Pale Green eyes stared up at the huge white house that her father had just bought, she stood next to her sister Lydia, both of them with slight frowns on their faces as they watched people bringing things inside, their father and step mother giving orders...well more Delia was giving orders. As Alma and Lydia stood together, the realtor pulled up to them, Jane Butterfield and her daughter, little Jane Butterfield. "Oh girls! I forgot to give this to your father, could you make sure that they get it?" She asked as she held out a skeleton key to the girls, Alma reached out and took the key, looking over the interesting design of it before pocketing it.
"Hey, how did they die?" Lydia asked suddenly.
"They drown." Said the little girl in the back, her mother going on about how they had been family, though Alma wasn't listening after that.
"Yeah, I'll make sure that they get it." Alma lied before they turned and walked away, heading for the chaos that was their new home. As the two teenagers were walking, Alma froze suddenly and grabbed one of Lydia's arms, her eyes glued on the house, specifically the window to the attic.
Lydia looked over to her sister and gave her a small frown, the fact that neither of them were exactly touchy made it rather odd that her sister grabbed her suddenly. When she saw how focused on the attic that Alma was, she looked over to the window and swore that she could see people standing up there, hiding behind the blinds. Lifting up her camera, she quickly took a picture, but the blinds had already swung closed. "Just the workers putting stuff up there." She said with a shrug of her shoulders before she started to head inside.
Alma stood there for a moment longer before she finally moved forward and started to head inside, the skeleton key in her hand held tightly.
"Do you think that they saw us?" Barbara asked as they watched the two teens walking inside, the red haired one watching the window for a bit longer than the other, she had been looking right at them.
"No, there's no way that they saw us." Adam said with a shake of his head.
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Three months later
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Alma and Lydia were sitting in Lydia's room when they suddenly heard moaning and groaning coming from the next room over. "God, they could at least keep it down and stay in their room." Alma said with a roll of her eyes as Lydia got to her feet and started to pound on the wall.
"Knock it off! There are children in this room!" She yelled before she grabbed her polaroid camera and they both hurried to the hall to catch them in the act.
As soon as the two sheeted figures walked into the hallway, Lydia started to take pictures. "What kind of weird stuff are you guys doing? You know, we live here too, you could keep your gross stuff to yourselves." Alma said, her nose wrinkled up before each girl picked up one of the polaroids that had fallen to the floor. "I don't think that's dad and Delia."
"Holy cow, no feet." Lydia said as she looked back up at the sheeted ghosts in front of them.
"Wait...you two can see us?" Adam asked as he looked over at Barbara and then back to the two girls.
"Yeah. Maybe it's because we read that book." Lydia said as Alma took the book out of the black satchel she had at her side, revealing the Handbook For The Recently Deceased.
"You've read our book?" Adam asked, getting a yeah from both of them. "You can follow it?" He asked, eyes wide behind his glasses and the sheet that still covered him.
"Yeah. Why were you guys creeping around in Delia's bedroom?" Lydia asked as she put her camera down and picked up the other pictures that she had taken.
"Well, we were trying to scare your mother." Adam said simply.
"Stepmother. Anyway, you can't scare her. She's sleeping with Prince Valium tonight." Alma said with a small wrinkle of her nose as Delia was called their mother.
A bit later, the four of them were in the attic when Lydia turned to Adam and Barbara. "Are you the guys hiding out in the attic?" She asked them.
"We're ghosts!" Adam said as he looked over to the two unfazed girls
"What do you look like under there?" Alma asked as she tilted her head to the side slightly, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"Aren't you scared?" Adam asked, looking over to his wife before looking back to the living again.
"We're not scared of sheets. Are you gross under there? Are you "Night of the Living Dead" under there? Like all bloody veins and pus?" Lydia asked, a look of interest in her eyes, wondering why they had covered up.
"Night of the what?" Adam asked.
"Living Dead. It's a movie." The girls said together.
"You know, if I had seen a ghost at your age I would have been scared out of my wits." Barbara said with a small frown on her face.
"Maybe that's why we can see you? We've read through that handbook for the recently deceased. It says: 'live people ignore the strange and unusual. We, ourselves, are strange and unusual." Alma said as she looked over to the book and then over to Lydia, she knew that they could see ghosts a long time before this house.
The Maitlands looked over to each other before taking off the sheets that they were wearing. "Huh....a lot more normal than I was expecting." Lydia said, Alma nodding along with her. "If you are real ghosts, you guys better get another routine because those sheets, they don't work." She added before the two left, leaving the Maitlands laughing softly for the first time in a long time.
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The Next Day
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The next day, Alma and Lydia decided that they would each go after a different adult to try and get them to change their minds about living here. Lydia went to talk to Delia while Alma went to talk to their father.
"Dad, we need to move out, this place is haunted." Alma said as she stood before her father, though he was pretty much ignoring her as he fiddled with his bird mounts.
"Right, haunted, look sweetie, next time you and Lydia want to play ghosts, make sure that daddy isn't on a call with Maxie Dean." Charles said as he turned to face his eldest daughter finally.
Alma frowned and gave a small stomp of her foot. "That wasn't us! That was the ghosts!"
"Pumpkin.... sweetheart...." Charles moved closer to Alma and gave her a kiss on the forehead before pushing her out of his study. "Go help your mother." He said before closing the door.
"Well maybe you can relax in a haunted house, but I can't!" Alma said before stomping off, headed downstairs to see if Lydia had any better luck.
