Chapter Nineteen

“And it’s by no means clear.” Said a voice from beside me. “That Yorick is correct.”
We all jumped, I let out a yelp, and the bickering trio up ahead turned in time to see the Ghostly Ringmaster coalesce from whisps of mist. She gave a bow, then continued.
“It’s just a theory; It’s not necessarily true.”
“It does explain things?” Headcrow suggested. “The different eras, the …”
Anj cut him off.
“What’s the thing Yorick maybe isn’t correct about?” She asked. “And hello Ghost Lady, I’m Anj; Apparently not a skeleton Mary Poppins, despite appearances.”
“More of a Dia de Los Muertos look, I agree.” The Ghostly Ringmaster replied, then gave a deeper and more flourishing bow, gesturing towards the Mansion with her hat. “I’m the Ghostly Ringmaster; I manage this place, as much as anyone can.”
“She has a name.” Jeff muttered not-so-quietly to Anj. “But she won’t tell anyone what it is.”
“You!” The Ghostly Ringmaster pointed at Jeff with a cane she’d not been holding a split second ago. “Do not get to complain about names. You renamed Headcrow so hard that I can’t remember his actual name, and I’m betting he can’t either.”
“It’s not like it was deliberate. I just forgot Headcrow’s name in the moment.” Jeff said, defensively, then pointed a thumb behind him at the Mansion doors. “Shall we go in? I can smell the buffet.”

“William, maybe?” Headcrow wondered aloud as we walked into the Mansion foyer. “Or something like that. Last name definitely starts with a ‘D’. Or maybe a ‘d’ sound, de-something or du-something.”
The Mansion lobby had a curving staircase on each side, meeting up at a balcony over the top of doors decorated with stylised dancing figures. As soon as we’d seen them, Anj & Archie & I had shared a conspiratorial look, then sidled away as Headcrow mused about what his name had been. Jeff, Yorick, and the Ghostly Ringmaster were disagreeing over the finer points of various theories they hadn’t actually explained.
“Given the general theme of this place …”
“That argues against it; This place would pre-date the whole idea …”
“We don’t need to know the exact mechanism …”
“Wait! What are you two doing?” The Ghostly Ringmaster demanded as Anj & I reached the top of our respective stairs, then looked up. “And why is there a giant spider on my lobby ceiling?”
“Would you believe?” Archie replied after a long pause. “That I have a keen interest in interior decorating?”
Headcrow made a show of considering this, then shook his head.
“Nope. Not buying that one.” He eyed Anj & I. “You were planning to slide down the bannisters, weren’t you?”
“Is it not permitted?” Anj asked, trying to casually lean against a perfect wide marble bannister which could have been purpose-built for sliding.
“Not permitted?” Jeff sounded shocked. “It’s a must-do; Practically mandatory.”
“It is in no way mandatory you furry menace!” Shouted the Ghostly Ringmaster as Jeff bounded forward and leaped up onto the balcony above the doors. “This is a classy and respectable establishment where … Oh, who am I kidding?”
“The troupe of ghost clowns we saw earlier did take away from the solemnity, I thought.” Said Yorick, thoughtfully. “But very much in keeping with a haunted mansion hotel with a circus theme.”
“I never understood how that works so well.” Headcrow mused. “It clearly does fit, and it feels suitable somehow, but I have no idea why.”
“Oh, that’s easy!” Said Jeff, clambering onto the balcony and ushering Anj & I into positions either side of him. ” Simple explanation, but …”
He waved at Archie, gave a few gestures, then looked at Yorick.
“But it’s something I’m not going to like.” Yorick finished the thought in even more of a monotone than his usual speech. “Because it will involve Cartoons or Werewolf Stuff, and you promised not to bring that up until we were done working.”
I couldn’t tell what Archie was doing with his webs; Something involving the ends of the staircase, but it wasn’t clear what it was for.
“Fine.” Yorick sighed. “What’s your theory?”
“It’s like this,” Jeff explained, then gave a mighty shove on mine and Anj’s backs. “It’s combining two different…”
His words faded out as I slid down the bannister at a terrifying speed. Gripping tighter didn’t really seem to do much; The damn thing felt like glass, no grip at all to slow yourself down with. On the plus side, it was gratifying to see that I was slightly ahead of Anj, voodoo zombie pirate castaway clothing having much less air resistance than a puffy not actually Mary Poppins dress. Of course, that did mean I hit Archie’s end-of-ride surprise slightly earlier, getting tangled in almost invisible webbing and swinging up & out into the foyer. A split second behind me, Anj crashed into the same trap, though managed a much more dignified exclamation than my startled “Oh Shit!” as we swung out and around, narrowly missed each other mid-swing, and accelerated back towards the staircases on the opposite sides of the lobby.
” … so the Circus is ‘fun but a little scary’ and the Haunted House is ‘scary but a little fun’.” Jeff was explaining as we hit the bannisters again. “That’s why they work together so well; They’re both fun with an edge to them.”
Anj managed to pull her feet up and land on her bannister at a dead run, making it halfway back up before the momentum ran out. I’d ended up in more of a Superman pose and slid partway up on my stomach before gently toppling off and onto the stairs.
“That makes sense to me.” Yorick allowed. “Haunted Houses were not an entertainment option in my previous life, but I get the idea. And travelling shows definitely had that shock and scare approach; The good ones, anyway.”
“Were they a non-entertainment option?” Headcrow asked. “They were a ‘stay out if you want to keep living’ thing from what I remember of my childhood, but I couldn’t tell you whether that was the risk of ghosts, brigands, or structural collapse. Maybe all three.”
“Oh, they were definitely there. Mostly just creepy old structures, or places with a sad history and a lingering presence, but the occasional one would be boarded up and ringed with iron to keep whatever was in there on the inside.”
Headcrow and Yorick looked up from their conversation to realise that everyone was staring at them.
“What?” They asked simultaneously.