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It all started when I inherited that house.

Not that it was a bad house, mind you, it was just — kind of weird is all.

But then again, weird is a word that tended to be synonymous with the name Greta in my family. Greta was my mother’s younger sister and had been considered somewhat batty by our other relatives since that Hallowe’en incident when she was twelve. No one talks about the thing except that seems to be where Aunt Greta’s weirdness got its start. Never did find out what that was…

Anyway, like, that isn’t at all what I want to talk about here, ya know? Oh, maaan, I did it again. You’ll have to excuse my odd lapses into what I used to call ‘Valley Speak’ here. Sigh. I’ll explain later. Really.

Okay, back to the story. I hope -- if I don’t get distracted again. That’s been happening a lot lately, the distractions, I mean, though the story is kind of an ongoing thing too. Sheesh, you’d think my hair was blonde or something.

On with the story, and all that stuff.

Did I just giggle? Oh Gawd! Never mind that. Get to the story, yeah, the story. Get it together here and all that stuff.

“Aunt Greta is dead?” I looked at my teary eyed mom and shook my head. Aunt Greta was the youngest in my Mom’s family and a late child at that so she had only been five years older than my own thirty years.

“I’m afraid so, Duncan.” Mom answered me with a sigh. “She was decapitated by a loose cable on the balloon she was trying to launch from her roof.”

“umm, urrgh.” Was all the response I could come up with for a few seconds. Greta would have loved going out that way. Live weird, die weird and all that, you know. “I always thought she’d end up electrocuting herself with that lightning rod she was always playing with.

“Was it a big balloon?” I asked inanely, because my Aunt Greta never did do things halfway.

“Of course, dear.” Mom stopped crying long enough to sigh. “It was big enough to ride under, but she had a huge plastic, day glo green skeleton tied to it. The police think she was decorating at the time. She never was the same after she accidently blew up the chicken house when she was ten, you know.”

“I thought it was that Hallowe’en incident when she was twelve.” I pointed out.

“Oh, that, too.” Mom wasn’t exactly what people would call wired real tight either, now that I think about it. Her whole family was often charitably called ‘strange’ and uncharitably called things like nutcakes. And Aunt Greta had been considered weird even by them. No wonder my dad took off when I was three. It was probably something to do with self preservation or something like that. “Your Grandma is going to have a séance to ask her what went wonky this time. After that Greta’s lawyer is going to read her will.”

“Greta actually had a will?” I questioned. “I figured she’d just come back long enough to tell everyone what they got and to quit complaining about it.”

“Legalities and logistics.” Mom shrugged. “It’s probably kind of hard to cross the veil for mundane things like that.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that one. “So when’s the funeral?”

“She was buried in her backyard.” Mom answered then grimaced. “Getting the zoning permits for that were a real bitch, too, let me tell you. Greta complained about it all the time until she got her way. Cost her a pretty penny, too, but at least she could afford it. Now we just have to figure out where in that big back yard they put her. Once we do that she just wants the family to plant flowers over her and come say good bye that way.”

I wanted to beat my head against a nice hard wall about then. I did mention that my family was strange, right?

The big, black and orange balloon with the twenty foot day-glo skeleton was hovering over the house when I arrived for the reading of the will. The funeral would have to wait till someone figured out where the departed household staff had hidden — errr — buried her body.

The séance was a bust.

Grandma managed to call back a transvestite hooker who was entertaining, but Aunt Greta didn’t show. Granny told Harold/Desiree to visit anytime, no invitations needed, and quit trying.

I have mentioned that my family is weird, right?

The Lawyer, who had sat through the séance looked a bit pale and gave me a commiserating look. I was still wearing the suit I had to wear for work. My becoming a stockbroker, even a successful one, had been a big disappointment for most of my family. They’d wanted me to go into necromancy or something like that. I returned his look with a shrug. At least I was used to the family but given that he’d had to deal with Greta I really thought he should have been a bit more inured to the general unreality that came from dealing with everyone else I was related to. Like — go figure!

* * * *

I had a little lapse there again. Sorry for the ‘Valley Speak’. Sigh.

“Now you can get out of that horrible apartment in the city.” Mom smiled and patted my shoulder after the reading of the will. “Maybe you should try to be an artist now. Greta did well with that.”

“Sure, Mom.” I nodded, still wondering just what I was going to do with a generally well kept Victorian style mansion — generally because of the odd jagged hole in a wall, or burnt spot on the floor from something Greta had messed up with. “I’ll just dump my fiftieth floor apartment with the Jacuzzi and enough room for the whole family to take up housekeeping here.”

“You always were a good boy, Duncan.” She patted my cheek and sighed. “Just a bit strange is all.”

Oh, yeah. Aunt Greta had left everything to me. The house, the artwork, the money, the day-glo skeleton and balloon, all of it. But I had to live in the house to get it.

Okay, I could have done without the balloon and day-glo skeleton.

Part and parcel, ya know? I was now worth millions, without my own substantial portfolio which my inheritance dwarfed. Evidently, being an ‘eccentric’ artist had paid really well for Greta. But I had to live in the place to get any of it, for a year.

“Love you too, Mom.” I said and forced a smile to my still numb-from-shock face.

Grandpa distractedly patted my shoulder and winked, obviously thinking about the next succubus carving he was going to do once he got back to his basement workshop. Grandma kissed my cheek and told me. “This will be good for you Duncky. Maybe it’ll get you back to your roots.”

My surviving aunts, uncles, and cousins — did I mention that members of my family had a tendency for dying under somewhat strange circumstances? -- all congratulated me and told me to enjoy the house but not to forget to let them know if I discovered where Greta had been buried.

Like — what could I do? Blow them all off? Not! They’re family. Gawd, there I go again…

I promised to let them all know the moment I found where my Aunt had been buried, said my goodbyes, and then sat down to try getting something in all this to make sense once they’d left.

Aunty dead and buried in some undisclosed spot in the backyard — which could have held six football fields, by the way. Check.

Day-glo green skeleton still floating over the house under the pumpkin-like balloon. Check.

Family hoping I’d give up that embarrassing propensity for being a stockbroker. Check

Forty million dollars in accounts, investments, and artwork, which didn’t include the house and quadruple sized lot in prime real estate territory just waiting for me to claim if I could live in this place for a year. Check.

Hey! Like, ya know… What was I supposed to do? Blow it all off and go back to being boring?

I did it AGAIN. The ‘Valley Girl’ talk thing. Gawd, please, please, don’t let me start liking boy bands and things like that. I’d just, like ya know, die of embarrassment or something.

* * * *

The first six months after that Hallowe’en weren’t too bad. I did manage to get that balloon and its attached day-glo green skeleton down for one thing. But I sure had a lot of trick or treaters. Who went through what had to be a ton of candy and favors. I turned out the porch light after several hundred of the little demons knocked on my door. But the day-glo green skeleton lit up the whole front yard, so I was out of luck there.

My new house was the most popular stop for trick-or-treaters that year. Sheesh.

At least no one tried to toilet paper things, or throw eggs at the house. But with the vines all over the outside walls that looked as they were just waiting to eat anyone foolish enough to get close, and catch and throw the eggs back, I guess I can understand that.

Then there were the little clues left around. Like the paintbrush in my toothbrush glass, or the welding torch on my work desk. Greta had been an artist who didn’t limit herself to one medium. The tangle of metal monstrosities in the back yard attested to that. I think she even used garbage in some of her stuff, but I wasn’t about to peel the lacquer off those to check.

And I still hadn’t discovered where her household staff had buried her. None of them could be tracked down to help with that either. I eventually got tired of digging up things — and I found some really interesting stuff — in that back yard, some I even had to fight to rebury. At that stage I just hoped that one day Greta would let me know where her earthly remains were.
I won’t mention the ominous rattling I heard in some of the closets.

Or the heavy thumps that came from upstairs when I was on the ground floor and on the ground floor when I went to look for the ones on the top floors.

It was, like ya know, making me crazy!

October first came and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was almost through the year, and then could get out of this insane place without losing my inheritance. I still hadn’t discovered where Aunt Greta was buried either. Hey, that is one Hyyuuuuggge back yard! And I was tired of digging holes on the off chance I’d find her. If my crazy aunt wanted someone to know where she was hidden I figured she’d eventually come back and tell someone. Once she was done having fun watching me working with a shovel.

Which, knowing her, could be a hundred years from now.

I used to like Greta. At the time I was beginning to wonder about my sanity regarding that attitude. Anyway, that pretty much gets us up to now. I hope.

* * * *

“Heya Duncky!” A voice I hadn’t heard in almost a year interrupted my shower — and yes, I’d been digging in the back yard again. It had become an obsession. Give me a break this one time, okay? “Don’t you like living here?”

“Finally.” I breathed, and turned around to see a teenaged goth girl in a lacy skirt, black bustier and torn stockings watching me. From about waist level. Her head was held in one hand about where the waistline of her skirt was. “I’m getting tired of digging to find out where they hid you, Aunty Greta. And no, the place is driving me nuts.”

“Awww.” She tried to pout. “Poor Duncky.”

“Your pout would work a lot better if your head was — you, know — up there.” I made a vague gesture at the empty area above her shoulders.

“Oh, yeah.” She nodded by moving her hand so the head bobbed back and forth before putting it back on her neck where it belonged and redoing the pout. “Better?”

“Much.” I answered, well beyond being gob smacked by anything happening in this house. “Now about where your help left you…”

“In the back yard.” She airily waved in that general direction and shook her head. “You should really lighten up, you know. I thought having you in the house with me would be fun.”

“Aunt Greta,” I hesitated looking at her again as I realized I was still dripping naked from the shower and hastily grabbed a towel to cover my nether regions. “why do you look so young?”

“I’m dead, Dunky.” She said and gave me a wide grin. “I can look anyway I want now and this look is so much more fun, you should try it.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” I had no desire to go through what she had to be able to change my appearance at will. “So, if you aren’t here to tell me where you’re buried why are you here?”

She noted the change in subject and thankfully let it go with a grin. “I’m haunting my house! Isn’t that cool?”

I lowered my head and seated myself on the only available object, the toiled then took another look at the goth ghost girl who was my aunt before the back of my head bounced off the tile wall behind me. “Oww!”

“Now that’s more like it!” She enthused. “You’re supposed to get all wide eyed and sweaty and — you know, scared when I haunt you.”

“You know the rest of the family Aunt Greta, and you know I do too.” I wearily answered while rubbing the back of my head. “Why would a few bumps in the night, rattles, bangs and objects showing up where they shouldn’t be scare me? I mean Grandpa actually GOT one of those female demons he’s always carving to show up last month. I think she’s still out running around and partying right now. At least Grandma hasn’t been able to find her and send her home yet as far as I know. So why would a mere ghost make me take fright and run screaming?”

“Haunting you is no fun at all.” Greta sighed and started pouting again before a thought crossed her mind and she brightened. “Why don’t you invite some friends over and I could…”

“No.” I said quickly, before that got much further. “No way, not happening, sorry.”

“Oh, come on, Duncky.” She coaxed. “Just one little party, maybe for Hallowe’en, so I can do stuff to really scare someone. I promise not to be too extreme with it.”

“No way.” I shook my head and determined to be strong on that point. “All the people I know are what you would call well sanded blocks and wouldn’t react well to you at all.”

“But that’s the point, Duncky.” She kept at it. “If I’m going to haunt, I need someone who will really appreciate my work, you know. I mean with screams, fainting, cold sweats, running out of the house as fast as they can and all that.”

Then I had an epiphany. It gave me a headache, by the way. “Maybe, if you’ll agree to do something for me in return.”

“What would that be?” She asked in a voice full of suspicion.”

“If, and only IF, I have this party for you,” I couldn’t believe I was even agreeing to do that but the returns would be worth it if this worked. “you’ll tell me where in the HELL your staff planted your corpse.”

That was obviously a tough one for her. She sat down, or kind of sat because she went through the side of the bath tub, wearing a thoughtful look and with one finger on her lips for a few moments then gave me a wide smile and said, “okay! On one condition.”

“I’m the one making the conditions here. It does have to be me holding the party, after all.”

“Oh, I’ve already sent out the invitations.” She informed me with a smirk. “Just about everyone from your office is coming, too. They were RSVP. It’s a costume party, by the way.”

“And you were going to tell me this, when?” I asked, knowing that getting angry wouldn’t change anything at all.

“I just told you, didn’t I?” Greta smirked, now for my conditions on our deal…”

I didn’t want to agree, knowing Aunt Greta the conditions would be something I’d have to work at living down for years, but she was offering to tell me where she was buried. Which would get my family off my back and let me quit digging up the back yard in my spare time. So I closed my eyes and nodded.

“I didn’t hear you agree.” She said.

“What do you want me to do?” That was hard to say. I was actually afraid of her answer.

“I get to choose your costume.”

It was worse than I’d thought. But after the hungry zombie that wanted blue berry pancakes and the malevolent ancient rune — among other interesting things — that I’d unearthed in the back yard I wondered just how bad that could be in comparison. So, like the idiot grasping at slippery plastic straws that I was, I agreed. “Oh, all right.”

“Keeewwwwlll!” Greta grinned and her head detached to float over and give me a kiss. “This is going to be the best Hallowe’en party EVER!”

“Tell me about the costume later.” I sighed in resignation. “Right now I’m going to go get really drunk and wake up with a hangover hoping this conversation was an alcohol inspired delusion.”

“You aren’t blasted now.” She pointed out.

“I’ll convince myself I was.” I promised.

“Whatever.” Greta shrugged and grinned. “But your costume is going to be great, trust me.”

“That’s why I’m going to go drink myself into a stupor.” I answered as I left the bathroom to get dressed before my planned debauchery.

* * * *

The clerk at the store grinned at me when I unloaded my shopping cart. “Having a party?”

“You don’t know the half of it.” I said with a grimace. “I don’t want to go into it.”

It took me two trips to unload once I got home. I figured that alcohol poisoning might just keep me out of things long enough to avoid the party and the costume my dead auntie had planned for me.

Wrong!

* * * *

“Wakey, wakey, slugabed!” A loud voice accompanied by the most Gawd-awful racket I’d ever heard brought me out of the booze induced coma I’d managed to reach the night, and morning before.

A pot and a metal spoon, suspended in midair were industriously trying to mate, with noise I’m sure you can imagine, in midair as my bloodshot eyes peered through the reluctantly moving membranes that were my eyelids. “Stop that!”

“Are you really awake this time?” Greta’s voice came from somewhere between and behind the mating kitchen ware.

“Yes.” I winced as the spoon did its best to pleasure the pot, noisily.

“Here.” Greta, still not visible pushed a glass filled with noxious looking greenish stuff at me. “This will make you feel better, it’s great grand mama’s recipe.”

Great grand mama Clarice had been an alchemist who specialized in transformation potions. Had I been a bit more alert at the time, I probably would have just dealt with the hangover. But I wasn’t, and I drank the nasty stuff. While holding my nose to close off my nostrils, it smelled really, really vile.

“Now let me help you get going.” Greta smirked and jumped into me.

It was weird, even with the experiences I’d spent my life getting used to. My reluctant body and throbbing head got out of the bed, wincing as the pot and spoon fell to the floor with a clattering bunch of clangs and thumps that made my poor head throb enough to wish I was dead. But I knew death wasn’t an end, thanks to Aunt Greta and the mere thought of spending eternity with this particular hangover was more than I could deal with, so I didn’t fight.

Once I got the noxious stuff down I did start feeling better. Briefly.

Then my entire body felt as if there was a fire trying to get out from the inside and things starting getting hazier than they had been while Aunt Greta’s ghost said, “Uh oh.”

I blacked out about then.

When I came back to the world it was to a hand going through my face from cheek to cheek. Then doing it again with a worried voice saying. “Wake up, Duncky. Wake up!”

That experience was so surreal that I caught myself trying to giggle. Giggle? The feeling was really weird, like smoke up your nose but going through your face. If you’ve never had a ghost trying to slap your face I can’t describe it any better than that. Oh, I don’t recommend it either because it’s kind of cold.

“Duncky!”

“I’m wake.” I mumbled as the hand passed through my tongue. “Stop already.”

“Oh, good.” Ghost Greta sighed as I noticed that something was wrong with my voice. As the weird, half frozen sensation from having a ghost slap me faded, I started to twig to the fact that my voice wasn’t the only thing wrong.

I didn’t need to look to know my body was missing some important parts, or that it now had parts I’d never experienced before. I could feel the difference without even opening my eyes. Right then and there I swore to never, ever again drink a whole bottle of Yaeger Meister chased with a beer after every shot. “Ack! What happened?”

“Well,” Greta answered a bit weakly, “your hangover is cured.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” I growled, but my voice sounded as strange as my body felt just then.

“Uh,” Greta blushed, which is a real trick if you’re a ghost, and shook her head with a little, hesitantly encouraging grin. “you’re really cute?”

“I’m a girl!?” I screeched, and winced internally as the sound of it reached my ears.

“Great Grand Mama’s potions had — umm — side effects.” Greta answered carefully as I explored my altered body with hands much more delicate than I’d had before drinking that green gunk and gave me a bright little smile. “But you have to admit that your hangover is gone, right?”

“I’m hallucinating, right?” I tried to grab her by the throat but my hands went through that target and ended up trying to strangle each other.

“If you want it to be, sure.” Greta shrugged. “But it’s a really cute hallucination, if that helps any.”

Standing up cautiously, my body’s center of gravity was different than it had been, I held on to the bathroom sink with both hands and steeled myself to face what I’d see in the mirror. Greta was right. I was cute, and beyond that.

Oh, gawd. I saw a pale oval face with large, wide eyes framed with long, thick lashes topped by thin, perfect arches of eyebrows — the eyes were a vivid green instead of the steel blue I was used to, by the way, a full, promising mouth that looked like it was just waiting for a guy to kiss it, tiny little upturned nose, delicate cheekbones and a strong little chin framed by an unruly mass of thick, glossy black hair. Oh yeah, there was the black velvet choker with a skull on it, and the dangly skull earrings hanging from my previously unpierced ears.

“I’m a goth girl!” I screamed. “With really bad hair!”

“We can fix the hair, Duncky.” Greta soothed.

“That isn’t the point here!” I shouted.

“Hey, at least your clothes changed with you.” She was trying to be positive about things, but I just didn’t see the point. Other than she was right. I was now wearing a pair of skin tight black leather pants, black platform heels with ankle straps, and a virulent purple corset top. “At least you aren’t wearing clothes that don’t fit.”

About then I was really wishing that my long, sharp, black polished fingernails could actually shred her face. “I don’t care!”

“You should.” Greta answered quite seriously. “you’d look ridiculous in the clothes you had on.”

“Change me back!” I tried to strangle her again, even when I knew that wouldn’t work.

“I can’t.” She answered while looking at me, then added. “But you have to admit that Great Grand Mama did good work. You’re perfect!”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” I asked, quietly that time because I was running out of energy.

“Because I don’t know which potion Great Grand Mama left to reverse the side effects of the one I gave you, Duncky.” Greta told me. “Just picking and choosing could end up with you being something really icky.”

“Worse than this?” I had turned to look at myself in the full length mirror on the bathroom door and didn’t want to admit that I was one hot goth girl. Great figure. I wasn’t sure, but thought that my breasts were at least C’s, and my new hips hinted quite broadly at child bearing capabilities that I didn’t even want to consider. We won’t go into how my butt looked in those tight pants.

“You could end up as a zombie with — you know — body parts dropping off at unexpected moments?” She offered. “Or as a potted plant in the foyer?”

“But I’m a GIRL!” I shouted, still wincing at the sound of my voice.

“What’s so bad about being a girl?” Greta huffed. “I had fun when I was alive. A warm body is a warm body, after all.”

“But I’m a GIRL!!!”

“You said that already.” Greta pointed out helpfully. “Find something else to complain about, okay?”

“No, I mean I’m a girl, like I look sixteen at best!” I shot back.

“Well, the rejuvenation part of Great Grand Mama’s potion worked right, anyway.” Greta gave grinned. “And this is WAY better than the lame costume I had planned for you.”

“This isn’t a COSTUME!” I screamed back while wondering when I stopped shouted and started screaming.

“Best one I’ve ever seen, Camille.” Greta smirked.

“Camille?” I looked at her and my eyes were like lasers, which being a ghost, she blithely ignored.

“Well, I can’t keep calling you Duncan or Duncky right now, can I?” She shot back. “You don’t look anything at all like a Duncan, you know.”

I could see that arguing, or demanding that she find the potion that would change me back was going nowhere so took a different tack. “I’m going to go see Mom.”

“Just like a girl, go home to Mother.” Greta rolled her eyes.

“She does potions, too.” I defended my decision. “She’ll be able to fix this mess.”

“Sure, Camille.” The ghost nodded with a smirk. “Your mom does really good love potions. Have you got a nice guy in mind? Or she could just give you a naked lust potion then all you’d have to do is fuck till your eyes crossed and not have a commitment.”

“Mom doesn’t do things like that!” I protested.

“She was sheltering you, dearie.” Greta giggled. “She didn’t want her darling little boy, even if he was weird, to know she sold things like that.”

“I’m a stock broker!” I protested.

“Like I said.” She smirked.

“You’ll need a coat.” Greta told me before I’d even gotten halfway through the house on my way to the front door. “It’s kind of chilly outside tonight.”

“How would you know if it’s cold outside?” I questioned, momentarily deflected from my path to the front door.

“The Weather Channel, dummy.” She smirked. “But your mom would kill me — umm forget that, but she’d at least stop talking with me if I ever decide to show up around her, if I let you go out in that skimpy top in weather like this.”

“Coat then.” I agreed. None of mine will fit me any longer. You got any suggestions?”

“I had a leather jacket that go really well with the rest of your outfit in the hall closet.” She told me then added. “The closet by the front door.”

“Thanks.” I grumbled and yanked open the closet door only to pull back in surprise. “YIIII!”

“You could have waited to introduce yourself, Sid.” Greta’s voice worked its way through my shock and the pain from landing on my now padded butt after opening the closet.

“Sid.” I repeated while looking at the skeleton hanging on a coat hook in my front closet.

“And stop leering at her she’s only been a girl for like, fifteen minutes you lech.” Greta admonished while I inanely wondered how you could tell when a skeleton was leering.

“Skeleton, hanging in my closet.” I needlessly pointed out for a conversation starter. “Why?”

“Every family has at least one, dear.” Greta reassured me with a pat on the shoulder. “And he’s hanging there because he can’t stand up on his own, he’s got no muscles to do that, after all.”

“Much as this worries me,” I closed my eyes while saying it, “That actually makes sense.”

“Sid, meet Camille, Camille, Sid.” Greta helped me to my feet and turned my face back to the closet.

“Uhh, hi, Sid.” I managed. “So you’re the reason for all that rattling in my closets, or are there more of you in the house?”

“Just me.” Sid answered while handing me the jacket that had started this new absurdity. “I just change closets regularly, hanging around in just one gets pretty boring, after all.”

“Sure, I can see that.” I nodded, while shrugging into the black leather jacket — cut for a girl, and it didn’t quite reach my waist. “I have to go now. Ummm — nice meeting you Sid.”

“You too.” The skeleton waved and helpfully closed the closet door.

I shook my head while wondering if my family had finally driven me completely bonkers.

“That jacket looks really good on you, Camille.” Greta approved the addition to what I was wearing.

“I still have really bad hair!” I grumped while looking at the mess growing from my head in the hallway mirror and grimacing. “Looks like I haven’t combed it in my life.”

“Well, you haven’t.” Greta pointed out. “Let me get a brush and we’ll work on it.”

A painful hour later my mane was tamed into a shining, wavy mass of hair that didn’t look all that different than it had, other than actually looking as if someone had at least tried to tame it. I glared at my reflection and sighed. “I need a haircut.”

“Don’t you DARE cut that gorgeous hair!” Greta admonished me. “It’s really sexy on you as it is.”

“That’s one of the things that worries me.” I told her. “The general sexiness of my body for guys, which I’d like to point out, I want to get back to being!”

“Ahh, come on.” Greta coaxed. “Go with the flow here, it’s fun being a sexy girl, take it from me.”

I had to admit that Greta had been an uncommonly beautiful woman and had gotten more than her fair share of guys because of that. “But I’m not a GIRL!”

“Could have fooled me there, sweetie.” She tried to leer then ended up giggling. “You fake it real good if you aren’t. And you’re absolutely gorgeous!”

“I’m not going to answer that one!” I retorted and slammed the front door behind me. Belatedly thinking it would have been a good idea to get my keys before I did that. But I wasn’t going back to beg my nutty aunt’s ghost to open the door so I could get them.

”I’m glad to see you brushed your hair, Camille.” Mom said when she opened the door and had looked at me from top to bottom. “How was your walk?”

“Embarrassing.” I grumbled. I’d gotten wolf whistles and several outright propositions from guys in cars and one old man at a bus stop in the six blocks of my walk. “And how do know what Greta calls me now, I’m Duncan.”

“Oh, Greta called to let me know you were coming.” Mom shrugged then smiled as she patted my cheek. “And I do have to admit that Camille fits you better than Duncan does right now, dear.”

I didn’t even have the spirit to argue that point at that stage. “Can you fix this?”

“Fix what one of your Great Grand Mama’s potions did?” She shook her head and shrugged. “Probably not, she was really good at what she did, you know. And your hangover is cured, right?”

“THIS!” I waved my now delicate hands at my new shape as I yelled. “Is kind of an extreme hangover cure, don’t you think?”

“Well, your Great Grand Mama never did do things halfway.” Mom told me then added. “She wanted the men who came home falling down drunk to understand what their women went through when she made this hangover cure, as I understand it.”

“What?”

“The man would turn into a version of the girl he’d been flirting with while drunk out of his mind. “Mom answered serenely. “Were you having fun with a Goth girl when you drank it?”

“No, Mom.” I grated out. “I was getting used to Aunt Greta appearing to me as a teenaged goth girl is all.”

“Oh, that Greta!” Mom shook her head and smiled reminiscently. “She never was the same after that Prom incident when she was sixteen.”

“Prom incident?” I asked, momentarily derailed from my own rant. “I thought it was blowing up the chicken house by accident, or that Hallowe’en incident.”

“Oh, those, too.” Mom agreed. “Your aunt Greta seemed to have strange things happen around or to her every couple of years, and she was never the same once they’d happened.”

“Moooommm!” I whined, much like the teenaged sexpot I now looked like.

“Now don’t get all teenaged angsty on me, dear.” Mom chided. “We’ll figure this out, it might take awhile, but we will.”

“The sooner the better.” I answered. “Greta sent invitations for a Hallowe’en party at the house to everyone I work with. I can’t let them see me like this!”

“I don’t know why not.” Mom gave me that infamous ‘mama look’ and lightened it with a smile. “You turned out to be a lovely girl, Camille.”

“I’m a stockbroker!” I was going to shout that but remembered that Mom really came down on people who did that kind of thing in her presence so moderated it into a firm declaration. “My clients wouldn’t trust a teenaged goth girl with their money, I’m ruined!”

“Have you tried card reading?”

“Having my fortune told wouldn’t change things, Mom!” I countered.

“No, I mean have you thought about reading cards for people?” She said with a vague smile on her face. “I think you’d be really good at it.”

“Moooommmm!” Back to the teen aged girl whining. Sheesh.

“Well, if you can’t do your old job,” she was trying to be practical, which with the current situation was more than a bit absurd, “you should find another profession.”

“Just find a way to change me back! Please?” I was about to the stage of getting on my knees, clasping my hands as if in prayer, and begging. Never mind I was there already and doing it. Much to my eternal embarrassment.

“I’ll work on it, dear.” Mom told me with a hug. “You just work on adjusting till I get it, okay?”

“I’ll try.” I admitted defeat with that one.

“You have a really great figure, Camille.” She tried to encourage me. “I would have killed to have a body like yours when I was in high school.”

“You have NO idea how much that encourages me, Mom.” I sighed.

Not noting my sarcasm, she smiled and handed me a key. “Here, Greta told me you’d left without getting you own keys. This is a spare, so make sure to get it back to me later, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.” I dispiritedly nodded while taking the key. “I will.”

“You always were a good child, Camille.” Mom kissed my cheek. “It always bothered me that you wouldn’t take what the family was offering you. Maybe you’ll do better this time around. Give Greta my love when you get home. You’ll get used to being a girl in time and find it’s actually a lot of fun.”

“Sure.” I said with a shrug then looked at her. “Did Greta happen to tell you…”

“No, dear.” Mom shook her head. “Her final resting place is still a mystery, though she told me that you trying to find it has been entertaining.”

“Right.” I let out a sigh and gave Mom a hard look, at least I hoped it was hard. “Please figure out how to fix this. I can’t, just can’t, be a teenaged got girl that boys fantasize about.”

“I will dear, and I’ll ask your grandma and grandpa if they have any ideas, too, even though I still think the change would be good for you in the long run.”

“Grandpa spends his time trying to get a succubus to manifest in his bedroom.” I grumbled. “He’d probably think what’s happened to me is an improvement.”

“It worked, you know.” Mom grinned. “He got one to show up. Your Grandma is still trying to track her down to send her home. And I happen to think what happened to you is an improvement, if that helps any.”

“I know, Mom, I know.” I closed my eyes and tried to get the absurdities that had suddenly shown up in my well structured life to go away. No Luck with that, by the way.

* * * *

Grand ma was no better once I’d found her. She complimented me on my clothes, hair, and makeup — MAKEUP? — then wandered off in her search for the missing, and frantically partying succubus.

Grand pa was worse. He was pissed that the succubus he’d finally managed to call up wanted to ‘play the field’ as it were. He did give me a leer, which told me he was in possession of his faculties and I made a hasty retreat before he tried anything else with me.

* * * *

“Welcome home, Camille.” Sid’s sepulchral voice greeted me as the skeleton helped me out of my jacket and hung it in the closet next to him.

“Thanks.” I distractedly answered. “Now go away, please.”

“I’ll see you in the bedroom.” He promised.

I didn’t even want to think about that one.

“Sid is such a lech,” Greta giggled as she appeared in front of me. “the poor guy doesn’t get any at all these days.

“I can understand that.” I answered. “That movement in his pelvic area would be really disturbing if there was anything but bone there.”

“It’s a guy thing.” Greta shrugged. “They all think a pretty girl will go all gooey when they show how much of a guy they are. We need to find him a girlfriend.”

“Oh, good.” I nodded. “Another skeleton hanging from coat hooks in my closets.”

“At least he isn’t up and walking around the house.” Greta pointed out.

“He could do that?!” I responded with more than a little worry.

“If he gets frustrated enough, yeah.”

“So what does finding him a ‘girlfriend’ entail?”

“We just give him a choice and leave it there.”

“What?” I let my voice rise to a near scream with that one. “We need to run a Match.com for a skeleton?”

“Not to worry.” Greta assured me. “I’ve found a couple of really nice girls he’d like. I’ve invited them to the party.”

“Don’t worry about it, Camille.” Greta grinned. “They’re discreet.”

“Oh, you have no idea how much better that makes me feel.” I grumped. “Knowing that are live girls willing to have a skeleton in a closet for a boyfriend.”

“The world has all kinds.” Greta shrugged then added with a wink. “They’re anorexics, by the way.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me at all.” I said with a defeated sigh.

You know, I really love my family, even if they are a bunch of weirdoes. But I was reconsidering that on my second day as a girl. None of them seemed to be trying all that hard to get me back to normal, in fact I had the sinking, but definite idea that they approved of my new look. Which did not bode well for my desire to get back to my old self.

“Have you figured out anything yet, Mom?” I questioned over the phone. I didn’t want to go out since Greta had insisted that I wear a lacy little skirt and another corset top with high heeled boots this time.

“Not yet dear.” Mom answered with a note of exasperation in her voice. “This only happened to you yesterday, you need to give me and the rest of the family some time, you know.”

“Moooommm!” I answered while wincing at the sound of a petulant teen aged girl I was making. “Come on, already! Like, I can’t go to work this way or even really out for anything. I have no ID for the way I look now and I look like a teen aged girl trolling for guys the way I look!”

“Well, you are really cute, dear, and have a wonderful figure.” Mom pointed out. “And your Grand pa is working on the ID thing right now. He should have you some foolproof stuff by tonight so don’t worry about that. He’s even transferring your bank accounts and stuff to your new name.”

“He is?” I blinked, though she couldn’t see that over the phone then screamed. Grandpa was also a whiz on the web and with computers, not that the idea helped at all just then. “But I don’t want or intend to stay this way! I’m NOT a girl!”

“Check what’s in your panties, dearest.” Mom calmly told me. “I’m sure that will show you how wrong that statement was in so many ways. Or you could take off your top and look at your breasts, even feel them up just to make sure.”

“Moooommmm!!!”

“Just go with the flow for now, dear.” She calmly answered. “Hysterics won’t help anything at all.”

“Hysterics are — like — about all I have left now!” I answered at a lower volume, barely. “I mean, lookit here! Yesterday morning I was respected thirty year old stockbroker. Now, Now! I’m a teen aged goth girl that guys look at with evil intent! You have got to fix this, Mom!”

“Evil intents can be fun you know.” She told me with a smile that came through in her voice. “A girl has needs and it’s nice that men notice you and are willing to take care of those for you.”

“You aren’t just a goth girl,” Greta interrupted helpfully, “you’re a goth goddess, Camille.”

“That’s the PROBLEM here!” I shot back. “I’m not supposed to be a girl, let alone a goth — errrr–goddess. I’m so NOT prepared for that!”

“You should probably try getting used to the idea, Camille.” Mom sighed. “At least for the time being. Your Great Grand Mama’s potions are devilishly complex and there aren’t any easy counters for them, this is going to take time darling. I’d recommend that you have fun with it for now, at least until we can fix it.”

“Okay, Mom.” I gave up on that for awhile. “But the party that Greta invited all the people I work with is tomorrow. What do I tell them when Duncan isn’t around?”

“Try telling them that you’re his little sister, or cousin and that he got called away on family business but didn’t want to cancel the party.”

“And Sid is looking for a main squeeze!” I didn’t even acknowledge her suggestion, but given the circumstances it seemed like the best course of action.

“Sid is nice.” Mom answered. “I’m sure he’ll find some nice girl willing to overlook his differences.”

I didn’t even want to think about a skeleton and some anorexic girl getting it on in my closets. “That’s just gross, Mom!”

“Try it yourself, dear.” She advised. “I’m sure you’d change your mind after that.”

“I’ll talk with you later, Mom.” I quickly said and hung up.

“Try it, you’ll like it!” Greta sang once I’d done that.

I didn’t even answer that one.

“Why am I wearing this?” I questioned as I looked into the mirror for about the tenth time to see the new me in a tight waisted corset top, full length dress in a deep purple that shimmered in the light. The petticoats were kind of annoying, too.

“I still get to pick your costume.” Greta smirked at me. “And with the way you look now, this one was just perfect!”

“I’m gonna have GUYS hitting on me all night long!” I protested.

“That happens to pretty girls, Camille.” Greta grinned at me. “And trust me, you’re beyond just pretty.”

“I sooo didn’t need to hear that.” I grumbled.

“Relax, Camille.” My aunt’s ghost soothed. “You’ll enjoy the attention, trust me.”

“Last time you said that to me I ended up tottering on the roof while that damned pumpkin balloon blew up to carry the day-glo green skeleton back into the air.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” She smirked.

“Well, I wasn’t decapitated by a stray cable.” I admitted.

“That was an accident!” She shot back. “I missed the stud when I anchored that one is all. Don’t be picky here. We’re going to have sooo much fun tonight!”

“Right.” I answered with a sigh while not asking her to define ‘fun’.

I did have to admit that having a ghost help decorate made things a lot easier, and my new bank card had worked so I was able to pay for everything, even the booze. The ID Grand Pa had sent me earlier showed me as twenty-one at least. I’d learned long ago not to ask how he managed to do things like that. All I’d get in response were winks and secretive grins along with the phrase, “You don’t need or want to know that Duncky. Except this last time he’d called me Camille. Was my whole family in cahoots with Greta on this weirdness?

“Hello.” I greeted the first arrivals. Brandon Shears, in a predictable pirate costume, and Lacy Hanover in a really nice genie costume. What was I thinking with that one? I was in girl mode whether I wanted to be or not so just had to go with it. “Duncan is sorry he isn’t here, some urgent family business called him away, I’m his little sister Camille. Welcome to the party.”

Brandon eyed me like a man looking at some sports display he liked, and Lacy gave me a halfway jealous look. I defused that last one with a bright, “Nice costume Lacy!”

Brandon, I just tried to ignore.

She preened a bit, still casting dangerous looks at her date as he continued to ogle me, but smiled in response. “Thanks. Yours is great, too. The Goth Vampire look really works for you.”

“The fake fangs are no fun at all.” I confided. “I keep biting my tongue when I try to talk.”

That got a giggle out of her, and it seemed we were at least provisionally friends since I was trying really hard to ignore Brandon’s stares and — Umm — leers in my direction. “There’s punch on the table, and the bar is fully stocked, but it’s self serve, I’m afraid. This party was kind of spur of the moment, and my brother couldn’t hire a bartender for tonight.”

“Is Duncan going to be here?” Brandon questioned, still eyeing me over.

“I don’t know.” I answered, repressing shudders at the way he was still looking at me. “He had to go out of state today to get things cleared up. It seems that Aunt Greta left a few things undone.”

I’m still not telling you where they buried me, Camille. I heard her laugh in my mind.

“Oh, well, welcome to the party.” I said with a smile I hoped was at least outwardly genuine. “I’m glad you could come.”

Brandon had already found the bar and called from behind it. “What would you ladies like to drink? Duncan stocked this really well, so there’s a little bit of everything here.”

I wanted to ask for three fingers of scotch, neat. But that was Duncan’s favorite and would probably have disastrous results on my new body, anyway. “Umm, whatever is back there for beer would be good for me.”

Several hours later all the guests had arrived and I was ready to scream. Asking for that beer had been a mistake. Not in the inebriation sense, though that was becoming a concern by then, but what is it with guys when they see a — urgggh — hot girl who likes beer? I wanted to find a baseball bat or at least a nice heavy stick to discourage them.

I mean, I was sooo NOT interested in GUYS! The idea of hooking up with one left me all tingly — I mean, all grossed out, so I fended off all the advances with a smile and a ‘No thanks’ that I knew wasn’t going to hold up for much longer. Consider this if you have trouble understanding that part. I was now a bona fide HOT babe, I’d at least figured out that much from all the lame and not so lame approaches the guys tried on me, who liked drinking beer. Ergo, I was a relatively cheap date if my capacity for the stuff wasn’t too bad, who was someone none of the guys would have been ashamed to be seen with, and just might put out if that magic number of beers was reached.

Gah!!!

“Haunting just isn’t what it used to be, from what I’ve heard.” Greta pouted when I had a few minutes free of getting hit on. “I show myself and everyone just thinks it’s a hologram or a really good costume.”

“Maybe if you just, you know, let your head float beside you?” I suggested, unsympathetic to her complaints. “That would be tough to do with a costume.”

“I’ve even resorted to jumping in out of nowhere and hollering Boo!” She sighed. “The people I’ve done that to just laughed and commented that it was a great party trick or Hallowe’en.”

“It’s all those slasher movies.” I shrugged. “Ghosts just don’t scare most people anymore.”

“They all think Sid is a great party favor, too!” She sighed.

“Sid is out running around?” I questioned, he’d never left the confines of a closet since I’d found out about him, or even since I’d moved in.

“No, no, no.” Greta gave a look that plainly said I was mentally deficient. “He has to stay in the closets, but he can open doors and try to startle people. They scream once then start laughing, it’s really hard on his self esteem, you know.”

“You had to do a Hallowe’en party.” I said with a grimace. “People expect things like that at one of these things, after all.”

“After all of them that I hosted, I should have remembered that.” Greta sighed then brightened, but Sid has a really nice girl who keeps opening closet doors to find him. I think she noticed that he isn’t some prank.”

“Good for Sid.” I grumbled. “I’ve been fending off single, horny stockbrokers all night.”

“He deserves a good woman.” Greta smiled enthusiastically then narrowed her eyes. “Go with the flow, sweety. You’re one hot little tamale now and the guys are going to notice no matter what you do.”

“But they’re doing it in front of their girl friends!” I shot back and immediately felt the blush rushing into my pale cheeks and wondered why that was the part that bothered me. Like I said earlier, I’m SO NOT into guys that way.

“Oh, don’t lie to yourself, Camille.” The ghost grinned and winked at me. “You know that turns you on. Being able to catch a man’s attention even when he came with someone else. Besides, there was that one who came alone…”

“Derek from accounting?!!” I almost screamed. “He’s a dweeb! He thinks it’s fun to watch his anti-virus program work!”

“But he likes you, and he’s unattached.” Greta smirked. “And he is kind of cute, you know.”

“I sooo don’t need this right now.” I waved my hands through her and gave her my very best frown and glare.

“Oh, you’re sooo cute when you do that!” She brightly told me. “That look is pure killer. The guys will love it!”

“Aunt Greta.” I warned.

“But it IS, sweetie.” She countered. “You’re one gorgeous girl, who likes beer, and is really cute when she’s mad. No guy is going to be able to resist you!”

“Greta!” I hollered. “I AM NOT INTO GUYS! I WAS ONE A FEW DAYS AGO!!!!”

“The body rules, Camille.” She grinned and winked at me. “You aren’t a guy now, and you all those rampant teenaged hormones running through your system now. Those would be girl hormones, by the way and Derek is really cute, you know.”

I was about to scream something really unprintable when a knock on the bathroom door — I’d run there when things got a little too intense — interrupted that nascent tantrum. “Hey! You going to spend all night in there? If you don’t come out I’ll have to resort to peeing in one of your potted plants here! Give a guy a break, will you?”

It was Derek, the dweeb I’d mentioned earlier? Letting out a long, really long sigh, I rearranged me skirts, I had come into the bathroom for a real reason, I called back. “Just a minute, this costume takes some time to get rearranged!”

“Those potted plants are calling me.” He answered but didn’t move from in front of the door.

“Okay, okay!” I grumbled as I opened the door and gestured for him to go inside. “It’s all yours now.”

“I lied.” He grabbed me into a firm, but not threatening hug. “I just wanted you to come out, and I already did water one of your potted plants. At least he looked embarrassed at that admission.

“I don’t want this.” I said while I dodged a kiss that landed on my ear instead of my mouth, but didn’t try to get out of his hug then desperately told him. “I’m Duncan, or was until the other day!”

“I know, your aunt told me.” He smiled and tried to kiss me again. That time I couldn’t avoid it and tried to stop the little electric tingles going through parts of my anatomy I was still denying existed. No luck there, by the way. “Must be really cool having a ghost around who cares for you that much.”

“You met Aunt Greta?” I pulled away enough to get that out at least.

“I met her tonight.” He answered with a little grin. “I’ll bet she was sooo cool when she alive. Wish I had an aunt like that.”

“She was decapitated when a loose cable on that balloon with the skeleton under it got away.”

“I know, she told me, and I knew she wasn’t just a computer projection or hologram.” Derek hugged me tighter and tried to kiss me again. Something I dodged another time but was losing the incentive to do. I mean they were sooo niiice!

“You believe in her?” I asked with an incredulous look. “Everyone else just thinks she’s a really neat computer projection for the party.”

Okay, I was temporizing. I didn’t want to admit what the feelings I had were with this guy. Though to admit it now, he probably wouldn’t have a bit of trouble with the things my family tended to do.

“Sure.” Derek shrugged and since I was still in his arms, I felt the movement against my breasts and just about fainted then and there, even if I shook it off. “I know computers and what they can do, and work with holograms in my spare time. Greta is no hologram, and neither is Sid.”

“You met Sid?”

“Oh yeah, we had a nice long talk.” Derek grinned. “I sent Amy to see him and they’ve been together since I did that. He told me that you need someone who really cares and your new incarnation was planned to give you a better chance to find that someone.”

“You talked with Sid?” I just couldn’t get my head around that concept at the time.

“Well, yeah!” He laughed. “How often is it that someone actually gets to meet a skeleton in someone’s closet? I had lots of questions, and he was great about answering them.”

“I’m doomed.” I muttered, but he heard that.

“Only if you want to be, Camille.” Derek softly answered as he let go of me. “Sid, and Greta both told me that you would either embrace what you are now, or that you would be very unhappy in your life. Me, I hope you embrace it. I always liked Duncan, and I like you. Give it a chance, why don’t you?”

“But…”

“No buts here.” He told me with a firmness I wasn’t used to seeing him use. “You either accept this or you don’t. “The choice is yours. You’re going to be female for the rest of your life so why not just go with that right now?”

Okay, I caved in. Hormones, you know.

Plus the fact that he was nice, and didn’t intend to take advantage of me, and all that.

Girls are so easy at times. Sigh.

And I was a girl, I couldn’t deny that from the feelings I’d been having when he was holding me. I wanted to do that, but when push came to shove, I just wanted him to hold me again. I dare you to try anything different if that happens to you. So there!

“So how is married life treating you, Camille?” My mother asked when I visited her next summer.

“Good.” I smiled while smoothing the sundress I was wearing and consciously stopping the flow of fluids that were trying to come from just below its waist. I didn't bother to mention that the wedding was something I still didn't completely recall thanks to how the casinos in Vegas feed their patrons drinks, or that it took me days to reconcile myself to the idea that not only was I a wife, but had evidently enthusiastically helped consummate the marriage right in the chapel. “I’m happy with it, and Derek got a job as administrator for a big internet company, even though we don’t need the money.”

“Let the man think he’s bringing home the bacon.” Mom nodded with a grin. “So, do you regret losing Duncan for Camille?

“At times, yeah.” I admitted. “People at the office know me, but clients look at a girl and wonder if she is up to the job of handling their accounts. That’s a bitch, but I show the ones who give it a shot that I’m good at what I do even I do look a little freaky. Maybe I should just try being an accountant for awhile.”

I was still that sexy little goth girl, and just couldn’t bring myself to change that. After all, it had attracted my husband and to be honest, I liked freaking people out at times and in spite of some lingering little squicks was deliriously happy about being Derek's wife. Besides, my appearance makes sure that I get clients willing to risk something to make money, keeps them honest, if you know what I mean.

“That’s good dear.” Mom hugged me. “Are you happy now?”

“Oh, yeah, Mom.” I answered. “Derek is great in bed and he fits in with the family so well.”

“That he does.” Mom nodded with a smile. “When can I expect grandchildren?

“Moooom!”

“Sid! Amy! Will you two hold it down?!!” I hadn't had much in the way of peace and quiet from any of the many closets in the house since Amy had achieved an anorexic's dream and become Sid's significant other. "Or at least move things to a closet in the basement or attic?"

All I got in answer was a sepulchral giggle from the closet and an equally spooky male voice saying,” Sorry.”