CHAPTER FOURTEEN
a little party never hurt nobody

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✯ .⋅} ────── ⊰

"GOOD-MORNING, KITTY! Welcome to Pritchard's Confectioners!"

Kitty lets out a delighted squeal at being inside an Edwardian sweet shop... even if only an imaginary one, in her head, based on everything Effie has told her. That is because this evening is Re-Enactment Club — the motive is that in each session, one ghost will get the chance to demonstrate something from a certain aspect of their life, essentially a roleplay of sorts. The Captain has involved the other ghosts in a mission briefing, whilst in one session Pat relayed his fire-starting class for the boy scouts... not much fire was made that day.

     This evening, it is Effie's turn, and she has taken them back to her childhood.

Pritchard's Confectioners was the name of her family's business. Sat right on Broad Street in Portsmouth, you could walk in and exchange the salty sea air for the sugary aromas of sweets. Cinder toffees, fruit rocks, pear drops — you could get the whole lot. Effie used to help out in the shop with her brother and parents. She knew all the names of the customers, and could charm those who she didn't know quickly enough to tempt them back for another visit.

     "What can I get you today?" Effie asks, gesturing to the imaginary shelves of sweet-filled jars around her.

     "Ooh, so many choices!" Kitty giggles. "Hm... the toffees look delicious... but pear drops sound simply adorable..."

     Julian rolls his eyes as he watches from the sofa. "Just pick one, you dozy—"

     "I'll have a peppermint, please and thank you!"

     Effie falters, glaring at Kitty vacantly. Time slows down — or it rewinds, in fact, dragging her back to...

     Arthur Hoskins, that presumptuous local boy, his eyes peeking over the counter as he jangles his pocket money in exchange for some peppermints; then that same boy, only he's a teenager now, and Effie can't understand why her heart thunders when he walks into the shop these days; then that boy, now a man, their legs dangling over the edge of Victoria Pier as they sit silently reconciling the aftermath of the Great War. Maybe things can't go back to normal, but Arthur opens his palm to reveal a peppermint, and for a moment it feels like they can—

     "— Hellooo, Effie?"

     Effie blinks hard, landing brutally back into reality. "Wh– what?"

     Kitty rolls her eyes. "My peppermint, Effie! I have my money ready."

     The other ghosts are all looking at Effie with a rather confused and expectant expression. Effie, herself, doesn't know what came over her. She shakes off the phantom chill that just rolled over her skin, perfecting her act once again. "Right! Yes, pardon me... here we go, peppermints... now, for a four-ounce bag that'll be—"

     "Oh no, just the one, please," Kitty corrects her with a grin.

     Furrowing her brows, Effie stares at her. "You want... one peppermint? Singular?"

     Kitty nods, as if she cannot understand the peculiarity of the request. Then, shrugging, Effie pretends to pluck a single peppermint from the jar and asks for her pennies. With a vocalised "ding!" she can practically hear that brass cash register open once again. The sound of the pennies hitting the drawer and the cranking handle takes her back to childhood nostalgia.

     "That was brilliant Effie, cheers for that!" Pat claps and stands up from the sofa. "Now, who's next?"

But before anyone can answer, the crunch of tires driving over gravel alerts their attention. Alison's home! A pocket of ghosts scurry over to the window to get a better look. The thumping bass of the car stereo pierces the night, and so does the voices of multiple people — clearly Alison and Mike brought company home. Effie squints through the misted window and feels a pang of excitement.

"Shut your mouth! It is a mansion!" crows one of their friends.

"Yeah, boy!" Mike hollers back.

"The impertinence!" Fanny hisses, turning her nose up at it all.

From the window, Pat's eyes crinkle behind his glasses. "Oh, this looks like fun!" he grins, Effie nodding to agree. She watches everyone rush towards the front door in a wave of activity.

"The bally nerve!" the Captain rebukes, horrified. "It's gone midnight."

"Yeah, it is very late– yeah, absolutely..." Pat murmurs.

Effie pushes back from the windowsill and beams at them all. "Midnight is when all the fun starts! Whoever wants to party, follow me!" she cries triumphantly. To her delight, a number of the ghosts — Kitty, Thomas, Robin, Mary and Julian — all follow her down the stairs and follow the sound of the music speakers being drunkenly set up in the living room. Alison and Mike dance around with their friends to the music, limbs relaxed and yet buzzing with energy.

     There's no doubt that this is a real, fully-blown party.

     At last!

     "Come on, you lot, let's DANCE!" Effie yells at the top of her lungs.

     The rest of the ghosts filter into the crowd of friends, furniture pushed back as they dance around. Mary waves her arms through the air in a ritualistic motion, while Robin mostly jumps up and down on the spot. Julian cosies up to a trio swaying to the music, as does Kitty, but each for rather different reasons. Thomas appears rather overwhelmed by it all to begin with — especially when Mike attempts his "throat bass" on the microphone — and lingers around the side-lines uncertainly. Eventually the poet joins in, bowing graciously to a group of ghost-blind ladies before performing a cotillion from his era.

As for Effie? She's having a great time. She dances alongside the humans, even though they can't see her... and frankly, she struggles to find the rhythm in some of these tunes. There is just a lot of loud noise and snares with little else to even bop her head to.

Either way, this is what she has been waiting for — Button House can come alive with friends of Alison's and Mike's, a party atmosphere overtaking the house for those who want to join in. Effie remembers a large portion of her twenties (the part she was able to live out, anyway) being spent in dance halls or speakeasies dancing until her feet felt like they would fall off. It was the perfect distraction from any grief or hardship; something that was plentiful after four years of the Great War weighing on their generation. They had to seize this new, vivacious life and not let it go.

Effie loves meeting all of their friends. Well, meeting might be a stretch. She is learning their names gradually: Obi and Tony, for starters, are heading to the stereo to put on a new song. Once it blasts through the room she gasps in delight.

"Oh, this is more like it!" she claps her hands together.

It's another song she discovered thanks to the modern playlists Alison made for her. Technotronic's 'Pump Up The Jam' thumps through the speakers — while the humans bop their heads in more contemporary dance moves, Effie's feet dance away in Charleston swivels on the floor. She puts her hands on her hips as she swings them about. Her legs kick and jive in all directions as she throws in all the dance moves she knows, from the scarecrow and knockin' knees to beyond. She also joins the living in the next song for what they call a conga, which she is ecstatic to discover.

Effie could almost imagine herself dancing when she was alive, ragtime and swing filling her ears instead of this music beyond her life. The thrill and spontaneity of each dance move after a life before which had been button-up and corseted both literally and metaphorically. She never knew how the night would end, who she might meet, what she might discover. She loved it.

     The party spirit is clearly contagious. After trying to play peacemaker, Pat appears to be tempted downstairs to dance. The scout leader lingers awkward in the doorway just as Effie catches his eye. "Join us, Pat!" she giggles, in the middle of shimmying.

"Oh... I shouldn't really... er..."

"Live a little, Pat!"

He looks beside her, to where Mary and Robin dance together. "Hey, stay out of my personal dance space!" Robin grumbles.

     "You call that dancin'? You do but bounce, boy!" Mary scoffs, twirling in her soot-stained rags.

     "I bounce good!"

     Even Norman has arrived, bobbing up and down with the pair to make the bells on his costume jingle to the beat. Alison is at the piano playing along with the song as Thomas watches lovingly from his perch.

     Unable to resist the fun they are having, Pat edges onto the dance-floor. One foot shoots out to the side, as he does finger guns in the same directions. His hips wiggle about in such a manner. that Effie can't decide if he is from before or beyond her time. Well at least he's having fun, she reminds herself, continuing to shimmy and swivel.

     But as always, someone has to ruin things—

     "Stop it, stop it! Patrick! What on God's green Earth do you think you're playing at, man?!"

Ugh. Effie turns and glares with Pat at the Captain, whose swagger stick is pointed at him accusingly.

Shrugging one shoulder, Effie says, "Stop being a killjoy and show us your moves, Captain—"

"I'm not bloody showing you anything, Effie! Don't think I'll go forgetting how you encouraged this disturbance." The Captain pivots on his heel, focusing his attention back on an increasingly impatient Pat. "And you! Well, I sent you down here to stop this nonsense, and now you're joining in! Carousing! You are a spineless little traitor—"

"Oh, NAFF OFF YOU WAZZOCK!"

     "YES!!" Alison cries at the same time. The partygoers responding obliviously, they start cheering and clapping, even if they don't know what they are cheering for.

Pat's face is flushed bright red after his high-pitched outburst, but proud nonetheless. The Captain draws back, stunned, while the other ghosts stare him down. He begrudgingly surrenders and backs away from the party, muttering disapproving words beneath his breath. Good, Effie thinks, as she follows Alison into the kitchen to spy on the extra drinks she's grabbing from the fridge.

No, nothing's stopping them tonight!

{⋅. ✯ .⋅}

     EFFIE has forgotten about this part — the hangover.

     It's a good thing she's already dead, if it means she never has to feel a splitting headache like that again.

     Still, she is passed out with the remainder of the partygoers in the living room when morning breaks. Effie stretches herself out on the sofa — how are her limbs still cramped as a ghost? — and yawns, feeling each particle of herself awaken again. She has certainly been in this position before. One occasion from Effie's time in New York springs to mind, in which she woke up under the grand piano in a Long Island beach house with party streamers stuck to her skin... not her finest hour.

     Effie sits up and looks around the room. Everything has been completely trashed. In the ruthless light of day, she can see emptied cans and bottles, partygoers snoring in awkward positions on the antique furniture. One poor fellow even got his head stuck in a knight's helmet, of all things. Effie also wrinkles her nose slightly at the stench of stale drink staining the fabrics.

     "Oh dear," she mumbles. "What an absolute— ARGH!"

     She shrieks and hops up from the sofa like a spooked cat. Lying right there is another partygoer, Tony, bare-buttocked (luckily face-down...) and completely unconscious. Effie catches a glimpse of his face mushed against the pillow — she doesn't dare look further down — and notices a moustache and circular spectacles drawn on his face.

     Alison and Mike re-surface, looking ashen, horrified and very hungover as they survey the array of trash lying around. Effie glares at Alison knowingly, as if to say: Oh, it's BAD.

     "I think I did my throat bass," Mike whispers hoarsely.

     A beat passes. Then Alison, cringing at the memory murmurs, "Yeah, I think you did..."

     "Not to worry, Alison," Effie tries to laugh it all off. "These are merely the remnants of a good party. Nothing that a session with one of those electric suction cleaners can't solve."

     "Electric what?"

     "Oh God, you really are hungover."

     "Well, we've got to clean this place up. Someone's coming at one o'clock to view the house for a wedding venue."

     Effie's eyes widen. "Today? Who was the idiot who came up with that plan?"

     By the way Alison glares daggers at her, even in her delicate state, Effie decides that she shouldn't ask.

     "Should we just call back and cancel?" Alison asks.

"No way," Mike whispers again, "we need it."

"I'm sure you can clean this up in no time," Effie tries to encourage them. "Well, I say you, because there's no we... because I'm—"

"I get it, Effie, thanks."

"Have you seen my other shoe?" asks Mike out of the blue. When he gets a defeated murmur in answer, he shuffles away in his bathrobe, pyjamas and (one remaining) shoe. Alison has taken the task of grabbing bin bags, whilst her husband tries to usher out the remaining partygoers sleeping in the house.

Turning to face Alison again, Effie sighs. "Like I said, you had better grab that electric suction cleaner."

"What are you– do you mean a hoover?" Alison suddenly connects the dots.

"Fine, whatever you want to call it these days!"

And so Alison and Mike get to work, whilst Effie mostly hovers about and tries to make herself somewhat useful. Every time Alison crouches down, she has to fight back the urge to retch and gag. She is starting to think that only a magic wand could clean this place up in the space of two hours. And it hardly helps when the Captain and Pat arrive with their usual demands, squabbling over who can monopolise the VCR this morning. Then Kitty is in tears over something Alison said, because of course she is, and Julian offers his ill-advised hangover cures in stark contrast to Mary's revolting ones.

During the clean-up, Thomas suddenly asks Alison: "Where's Dante?"

"Dante?"

"The dog."

A beat passes. Then, if that were possible, Alison's face drains of even more colour. Dante... in other words, the treasured papillon lapdog: once the beloved pet of Fanny Button, now a taxidermy memento. She sprints into the entrance hall to search for Dante's usual spot, stood proudly next to the suit of armour. But there is no Dante to be found.

"Well..." Effie clicks her tongue. "It was nice knowing you, Alison."

"Is it really that bad?" Alison laments.

"Ooh yes," Julian chimes in too, "you're in trouble now."

"But I thought he was just an ornament?"

"No, he did mean a lot to Lady B," Pat says mournfully.

     "Loved it like her own child," Thomas sighs.

     "Once told me she loved it more than anything else in the world..." Julian adds.

     "Even I wouldn't dare touch Dante," says Effie. "And that's saying something, you know how I love to drive Fanny mad."

Alison gulps nervously. "Well, I'm sure that—"

Then she cuts herself off, nodding to friends of hers who are only just leaving the house. "Thanks, Alison. Great party! Same time next week?" one woman says, as they head out the front door.

Alison gives a good-natured laugh as they go, before her expression darkens to something more harrowed. "No, don't think so, mate," she mutters regretfully under her breath.

A few minutes later, the Captain and Pat have also appeared to see what happened. The disappearance of Dante has certainly caused a great commotion. After Mike brushes past and whispers something about looking for his shoes, the Captain says sternly: "I can't say I'm surprised that something like this would happen. I'll have to tell her, of course."

"What? No!" Alison cries.

"I will not allow Fanny to be deceived like this, to be—"

"No more war documentaries, then."

It is all it takes to make the Captain do a complete pivot on his stance. "Your secret's safe with me," he now pledges, "it's classified. She'd have to kill me first. Well, you know what I mean."

Alison squints and takes a deep breath to sober herself. "Right. Find the dog. Clean up. Two hours– OH MY WORD!"

The shriek isn't hers alone. Many of the other ghosts cry out at the sight standing in the dark doorway, filled to the brim with plague ghosts from the basement... where they are meant to be right now. Seeing their grey skin and swollen, raw buboes in broad daylight is even more horrifying — and not helping Alison keep her stomach contents inside her stomach. They never come upstairs, so what's changed?

"What are you doing here?!" Alison asks desperately.

"We're actually going to live up here now, actually," says one of the plague ghosts.

"Mick killed us all," says another, "which is not remotely cool."

"No, no, no, no! We can't be sharing the place with these plebeians!" Julian complains.

"What? He gave us all the plague!" To demonstrate, they start gesturing to the bulbous boils and pus-leaking marks on the skin, some larger than Effie's hand. Each one makes Alison start to look less pale and more green. Effie has to admit, even she is feeling a tad light-headed seeing the horrific effects of the plague under such unforgiving daylight.

"Guys, please!" Mick appears at the back; the skinny one with regretful eyes and a large underbite.

"Oh, here she is," a plague victim says mockingly.

Alison tries her best to mediate. "Guys, guys please—"

"Piss off, Mick!"

"Can you please go back downstairs?" Alison chokes out. "Because, no offence, but you're actually making me feel really sick."

But the plague ghosts stand their ground. "We're not going anywhere. Mick should be going if anyone is going! Yeah, he's a killer!" Various murmurs and chants break out amongst the village culled by the plague, arguments breaking out and a general hatred towards their neighbour, Mick — it must have been the archaeologist working downstairs who revealed this information.

"Order! Order!" Julian growls; there is an air of authority, harking back to his days at a politician (or at least he thinks he sounds authoritative). "We need to come to an understanding here. These... people. People? Yeah, people... These people deserve a full inquiry, chaired by me. Get to the bottom of this business."

Thomas laughs sharply. "Ha! You couldn't get the bottom of a birdbath."

"Right on," Effie agrees, laughing with Thomas, "I can't think of anyone worse to mediate anything with anyone."

"I'll have you know I have extensive experience of public inquiries. Nice to be the one asking the questions for a change, ha-ha..." Julian clears his throat, straightening his tie awkwardly. "Come on, then, oiks. Come on, let's go. Not all of you. Just your sharpest minds."

As Julian ushers the plague ghosts along, their ringleader starts selecting the best candidates for their inquiry. "Well, that's definitely me. You go. And yeah, you too."

"Do I have to come?" Mick asks.

"Yeah, you have to come. It's all about you, innit? Right, you stay here, and– no, you definitely stay..."

Once the plague ghosts are gone, Alison clasps her hands together with an urgency in her eyes. "Right, you guys search for Dante. And tell the others. I've got to clean up..."

     Ready to issue orders, the Captain and Pat turn to each other, battling for authority after last night as their words overlap:

     "Patrick, you get the others—"

     "You find the others—"

     "I'll begin the search—"

     "I'll search upstairs—"

     Then, angrily facing up to each other, the Captain and Pat snap in exact unison:

     "I'm not taking orders from you!"

     "What is the matter with you two this morning?" Alison scolds them. "Can you just find the dog? Please."

The ghosts split up into groups in their search for Dante, Effie pairing up with Mary. The duo take to wandering through the gardens of Button House — because realistically, after a night that drunken he could be anywhere — but find no sign of him amongst the shrubs and greenery. Although Effie hardly thinks Mary's method has proven very effective, as she keeps calling out Dante's name as if he will answer back.

"Dante... where be ye, Dante, little rascal? Dante!" Mary cups her hands over her mouth and calls out.

Behind her on the stairwell as they ascend to the first floor, Effie wonders whether she should say something, but stops herself. It is difficult for her to be truly annoyed with Mary. She is just a gentler soul than the rest of them. Effie catches up to her at the top of the steps and overtakes to walk into the next corridor.

Her heart, if it were still beating, would have lurched into her throat just now. Fanny is stood right there in the middle of the hallway, with Pat and the Captain standing further up trying to distract her. Effie barely has time to shush Mary before she wanders in crying out the dog's name:

"Dante! Dan...iel," she course-corrects.

"Who's Daniel?" Fanny asks.

"Oh, I was just doing a song about the nice names," Mary warbles, nervously side-eyeing Effie. "Daniel... Veronica..." She murmurs a few more names, but they get lost in her tiny whisper of a breath. A shaky lie, but enough to divert Fanny for now. Crisis averted!

Robin emerges, having just checked one of the other rooms, as Pat and the Captain split up again and Fanny walks off. Effie is just about to leave herself when she catches something curious in the corner of her eye. The caveman and the Stuart woman wander past each other, only to pause and linger in each other's presence, gazing shyly at one another. Effie never thought she would be thinking this, but their frisson is palpable in the air. It is rather sweet if nothing else.

     It is the Captain who snaps them out of their stance. "Oh!" he hesitates awkwardly, sensing he has interrupted something. "Right, well, he's not in there. No need to look again... what's going on?"

     "You are," Robin fires back.

     "What?"

     Then Robin takes off, the Captain also leaving the bizarre interaction behind him. Only Effie and Mary remain in the corridor. Coyly, the flapper girl edges nearer to her, a cheeky twinkle in her eye.

"Mary... what was that?" Effie asks.

"Wha's what?" Mary asks innocently.

Effie grins. "Did something... happen between you and Robin last night? You're acting ever so odd around each other."

     For the first time, she thinks she sees Mary blushing furiously behind the charred soot on her cheeks. "Oh– oh, well, 'twere nought really, I... um..." Her diversions begin to crack under Effie's playful scrutiny. "Though would I be honest, there may've been... something, I s'pose."

     She thinks she knows exactly what she means.

     "Oh, yet I felt so wicked for pursuin' it, Effie!" Mary finally blurts out. She claps a hand over her mouth. "Now I fear that last night hath undone our friendship. We try to speak of it and yet we canst not find the words."

     Well. This is a new one. Effie doesn't need the details, but the behaviour between the two says it all. They had some sort of attachment last night, of the romantic sort she reckons. Though can she really blame Mary, or Robin that matter? Being cooped up in one place for so many centuries, unable to touch or be touched, to hold or be held. God only knows Effie misses that...

     "Good for you, Mary," Effie winks. Then her brows furrow, perplexed. "But can I just ask– Robin? Really? Out of them all?"

     Mary nods. "You hadst to be there."

     "Hm. I'll take your word for it," she shrugs in response. "I can't say I've been tempted myself. Maybe in a couple of dreams... nightmares, more like. But anyway, good on you for seizing the night. You have to have some variety when you're dead. And as for the awkwardness, don't worry about it, Mary. It'll pass. Nothing has to come of last night if you don't want it to."

     Taking her advice into account, Mary nods nervously and releases a sigh. "Sometimes it does make me wonder how it would've been, t'share this purgatory with someone you loved..."

     Halfway out the door, Effie freezes.

     She feels the coastal winds sweep past her cheeks cradled in Arthur's hands as he kisses her. Fits her hand into the shape of his and is amazed at the perfect fit it makes. Holds him close and wonders how it could be possible to feel this much for one person. And yet, at the same time, she is so uncertain about it all—

     "But ne'r mind," Mary concludes happily. She cups her hands around her mouth again. "Dante! Dante!"

     Effie swallows thickly, shaking off the memory. Dante, she reminds herself. We're looking for Dante.

     When the pair re-join the group, Alison has found Dante in her room — except that the poor dog is in a right state. He is wet from a bath of tap water, red and white wine, and... salt? On top of that, a leg is bent at a ninety-degree angle, and one of his eyes popped out somewhere. The ghosts egg on Alison as she desperately scrambles to fix Dante, gagging as she snaps the stuffed dog's leg back into place and tries to fix his eye. One thing is certain; there is no way Fanny can see this.

     Once Dante is salvaged, they pop him in front of the fireplace to dry off from his thorough dousing. Fanny walks in right at the opportune moment, all the ghosts lounging 'casually' waiting for her. Alison tightens her smile towards her. "Hello, Fanny, how are you doing?"

Fanny pouts as her gaze shifts to the fireplace. "What's Dante doing there?"

"Well," says Alison feebly, "I was just tidying up and I thought that we should try him in a new spot."

The longest, tensest silence Effie has ever known comes to pass.

Is Alison surviving this one?

Then Fanny smiles. "Yes, he's nice there," she says affectionately. "He used to like sitting by the fire."

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as Fanny strolls into the next room. "You're lucky she didn't bite your head off for that!" Effie whispers to Alison; then she looks around in search of Humphrey, apologetic for making a headless joke. Actually, where is Humphrey? She knows he is often lost, but she has neither seen nor heard from him for a while. As everyone else catches up, the plague ghosts having settled their inquiry, she rises from her seat.

"Humphrey?" Effie calls out.

She hears a faint but distinctly familiar voice call something back. It sounds like it came from outside. Effie takes the shortcut and walks through the wall, her body dissolving through the bricks.

"Humphrey!" she calls again.

"Up here, Effie!"

She staggers back and arches her neck up to look at the roof — indeed, his voice is coming from there, but that is not what grabs her attention. It is Mike who makes her eyes widen in surprise as he dangles from the drainpipe in his robe. How on Earth did he get up there? Moreover, Effie starts to wonder how long he has been up here, all the times Alison has been calling his name the last couple hours and received no response.

Humphrey is either oblivious or has accepted the chaos, as he calls down to Effie, "Thanks for coming to find me!"

"Er– yes, of course!" Effie yells back, still staring at Mike. "Uhh– how did you even get up there?"

The question goes for both of the men, at this point.

But the headless ghost is the only one who can hear her. "Long story. Don't worry about it, I'll be alright up here until you get me, it's Mike you need to worry about," says Humphrey, humble as always. "There are an awful lot of shoes up here too. I've been staring at this one shoe for ages... looks like it belongs to some fellow named Adidas?"

"Just– hang on, Humphrey! And Mike."

Worried that Mike will fall from the drainpipes, Effie gets ready to warn Alison — but then finds herself met with a car pulling up in the courtyard. A woman with short blonde hair arrives for the venue viewing. Oh no. Has she seen Mike yet? So far, she seems oblivious, as she knocks on the door and Alison opens after a few seconds.

Well-rehearsed and decently sobered, Alison says, "Welcome to Button Hou—"

But they should have known things were too good to be true... if that.

What unfolds next is the most disastrous domino effect ever. Effie can see it all through the windows even from out here. The cupboard behind Alison bursts open with the crammed-in bin bags, spilling empty pizza boxes and plastic bottles out onto the floor. The door slams into the suit of armour, which lands with a loud CRASH onto the ground. The fall brushes loose papers on the living room table to fly into the fireplace, fanning the flames that then catch onto precious Dante's fur and set him alight. And as if that weren't enough, Fanny's shriek of horror harmonises with Mike's falling cry as the drainpipes break, bending and creaking to drop him down onto the ground. Staring down the dark abyss of the pipe, Mike is then sprayed with a putrid jet of its contents, pigeon poo among them.

Alison cracks; or rather, she spews the contents of her stomach onto the front doorstep, after having fought bravely the whole morning.

The aftershock of the insane domino effect leaves everyone in limbo for a moment.

Then Effie, even if only Alison can hear her, tentatively suggests: "I can't believe I'm saying this, but never party that hard again."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

AUTHOR'S NOTE !

( date: 11th august, 2024 )

not sure how well this chapter flowed, there were lots of parts i had to edit or cut for brevity's sake — but it was all worth it to have effie doing the charleston to 'pump up the jam' by technotronic.

i'd also like to point out those two very brief flashback-ish bits about arthur hoskins. he has already made a fleeting appearance in the first chapter of act two, as one of the boys a young effie plays rounders with in her memory. but he becomes quite an important character in her past and these tidbits were only just a hint of that. so, just keep arthur in your heads for now, he'll crop up again...

finally, i have a (very ambitious) plan for updates. i was wondering if maybeee i could try and finish act two by the end of 2024? because if i do, the final chapter which covers the christmas special would fall at least during december, and it's always satisfying when that sort of thing happens. that future chapter happens to be of the most important ones in the whole fic so far 👀 so it would be cool to reach that stage.

i'm making absolutely NO promises here, but who knows? i can definitely give it a good go. just please don't take my word for gospel on this 😭

next chapter covers redding weddy... i'm not weddy 🥺

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horrible histories
icon of today:
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[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

( the opposite of the party in this chapter...
the time when fun was banned )

have a good day/evening,
— IMOGEN  ♡