Being Undead

Chapter 7*

It was hard to tell the difference between day and night in the Undead Mansion. The curtains were always down so no natural light entered into it; the sources of illumination coming from candles lit along the hallways like it was the middle ages alongside one giant, nineteenth century-looking electric bulb in every room.

But the only actual way to tell time in the house was the foyer's oakwood grandfather clock; and it would have even been harder to differentiate its a.m from p.m hours if not someone had taken the effort to install a digital a.m/p.m display board at its side.

The first day Laura slept in the mansion, she had actually forgotten to drop down the curtains- her mortal habit still at work- but by the time she woke up, she realised someone had dropped it for her. Frederick, she presumed, the thought of him creeping through her room like Santa Claus while she slept to drop the curtains immediately bringing a smile to her face.

Another thing of notice was that while work had been the centre of Laura's life previously, it wasn't the same in the mansion. In fact, she had been strictly instructed to remain indoors doing nothing; an instruction given and seen to by her newly appointed charge, Damian.

But what he didn't know was that Laura had never adhered to doing nothing and so, unknown to him, she focused her attention on an unofficial detective work: finding out who Daniel was.

Now, much as she pried, none of the undeads in the mansion was able to tell her anything about Daniel. It was almost as if he didn't exist in their minds, or more likely, they had been sworn to secrecy. In fact, Laura could just imagine Damian standing in the shadows and threatening to kill them if they so much as breathe a word about it whenever she popped the question.

Laura was still going about her investigation when she suddenly ran into a punk-dressed female undead, Alyssa; Aly for short. "Hey, Laura," she said the moment they met, "What do you think about parties?"

"What?" She looked confused.

"Do you like parties?" Aly clarified her question. "The mansion's hosting party for this year's Feast of the Undead; I think the mortals call it Halloween for the mortal.  Anyway, I'm told to have a pre-list for everyone in the house before we estimate the outsiders. So, are you interested?"

But Laura had stopped hearing anything after the moment "party at the mansion" was mentioned.

Thing is, a party at the mansion meant many people, and many people tended to notice things, and there was something she was hoping like hell no one would notice: her.

"Are you-"

Laura didn't wait to hear the rest of whatever Aly wanted to say as she took off so fast that she almost collided with the decorators at every turn of the corner. She ran with all her might to the study and pushed open the door before reminding herself that she was supposed to check if Frederick was in there or not.

Fortunately, he was. "Lau-"

"I just heard that you're hosting an Halloween party in the mansion," she cut in like there was fire on the mountain, which to her there was.

But Frederick only sighed in relief. Thing is, he had actually had a worried look on his face for a second when she first barged in.

"Of course," he replied, shrugging like it was the most normal thing in the world. "We're the very epitome of Halloween so it's only logical we celebrate alongside the mortals, isn't it? There's no trick or treating though." He looked genuinely disappointed by that. "Hey, do you wanna help out?"

"Help out?!" Laura screamed like he had just asked her to jaywalk on the world's busiest highway.

"Is there a problem?" Frederick began to look worried again.

"Can't you see?" she returned even though it was obvious he couldn't. "Me! There's going to be a lot of people from outside the family and they'll find out sooner or later that I was turned without the proper screening."

Now, Frederick laughed, much to Laura's infuriation, that is. This idiot, she raved inside, I come to him with a big problem and he's having a comic session.

"Laura, take a seat," Frederick offered her, his laughter done with. "First, people come to a party to eat, not check out who's not supposed to be there. Second, we'll find a story to tell them if they ask anything."

He stood up and walked round the table to hold and caress her shoulders in reassurance. "Relax yourself, my dear," he said, smiling, "Halloween's always a small affair with us undeads."