“But who are you? I’m not signing anything until I know everything about all of you. All,” I emphasize just to be sure they hear it.

The spirit sighs, leaning back in the chair. Except the back of the chair now sticks out of his chest that I’m now noticing is nothing more than a reddish-purple glob. “Well,” he ponders for a moment, “okay. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”

He begins a gruesome tale of betrayal, murder, and a startling amount of unnecessary death. I can feel my skin getting stiff and cold, almost as if I was dying as well. At one point, I have to rush to the sink to throw up. The acid burns through my nose and at the back of my throat. I hear an aggravated voice in the background grumble, “There goes the muffin I baked for you. Why is it my muffin she vomits.”

Gradually, the horror story comes to an end. I won’t relay it to you as you most definitely will have nightmares for the rest of your life if you heard it. All you need to know is this: every spirit in the room is a mass murderer and, coincidentally, was murdered by someone else in the room. The loose thread of the last remaining person is because the last victim inflicted a curse as they lay dying. The killer died from rapid onset rectal prolapse. I don’t want to describe it. I don’t recommend looking it up either.

As I sit in the midst of evil, I’m not sure how to react. “What do you want from me?” I ask.

“We want your life force.”

“Hard pass. Nice try, though.” I stand up from my chair and staccatically maneuver between the spirits. It can be deadly to pass through one and I’d rather not risk it.

But what the dark leader says next makes me stop dead in my tracks. Pun intended.

“We’ll make you rich and take care of you lavishly. You won’t die as long as we keep it up.”

From where I’m standing I can see into my shabby bedroom. The bed is still just a mattress on the floor, the blanket I’ve been using doesn’t cover my full height. I turn to assess the living room. There’s nothing to assess. No furniture. Nothing.

Exasperated, I finally choke out a response. “Ahh, fine.”

And that’s the story of how I became a pampered queen who never had to leave her home. Not that the spirits would let me, anyway.