The Three-Way Curse

The moment I walked into the room, all conversation stopped. A hundred eyes turned toward me as if I’d crashed a funeral in a clown suit.

“It’s you again!” said a man in a tattered suit, clutching his chest as if he were about to faint.

I froze, gripping the doorknob like it was my lifeline. “Me, sorry? I was looking for my fiancé, John. Have you seen him?” I stammered. That’s when a woman in a ballgown, half-eaten by moths, wagged a finger at me.

“Don’t play coy, ghosty!” she snapped. “Just cross over already. You’re causing a draught.”

“Ghost? Me?” I let out a nervous laugh, the kind that screamed I’m definitely on a prank show.

“You’ve got the wrong person. I’m solid! Look!” I slapped my arm with all the confidence of a woman who just realized she might not be able to feel anything. A murmur swept through the crowd.

“Such a nonsense,” a man with a monocle muttered, shaking his head.

“She’s stuck with the arm slap. So boring,” said the woman with broken reading glasses.

“I’ll add another notch,” said a man wearing a dusty green visor over his head as he drew a meticulously diagonal line across four vertical lines on a blackboard with white chalk.

Someone in the back whispered, “Show her mirror!” and the room hissed.

“No mirrors!” said a red-haired woman holding a candle. “She’ll just think she’s ugly, not dead.”

Desperate to prove my aliveness, I lunged for a nearby chair and sat down. “See? Ghosts don’t sit in chairs!” I declared, realizing I had phased through it and was now sitting on the floor. The room erupted in gasps and whispers.

“She’s haunting the upholstery!” someone yelled.

I stared at my bloody hands, panic bubbling up. Why was there blood in my hands? Could I really be dead? If I was a ghost, why didn’t I remember, you know, the dying part? And if I wasn’t dead, why were these weirdos making a surprisingly convincing case?

“Is this a joke?”

“I hate amateurs,” the red-haired woman said as she appeared before me. She swayed her candle, and the flame reached my arm. I jumped and held my arm. “What is wrong with you? You burned me!”

“Did I?”

I looked at my arm; there was no fire mark, and I felt nothing. “Am I really dead? Tell me what is happening.”

“Whose turn is it?” asked a man clutching a broken pocket watch, squinting as if time itself offended him.

All eyes turned to the bride holding a bouquet of decayed roses. The bride looked at the man in a frayed uniform carrying a dim lantern and said, “You know the rules—” as she switched her bouquet to her left hand. The uniformed man did the same with his lantern. They stood face-to-face and started counting together, “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!” and went on three times. The bride lost and said, “Damn!” as she floated toward me.

“There is no easy way to say this. You are dead and keep looking for your fiancé. You have been doing this for— What is the tally?” the bride yelled, and the man with the dusty green visor shouted, “Three hundred and fifty-five times.”

“— for three hundred and fifty-five times.”

“What do you mean?”

“Shush! I haven’t finished. As I was saying, you are dead. You keep approaching the edge and go back. And we do this all over again. Just cross the threshold—”

“Don’t do it! Go back,” said a man wearing a torn waistcoat with a bowtie.

“Don’t listen to him. He holds the record with three hundred and sixty times lingering in the threshold,” the guy with the dusty green visor said. I looked at the blackboard. The tally chart bristled with precise marks, which I assumed were 71 counts of five. Above, in faded, trembling script, the name "Ernie" loomed over a hauntingly perfect count of 360.

I studied the scene before me. All these people were weird, and what was up with their outfits? There was no way I was dead. I was probably drunk on Halloween. Yes, that made more sense. The floating trick was neat. I glanced around for hidden cables.

“If I was dead, why didn’t I remember dying?”

“That’s easy— denial!” said the man with a monocle.

“If you know everything, how did I die?”

“You were murdered,” they all contributed in unison.

“How could you possibly know that?” These weirdos were committed to their performance.

“We can tell,” they chanted in a chorus.

This had gone long enough, and drunk or not, I took a step back, and the crowd hissed.

 “She is leaving again!” some yelled at the back.

I started to close the door, but then I changed my mind. “Why would anyone kill me?”

“Who cares! Just cross over.”

“I care.” I got them. This was their tell. For a con to work, people needed to study their target. They were sloppy. Who could want me dead?

“I know why I would kill you. You are annoying!” shouted someone from the back.

Seriously, who are these weirdos? No one looked familiar. “Are you my welcoming party— to heaven? Because if that is true, you suck!”

“That is rich— she expects angels— as if we haven’t suffered enough with her nonsense,” muttered the man with the monocle.

“Let’s ignore her next time. See how she does without us,” proposed the bride.

“We welcomed you— the first fifty or so times, but it has been three hundred and fifty-five times,” the man in the tattered suit said.

“Three hundred and fifty-six! She went back again. That counts,” Ernie corrected.

“It doesn’t count!” snapped the dusty-green visor man. “The door was ajar, and you all know an ajar door doesn’t constitute a full retreat. Ghost rules, article 15.”

Rules and articles? I laughed. If I were dead, I wouldn’t care about rules. I never cared about restraining orders, either.

“Why are you here?”

“We are waiting for our people. But they can’t pass because you have blocked the damn door!” said the woman with broken reading glasses. “Honestly, it’s like the afterlife needs a crossing guardian.”

“Really?”

“Would that make you cross?” said the red-haired woman.

Before I replied, I got distracted by solemn music. I looked behind my back and saw the church where I would marry John. I needed to get back at him. I turned back to the weirdos, only to find a cracked mirror in front of my face. I could see myself. I was dressed in all black, and a pair of binoculars hung from my neck, their lenses cracked. My skin barely clung to my bones; my eyes stared back like windows of nothing. I raised a hand to my heart, where a circle resembling a bullet wound was surrounded by dried blood. “I looked dead—”

“— and ugly,” the red-haired woman said.

If I were dead, then I would never see John again. I lost my balance at the thought, and I crossed the threshold without thinking. The crowd burst into applause and exclaimed: “Hurrah!” “Bravo!” “About time!”

“Damn, I was so close!” Ernie muttered as the guy in the dusty green visor erased my tally.

“So now what?” I have so many questions, but everyone seems to get on with doing nothing. I needed to know how to go back to John. I was about to protest when the door opened again, this time by a man dressed in a tuxedo with a knife stuck in his stomach.

“Help me! I need to find my fiancé! Is she alright?” the man said.

“20 bucks says he is a runner,” Ernie said.

“I take that bet,” the woman with broken reading glasses said as the man in the dusty green visor stood before the blackboard with his chalk ready to start the tally.

“Newbie, it is your turn. Explain him!” the bride said.

“John,” I mouthed, my heart— or whatever ghosts have— fluttering. He was here. He came back to me. My soulmate, my love, my forever.

“Wait, they know each other—,” the red-haired woman said.  

“John, I—” John’s eyes widened in shock, yet a flicker of fear trembled in the corners as if bracing for an unseen blow. Of course, he was afraid. He thought he had lost me.

“You!” John’s voice cracked as he pointed at me. “Why are you here? I shot you! Where is Anna? What have you done to her, Ursula?” Then, John crossed the thresholds decisively as if he had no doubts about his death.

Ernie was visibly disappointed as the room went silent; a voice muttered, “Well, this just got spicy.”

“Ssshhh!” hissed the red-haired woman. “We’re finally getting some proper drama.”

I removed the binoculars from my neck. I won’t need them anymore. John couldn’t ghost me here. I felt jubilant. I got John forever.

“We are going to be so happy together,” I was sure of this, even if I had no clue where we were and who were these weirdos. None of that mattered.

“Did he say— Ursula?” said the red-haired woman. “She looks more like a Marta to me.”

“I love Anna. When are you going to understand that?” said John as he turned to talk to the rest. “This woman is a stalker. She showed up with a knife at my wedding. She was aiming at Anna and I—”

The door creaked open, and there she was— Anna. Her wedding dress hung like a ghost of couture past, and half of her face was hidden behind a bloodstained veil. The gun in her hand gleamed like part of some aggressively over-the-top wedding gift.

“John, where are you?”

“I am here, Anna!”

They floated to each other and kissed.

“My love, why are you covered in blood?”

“I couldn’t live without you, so I followed you to death—"

The room erupted in gasps as Anna’s eyes locked on me.

“What is she doing here?” Anna hissed, her voice sharper than the bullet wound in her temple. She clung to John’s arm like he was the last piece of driftwood on a sinking ship.

I smiled sweetly, waving at her with a little wiggle of my fingers. “Miss me?”

John stepped forward, his hands trembling. “Ursula, you need to let this go! Anna and I belong together. Always have. Always will.”

“Oh, John,” I said, my voice dripping with honey and venom, “you really don’t get it, do you?”

I floated closer, enjoying how both flinched.

“Don’t do it,” muttered the man with the monocle, though he didn’t look away.

“Go on, do it!” the red-haired woman whispered, clutching her candle like it was popcorn.

“You thought you could just kill me and move on?” I said, circling them like a predator with time to spare. “You thought I’d vanish and let you two lovebirds have your happily ever after?”

“Ursula,” Anna snapped, her bloody veil quivering, “it’s over. You’re dead. Go haunt a graveyard or something!”

I tilted my head, “No, I think I’ll stay right here. With you. Both of you. Forever.”

“Forever?” John’s voice cracked.

“Forever,” I repeated with relish. “I’ll be there when you’re trying to dance in the moonlight. I’ll be there when you whisper sweet nothings. I’ll be there when you think you’re finally alone.”

Anna clutched John’s arm tighter. “She can’t do that. Tell me she can’t do that!”

“Actually, she can,” said the other bride, adjusting her decayed veil. “New arrivals get dibs on their haunts. Ghost Rules, article 49.”

The other ghosts burst into applause.

“Finally, a good show!” someone shouted.

“Take notes, people. That’s how you hold a grudge,” added the man with the monocle.

John and Anna looked at me with matching expressions of horror as I floated closer, practically buzzing with glee. “Oh, it’s going to be glorious.”

And with that, I hovered between them, locking my arms around their shoulders like an unwelcome party guest. John shuddered; Anna glared daggers. I just smiled.

“Till death do us part? Not anymore.”