Almost Like a Prayer

Do It For Him Again

2013

I had figured something had happened

The first time I tried calling him

And was sent to voicemail.

Twelve years after the first time,

The elderly professor had called me back.

Instead of one mansion

There were five.

But with each one

The stakes increased,

As did my sense of foreboding.

My adventure took me

All across the ghostly valley.

First, there was a mansion

Almost like my first one

Except down in the cellar

Awaited a monstrous surprise—

The most vicious spider queen I'd ever seen.

I had to beat it back to realize

That it was the work of a possessor.

Mansion number two

Was clogged with foliage.

I was snapped at

By giant, carnivorous flytraps.

Then a ghost puppy snatched items I needed

And sent me on wild chases to get them back.

Then I found a Toad

Sealed in that artistic prison

And my mind went back to that night

That awful, awful night—

Now I was this Toad's only line of defense

Against the ghosts menacing it

While I tried to get him back into the professor's bunker.

My visit ended up atop a hollow tree

Fighting another possessor

Who'd taken over a staircase.

Easy to beat, really.

It was the game of stairways earlier

That was hard.

I had figured something was wrong

The tenth time I tried calling him

And was sent to voicemail.

Mansion number three

Was all about clocks.

Clock towers, clock makers,

Clock everything.

Brawls in a roundhouse,

Another Toad to free

And an encounter with one ghost

Unlike the others—

One with strange markings.

Markings which made it stronger—