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"Dereeeeeeek!!!"
There's nothing quite like being abruptly pulled out of a much-needed nap by your screaming sister, Derek mused from his face-down position on the bed. Cora proceeded to disrupt his momentary calm even further by flopping down on the bed beside him, jostling Derek and forcing him to roll over to accommodate her.
His younger sister pouted down at him. "Derek, if you don't get up now, we won't have time to eat dinner before we go on the Haunted History tour, and I really don't think you'll enjoy an hour-and-a-half-long tour with a hungry Cora. Remember what happened when I didn't get to eat before we went to the natural history museum in Colorado that one time?"
Derek groaned and sat up because he did remember, and he never wanted to experience that ever again if he could help it. He sighed, "Okay, Cora. Where do you want to eat?" Cora smirked like she always did when she got her way and bounced back off of the bed.
"There's this place down on Main Street called the Seabiscuit Café! The cute girl I talked to in the Butterfly House shop said that they've got really good steak, plus some gluten-free options and all that shit in case Mom decides to join us," she said. Derek stretched and winced after he felt his back crack a little. It had been a long drive up from the Detroit airport to Mackinac Island for their sister Laura's wedding, and Derek wasn't quite sure how Cora still had so much energy. Probably because he had done most of the driving, or maybe she was just the devil. Both. Both is good.
He and Cora had flown in from California after the rest of their family because neither of them could get out of work sooner, and travelling together was more fun (according to Cora). They were staying at the Inn at Stonewall, which was also where Laura's wedding was taking place tomorrow. Before then, however, Cora was hell-bent on taking in as much of the island as she could and dragging Derek right along with her. Well, that's not entirely true. Having majored in history in college, Derek was just as excited to be on the island as his sister if not even more so. Mackinac Island was a veritable well of history, and he meant to see as much of it as he could. First, though, Cora was making him go on a haunted history tour. She loved that kind of spooky, ghost-hunting vibe, plus she called the tour payback for Derek "inevitably making her hike to every single fort on the damn island."
Dinner at the Seabiscuit Café was good, although Cora teased him about getting caught up in the movie that the restaurant was named for as it played on a TV above the bar. To be fair, it was a good movie, but Derek liked the book better.
After dinner, they found themselves across the street at the Bicycle Street Inn shops where the Haunted History Tours booth was located among other stores. Cora bought them both fudge from Sanders Candy Shop, and then they sat down in the atrium to wait for the tour to begin. A female employee of the tour company dressed in black started handing out glowstick necklaces as the starting time of the tour grew closer.
Cora held her necklace up by its black string and stood up. "Are these our tour badges?" she snorted. "Well, I guess it is almost 9:00. It'll probably get dark soon." She placed the string around her neck and cracked the glowstick. Derek stood and was just about to crack his glowstick as well when a good-looking young man in an old-fashioned getup strode out from behind the tour booth.
"Good evening, ladies, gents, and ghostly friends! My name is Stiles and I'll be your guide tonight on this Haunted History tour. Taking pictures on our trip tonight is definitely encouraged in case anyone spots any spectral activity, but recording is unfortunately prohibited as this tour, including myself, is copyrighted! Now…." The man continued to ramble energetically about the rules of the tour, but Derek just stood there with the uncracked glowstick in hand because goddamn this guy was beautiful!
He was slender, pale, and freckled, with short brown hair that stuck up in the front and gorgeous brown eyes that sparkled every time he smiled, which was a lot. His hands (oh god his hands) gestured wildly as he talked, and he just talked and talked and... was Cora saying something? Derek snapped out of his momentary haze as Cora hissed his name for the fifth time to get his attention. "What?" he whispered back defensively. She smirked at him and cracked his glowstick for him.
"We're on the move, dummy," Cora laughed as she moved to catch up with the rest of the group. "Now stop staring at the tour guide like you want to eat him and hurry up!" Derek glared at her and followed close behind. The guide (Stiles? Was that his name?) had stopped across the road from the building they had just been in and was animatedly describing a ghostly encounter that one of the guests had in her room. Derek attempted to pay attention to what Stiles was saying about the former owner of the Bicycle Street Inn still checking in on its guests after his death, but it was a little hard for him to concentrate when Stiles' shirt and pants were as attractively tight on him as they were.
As the group moved further down Main Street towards Fort Mackinac, Derek shook his head to snap himself out of it. Not the time, not the place, Hale. Focus more on the history, less on… everything else, he thought to himself. Cora, who had just witnessed his little internal monologue, was shaking with silent laughter at his side.
Derek started walking a bit faster to catch up with the front of the group, trying to both get closer to Stiles and farther from his laughing sister. The group made it over to Marquette Park just as the sunset turned the clouds above them a brilliant arrangement of purples and oranges, making it look almost like the fort was ablaze with light. Even Stiles stopped for a moment to admire the view. His mouth hung open slightly, and he was silent for the first time since the tour had started. Just as suddenly as he had stopped, Stiles started walking again across the grass to the statue in the middle of the park.
When the entire tour group had made it to the statue, Stiles turned to them and grinned. "Back in the early days of the fort, a couple of the soldiers decided to turn this park into the fort garden. So one day, they decide to start digging, because that's what you have to do to start a garden, but since we are on a haunted tour, you can probably guess what they found down here. Now, I've told you about some of the sets of native remains found under the buildings on Main Street and a few in other burial grounds around the island, but nothing compares to what was found here in this park. How many sets of remains do you think they found? Anybody? Bueller?"
"Fifty?" asked one man.
"Nope, keep going!" Stiles said. A little girl guessed 100, and an older woman placed her estimate at around 500. "Keeeeep going!" Stiles chuckled.
Cora finally spoke up. "1,000?"
Stiles pointed at her and smiled. "Super close! They found 1,012 sets of remains before they stopped. Now, keep in mind, if they had kept going, they probably would've found many more, but what gets me is," he laughed quietly, "What gets me is that these guys didn't stop at 100. They didn't stop at 500. They didn't even stop at 1,000. Who digs up 1,011 sets of remains and after the next one decides yep, no that's it, that's enough, I'm done?"
"Oh my god that's ridiculous," Cora gasped with laughter and leaned against her brother. Derek shook his head and smiled. Stiles asked if anyone had any questions before moving on, and more than a few hands shot up. His energy was infectious; what had been a somewhat quiet group of tourists now moved from stop to stop quickly and asked questions with enthusiasm that Stiles matched twofold. Derek had to give the guy props, he knew his history. Having read up on the island on the flight to Michigan, Derek knew some of the basic stuff, but Stiles flawlessly intertwined the history of each place with accounts of ghost sightings that were told with such a flair that Derek couldn't help but listen.
After a few more chilling stories about the ghosts of soldiers chasing people up by the fort, Stiles led the group over to an alleyway that ran parallel behind Main Street. "Okay, folks, so this alleyway has been the site of numerous hauntings and ghost sightings! A lot of the seasonal workers live back here, plus we're right behind the Haunted Theater, which has its own actual ghosts along with all the funhouse terrors. One of the most terrifying stories I've heard about back here comes from a friend of mine, actually. She was walking back to where she lives through here, and she sees this man coming toward her on an old-fashioned bicycle. She thinks it's a little weird, but hey, we've got some old-timey stuff around here. He gets closer… and closer…. and suddenly BAM!" Stiles whipped around and threw his hands up right in Derek's face. "She can see that he has no eyes, only two black holes!"
Derek, who had a tendency to keep his reactions to himself, remained stoic. The rest of the group broke out in relieved laughter as one does after one has been startled, and Stiles laughed right along with them. "Can't even give me one, can you, big guy?" he asked Derek and smiled humorously.
Derek stayed stonefaced for a moment for comedic effect, but then smirked right back at him. "Maybe, maybe not," he said. Cora shook her head at how lame her older brother could be.
Stiles quirked an eyebrow. "Alright, I see how it is." He turned to Cora and winked. "Let me know if I get a reaction out of him tonight, okay?"
Cora saluted Stiles amusedly. "Roger that, Cap." Stiles pointed finger guns at her and walked to the front of the group so he could lead them out onto Market Street.
"Hey guys, I want you to do me a favour as we're walking over here," he said a little louder so everyone could hear him. "Just remember that 1. The Haunted Theater used to be a real movie theater and 2. the addition to the Bicycle Street Inn that blocks this part of the alley was not there until the most recent turn of the century! We good? Yes? Okay, moving on." With that, he led them onward.
Cora nudged Derek as they walked. "Ooooh, you like hiiiim," she teased. Derek scoffed.
"Come on, Cora, aren't we a little old for that?" he fired back, happy that it was dark enough that she couldn't see if he was blushing. Not that he was, or anything. That would be ridiculous, he didn't even know Stiles.
Cora cackled. "That's not a denial!" Derek rolled his eyes and hip-checked her hard enough to send her stumbling to the side a bit as he walked ahead. She was still laughing when she caught up.
Stiles had the group turn left down a street that looked down what would've been the other side of the alley if the Bicycle Street addition hadn't been blocking it. "Okay, does anyone here know what a residual haunting is?" he asked the group.
Nobody replied, so he went on. "A residual haunting, in layman's terms, is when an emotion is so strong that it leaves a lasting impression on a place that takes the form of something happening over and over. Here on Mackinac Island, we like to say that history repeats itself, but with residual hauntings, it actually does. The ghosts that appear in these hauntings repeat the things they did when they experienced the emotion, exactly as they did them. That means that they don't interact with people, and they don't react to new environments." With that, he gestured grandly towards the Bicycle Street addition.
"Now usually, a residual haunting is the result of a very strong negative emotion, like fear or anger. For example, a residual haunting of a murder isn't all that uncommon as far as these things go. However, we happen to have here a residual haunting of a positive emotion! There have been sightings of a young girl in early-1900s fashion coming out of the back of the Haunted Theater as if she has just seen a movie, walking down the alley humming a tune, coming through the other side of the Bicycle Street addition like it isn't even there because it wasn't, continue walking, and disappearing right in the middle of that bike lot right over there."
He pointed to a bike parking lot behind him. "This, back in the day, was actually a place of residence, so it's completely fathomable that she could've seen a movie down the street and walked home through that alley! The best part about this story is that she's been seen so many times by so many people that we've actually been able to identify the song she hums. It's an old song called "Hearts and Flowers," which was a very popular piece that accompanied silent films like one this girl could've seen. So, just imagine it."
Stiles met Derek's eyes, and his voice got soft, almost serious. "You go out on a date one night to see a movie, and you're so happy, perhaps even so in love that your happiness leaves a lasting mark for centuries to come. How incredible is that?"
The girls in the group 'awwww'd, some of the guys too, but Stiles? He was still looking at Derek with those deep brown eyes, so Derek just grinned. A huge, dorky grin. Bunny teeth and all. Stiles grinned right back, and turned to the rest of the group. "Alright, guys, we're gonna head back to base now! If anyone has any questions about whether their hotel is especially haunted, I'm gonna stick around for a while after so feel free to ask!"
Derek and Cora lingered towards the back as Stiles is swarmed by the other people in their group on their way back to the shops. When they reached the booth, Derek just had to marvel a little bit. It was almost 11:00 at night, and Stiles was still answering questions like he had all the energy left in the world. The tips he was receiving certainly reflected that, luckily for Stiles. At the end of the craze, Derek stepped forward while Cora strategically busied herself with getting a tip out of her wallet.
"So, how about the Inn at Stonecliff?" Derek asked with a smile.
Stiles' eyes lit up. "Oh man, that's one of the coolest ones. There's this legend of a young bride who came to the island to get married, but her British fiancé died before they could be wed and now her spirit wreaks havoc and causes mischief at the weddings there. It's said that anyone who gets married there has to make peace with the ghost bride somehow before the ceremony or else she'll try to ruin the wedding. There's one story I've heard where the caterer is bringing out the wedding cake when he feels someone violently kick the cart and send the cake flying! Of course he's all mad, trying to see who did that, but there's no one even near the cart, let alone in kicking distance. It's totally crazy, dude." Cora snorted in the background, and Stiles looked at her questioningly.
"Our sister is getting married there tomorrow," Derek explained. "Any ideas on how to appease the ghost bride?"
Stiles leaned back against the booth. "Yeah, apparently something along the lines of 'we're sorry you didn't have the chance to get married, please accept our condolences, et cetera' works just fine." He smirked. "That, or ritual sacrifice. Y'know, either works." Derek laughed quietly at that. Cora pushed past her brother to hand Stiles a very oddly-folded ten dollar bill, and then leaned in to whisper something in his ear. He blushed a little at whatever she said, and Derek groaned. It couldn't have been anything good, knowing Cora. He grabbed his sister by the arm and started heading toward the exit.
"Bye, Stiles! Thanks for the awesome tour! We loved it!" Cora called over her shoulder before Derek dragged them out the door.
The two of them walked over to a horse-drawn taxi carriage. "The Inn at Stonewall, please," Derek said gruffly. He turned to his sister. "What did you say to him?" Cora grinned.
"Oh, nothing you need to worry about, brother dear. Focus on writing Laura a good speech to give to the ghost bride, I'm sure she'll love that!" she snickered. Laura hated the idea of ghosts. Derek briefly considered the option of making Cora walk back to the hotel, but she was already half-asleep at his side.
Cora, of course, was right. Laura just loved having to mollify the ghost bride. She and Derek walked into the dining room a few hours before the wedding so that she could say the few words that Derek was capable of producing after what a long day the day before had been. When she was done, she turned right on her heel and got the hell out of dodge, leaving Derek to sit in silence and contemplate his own existence. Fun stuff.
Suddenly, he heard someone clear their throat behind him. "So, I'm guessing I just missed the ghost-appeasement speech?" Derek turned and saw Stiles leaning against the doorframe wearing a black, nicer version of his work outfit. Cora, he thought to himself. Of course. Derek got to his feet.
"Yeah, it was very heartfelt," he joked. "I might have shed a few tears."
Stiles coughed a laugh and shook his head. "Careful now, you don't want the ghost bride to think you didn't mean it!" He looked around at the decorations adorning the room. "Well, I suppose I should get going, Cora said I should stop by for the ghost thing and now that that's done…" he trailed off.
Derek felt his heart beat a little faster in his chest. He stuttered, "Well, I mean… you could, if you want…you could stay? You know, for the wedding?" He could feel the tips of his ears turning red. Smooth, Hale. Smooth. But Stiles just grinned at him, like he had on the tour, and nodded enthusiastically.
"Sure! Yeah, I'd love to, I mean if that's okay with you and your sister and stuff, I don't want to cause any problems or anything-" he cut himself off suddenly, then added, quieter: "Also, your sister, uh, she kind of gave me your number last night. I just thought I should tell you." The blush from the previous night returned along with this confession, and goddamn if Derek didn't find that to be the cutest thing.
Grinning, Derek ran a hand through his hair. "Of course she did. Did she tell you my name, at least? I can imagine that she must've, I never introduced myself and it would be kind of awkward to have some guy's number whose name you didn't know."
"Yeah," Stiles breathed. "Derek?" He held his hand out. "Nice to meet you, Derek. I'm Stiles." If it was possible for Derek's smile to get any bigger, it did.
"Nice to meet you too, Stiles."