where ghosts wander || ONC 2022

chapter three; moody houses and something really effing weird going on

It's still a novel concept, even after the two years I've been working here.

The first year on my own had been hard, after all. The underbelly of the magical world is a tough place to make business, especially when you've yet to gain a reputation.

Or, a business reputation, I should say, I think with a little head shake at myself, as I walk down the meandering path that leads from the shop at the outskirts of town to the center of it.

It's not like I've ever been lacking in other kinds of reputation my whole life.

First the youngest daughter of the esteemed Unwinter family.

Then the only daughter of the esteemed Unwinter family.

Then the little troublemaker that befriends the beasts of the forest.

Then the creepy girl who had dealings with the Other (and, somehow, escaped with her life).

And then, of course, as a natural consequence the shunned daughter of the Unwinter family, if people dared to talk about me at all.

I was six, a few weeks from my seventh birthday.

(I never got that birthday party, not that I had any friends left to celebrate with.)

I shake my head again, try to get rid of the maudlin thoughts.

It's weird, I haven't thought about these things in ages (not in the bright daylight at least, not when I have any say about my dreams), but now I can barely stop the memories from overwhelming me.

It's just as weird as my impulse to eat lunch at home, when I had a perfectly serviceable sandwich with me to eat out in the sun.

The thought makes me feel a little queasy. As used as I am to weird things and strange magic, I absolutely do not like it when things take a life of their own, as though Fate itself sees fit to intervene. Nuh-uh, no thank you, please leave me out of these celestial machinations.

(Why do I get the feeling that somewhere, someone is laughing at me?)

Being swarmed by three cats as I'm not even halfway down the hallway to my apartment thankfully is enough of a distraction for the moment.

"Hi Sweetie, hey Booba, hi Moss," I greet the three, with an accompanying head-pat, chin-rub and nose-boop, respectively.

They all meow their own greetings back at me, and I allow myself to smile at their antics, even as Moss makes a nuisance of himself as usual, leaping after the phoenix-feather hanging from my keychain and mrrrow-ing disappointedly when all he manages is falling right through the still-closed door.

Seriously.

Sometimes I wonder about that supposedly higher intelligence of ghost cats as opposed to the normal living ones. When they're dead, cats should have access to all the memories of their previous nine lives (and more, in some cases), but that just doesn't seem to apply to Moss. Or maybe he's still on his first run-through, that's also possible.

It's hard to tell, sometimes.

The distraction doesn't last long. Or rather, a different distraction takes over.

The apartment is angry with me.

It tilts the floors when I sit down to eat, and I barely manage to reach out in time to stop my food from sliding right off the table.