Jessie Delacroix_Fright Night at the Haunted Inn

by Constance Barker

“Thanks, Granny – ‘cuz I really want to see people get their heads chopped off.”

  But I guess it really was the chance of a lifetime to get a real feel for the mood during the French Revolution…and Arthur really would have a lot easier time working his way through the entire crowd quickly.

  We passed some people, young and old in peasant attire, doing a gay little dance of some kind. It looked like a lot of fun, the way the men were twirling the women. Everyone was laughing and having fun. And behind the platform we could see a line of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen with their hands bound, awaiting their turn with the executioner.

  “Look back there, Jess – coming out of the palace gate with a couple of fancy guards. It’s that Marie Antoinette lady.”

  Ginny was right. “We must have gotten here a little earlier this time, so maybe Leo and Kaya aren’t here yet.”

  “Probably so. We’ll keep an eye on the doorway – Where is the door we came in?”

  “It just looks like part of that rock wall, right beyond those shade trees,” I said. I had made a point of looking behind us to see where our entry and exit point was when we came in. “Let’s go…”

  A great cheer went up as the blade slammed down hard, and I could feel the ground tremble just a bit. The squeezebox player played a bright ditty and everyone danced.

  “It should be a few minutes before they execute someone else, so let’s take a look at the kind of people who sit in the front row, Gin.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  We weaved our way through the crowd, which got more dense as we got closer to the scaffold.

  “Oh…excuse me!” I said to two young boys when I bumped into the wooden bushel basket they were carrying out through the crowd. They just smiled, and a man next to us stopped the boys.

  “Je vais vous donner un demi-Franc pour trois,” he said to them, holding up three fingers.

  “What’d he say, Jess?” Ginny asked me.

  My Louisiana French was good enough to understand. “He said he’d give them half a Franc for three. I guess they’re selling something.”

  I looked at the basket, which was behind me now, and was horrified to see a basket full of heads! The man surreptitiously opened a burlap sack as the boys looked around to make sure they didn’t get caught. They grabbed the heads by the hair and put three into his bag. They seemed quite excited to get the bronze coin. The man told the boys these would feed his goats nicely for a couple of days.

  I was frozen as I looked at Ginny and then began to move quickly to the edge of the platform. This was even worse. They were wiping off the apparatus in preparation for the next victim, who was standing patiently, talking to the executioner.

  Sitting on a tree stump right in front of the Guillotine was an extremely obese woman, splattered in speckles and splotches of blood and eating something that looked like fried pork rinds from a cloth bag. She was urging them to hurry up and chop off another head.

  “Sorry, Ginny, but that’s enough history for me for one day. I’m getting out of here before I get sick. I need some air…”

  I worked my way back through the crowd and found a spot under a tree nearby. Arthur was just finishing his rounds too, and joined us there.

  “You look like you just ate some raw chicken livers and intestines, Jessie,” Granny said silently but smugly.

  “It’s not funny, Granny. I’m probably going to have PTSD forever after this. It was horrible.”

  “Just relax. Did you see the people we’re looking for? I came up empty on my end. I’m getting a little woozy now myself.”

  “No. I don’t think they’re here yet. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Not sure, Jess, I’m going back to the Inn, if that’s alright with you. All this fresh air is making me a little light-headed.”

  “Sure, that’s fine, Gran.”

  No sooner had Arthur scampered out through the portal, using Granny’s witchcraft to open and close the door, than Ginny was pointing my attention back in that direction.

  “Lookie over there, Jess,” Ginny said pointing toward the doorway in the stone wall. “It looks like Leo and Miss Kaya are arriving here right now. Anika and Arthur too. And, hey! It’s us! We’re there with ’em! Let’s wave to ourselves and go say hello!”

  “No, Ginny! That’s not a good idea. We might freak ourselves out. It would freak me out, anyway. Besides, if I tell that other Jessie about my experience with the basket of heads and that large lady, I probably won’t have the courage to come back here today.”

  “Well, that couldn’t happen, Jess, because we’re already here. So, if we say hello to ourselves we’ll still be here.”

  “But, when we brought Leo and Kaya here yesterday, we didn’t see ourselves, did we?”

  “Well…no.”

  “So then we already didn’t say hello to ourselves, so we can’t change history now. Let’s just wait.”

  I don’t think she was convinced, but she went along with it. I needed a little breather anyway. We watched as Marie Antoinette made her escape through our portal and came back a few minutes later. I hadn’t noticed the first time, but the guards were chewing on some food when they came back too.

  A few minutes later I watched as the other Jessie tried to close the door and finally gave up and left. A moment later, Moondance was on my lap purring.

  “Long time no see,” Leo said with a smirk as he and Kaya strolled up to us under the shade of the tree. “You’re either quick change artists, or you’re here from another timeline. Is something wrong? Why did you come back for us so soon?”

  “It’s a long story, guys. Sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Let’s just go up by the stage and watch them chop off some heads first. Maybe I’ll get enough blood to keep me satisfied for the day.”

  I stared a glaring death look at Leo, and he smiled.

  “You’re going to have to settle for the blood of one of the squirrels around here, Leo. This is as close as I’m getting to that Guillotine. Now sit down. I have a lot to tell you guys.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oh, my goodness! Tramador’s really dead?”

  “Yep.” Ginny was the one to answer. “He’s probably getting torn to pieces right about now. Well, you know – for you guys. Yesterday for us.”

  “It’s a relief that he won’t be hunting us anymore. I really hated that man. But it’s just so tragic, the way he was killed.”

  Ginny looked like she had been thinking hard about something. “Hey, Jess, what are we going to do when we get back home and there’s two people who think they’re us who are already there? I guess we’ll have to kill them or something.”

  It actually wasn’t a bad question, though her solution left a lot to be desired.

  “Well, let’s see…we’re a day ahead of them, but if we return to the moment when we all arrived here for the first time, then we’ll have to go through that whole awful murder scene again at the Inn. And if we go back later than when we left today, then the other Jessie and Ginny will have done things that we never did, and we won’t remember them.”

  “Guys, that’s not how it works.”

  We looked around to see where the familiar male voice was coming from. It was Moondance, speaking out loud from the cat’s body.

  “There’s only one set of you. The Jessie and Ginny that just left will come here tomorrow, just like you did. And you won’t be in Whispering Pines today until you come back from here.”

  “Now, wait a minute there, mister…” Ginny wasn’t buying it. “We just saw ourselves, in the same place at the same time – just a few minutes ago.”

  “In here, yes. But if you went back through that door right now, it would be the same day you came here. You’re a part of your own timeline, and you’re just a visitor here.”

  “So then if you’re a day behind us, we can’t go back together? You’ll go back into yesterday and we’ll go into today?”

  “No, we can all go back together
,” Leo told us. “That’s not the timeline were actually from. We slipped into the future when we came to see you…”

  “And,” Moondance added, “Gus has kind of freed me and Anika and Eddy from the bonds of time, so…”

  “My brain hurts, guys.” It was interesting to ponder, but I’d had enough of it for the time being. “Let’s come up with a plan. I just want to stay here long enough to make sure that nobody here accidentally gets involved with the incident last night.”

  Moondance meowed and then spoke. “You didn’t see me around last night, did you, Jessie?”

  I thought hard, but I couldn’t remember seeing Moondance, and I knew for sure that I didn’t see Anika or Gus.

  “No.”

  “That’s because we were all right here – with you!”

  “I’m sure you’re right – but Wally said that he saw two beasts…er, werewolves. Sorry, Kaya.”

  “No problem, Jessie. I am a beast when I change.”

  “Do you know of any other werewolves around Whispering Pines? Or did you sense anything while you were there?”

  “No – unless Tramador brought some…” Her eyes suddenly looked very far away. “…but I wasn’t around very many people while I was there, Jessie. It has to be pretty close to when a person is changing in order for me to smell them – that’s when my senses are best and when their scent starts to come out too. I’ll check it out when we get back though.”

  “One more thing, guys,” Moondance told us with a serious tone, “it’s really not a good idea to go back to a time that you are already in from two different timelines. If you meet yourself too many times, you can get stuck in a loop that’s very hard to get out of. We should really try to be out of here before the pair of you that just dropped us off here comes back tomorrow to find us. Maybe we should just jump this timeline right now. I’m really not all that keen on watching Leo’s royal aunt get her head cut off anyway.”

  “I’m with you there.” I’d had more than enough of the Guillotine myself.

  “But if we go back outside the door to reset our timeline I’ll change, you guys. The moon is full now.” Kaya looked very worried, and I didn’t blame her. If the door leads to my and Ginny’s timeline, then the moon isn’t out yet; but in the timeline she just left, it is. I’d rather not take the chance.

  “Hey, it’s October,” Leo said with quite a lot of excitement. “Let’s go to Munich!”

  Moondance swung his head around quickly. “Not a bad idea…except for it’s 1793, and Oktoberfest didn’t become a thing until 1810 when Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese, remember? And it didn’t really become the biggest festival in the world until 1833. That’s where I met Anika. And Gus too.”

  That got my attention. So maybe that’s where Anika and Gus and Moondance all got together. I suddenly felt like I really needed to go there and see them all.

  “Let’s go. Maybe I can get us to 1833, if we can find a way to get to Munich.” I wasn’t sure if I could, but I was wearing the bloodstone arrowhead amulet that my Aunt Artemis, an ancient Greek goddess, had given me. Actually, my dad was her brother. He wasn’t born until after all that Greek stuff was over, and Zeus and the others had all gone back to their planet, Mikos. He left the arrowhead for me near a volcano…but it’s a long story…maybe you’ve already heard it…and you probably already think I’m a little crazy.

  Suddenly there were shrieks and gasps from some of the people near the edge of the crowd. They turned, silent now, and looked towards the stone wall – and our not-so-secret time portal – about 30 yards behind us.

  “Well, here comes that critter that pulled Tramador’s arms and legs off, right on schedule.” Ginny, as always, was very relaxed about this odd and horrifying event. “It looks scared. Doesn’t know which way to run.”

  Kaya looked at Leo with huge eyes. They knew something that they weren’t telling us.

  “I think that might be Lilianna,” I told her, “Tramador’s young niece that came to the Inn with him. Do you know her, Kaya?”

  Her mouth was agape as she slowly turned her head towards me, but before she could answer we heard the clatter of the royal guard getting into a formation with their muskets.

  “Powder, load, and plunge!” is a rough translation of what the troop leader shouted. Six or seven men in royal blue jackets went down on one knee and prepared their muskets for firing.

  “Get the drummer and the fife player!”

  The frightened animal dashed into the lightly forested area to our left, and Kaya went running towards it, with Leo in hot pursuit.

  “Readyyyyy…March!…Two…three…four.”

  One of the guardsmen shouted, “Why don’t we just run after it and kill it, Sir?”

  “Silence!” was the response he got. “Don’t be absurd. We are soldiers. We march into battle! One, two three, four!”

  Ginny, Moondance, and I walked towards the others, making sure not to get in front of the marching soldiers. Leo and Kaya stopped where the trees ended and started walking back towards us as the soldiers marched by.

  “She wouldn’t have gone out into the open beyond the trees.” Kaya still looked worried, but a little relieved when the soldiers kept marching well beyond the forested area. “She probably climbed up one of these trees.”

  There were a lot of trees, and we started looking up them, one at a time, from the far end.

  “I didn’t know wolves could climb trees, Kaya,” Ginny said as she leapt up and swung from the lowest branch of one of the trees.

  “She’s not a wolf. She’s a wolf-woman, like me. You saw her – she has arms and legs like us, and she climbs the way you or I would climb, not the way a cat or squirrel climbs using its claws.”

  Ginny climbed to the top of one of the tallest trees around us and then pointed to a tree way back on the other side of the forested area, back by the time portal.

  “Looks like a girl’s head sticking up there, you guys.”

  We heard a distant rustle as the girl climbed down the tree, which was a harder task in her human form. There was no full moon here to keep here in her alternate shape. We saw her naked form drop to the ground, and we started to run towards her…but we stopped abruptly when we saw Rodney and Edgar come in through the door.

  “Hide, you guys. Those deputies know us, and we don’t want to be seen.”

  We watched as Edgar chivalrously removed his huge undershirt and offered it to the girl. I could tell now that it was Lilianna. She put it over her small body, which had some bloody scratches. They could have been from the struggle in the pines behind the Inn, or they could have been from climbing down the tree. It was hard to know for sure.

  The Guillotine slammed down, and the deputies looked to see what was going on. Lilianna stood on her tiptoes to give Edgar a kiss of gratitude on the cheek. She pointed toward the stage and explained to them what was going on. She had probably observed a chop or two from her perch atop the tree. Then Rodney gestured towards the door as if he was asking her to rerun with them. She shook her head, knowing she would turn back into the beast, and she almost pushed them back toward the doorway.

  The boys left, and Lilianna, completely exhausted, crumbled into a sitting position against the nearest tree.

  “Lily!”

  We all ran to her with Kaya leading the way. Lilianna’s head swung toward the voice, and her energy returned.

  “Kaya! Is it really you?”

  She stood, and the two young women embraced as tears started to flow. They spoke in the language I recognized as Anika’s, and which I knew to be Romanian, though it was barely intelligible amid the sobs. Looking at them together now, I knew they were sisters.

  Leo stepped up and put his arm around Kaya as she took her younger sister’s face in her hands and kissed her forehead.

  Ginny stepped out through the portal for a moment and was looking at her phone for a while, then she came back in.

  “Well, the good news is,” Ginny told us, “the full moon i
n October of 1793 is on the 19th, and it’s the 16th today, so we should be good for a day or two.”

  The smiling girls joined the rest of us.

  “This is my little sister, Lilianna. I haven’t seen her since I escaped from Tramador’s horrible circus. I’ve been trying to get her ever since. It’s been three years now, and I’ve finally found her.”

  They embraced again, and we all got a little choked up – even Ginny, who snorted back a tear or two.

  “I knew you would come back for me, Kaya.”

  Lilianna trembled as she embraced her sister tightly, and I knew that we had to get these girls out of here and into a safe place.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Leo looked around for his brother, but Moondance had not joined us yet.

  “Hidee ho, folks! It’s time to get out of this place.” Anika came rambling out of a clump of trees in her typical chipper mood. She clapped her hands twice. “Chop chop!”

  “Go where?” Ginny asked. “Go how?”

  “Follow me.” She started walking over to a clearing in the middle of the trees. “Eddy’s got his motor running, and we’re heading for Munich, 1833.”

  Eddy was the biker with a running Harley that “Gus” could only shape-shift into through Anika. That’s why Moondance made the change into the round little Romanian witch.

  “Where’s he going to find enough gas to get to Munich in 1793?” I had a practical moment from time to time.

  “We’ll use fairy dust,” she said with a wink. “But you’re going to have to use some of your goddess powers to make us all fit on the motorcycle – and to get us to 1833.”

  “Ooh!” Ginny was psyched for that. “Make us into squirrels again like in that Sanctum place! Those little critters can really run and climb!”

  “I don’t want to be an animal!” Lilianna gripped her sister’s arm tightly, and her eyes filled with fear.

  “How about kittens for the three of us,” Leo said pointing to Ginny and me, “and “Thumbelinas for the sisters?”

  “Sounds like a plan!” It didn’t really matter to me as long as we all fit on the motorcycle.