The Ghosts of Neopets Past

     "We don't discuss personal finances in public, Erm," I hissed, dragging her away from the bemused Kacheek. "And anyway, you can't assume someone's poor just because their pets aren't painted."

     Victoraleigh, my Blue Zafara, nodded in agreement. I'd offered to buy her a paint brush with my recent windfall, but she preferred her azure fur to anything flashy.

     "Okay, okay, I get it!" Ermyntrude groaned. "Can we, like, get borovan now?"

     "You do realize that's made of asparagus, don't you?"

     "What? Ew!"

     I rolled my eyes and opened an informational brochure I'd picked up on the way in. I'd forgotten gloves, and the cold air stung my hands. "So did you guys want to hit the Advent Calendar and then—hey, where's Capriece and Haelaena?"

     Panicked, I glanced around for my two missing pets.

     "Oh, Capriece is back there," Ermyntrude said, jerking her head over her shoulder. "She's refusing to move unless you give her a piggyback ride."

     "Oh, for the love of—"

     "And Haelaena's handing out her flyers."

     Haelaena, my Tyrannian Peophin, was sick of pummeling the Chia Clown in the Battledome, so she'd taken to handing out flyers with her stats and contact information to find other opponents.

     I sighed and rubbed my temples. "I am so done with tonight. Victoraleigh, you go get Haelaena. Ermyntrude, you can give Capriece a piggyback ride. I'll wait for you here."

     Victoraleigh happily obliged, but Ermyntrude gave a snooty toss of her head before trotting off to find the Royal Kyrii.

     While I waited, I observed the throng of Neopians milling through the snow. I don't get much into the holiday spirit, but the lights and music and smiles and laughter warmed my heart a little.

     And then I saw her.

     Straight ahead, huddled in the snow, was a scrawny Green Gelert. She was plain except for her dull, mint-colored fur, which wasn't thick enough to hide her protruding ribs. No one seemed to see her, and if they did, they pretended not to. The crowd flowed around her as if she were a boulder in a stream. Unable to ignore a suffering Neopet, I headed her way.

     As I approached, she lifted her head to meet my gaze. Her eyes were deep-set and haunted, dark as chunks of Night Stone. And terribly, terribly familiar.

     Her mournful stare turned suddenly feral, and then she was on top of me, snapping at my throat with slavering jaws. I tried to scream for help but found myself unable to. My voice was frozen in my throat, my hands barely able to keep my attacker at bay.

     "Reewuh!"

     Someone was calling my name, someone very far away, perhaps at the base of the mountain. I couldn't respond, though; I was too busy closing my hands around the Gelert's throat, crying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" as she started to choke—

     And then she had vanished and I was wrapped in Ermyntrude's arms, held tight against her warm, feathered chest. Victoraleigh and Capriece, their faces pale with fear, snuggled close to me, and Haelaena snorted at the curious passerby, giving a threatening crack of her finned tail whenever they wandered too close.

     "Where'd she go?" I croaked.

     "Who?" Victoraleigh asked.

     "The Gelert. The Gelert that was just biting my throat."

     Victoraleigh looked uncomfortable.

     "Reewuh," Ermyntrude said. "There wasn't any Gelert."

     A shudder washed down my body. I pushed away from Ermyntrude's grasp and staggered to my feet. "What do you mean there wasn't any Gelert? Do you think I'd just fling myself into the snow and pretend someone was attacking me? Boy, that sounds like my idea of a grand old time."

     "Maybe we should go home," Victoraleigh said, patting my arm.

     I didn't get much sleep that night. My dreams were loud and confusing and full of vaguely familiar Neopets from another time. A Mutant Korbat slashed at my face. A Brown Zafara lay weeping at my feet. A Blue Uni lowered her horn at my heart.

     I woke up drenched in sweat, my mouth sour and my curls deteriorated into frizz. Victoraleigh was lying next to me, snoring softly. I tenderly brushed her forelock from her eyes before slipping out of bed. The floorboards were cold beneath my bare feet, and my breath made ghosts in the air. Frost spider-webbed across the windowpane. We desperately needed groceries, but I'd probably just stay inside playing NeoQuest all day.

     "How you feeling?" Ermyntrude asked as I walked into the kitchen.

     The Faerie Eyrie was munching a bowl of dry cereal and doodling on the Neopian Times.

     "Aren't you going to read that?" I asked, wearily pulling the newspaper away from her crayons.

     "Read? Ew."

     Smiling, I opened the Times and browsed the headlines without really absorbing anything. Something titled "Ghost Gelert Brutalizes Poor Innocent Pet Owner" might've grabbed my attention, but alas. No luck.

     "Where's Haelaena?" I asked.

     "Beating up the Chia Clown," Ermyntrude responded.

     "No luck with her flyers, huh?"

     "Nah. She says everyone's intimidated by her. I just think her stats are too lame to interest anybody."

     I nodded. "Astute."

     "Hey, what'd you call me?"

     "Don't worry, it's a compliment."

     Ermyntrude returned to her cereal with a smug smile.

     I was debating whether or not Neocola is an acceptable breakfast when something crashed through the kitchen window. I screamed and ducked as glass rained all around me. Heart throbbing, I slammed the dishwasher open to fumble for some knives. I slid one across the linoleum to Ermyntrude and grabbed another for myself. It was only as I was stabbing at the intruder that I realized I'd grabbed a spoon.

     Smart, Reewuh.

     I tossed the useless utensil aside and faced my attacker empty-handed. Though the sight turned my blood to slush, I wasn't particularly surprised to find myself face-to-face with a Mutant Korbat. His thick, wormlike tail lashed back and forth, poison dripping from the spike. His fathomless black eyes bored into mine. I tried to look away, but my gaze was cemented to his. Though my feet never left the ground, I suddenly felt as if the Korbat had tugged the linoleum out from beneath me. There was the weirdest sinking sensation in my chest, heavy as the moon dropping below the horizon. It kept sinking, too, pulling time with it, dragging me back through the years until I was eleven again—

     —but then it released its hold, and, like a missile from a slingshot, I shot back to my familiar world.

     My whole body jerked with the impact of hitting the present day. When my vision cleared, I realized I was lying on the floor, staring up at my Neopets' faces.

     "Green Gelert again?" Ermyntrude asked, smirking.

     I tried to sit up but was stricken with a head rush.

     "No, no," I mumbled. "It was Celestyo." I pushed myself into a sitting position, slower this time.

     "Do we need to take you to the hospital?" Victoraleigh asked.

     Looking over my shoulder, I saw that the window was perfectly intact. Groaning, I sank my head into my hands. "I really am going insane."

     "I saw it too," someone said.

     I looked up to meet Capriece's hazel eyes and suddenly felt reassured. I trusted the Royal Kyrii on matters like this, and not just because of her guru turban. Capriece was somewhat psychically gifted, especially when it involved her pack of playing cards. She had them with her now, fanned out in her left paw. I chose the Seven of Spades, and Capriece nodded sagely. "He feels betrayed. They all do."

     I cringed.

     "Excuse me," Ermyntrude said. "What the Pant Devil are you talking about?"

     "Who's Celestyo?" Victoraleigh asked.

     Capriece and I looked at each other. Just then, Haelaena burst through the front door, her fur steaming in the frosty air. Whistling cheerfully, she tossed her sword to the ground, shook out her sweaty red mane, and joined us in the kitchen, grinning broadly despite the fact that her left eye was swollen shut. "No autographs," she said, waving a dismissive hoof. When we didn't respond, she said, "Get it? 'Cause I can't hold a pen? Ha ha ha!" We still didn't respond. "What's eating you guys? Did you have another crazy-person hallucination, Reewuh?"

     I scowled at her.

     "Reewuh's dealing with some karmic baggage," Capriece said.

     Ermyntrude pelted the Kyrii with a handful of cereal. "In real words, please!"

     Capriece straightened her turban. "Don't you get it, bird brain? Reewuh's other pets have come back to haunt her!"

     A terrible hush fell on the kitchen table. I nervously picked at a hangnail.

     "What other pets?" Ermyntrude asked, looking around the room. "Your boyfriend would never let you upgrade to premium."

     "I didn't upgrade to premium."

     "But then how—"

     "She has other accounts," Capriece said. "With other pets."

     "Pets that I left sick and starving," I moaned, slumping back to the floor.

     Victoraleigh frowned. "I don't understand. Why didn't you ever tell us about them?"

     I hated seeing the distress in my Zafara's eyes. "Because they didn't matter anymore. I'd outgrown them. You guys are my world now."

     She mulled this over. "How many other pets are there?"

     I took a deep breath. I couldn't even remember. "Well, there was Zuranuim, a Brown Zafara—"

     Victoraleigh wilted. "You had another Zafara?"

      "Yes, but she was nothing like you, Vic, I swear! None of them could ever compete with you guys."

     "Bet they're happy to hear that," Capriece said dryly.

     "Did you have any Eyries?" Ermyntrude asked.

     I winced. "Salsa_Salvaje. Green. Male."

     "And a Kyrii too," Capriece said. "A red one."

     "How did you know that?" Ermyntrude asked, goggling.

     Capriece held up a Nine of Diamonds.

     "Peophins?" Haelaena asked.

     "Nope." I shook my head. "You're the first."

     She grinned wider, but caught herself when she saw my other pets' expressions.

     "You guys, it's nothing," I choked out. "Old accounts. Buried. Dead. Forgotten. The end. Nothing to see here. Show's over. Goodbye and goodnight."

     "If it's nothing," Haelaena said, "why are you hallucinating that your old pets are trying to kill you?"

     "I'm not hallucinating," I protested.

     They all stared at me.

     "They're real!" I insisted. "I can prove it."

     My pets followed me to the Virtupets search device. "Now, look, we're just going to search honey1667, okay? She's the Gelert."

     "She had a number in her name?" Ermyntrude pantomimed gagging. "Ew."

     "I adopted her," I explained. "Jeez, this is taking forever to load. Wait, what? No results? Maybe there was an underscore."

     I spelled honey1667's name a dozen different ways, but a sad Blue Grundo concluded every search. I tried Celestyo next, with the same result. Then I tried KalamataOlive the Kyrii, and then the Green Eyrie Salsa_Salvaje, and even the Uni Saffifire and the Ogrin Zellandonnii, but it was like they'd never existed.

     I searched my old identities next—GoldenGharial and SunnyBlackCat and Orrin_Nox and JustLuverly, but they were ghosts too.

     "You were a lot of different people," Victoraleigh observed.

     "Same as I am now," I said.

     But was I? Was I really the same ten-year-old girl who'd stumbled wonderstruck into Neopia all those years ago? Or the fourteen-year-old rekindling an old interest? Those were different accounts, disconnected from the Reewuh my pets knew and trusted, and for all I knew, they were entirely different people as well.

     "Capriece," I said. "What do I do?"

     I turned to her for guidance, but it wasn't Caprice standing before me. It was a different Kyrii, a Kyrii with rust-colored fur and black holes instead of eyes. I blinked, and there was Capriece again, a curl of her luxurious teal fur escaping her turban. She must've seen my expression, because she gave me a brisk, awkward pat on the shoulder. Not the cuddly sort, my Capriece.

     Abruptly returning to her comfort zone, she slapped a playing card on the desk. Squinting intently at the Five of Hearts, she said, "They have unfinished business. They've faded over time, and now they're just restless phantoms of their old selves."

     "Could you be any creepier?" Ermyntrude snapped, rubbing her shoulders. "I feel like my fur's full of Spyders."

     "It probably is," Haelaena said. "Reewuh's idea of cleaning is reorganizing her bookshelf."

     I cuffed the Peophin on the ear. "Right now we're dealing with a different kind of infestation, Laena. The ghosty kind."

     "Dealing with it how? Playing 'pick a card' with Princess Hocus Pocus? If these ghosts want a fight, let's give them one, for Fyora's sake!"

     "No offense, Haelaena," said Victoraleigh, "but your level isn't exactly too high to count."

     "And even if it were," I said, "I don't know how effective brawn and bravado are against a bunch of vengeful ghost account Neopets."

     "That none of us actually believe in," said Ermyntrude.

     But when Capriece's Mauket meowed loudly behind us, even Ermyntrude screamed.

     Victoraleigh fell to her knees, sobbing, head buried in her paws.

     "Hey, hey, hey!" I cooed, rubbing her shoulder. "It was just Capriece's stupid Petpet."

     Victoraleigh's fur was cold as death beneath my palm. Was she okay? Was she sick? She didn't look so good. Her fur was dull and patchy and no longer a rich hue of sapphire. It was milk-chocolate-brown, the same color as Zuranuim's.

     I jerked my hand away. "Stop it. You're not real."

     Zuranuim raised her head, capturing me in the glittering Voidberries of her eyes. Where honey1667 and Celestyo had appeared livid with me, Zuranuim just looked sad. "Orrin?" she said, her voice echoing endlessly through time and space. "Orrin, is that you?"

     I shook my head. "No, I'm Reewuh now."

     "Where's Orrin?"

     "She grew up."

     The Brown Zafara bit her lip. "But where'd she go?"

     Before I could explain myself, Zuranuim was gone, Victoraleigh stood in her place, and I was completely drenched with Berry Cola Slushie. "Was that really necessary?" I snapped, combing strands of sopping, sticky hair from my face.

     "You were being all weird!" Ermyntrude said defensively.

     "And you couldn't have splashed some water on my face?"

     Ermyntrude shiftily eyed my other pets. "It was Haelaena's idea."

     "Was not!"

     "You guys!" I cried. "I already feel like I'm losing my mind. I don't need your constant arguing to push me over the deep end. Look, I'm going to take a shower and then we're going to solve this like mature, responsible Neopians, got it?"

     They said they got it, but when I came back downstairs after my shower, the stove was on fire and they were all blaming each other's Petpet. When I'd finally rectified Haelaena's attempt at making pancakes, we sat down to discuss our next move. Clad in leather leggings and a black T-shirt featuring a Blumaroo sugar skull, I felt ready to kick some serious ghost butt. Capriece sat across from me, pensively shuffling her cards.

      "What I don't understand," Victoraleigh said, "is why now? After all these years, why are they suddenly so upset?"

     Capriece flipped a card over. "It's simple," she said. "Reewuh's been a lot of different people, but she's never been this successful. Look at us. Me Royal and Ermyntrude Faerie, and our Petpets painted, too. Nothing screams neopoints-to-burn like painted Petpets. If I were an abandoned ghost pet, I'd be pretty jealous too."

     "So what do we have to do?" I asked.

     "Single combat?" Haelaena asked hopefully.

     Capriece drew another card. She pursed her lips and didn't respond.

     "I could take them to the pound," I suggested.

     "They're not exactly yours to take anymore," said Haelaena.

     "Yeah," said Ermyntrude. "Now they're all evil and flying around and stuff."

     "They're not evil!" I insisted. "They're just upset with me. And if I can't put them in the pound, I can convince them to put themselves there. I mean, how different are they from pets painted Ghost?"

     I looked at Victoraleigh for affirmation, only to see fat tears glistening on her cheeks. "Did you love your other Zafara?" she sniffled.

     "Of course!" I said.

     "But you abandoned her."

     "Um..."

     "So just because you love us doesn't mean you won't abandon us!"

     With that, she flung back her chair and ran from the room.

     "That's it," I growled. "Grab your sword, Haelaena. We're going ghost hunting."

     The Peophin sprang from her chair with a delighted whinny and snatched up the blade she'd discarded by the front door.

     "Are you sure this is the best way?" Capriece asked.

     "Do your cards have a better idea?"

     She stared blankly at the tabletop. "I'm working on it."

     "I'm cold," Ermyntrude whined.

     "Yeah, me too." I was annoyed to feel an icy draft coming from the entryway. "Haelaena, did you leave the door open? Haelaena, can you hear me?"

     I started after her, only to stop dead when I realized the draft wasn't coming from an open door. It was coming from an army of ghost pets marching towards the kitchen. Haelaena stood by the door, completely oblivious to our unexpected guests.

     "Are we going hunting or not?" she snorted.

     "No need," I said, slowly retreating into the kitchen. "They found us first."

     I desperately wanted to leave this conflict in Haelaena's capable hooves, but this was between me and my own irresponsibility. Why hadn't I just my pets up for adoption when I had the chance? Did I think it would be kinder to abandon them without any explanation? How could I have known what would happen to them after I left? Couldn't they have carved out new lives for themselves, gotten jobs in retail, settled down on a plot of fertile land?

     Before I knew it, they had backed me up against the refrigerator. Capriece, Haelaena, and Ermyntrude stared at me in confusion. "Get out of the house," I said through gritted teeth.

     If what Capriece said was true, seeing my current pets painted expensive colors would only inflame my ghost pets more.

     But of course I couldn't count on my pets to follow a simple command.

     "So I can't see you, so what?" Ermyntrude hooted, rearing onto her back legs and flapping her wings at the ghosts. "This is my house, and you're just a bunch of invisible nobodies! Reewuh never even wanted you anyway, so why don't you do us all a favor and get your ugly invisible selves back where you belong!"

     "Ermyntrude!" I hissed, all the blood draining from my face.

     Haelaena, inspired by Ermyntrude's bravery, leapt into the kitchen, hacking and slashing at the ghost pets. They scattered to the corners of the room, screeching in fury.

     "Haelaena, stop!" I screamed.

     Haelaena paused just long enough for my ghost pets to swarm her.

     "No!" I cried.

     Haelaena was completely consumed in a mound of Neopets. I could make out honey1667's mint-green fur, KalamataOlive's rust-red ruff, Salsa_Salvaje's emerald feathers, and Celestyo's spiked rat-tail.

     "Stop it! Leave her alone! Capriece, help me!"

     But Capriece was gone. She, at least, knew how to follow directions.

     With a frustrated cry, I hurled myself into the fray. My abandoned Neopets were so cold they burned. Celestyo's tail caught me in the teeth, and honey1667's rotten fangs sank into the back of my hand. I kicked and punched my way through them until I reached Haelaena, who lay petrified on the linoleum, cringing away from the blows raining down on her. I hugged her neck, burying my face in her magma-red mane. I didn't know what else to do.

     After a while, I realized that my ghost pets had stopped attacking. Warily, I opened my eyes. They had formed a tight circle around us. Over honey1667's shoulder, I could see Capriece and Victoraleigh crouching by the kitchen door. Ermyntrude squatted on the tabletop, wings half-furled. I silently begged her to stay that way.

     "First of all," I said, my voice shaky as a leaf. "I owe you all an apology."

     KalamataOlive hissed.

     "A pet is for life," I continued, "not just a summer or until you get bored of it. A pet is a responsibility. You can't just stop feeding it or caring for it when you're tired or distracted. And when you can't take care of your pet anymore, you should pass it on to someone who can."

     Their unreadable black eyes threatened to suck me in, but I held my ground.

     "I should've done the right thing at the right time," I said. "I should've put you all up for adoption, but I didn't because I knew how painful it would be. I didn't realize how painful the alternative was. And honestly, I didn't know I'd never come back to you. I didn't realize I'd grow up and go to college and forget about you, and I didn't mean to hurt you when I made a new family with Victoraleigh and Haelaena and Caprice and Ermyntrude. So don't take it out on them. It's not their fault I'm better at managing my neopoints than I was when I was eleven." I smiled weakly, and a small Brown Zafara smiled back.

     There was a long silence, and then my current pets gasped.

      "I can see them!" Victoraleigh cried.

     My ghost pets. They weren't ghosts anymore.

     Zuranuim shuffled her paws, looked around the circle of abandoned pets, and then flung herself into my arms. I hugged her tightly as tears stung my eyes. She kissed my nose, then gently pushed away and headed for the front door. The other pets followed, each one brushing against me as it passed.

     "I demand a rematch!" Haelaena called after them.

     "Shh," I said, patting her flank.

     And then it was just me and my girls again, the same as always but subtly different.

     Ermyntrude hopped down from the table, scattering Capriece's playing cards everywhere. A couple drifted within my reach, so I held them up for Capriece to see.

     "Ten of Spades, of course!"

     "Let me guess," I said. "All they wanted was closure."

     Capriece looked slightly disappointed. "Guess you didn't need a psychic to tell you that."

     Ermyntrude began gathering and shuffling Capriece's cards. "You're not psychic, Capriece," she said. "You just have a towel on your head. Want to play Go Go Go?"

     "Give those back! Those are mine!"

     Ears ringing, I drifted into the other room, still feeling pretty shaken up. I stared blankly at the screen until Victoraleigh tiptoed into the room, crawled into my lap, and typed "Zuranuim" into the search field. I held my breath. To my surprise, the Brown Zafara's information popped up.

     "I knew it," Victoraleigh said. "Someone's adopted her already."

     I released a heavy sigh of gratitude.

     Some pets took longer than others to find a home, but we kept checking until we were satisfied that everyone had been adopted. Lightheaded with relief, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

     "Will you stay with us forever?" Victoraleigh murmured into my chest.

     My mouth felt very dry. "Um, I'll stay with you until—"

     "Hey, Reewuh?" Ermyntrude poked her head through the doorway. "Capriece clogged the toilet."

     "Did not!" Capriece yelled from kitchen.

     I rolled my eyes. "Okay, I'll be right there. And Victoraleigh? I'll get back to you about that."

     "It's okay," she said. "You don't have to."

     And even though it broke my heart a little, I lifted her off my lap and set her on the floor. She understood; I knew she did. And someday Capriece and Haelaena and Ermyntrude would understand too, and Neopia would keep turning.

     With or without me.

The End