The Haunted Hairbrush

Shopping

Here are descriptions of the main characters of this story, so you can just imagine how they look on your own:

Kendra: Long wavy caramel hair, brown eyes, medium/gold skin tone

Cecily: Medium-length dark brown layered hair, hazel eyes, olive skin tone

Connor: Light brown, slightly overgrown hair, gray eyes

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"Cecily! We have an emergency!", Kendra shouts over the phone, "What is it?", I ask it's a cold, rainy Saturday so I desperately hope that whatever this emergency is doesn't involve me going outside. "I have to attend Aunt Ella's baby shower in 5 hours and I have no shoes!"

I roll my eyes, Kendra has about a hundred pairs of flip flops, heels, tennis shoes, sandals, boots, and flats, but obviously, she can never get enough. "Coming right over", I say. I grab my umbrella and put it into my DIY bicycle-umbrella stand so I can get there fast without getting drenched.

After a long, difficult journey although she lives only a block away, I arrive and someone yanks the door open before I can knock. It's Connor, Kendra's twin brother, "Thank goodness you're finally here, Ken is driving me crazy". I chuckle, his hair is all messed up and eyes wild, so it's probably not an exaggeration.

"Why is she bothering you?", I step into the house, starting for Kendra's room up upstairs. "Well, she asked for my opinion between which two shoes are less horrible, and I apparently picked the more horrible one".

"What were the choices?". "Orange boots or brown fringed heels", he replies, I stop outside Ken's room. I cross my arms, "Do not tell me that you picked orange boots", he turns slightly pink and shrugs. I enter Kendra's room and gasp.

There is a pair socks on the floor. This is surprising for two reasons: Kendra is a neat freak and never, ever, leaves anything out of place, and, she hates wearing socks (she thinks it's embarrassing for some reason) and always tries to hide them.

"Hey, Cecily! How ya doin'? Great now that we've exchanged the formalities you've got to get in the car and we're goin' to the mall!", she says all in one breath. "Okay, calm down, Ken, it's only a pair of shoes". She glares at me," No shoes are 'only a pair of shoes' and Connor was no help, it's a fiasco".

"Remember that time your dad lost his shoes at the bowling alley? And he didn't go all paranoid?", I remind her. "Well, they were only a pair of shoes", she replies, I raise and eyebrow, "Okay fine, point taken", she sighs. We go downstairs, pretend that Connor hammering a cake to some clay-maker thing is normal, put on our shoes, and get in the car.

About 15 minutes later we are parked in front of some famous, expensive shoe store and Kendra darts in, I can tell that she's holding back a squeal of excitement."Alright, alright, let's calm down and tell me what type of shoes you are thinking about", I say, patting her on the back as if she's a little kid.

"I was thinking medium-high white/gray court heels with a gem or something glittery somewhere", she's out of breath. We begin to check out shoes, but none match the description (even slightly) that Kendra had in mind. None of the heels are fit for a baby shower. Kendra sighs,"You were right, I was paranoid, I mean I do have too many shoes and there's nothing here. Let's depart."

I'm very relieved that she finally comes to her senses, even though she acts like a diva when it comes to shoes and hair, she's not and idiot. We're exiting the store when her eyes suddenly grow very large and she stops. "Wait, I heard that there's a new store that sells pretty much everything that opened up a few days ago, we should go check it out, it might contain baby-shower shoes".

"Costco also sells pretty much everything, but it specializes in food, are you sure that this isn't some Costco?", I ask, raises and eyebrow while trying to keep my laugh in. She laughs, "don't be ridiculous! Malls don't have Costco", I laugh with her, mostly because she has the type of laugh that is contagious.

Somehow, the new store, Fancy Raven, is only a couple shops away from the disappointing expensive shoe store we just departed from. The store is quite small, painted bronze and filled with antique artifacts. An old woman stands at the counter. Overall, the scene looks pretty creepy. I glance at Ken, who's gawking, and nudge her,"Sells everything, eh?".

"Hmph, well it ain't a Costco!", she frowns. "C'mon lets get out of here", I say, the old woman is staring at me and really creeping me out, how can Kendra be fascinated some old antique shop? "Just a sec", she walks over to a display of an old mirror with a desk beneath it, that place where women do their makeup and stuff.

Since almost everything in the shop is bronze, gold, or too old to tell, something silver catches my eye. It's an old fashioned hairbrush. The bristles are yellow with age, but the outer part is sleek, covered with ornate designs. In the middle of the hairbrush, there's a beautiful dark red ruby.

It obviously catches Ken's eye too, because she gasps and picks it up, "Look at this! It's beautiful". I feel myself move closer to the hairbrush, captivated by it, well, more by the dark red ruby and for the fraction of a second it seems that the ruby itself is not dark, but instead, there are black, wispy shadows moving around in it.

"Can I help you girls?", the sound of a voice right behind us makes me jump, it's the old shopkeeper. "Um no", I say, then nudge Kendra and grit my teeth,"Let's get out of here!". She's still gazing at the hairbrush. I look back at the shopkeeper, but she's seemingly disappeared.

"It's just a dumb hairbrush, you want one, we'll get ya one. FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE!", I whisper-scream. Kendra just looks at me, confused. "Who's we", she asks, staring into the distance. Oh my gosh! She is just sooooo frustrating! I grab her arm and am about to yank her out with me when the shopkeeper appears out of nowhere again.

"Well, I suppose it's your lucky day, that hairbrush is on sale! $20!", she says. I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow. "Twenty dollars? Are you kidding me, is this some toy or something?". "No, as you can see perfectly fine, it is a hairbrush", the old woman replies calmly. "Yeah", Kendra mouths towards me. "Oh, so now you decide to start acting normal", I growl at her.

"Ceci!", Kendra whispers. "Okay, okay, fine, go buy it or whatever, I'll wait outside", I give in. I walk out and a minute later Kendra exits the shop with the hairbrush looking as if she won the lottery. "Ye happy now?", I roll my eyes. "Well duh!", she giggles.

"What about the shoes?", I ask. "What shoes?", shes says innocently, "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about!", I wag my pointer finger in front of her face as if giving her a scolding. "Fine, I have enough at home to pick from", she sighs, a smile lingering on her face.

"So you gonna go with white flats or heels?".

"I was thinking heels".

"No way, flats are much better suited for this sort of occasion!"

"White flats don't look as good as white heels!"

"What are you talking about? Besides, you don't have to wear white! You love taupe flats!"

"Taupe? At a baby shower?"

"It's close enough to white, besides, white isn't a baby shower color! Light pink is!"

"EWW! I hate light pink! And taupe isn't close to it at all!"

"You'll stand out, and nobody cares what shoes you're going to wear anyway"

She gasped deeply and put a her hand to her chest. "I am offended, but even if you're right-which you are not-I'm short!"

"You're taller than me"

"You are five foot one"

"Thanks for the reminder"

"You're welcome"

We continued to bicker all the way home. I was starting to think that everything would be alright, what happened in the shop was probably just a phase, maybe I even imagined it. Everything was going to be normal from this point on. I was sure of it.