The Uninvited Guest

Short Fiction - Hallowe'en Special, 2023

Welcome to a special Hallowe’en-themed tale from Ferris Island!

NOTE: This story is written to be fully enjoyed as a spooky standalone with no additional context. But for those who enjoy connecting the dots, this tale references characters and situations from three previous stories:

• Behind The Door (free)

• The Last Resort (free)

• Ivy & Ixos (in the Archive)

Again, none of these stories are needed for context, but they may be fun to explore if you’re curious to learn more!

I hope you enjoy, and Happy Hallowe’en!

If you like this story, and you want to see more like it, please let me know with a like, comment, share, or restack!

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Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash

Ivy checked her eyes in the dim light of the drop-down mirror in the truck as her dad, Pete, sat in the driver’s seat, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. 

Ugh, how do people wear these things? she thought. With the makeup she was going for something witchy, something classic, something Fairuza Balk-esque, but the vampy false eyelashes her mom had helped her put on kept slipping. She held her pointed black witch hat in her lap, since it was too tall to wear without bumping her head on the truck ceiling. 

“I’ll be there to pick you up at ten on the dot, so make sure you’re keeping an eye on the time,” Pete said. “But if you need to come home early for any reason you call me, okay? Is your phone charged?”

Ivy smiled at her dad. “Yep, phone’s charged. You don’t have to worry, Dad.”

“No, I know,” he nodded, vaguely. “You’re good. This is good.”

My first high school party. Ivy was still kind of amazed to have been invited as a freshman, but it sounded like the whole drama club had gotten an invite out to Tyler’s house for this. Just as she and her friends were wondering if they were too old to trick-or-treat, new plans for Halloween fell right into their laps. 

Ivy’s parents had been reluctant to let her go, at first. But after Tyler’s parents had assured them that they would be discreetly at home to keep an eye on things, Pete and Erin relented. 

Even so, Ivy was relieved that Ethan and Bailey were going to be there so she wouldn’t feel so out of place.  

The truck pulled up to the quiet lakeside street where Tyler lived. In the gloom of evening, lit Jack-o'-lanterns lined porches all down the long road. These were large old houses on bigger-than-average manicured properties in a fairly pricey housing development, so there were no intrepid trick-or-treaters out here. But the street was thick with parked cars, and Tyler’s house was ablaze with light and thick with spooky decorations. There was no need to guess where the party was. 

Pete drew in a breath. “Okay,” he said. He turned in his seat to look his daughter in the eye. “If anyone offers you anything weird, you say no.”

“We’ve had the drug talk already, Dad,” Ivy said, smiling. “I’m not dumb.”

“No, you’re not.” Pete smiled. “You’re a good kid. You’re your mother’s daughter.”

A pause, then Pete said, “You know I’m proud of you, right? For being you?”

“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes, but she couldn’t contain her smile. “I know.”

“Have a really good time, okay?” he said. “I love you. But, you know, if you need to come home early for any reason at all…”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a mark of the comically dark purple witchy lipstick she was wearing. 

“Love you!” she said, and then slipped out of the truck and closed the door behind her. 

The October night was cold and crisp with a waning moon just past full. As her dad pulled away from the house, Ivy put her pointed hat on her head and smoothed out the Wednesday Addams black dress she was wearing over her stripey tights and her mom's vintage Doc Martens. Then she slipped her phone out of her coat pocket and texted Ethan and Bailey in their ongoing group text. 

here. where r u?

It took a moment or two, but then Bailey replied:

in kitchen! get in here!

So, Ivy took a deep breath and strode with purpose, dodging plastic skeletons, fake gravestones, cotton-wool cobwebs, and tulle ghosts on her way to the door. 

*******

The first thing that struck Ivy when she walked into Tyler’s house was how huge it was, and the second thing was how many people had shown up. What she had assumed would be about a dozen kids from drama club looked to be over thirty people altogether, and Ivy was a bit apprehensive to find that she didn’t recognize them all. Some were from school, for sure, but there were plenty of others she had never seen, before. 

Tyler—dressed retro, as someone from Grease, Ivy guessed—was laughing with some of his friends over by the stereo in the living room, and he waved at her as she walked in. She waved back. It was clearly a formality; Tyler never really talked to her at school. He was a junior and the star of the drama club. But it was nice to have been noticed at all. 

Ivy made a beeline for the enormous kitchen—not hard to find, since kids kept emerging from it with snacks and plastic cups—and was relieved to see Bailey sitting on the counter and Ethan leaning against the fridge, next to her. Bailey was dressed like a pop singer of some kind, but Ivy wasn’t sure which one, and Ethan had gone for the low-effort costume: a creepy skeleton mask dripping with fake blood over his normal clothes. The skeleton mask was sitting on the counter beside him so he could eat Cheetos. The vast kitchen island was covered in bowls and platters of snacks, like chips and candy and homemade cookies. There was also a stack of pizza boxes and bottles of soda standing in a group like haphazard bowling pins. 

“Ivy!” Bailey said, hopping down off the counter to give her a big hug. “You look so good! What’s wrong with your eye?”

Ivy sighed. “Stupid fake eyelashes.”

“Happy Halloween,” Ethan said, smiling. “What do you think of the party?”

“It’s…loud,” Ivy said. “Who are all these people?”

Bailey shrugged. “I guess Tyler invited some friends from his old school in Port Townsend, too. Kinda wild, huh?”

“Yeah,” Ivy replied, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt. The bass-driven music, the chattering, the laughing, the dizzying array of costumes, the smell of different colognes and quickly-cooling pizza…it was a lot. 

“I want to go check out the home theater Tyler’s got,” Bailey said, nudging Ethan. For Ivy’s benefit, she pointed. “It’s through there. They’re playing some old movie. Grab some snacks and come find us, okay?”

Ivy nodded and watched her friends leave the kitchen. 

Okay. You got this, Ivy. It’s just a party. Nothing to worry about. 

Ivy grabbed a plastic cup and filled it up with Sprite. Mid-pour, her eyelash started to slip again, stinging her eye. 

“Ugh! I hate these things,” she said. 

“Are you all right?”

Ivy blinked up at a girl she didn’t recognize. She looked like she was old enough to be a senior, and probably one of Tyler’s friends from Port Townsend. 

“Yeah, it’s just…these eyelashes keep bugging me.”

“They look painful,” the girl said, nodding in sympathy. 

Once she had shifted the eyelash back into place and blinked away her pained tears, Ivy got a good look at this girl. She was tall and willowy, dressed in a blue vintage-style wool dress with a high collar and long sleeves and all kinds of buttons and lace. Her curls were pinned up away from her face in a classic style. Ivy was amazed. 

“Wow,” she said. “I love your costume! That’s really beautiful. Where did you get that?”

“This dress? Oh, I made it,” the girl said. 

Ivy’s eyes widened. “You made that?”

The girl smiled. “I make all of my clothes,” she said. 

Ivy exhaled through her lips in a whistle of admiration. “That sounds like a lot of work.”

“Oh, it is,” the girl replied. “But it’s nice, too. Satisfying.”

“Quite the party, huh?” Ivy said. 

The girl nodded, though something akin to distaste fluttered across her face. “Yes. Quite something. But everyone’s talking, and no one is listening. It’s a bit difficult to make one’s self heard.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Ivy said. “I find it tough to talk to new people, too. I just started high school, and I was so sure that no one would like me, or that they wouldn’t ‘get’ me or something? But when I met Ethan and Bailey we found out that we’re all the same kind of weird. And that made me feel better. It gets easier with practice. When you listen to people's stories, you end up realizing you have more in common than you thought.”

The girl smiled at Ivy, and Ivy sighed.

“Sorry,” she said, “See? I’m talking too much, now. It’s habit.”

The girl shook her head. “No, no, I appreciate it. We’re having a real conversation. You're the first person to hear me in a long while. Thank you.”

“Oh, sure,” Ivy said. “It’s no problem.” 

It was a strange thing for the girl to say, maybe, but Ivy knew how it felt to be the weird one in any given room. That’s why she and Ethan and Bailey had become friends when they met in drama club. Small fish in a big pond of high school, they all felt like weirdos. They had all seen things that were hard to explain in their lives, all shared a sense of otherness. Their strangeness had only brought them together, in the end. Each story unique, but similarly odd.

“So, how do you know Tyler?” Ivy asked, filling a paper plate with some chips and a slice of pepperoni pizza.

“I’ve known his family for a few years now, since they moved in,” the girl replied. “Neighbors.”

“Oh! That’s cool,” Ivy said. “It’s a really nice neighborhood.”

“It is,” the girl agreed, smiling. “You were born here on the island, weren’t you?”

Ivy nodded. “Yeah, I was. How did you know that?”

The girl shrugged. “I have a knack for knowing. I have no doubt you’ll develop something similar yourself, one day. And also, I know what you mean. About how important it is to hear people's stories, to understand them. People get my story wrong all the time. I’m here to fix that. I hope everyone listens as well as you do.”

Ivy was puzzled, but could not reply before the girl continued, “I’ll let you get back to your friends, now. You’ve been more than generous with me, tonight. It was nice to meet you, and even nicer to speak with you. I'm grateful. Maybe I’ll see you later on?”

Ivy smiled as kindly as she could through her confusion. “Sure! Uh, it was nice to meet you, too!”

Without another word, the girl turned and left the kitchen. 

Nice. Odd, but nice, Ivy thought. 

Shrugging it away, Ivy took her snacks and went to find Bailey and Ethan. 

*******

The party wore on, as parties do, and before long the numbers thinned as some of Tyler’s Port Townsend friends had to catch the late ferry back home. 

It was after nine, and the remaining handful of kids naturally wandered into the living room where Tyler was holding court on his dad’s armchair. The lights had been dimmed, the music turned off, the gas fireplace flame was fluttering behind fake logs. Everyone found places to perch. Ivy, Ethan, and Bailey found their own spots on the floor in the corner. The girl in the blue dress had seated herself on an old piano bench that someone had brought in for extra seating, her vintage dress draped around her. She caught Ivy’s eye across the circle and smiled, and Ivy gave her a little wave. 

“Okay,” Tyler said, holding his finger to his lips to shush everyone. “Ghost story time.”

The gathered kids let out sounds of mock fright and giggles, but Tyler wasn’t going to let the spotlight go to waste. He was star of the drama club, and everyone was going to know about it.

“No, no, this is a good one,” he said. “I promise. Almost two hundred years ago, there was a little girl named Lizzie Kemp who was only three years old. She lived all alone with her dad in a little old cabin, because her mother had died. That winter, there was a horrible snowstorm, and they were trapped in the cabin with no way to get to town. But one night, while Lizzie was sleeping, there was a knock on the door. Three knocks.”

Here, for effect, Tyler knocked three times on the table beside him where his plastic cup of Pepsi sat. It was cheesy, but effective.

“When Lizzie’s dad went to open the door, a voice on the other side stopped him. It said, ‘Don’t open the door until you hear what I have to say. I’m here to save you from pain and poverty. But in return, I'm going to take away your daughter.’”

Tyler’s imitation of “the voice” was very creepy and convincing. Ivy shivered, but she heard Bailey make a dismissive snickering noise beside her. 

“All night long, the voice told Lizzie’s dad about all the amazing things he would do for her. How she would be taken care of, way better than living in the old cabin. How she would live a long life with no worries, no cares. The voice even promised her dad wealth and riches if he would just let Lizzie go. And the voice wore her dad down…down…down…until…”

Tyler paused. Even the most cynical of the gathered teenagers leaned in. 

“He opened the door,” Tyler said, “and came face to face with the Devil. The Devil filled the room, snatched up little Lizzie, and carried her screaming into the night, leaving her dad all alone, all alone. That cold night, the Devil took Lizzie Kemp’s soul to Hell where she’s still burning.”

Tyler sat back, smug. “But the best part? That little cabin used to be out in our backyard. You can still see the old foundation stones, covered with moss. It’s a true story. The realtor told it to us when we bought the place. And sometimes, at night, we can still hear little Lizzie crying and screaming in the woods, being carried off by the Devil.”

This got murmurs of interest from the partygoers, and Tyler was clearly pleased at the effect. 

Ivy turned to Bailey and Ethan, but while Ethan’s eyes were wide and fearful in the dim light, Bailey was smirking. 

“Yeah, I’ll bet that realtor had a lot of fun telling Tyler’s rich-ass parents that story,” she whispered, rolling her eyes and taking a sip of root beer. “Some idiots will pay top-dollar for a haunted house.”

But in the midst of it, the girl in the blue dress stood up, silently and steadily, from her seat on the piano bench.

Ivy looked at Tyler, and realized that he clearly didn’t recognize the girl. In fact, no one seemed to know her, and every upturned face looked equally surprised to see her in her fine wool dress, trimmed with buttons and lace. 

“A spooky story, no doubt,” the girl said, gazing into Tyler’s confused eyes. “You've been practicing that one, haven't you? All week, to prepare for tonight.”

The girl then turned a slow circle, looking into the gathered faces, one by one.

“Talk, talk, talk,” she said. “That seems to be all that you do. So much talking. Too much. But tonight is Halloween. A night to open your ears. The ghosts of this island spend all year listening. On this night, they get to speak.

“That story that Tyler told you is a true one, but the way he told it is a lie. Yes, Lizzie Kemp did live in that cabin out behind this big house, and the Devil did come riding out on his favorite horse to claim her one rainy night in October as the floodwaters rose. That Devil whispered and whispered all night long, promised all the finery in the world. But her father never opened the door. The Devil rode away empty-handed.”

There was something in the girl’s voice that made the very air in the living room hazy, unnatural. A smell of woodsmoke, horse-tack, wet wool.

"And Lizzie’s father, he never regretted that choice. They were happy. They made do. Lizzie lived her whole long life in that cabin. This is history. Are you listening?”

The teens looked around at each other, not sure how to respond. 

Ivy involuntarily reached out and grabbed Bailey's hand, next to her, as her heart started to pound.

For some reason she couldn't name, all she could think about was her dad, saying goodbye in the truck, telling her how proud he was of her. And she thought about her mom, helping her get dressed for tonight, lending her the precious vintage Docs from her own youth. Ivy was reaching the age when her parents were becoming less and less cool, more and more human. Her young brain was constantly looking for new things to chase, new information to learn, new paths to follow. There was tension that hadn't been there, before. Growing pains. Conflict.

But one thing was certain: Lizzie’s dad stood up to the Devil, and Ivy knew in her heart that her own parents would do as much and more for her. No matter what.

Two different stories, but common ground.

Beside her, she could hear her friends breathing hard. The three of them, they knew what it was to be in the presence of something different. Supernatural. They had all felt something like this, before.

But the other kids hadn't.

“Okay, cool.” Tyler's voice cut the silence, his pride clearly stung at being upstaged. “That's not the story I heard. And I just gotta say? My version is better. Also…I'm pretty sure I didn't invite you. Who are you, anyway?”

The tide turned with this information, and the kids in the circle glared at this stranger. This interloper. This uninvited guest.

But the girl, unbothered, gave the assembled teens a low curtsey, and sent Tyler a coy wink.

“Me?” she said. “Didn’t you hear? I’m the girl not even the Devil could take.”

Then she smiled straight at Ivy. 

“Thank you,” she said, “for listening.”

And then she vanished, right before their startled eyes. 

Thank you for reading!

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