ferdinand was the first to notice his absence and his phantasmal results as he sat where his friend once did as the fires would spontaneously erupt. He would speak to it as he would his friend, much into his later years, where I would have to help him to his chair. Travelling over the very same carpets, he would straighten and dust until he snagged an unruly section, and I did my best not to catch his fall.
Since that night, none sits in the hallways talking to the carpet as if it was Ferdinand, but they know it is him when they must be doubly careful walking along it. None wearier about chaotic carpet than Lysandre and Phillipe, who worked along it.
Lysandre’s demise was trivial to orchestrate, a simple flip of a breaker at the most opportune moment. The most difficulty I faced was having to space both of their deaths within the same twenty-four hours; call it a bout of sympathy after watching Ferdinand struggle so intensely. It is either that or borne from empathy earned from meetings between Eustace and me discussing their burials. A plot of land conveniently close to where Philippe had his ladder pulled out from under him just as the power surged to life, ending their lives and creating their new ones at the same time.
When I whispered our names in his final moments, I understood his desperation, for Lancelot and Eustace did sound very swell together.
Simply, I must now be honest: I did fall in love, which is why I must be fair to both him and those that remain. I slightly mislead you all. Alfonso was our first frightful phantasm to be created, yes, but I was the first to exist.
I am Herald, and Lancelot was only a means to an end, the last of my inhabitants of over a century ago. A body to walk around my mansion once more, only to find unexpected life and love.
To those that remain, please find the rest of my work scattered amongst the mansion.
My now two lives were lived in dire search and understanding as to why this house holds such power in it, why phantasms thrive in these walls.
I implore you to figure out these secrets better than I could.
