All Dolled Up!

Charlie’s POV

Some sense of normalcy had returned to our routine after the whole thing with Sam, and then with my sister thereafter, was over. With the peak of summer gone, the nights were slowly lengthening. Not enough to be noticeable, and I still couldn’t speak to Charlotte during the days I had work, but that time would be soon approaching.

We kept trying to find out more about Charlotte’s curse, though the book wasn’t much help. It had now delved completely into Egyptology, and looking at all of it I felt like there was something missing - as if it was a math problem that I wasn’t solving the correct way but that there was an easy solution for if only you changed the way you approached it. None came. I had the earrings cleaned, and the symbols on them didn’t seem to be anything of particular significance to the occult.

Still, September ended quickly enough and the end of October was fast approaching. That meant that Halloween was just around the corner.

Charlotte was quite excited for Halloween. It was not celebrated, at least not in the modern sense, when she had still been alive. The more I told her about it, and the more Halloween specials she saw, the more interested she was in the whole concept.

“You’re really into this, aren’t you?” I asked her once.

“Can you blame me? We wouldn’t do something like this back in the day,” Charlotte said.

I had another theory as to why she was so into Halloween, but I was going to bring that up later.

She wanted to make the house more ‘spooky’ than it was, and when I suggested that all we had to do was stop trying to maintain the place for a few weeks she gave me an odd look. Well, it was true, if we were shooting for the ‘haunted house’ look we had already achieved it the day that I had walked in.

Not to mention that the continuous maintenance that we had to do around the house was starting to really get to me. I woke up sore all over more days than not, though part of this had to also be due to the nature of my job.

That said, seeing how into Halloween she had gotten, I too had decided to contribute to things and had a few surprises for her.

It was a good thing that Halloween was on a weekend this year, which meant that I could be with her the whole day. Or night that is, so I was able spend some time before the sun set setting things up around the house.

And when the sun did go down, Charlotte came down the stairs.

“Ah, this is…” she began to say, seeing the decorations I had put up around the house. “...looks much spookier than I would’ve thought.”

“It wasn’t too hard and I have more surprises for you,” I said. “But… Charlotte, do you uh, want to indulge me for a bit first?”

“Hmm? How so?”

“Do you want to try leaving the house?”

“Why? You already know I can’t,” she said.

“I know, and this is just a theory but,” I began to explain to her, hoping that what I was going to say sounded just as smart out loud as it did in my head, “why are you so interested in Halloween? I mean, I know you say it’s because there was nothing like that in the past, but I have a different theory. I mean, Halloween is supposed to be the time when the supernatural or the occult gets closer to our… uh, world I guess you would say? I think maybe that might be why you were excited for this time.”

“This hasn’t happened before though,” she said.

“I know that,” I told her. “But maybe that was because you were in ‘hibernation’ during those times, right? So, it just got me thinking, if this is the time when barriers between worlds go down or whatever, at least in stories, maybe you could walk outside the house on this night?”

“That… seems like quite a stretch Charlie,” Charlotte said. She did not look convinced in the slightest. “And we tried this once before, right, on Friday the Thirteenth?”

Right, one of those days had passed, and I had suggested something similar to Charlotte, but it hadn’t worked. However, what was the harm in trying - at least that was how I felt.

“I know, but, how will we know unless we try?” I asked her. “And if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, I just wanted to see if it would maybe work. I mean, neither of us know the rules to this do we- it’s not like you woke up one day in that body and had an instruction manual with things written down on what you could or couldn’t do.”

Charlotte sighed. “Do you promise that you’ll at least catch me if it doesn’t work? I don’t want to get my dress dirty.”

“I promise,” I told her.

With a bit of trepidation, after I opened the front door, Charlotte took a step outside.

I held my breath as I expected her to be able to walk freely onto the front yard, but that didn’t happen. She nearly fell on her face before I could catch her and carry her back inside, whereupon she instantly sprung back into life.

“See? It didn’t work,” she said. She sounded mildly upset, and I couldn’t blame her. I think I was more disappointed than she was, but I tried my best to not let it show.

“Sorry, I won’t ask you to do something like that again,” I told her. “I did think that it would work.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to deride you or anything,” Charlotte said. “I know you thought it would work but… it didn’t. For a moment even I was hoping that it would be successful.”

I put on a smile now. “Well, that’s the only time I’m going to ask you for something tonight - instead, I have a few surprises for you!”

“Oh? What are they?” Charlotte asked.

“First, close your eyes…” I told her as I led her to a room where there was something arranged onto the sofa. “Ta-da!”

Charlotte opened her eyes, slightly confused, but then seemed to realize what it was. “Is that… a costume?”

“Yup, I know you love wearing that dress, but I thought you might like trying something different tonight,” I told her. “It’s a Sherlock Holmes costume - even comes with a pipe, though don’t worry it’s a fake one you don’t have to actually smoke. I wasn’t sure of the actual size though, so it might be a bit bigger than would be normal for you.”

“It looks amazing!” Charlotte exclaimed, the earlier morose in her voice now completely gone. She then started to push me out of the room. “Let me see how it is!”

“Sure,” I said, setting things up in other places around the house.

Charlotte emerged ten seconds later. The costume was nearly the perfect size for her.

“You look absolutely adorable!” I told her. She really did.

“H-Hey!” she protested as I took a photo of her. “I wasn’t ready for a photo yet!”

“Don’t worry, you look great, this is definitely something I can share with the rest of my family,” I told her.

In response to this, Charlotte whipped out her magnifying glass. That hadn’t come with the costume, it was something I had bought separately. She then gave me a hard look. “Well, I can deduce that you seem to enjoy poking fun at me!”

“It’s elementary, my dear Watson,” I told her.

“Technically, it should be you who is Dr. Watson,” she told me.

“I was a nurse, not a doctor,” I told her.

“Ah! But you do have some medical knowledge, don’t you?” she asked.

“I guess… though not nearly enough for what you’d be asking for,” I said.

“So, what are the other surprises?” she asked. “Oh- wait! When do the children come?”

“Children?”

“You know, the thing where they go from door to door asking for candy,” she said.

“Oh, that,” I said. “Charlotte, our house is really out of the way and usually there’s no one here, I don’t think we’re going to get anyone.”

“Oh…” Charlotte said, sounding slightly disappointed.

“Besides, I thought you didn’t like visitors,” I said.

“No, I have a problem with intruders, not visitors, there’s a difference,” she said. “But leave that, where’s your costume?”

“Mine? No, I’m too old for a costume,” I said.

“Technically I’m far older than you are,” Charlotte said, pouting. Well, that was depending on how you saw things, she was younger if you counted the time period when she had passed away. She had certainly ‘lived’ far longer than I had, but for most of that time she was hibernating, so did all of it even count?

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say it was childish or anything, it’s just that I’m not too much into it,” I told her. “I’ve done it a lot growing up, but you haven’t. I kind of didn’t see the point in me dressing up.”

“Maybe, but now I’m the only one in costume,” she pointed out.

“Right, I guess we would’ve normally worn couple’s costumes…” I said, trailing off. I didn’t notice it initially, but later on through the night, I would realize that it was with this comment that Charlotte’s demeanor changed. She seemed far more moody for some reason, and it looked like she was preoccupied with thinking about something else. Granted, she didn’t let it show all the time. When I showed her the apple bobbing booth I had set up, she had eagerly wanted to try it out.