Super Princess Peach

Ch. 16, Pt. 2

Dinner that night was better than usual. At least, for the toads it was. The pucker bud soup was a little bit tastier, and the toads were merrily sipping down bottle after bottle of Chateau wine in wooden cups. Peach sniffed the purple liquid and cringed away, the slight smell of alcohol burning her nostrils. She and Perry drank water instead. 

They discussed the accomplishments in the remodeling they'd done this morning. Toadonelly and his team were congratulated on their beautiful work of making cups and bowls and the table and benches. Toaday was thanked for discovering the wine cellar. Toadum was cheered on for repairing and strengthening the roof and fixing the front door.

Toader, however, was very quiet at dinner. He was usually snapping and griping with his friends Toadonelly and Toadkins. 

"What's wrong, Toader?" Peach asked him. 

"Oh, nothing, Princess," Toader sighed, sipping some wine. "I'm just...scared, I guess." 

Peach didn't know what to say. Lieutenant Toader, scared? He was by far the most fearless of the toad squadron. What could he possibly be afraid of? 

"Scared of what?" the princess asked. 

Toader bit his lip. "I'm startin' to think...that the house may be haunted." 

"Haunted? You think so?" Peach wondered if maybe the wine was going to his head. 

Toader nodded. "Yeah. While I was polishin' the doors today, I swear that I could hear giggling around the house. I got scared and ran to the bathroom to clean my face so that I could snap out of it. I wiped my face and looked into the mirror...and saw the face of a ghost in there." 

"The face of a ghost?" Isn't that what Toaddette had seen in the bedroom mirror earlier that day?  

Toader nodded again, blushing in embarrassment. "Yeah, I know. Stupid right?" He grabbed a bottle of Chateau and poured more into his mug. 

Peach frowned. That was two times her toads had sworn that they'd heard or seen a ghost. And...hadn't she heard giggling last night before she'd gone to bed? She remembered the hammering of her heart and how she'd clenched her Vibe Necklace. Could the house actually be haunted after all?

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After dinner, everyone got in line to take a short bath and then went to bed.  

Peach slipped off her boots before she retreated to bed with Toaddette and Perry. The umbrella had worked very hard that day, acting as a bucket to hold water so that the toads and Peach could scrub the house down. He was now very exhausted, and he fell asleep as soon as he hit the pillow. Toaddette was tired from her scare earlier that day, and slept easily as well. 

Peach squeezed in between them and lay on the pillow. They'd gotten so much done that day. The house looked better than it probably had in the last decade or so. Everyone had worked very hard. Peach was proud of them all.

As she drifted off to sleep, Peach dreamed of ghostly white figures that swirled around the house, eagerly waiting as if for the right moment to pounce on prey. 

Peach jerked awake in the middle of the night to the sound of the house creaking as rain pounded on the roof. Underneath the staccato of rainfall, she swore she heard a faint giggling sound.  

Slowly, Peach sat up in bed, disturbing Toaddette, who in turn let out a snort. Peach gazed around the room and froze when her eyes moved in front of the door. 

There, standing beside the dusted bookcases, was a ghostly figure. The transparent apparition had a round face with lush lips and huge, deer-like eyes. She was wearing a long dress and boots and was covered with a sweeping cloak. Under her hood, long, flowing hair spilled out. 

It was...Peach!