holli

In the style of Four Ghosts, the first of a few more AUs about the ghosts of Sunnydale.

There's a house on your street that's been For Sale as long as you can remember, so long that the sign hangs crooked from its post and nobody's bothered to replace it. The house itself isn't in bad shape, though-- the windows are cracked and the paint peels, but it's a gentle decay. The house looks sleeping, not dead. There are abandoned houses in this town that look much worse.

Then again, the other abandoned houses aren't so throughly abandoned as this one. There are always signs of squatters-- grafitti on the walls, trash in the yard, screams in the night. You'd never dream of venturing into one of those houses, not at high noon on the summer solstice. Sunnydale born and bred, you know your life's worth more than that.

But the house on Revello has always been an object of fascination for the children in your neighborhood-- of fear, and maybe worship, which are hard to tell apart in children. Every kid you knew growing up has been dared to go into the house, usually right before sunset, usually with a wide-eyed group of friends waiting on the sidewalk, ready to dash for the nearest kid's house the minute their friend returns. And they always do return, spooked, shivering, but bright-eyed and excited. They never tell what they see, beyond the vaguest details.

The house on Revello is scary, but safe, as such things go.

You were nine when you went into the house on Revello. You were at a slumber party, and sometime between the pizza, the soda, and 'light as a feather, stiff as a board' some brave girl brought up the house. Each girl tugged the bendy straw out of her drink, and one was cut in half with a pair of safety scissors. You drew the short one.

The girl whose party it was told her mom you were all going to Kelly Huckaby's house to see her new puppy. The mother smiled pleasantly, told the assembled girls to be home by dark. You wondered, even then, if Sunnydale parents were just stupid or if there was something in the water.

You stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, the other girls assembled behind you, and you knew that if you didn't go in you'd never have a friend again.

It wasn't courage that propelled you to the front door. You were more afraid of social osctracism than whatever unnamed horrors lay within the house. So you opened the door. It was unlocked, which shouldn't have surprised you, since no other kid had ever mentioned having to jimmy the lock before going in.

Inside, the house was dark, dusk-shadowed but not dank or gloomy. Just dim, and silent, the moth-eaten furniture covered in cobwebs. There were still pictures hanging on the wall along the stair, though the frames were warped, the pictures sepia-toned. When you saw the living-room window from the inside, you realized that the reason it had always been boarded over was that all the glass was gone. And then a voice, dusty as the stair railing, called to you from the back of the house. Sweetie? Is that you?

You froze, but you knew you couldn't leave yet. To hear a voice in a haunted house, and leave without seeing the source of it-- you'd never live it down, even if you never told a soul. So you took a few tentative steps through the dining room, and you weren't too scared to see that there was a track in the dust, where other children had been before. That made you brave enough to walk the rest of the way.

As you got closer to the kitchen, you noticed a strange thing happening to your vision. It was like you were seeing two houses at once. The old, spiderwebby, long-neglected one was still there, but overlaid on top of it was the house as it must once have been: the woodwork polished, people smiling up at you out of shiny picture frames. A soft, warm light spilled from the open kitchen door, and you found yourself drawn towards it, a helpless moth in pigtails.

Through the door, you could hardly see the real kitchen through the ghost-room. The light was even brighter, and gentler, and you couldn't figure out whether its source was the ceiling or the ghost. She sat on a stool at the counter, her back to you, and for a split second before she turned around you thought of monster movies and the way the creature's face was always horrible. But hers wasn't-- it was faded, yes, and there was something terribly sad about the little hopefulness that vanished when she saw you. But she wasn't a ghost you could be too scared of.

She smiled, a faded smile, worn out with overuse. Oh, she said, Hello, dear. Are you all right? You nodded, once, but she could see you were still a little afraid. You look, she said, like a little girl who could use some hot chocolate. Her voice was an echo of your own mother's, the shadow of every comforting word ever said to a daughter, and you thought it would be terrible of you not to sit with her awhile. So you scooted up onto the stool next to hers, and watched her bustle at the sink. She blurred as she moved, and the clinks of spoons and dishes sounded like echoes of themselves.

Do you want marshmallows? she asked, startling you a little. You nodded, and she smiled again, that sad smile. My daughters like marshmallows, too, she said. They're such good girls. Do you know them?

You shook your head-- you couldn't seem to get words out past the roadblock the house had put up on your tongue. But the ghost didn't seem to notice your silence. She sighed, an echo of sighs, and the expression that flickered across her face when you first arrived came back. It was something like resignation. Oh, well. They should be home soon. And she looked up at the clock. You followed her gaze, and saw that it had long since stopped; both in the real house and in the ghost-kitchen overlapping it.

She gave you your hot chocolate in a mug that, with one set of eyes, you could see was cracked and stained. But on top of that you could see a little steam rising, and marshmallows bobbing, and you could almost feel the heat through the ceramic. You drank, and you could taste the echo of it. The ghost watched you, and when you finsihed she took the mug back. You'd better get going, she said. Your friends will be waiting, won't they?

As you left, she called after you. If you see my girls, will you tell them I'm waiting for them? You promised that you would, and you still hope that someday you get the chance.

The ghost-house faded as you neared the front door. When you left, the other girls surrounded you the moment you reached the sidewalk, bombarding you with questions. "She was very sad" was all you'd say, and by the time you got to Kelly's house and saw her puppy, warm and wriggly and alive, you had forgotten how the hot chocolate almost tasted.