The Wisps on Copacetic Lane

Veronica-Amber had no recollection of her first encounter with the Wisps. They came as inconspicuous and unexpected like flurries of indoor dust that float and fly when bathed by a sheen of sunlight. At the beginning of their residence at 315 Copacetic Lane, just before their street transitioned into the main road in town, her home knew a time when it was vacant of the Wisps and the only specters filling the inside were the projections from the old films that her father would display on the dark velvet walls of the house. 

The walls of their Victorian used to hold no haunting tendrils of their existence, the hallways heard no shrills or caterwauls from a life silenced by death, and the marbled floor of their historic home at one point had less of a tendency to send shivers up one’s nether regions and to the spine.

The Wisps were the invisible inhabitants of their home, but to the rest of the world they were simply called “ghosts.” 

Veronica-Amber’s acquaintance with them was far from the horror-filled nonsense she’d read about in books and watched in movies, for the more the Wisps made themselves known to her the more annoyed she became. It seemed they were always around causing mischief, popping out at the most inconvenient times, and filling her ears with macabre groans in the dark in an attempt to inflict fear into her soul when she only wanted to have a good night’s sleep. Since then, she had scarcely known a moment’s peace. 

Veronica-Amber, or “Vam” as she liked to be called, awoke on Halloween morning with an abrupt opening of her eyes. She lay on her back in her attic room, watching the warmth of the dawning sun change the color of her slanted ceiling. She heard a shuffling of feet and moved her eyes to the foot of her bed. There stood a lady Wisp, looking at her with a cocked head, her spaghetti strands of hair falling onto a ghostly shoulder where the clavicle and humerus were exposed underneath decayed and stretched-out torn skin. 

This particular Wisp never bothered Vam like the others did, but the gaze she gave her always made her feel uncomfortable because she knew the apparition was trying to say something through those glassy unblinking eyes. Perhaps it was due to the dislocated jaw and missing tongue that kept her from saying what was on her mind, but regardless, Vam had no time to feel sorry for something that had the same design as a fart in the wind.

“It’s Halloween today, Paprika,” Vam said, lifting her head from the pillow and using her elbows to hold her up as she faced the Wisp. Vam named all the Wisps after spices, and paprika happened to fit this specific one. “Not only that, but it’s my last time as a Host now that I’m 18. After this, I’m relieved of all duties.” 

Vam gave a quick stretch and moved her body into a sitting position on the side of her bed. She felt a moist, hot, fog surround her feet, and when she looked down she glanced at the opened mouth of Oregano, an older Wisp who was body-less and used his old man head to roll around their home. 

His gurgly, foaming mouth was stretched wide in an expression that would make any normal human soil themselves in fright. His crackly lips clung around Vam’s feet, leaving strands of ghostly saliva on her ankles. Vam rolled her eyes and wiggled her toes, visible through the rotted eyelids of his head, and kicked him, making him vanish into nothing.

“You’re disgusting,” she muttered, moving toward the bathroom. 

Before she reached the toilet, Thyme, a young boy Wisp who looked about six or seven, popped up from the floor and shrieked like a banshee. She gasped, more from the suddenness of it than from fright as his face collided into hers, and before she had a moment to swat him away, he had disappeared. Thyme was the one who bothered her the most, in his many endeavors to frighten her (and failing to do so), it made him the one she also felt the closest to. Almost like a little, annoying brother but with maggots crawling out of his nose and ears.

It was in the alone hours of the mornings that Vam felt the most connected to the house. Her parents, who taught night classes at Nyx University, remained asleep for the majority of the day, and it was in her solitude that she learned to speak to the house. Just one touch to a chimney stone or beam of wood was enough for the house to remind and speak to her about how it was before the Wisps occupied the space. She would get images of her mother and father and their pale faces contrasting with the black exterior of the home. The oldest and most abandoned, neglected house on Copacetic Lane was the one they had imprinted on.

“Could it be genetics?” Her father, Professor Victor-Ambrose Pryor, asked one night during dinner over his steak flambe many years ago when Vam had confided in them about the Wisps. “When we adopted you we knew at some point your health would become a source of worry for us.”

“That is a possibility, my dear, but we must also not rule out screen time,” her mother, Dr. Vivian-Amelia Pryor had said, placing a cold, pale hand on Vam’s forehead. “That new iPad we got you for Christmas has become a bit of an addiction for you, darling. Are you sure you aren’t hallucinating these…images?”

A young Vam had smiled at them, half lovingly, half disappointed that her parents couldn’t see the Wisps. She shook her head. “No, mother. I’m not imagining them. They’re as real as you and father. I can touch them, I can smell them, but when I try to scream they disappear. At this point, being scared isn’t an option, I just want them to leave me alone.”

Her mother’s plum lipstick-stained mouth formed a sympathetic frown. “I’m so sorry, dearest. I wish there was something we could do to make it go away.”

That had been many years ago, and since then numerous Wisps had appeared to her, as real and vexatious as ever, for better or for worse. But not for long. Come springtime, when Vam was due to graduate, she’d leave her home seething with Wisps to start a new life and leave the nest–a phrase her father despised and regarded with contempt.

“Pish posh!” He’d always say when that phrase was uttered. “We aren’t eagles, for goodness sake, so I want no more talk about ‘leaving nests’ and whatnot. Vam, my darling, I couldn’t be prouder of the person you have become and the one you are yet to be. Like any other father, I am disconsolate at the idea of seeing you go but exhilarated at the prospects that await you. Not flesh of our flesh nor blood of our blood, but once you were handed to our arms, the darling girl child with eyes as dark as coal who appeared to us as a stranger suddenly became a most beloved daughter.”

A most beloved daughter, rang in Vam’s head as she dressed herself for the day. In the mirror, a young girl Wisp whom Vam had named Coriander, manifested herself beside Vam. She opened her mouth and let out a shrill scream that penetrated the eardrums with a searing intensity.

Vam covered her ears but ignored her, quickly placing a clip in her hair before making her way downstairs to finish the preparations for the night’s Halloween party.

A most beloved daughter, she thought to herself again, and a most beloved Host. When Vam was a young child, shortly after the Pryors had adopted her, she was given the responsibility of Hosting a Halloween evening in their home. 

“Mummy and Daddy have to sleep, dearest, and can only join later in the evening once we awaken. Who will be there to entertain our guests? That is where you come in.”

“But I am only a child,” Vam had objected.

“That works to our advantage, darling,” her mother had said, kneeling to her level and pressing her pale forehead to Vam’s, “they are more likely to trust you.”

And so they did. Every Halloween evening, the Pryors would appoint Vam to welcome guests and passing trick-or-treaters to their home. At the beginning, guests would question her on the whereabouts of her parents, to which Vam would reply, “No worries, they are resting and will be with you shortly for dinner.”

In the kitchen, Vam started on the hors-d'oeuvres. Baked brie made to look like a mummy, a cheese and cracker platter with bat and jack-o-lantern cutouts, a bowl of Chex mix and candy for the monster munch, guacamole with vegetables arranged to look like the face of a witch. It was all coming together, and it was still hours to go until lunchtime.

By the time it was sundown, Vam had decorated and set the food in the dining room. A meatloaf shaped to resemble the anatomy of the human body was left cooling on the counter when she went upstairs to change. She opted for a simple black dress that hugged her slender frame. Putting on the final touches of her makeup, she heard a wheezing, echoey sound behind the curtain of her shower.

Pushing the curtain back, Thyme jumped at her, squealing and laughing as he went through her body and exited out the bathroom door. Another Wisp, a young-looking male around Vam’s age, stood staring at her underneath the showerhead. A harsh cut to the throat revealed his sliced trachea.

Vam sighed and crossed her arms. “Do you think you can keep it down, Nutmeg? Our guests are due to arrive soon and the wheezing is distracting.”

Nutmeg said nothing but nodded, watching as Vam rolled her tube of lipstick back in.

“You’re lucky you’re a handsome one. Even more of a looker before…” Vam turned back to him, her hand on the light switch of the bathroom. “You know.” She used her index finger to swipe under her throat in a slashing manner. 

The sound of the doorbell below made Vam return to her responsibilities. With a clap of her hands, she turned off the light and clambered down the stairs, remembering the meatloaf and placing it on the table. Before reaching the entrance, she stopped in the foyer where above the grinning candlelit jack-o-lantern hung pictures of the Hosts that came before her. The other Pryors. Her sisters.

The sisters she had never met. The sisters who had left to start a new life at 18 once the new Host was chosen, just like she would in the springtime. The sisters who had taken the same vow their parents had taken when they were each adopted into the family.

“We will take care of you if you will take care of us.”

None of the previous Pryor daughters had been Hosts at 315 Copacetic Lane. When their nomadic parents staked a claim on the property, Vam had been the first one. With each passing year of Vam’s life, she was slowly coming to terms with the truth about why the Wisps were a part of their home and why they were visible only to her.

Vam doesn't remember her first encounter with a Wisp, but she remembers when Paprika, who in her previous life was called Monica, entered in her fleshy human form as a guest in their home. And Oregano, who was once Mr. Frankes, her English teacher. Thyme used to be Spencer, a classmate she would play with in elementary school and was the first guest she entertained in her first year as a Host.

Nutmeg was a package delivery worker who thought Vam looked rather pretty standing on the porch of her house in her black dress last Halloween. He went up the steps to introduce himself and entered, unbeknownst to him that he would not be coming back out.

The Wisps were who they were because they had all made the decision to be guests at 315 Copacetic Lane. What bound them together, other than death, was their decision to trust Vam. 

Another ring of the doorbell sounded in the foyer.

“Coming!” Vam called out, straightening her dress. Opening the door she came face to face with a group of trick-or-treaters young and old, friend groups, and families. No one wanted to miss out on the opportunity to sneak a peek inside the old creepy Victorian house that sat like a tempting siren on Copacetic Lane.

“Hello!” she exclaimed, putting on an unnaturally inviting grin as she opened the door. “We’ve got candy for your buckets and if you’d like to stay, we have snacks and food. We hope you can join us for a while this evening.”

Stepping aside, she allowed the group of guests to walk into the foyer, directing them with her arm toward the parlor and formal dining room. A murmur of excitement and incredulity washed over the crowd, they stepped over each other and pushed bodies away to be the first one to explore the house. Within a few minutes, the parlor was full of guests socializing with each other, stuffing their faces with Vam’s snacks and cooked meals, and taking pictures with their phones of the interior of the house, oohing and aahing like museum lovers. 

Vam stood and watched the energy that filled the room. With no friends or relatives to invite over, the Pryor house was for the most part empty and deprived of visitors. Halloween night was the only time when people willfully invited themselves over without arousing suspicion. Outsiders, who saw the crowd beckoned to the front door of the Pryor house, didn’t have to think twice about coming to a conclusion to explain the number of people entering the abode. 

“It’s Halloween,” they’d say with a shrug. “Halloween’s for friends and strangers to come knocking.” The perfect coverup. 

As “Minnie the Moocher” played in the room, causing an uproar with people singing their hi-di-hi-di-hi-di-hi’s, Vam slinked away from the parlor and ambled over to a door leading to the basement. Pitch-black darkness swallowed up any traces of the light from the main floor as she squinted her eyes to see what was below.

“Father? Mother?” she called quietly. “It’s time to wake up, our guests are here. The early bat catches the worm.”

She heard a stirring in the darkness and then heard her father speak, “Hello, darling. Is the black tarp laid out in the parlor?”

“Yes, sir. Every year I get complaints about the noise it makes when they walk on top of it, but no grievances from this group so far. They’re a pretty good crowd. Not a drop of blood will make its way to the marble floors.”

“And the doorbell camera and projector? Have you tested it out?”

“It works like a charm. I tried it earlier and the projection of myself passing the sidewalk and coming up the steps was reversed perfectly to make it look like I came back down. Anyone watching our home will see our guests leave after the evening is over.”

Her mother spoke now. “Have you prepared the needles and the collection bags?”

“Yes, mother. They’re beside the plastic bins that hold the peroxide, bleach, and enzyme solvents we use for cleanup. All the backup freezers have been up and running since this morning. I counted at least forty people who arrived; once we break apart ligaments it should be enough to fit everyone without taking up space in the basement.”

“That’s quite a bit of burgers and steak flambes ready for us to enjoy for another year! I hope we have more O Negatives than we did last Halloween. The flavor in the sauces we made just wasn’t the same without their kick.” Her father gave out a dark chuckle. “Should we wear the fangs I got for us three years ago, my love?” He spoke to his wife.

“Why ever would we want to do that?” she responded.

Vam couldn’t see her father shrug but felt him do so. “It’s Halloween. If the people want to see a Count Dracula then who am I to deny them the pleasure?”

“They’ll be busy screaming, dearest. Veronica-Amber, has everyone sipped their refreshments?”

Vam nodded. “Yes, mother. In about three minutes the anesthetic solute will take full effect. If you and father want to make a show of your entrance it’d better be quick before you lose them.”

“Good girl. Now run along and see that our guests are enjoying the party. We will be there very soon.”

Vam closed the door and walked to the kitchen. She opened a drawer that held all the knives she had used in previous years. She grabbed a hold of the meat cleaver, this baby was her favorite, it made it easier to cut through the skin and bone.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the Wisps of her home had gathered around her. All the ones she conjured by the work of her own hands.

She gave them a sly smile. “Ready for some new roomies?”

Shutting the drawer with her hip, she walked past the Wisps sorrowfully groaning in protestation. Hiding the meat cleaver behind her, she clenched it between the shoulder blades on her back and used her free hand to mute the music. All the eyes of her guests looked at her with their ears perked and bodies frozen.

Vam smiled at them and gave her final announcement of the night.

“I just wanted to give you all a big thanks and a grand welcome to our humble little home! My name is Vam Pryor and I’ll be your Host for the evening.”