Chapter Text
It had been over a year since the banishment of the Hatbox Ghost, and the group was closer than ever.
They got together frequently for brunch or dinner, and would often meet up to spend time at the Haunted Mansion in each other’s company.
Because they were all so close, it didn’t come as a surprise to Gabbie to hear a knock on the mansion’s door that morning. Ben, Kent, Harriet, and Bruce knew that they were welcome any time, so they’d occasionally come over without warning.
Well, Ben typically wouldn’t, but the others didn’t seem to have a problem with showing up out of the blue.
While the knock on her door hadn’t been a surprise, the state Kent was in when she opened it was.
She opened the door to see Kent in his sleep clothes and a coat, leaning against the door frame with one arm. He looked thoroughly exhausted, with dark bags under his eyes. It was cold enough outside that Gabbie could see every breath he let out.
“Oh, God, Kent, what happened?” she asked, looking the man over.
“Well, that’s a long story,” he told her. Even his voice sounded weary. “Should I tell it out here, or can I come in?”
Gabbie belatedly realized that she was still blocking the door, and quickly stepped out of the way. “Oh! Come in, please,”
Kent stepped inside, and Gabbie helped him hang up his coat.
“Where’s Travis?” Kent asked.
“He’s visiting his father’s side of the family for the week,” Gabbie explained.
“That’s probably a good thing,” Kent admitted, rubbing the bridge of his nose. That didn’t make Gabbie any less worried.
Once the two had settled down in front of the fireplace, Kent set his elbows on his knees and sighed softly. “I’m being haunted. Again,”
Gabbie covered her mouth with a hand, but then lifted it off to speak. “Oh, no. I’d hoped that we were past all of this! Should I call the others?”
“Maybe so. I don’t think I have the energy to explain everything twice,”
So Gabbie called the others. Once they’d arrived and Kent had a steaming mug of coffee in his hands, he began to tell them everything that had happened leading up to that morning.
“My father died two weeks ago,” he began.
Ben frowned. “I’m so sorry, Kent,”
“Don’t be. I hardly knew him, really. My mother took me and left him when I was young,” Ken admitted. “He was—“
He trailed off.
“Abusive?” Bruce guessed. Harriet shot him an incredulous look, but Kent appreciated the straightforwardness.
He chuckled humorlessly. “Yes, he was,”
The group glanced at each other worriedly, but Kent continued. “I avoided the funeral, but I went to visit his grave a few days ago. Ever since then, this ghost has been haunting me. Any time I try to sleep, it’ll keep me awake somehow—making my bed seem as though it’s falling through the air, or that there are spiders crawling all over me, for instance,”
Harriet shuddered at the thought. “I think we can all assume who may be haunting you,” she said.
Ben’s frown grew more pronounced. “Do you think it’s your father?”
“Well, there’s one way to find out, isn’t there? Do you have your camera?”
“Gabbie asked me to bring it,” Ben said, pulling out his camera.
Ben’s original camera had been destroyed when the Hatbox Ghost had haunted the mansion, but he’d made another one soon after. This camera was even more advanced, as it generated a clearer picture of the ghost being photographed.
Ben lifted the camera and aimed it at Kent, who took a sip of his coffee as he waited. The flash of the camera went off, and Ben quickly lowered it to see the photo he’d taken.
There was a ghost standing behind Kent, resting one hand on the man’s shoulder. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a scowl on his face, but he looked eerily similar to Kent himself.
“Does your father look a lot like you?” Ben asked, hesitantly.
“Unfortunately, he does,”
“It’s him, alright,” Ben said, turning the camera around so Kent could see the picture.
Kent frowned and rolled his shoulder, as though that would shake off his father’s ghostly hand, but nodded in agreement. The others leaned over to look at the picture with similar frowns on their faces.
“Seems like it’s time for another banishment,” Harriet said.
“Then we’ll need something of your father’s,” Bruce pointed out, looking over at Kent.
“That’s easy. There’s an estate sale going on now at my father’s old house,”
“Great,” Ben said. “Let’s go,”
Kent took another sip of coffee, then set his mug down on the table in front of him. “I can’t go. My father’s family is running the sale, and they’ll recognize me right away,”
“How about you, Bruce, and Harriet go then, Ben? I’ll stay here with Kent,” Gabbie suggested. Turning to Kent, she added, “Maybe you can try to get some sleep, too,”
Kent gave her a skeptical look, but nodded.
Ben grabbed his car keys from the table. “Sounds good. Stay safe,” he told them.
Bruce and Harriet echoed the same sentiment as they followed Ben through the door.
As Gabbie heard Ben’s car start up in the front lawn, she turned to Kent. “I’m serious. Lay down upstairs and at least try to get some rest,”
Kent sighed, but got up, abandoning his mug of coffee on the table. “Alright. No promises, though,”
“Anything should work for the banishment, right? It just had to have been his?” Ben asked.
“Correct,” Harriet replied. “Something small would be the most convenient,”
“I’d prefer something that he wouldn’t be able to throw into the fireplace and burn,” Bruce added.
Ben chuckled. “Got it,”
A long silence fell over the car, broken only by the rumble of the road as Ben drove.
After a while, Harriet mumbled, “I can’t believe that Kent had such an awful man as a father. I mean, what sort of person abuses their wife and child?”
Bruce hummed in agreement. “I never would have guessed. He’s lucky that his mother got him away,”
Ben was just pulling up to the curb at the estate sale. “Let’s hope that his father’s family isn’t as bad as he was,” he muttered.
The three got out and shut the car doors behind them with a series of slams.
The house was rather small, and the neighborhood around it was somewhat run-down. Parts of the lawn were either overgrown or dry and dead, and the windows were grimy, despite the man having died only two weeks prior.
Ben stepped forward and swung open the front door. He was relieved to see that the house was full of objects that had once belonged to Kent’s father—each one marked with a small sticker that showed its price.
The item part of the banishment should be simple, then.
The house was surprisingly busy. Ben had to dodge multiple other people browsing as he wandered around.
As the group explored, they learned several things about Kent’s father.
His name was Joseph. They heard several people—who must have been neighbors or family—mention him by name.
He was Catholic, which was surprising, but it explained why Kent knew so much about the Bible for someone who wasn’t religious. Ben noticed a few crosses and crucifixes on the walls and as pendants on jewelry. Ben spotted a rosary on one table in the bedroom and grabbed it.
The final thing Ben learned about Joseph was that his family seemed to have taken his word for everything.
Ben brought the rosary to the Bruce and Harriet. “Here. This can be our item,”
The three brought it to a folding table near the front door, where a blonde woman was counting cash.
She looked up as she noticed them approaching. As she saw the object in Ben’s hands, she smiled fondly. “Oh, Joseph’s old rosary,”
Bruce took the rosary from Ben and set it down on the table.
“That’ll be five dollars,” the woman told them. “This rosary meant a lot to poor Joseph. I hope you appreciate it,”
Harriet and Bruce were staying carefully neutral, but Ben asked, “What was he like?”
Harriet cast him a stern glance. It would be foolish to start an unnecessary argument here when they already had their item.
“Oh, he was a good man. He used to have a wife and child, but they left him. He’d been sad and lonely ever since then,”
Ben’s brow furrowed in anger. “Do you ever think they may have left him for a reason?”
The woman looked at him in shock. “Do I what? I don’t think that’s any of your business,”
Ben took the rosary and set the money on the table with a little more force than necessary. “Just wondering,”
The woman scoffed as he left. Bruce and Harriet weren’t far behind him.
“Really?” Harriet asked. “I don’t blame you, but starting an argument in there wouldn’t have been a good idea,”
Bruce shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. We got what we came for,”
Ben nodded. “Right. Let’s head back and banish this ghost before it torments Kent any more,”
That, they could all agree on.