Arc II, Chapter 78: Late Casting (Patreon)

"Having a conversation with ghosts makes me feel like a crazy person," Dina said as she sat back on the concrete ledge next to the river. She wasn’t wearing her usual leather jacket and cut-up jeans. She wore a loose floral blouse tucked into high-waisted mom jeans, reminiscent of a housewife in the early nineties. Her hair was styled long and straight, with a hint of makeup that made her look like a hippie who grew up.

I was sure that look was Carousel’s idea. Or maybe it wasn’t. I had never really known Dina, not the Dina who had a kid and a life before tragedy struck.

It was like the difference between Sarah Connor in Terminator I and Terminator II. I had missed out on the helpless waitress and only knew the paranoid resistance fighter.

I felt like I was seeing a bit of her old self now. Normally, I tend to just accept whatever people show me. I assume that if I don’t try to figure them out, they won’t try to figure me out. It usually worked.

Gale, the tall, handsome ghost who had seemingly spent time playing lovebirds with Dina for the flashbacks to before his accidental death, looked at her with an adoration that seemed too perfect. But beneath the surface, I sensed he might have just been a charmer.

Isaac leaned over to me and whispered, “Just because there are actually ghosts here doesn’t mean she isn’t crazy.” He giggled to himself. I didn’t take it as a dig at Dina so much as a silly little retort. I would never discourage him from leaning on humor. He would need to practice whatever wit he had for future storylines.

“So I woke up in 1983 the day of my wedding to Gale,” Dina said. “We took pictures, went on a bunch of dates, had a honeymoon at Snowblind, that sort of stuff. I played my part. Then Gale died,” she said. I swore I heard her voice crack. “Excuse me,” she said, clearing her throat. “Anyway. Carlyle Geist sent a bunch of men to ransack our home. They threatened me to take a settlement and sign an NDA. They bought me a place in Snowblind to move to. They got me a job at the resort. I guess he died under suspicious circumstances so they wanted me out of the picture. That’s where my character has been for the last eight years. Except, of course, every time that the possessing spirit came around, I started seeing Gale’s spirit. Eventually, he convinced me to come back here and help put him to rest.”

“How romantic,” I said. I got the sense that she was glossing over some things, like an explanation for how close she had seemed with the ghost when we showed up.

Gale didn’t pass my message along.

Instead, he said, “I can regain control of my body from the spirit, but it requires a dramatic scene between myself and Dina. We need you and your teammates to help us set it up. Do you understand?”

I did understand.

All in all, it was good news. Really good news.

I was worried about how we were going to defeat the Die Cast a second time. Normally, an enemy got more dangerous when it returned from the grave to wreak havoc.

But this opened up an opportunity. We weren’t having a fight against the Die Cast like last time. We had a new way to defeat it. Dina and Gale’s love subplot was going to beat it somehow.

I sure hoped Dina was prepared to cry on command.

“How did you guys end up dying already?” Dina asked. “Gale said no one has to die in First Blood. Was Second Blood that hard?”

Second Blood was actually hard. I was thankful that I got to be dead for it.

“Tell her I didn’t want to die at first, but Carousel insisted,” I said.

I could give her a real explanation later once I had a more flattering way of describing it.

Gale relayed my message and then said, “Yes, Carousel is a trickster.”

We talked some more about the final battle. There weren’t many specific details that Gale could give. It was possible there weren’t specific details to be had. Love Beats Evil is not the type of finale that is heavy on specifics.

As much as I wanted to stick around and pick Gale’s brain about the Tutorial, a path opened up in the glowing fog. It was time to leave.

When we went to go, Gale and Dina stayed behind. She was going to find his grave. Gale said she had a scene where she mourned him.

I longed for the days of old when we just all went to fight the bad guy together.

Bobby, Isaac, and I wished her good luck and then went on our way.

Dina’s role in the story would not be a surprise to the audience. They would have seen the love story play out so that there could be a payoff in the Finale. Interestingly, Antoine had not seen Dina yet. He was supposed to be Gale’s best friend. Was he not at their wedding? Or Gale’s funeral? Either Carousel was getting sloppy, or those scenes were all close-ups used in a montage.

Antoine’s arc began in medias res. He was informed about his past but had reenacted little of it. I had overlooked that. Dina had actually lived a lot of her character’s story. There had to be a reason for that.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that victory was not guaranteed in the Final Battle.

If Dina failed, Carousel was setting things up so that her entire side plot could be cut from the final movie. That’s why she was kept away from us, and that’s why we shared no scenes. Dina was either going to step up and be a main character of this movie, or she would be cut from it entirely.

Carousel always had its contingencies.

As I walked along the foggy path, I wondered if I should develop a contingency, too.

~-~

We walked for hours, maybe. All I saw were neighborhoods surrounded by glowing fog.

Eventually, we reached our destination, a row of cheap houses in a bad part of town.

Ramona was standing outside. She wasn’t moving. She stood still with her eyes closed. She wasn’t dressed the same way she had when we had met. She was dressed like some kind of wannabe rocker from the early nineties, which, technically, she was.

She didn’t move when we arrived.

It wasn’t until she heard a voice behind her that she budged at all.

“Ramona?” a young girl called to her from behind. “What are you doing, Ramona, just standing there?”

Her eyes opened. She took a deep breath and looked around.

When she looked at the girl, she was shocked beyond belief. Then she started to cry.

“Phoebe,” she said softly. Ramona jumped toward the young girl and wrapped her in a hug.

Phoebe Mercer.

Ramona hadn’t seen her in an incalculable amount of time.

Phoebe Mercer. Plot Armor 3. An NPC. An ordinary one at that, save for whatever meta-knowledge she was permitted to keep. My best guess from Ramona’s stories was that she knew a lot, but I couldn’t begin to understand how that would work with a young teenager. How long did she know about her situation?

I expected Ramona to ask her sister about the storyline or the Centennial.

She didn’t.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just so happy to see you. Let’s go inside.”

Phoebe played along.

Isaac and I went to follow. When we did, I saw Bobby running away. He gave no explanation, but a path did open up for him, so Carousel must have been okay with whatever he was doing.

Inside the Mercer apartment, things were cramped. Isaac and I barely had a place to stand. There were magazines, music equipment, textbooks, and an old television. The furniture looked like it had been through several sets of owners.

It was small, but it had the touches of home. Ramona looked absolutely thrilled to see it.

They talked about mundane things for a while. Ramona asked Phoebe about school and boys. Phoebe answered with an embarrassed giggle.

Ramona asked her what she wanted to eat.

It was macaroni and cheese.

Ramona delighted in preparing a box of neon orange noodles on their tiny stovetop. Phoebe helped.

“Do we just leave her here?” Isaac asked. “I mean, what else do we need to do?”

“This is all make-believe,” I said. “Ramona is playing like nothing ever happened. Phoebe is going along with it. Something must be about to happen or else Carousel wouldn’t have brought us here.”

“What do you mean?” Isaac asked.

I nodded over to the calendar on the fridge. “It’s the day before the Centennial. The real day before, or as close as we’ll ever get to it. Ramona ends up at the Centennial one way or another. That means sister bonding has to end. Eventually, Phoebe has to confirm for her that she is an NPC.”

Isaac and I watched them. They continued chatting and cooking and eating. Everything was normal, or at least they made it appear that way.

There was a tension that was unspoken. Ramona wasn’t a fool. She knew she wasn’t back in her old life.

“We need to talk,” Phoebe said eventually. “I have homework to do. A lot of it. Can I bring it to your show at the Centennial tomorrow?”

Ramona sidestepped. “I think if you have homework, you probably should stay home and work on it. It’s… it’s no big deal. You’ve heard all my songs before. Really, I’m not even sure I’m going to go.”

Phoebe looked her in the eye and said, “Ramona. You have to go. It’s a big opportunity. You can’t miss it. You’ve been working your whole life for this.”

Ramona froze, wide-eyed.

“Phoebe,” she said. “Please no.”

Phoebe hugged her.

“Talk to me,” Ramona said. Then the dam burst. “Just say something. Don’t tell me you are really a part of this. Please.”

Phoebe didn’t know what to say. I could almost see the words caught in her throat.

I thought maybe she was restricted. NPCs, even ones with meta-knowledge, were restricted. Surely, she had been unable to reveal the truth to her sister for all the years they had lived before the Centennial.

If the script had limited her before, it didn’t now.

Phoebe began to speak. She was crying and emotional, so she rushed the words out like she had been holding them in for a long time.

“I was thirty-eight. A man attacked me in an elevator. I accidentally conjured our family’s spirit. It killed the man. The blow was so powerful that the elevator’s brakes gave in and I tumbled eighteen floors. I died. Years earlier, Mom died because the ghost accidentally caused a multi-car pile-up after some college kid with road rage flipped her off.”

“What are you saying?” Ramona asked.

“I remember life before coming to Carousel. Not a lot of it. Just enough. Mercers sometimes do. Maybe it’s better if we know. The killer spirit we carry around probably has something to do with it. I remember when Mom died and earlier than that when Dad left. He kept waking up with unexplained bruises. Who could blame him for leaving? It was just me then. Me and mom. You weren’t there, not exactly. I remember you being my sister when we got here. You practically raised me after Mom died the second time around. Somehow, the two memories, they get all mixed together and I can’t tell which is real, but…”

At that point, Phoebe was crying harder.

Ramona was crying. She looked dreadfully confused, but at the same time, she didn’t interrupt.

“Ramona, you were supposed to die three days after being born. That’s how it happened the first time. Mom’s grave was right beside yours. I remember seeing it every time I visited her to pay respects. I brought you a lilacs. The poltergeist accidentally killed you when you were young back before Carousel. That’s why you don’t fit in. Somehow, you didn’t die. When they folded our world into this one, you lived. When they bring in a new world, they don’t just bring in the living. They bring in everyone from that storyline, Ramona. They bring in everyone who will be born. Descendants, everything they will need. Every single person is accounted for. Mr. Dyrkon told me. No new souls. Carousel won’t create life. It refuses. It’s only willing to borrow them and when it brought the Mercers over, everyone thought that things would be the same.”

“The same?” Ramona asked.

“You die. I’m born. Dad leaves. Mom dies. I die in an elevator twenty years from now. Just like the first time. That was how it was supposed to be. Every person brought here follows the pattern they would have before unless they are killed off early or get major rewrites. Except you. You lived when you weren’t supposed to. Mr. Dyrkon said it was an anomaly. He came up with a plan for you. My job is to make sure you play your part. I have to make sure you end up at the Centennial. I didn’t know why, not until it was too late. Now we have to go back.”

“I don’t want to go,” Ramona said. “I came here to save you. If we don’t go to the Centennial, then I’ve done what I was supposed to do.”

Phoebe continued to argue with her. Ramona was having none of it.

“That’s rough for her,” Isaac said. “Did you call that? I don’t remember.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It was going to be something like that. I mean, Carousel would love a special character to play with. Horror movies love messing with lady protagonists. I’m betting that if she really was unintended, that was a mouth-watering proposition.”

“Like catnip for a horror movie,” Isaac said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Although the real fridge horror is the part about how everyone in Carousel is from a storyline. We pretty much assumed that some were born here, but from the sound of it, Carousel brings over a lot more than just monsters and props from its worlds.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Spooky. So that’s like a big deal?”

“Obviously,” I said. “You realize what the implication of that is, right?”

“Yes, but I am having trouble putting it into words.”

Suddenly, Phoebe’s gentle voice cut through our conversation. “Your world is folded into Carousel too,” she said. “Riley fears the implications.”

“Wait,” Isaac said. “Can she hear us?”

“Who are you talking to?” Ramona asked. They had been arguing fiercely.

“I can see your ghost teammates talking to each other. Their lines appear on the script,” Phoebe said.

She must have had the premium script package. Most versions of the script are vaguer. Bobby’s was apparently one step above subtitles.

“Riley is in the room?” Ramona asked. “You were listening to that whole conversation?”

“We can leave,” I said.

I meant it, but, of course, who could predict Carousel?

As I went to leave, something appeared from thin air.

Silas, the Mechanical Showman, arrived, blocking the door.

“Welcome to Carousel, the town where movies come to life. The show’s about to start, and you’re in the front row!” he said in a slightly warped mechanical voice.

“What the heck,” I said.

“Come on up and get your tickets. The Centennial Celebration awaits.”