A Halloween Carol in Texas

"Ooooh! Robbie played 'Hagrid' in the Harry Potter movies! And David was the frontman for that group 'New York Dolls'! Wasn't he also 'Buster Poindexter?'"

"Yup, correct on all counts! After we watch that, then we will follow up with Oscar starring Sylvester Stallone, Peter Riegert, Chazz Palminteri, Vincent Spano, and Marisa Tomei with Tim Curry. Chazz totally steals the show with his character named 'Connie'. You can't help but love him! He is hilarious!"

"Okay, I'm detecting a theme here," Mandy opined. "The supporting actors, Robbie and Tim are both from 'across the pond'." She made quote marks in the air with both hands.

"The thought never crossed my mind," Roger chuckled. "But you're correct. It's just a coincidence that it worked out that way."

Carol quietly observed them from a corner in the room. Roger put the first disk into the player and grabbed the remote. He settled in to one end of the love seat and Mandy grabbed the throw blanket off of the end table. She snuggled up into Roger's side and he put his arm around her shoulder. They cuddled under the blanket as Roger started the first movie. Carol nodded to herself and smiled with satisfaction. Everything was going to work out just like she wanted it to.

XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO

The second movie ended with the double wedding. When the credits began to roll, Mandy excused herself to go to the bathroom. While she sat on the commode, she reflected on her current situation. When she was at the cemetery, she was absolutely certain that she had heard Carol speak to her just as if she'd been standing right beside her. And yet Roger had done nothing nor said anything about the moment. It was as if it had all happened inside of her head. It could not have possibly been real. She finished taking her piss and cleaned up with some tissue. After adjusting her clothing, she turned towards the mirror and regarded her own reflection for a few moments. "I'm losing my mind," Mandy mumbled to herself.

"No. You're not, Blondie," Carol said startling Mandy.

"Eep!" Mandy gasped.

Carol doubled over in laughter as Mandy whirled around, searching desperately for the physical presence of her best friend. Mandy's exclamation had been so cute and delicate that it had sounded like the tinkle of a Christmas bell. Carol realized that she needed to quickly regain control of the situation before Amanda caused too much noise and alerted Roger.

"Shush! Stop for just a minute before Roger hears you and comes to investigate. Calm down, Babe! I'm not trying to freak you out. Get quiet and just listen to me!"

Amanda took a deep calming breath and looked towards the locked bathroom door. That had been the general direction that Carol's voice had come from.

"I can hear you but I can't see you."

"Ssshhh! Roger can't hear me right now. Nobody but you can hear me because I'm using my willpower to control it. But he'll definitely hear your voice if you don't keep it down! We have to keep this secret for now, but I promise to manifest for him too when the time is right."

Amanda shook her head, her long honey wheat hair rippling in response. "I'm just imagining you," she hissed in a whisper. "I need proof that you're really here and that I'm not going insane. Explain to me why I don't see a bed sheet or hear chains rattling!"

"I'm not Jacob Marley. I told you at the cemetery that light makes me invisible." Carol reached out and casually flicked the light switch off.

As soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Amanda was able to discern her best friend's apparition. She was reminded of a scene from The Return Of The Jedi when Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared to Luke Skywalker in the swamp on Dagobah. It looked exactly the same! Carol was transparent, but she glowed with an ethereal blue light. Then Amanda had another stored memory triggered by the scene currently before her. She had once been given the opportunity to tour the nuclear reactor at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Carol's luminosity matched the color and intensity of the reactor pile exactly. She reached out to touch Carol's cheek but her hand passed straight through it without any distortion in the apparition.

"Yeah, that part really sucks for me, too." Carol opined. "Trust me, I want to wrap you up in my arms and hug you too! But listen, I need to have a conversation with you. But it needs to be done privately. That's why I asked you to come back to me at midnight. I'm at my strongest when I'm close to my body and during that particular hour. Tell Honeybear thanks for the evening, but you're feeling better now. Just head home and don't tip him off. I'll see you later when you come back out to the cemetery. I will be waiting for you there, I promise!" Carol turned the light back on and was gone.

Mandy was still uncertain as to whether or not her imagination was running amok. But something inside of her told her to trust her instincts and go with it for now. She had run everything through her head over and over trying to find anything that would show her the difference from hallucination or reality. But when it got down to the nitty gritty, she decided that only a mutually shared experience would confirm whether or not everything she was seeing had actually happened in reality and not just only in her own head. Even Carol using her private pet names for Mandy and Roger were no proof. Since Mandy knew about them, her runaway imagination could have easily been filling in the blanks to make everything more convincing.

Mandy made her way back into the living room and gave her goodbyes to Roger. She hugged him warmly and kissed his cheek while giving him assurances that she was okay enough to drive home to her parents. After the short drive home, she called him to reassure him that she had made it to her destination safely.

XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO XOXO

As midnight approached, Mandy left in plenty of time to keep her appointment with Carol. She had been to the cemetery often enough that she had no problems navigating its driveways in the dark to park her car in the same place that she had been earlier that day. As she approached Carol's grave, she easily made out the blue light of the apparition perched on the headstone waiting for her.

"Something has been bothering me since we talked in the bathroom earlier tonight," Mandy opened the conversation this time. "You said that you couldn't hug me, but yet I saw you reach over and flip the light switch on. What is up with that?"

"Telekinesis," Carol replied. "My spirit still believes that it has a physical body to use for activities, so it still goes through the motions. But I had to train myself to use my willpower to actually do the work. Think of it as just acting out of habit. I could have swiped at that light switch all day long, but I can never actually touch it. I could have crossed my arms without reaching for it and achieved the same results because I willed it to turn on and off. I'm sorry, babe. Trust me when I tell you that I long to wrap you up in a hug and never let you go. I could create a fake hug that you would feel by changing the density of the air surrounding your body. But I can't physically touch you myself."

"So, this really is you then? I'm not imagining you in my head?"

"Yeah, Blondie. I'm really here. At least the part of me that is indestructible is here."

"Are we alone," Mandy asked? "I mean...there's hundreds of people buried here."

"Most spirits don't linger in Limbo like this. I have stuck around because I have unfinished business that has to be taken care of before I can be at peace and cross over like the rest have. But to answer your question, there are probably about 5 or 6 other souls that are dwelling nearby trying to find their own peace before going to be with God. Most will move on when they are ready. But there is one that has been here since 1892. I don't think that she will ever find peace. She will be stuck here until all of the prophecies have been fulfilled."

"You asked me to come here, I guess to talk. What do you want from me?"

"What I want most from you is for you to stop trying to honor my memory by denying you and Roger the chance to be happy together," Carol answered.

"But I...."

"Stop right there before you try to lie to me," Carol said. "Blondie, you were my closest friend during my entire lifetime. You were more than just my best friend. You were like the sister that I never had. Even before I died, I knew almost everything about you just as well as I knew the back of my own hand. Roger and I were destined to be together and make babies. We had been nearly inseparable growing up and started dating in the tenth grade. He and I both saved our virginity until our wedding night. He is the first and only man that I ever had sex with. I'm the only girl that he has ever been with as well. Hell, the only other girl that has ever kissed him besides his mom is you!"

"Babe! I never...I swear!" Amanda was on the verge of panic.

"Calm down, calm down. I know that you never kissed him on the lips. I'm talking about the affection that you show him when you kiss his cheeks. Please, Mandy. Roger has never betrayed me and I know that you haven't either. But you do love him." Amanda started to open her mouth in protest, but Carol stopped her by raising her hand. "Nah uh! Don't try and dissemble with me. You have been in love with Roger since we were in High School together. But you always put me and our friendship first, and for that I am eternally grateful. So this is part of my unrest. Roger fulfilled his marriage vows and remained faithful to me until death parted us from one another. He is now free to remarry, but he is as stubborn as ever. You and I need to work together to make sure that he does what is best, not only for himself, but for Jeremy as well. Jeremy dearly loves his Aunt Mandy. But Aunt Mandy needs to change her existence and become Mommy Mandy instead."

Amanda felt that chilling sensation all over again, as if she had suddenly been dunked with ice water. "Carol! I can't! I would never try and steal Roger away from you!"

"Oh my God! You can be such a blonde some times! You're not stealing him from me, you ditz! We're going to share him together! Here and now, and once again in the afterlife! Okay, so I have my own dirty little secret that I never told you about. I have known since we were seniors in High School that you have been crushing on Roger. For years, I had been trying to work up my nerve to ask Roger if he would be okay with having an unofficial plural marriage. I watched you try and make a go of things with those two morons that you dated after High School. It was blatantly obvious to me that neither one of those relationships could ever succeed.

"You have been totally besotted with Roger just like I was. There was never going to be anyone else for you but him. Hell, on the day that I died, I had even considered the possibility of that I could possibly be bisexual. Like I said earlier, I loved you like a sister but my feelings actually ran a lot deeper than that. I could even see myself falling in love with you and making love to you. Whenever I looked at other women, I easily recognized their beauty and could appreciate it like fine art. But when it came down to love, Roger is the only person other than you that stirred up the emotional feelings that I knew were true love. I love you, Mandy. I am also in love with you. I need you to step up and take care of my family for me so that I can rest. I want you to marry Roger for me."

"You want me to do what?"

"You heard me. You love Roger and he loves you. You're already there at our apartment most of the time helping him to take care of Jeremy. He doesn't have eyes for anyone else but you, so it is time for both of you to just accept the inevitable and be together."

"Before you were killed, you knew that I was in love with your husband? And you never said anything to me about it? I...I...how," Amanda stuttered.

"Honey, I could see it in your eyes every time you looked at him. Trust me, there were lots of times over the last two years of my life that I came very close to telling you that I wanted to share him with you. I really and truly did. I was just too much of a coward. I was so scared that you would panic and run away thinking that I was a total freak for wanting to share my husband with my best friend. I couldn't risk losing you and our friendship just because of my kinky desires, even if they were totally true. After Jeremy was born, I so wanted you to experience that same thing. I desperately wanted Roger to knock your silly ass up," Carol giggled! "I wanted to see your belly swell with his child. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about Roger and you making a baby together. It still does."

"Okay, so let's say that hypothetically I am okay with your plan. I try and seduce Roger. But what if he rejects me and cuts me out of his life forever?"

"I already know that is not a possibility. I saw the evidence of it tonight. I was in the living room quietly watching you two have your movie night. Roger knows that he cares deeply about you. But he doesn't consciously realize yet that he is in love with you. Trust me when I tell you that he is, and I'm sure that he has been since before I was killed. His hang up is that he is a really, really good man. That is why you and I both fell for him, and fell so damn hard. His honor and integrity are totally solid and beyond reproach.

"The whole reason that he hasn't even looked at another girl since I died is because he has this misguided idea that he has to remain faithful to me until he goes to his grave and rests beside me. Which reminds me, this vacant plot on Roger's side of our grave is still available. You need to snatch it up fast before someone else does. I want you buried beside Roger across from me. It is where you rightfully belong. The three of us together as a family for all of eternity."

Amanda sighed. "I don't think you realize the difficulty of this task that you have set before me. Is there anything else on your agenda?"

"I think that there are only two more things," Carol answered. "Roger and I need to name our unborn daughter. I would like her name added to the headstone below mine since her remains are still inside my womb. Her grandfather is taking care of her in Paradise until I arrive. When I get there, I would love to be able to tell her what her name is. Also, I have been honing my spirit abilities over the past two years just to reach the point where I can do this, what we are sharing tonight. But I have overheard other spirits talking about Limbo. I heard a rumor about possession. It generally isn't practiced because if a priest or rabbi gets involved and thinks that it is an evil demon, the exorcism that they perform can permanently damage a soul. They actually tear the offending soul from a person's body like ripping a piece of paper in half. I'm sure that you get the picture."

Amanda looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, "Okay, so what does that have to do with me?"

"I want to experiment with you," Carol said. "Remember the hugs? You know that I would never do anything to bring you to harm. I would never take over your body just to continue living with Roger. But I long to hold him in my arms again and reassure him that we will be together again when his time on earth has been finished. Like I said before, I wanted you to be his second wife even before I died. I wanted the two of us to be sister-wives. If I were to possess your body while you and Roger were making love, I could share him with you. Hell, if we time it right, I could even be there when he impregnates you. That would be so totally freaking awesome!"

"Oh dear God," Amanda gasped! "I can't believe that I am fixing to say this, but you're making my panties wet right now. What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"Nothing is wrong with you, Blondie. You're a woman in love who just had a whole world of possibilities opened up to her. Do you think that we can try to merge together tonight for a few minutes before you go home?"

"I have no idea. I mean, I think that I am okay with it. I totally trust you and always have. I never considered the possibility of having a lesbian relationship with you, but just thinking about it...if you had ever hit on me, I think that I would have been shocked at first. But I know that I wouldn't have run away from you. I have no doubt that I would have probably surrendered to you and turned bi myself. I mean, I know I'm not really and truly bi, but for you I could have been. Like you said, it was a matter of how you and I loved each other so much.

"I was always so much happier when Roger, you and I were spending time together. You're right. If you hadn't been taken away from us so damn early, I think that we would have ended up with a three-way family eventually. I'm not into other girls, but I know that I could have easily been into you. I never thought about it before, but now that you have made me think about it...yeah. I could have totally made love to you, girl on girl. Geez, I am so freaking horny now! We have to change the subject. So what do I have to do to make this work for you?"

"Just being open and receptive to me is nine tenths of the battle from what I understand," Carol said. "Open your heart up to me. You have confessed your love to me. I need you to focus on that. You may feel some discomfort. There is absolutely no pain involved, but you are definitely going to feel weird because you're going to have two souls occupying your one body at the same time. Are we in love with each other, Mandy?"

"Oh God, yes! Oh, Carol! I swear that now I know all of these secrets, I am so in love with you that I want to marry you myself!"

"Then focus on that, Blondie. Hold on tight to those feelings and thoughts. I don't know if you and I will still be able to communicate with one another after the merge. Like I said, this is all a learning process and an experiment. So I want you to relax. If for any reason I can't talk to you while we are together, I will release you and leave your body. We're going to learn how to do this together. It would be just the same as if we were first-time lovers. Neither you nor I had ever been with another woman, so we would have had to teach each other how to make lesbian style love. This isn't the same thing, but I'm sure you get what I am trying to say."

"Yeah, I get it," Amanda replied. She took a minute to calm herself and focus on her emotions. She thought about Carol and kissing her. She pictured the two of them holding one another, lips pressed together slightly open. She shuddered as she imagined slipping her tongue delicately into Carol's mouth as they shared their first loving kiss. "Okay, I think I am ready."

Carol drifted across the ground over to her best friend and moved behind her. She matched her spirit's positioning to Amanda's body position. Carol had been 5'8" tall in life, two inches shorter than her best friend. Carol focused her own love and feelings for Amanda into the front of her consciousness. She felt her spirit drifting forward towards Amanda and stretching to match her size. Her spirit merged with Amanda's body, head to head...hands to hands...feet to feet. Carol could detect Amanda's spirit immediately. It felt reminiscent of cuddling together in a bed like spoons. The warmth of love blossomed within her. Then something totally unsuspected happened. Carol's spirit touched Amanda's spirit and they instantly bonded. It was a feeling similar to what she felt when she was making love to Roger. The total intimacy of skin touching skin. The ultimate closeness of Roger being inside of her. But this time, it wasn't Roger but Amanda that she was sharing this ultimate in intimacy with. Carol gasped in surprise!