1.5

“You…you guys can’t stay here! You…you two really don’t want to stay here.” The weird little attic seance aside, I wasn’t scared of the power either of my unwanted guests had. They were both pretty small people. Even gorgeous in some way, too cute to be harmful with green skin or blue hair. My own power as a fledgling immortal was far scarier, and I wasn’t that cute either. “Please get out, for your own safety.”

“As if we don’t know how Moonlight Falls can be at night,” said the woman.

“How long have you been up here for?”

“Oh, ages of course! Looking down longingly at your sculptor’s studio.”

“Well, knock yourselves out. But you need to leave tomorrow, I don’t have the time to explain why…I’ll call a shelter.”

Intimidated and unsure of the future, I retreated to my unfinished bedroom with my guitar. Pappy was also missing. Should I put up fliers for his safe return like he’s a dog? I’m sure he’d appreciate the gesture. Despite what happened to our relationship, we still shared a bedroom. I had a side room for him that I was scared to finish.

I decided my new fate in life as a musician, but didn’t know what I wanted it to bring. Did I want to be left alone to focus on my art? Or surrounded by groupies? Because the squatters were the worst groupies I could have asked for. But I wanted Pappy to come back. I needed his opinion on everything that happened. His strange mind tapped into worlds that I couldn’t and perspectives that no one else on Earth considered.

It must have been past midnight. My jam session turned into another nap against the wall. I needed an air mattress in that room, at least. And Pappy bounded in like a wild animal, which of course he still was deep down.

“Wow, we have babes in this house now!” he said. “You can’t just keep that a secret from me. I had to kiss them both.”

“What, the guy too?” I asked Spot, rolling my eyes.

“I think I learned something new about myself. Can’t wait to tell Gladsten…”

Despite everything, Spot and I still fell asleep in each other’s arms. No arguing, just two bisexual people well past their primes. I heard something rattling downstairs. Humming. Lots of simpering from that young man who tried to call this place home. Yes, I was terrible with getting names from them.

But I feared that the overnight stay would bind them to me anyways, unless Barry stepped in.

After having to help Pappy off the floor (the old man needed a real bed), I woke up to the smell of cinnamon and ginger and browned butter. They were some of my favorite smells and everyone else’s too. The wafting scent led me to the kitchen.

“You didn’t tell me that you cooked,” I said to our female guest. “I guess I have to know your name now…to thank you.”

“Carmella. Heavens, I should’ve just said it! I know it would’ve made this more…personal.” She had this posh and pompous voice that I didn’t expect from someone on the run, unless she was a rich widow who killed her husband. That would almost garner my respect.

“Well, I personally like being cooked for. I…thought you magic folk didn’t have to do that.” Stories about witches circled around Twinbrook too, but mostly about their unholy acts of revenge and digging up graves. Meanwhile I was more scared that she was a daemon instead. At least all those spooky voodoo stories they told in the swamp stopped scaring me once I realized who I actually lived with. Daemons were harmful, but Voodoo was nothing more than a religion I didn’t belong to.

Making food with the wave of a hand seemed so easy for the magical in this town. On the other hand, Bianca would microwave her food backstage like the rest of us.

“That’s not my preferred school of magic, but I’ll sure tell you where the apples came from.”

One plump, red apple appeared in Carmella’s hand, in a cloud of purple haze.

“And they’re good for you?” I asked her.

“I’m not on the run for murder, if that’s what you’re asking. I would die myself if I did such a thing. Anyways, I hope you feel safe enough to eat.”

I shrugged. “It’s how I’d wanna die.”

Carmella invited me to dine with her at the table, but I went over to the painter’s room to eat. Of course, not before passing by the sculptor’s room. She wasn’t lying and finished a clay urn while I was asleep. But I admired sculptors. I never got into the art myself, but I’d watch Uncle Harwood turn stone and ice into masterpieces. That counted as a good memory, right?

Unlike seeing a semi-circle of easels that looked out into the backyard. It made me want to get a new house at first. No one knew that life better than me, but at last I thought I was ready to…tolerate being near an easel again. Since I couldn’t undo the choice. I figured the place would go unused. And for the rules set out to me, I’d just sketch myself as I had done before.

“Hey, you’re not ‘sposed to like painting,” I said, with a mouthful of Carmella’s crepes. Our other guest must have been responsible for the work left on the easels. It was amateur, but must have taken him all night. “No one is.”

“They have to, how does the world get stuff to put in a museum,” he said.

“Pain? I mean, go back in time and ask some serf how his world was built.”

“Wow, I guess you hate painting, I wish I knew that,” he said. “Uh…the hairy guy here told me your name before we made out on the couch. I’m Malcolm.”

“I’ll be sure to remember it.” I did, but not my choice. “Are you guys on the run from something?”

“I got kicked out after I got a neighbor pregnant.” Malcolm didn’t even blink. He had this high and raspy voice that otherwise didn’t betray much emotion. “All my housemates really liked her, and it was my fault.”

“Sounds typical.” But if I acted fast enough, I wouldn’t even have to worry about his story. So I figured that Barry would emerge at night. I spent the rest of the day before work befriending a fly that I then fed to a spider in the corner of the dining room. Time was running out before I got any help.

“What’s all the bitchin’ about?” Barry walked into our pristine house covered in dirt (at best) and didn’t even apologize. I wanted to push him out the door until he cleaned off, but he was a pretty big guy.

“Where were you?” I asked him. “And you’re filthy.”

“Diggin’ bodies out of a landslide. You should try it sometime.”

“Well, we got squatters that I may have let stay, and I also just cleaned the floors before you got here…”

“Ya need me to get rid of the squatters? Just call the cops. Then I could dig up bodies in peace and not get dirt on the floor.”

“I don’t know if I can. I know how hard it is to leave an immortal’s hold, and now I feel guilty about being that person. I mean, even if they’re squatters.”

Barry rubbed his chin. “It hasn’t been that long. They might have been here when Alicia and Chikashi sold the house, and that wouldn’t make them yours.” I soon realized how much was left out of the rule book. Or perhaps, that Barry actually was fond of me. “Ally could scare them out. What do these vagrants even look like?”

“I mean, one of them’s green. But if you’re red, what does it make her?”

“Weird, I’ll say that,” he said.

Carmella walked by at that moment, in wide-eyed horror. Were we uncovering a dark secret about her that would ruin us all? Was the the daemon I feared all along?

“I won’t stand for this,” she muttered.

With a wave of the wand she kept in her pocket, Barry was spotless. He could take his whole wardrobe to dry cleaning and not look or smell as fresh. The floors were as well. There was nothing left to complain about, which made my life a lot different.

“Well, now that we have that settled, I made dinner. You can have the weird red guy stay for the meal or check out my latest sculptures,” Carmella said.

“So she can do it all?” he asked me.

“Yeah, I had crepes for breakfast all because of her.”

“I’m not gonna make her leave.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Barry didn’t want unnecessary captives any more than I did. He was ready to have his daughter do her worst, whatever that could be. “But what about the other one? She came with this blue-haired guy who actually likes painting.”

“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” said Barry.

“You know, I told myself that I liked painting once too,” I said.

“You weren’t wrong, Vega was.” He took a deep sniff of the air. “Are those ‘shrooms?”

“It’s this steamed chicken and mushroom disk she loves to make.” And I loved to eat even more. Tender, bone-in chicken pieces with shiitake and mu’er mushrooms and oyster sauce all steamed together. Yes, it was a dish that Screwtape cooked too, and his dad’s favorite. But I could look into someone else’s eyes while eating it in this lifetime.

The five of us, including Barry, still had a lot of trouble talking to each other. Spot couldn’t even sit down because Barry’s presence drove him mad. I didn’t disagree but it was a madness I needed now.

“Red and green, two opposing forces in our own damn dining room!”

“Calm down fido, it’s not that deep,” said Barry.

He stayed to talk with Carmella for a while longer while she cleaned the dishes. I tried not to listen but Barry mentioned my past and to go easy on me. It was a little insulting, but my whole life was a cascade of that. He gave me his number afterwards so I didn’t have to kill to summon him. As it turned out, he spent a lot of his time on Earth with his daughter, which he wanted to do that night.

But me? The theatre was having a late concert. The commute there was short and merciful, but I’d be there past midnight plugging in amplifiers and cleaning beer cans off the floor.

I got a lot of messages from her while I was working. Carmella admitted to sleeping in short bursts, with magic keeping her restless. She must have passed that over to Malcolm, who was frantic about a leak under the sink.

Honey, there was always a leak under the sink.

Carmella also invited me to a seance in the attic. Clearly, something she was used to. She assured me that it was simple and we’d most likely reach no one. I didn’t believe in seances at all, actually. Countless ones had to have happened when I was dead, but the only person who could summon me to Earth was Barry. And all he had to do was grab me out of a well with his magic red hands.

But I agreed regardless. I was scared but curious, especially since half the town was witches anyways. Maybe Bianca would tell me that Carmella was a total hack anyways, and that her skin was green due to copper poisoning. She’d show me a ghost in the attic and I’d chide her for being a cruel person.

“There’s been an unusual presence in Moonlight Falls recently,” said Carmella, as we sat cross-legged around her magic circle. “Oh, we’ve always gotten spirits, even malevolent ones, but this one is…how shall I say it? Good and turbulent and unfamiliar. She died young and is searching for something.”

“And you’re just gonna invite her into our house?” I asked. Now I was thankful that I never got summoned. Some bratty teenager could have tormented me.

“Not really. Most spirits fade fast. Or I’ll keep her in a jar here, I don’t think you’ll notice that either.”

“You know, I was dead once too. Like dead for twenty years dead. This ain’t how it works.”

“Your red friend and I are very different,” she said. “He keeps a select few souls around forever and I mess with the ones who will disappear into the aether a day later. And there are far more of them.”

“So you’re not a daemon?”

“I think I’ve made it clear. Not that I know of. There are certainly many ways to be born green, consider the faire folk…”

Before I could gain full confidence in Carmella, she raised her hands above the circle. Light danced from her fingertips. “To the golden spirit who’s been following me around, I ask…”

She expected to ask questions to a nebulous cloud of soul dust. But I saw the hands of this ghost emerge before even Carmella did.

She was so…real. A cloud of vivid gold and youth shaped into a woman. She rose out of the floor in a spectacle, mouth open and screaming. We both backed away but I was mesmerized. I thought I’d go blind from the light coming off her.

“Woah, you guys got an attic?” The ghost was dizzy from her ascent here. The only thing that offended me was that she died wearing bell-bottoms. Who allowed for such an indignity anyways? Even Vega would find that cruel.

I admired her long hair though, and a large nose that belonged on a Greek statue. I felt so ugly by comparison and sickened by it. But letting her be a temporary guest? If I made Spot permanent, why would I pass this one up? Surely this wasn’t the angle that Vega was operating from. I was different, and this ghost was too.

“You can see her, right?”

“Yeah, that’s so rare,” said Carmella.

“The name’s Violet, can I crash here for a few days?” she asked us.

“Please, stay as long as you want,” I said, batting my eyelashes.

She immediately crashed on the couch. I watched Violet fall asleep, which was something ghosts could do. I never felt that as an urge in my time as one, but something was special about Violet. Everyone could see her and hear her and feel her molten warmth. But me? I had to have felt it the most. She was almost too beautiful to approach. And they just let her come into this world! Into my house! When I knew those agents of death better than a lot of people.

If nothing else, I’d be a good hostess.

Barry’s number was still in my phone. I didn’t have a reason to call him until this. I wondered if he knew about Violet, but it was just as likely that he didn’t. Other red men existed in this strange universe too, I still wondered how Cara’s dad was doing.

“Hey there…Barry…I think things are going well, and I’m getting along with people for once.” I chuckled a bit after that.

“…anyways we, and by we I mean Carmella, we summoned a ghost to the house. She’s really nice though, and now I hope she’s supposed to be here. I’ve messed with your world enough…right? Call me back at my number, but we’ll live until you can. Peace, Sheila.”