Gothic Vault is an advice column for tormented, Gothic characters and their dreadful, eerie, bump-in-the-night dilemmas. Correspondent Erzsebet Carmean replies to questions submitted by fictitious people who have fictional problems. As author of Gothic characters, Erzsebet is abundantly qualified to dispense no-nonsense wisdom to those penned by others.
Gothic Vault Advice Column, Issue 2
Dear Gothic Vault,
I’m a ghosthunter on a popular show. We get our assignments from people who email us about their supernatural issues. Mostly we play up the evidence we find for dramatic effect, but in our latest investigation, we don’t need to. There is a legit ghost that appears every night. You can imagine how excited the producers are! My teammates and I are stoked, too – we have undeniable empirical evidence of a haunting!
Some quick back story… the guy who contacted us claims he accidentally eloped with the ghost. I’ll call him Romeo, and his girlfriend Juliet. Juliet’s parents are excessively strict & have decreed she will become a nun because her mom promised her to God. Juliet doesn’t want to be a nun; she wants to marry Romeo. Apparently, Romeo convinced her that God won’t mind if she ghosts him because why else would He allow her to fall in love? Romeo also sold her a line that he knows someone who knows the brother-in-law of the Pope and Juliet’s mom can’t possibly object if the Pope says it’s okay. Young love is absurd.
They came to the conclusion the only way to be together is to elope. Juliet lives in a castle reported to be haunted (my team is trying to get permission to film there). The castle ghost is known as “The Bleeding Nun.” Legend has it that on Cinco de Mayo of every fifth year, the ghost takes a stroll. She leaves her room, goes down the East staircase, crosses the great hall, and exits through the castle gates. The family leaves the gates be unlocked that night, which is to the advantage of Romeo and Juliet. They decide that Juliet will impersonate the nun, follow her alleged path, and leave the premises. Her family is scared of the spirit, and never approach her. It wasn’t a bad idea…
Except…
It didn’t work. Instead of Juliet, Romeo ends up letting the ghost into his Uber. When we interviewed him, Romeo stated he thought it was strange that Juliet was strangely quiet and cold; she would only lay stiffly across his lap. He mistook this for exhaustion. Romeo pledged himself to her and kissed, swearing their love is forever. It is at this time that there was a terrible car accident; the Uber accelerated uncontrollably (almost as if an unseen force pressed the pedal to the floor). The driver survived, as did Romeo. Yet there was no sign of Juliet! A police search was mounted because they thought she must have been thrown from the car, perhaps with a head injury that made her wander away in confusion. They did not find her. Juliet remains a missing person. I’ve attached the article where her parents offer a reward for information leading to her safe return. They seem to think Romeo knows more than he’s saying. To be fair, he sounds crazy in the police body-cam footage of him giving his statement at the scene of the crash. He’s engaged a lawyer & won’t speak to any media except my ghost hunting team. Exclusive rights are a GOLD MINE!
Only… and here’s the shitty part that I need help with. I’m pretty sure that Romeo abducted a worker from the castle to prevent her from telling Juliet’s plan. He’s staying in an VRBO rental and there is a room where the team is not allowed to enter. Romeo keeps it locked, but I’ve seen him take a bottle of brandy and pass it to someone with bound wrists stuffed in an old-fashioned wardrobe. I’ve also caught Romeo emptying a bedpan into the toilet. When I confronted him, Romeo claimed I imagined it.
It’s true I’m sleep deprived. The Bleeding Nun is terrifying. Between the nightly visitation and daily investigation and editing creepy footage, I barely sleep. My teammates tell me to just ignore it & that we can tell the police when we’re done filming. I just don’t feel good about that. What should I do?
Accessory After the Fact
Dear Accessory After the Fact,
You have much, much bigger problems than losing exclusive rights to Romeo’s story. I’ve notified the authorities that I’ve received a report of a person being falsely imprisoned. My tech team has traced your IP to a general area. Police are knocking doors now and your best action is to call them before they find the VRBO. If your version of the story is true, I doubt you can be held accountable for the abduction. However (and I am not a lawyer), concealing an ongoing kidnapping is not a good look.
Have you considered that the person in the wardrobe might be Juliet? Based on the reward notice you forwarded, Juliet is a minor and her parents are frantic. Even if Romeo isn’t full of BS and Juliet’s disappearance is not his fault, someone is being held captive, and possibly drugged with something in the brandy.
You’ve seen something & now you need to say something.
Erzsebet
The story of the elopement-gone-wrong is from The Monk by Matthew Lewis. The Monk is considered the forbearer to Gothic fiction. It incorporates many of the moods and tropes of Romanticism but is bitingly funny and unafraid to poke fun at Romantic ideals.
Erzsebet Carmean 