"Madame Leota was in love with him. And she warned him about Constance, the curse was brought about the house because he chose Constance instead of her.", Kaylee stated in shock. She looked back at William with worry. "How does that break the curse?", Kaylee asked. William sat on a dusty chair and took in a long breath, "How indeed." He was so winded by the truth that he needed a moment to reflect. How did this stop the curse? Was there a physical action that was required to lift the curse, or was it entirely spiritual? Kaylee moved a stray hair from her face, and tucked it behind her ear. William was watching her with such an intensity that it scared her. "Maybe we need to have a little chat with Master Gracey.", Kaylee tried to hide the fact that she was staring at him too. They went out of the room in gloomy silence and shut the door behind them. "Ah! There you are! And just in time! There's a little party in the ballroom to celebrate you becoming our thousandth ghost.", Master Gracey's ghostly voice echoed the hall. "Actually, I was hoping to have a private conversation with you Master Gracey. If you wouldn't mind.", Kaylee was a bit nervous.
William looked at her with concern. "I'll be fine. Just try to make sense of the tarot cards while I talk with Mr. Gracey. And try to avoid you know who.", Kaylee gave him a stern look. William could help but feel a bit of jealousy towards Master Gracey, and a little fear for Kaylee. What would happen to her if she were alone with Master Gracey? He nodded and turned to walk away feeling a bit nauseous about the whole situation. Why was he feeling this way? Master Gracey was old enough in moral years to be his own father. She would have no interest in such an old man, but would he have interest in such a beautiful young woman? His fears as well as his jealousy and guilt for falling for another woman other than his love was taunting him. He gritted his teeth and walked away with a sick feeling in his stomatch. Kaylee waited for what seemed like forever until Master Gracey spoke,"Very well, foolish mortal. Follow the candelebrum." Kaylee gulped and slowly made her way to a door at the end of the hall that opened to let the floating candelebrum in. Once Kaylee made her way inside the door shut behind her, sending chills down her spine. She saw the candelebrum float to a table and float down to set on it. All of the sudden a face of a man was illuminated in the dark. "To what pray tell, do I owe this pleasure?" The ghost man said with a delightfully scarey smile. He was a tall, slinder man that looked like he could be a bit muscler. His skin was pale, his eyes an ashy grey blue, and his hair, the color of midnight. His nobal facial features that of a roman or greek god. His suit was tailored to perfection and dark colors of navy, blue, black, and green.
Kaylee thought about what she should say, and she came up blank. Which question should she start out with? "If I may, I would boldy suggest to you that you look troubled.", Master Gracey questioned her. Kaylee laughed, "Yeah I am, I mean first of all, I was minding my own buisness, living a normal life, and then boom! We had to move to this deserted town, and curiosity led me to this cursed mansion and now I'm stressed out because I am the one who must lift this curse!" She caught her breath and sighed as she sat in the twin dark purple chair opposite of her ghost host. "Ah yes. The curse. This, mansion has been in my family for generations. It is my birthright, my home, but the night of the curse, well, it changed this mansion forever.", he sounded sad. "Please, tell me.", Kaylee begged,"What happened the night of the curse?" He cleared his throat and poured himself a cup of tea, mixed it with cream and sugar, and handed Kaylee a cup of tea. As if he was avoiding her question, he asked her,"How do you like your tea?" "I like it black, thank you.", Kaylee excepted the cup without hesitation. He then proceeded to take a sip of his tea and then stare at the ground as if he were looking into the past.
"No one can recall of what all happened that night. But I am certian of is this; I was getting ready to be married to a young woman named Constance. We had talked only a few times, but her charm, her beauty and grace captured me. I was curious as to her story, her mysterious past which she had kept secret. We were to have dinner that night and the wedding was scheduled for the next day. I had wanted to get to know her a little better. We had so very many things in common, our parents had died when we were fifteen, we loved traveling carnivals and state fairs, and we both loved to travel. We both seemed to understand one another. I quickly became annomoured with the woman and felt content of my descion to marry her.", he then paused with frown,"But not all descions be them good or not, are in the cards. This .......mansion, is a reminder of the past. A cycle, a neverending repeatition of gloom and hopelessness. I can remember putting on my suit for the wedding, and then when it came time for the bride to walk down the isle, something happened, the candles went out, and it was dark. And that's all I remember."
"Mr-Master Gracey,", Kaylee corrected herself,"Did you ever recive a letter that night?" "No, I did not.", he sounded confused. "Then I believe that this is for you.", Kaylee said as she handed him the envelope. He then read the letter with a shocked look on his face. "This can't be true.", he said in a small voice. " Is this some sort of game for you?! Playing with the heart strings of a broken heart? Huh? Do you know how many years I have suffered this repeatitive agony?!", he shouted as he threw the letter carelessly to her feet. Kaylee's rage threated to explode out of her mouth, so she calmed herself. "It was hidden in the attic!! Do you think someone wouldn't have hidden it if they didn't have something to hide?! Constance hid the letter because she didn't want you to find out until.....until, she KILLED you!!", Kaylee was fed up with trying to convince him. "You LIE!!", he now was on his feet towering her with a glare so fierce, it could cut through your soul,"Constance would never do such things or even speak of such things!!" "SHE'S the lier!! Exactly how many days did you know her?!", Kaylee was exploding with rage. "Five!!!", he spewed at her,"Five glorious days of intuitive conversation and friendly advice, and trust!! Which is the very foundation of a realationship, little girl!!" "First of all, I'm NOT a little girl!! Second, you can NOT tell what the motives are of someone you've known for FIVE whole stinkin days!! She was a very good actress. And she played you, for all you're worth.", Kaylee took a moment to breathe,"I'm done with trying to fix problems!! I'm done with this old house!! I'm done with curses! And I'm done with you!! If you can't handle the truth, then that's not my problem!! I'm out of here!!"
Kaylee slammed the door behind her and walked angrily to the seonce room. She was so upset, she could not catch her breath, she started hyperventilating, and fell to the floor. It was cold. Very cold. She didn't want to open her eyes at all. She didn't want to think about what she should do next. It took her a while to recooperate. What was happening? She felt weightless, like she was floating in the air. Was someone carrying her? Count on Master Gracey to act gentlemanly, after a big brawl with a stranger. Something told her he was still angry at her for filling his head with 'lies', and yelling at him, because it was so cold, she knew she grown new hair on her legs. She had the urge to itch it, but she felt restrained. Did he chain her up? Seriously? She let out a short breath and slowly opened her eyes. What she saw his peircing eyes looking forward and a frown on his angry, beautiful features. She looked at her hands. They were not bound, but how could she not move? 'It's a ghost thing.', she thought. "Where are we going?", Kaylee asked. "The attic. I want tangible proof.", he said as he made his way into the door of the attic. Kaylee let out a frustrated breath. The letter wasn't enough proof obviously, and she had underestimated Constance's acting skills to a serious extent. He then set her down and she lead him pass the giant wordrobe, to the horrific red hat box. "What proof are we looking for?", Master Gracey asked in a whisper.
"The red hatbox over there.......,", Kaylee struggled to get her words out and didn't want to be reminded of the grotesque, decaying human head in it,"There's a.....there's a.....head....of a man in it." Master Gracey saw a tag that said Henry on it. He then lifted the lid to reveal a dusty old top hat inside. "There's no human head in this.", he said with frustration. Kaylee slowly approched the hat box and breathed out a sigh,"Of course! What you would you expect with a house filled with ghosts!" She threw her hands up in frustration, and then ran over to the trunk that William found the letter in. Expecting the worst, she breathed in a sigh and opened the trunk to reveal a man's dead body in it. She gagged and hid behind a stack of books. "A courpse does not prove your point.", Master Gracey said with a sigh. "Did you love her?", Kaylee whispered from behind the stack of books. "Of course I did! If I didn't I wouldn't have married her!!", he sounded frustrated. "No, I mean, did you love HER. Madame Leota.", Kaylee asked with frustration and exostion. "Madame Leota? We,.........we were very good friends. We did have a fling when we were younger, but we were very young and she ended up pregnant with another man's child. When she lost the baby, she looked for me to comfort her. And I did. We remained friends, and were inseparable, that is until......", he was reluctant to finish the sentence. "Constance.", Kaylee whispered. "Yes.", he whispered, "I never knew of Leota's feelings for me until now." "Ah, so you believe me!", Kaylee said with a smirk.
"No,", he said with a laugh,"Not until we have more proof." Kaylee sighed in frustration. How much more proof did he need? "Let's look in the library. Maybe there's something there about a guy that she married named Henry.", she said determined to prove a point. "Alright. I will go with you, but if you are not correct about this and there turns out to be no proof, then I shall personally make you our thousandth ghost. " "A little harsh maybe!", Kaylee nervously said as they walked out to the library. "Hardly. This place has it's goblins, but it's a fine place to live. I can assure you.", he said with a smile. " You'd let me live here? That sounds so sweet, in a twisted sort of way.", Kaylee remarked as they entered the room. They looked through the books on top shelves down to the bottom shelves and found nothing but cool history about the mansion. All different kinds of people lived here from different countries. At one point in time, the Gracey family considered turning their large estate into a hotel since there were more than enough rooms for different guests. Kaylee found herself imoresed in the history of the mansion that she forgot what she was doing.
Where would she have put it? There was a stone bust of a man that was on the giant desk in thw middle of the library. For some reason, she was drawn to it. "What is this?", Kaylee said as she touched the head. All of the sudden a secret door opened. Kaylee ran over to the secret door,"Cool a secret passigeway!!" She then walked down the hall to a huge cherry wooden box on a table. She opened it to find love letters, dead roses, foul smelling perfume, and a bunch of paper bound up with human hair!! So scared to touch it, she screamed for Master Gracey to come and remove the hair for her to see what the paper had written on it. Master Gracey was discussted with the foul stench of the perfume, he held the paper at arms length and removed the human hair from the papers. "This perfum smells like death itself!", he retorted.
Kaylee agreed and quickly closed the giant cherrywood box. She scanned all the papers for the name Henry, and found a Henry Ravenscroft. And the last will and testiment. She also found eight other men and their last will and testiments and every single one's fourtune was turned over to Constance. " Now do you believe us?", Kaylee said smugly. "Us?", Master Gracey looked confused. "Well, you didn't just not believe me when I showed you that letter. You didn't believe Madame Leota as well, and she loved you truely.", Kaylee said. "I guess I sort of knew all this time.....", he struggled to say. "That she loved you. Yeah kind of hard to believe that she put up with a stuborn man like you.", Kaylee laughed. "So now what? Now that I know the truth, what do we do?", Master Gracey mused. "Well, I don't know. I haven't thought about what might happen when you found out the truth and believed me....We should see how SHE feels about your appology.", Kaylee said as she began to walk out of the room. "I......I don't know if I'm ready.", Master Gracey said nervously. "Oh come on!", Kaylee pulled him out of the room.