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Sometimes he wonders if his friend misses home.
She never complains, dutifully plodding along beside him or carrying him on her back when he gets tired, but still.
He wonders.
After all, she didn’t have much say in being sent away, and it wasn’t like she could ask why they had to leave.
It was kind of Isra to help him escape, and to let his friend come with him.
He dreams of her, sometimes.
Wonders what happened to her after they left, if the man with his face figured out what she had done.
If-
A gust of wind shoves at him suddenly, knocking him about where he’s perched atop his friend, shaking him from his thoughts.
His friend dances to the side, ears flicking back against her head and making a little noise as she does.
The wind continues, barging through the trees around them, flipping the leaves up and exposing their silvery underbellies.
Shivering, he leans down to stroke at her neck.
“It’s alright,” he murmurs. “It’s-”
A flash of movement up ahead catches his eye, and before he’s fully aware of what he’s seeing, he’s urging the horse forward.
The wind hasn’t let up and he can feel it whipping around them as they surge towards the tree line, right as the sky explodes into thunderous downpour.
Ducking low to her neck, he grabs onto his hat with one hand and the reins with the other as together they crash through the underbrush into a clearing.
The… whatever it was… is nowhere to be seen.
Blinking rainwater from his eyes, he turns this way and that, straining all of his senses trying to catch a glimpse of what he had seen before.
‘ Where did they…’
The world goes black and white, lit to brilliance for a moment and-
‘There!’
Just across from them, a figure in the woods, long dark hair whipping about, obscuring their face and standing out perfectly against the once-pristine white of their shirt.
He can’t let himself stop and wonder, it has to be her, he needs it to be her, needs to know she’s safe, that she’s safe and whole and here .
Righting himself in the saddle, he urges his friend forwards once more.
The rain is falling heavier now, thick grey sheets obscuring his vision and seeping through his clothes, weighing down the wool until he struggles to lift his arms.
By the time he reaches where the figure had been standing, they’ve vanished again and he grimaces, tugging on the reins and pulling his friend up short.
The storm is only getting worse, and clearly charging blindly after… whomever that is, isn’t working. They need to get out of the weather before one or both of them get hurt.
Pushing his sodden fringe out of his eyes, he looks around, squinting through the pouring rain.
There beyond the treeline looms a slightly lopsided shape which, when he gets closer, reveals itself to be a dilapidated shed.
The structure is old, the rain-soaked wood clearly in need of repair in places, but the roof is intact and when he pushes the door open, it groans rather than creaks, which feels like a good sign.
He guides his friend inside and then sets about figuring out how to remove the saddle.
The leather is stiff and swollen with rainwater, but eventually he figures it out and the whole contraption slumps damply to the ground.
His own clothing is likewise saturated, but he manages to wriggle out of it, slinging it over one of the low walls of the stalls that line the interior of the barn.
One of the stalls still has a small pile of straw heaped against one side, and he eases his aching body down into it gratefully, huffing softly as the dust kicks up into his nose.
It’s not the most comfortable bed - the floor underneath is hard and unyielding and now that the adrenaline has well and truly worn off he can feel every ache and pain from the last two days in full, from the dull twinge in his thighs from riding all day and into the late evening to the peculiar irritation radiating from the ports in his back.
Grumbling quietly, he rolls over, squirming this way and that in an attempt to magically create comfort out of nothing, but try as he might he can’t find a position that doesn’t press on some bruised patch of skin or strain an already-exhausted muscle.
Across from him, his friend is having no such issues, having already drifted off into horse dreams.
Sighing, he makes to roll over again only for the straw in front of him to start moving .
Fascinated, he freezes, watching as a tiny brown head emerges from the straw, whiskers either side of its minute nose twitching rapidly as it sniffs the air.
Little by little, the creature emerges, looking this way and that before darting towards the edge of the stall and pausing.
He hardly dares to breathe, anything to avoid disturbing the little thing.
It steps forward, one paw, then another, before seeming to think better of it and turning around, trundling back towards the safety of the hay pile.
Enraptured, he holds out his hand, just like he did when he met his friend.
Just like then, the animal pauses, assessing him.
The moment hangs in the air, punctuated neatly by the drip, drip, drip of water off his sodden clothes.
The creature lifts a curious paw, reaching out to touch the very tip of his index finger and then-
Outside, lightning streaks across the sky followed almost instantly by a deafening rumble of thunder.
The little thing has scrambled its way up his arm and taken refuge in his hair before he’s even processed what’s going on, the barely-there scratches of its claws as it steadies itself prickling at his scalp.
Reaching up carefully, he delicately takes hold of it, extracting its tiny body from his already thoroughly tangled hair.
‘ It’s so small,’ he marvels, holding it up in front of him.
The soft fur brushes against his skin as he carefully strokes a finger along its spine, feeling the movement of its ribs, more faintly the low vibration of its heartbeat.
He gasps - the faintest inhale of breath, but enough to cause the mouse to look up at him, rearing up in its back legs, front paws folded politely in front of it.
Resuming his stroking, he focuses more intently on the animals heartbeat, remembering how sometimes Isra would sometimes fall asleep in the chair she kept on the porch, how the light from the setting sun would play through her hair, and he would marvel at how the beautiful glossy black would lighten to a soft russet brown.
There were many things he didn’t quite understand, and many more he didn’t know at all, but he knew that most people didn’t have ports like his.
Isra didn’t, he’d never felt them under his hands when he held her, stroked her back.
He hadn’t gotten a good look at the others who had come to the house, the soldiers who had beaten and chained him or the gaggle of scientists who had been studying him, but from what he could tell their backs were smooth and flat and free of anything that might hint at them being… like him.
There’s an indignant squeak and a sudden sharp pain in his hand as the mouse nips at his thumb and he flinches, dropping it reflexively.
It lands on his chest with the softest phup .
Not wasting any time, it immediately scrambles back up to take shelter in the curl of his collar.
He can feel it there, the tiny warmth of its body slowly relaxing against his shirt.
‘It’s nice, having another friend,’ he thinks to himself, tugging some of the straw over his legs. ‘ Tomorrow, we’ll keep going, but for tonight…’
Outside the storm rages on as he closes his eyes and finally, finally, succumbs to sleep.
Voices outside the barn wake him, sending him scrambling backwards into the straw, barely noticing when it sends his mouse friend scampering for safety.
Visions of the soldiers, the scientists, him, fill his mind as he presses himself against the wall, ignoring the way his back presses against the still-damp cloak hanging there.
There’s nowhere to go, no way of escaping, let alone defend himself.
The best he can hope for is that his friend is able to escape, or that they’ll at least be kind when they take her back, but-
The heavy barn door creaks open with a shrill squeal of rusty hinges, and he clenches his eyes shut tight.
Footsteps then, shuffling towards them hesitantly and-
“Well, hello there,” comes a voice, far too rough and kind to belong to any of the soldiers. “What are you doing in here all by your-”
The voice cuts off abruptly, and then, in a tone that brooks no argument-
“Excuse me, young man, what exactly do you think you’re doing down there?”
Giving up on his attempts to somehow magically fuse through the wall, he opens his eyes.
The speaker is revealed to be an old man, much older than anyone he’s met before. In one hand he’s carrying a shovel which he appears to be using more as a walking stick than anything else.
Behind him the horse is watching with interest, her ears pricked forwards to listen.
‘Well,’ he reasons to himself. ‘If she’s not frightened then there’s no reason I should be.’
“I-”
He stops, clears his throat awkwardly and starts climbing to his feet, wincing slightly at the stiffness in his joints.
“It was raining,” he continues. “-and we just-”
“We?”
“Me and my friend.”
He gestures to her.
“We wanted to get out of the rain.”
The old man tilts his head, assessing.
“And how exactly did you find yourself out in that storm to begin with?”
At this he stops himself, the vague sense of unease rising to the fore, a tightening in his chest that he doesn’t have a name for.
How did he even begin to explain? That he was running from a man with his own face, from soldiers who wanted to hurt him?
Something in his face must betray him, because the old man relents, turning to leave.
He pushes open the heavy door again before stopping, turning to call over his shoulder.
“Well?” he asks. “Are you going to come inside or not? It’ll do you no good to hang around in here, you’ll only catch your death.”
The house itself is small, sheltered on two sides by a thicket of trees.
Inside, he has barely a moment to get his bearings before he’s being directed to take off his shoes ( “Sorry we don’t have any slippers for you, we don’t get visitors” ) and ushered into a tiny kitchen.
The floor is cool under his bare feet, but the air is warmed by the heat from the wood stove firing away in the corner.
There’s a woman standing over it, seemingly about the same age as the man.
There’s a stiffness to how she turns to greet them, but her wrinkled hands are deft and sure as they untie and retie the strings of her apron.
“Who’s this then?” she asks brusquely, picking up something from the table before shuffling back to add it to the pot, seemingly unbothered by the appearance of a damp stranger in her kitchen.
“This is the young fella I found camped out in the old barn,” responds her husband, leaning his shovel against an empty patch of wall and ignoring the chastising hiss as he does so. “Thought I’d seen a ghost at first, but he’s real enough.”
Explanation given, he sinks down onto one of the kitchen chairs.
“Well then?”
Two pairs of eyes focus on him.
“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”
‘Introduce?’
Taking pity on his clear confusion, the man gestures to himself and then his wife.
“I’m Narong , and this is Malisa .”
She nods curtly, one hand still stirring steadily.
“And you?” Narong continues. “What do we call you?”
The simmering anxiety rises back to the fore.
A name? For him?
He opens his mouth, closes it again, tries not to panic.
‘If they find out, if they learn the truth, then what?’
Would they attack him? Run away?
Would they-
He’s jolted from his spiralling by a loud knock at the door, a sharp one two three that leaves no room to be ignored.
Malisa looks from the door to Narong and gestures to it with a flick of her head.
“Go see who it is then,” she instructs.
He shuts his eyes tight as Narong passes him, hopes beyond hope he’s wrong, that it’s not-
Voices, curt, direct, greeting Narong, asking questions.
There’s a tightness around his chest, he can’t breathe, he can’t-
Hands then, gripping his shoulders and he opens his eyes, arms already lifting to shove, to hit, to defend, but when he opens his eyes it’s Malisa.
He stares at her, tries to focus on what she’s saying but he can’t understand, can’t hear her over the sound of his own panicked breathing.
Something passes over her face and her grip softens before he’s being tugged forwards and down, her arms wrapping tight around him.
He tucks his face into her neck, hides in the space between her shoulder and chin.
Little by little, his breathing evens out, his arms tentatively creeping up to hold her back.
He hears the front door shut, footsteps approaching and part of him wants to rear back from the embrace, to run, but then-
“Some soldier types,” grumbles Narong. “Asking if we’d seen any ‘ suspicious persons’ coming through here.”
Panicked, he does pull back then, frantically looking around, but it’s still only the three of them.
“You can relax,” continues Narong as he pulls out a chair. “I don’t care if the king himself comes asking; I’m not going to rat out anyone who hasn’t had a chance to defend himself. So-”
Narong huffs and pushes at the chair across from him, gesturing to sit.
“Start talking.”
He sits, awkwardly, and clears his throat.
“I don’t know where to begin,” he says.
“Well,” sighs Narong. “I find the start to be typically the best place.”
‘Right.’
And so he does.
He tells them everything he can, about the house, about her , about the months they spent there alone together, how she would bring him into the forest and show him such wonderful things, the songs she would teach to him, how they would sing together in that glade, about the horse, his best friend, how he would bring her inside the house and show her things, about the rings he wove, the game they played with the blindfold.
It’s around then that he feels the tears start building, pricking at his eyes uncomfortably, but he presses on, recalling how it was after that night that things started feeling strange, how she would withdraw for hours at a time into the study, the day the soldiers came, the strange man with his face, how he held her so tenderly.
He tells them about the strange room they held him in, the pain of the cuffs, the agony of the position they forced him into, the sickening feeling of the pipes in his back, the inherent wrongness of seeing that man up close, being touched by him, the sickening glee in his expression as they beheld each other, how she had stood by and watched the whole time, the metal ring shining coldly on her hand.
And, finally, he tells them of that night, how she’d come to him in a rush, how her hands had shook as she’d unlocked the cuffs, how she bundled him in a blanket and half-carried him outside to where the horse was waiting, the anguish in her voice as she’d told him to go , to run and to run and to never come back.
“I begged her to come with me,” he chokes out. “If that man was so awful that she was sending me away that she should come with me, that we could be safe and- and happy, be together, but she refused, said she couldn’t, that she needed to stay or else he might find out where I’d gone. She needed to stay so she could try and guide him in the wrong direction.”
A hand enters his vision then, holding a square of fabric he recognises as a handkerchief.
He takes it gratefully, dabbing at his eyes in the way she’d taught him.
The silence hangs delicately in the air before-
“But how did you wind up in our barn?”
For the first time in what feels like hours, he lifts his head to look at them directly.
Narongs eyes are red, eyelashes dotted with unshed tears.
Beside him, however, Malisa is stony faced, fury emanating from the strict set of her shoulders where she is still standing next to the stove.
Hesitantly, he explains the events of the previous evening.
“Strange,” muses Narong. “There wasn’t anyone out there except you - not that we saw, at least.”
‘Strange indeed’
“You never did tell us your name,” says Malisa tightly. “Why is that?”
He gives her a half-shrug.
“I don’t have one of those, neither of us do”
Her lips go very thin suddenly.
“They put you through all that, and they didn’t even have the decency to name you?”
“...yes?”
Are names so important? Do people care so much?
He never had one, he doesn’t know anyone who did, not really.
He was him, she was her.
His friend is also her, but not in the same way.
If he was speaking to her (to Isra) about ‘her’, then obviously he was speaking about his friend, and if he was speaking to his friend then obviously ‘her’ was Isra.
Names didn’t even factor into it.
‘See? No need for names’
It wasn’t until they came that he even heard her called that (by him).
“Everyone needs a name, son,” says Narong. “Names are important to who we are, to what we are.”
“So how do I get one?”
“You don’t get one,” he explains. “You’re given one by your- well.”
He picks up a stray piece of cutlery, fidgeting with it as he continues.
“You see, your family typically names you, right? Parents, grandparents- they decide on something they think best, and then they give it to you.”
“Family?”
It’s Malisa’s turn to look pained.
“Was there nothing they’d call you? Anything at all?”
He shakes his head.
“Well,” she sighs. “I refuse to wander around aimlessly hollering, so we’ll have to come up with something for you, won’t we?”
‘Huh?’
“Why?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.
“Well you can’t exactly go traipsing cross-country on your own now, can you?” she asks .
“I’m not on my own,” he interjects quietly. “My friend is with me.”
It’s Narong’s turn to look confused.
“Your friend?” he says, frowning. “I didn’t see anyone else with you.”
“My friend!”
Despite everything, despite the wariness plaguing him still, the exhaustion, the pain still lingering in his body, he feels himself light up.
“She came with me from the house!”
A moment, and then-
“You mean the horse?”
He nods happily, clambering to his feet.
“She’s the best!” he exclaims, reaching out to tug at Malisa’s shirt. “Come, come, you can meet her properly!”
“Not right now,” she states, detaching his hand firmly but not unkindly. “You’re skin and bone, sit down and eat before you go anywhere.”
He sits.
Afterwards, once he’s licked the last bit of sauce off his spoon, Malisa stands, gesturing to him to follow her.
She comes to a stop at the bottom of the rickety staircase, rubbing her hip with a sigh.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
For the first time, she cracks a wry smile, a slight, barely there twitch of the lips.
“You’ll understand once you get to my age. Now, up we go-”
“I can help you?”
It comes out more question than statement but she waves a hand at him regardless, the other firmly gripping the bannister.
“You save your help for coming down the stairs, that’s the real kicker.”
“Kick-er?”
“It’s…”
She trails off for a moment, stops to catch her breath.
“It’s a saying, means something that’s hard or makes you struggle.”
He nods eagerly, mentally repeating the information to himself.
Upstairs is a short corridor with a door either side.
Malisa knocks on the right-hand door as they pass.
“This here is our room, you ever need us just shout.”
He nods.
“-and this,” she says, pausing at the other door. “-well, this is where you’ll be sleeping.”
Her wording flags something in his mind.
“...for tonight?” he asks cautiously.
“Tonight, tomorrow night -”
She stops herself, inhales, continues.
“You’re your own person, not some dog to chain up in the shed. You can come and go as you please, the bed will still be here when- if you come back.”
It takes a second for her meaning to trickle down into his brain, but when he does he’s moving immediately, arms coming around her to wrap her up in a hug, unable to find words for the torrent of emotion flowing through him at the idea of what she’s offering him so casually.
Malisa allows it a moment and then pats at his arms to loosen up.
“Gently,” she scolds, though there’s no real heat in it. “My old bones can’t take outbursts like this, you need to take care not to break me.”
He releases her, grinning widely and absolutely brimming with affection.
Finally, she turns the handle.
The door opens into an ordinary bedroom.
Unlike the rest of the house, whose surfaces are scattered with an array of bits and pieces speaking to long lives well lived, this room is… not.
There’s a bed in one corner, a dresser against a wall, a small desk and chair in front of the window- all covered in a fine layer of dust.
For a moment he watches as Malisa lingers in the doorway, her gaze a thousand miles and a hundred years away, before she seems to give herself a slight shake and steps forward, whatever spell that was cast over her breaking.
He follows dutifully, sensing somehow that she needs the moment to collect herself.
She stops in front of the dresser, wrapping one hand around the handles on a drawer and tugging.
The furniture gives a half-hearted rattle, but stays shut.
She tugs again, wincing this time as the action accomplishes nothing but pain in her aching joints.
Releasing it, she shakes out her hands, pointedly avoiding eye contact with him before she goes to try again.
Before she can, he reaches out and tugs the drawer open for her, getting a curt nod for his help.
The drawer itself is packed tightly with clothes, mainly things like socks, underwear, night clothes, and opening the other two drawers at Malisa’s prompting reveals a variety of shirts and trousers.
Some of the clothes look a bit odd, the shirts in particular.
Picking one up, he realises that not only does it not have any buttons or laces, but it doesn’t even have sleeves. Instead the armholes are cut to be absurdly big, reaching halfway down to the hem.
Confused, he holds it up to her.
She rolls her eyes, but her tone has an air of fondness.
“He was always doing that, said it was the style”
‘He?’
“Narong?” he asks.
“No.”
The fondness is gone, he can see the way Malisa shuts herself down.
When she does speak again, it’s measured, controlled.
“Take what you need from here, come downstairs when you’re ready.”
“Ma-”
“No.”
With that, she turns promptly and leaves, shutting the door behind her.
When he comes downstairs, now dressed in clean, dry clothes, Narong is waiting for him by the door.
He starts visibly when he looks up, almost dropping what he’s holding.
“Are you alright?” he asks, bewildered.
The old man shakes his head, wringing what looks to be a pair of thick gloves in his hands.
“Not to worry,” says Narong thickly. “For a moment I thought I was looking at a ghost.”
“What’s that?” he asks, moving to join him by the door.
“These?”
Narong shows him what he’s holding.
“They’re special gloves, for working in the garden,” he explains. “Figured since you said you liked spending time outside ‘n all you might like helping out with the weeding.”
“What’s weeding?”
“Follow me, I’ll show you.”
The garden outside is lush and vibrant, thriving after the rain last night.
Everywhere he looks there’s something growing, something living, it’s-
“It’s beautiful ,” he breathes, turning in every direction to try and see it all at once.
Beside him, Narong looks surprisingly chuffed with himself.
“Thank you,” he says. “Been working on this place for damn near fifty years, spent a lot of time out here, making it nice and all.”
He clears his throat.
“Anyways, part of keeping everything growing is the weeding, you know what that is?”
“No.”
“It’s when you pull out the weeds, the plants that aren’t supposed to be there.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise they’ll kill the plants that are supposed to be there.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s only so much goodness in the soil, see? We need the vegetables and things to grow strong so that we can eat them, but if the weeds steal it all then there’s nothing for the plants to feed on, and nothing for us to eat, got it?”
“I think so.”
He furrows his brow, looking down at the ground contemplatively.
“There’s a lot more to gardening than I thought.”
The man huffs out a laugh.
“True enough. Now-”
Narong looks him up and down, assessing, before-
“- you any good with your hands?”
They spend hours in the garden, carefully sorting through the vegetable beds whilst his friend grazes peacefully nearby.
Narong takes the time to patiently point out what is and isn’t a weed, explaining why certain plants grow best when placed next to each other, why they can’t grow the same thing in the same plot every year, how different plants grow at different times of year - everything and anything he is asked, he has an answer for.
Even the smaller questions that don’t amount to anything:
“What’s this?”
“That’s a worm.”
“Why doesn’t it have legs?”
“It wriggles through the dirt instead.”
“Okay. Why don’t the trees grow in the garden?”
“The leaves block the light that the small plants need, so I remove-”
“Weeding?”
“-yeah, kind of - I weed out any saplings before they grow.”
“What’s a sapling?”
“Baby tree.”
“Where do baby worms come from?”
“Don’t know that one, ‘spect they lay eggs like insects do.”
“Eggs? Like what you eat?”
“Those come from chickens, a type of bird.”
“Where do baby chickens come from?”
“Eggs, the chick - that’s the name for baby chickens - grows inside and then hatches out.”
“So what about the eggs for eating?”
“Same eggs, ‘cept those don’t have chicks in them.”
“How do you know?”
“Chicken keepers have a way of knowing.”
“Do you know it?”
“Don’t keep chickens.”
And so on.
Eventually, Malisa comes out to inspect their progress, casting a discerning eye over the fresh pile of weeds in the compost heap.
She sucks her teeth, assessing, and then gives them an approving nod.
When she looks over at where they’re still crouched amongst the onions, he feels a giant grin split his face, beaming up at her proudly.
“Onions are not legumes,” he informs her earnestly. “They’re alliums .”
She nods, still inspecting the newly cleared carrot bed.
“That’s something,” she says. “What’s the difference?”
“They-”
He stops as he runs up against a gap in his knowledge and turns to Narong for support, who just shrugs.
“No idea,” he says, scratching some dirt off his hand. “Just something I read somewhere before.”
“Are you two going to come in for your dinner at any point?” asks Malisa. “It’s just about ready.”
Message delivered, she heads back inside, Narong gazing after her fondly before starting the long process of heaving himself to his feet.
Inside, Narong directs him to the bathroom and leaves him to wash up.
He does so, carefully scrubbing the mud and dirt from his hands, making sure to get it out from under his fingernails as well.
Absorbed as he is in making sure his hands are clean, it’s not until he looks around for something to dry off with that he catches sight of himself in the mirror and jumps, instinctively raising his hands to block his face, caught off guard by the visual.
‘How long until I can look myself in the eye and only see me?’
Feeling a bit foolish, he lowers his hands, tries to compose his breathing, looks again.
No one but his own self looks back at him, hair pushed back by Narong’s spare bandana, allowing an unfettered view of his reflection.
It’s curious, he thinks, all the ways that he is different to the man in the cellar.
His hair is different, obviously, longer and shaggier and curling at his temples, but there are other, less obvious differences.
The scattering of freckles across his nose, for one and his jawline is softer than the rigid set of the other man’s.
He reaches up to touch his jaw, feels where the pads of his fingers have become rough from handling reins, working in the garden.
His moves his hand up further, brushes the corner of his eye, slots his palm against his cheek and-
Memories rise up then, sharp and bitter and blinding, of how he had touched him there, the manic gleam in his eyes as he’d turned his face this way and that, inspecting him.
Sickened, he drops his hand to clutch at the sink as he heaves for breath, clenches his eyes shut, shakes his head, tries to dispel the memory, to, to-
A knock at the door.
“Dinner is on the table now,” calls Malisa brusquely. “You can finish prettying yourself up later-”
He yanks open the door before she can finish her sentence, trying to look as though he wasn’t just desperately panting for breath or trying to escape unseen hands.
It doesn’t work.
She takes one look at his wide-eyed state and sighs, clucking her tongue as she reaches up to pat him on the face gently.
“None of that now,” she says. “Leave those ghosts in the past where they belong.”
He nods shakily, ducking his head as he follows along behind her.
Dinner is initially quiet, right up until Malisa asks them how long they reckon it will be until the onions are ready to harvest and he perks up.
“Onions take just over three months to grow.”
She nods to herself, running the numbers.
“Soon enough then.”
They resume eating, the comfortable silence rising around them once more until-
“I have a question.”
“There’s a surprise,” quips Malisa, but she’s smiling slightly nonetheless. “Go on then, what’s the latest mystery to befall you?”
“What does ‘ghost’ mean?”
They both pause, looking at him before Narong puts down his spoon.
“Why do you ask?”
“I want to know what it means.”
“Well-”
Narong stops, coughs awkwardly.
“It’s a spirit of sorts, a memory of who someone once was,” he tries. “When a person dies but they have unfinished business in this life, their spirit is stuck here until they’re done and can pass on to the next life.”
He considers this a moment, and then-
“What’s a spirit?”
“It’s, uh, it’s the embodiment of the soul, I guess?”
“What’s the soul?”
At this, Narong looks to his wife, who just shrugs at him, resumes eating.
“The soul is the-”
He stops, clears his throat, keeps going.
“-it’s the part of you that makes you, you,” he says slowly. “It’s not a physical thing, it’s…”
He trails off helplessly with a shrug.
And then-
“What brought this on?”
“You saw a ghost,” he says, casting a glance between the pair. “You said it before, that you thought I was a ghost.”
The atmosphere turns thick, awkward, something in the air that makes him want to squirm until he slips down out of sight, but he presses on.
“And again, when I came downstairs, you said you thought you were looking at a ghost - why.”
Narong looks stricken, Malisa stares down at her plate a moment before-
“Not now,” she says, firm as ever. “Maybe someday, but not now. It’s… it’s not an easy subject.”
‘Ghost.. ghost… ghost…’
He thinks about it, about the word, what it means.
‘A memory of someone who once was… names are important to who we are, to what we are.’
“Ghost.”
Silence from the rest of the table.
“Ghost,” he repeats. “I think my name is Ghost.”
He’s not sure what wakes him, but when he opens his eyes the room is dark, lit by a beam of moonlight streaming in the open window.
‘ Open?’
He knows, with absolute certainty, that the window was shut when he went to sleep, remembers clearly watching Narong draw the curtains tight, the old man somewhat self-consciously muttering about not wanting Ghost to catch a cold.
Movement catches his eye and before he can draw breath to cry out, the man with his face is on top of him, one hand pressed firmly to Ghost’s mouth, the other clinging to his shoulder.
Panic grips him and he immediately tries to shove the intruder off, pushing and hitting and trying to free his legs from the blankets in a desperate attempt to escape , to run, to fight, to get him off, get him off, get him OFF-
“Please!” comes the hoarse whisper from above him. “I’m not trying to hurt you!”
‘Lies, lies, lies, lies!’
He keeps thrashing, eyes rolling in his head as he gasps for breath, until the hand on his shoulder releases and he takes the opportunity for what it is, his feet finally gaining purchase as he heaves and manages to throw the intruder off.
He crashes to the ground with a loud thud as Ghost scrambles backwards until his back hits the wall.
The man on the ground stares back at him, both of them heaving for breath.
A knock comes at the door and they both jump, before Narong’s voice sounds out.
“Everything okay in there?”
Ghost opens his mouth before-
“I’m fine,” calls the intruder, the curious hoarseness of his voice making him sound as though he just woke up. “I fell off the bed, I’m alright. Sorry for the disturbance.”
“Alright then,” responds Narong. “You need anything, you know where to find me.”
The sound of footsteps fades away, then the muffled click-thump of a door opening and closing down the hall and-
“Please, don’t be frightened.”
Ghost stares at him.
It’s strange, now that he can actually get a good look.
The intruder looks just like the man with his face-
‘Just like me .’
-but at the same time, he’s utterly different.
Where the man before had been sharply dressed, hair neatly slicked back and uniform pristine, this intruder is scruffy, unkempt. His hair falls to his shoulders in a shaggy mop, leaves sticking out at all angles. Rather than the other man's severe uniform, he’s dressed in a baggy tunic and his bare feet stick out from the frayed hems of his dark trousers.
Something about his clothing is familiar, it tugs at a memory of rain, of the forest, of-
“ You?”
“Yes.”
It’s the strangest feeling, to make eye contact with your doppelganger, but neither he nor Ghost look away until he asks -
“Why? Did you think me someone else?”
- and a myriad of complex emotions well up in Ghost.
Part of him, the rational part, knows that it’s for the best, that Isra was right to stay behind, for both their sakes, but he cannot ignore how, for that one brief moment in the woods when he thought it was her, he had felt a great weight start to shift from his shoulders.
Some of this must show in his face as regret colours the man's features and he looks away, unable to hold Ghost’s gaze any longer.
“I am sorry,” he says slowly, picking his words carefully. “I did not mean to frighten you, but I want to avoid others seeing-”
He gestures between them.
“ Us.”
Perhaps a fair point but still-
“...who are you?” asks Ghost cautiously.
“Well..”
He stands, shaking out his hair, causing a small flurry of leaves to scatter across the aged floorboards.
“Names are a tricky business for us,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “But you can call me Lucid.”
“Lucid?” ask Ghost, wrinkling his nose in confusion. “What does it mean?”
He watches as the man, as Lucid, smiles at him, a soft, barely there quirk of the lips that is so wholly different from his own wide grin, or how he had smiled at him, like a dog baring its fangs.
‘It suits him.’
“Lucid,” he repeats, taking a few tentative steps towards Ghost. “It’s a state of dreaming, where my power resides.”
“Your power?”
If he’d felt mildly confused by the choice of name, the explanation leaves him feeling utterly lost.
“I’m not - we’re not like them. Human, I mean.”
“Not human?” asks Ghost. “How is that possible? What does that have to do with your dreams?”
“Curious thing,” smiles Lucid fondly. “You’re so… new, it’s incredible.”
“New?”
“Young,” he explains. “It hasn’t been long since you came into this world, has it?”
Ghost shifts about, fidgets with the pillow next to him.
“How did you know?”
“I felt it, when you came into this world,” says Lucid. “We all did.”
“We?”
“There are more, you know?”
“I know, I saw him. He was the one who-”
“No,” interrupts Lucid. “ More. I’m not sure how many of us there are, but it’s not just the two- the three of us.”
‘More of us…’
It’s not just them.
It’s not just him.
“Are they-”
Ghost stops himself, biting back the question he wants to ask more than anything, but Lucid only smiles sadly at him.
“Friendly?” he asks. “For the most part, no. Most tend to keep to themselves - I’m sure you understand why. That’s why-”
“-you can’t stay.”
Lucid smiles at him, the edges now tinged with sadness.
“I’m sorry,” he says ruefully. “I would if I could, but it’s not safe. There’s a power in us being together, see? That’s probably why the General-”
“The General?”
“The one who held you.”
“He made me for-”
“He didn’t make anything ,” snaps Lucid, the sudden aggression such a switch in his demeanour that Ghost flinches back, hands darting up to cover his face, uniforms and chains filling his mind for a moment until-
“I’m sorry,” whispers Lucid. “Please don’t be frightened of me.”
Tentatively, he peeks between his fingers, slowly lowers his hands.
“You need to understand,” he continues. “There’s so much to-”
He stops suddenly, whole body going rigid with tension as he looks around, cocking his head this way and that.
And then-
“I need to go,” he says hurriedly, already turning to leave. “I’ve stayed too long, I can’t- I’m sorry.”
And, just like that, he’s leaving, as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Frantic, Ghost scrambles forwards, reaching out as though he could catch Lucid by the hand.
“But how will I find you again?”
Lucid pauses, half in, half out of the window, looks back at him.
“Look for me in your dreams.”
And then he’s gone, leaving Ghost alone with nothing but his self once more.