The Grim Gazette is a "spirited and frightfully independent" newspaper published for ghosts, by the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion.
Three issues of this paper were sent out by the Ghost Relations Department among the packages for the limited Ghost Post interactive game, and gave clues and insights to player as well as additional backstory and details about the afterlives and times of the mansion's happy haunts.
The Grim Gazette would later appear in The Haunted Mansion: Frights of Fancy.
Transcripts[]
Volume XLVI No. VIII[]
TROUBLED TRANSIT.[]
IS THERE AN END IN SIGHT TO THE GREAT UNRAVELING?
GHOST RELATIONS DEPARTMENT WILL HARNESS THE POWER OF THE LIVING IN SERVICE OF THE DEAD.
By - Divers Hands
It is difficult to track how long is has been since the liberty of the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion to comport themselves in the world of the living slipped away entirely. Most ghosts agree that this ability to travel beyond the Mansion gates eroded slowly and at first passed largely unnoticed. Now, with our long-established practice of following mortals home cruelly curtailed, and with so many of our ghostly cohort lost to the infernal mists that cloud the aether, desperate measures are at hand.
"We cannot afford to sit idle while the ghosts of the Mansion drift away into oblivion," said a member of the Committee of Wandering Ghosts (CWG), speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It's unprecedented, it's controversial, but frankly, it's inevitable: we're going to take this situation in hand."
That's just what the latest plan from the CWG sets out to do. These ghosts intend to recruit certain visitors to the Mansion in whom they have sensed a resonance with the spirit world. The CWG has turned to the Ghost Relations Department to establish contact. Should these mortals prove they possess this rare ability, they are perfectly suited to re-establish the spiritual by-ways, pierce the mysterious gloom, and restore our free passage between ghost and human realms.
Professor Wathel R. Bender, a noted expert on the metaphysical, initially professed skepticism with the CWG plans, but was won over: "They've tapped into the most forbidden of grimoires and the most terrible of occultists for advice, and have conceived of a plan that has enormous exciting potential - not just the power to chase away the fog, but to advance the state of the metaphysickal arts themselves. It's really quite a marvelous time to be dead!"
But not all the haunts are quite so enthused. No comment was forthcoming from The Ghost Host, nor Madame Leota, but sources close to the power elites of the Haunted Mansion speak of blazing rows with the Ghost Relations Department over this plan, and and uneasy compact that led to its initiation.
COMMUNIQUES FROM BEYOND[]
A GUEST EDITORIAL
Sirs: As one of the Mansion's most senior dead, it behooves me to impart on the younger, well-meaning haunts the benefit of my long experience. Through the thousands of years since my demise and necromantic reanimation, I have had much opportunity to examine the spirit realm and all that it comprises. Trough these aeons, I have witnessed many Curious Fluxations of the Aetheric Energies and Waypoints by which the dead ply the otherworld. Fogs have come, and fogs have gone, and at times, all of spiritdom trembled in fear that they would never go - even I, born of royal blood, who never quailed once in the the earthly days, not even when I was married to my sister Hapshetsut by our father, the Glorious Thutmose I, Bringer of Light, Conqueror of Nubia, Founder of the Great Canals and Grotesquely Inept Matchmaker, must admit that I was overcome by trepidation during one such fog, which endured for the entirety of the 4th century, as dates are reckoned by you moderns.
But even in those most frightening of days, and no matter the depths of our terror, no haunt in my time has ever been so foolish as to try and enlist mortals to the maintenance of the Aetheric Realm. Such manifest foolishness would have been laughed out of the Valley of Kings, the ka of any haunt who proposed it given over to Osiris to use as a spittoon for eleven eternities.
It is easy to mistake the Ghost Relations Department for our helpmeets, as they have played some small role in the creation of this most suitable after-worldly home, but never lose sight of the fact that they are mortals, and can no more understand the spirit realm than a grub can understand a chariot. As to the great horde of 999 squishy, wet, living creatures out there in the world who are now poised to interfere in our affairs, I can only shudder to think of the damage they will do. The Committee of Wandering Ghosts and those who abet it threaten our whole way of life. Goblins, ghoulies, banshees and the disembodied, listen to me, your eldest statesman, when I tell you to reject their foolishness and do as ghosts have done since the earliest days - simply have patience and wait for the troubles to pass.
- AMENMOSE, Great Overseer of Soldiers, Son of Glorious Thutmose I (The Graveyard)
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Editor's Note: Obviously, the foregoing note in no way represents the views of the proprietors and contributors to this newspaper, who find it absurd, patronizing and overwrought. We have published His Majesty's letter in the spirit of full and unhealthy debate, and say no more about it. -P.E.G, E-i-C, C.W.G.
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Editor's Note (Postscriptum): While still saying no more about it, we cannot help but point out the dire lack of substance in honored Amenmose's missive, its overweening incoherence, its sheer bullying illogic. But we'll say no more about it. -P.E.G, E-i-C, C.W.G.
A HEARTFELT APOLOGY AND A MOST SINCERE EXPRESSION OF THANKS TO ALL OUR ESTEEMED READERS[]
A NOTE FROM YOUR FAITHFUL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, PEARL E. GATES
Some few weeks have passed since the last edition of the Grim Gazette was published and for this, I can only blame myself. The circumstances are trying, yes; without precedent, but an editor's job is to publish her paper, and if trying times are an excuse to miss an edition, then what is the sense of a "news" paper at all?
My staff - those good haunts and spirits who have so diligently prepared each day's edition for so many decades - tell me that I am being unduly hard on myself. But how else could I be, when confronting such a manifest failure of solemn duty? This editorial column would excoriate any august personage who failed to live up to his duties to the Haunted Mansion and the greater spirit world. Thus, I can do no less when the miscreant is my own self.
"Grim Grinning Ghosts Should Come Out to Socialize"
So it is that I offer my most heartfelt apologies to you, out readers, whom we failed at a time of much needfulness. I promise you, upon my solemn honor and my stubbornly immortal soul: it shall not happen again.
The Great Unravelling has taken away the ley lines upon which wandering spirits have depended since time immemorial. When these by-ways of the afterlife, once thrumming with mighty power and unmistakable energy, began to dim, the spirit world was complacent. The oldest among us - the people of antiquity, the medieval dead, the stalwart cave-dwellers - insisted that this had happened before, would happen again, and we were calmed.
But the plain truth is we wanted to be calmed. After all, it is our nature to haunt. No one wants to confront an eternity spent tempest-toss'd, without any navigational aids through the great void.
But as the fog drew its shroud around us, as a shroud drawn over the unseeing eyes of our earthly remains, and enveloped the mansion with its impenetrable, suffocating dankness, the truth became clearer. The ley lines, of course, became dimmer.
It was this realization that spooked me, as it spooked many of us, driving me to blind panic and, at the time, a deep grieving, a conviction that the end had at last come.
Without the ley lines, our eternal restlessness becomes a prison, not an escape of the fleshy bonds. Who can contemplate and everlasting afterlife bound to one place without the possibility to wander the world and the wider cosmos, as is the deathright of every honest shade?
Did I say prison? I meant coffin. Readers, of course we quailed at the prospect, lulled ourselves into false complacency, rather rather than confront such a dread everlasting.
But ours is the Age of Reason, is it not? Singing the dirge for your own demise is all well and good, but who among us wouldn't rather do something to better our situation and end our terror?
A few among our number - your humble editor included - have formed the Committee of Wandering Ghosts and leapt into the fray just when hope seemed most wanting. Together we have engaged the Ghost Relations Department on the first stage of the plan to undo the Great Unravelling. We seek this by means of haunted artifacts - the better to indentify the few mortals talented enough to help with our plight.
Our helpmeets at the G.R.D. have acted bravely, and, it must be said, in defiance of a small but vocal coterie of unreasonable dead who persist in the discrediting belief that nothing is wrong, or, worse, that whatever has gone awry, it is ghosts and ghosts alone who can set it to rights.
It is my distinct pleasure to introduce our latest correspondent, Professor Wathel R. Bender, who will grace our pages with a regular column explaining the technical intricacies of the new sciences of metaphysics, with particular emphasis on the Great Unravelling and its attendant complications.
This newspaper, and indeed, your humble editor, gives this full-throated endorsement to the tireless mortals of the Ghost Relations Department. Let us all unite at this darkest hour, curse the darkness and light a candle, struggle through and win our victory everlasting, in the spirit of deathly solidarity!
- Pearl E. Gates, Grim Gazette Editor-in-Chief; proud founding member of the Committee of Wandering Ghosts.
METAPHYSICS DEMYSTIFIED[]
A TIMELY NEW FEATURE
By - Professor Wathel R. Bender
Professor Wathel R. Bender in His Laboratory
The enfoggoing of our demense has been greeted with many reactions by greater spookdom: disbelief, rage, sorrow, even acceptance - but for those of us whose curiosity survived our deaths, the Great Unravelling has been a cause foremost for curiosity.
Yes, curiosity, that noblest and most troublesome of character traits, the proverbial slayer of cats and the author of so much mischief. Curiosity plus the power to reason about the curious raises us above the beasts, gives us the power to harness the great powers of the worlds and put them to work for us.
In this column, I shall endeavor to demystify the mysterious, in an effort to produce a rational discourse concerning the Great Unravelling and what that means for the haunts of our Mansion.
Since the first ghosts rose from their graves to walk the earth, we have depended upon the ley lines and other markers that set out the boundaries of the weird geometries and eldritch topographies of the space between the realms of the the mortal and the immortal.
To the dead, these beacons, tokens and the vast meshwork of glowing ley-lines are the constellations of the afterlife. Through them we can find the correspondences between the dimly-seen world of the living and the vivid but uncanny world of the spirits.
It is by these waypoints that we all maneuvered our way to these happy haunting grounds in the first days of the Haunted Mansion, come hither by invitation of the Ghost Relations Department.
The learned mediums and metaphysickers of the spirits world have reached no accord on the nature of the Great Unravelling - not even when it began. Some maintain that the fog that blinds us to the laneways of the afterlife has come and gone through the ages, and to be sure, we can all recall nights when the afterlife glowed with these constellations.
Likewise, we can all agree that the byways have grown dim for at least two seasons, and that the present state of near-total extinction began a month ago. No variance in this darkness has been detected since, peer as we might into the obscurity, seeking out the dim embers of the banked navigational fires.
This is all that is known for sure. In the weeks to come, I shall advance the best conjectures our most learned ghosts have to offer, and will endeavor to present them impartially, fairly proffering the doubts raised by each theories detractors.
In the meantime, I thank you, readers, for your kind attention, and will welcome your own views aired in the letters column of this publication.
- Wathel R. Bender, C.W.G.
AUNT AGONY ADVICE COLUMN[]
By - A Respectable Lady
DEAR AUNTY: After a century of Warm If Sepulchral Companionship with my late husband, I find myself sorrowing gravely, for he is lost in the Great Enfogging, and I know that I shan't see him again.Sorrow is our burden to bear, 'tis true, but I find that I do naught but weep all through the days and nights. As I am meant to be shrieking in the Mighty Organ, this has put me in a Difficult Position. What advice for an eternity in the Vale of Sorrows?
- SORROWIING, The Ballroom
SORROWING:
What bride would not mourn her departed groom? I certainly mourned ALL of mine. And for you to have lost your beloved with no certainty of his permanent demise, without being able to see his fate with your own eyes - that is doubly tragic. There is no shame in your tears. But as you say, you have a job to do, and can't do it while in tears. I recommend that you seek out a tombstone shrieker in the graveyard and put your plight to him, and see if he will arrange a "job-swap" with you until such time as your pain has dulled.
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DEAR AUNTY: I am a chill, and have been a chill since my demise. I take pride in each goosepimple and each shiver. But now I find myself the sole chill in the infinite corridor, as all the other have gone "where the wild ghost goes," as they say. At first, I delighted in the knowledge that each living body was chilled by me and me alone, but now I am in a state of constant exhaustion. I can't keep this up.
- FRIGID, The Infinite Corridor
FRIGID:
You poor thing! I know exactly of which you speak. My attic also has fewer ghosts than it used to, and we all must work harder to shoulder the burden of terrifying our guests! I do note, however, that you neglected to note your date of death, so it may be that you passed on before the notion of "entropy" was understood. This was a foreign concept to Aunty as well. But a course of reading from the Mansion's excellent library elucidated several modern aspects of the sciences to me. I'm sure you can find several tome to explain more accurately of the entropy with which you contend. To my understanding, you act upon the mortal realm by slowing its minute, unseeable "atoms," that make up the aether. It is thus that the characteristic "chill" is achieved. But your own motion through the air stirs the minutes particles back into motion, so your own hard work works against you! In short, you simply cannot solve this problem through hard work - only by going more slowly can you attain satisfaction, even if it means that every human is frosted. Remember, "running chills" are for mortals, not spooks!
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DEAR AUNTY: Is there anything more foolish-seeming than a woman who waltzes in isolation, forsaken by her bully partner? What next? With each passing month, I grow ever more self conscious of my solo steps.
- ALONE AND RIDICULOUS, The Ballroom
ALONE:
I have looked in upon you waltzers and I can tell you with the utmost candor that none of you look ridiculous. On the contrary, you women waltizing on your own have the quiet majesty of a widow at a funeral. None would dare say otherwise. (And I should know!) Be content, for this is merely a brief interlude before you find yourself another partner.
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DEAR AUNTY: I know there's many a haunt that's missing her husband's sprite, and I don't mean to be ungrateful, but the honest truth is that my husband's haunts and jaunts without the walls of this place have been the secret to our enduring marital happiness. Now that neither of us can travel, I find myself snappish and short-tempered, and I fear for our eternal wedded bliss.
- PEEVISH, The Hall of Portraits
PEEVISH:
An eternity is a long time (as I know only too well). It is perhaps too much to ask that a bride and her groom be in one another's company for all of time. There is no shame in chafing at your forced proximity. Many's the marriage that's been sweetened by absences. In these trying times, perhaps you might relocate your picture to the attic or some other distant corner? Or your husband might do the same? If, however, your husband will not accede to your reasonable requests, might you be perfectly justified in taking more - shall we say - drastic matters? It's not for Aunty to say.
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DEAR AUNTY: I have a secret: for years now, I have made a practice of looking on upon a nice family in Orange County, watching their children grow from tiniest babies to surly teens and beyond. Two, sometimes three times per week I have looked in upon them and made their televisions dissolve into static, or turned all their pictures around in their frames, or other gestures of affection as befit a poltergeist and his victims. Now that we are shut in with no end in sight, I worry so that they might be missing me. I've tried terrorizing the living visitors, but there's no scare like an ongoing scare. Will I ever find happiness?
- FRUSTRTATED, The Attic
FRUSTRATED:
Your commitment to your vocation is admirable, and I commend you for it. You have kept up a gruelling regime of fright for lo these many years, and have earned your rest. It is hard to sit idle when one is so accustomed to industry, and once you get into the habit of your particular kind of terror, it can be difficult to refrain. But these periods of calm serve as punctuation to the hurly-burly of fright, and are a wonderful opportunity to systematically revisit, review and revise your scaring and haunting tactics. Make the best of it, and when the Great Unfogging is undone, you will haunt your family with unmatched vigor.
NOTICE TO OUR ESTEEMED ADVERTISERS[]
Due to a rash of overdue and unpaid dues owed by spirits whose whereabouts are unknown and may never be ascertained, this publication will deal strictly on a bones-in-hand basis. NO CREDIT.
Your understanding is vastly appreciated.
CUNNING ARTIFICE[]
A COMPENDIUM OF NEEDFUL THINGS
By - Divers Hands
If your shroud has tattered beyond recognition through long use, consider POLTERGEISTING; trickery and pranking are best performed by those whose forms are imperceptible to mortals.
When you yearn to wander to the mortal realm, consider mounting a dramatic performance with your crypt-mates, in which some you take on the tole of the living (this has been done to excellent effect on numerous occasions - do not allow the fear of looking foolish to keep you from succour). While you cannot wander the mortal realm, consider this observation: you have an unmatched opportunity to practice your moans and shrieks. In this pursuit, your neighbors and comrades are excellent tutors. An exchange of our "war cries" will yield terrific dividends that we can realize among the living when once more we walk among them.
Make the most of our visitors: when the foolish mortals venture within our tomb-sweet-tomb, haunt them most closely: the brevity of your acquaintance will impart a piquancy and urgency to your playful affrightment. Mind, though, that you don't descend into crude terrorizing; subtlety is the heart of a successful scare.
Possession: though long considered sport for the unsophisticated, there is no prohibition on it per se. Should you choose to don the flesh of a living person, take special note of the earthly sensations, particularly taste and smell, which are notoriously dimmed by passage through the veil. Remember to leave your mount in the same condition in which you found it - the Ghost Relations Department will brook no harm to an honored guest.
PERSONAL NOTICES[]
A RESPECTABLE LADY, possesses own hatchet, seeks respectable gentleman to wile away the eternity of entrapment occasioned by our late enfogging. Reply to this publication, quoting ROMANCE-0745.
LONELY PHANTASM, married in death as in life, recently rendered solitary by a tragic loss to the great unknown., would like to meet skeleton, disembodied limbs, etc. for companionship. Serious inquiries only. ROMANCE-0132.
I AM A COLD CHILL and would take ghoulish delight in freezing the marrow in your bones. No pre-moderns. ROMANCE-65000.
Volume XLVI No. IX[]
THE GREAT UNRAVELLING MAY END.[]
NOT-SO-FOOLISH MORTALS?
MADAME LEOTA SHOCKS SPIRIT WORLD BY ACCEPTING THE LIVING INTO THE CIRCLE OF MEDIUMSHIP, BUT CAN THEY HELP?
By - Divers Hands.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and never in the known history of the afterlife has time been quite this desperate, as is evidenced by the Damascene conversion of our exalted Madame Leota, whom, we can reveal, has accepted an unprecedented number of mortals into her society of mediums.
It is a shocking development, even for this time of unparalleled upheaval in the normal course of death. It is one thing for the inchoate deep powers of the universe to change our circumstances, as with the Great Unravelling; and quite another altogether for a sensate ghost, a mind known and respected throughout the boundless realm of the afterlife, a polestar of constancy, to shift quite so suddenly in our firmament.
"I would not have expected this," said one highly respected, ghost, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Not in a trial of a thousand years. What must Madame Leota have seen, that she had such a profound change of heart? I know that the great medium shares the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all ghosts, and her suspicion of the living is no secret. To have her declare for mortals? It's a puzzle and a glory."
Many other expressed similar sentiments (though none so eloquent as this great orator). Others were not so surprised, however.
"Of course she changed her mind! Whats else could she do? That fog ain't gonna lift itself, and who doesn't need outside help to shift the the big stuff?" said Gus, who reminded us that, prior to his death, he was a veteran of four prison breaks (three of them successful).
"As for me," added Mr. Erasmus Cromwell Pickwick, a noted hauntrepreneur, "I can only thank Madame Leota for her measured response to the unpleasant disagreement over tactics. The Committee of Wandering Ghosts took an existential risk when they persuaded the Ghost Relations Department to send out those boxes - nine hundred & ninety nine of them, no less! We all knew that Madame Leota stood foursquare against it, and it shows enormous character that she has made such a public show of her change of heart."
We can only agree, and express our fond hope that our newly unified confederacy of haunts and our army of mortal mediums will find a way clear of our current circumstances. We are bolstered in these hopes by the welcome news that the Committee of Wandering Ghosts and the Ghost Relations Department have collaborated upon a second parcel of eldritch measurement tools.
"It's true," said Pearl E. Gates, spookswoman of the C.W.G. and editor-in-chief of this journal. "We have fabricated a collection of items with which the mortals will make certain observations, in order to map the extent, nature and weaknesses of the great fog now upon us. It is through this knowledge that we shall find our way clear of the murk that binds us here."
Only in their wildest hopes did the C.W.G. speculate that the mortal who received the first batch of haunted artifacts would be able to use them to establish such a direct and clear link with the Mansion and the other side. The latest shipment contains exceptionally potent tools especially designed for measuring and diagnosing the unrelenting spectral fog.
A DUEL OF SENTIMENT.[]
EDITOR'S NOTE: Hereunder, we present two duelling points of view regarding the Great Unravelling, penned by two respected gentlemen of long and honorable deaths. As you will appreciate, they appeal to cool reason, not base sentiment. The editors of this organ leave it to you, Dear Reader, to decide which one has the better of the other.
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A CAUSE TO REJOICE.
By - Edward Flint
The afterlife is plagued and blessed by myriad phenomena and wonders, and many's the unliving philosopher who has fruitfully passed the centuries by pondering its Mysteries. But not all of these phenomena are welcome. We are lately plagued by the so-called Great Unravelling, and any ghost who claims to know its cause or nature is surely a liar, such is its obscure nature/ Nil desperandum friends, for though no one can precisely say what force is the author of our misery, we can nevertheless advance certain learned and plausible hypothetickals, and weigh them in the balance of pure reason and make our educated guesses. There is a great currency in the notion that the Unravelling is a punishment for our hubris, that our sporting with the living has worn thin that ineluctable Place Between the Worlds, turning it into a dark glass that obscures, instead of revealing.
Another popular notion is that this is part of a Great Ebb and Flow, that some eternal cycle twines back on itself and in the fashion of a snake biting its tail.
There is also the suggestion that the spirit realm has been polluted by the infernal devices whose unholy glow can be plainly seen emanating from the Doom Buggies that rattle merrily through our by-ways. These strange oblongs are venerated by the living in this debased era, clutched and watched with the intensity that a hawk brings to bear upon its prey. These devices rely open the trans-mission of Signals and Intelligences through the very aether, and perhaps these emanations have disarrayed our familiar ley lines.
The Great Unravelling is a change, and a change must have a changer, a force that acts to effect the change. The Infernal Devices have multiplied beyond imagination, so that even the smallest children come clutching them, and this is surely the most gross and obvious alteration of our circumstances.
Be it related to their infernal devices or not, it seems likely that mortals are part of the problem. However unlikely it sounds, we must at least consider what our learned colleague, Professor Wathel R. Bender, suggest in his column. If it is true that mortal belief in ghosts provides the energy behind our Danse Macabre, then we owe the vitality of our spectral existence to these very mortals. Indeed, it would follow that this mortal belief in all manner of ghosts and ghoulies is strongest in our celebrated Mansion. Although it sounds outlandish to some that our ghostly fates are tied to the ever-shifting fads and beliefs of the living, this theory does not bear up to scrutiny. We cannot simply dismiss it just because it is tasteful and unfashionable. Thus it is the wisest course of all for Madam Leota to have recruited her “army of mediums” from among the living, for it is the business of the living to treat with the things of the living. Moreover, such a mystical force, without precedent and without equal, will surely pay dividends beyond the lifting of the fog. Who knows, perhaps they may even find Benito’s Treasure, or Polish Crown Jewels, or even the Forgotten Room itself!
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THE MISERABLE HAVE NO OTHER MEDICINE, BUT ONLY HOPE.
By - Paul Flint
The eternal restlessness of the dead presents many burdens, but none so pesky as the company of immortal, immovable imbeciles. Dunderheads like my learned brother, Mr. Flint, twitter away, jauntily whistling polyannas, casting doubt where none need be, sowing a false security that is worse than any certain fear.
And fear we should. The end is nigh! And who would deny it? Have you not seen the signs? I surely have. Every time the creaking door of our Mansion yawns wide, it admits fifty more pieces of incontrovertible evidence of the coming doom. From the outlandish apparel to the grunts that pass for speech to the-yes- Infernal Devices, there can be no doubt that the world has fallen into wrack and ruin, and its slide into a state of eternal nothingness, the unbearable torture of nullification, is manifesting across the line that separates the living and the dead.
I say it and dare anyone, ghost or living being, to deny it! Having spent decades comporting ourselves in a manner most unseemly, having routine dealings with the living in defiance of all laws of the natural and supernatural world, we now seek to lay off the wages of our wickedness. They cannot be so easily shrugged away. Make your peace, my comrades. MAKE YOUR PEACE.
Fools like my brother have it that you must either light a candle or curse the darkness. What he cannot-will not- see is that we needn’t choose either. No good will come of playing Madame Leota’s foolish games with her horde of unwashed living. Light all of Madam Leota’s candles as you care to, but don’t come to me when you find that they’ve illuminated nothing and you find that you’ve run out of both matches and candles.
Nor need we curse the darkness. The foreordained is here, and we can go to it with dignity, not cowering away until it takes us. If Madame Leota wanted to demonstrate the legitimacy of her leadership, she would lead us all into the oblivion of the mist.
Some will say that I am making a case lacking in evidence. To the sort of donkey who believes in pure fancy like the Forgotten Room, the sort of tyro whose death is less than a century behind them, perhaps my arguments lack gravity. Leave them to it, I say. Fools are as fools do. Side with them at your peril.
An aside to the editors: I understand very well that I have more space at my disposal to make my arguments, but I reject it, I do! I have said my piece, and will not write another word, for the truth is the truth, and there are none so blind as will not see.
-HHK
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MADAME LEOTA SPEAKS[]
AN INTERVIEW EXCLUSIVE TO THIS NEWSPAPER.
By - I. Trudy Dew, Grim Gazette
It has been nearly 150 years since Madame Leota consented to her last interview, with the dearly departed (and sorely missed) Ghostly Almenack. We are honored to be able to set down her words in type here.
I. TRUDY DEW: Madame Leota, allow me to begin by stating my respect, nay, my awe of your power and your wisdom.
MADAME LEOTA: Quite.
ITD: The spirit world has its share of mediums, of course, none with the weird percepvicity and wisdom of yourself, why-
ML: Enough.
ITD: I apologize, Madame.
ML: Quite.
ITD: Our predicament has become a constant menace. What hope have you for the ghosts?
ML: The predicament is well in hand. I have recruited a coterie of living mediums, a psychic army of a scale quite unseen in human memory. There are stories in the old grimoires, of course, of networks of sensitives working in concert, but the detail is fragmentary at best. I've had to work out all of the detail from first principles.
ITD: Oh dear! Does this mean that the outcome is in doubt?
ML: No.
ITD: But, begging your pardon, Madame, didn't you just say that had to work it out from first principles?
ML: I certainly did.
ITD: Again, perhaps I misunderstand you, but doesn't that mean that there is no reliable basis on which to predict the outcome?
ML: Child, I said that I had worked it out myself.
ITD: Oh. Oh, I see. Thank you for clarifying.
ML: Quite.
ITD: Well, that is good news then. Have you anything else you would convey to our eager readers?
ML: No.
METAPHYSICS DEMYSTIFIED.[]
THE DANSE MACABRE
By - Professor Wathel R. Bender
"A ROUSING TUNE CAN INSPIRE MERRIMENT"
Welcome again, my dear readers, to this regular Chautauqua on all things spiritual. It's only natural - or, perhaps, supernatural - that the dead would take their state of being for granted. After all, the living surely do. The fact that we are able to, e.g., subsist beyond the grave though we neither breathe, eat nor drink seems hardly remarkable, though a moment's reflection will reveal that this is indeed a mystery and mysteries are our business at Metaphysics Demystified.
Today, I will discourse on dancing. Perhaps you noticed, when you crossed over, that you had a certain... rhythm? That you seemed to pulse to an otherworldly beat, some unheard tune setting your form bobbing and your aetherial form bobbing? Take a moment now and observe yourself closely. Chances are, you are dancing ever so slightly, as you read this.
In our blindness to everyday phenomena, we dead hardly even notice the "danse macabre," but it is this movement that joins us to the literal fabric of the metaphysical plane.
You see, every ley line in creation pulses with its own mystical rhythms, as does a long string when it is plucked, vibrating in a stately meter, ticking off the contours of reality itself. These ley lines, though commonly viewed as conduits for traversing the weird realms of the afterlife, are like a spider's web upon which we perch, and it is by unconscious use of their crisscrossing energies that we are able to to maneuver back and forth, up and down (another aspect of the afterlife that we take for granted - the ability to rise and fall!).
And these ley lines, thrumming with the tune that plays the universe into being, impart to us their rhythm. It is these sympathetic vibrations that accounts for the spritely footwork of the dead. It is that force that turns even the most clay-footed clod into a Will-o'-Wisp.
For time untold, metaphysicians have constructed elegantly simple mechanisms for measuring the ley lines. Even among the living, it's not unheard of for a curious and talented medium to fashion a device that oscillates in harmony with the ley lines. If, and when, they do fashion such a device, these special mortals may catch a glimpse of our danse macabre.
Some metaphysicians have even theorized that the mortals themselves may have some direct connection to energizing the ley lines. They propose that the pulse we feel is human "vigor" echoing through the spirit realm. However, this remains in the realm of speculation.
AUNT AGONY ADVICE COLUMN[]
By - A Respectable Lady
DEAR AUNTY: In the gallery where I am situated, the other portraits chatter incessantly about the calamity of the present challenges to our kind. None of them have ever been part of the spirit realm long enough to recall the Great Ectoplasm Drought of 1783 - which was a crisis of such proportion to make the current predicament look like the teapot tempest it surely is. How do I get these ninnies to cease their endless nattering and accept their fate with dignity and grace?
ENERVATED STOIC, in the Great Hall.
ENERVATED:
You are clearly an ancient spirit with a long afterlife behind you. Perhaps you may recall that these "ninnies" as you call them, are of a more recent vintage and that such classical and venerable ghouls as yourself might have something to lean from more modern spook sensibilities. Also, a word of caution - never underestimate the resolve of a ninny. I know of many who did so, and did not live to regret it.
---
DEAR AUNTY: Everyone is so frightfully excited at the keen breakthroughs made by the CWG. Only, there are clunks - I'm not naming names - who are acting like we've already solved the whole problem! They're skipping Committee meetings! How can I get them to stop dancing and the come back to the CWG so we can fix things once and for all?
SERIOUSLY COMMITTED, The Ballroom.
SERIOUSLY:
Here in the afterlife, most of us are unaccustomed to the pressures and predilections of organized activity. If not for the leadership of certain powerful spirits, we may not have achieved even this small modicum of progress. Everybody enjoys a short respite from labor now and again. So why not return to the dancing for a short while with your friends? There will be enough time to work tomorrow. I always say - make sure you raise your spirits while you can, because you never know what may befall you tomorrow.
---
DEAR AUNTY: The Graveyard Jazz Combo kept the wake swinging, non-stop. But now our bassist is missing - he went out for a stroll and never came back. Every day, I keep his instrument ready in case he returns safely. The thing is, while he's been gone, I've started playing some solo compositions, and I'm not sure I want to go back to playing with the same sort of music like we did before. If he does return, how do I decide?
RATTLING THE BONES, out in the Graveyard.
RATTLING:
I certainly know that the compromises made as one part of a larger force can sometimes chafe. They can get so constricting that you feel like you must do something, anything to get away. But should your bandmates return, then you will have an important job to do. Your combo is essential to the morale of the Mansion. And in this moment, morale is of crucial importance. If you should be so lucky to get your band members back, rejoice! And play! The spirits need you to take on this task. Our mortal guests do, as well. Remember, eternity is a long time, during which you will have ample opportunity to explore your new musical directions.
---
DEAR AUNTY: I do not see any reason to hope that this fog shall be lifted, or to put any faith into the misguided efforts of a few overeager spirits or nonsense concerning the Forgotten Room. All things must come to an end. Our mortal coils certainly did. I shall await whatever new eternity awaits us once the fog envelops us completely. Why cannot others face the unknown with the same equanimity?
TRANQUIL, in the Great Hall.
TRANQUIL:
Some spirits are content to accept their fate. Others have a more active role in securing their own eternity. What works for the ghoul does not always work for the cadaver. But we'll all end up in the same place in the end.
---
DEAR AUNTY: For decades, I was consigned to a far corner of the cemetery, far away from the mortals who come to call on us. Some time ago, I noticed that the cadaverous gentleman who normally blocked my vantage had left the graveyard. I waited for him to return. A seeming eternity went by with no sign of him. So I shambled from my perch to take up his spot. I have been in this location for almost a year. If the fog lifts and the cadaverous fellow returns, will I have to relinquish this prime location to him?
EMINENTLY DOMAINED, in the Graveyard.
EMINENTLY:
I am not a solicitor, and so your question is better suited for the more legally-minded ghouls among us. You will find no shortage of ghostly lawyers in the library, arguing over ancient precedents. A word of caution, however. Lawyers tend to slow down any proceedings they get involved with. A simple dispute could drag out for a century. Personally, I have always preferred to resolve problems myself, only retaining legal counsel at the last resort.
PERSONAL NOTICES[]
WANTED: SPOOKS of uncommon valor, to help prove the Great Unravelling is a hoax. I am mounting an expedition to leave the Mansion and uncover the truth. Brave souls are sought to join in this grand adventure. If you are ghoul enough, reply to WANTED-4345.
LOST FAMILIAR. Three-eyed Newt. Answers to "Reynaldo." Last seen in the ballroom. Reward for safe return. Reply to LOST-9899.
MISSED CONNECTION: Me - headless. You - shimmering. We were haunting mortals in side-by-side Doom Buggies. I complimented you on your spooking technique. Meet for conversation, hemlock tea? Reply here to MISSED-0170.
INK-STAINED WRETCH, died in my garret of consumption and overwork. Looking for same to start a new chapter. Reply to ROMANCE-5309.
TODAY'S BRIDGE[]
VOINCE ON BRIDGE.
AN OPENING BID TOWARD ENLIGHTENMENT.
By - Claire Voince
When one picks up the card, any card, one is immediately thrust into a world of disconnect. Of binaries and divisions. Front and back. Suits and trumps. Major arcana and minor. No matter the game or the practice or the ritual, the dealing out of said cards becomes an exercise in ending said disconnect. In building a bridge between one state and another. The cards themselves become the mechanism for connecting different realms together, and there are countless examples throughout many histories about the power of cards to bridge together different worlds.
Volume XLVI No. X[]
THE FORGOTTEN ROOM IS REAL[]
"The Forgotten Room Has Been Remembered Once More"
LEGENDS PROVE TRUE, HARBINGER OF HOPE IS AT HAND.
MORTALS' RITE, GUIDED BY MADAME LEOTA, REVEALS THE MOST HAUNTED HEART OF THE MANSION.
The Forgotten Room is not a legend.
Every spook has heard the story of the Forgotten Room, embroidered with embellishments about a friend-of-a-friend who knew someone who found the room by chance, felt the increase of the spectral-energies in that most hallowed hall, then upon turning around, could no longer locate it. Long thought to be a ghost-wives-tale, the Forgotten Room's existence can no longer be doubted.
The unassailable fact of its existence came to light this week, when mortals - albeit under the direction of our own exalted Madame Leota - performed a rite that revealed its location, causing it to spring from a set of blueprints that were made to give up their secrets through the sheer power of Madame Leota and here proteges.
The origin of the Forgotten Room is as mysterious as its nature. Every tale accounts for it in a different fashion: some say that the architect of the Haunted Mansion created it by means of a cunning working of runes and cruel geometries into the structural members of the building. Other more gossip-minded spirits claim Constance herself caused the room's creation in order to have a secure place in which she could tuck away the numerous heads of her numerous husbands (although this has generally been debunked based on temporal inaccuracies). The most popular theory has is that the Forgotten Room spring into being after the ghosts and ghoulies took up residence in the Haunted Mansion. That is to say, that our very presence created a place that collected and concentrated our spectral forces.
News of the room's discovery raced through the Mansion, and so it was that a large contingent of our most respected (and swift) ghosts were on hand in the Ballroom when the long-sought portal was thrown open and its contents revealed: a miscellany of objects - some beyond description. By way of example, a set of thaumatropes were discovered. These are simple, even crude, baubles used to generate eldritch energy by means of a swiftly spun card It was a cruel moment for the assembled spirits, who has nursed secret hopes inspied by the room's stories reputation.
"It's embarrassing," admitted Gus. "I'm 228 years old. But I was like a little kid, just completely convinced that, you know, bam, the doors would open and a genie or something would waltz out and solve all our problems. I didn't think we'd find those thau-tho-tommy-throats."
But hope springs eternal in the Mansion. Sally Slater, of the Stretching Gallery, confided that she believed that Madame Leota would know what to do with the room's consignment. "The room is real, and Madame Leota's powers are real. This is the breakthrough we've been waiting for."
Madame Leota declined to be interviewed for this article. However, sources close to the medium indicated that she will rely on this self-same mortals responsible for locating the room to activate the objects found within. Our own esteemed editor, Pearl E. Gates, relates, "The Committee of Wandering Ghosts is proud to be back in the good graces of Madame Leota, helping to catalog these treasures and working toward a common goal." She continued: "We are hopeful that, in the right hands, these most haunted objects will help our mortal friends knit together what has come undone."
Metaphysical experts theorize that expert mortal involvement may even be necessary should the Great Unravelling prove to be caused by mortals. Professor Wathel R. Bender speculated that "our haunting strength may actually derive from out connection to the mortal plane. That is why we feel energized by the daily procession of visitors to our stately Mansion." It follows, then, that the hands of mortals beyond our gates be responsible for energizing our travels to those realms.
A RARE LIBRETTO.[]
AN INTERVIEW WITH VICTOR GEIST, PERMANENT ORGANIST AND HEADLINER OF THE BALLROOM.
By - I. Trudy Dew
I. TRUDY DEW: Mr. Geist, let me being by thanking you for this honor. Please understand I hold you in the highest esteem, no matter that you were shown to have been perfectly, utterly wrong in your longstanding insistence that the Forgotten Room is was a legend and-
VICTOR GEIST: Yes, Trudy, it's true that I have been one of the most vigorous doubters of the stories of the Forgotten Room's existence-
ITD: And, as if to pile infamy upon shame, the entrance to this room whose existence you denied has surfaced in the very room you call home, a room you have haunted for nearly half a century!
VG: Yes, Trudy, I'm well aware of that fact. But let me make clear that our best understanding of the Forgotten Room is that it does not intrude upon our realm in any fixed location; it could just have readily opened its doors upon the foyer, or the crypts, or Madame Leota's seance room, or-
ITD: But it appeared in the ballroom upon the doorstep of a man who once called the story of iTs existence "a foolish yarn only kept alive by-"
VG: "-By the need of the most soft-headed ghosts to comfort themselve with the thought that their problems will be solved by great and unknowable forces, rather than by hard work and sacrifice," Trudy, I know what I said, and-
ITD: Oh, of course you know what you said, but I wanted to remind our readers.
VG: Let me stipulate, then, that they have their reminder. But Miss Dew, as I was about to point out, until this moment, there was no good reason, no evidence, for the room's existence. And I believe that it is true that the reason that this particular story persisted, as opposed to the myriad of other tales brought under this roof by our great company of the dead of all lands and ages, is that so many of us have comforted ourselves in our darkest hours with the thought that the Forgotten Room might show itself and make our troubles vanish like smoke up a crematorium's chimney, and now that the room has shown itself, we see that those hopes were nurtured in vain, for whatever it is the room has given us, it is not an answer to our problems. At best, it is the means by which that answer may be found.
ITD: So you still won't admit that the Forgotten Room is our greatest hope?
VG: Miss Dew, you are putting words in my mouth, and I don't like it. The means by which the room was opened was musical in nature, was it not? If you happen upon Madame Leota, perhaps you could inquire as to which talented musician she called upon to work with the mortals to unlock that door.
ITD: Are you saying you worked with Madame Leota to discover the Forgotten Room?
VG: I'm not saying any such thing. You may have inferred it, but I didn't say it.
ITD: Did you intend for me to infer it.
VG: I really couldn't say.
ITD: Did you work with Madame Leota to open the door?
VG: Madame Leota always swears her assistants to secrecy.
ITD: So you were her assistant?
VG: Whatever would give you that idea?
METAPHYSICS DEMYSTIFIED[]
NEW DISCOVERIES ABOUND.
By - Professor Wathel R. Bender
When I began this column, it was with the hope of imparting a few pieces of subtle arcana known to metaphysicians buy largely unknown to the wider ghosting world. Little did I suspect that I would be given the opportunity to describe new discoveries in the field just as they were were being made!
The discovery of the Forgotten Room and its precious cargo has been something of a seismic shift in the scholarly world. The uncanny geometries of multi-dimensional spaces are not a fit subject for a general-audience column such as this one, but I will attempt to summarize my examinations of this remarkable location succinctly.
Suffice to say, this nook - because of its undisturbed and oft-forgotten nature - has absorbed our spectral energies during our residence in this elegant abode.
Moreover, due to its particular capacitive properties, it has concentrated and distilled these energies, making it without question the most haunted place in the the Mansion.
Lay-ghosts have been comparing it to a sort of 'boiler room' for ghastly powers. While not technically accurate, this metaphor is serviceable insofar as this place seems to both derive power from us and imbue power on that which it connects.
Today, though, I would like to share with you our best thinking on the contents of the room, which many an amateur ghost has dismissed as a miscellany of random gewgaws from the antiquity of the spirit world.
Among these items, the delicate tableware is of note, as ceramics ten to be particularly malleable when exposed to eldritch energies such as those of this room. However, I am at the very beginning of my studies in this area and cannot report further.
Which brings me to the thaumatropes discovered therein. Their working is, of course, simple as could be. They two images leave behind the morphic resonances of the images they bear on their faces, and these are intermingled by the twirling of the disk, until, by means of sympathetic translation, they two are united in the world.
Or, more plainly stated, the effect is achieved in two steps:
First, you hold one of these by the threads on either side and wind it as you would a mortal jump rope - holding fast to the two side as you twist the center. Then, pull the two side in opposite directions such that the central disc spins so quickly as to unite the worlds depicted on each side.
For reasons that no metaphysician has been able to adequately explain, these toy-like bagatelles throw off vast amounts of surplus eldritch energies. It follows that these energies have only been compounded by the exposure to the Forgotten Room. Given that they depict both the mortal and spectral states of being, I can only surmise that their operation would cause some union between the two. However, due to their intently powerful nature, I myself have not put this theory to the test.
Returning briefly to the properties of the room itself. You may wonder, dear, reader, why it has been known by the moniker 'Forgotten Room.' The answer to that question has been revealed clear as moonlight to any ghost venturing in the proximity of this newly opened chamber. Simply put: in its presence, spirits forget things.
But, as I can personally attest, it is a strange sort of forgetting. It is the sort of forgetting wherein you feel you almost remember something vitally important. Something you had just discovered on the edge of your consciousness that, when focused upon, becomes even more murky.
In my research, it seems possible that the effect only extends to ghosts and those of a spectral nature, and would not impair our mortal fellows. Putting these objects in the hands of mortals may reveal the full nature of the forgotten notion. Thus, I look forward to the results of the grand experiment undertaken by Madame Leota and the Committee of Wandering Ghosts.
AUNT AGONY ADVICE COLUMN[]
By - A Respectable Lady
DEAR AUNTY: I am an ancient and sagacious spook, with thousands of years of haunting to my credit. I do not excite easily. And yet, I find myself in an unaccustomed mood. You might not be able to tell when you look at me, but with the impending lifting of impediments to travel, I am as giddy as I’ve been since the Black Plague. But accordingly, I find that my daily encounters with the mortals who come to visit our august mansion have become rote, uninspired. I am aware that I must haunt responsibly, but I find that my ectoplasm yearns for the open aether. Do you have any counsel on how to resolve this conundrum?
SHACKLED, The Dungeon.
SHACKLED:
If you have as many years of haunting as you say, that you don’t need to tell me to tell you that one thing is always predictable is that the spirit realm is always unpredictable. So remember, it is entirely possible that the efforts by Madame Leota and her human charges will not be successful. You know what they say about counting chickens? That goes doubly if they are ghost fowl. So let the fates decide the future. For now, be content to give your spooky attention to the foolish mortals in front of you.
---
DEAR AUNTY: Like all right-minded spirits, I am overjoyed by the news that a solution to our joint calamity appears to be imminent. However, if I search to the center of my spirit, I must admit that I am beset by trepidation. It has been so long since I last journeyed away from the bosom of the Mansion, and the mortal realms progress at such a rapid pace. What if I no longer know how to haunt properly? What if my scare tactics have become old hat while we’ve been trapped inside? Even once it becomes safe, should I refrain from wandering out?
TREPID, The Cellar
TREPID:
Dear spirit. I, too, know the fear of which you speak. When you’ve been out of circulation for sometime, when due to a strange force or because of some previous calamity, it can be difficult to venture out anew. But believe me, there is nothing for you to fear. There is a time to mourn, and there is a time to stay close to home. But there is also a time to re-enter to world, to cast off your hermitage and once again go forth. Any discomfort you feel will be momentary. I assure you that you will soon find yourself haunting as beautifully as you ever did. Do not hide your ghostly light under anyone’s bushel!
---
DEAR AUNTY: I must confess that the elation at the prospect of being able to travel once again is tempered by more domestic concerns. In life, I was the Prince of a small kingdom and, without disclosing too many family secrets, let me say that a rash of poisonings, stabbings, and betrayals brought about not only my own demise, but also that of my father, mother, and several scheming cousins. My last thoughts were of the peace of the grave, how I would finally be free of the machinations of my family. However, the afterlife is not too generous, and I found myself haunting the halls of my former home along with the shades of my relatives. Even in ghostly form, the squabbling was never-ending. So I left the ancestral crypts for a cozy spot in the Mansion. Not too long afterwards, traveling became impossible. Aunty, I know that this has been a terrible time for most other spirits, but for me it’s the most peaceful period I have ever known-living or expired. But I know the moment travel becomes safe again, the whole lot will show up on my doorstep. How can I maintain this peaceful repose when forced to play host to such terrible ghosts? Should I leave the Mansion before they can find me?
SEEKING QUIET, The Rookery
SEEKING:
My dear, I know entirely of what you speak. As someone who has been part of several different families, I know the challenges to be faced with relatives from whom you cannot escape. In life, I always found that a good sharp axe solved many of these problems. But have passed into the realm where there is no axe is sharp enough to sever you from your tiresome relations. One solution to your predicament would be to leave the Mansion yourself to find a new haunting ground, and tell no one where you’ve gone. But eternity is a long time to keep running away from your problems. Perhaps, when your unruly relations arrive, it will be a good time to have a frank talk with them. And if they do not want to listen, I know some powerful spirits who would not hesitate to intervene on your behalf. Also, remember: it is still quite possible that the ability to travel will not be successfully restored. So you might not have to face this problem at all.
PERSONAL NOTICES[]
SITUATION VACANT: Top half of mummy, with intact torso, arms, and head seeks disembodied legs and feet. Let's team up and locomote. Reply to SITUATION-8120
FOR SALE: Gloomy graveyard plots. Reasonably priced. Buy now and avoid the rush. Refurbished crypts also available. Reply to SALE-0207.
MISSED CONNECTION: When you were a mortal ghost hunter, you chased me for years but you could never catch me. Now that you've crossed this side of the veil, I might let you. Reply to MISSED-7774.
NONCORPORAL MIST in search of a corporeal entity around which to manifest. Reply to ROMANCE-9191.