Chapter Four: Lucy and Lorelei
Lexi:
I have always been a rational and skeptical person. I'd stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny when I was five years old, and I had...
never
...believed in ghosts, or any other supernatural claptrap for that matter.
But when I walked into the bedroom, and was confronted by that...apparition...I almost jumped out of my skin.
In my defense, I was a stranger in a strange house. The house was quiet, and Jack had made a point of locking it up when he left. I believed I was totally alone, so when I almost bumped into those freaky little creatures, it was not only a shock to my nervous system, but also a challenge to my entire worldview.
"Oh shit, ghosts!" was the first thing that popped into my mind.
They were small, a couple of inches under five feet, and their heads appeared too large for their slight bodies. Furthermore, their enormous, green eyes occupied an inordinate amount of space
on
those oversized heads. They weren't ugly, in fact they were cute, elfishly so, with big toothed, benign smiles which radiated an eerie calm. This was very frightening.
Calm? They didn't even flinch when I almost crashed into them and screamed.
Instinctively, foolishly, I tried to cover myself with my hands. Foolish because A: I have way too much to cover with my hands, and B: why should I care if little girl ghosts see me naked?
They giggled, a happy tinkling sound, not crazed or manic,
or
evil.
"She's funny," one of them said.
"She's funny," said the other one.
They were identical twins, and at first I thought they might be Siamese twins because of the way they stood so tightly pressed together. Their hands were all over each other, touching and stroking, even as they kept looking, at me.
"Wwwwho are you?" I stuttered like a character from a kids cartoon.
"Lorelei and Lucy," they replied.
"Lucy and Lorelei," they said again in unison, nodding their heads in agreement.
They were cute, but I half expected their faces to suddenly dissolve into death masks, their massive manes of hair to stand on end, and bolts of green lightening come shooting out of their eyes.
"Do you...
live
... here?" I asked.
"Sometimes," they replied, this time one after the other, like a giggling echo.
That didn't really reassure me much, I mean, did they only live here on
haunting
days?
"Who are
you?
" they asked, this time in perfect unison, and I took an involuntary step backwards.
"I'm Lexi, Lexi Duncan," I replied without offering my hand to shake.
"You're a friend of Jack's," it was a statement not a question.
"Yes, yes, I'm a friend of Jack Harrowsmith," I replied eagerly. "Uhh, he invited me in, he said I could take a shower."
"This will probably fit you," one of them said, and together they held up a black, loose looking dress.
They had a slow, dreamy way of talking that was calming me down despite myself. Their eyes were starting to seem less strange and actually a little hypnotic, but in a good way. I stepped forward and took it from them and hurriedly put it over my head and wiggled into it. It was a bit tight over the bust and hips, but then most things are on me.
"Are you...girls...friends of Jack?" I asked tentatively, fearing I might trigger some dreaded transformation, even though I hadn't actually seen any paranormal activity on their part other than seeming to make the dress appear out of thin air.
They looked at each other and giggled and then looked back at me.
"Yes...sure," they replied and then giggled some more.
They giggled a lot. Then, without any further explanation they turned around and headed out of the room.
When I didn't move to follow them, they stopped in the doorway and turned inwards towards each other, their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders. I'd been so entranced by their big eyes and smiles that I hadn't really noticed how lush and full the cascades of golden curls and ringlets were that tumbled down past their shoulders.
Were
they joined at the hip?
"Come on," one of them said.
I still couldn't tell which one of them was talking at any given time, or which one was which for that matter. In fact, from now, on for the sake on narrative, I'm just going to assign them arbitrary attribution.
"Let's have a drink," Lorelei said, "you look like you
need
a drink."
"Yes, I do," I replied. "How did you know that?" I asked as I started after them.
They didn't reply, just turned and kind of floated into the living room. I say floated because they wore pale, loose fitting, dresses that hung down to their delicate ankles.
"Wait, you guys drink?"
I followed them through the living room and around the island/bar into the kitchen area. The little buggers moved pretty fast without seeming to expend any effort at all. In the kitchen they actually split up. They weren't joined at the hip I was relieved to see. Not that I have anything against the conjoined community, it just helped to make things a little less weird, not that the conjoined are weird. You know what I mean. Lorelei went to the fridge, and Lucy went to the cupboard.
"We're having white wine," Lucy said.
"Californian," Lorelei added.
"Chardonnay," they both said together. "Is that okay with you?"
They'd gravitated back together again and were pressed lightly along their entire flanks as they stared at me from the other side of the bar. I wondered if maybe they
used
to be joined at the hip.
"That's great," I replied. I don't know anything about wine. "My mom drinks Chardonnay all the time," I added.
They laughed; genuine, very human sounding laughter.
"Our mom drinks
everything
all the time," they said.