*This is a fanfic of a very selfless act that a character does at the end of the second book in the Scholastic book series “Shadow House”, written by Dan Poblocki. It’s his thoughts after he did it because the story didn’t focus on his thoughts after he did it. I recommend Shadow House to people who are just starting out at horror. They are short, slightly creepy stories, but they’re not extremely creepy, in my opinion. There’s also a Shadow House game in the App Store, which can reveal more lore. They’re based on the different books (there are three), but there’s a bug in level two of book three which makes it difficult to progress. Other than that, it’s good! Now that the paid sponsorship is done, my Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*
Marcus got up from the ground, brushing off oak leaves. For a moment, he forgot why he was in a dark forest, the kind that was in spooky fairytales.
Then he remembered.
Marcus was invited to “Larkspur house, music academy” only to find that other kids were invited for different reasons and that Larkspur wasn’t a music academy, but a house of horrors with ghosts and an evil entity.
An evil entity whom he sacrificed himself to in order to save Poppy, Dash, and Azumi. It was in this very forest where it happened.
He was dead.
He supposed that an appropriate reaction would be shock, terror, and sadness. He’d never see his family again, after all.
But when did his family ever care for his music? For a brief moment, his music was magic. It was the only thing to stop the entity and now that he was dead…
How would they get out? How would they stop the entity? The others didn’t know how to play the melody like him.
Marcus thought of the three of them all trapped in the house, with no way out. He thought of Dash searching for Dylan, still believing that he could be changed, that the house didn’t already take him. Azumi, running off from the group, lost in her own mind.
And Poppy, trying to look out for everyone. Trying to protect everyone from the evils of Larkspur.
What would they do now? Would they stick together? Win? Escape alive?
“Marcus.” A voice like the strings on his cello breathed.
Marcus looked up.
He knew that face. There were pictures of that person in the family photo album. They both had the same firey ginger hair, the same bright green eyes.
The same love for music.
It was his Uncle Shane, the ghost that played the music that rattled in Marcus’ ears, the music that could send evil into the shadows where it belonged, the music that was always there for him when his family wasn’t.
Shane had disappeared when he was twelve years old, the same age as Marcus would forever be. No one spoke about him. Whenever he wanted to ask about it, he’d be shushed and silenced by his mother.
Marcus got up from the ground and stared at Shane.
If he hadn’t disappeared, would Marcus’ music still have been shunned? Would they play together, with no regard for the outside world?
He’d never know.
“You did the right thing, protecting them.”
“Did I? Our music was the only thing that could stop it. How are they going to escape now?“
It was weird to actually talk to Shane. For years, they communicated through music.
It was odd, but it felt good. He finally knew what Shane’s voice sounded like.
“We can play our songs when we can, but as of right now, we cannot interfere anymore. The house is catching on. The house will block out our music. They’re going to have to save themselves.”
Marcus knew he should trust them to stay safe. They had Poppy with them.
But it still chilled him when he thought of them in Larkspur with no protection.
“I’m scared. I don’t want them to die.”
“I was scared too. But you have to trust that they’ll find the way out.”
Shane began walking, followed by Marcus.
As they walked, Marcus thought about what Shane had said.
I was scared too.
“Were you sent here? By a false invitation?”
Shane laughed, a melodic, harp-like sound.
“No, I wasn’t sent here. Me and my friends went here on a dare.”
“A dare?” Marcus asked, wide-eyed. He never thought that Shane would be stupid enough to accept a dare, but he was wrong.
“Yes. A dare. We thought we were all that and sneaked off here. My friends were a lot like yours, you know.”
Marcus blushed a bit. He hadn’t thought of the other kids as his friends when he first got there, but after a while, he had come to enjoy their company.
Too bad he was dead.
“Yeah, Lawrence was the quiet kid, Will was the trouble maker, Mina was the careful one, and Chantal was the imaginative girl. Yeah, a lot like yours.”
Marcus smiled. Lawrence sounded like Dash, Will sounded like Dylan, Mina sounded like Azumi, and Chantal sounded like Poppy.
A lot like his.
“Anyway, we all went in this forest. Lawrence brought a camera with him to take pictures of what he found. We didn’t know this then, but Mina brought a oujia board with her. She wasn’t as careful as Azumi.” Shane chuckled, starry-eyed, as if he were reminiscing a more carefree lifetime.
“Later on, after we found out about the oujia board, we summoned Consolida Caldwell. You know who Consolida is, right?”
Marcus nodded. Consolida was the ghost that Poppy talked to. The ghost whom he denied the existence of, in order to not seem crazy in front of the others.
How stupid that was. All of them were crazy in their own way or else Larkspur wouldn’t have invited them.
Shane swallowed hard, as though he had eaten a cupcake doused in salt.
“Well, we thought that we had summoned Consolida, but we actually summoned the entity.”
“Did it kill you all?” Marcus asked.
He already knew the answer, but still, the question was pulled out of his mouth, as if it needed confirmation for its truth.
Shane sighed, eyes dark with the past. For a brief moment, he looked like a grieving man who was still clinging into what was lost.
Shane was his uncle. He was supposed to be alive. He was supposed to have visited Marcus, attended his cello recitals, give him support.
Yet there he stood, trapped in the body of a tortured twelve year old.
“It did. Every last one of us. The only thing the cops found was the photo Lawrence took of it. The photo got out, but people didn’t believe it. They still came here with their friends. I haven’t seen anybody come here in a while until you and your friends came along. I figured the house would try to find you, though.”
“How?”
“We’re family. Families lived there before evil corrupted the house. The one thing Larkspur wants to destroy is family. It feeds off our sadness and negativity. That’s why I kept playing the song for you, so that you could have some protection.”
“How did you know what song to play?”
It was a specific melody that Marcus heard. A tragic song that sounded like emptiness and broken hearts.
A beautiful, tragic song.
“Randolph showed me. I took his mask off and he showed me for the time he was himself.”
Marcus shuddered, remembering the effect that the masks had on the ghost kids. When on, they were animals. When off, they were children. Randolph had a dog mask. Shane must have seen the real Randolph for a flickering second before the mask magically appeared back on his face.
“How is Delaney doing?” Shane asked.
Marcus bristled under his innocent question. His mother rarely ever spoke to him and when she did, she was hidden away in a room full of computers, doing work. When she saw the invitation to Larkspur, she didn’t hide it from him. She showed him. She wanted to send him away and she didn’t care how long he’d be gone.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Shane asked.
He couldn’t keep it in. All those years of being turned away, of being ignored.
He had to let it out.
“My Mom doesn’t love me! Whenever I played music she was scared. When…when…”
Tears began to slide out of his eyes, his chest felt as though it was being pressed down by an invisible hand.
“When…when L-Larkspur got to her…s-s-she wanted to send me away! The invitation s-s-said that it was a music academy. S-s-she d-d-didn’t know, but…but she still sent me away! She was so h-h-happy too!”
Shane hugged Marcus, letting him cry for a while.
It felt good to let it all out.
“I’m so sorry. Delaney shouldn’t have treated you like that. She should have been stronger for you. You didn’t deserve that.”
But then, Marcus was just like her, wasn’t he? She lost Shane and took it out on Marcus, all because he reminded him of her. Poppy was haunted, like him, but instead of telling the truth about hearing Shane’s disembodied violin, he lied.
“I’m n-n-no better than h-h-her. I’m a c-c-coward.”
“Would a coward stand up to a monster to save his friends?”
Marcus stopped crying, thinking back to the moment before he died.
He and the others were running from the house, with Moriko, Azumi’s sister.
Only, it wasn’t Moriko. It was the entity pretending to be her.
The skeletal beast was about to kill them all, but he stayed behind, playing the song with his cello. It weakened the entity and gave the others time to leave, but it didn’t give him time to run.
“Come on. We have music to play.” Shane said, letting go.
Marcus smiled as he wiped away his tears.
Though his heart had ceased to beat, he still felt the growing love and admiration that he always had for his uncle. If only things had been different, then perhaps they could have lived out their music dreams, they could have shown the world their art. Shane was the only relative Marcus ever felt close to, and for the first time in his existence, Marcus knew what it felt like to be truly loved.
Although Larkspur wasn’t a music academy, what he found was better than any elite academy could ever be.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hi vampricone6783! Dropping by to give you a review. I admit, I have not read the book series that this fanfic is based on. At first, I actually thought you meant the anime series called Shadows House, but then I saw a bit of Peng's review and realized the author's name did not match the name of the manga. So! You learn something new every day, huh?
I also like that you give a little blurb about the series and what it's about before you begin the story. It sounds pretty cool! I'll try to check them out. Back in my day, Goosebumps was all the rage (and rightfully so) - are these of a similar vibe?
Anyways, on to my review. Here are any grammatical nitpicks I noticed while reading:
I would rewrite this sentence to say "would Marcus' music still have been shunned?" as I think it flows better in this context.
It sounds like the second sentence should not end in a question mark, since it was not a question, but a statement.
I'm quoting these two sentences because I want to show you the difference between using italics to add emphasis when it works and when it does not work. The first sentence does not need italics. I recommend you remove them. The thing about using italics in prose is that you want to do it sparingly, because the whole point of italicizing a word is to put emphasis on it, and thus show the reader how impactful or meaningful that word is. It does nothing if you do it often. It should be used sparingly. Even after these two sentences, in the next few lines, you emphasize another word, and thus, these italicized words begin to lose their meaning.
However, the second line uses italics correctly, since there is a need to express to the reader that the narrator and his Uncle Shane have never actually talked like this before; they have only ever communicated through music.
"the existence of" instead of "an existence of". Also, add in the commas I have included in bold.
Lowercase the u, it only needs to be capitalized when you are naming a specific uncle, such as Uncle Shane. Also, fix the spacing between that paragraph and the one prior to it, because it came across as a paragraph break and like you were switching gears into a new narration, so it was a little jarring to see the conversation continue.
Same as above.
Alright, onto my thoughts in general on this short story of yours: I enjoyed it! It was really cool and it definitely intrigued me. I was able to learn a good bit of information just from your fanfic alone, despite not having read the original story that this comes from, and I like that. You did a good job of including relevant information for the reader without info-dumping it all into yucky chunks in the story. I also like that you gave Marcus depth. You showed the reader that he's more than a boy that died. He has trauma from his past, and while there's nothing that can be done to fix that, he can at least find peace by playing with his uncle, someone who understands him and shares his passions. In a way, he can finally know peace, even though it is still awful that he died and that he longs to return to his friends. The finality of his story is sad but I am so glad you didn't try to do something stereotypical, like have him resurrected or something. I think this was a fantastic ending and I like that it ends on the implication that he and his uncle will be able to save his friends from suffering the same fate.
With that said, I just want to reiterate that you need to reign in the italics a bit! I review as a read, so after I originally wrote what I said up above about the italics, I kept reading and I just kept noticing them, so close together and so often. In some cases, italics are necessary, to show the reader a character's inner monologue and thoughts, or to show the title of a book, and in some cases, they can be used to put significance on a word. However, for most of the times you used italics, they just were not needed. You can put emphasis on a word just by simply describing how a character said that word. Maybe their voice rose an octave, or their tone was of disgust, or maybe they gestured dramatically to the subject in question. Get creative and use other elements to help bring emphasis to words.
Besides that, I really did enjoy this story and I hope this review helped you!
~ Iggy
It is kind of like Goosebumps but with a more gothic twist.
Hullo Vampricone,
I have not read the Shadow House books, but it is clear from your brief description and this fanfic that you're a big fan of them. I think it's very sweet to choose a moment when a character does something brave in the face of death or destruction when they are terrified - the true model of courage!
In terms of your fanfic, I think you have a clear way of writing that makes reading very easy and doesn't force the reader to start and stop or hop their way around to get a sense of flow.
When writing short fiction you have to remember that the core - or purpose - of the story can't be lost in the details. I can see that the intent of your story is to allow Marcus some breathing room and to help him come to terms with some of his 'alive' actions. That said, since this is so short, those realisations seem a big unrealistic and cut short. There isn't enough time here to really get a feel for his sadness about his mum or develop the relationship he has with the other characters he meets. I know people who have read the novels before may have a better sense of this, but you're writing an emotionally charged moment and we're missing some of the connection we need to feel that emotion.
What would help the emotional connection would be some more evocative description of setting and character. You give us an idea - 12 year old, red hair, scary woods - but we're left to imagine the rest of the scene ourselves. What do the woods feel like - or even better what do they sound like? Your characters are connected by music but we're not reading about what they hear or see or feel. I know they are ghosts but there needs to be something more our imaginations can use to develop a clear picture.
In summary: take all the good things you're already doing (clear language, well structured sentences, a good sense of fun) and expand on them with some stronger description and longer scenes.
I look forward to reading more of what you've written.
-Pen