The Poltergeist

[Shakune]

78th Summer, 515AV

Midday was usually the quietest time of day for No Questions Couriers. With the summer sun bearing down on the city, its populace sheltered away in the shade, uncharacteristically calm and relaxed for a bell or so. For No Questions, this lull in activity bought about an opportunity for it's proprietor and her slave to catch up on the paperwork that would have undoubtedly piled up over the morning.

Today, however, was different.

The morning had started well. Havzi had made good progress with organising the files and parchment sheets that were usually scattered across the desk. Shakune, in turn, was feeling particularly energised and had sored through the mornings customers with particular efficiency. By the time Syna was at her highest in the sky, both Shakune and Havzi had completed their daily chores. Miraculously, the floor had even been swept.

"Today is gon'a be on of them days, Havzi." Shakune had told her slave with a grin, rubbing her hands together eagerly as she placed her 'to be delivered' packages in the locked chest stowed under the desk, "if we carry on like this, we can close up shop by six."

Havzi had smiled in return, basking in that warm glow that came whenever she had succeeded even her own expectations of herself that day. "We'll be women of luxury in no time." To celebrate this fact, Shakune had left the shop to buy Havzi and herself some kind of baked treat for lunch.

Upon her return, Shakune knew something was drastically wrong as soon as she had turned the corner back into the market square. One of the thinly paned glass windows of her storefront was smashed, and from it came sounds of a real calamity. Havzi was screaming something unintelligible, and even Axel was barking fearfully.

She dropped the pastries into a pile of questionable origin and bolted towards the door. Flinging it open and rushing inside, Shakune saw no strangers, no unknown thug beating up poor Havzi or breaking into her padlocked safe. There was no immediate threat she could see

Until Shakune looked at Bridie. The ghost rarely visited the store, appreciating the fact that business was out of bounds to her in order for Shakune to keep up the illusion of normality. Whenever Bridie had dropped by (floated by?), she had had her reasons. But looking at the ghost now, Shakune realised there was no chance of reasoning with her anytime soon.

The woman, usually demure and innocent, looked hellish and frightening. Her eyes her wide, her hair uncombed and messy. The white dress she wore was stained with blood -- more blood than Shakune had ever seen before. Added to this was a sense of icy chilliness that made the courier shiver. "Bridie, what--"

"Where is he?" The ghost demanded, flickering in and out of reality like a bad dream. Her hands reached towards Shakune, a desperate act of a desperate woman who seemed to be clawing her into madness. When Shakune backed off, raised her hands in apitiful sign of peace, Bridie shrieked again, her voice higher and more ear piercing than ever before. "Where is my baby?"

"Havzi, go find someone." Shakune turned desperately to stare at the girl, who simply stared back with a look of horror on copper-skinned face. Before she could ask who, Shakune threw a hand to the door to hurry her out. "I don't care! But someone! Get someone."

Havzi darted out of the shop and into the pouring warmth of the midday sun. Still she shivered, her skin prickling with coldness from Bridie's random and intense explosion of anger and mourning. The ghost frequently turned weepy and desperate, mourning the loss of her family and asking where they were. But never before had Havzi seen Bridie be so... dangerous.

With a gulp, the young slave collected her thoughts before heading off towards the residential area of the city. She had a whisper of a name in the back of her mind, one that attached itself to the title spiritist.

Richard Blow.

[Richard Blow]

The aforementioned Spiritist spent the day up until then with the curtains drawn up, deciding between drinking heavily, sampling the Warp he had left over, or simply napping until his stomach demanded food or his limbs demanded exercise. He was a good two bells into the last option, dreaming happily about a land of milk and honeys with a stupid grin on his face when a banging at the door caused him to flail awake and tumble ingloriously off his bed. "Wasgoinon?" he shouted unevenly, rubbing his bleary eyes as he grabbed for his shirt, threw it hastily over his shoulder and swung the open faded splintery door. Mercifully, he had pants on, even if they had a couple peeling patches. He blinked a couple times, the outside world bright and blurry for a few ticks as his vision adjusted and his seeker came into focus. "A slave?" he muttered weakly at the sight of Havzi's brand, pushing his dreadlocks out of his face. "Wadjawant?" "You're the um..." Havzi leaned back briefly to glance at the makeshift sign outside the Spiritist's door. "Paranormal investigator?" "Yep." replied Richard. "Also do monsters." Havzi smiled faintly at that. "We don't have a monster, but we do have a ghost breaking things." Richard stared at her for a tick at this, then smacked his lips, rolled his shoulders back and promptly shut the door. Havzi stood there, worried and unsure what to do next (returning empty-handed was out of the question) for a good two chimes before Richard appeared again be-shirted and sporting a necklace that appeared to be one long folded loop of iron beads and human hair, which would probably explain why one of the Spiritist's dreads appeared to have been shorn recently. In his hands were a couple vials of blood and a bag of trail mix. "A'ight. Let's go." he said sleepily. And so they did. As they walked, the detective popped the contents of one of the vials and some trail-mix into his mouth and got chewing. If Havzi started talking, she'd get a shushing "Hm!" from him. While making Soulmist wasn't the most difficult task imaginable, it did require a measure of concentration. By the time they reached No Questions Couriers Richard spat out the unpalatable mixture as a cold, off-white gel that he stored in his waterskin. A teaspoon's worth he rubbed into his hands as precaution. Whilst doing this, he spotted a woman whom he assumed was the business's owner. "Afternoon, ma'am." he said with a wave and a sleepy smile. "Guessin' th'building with the shriekin's where the ghost's at." Having received confirmation of the obvious, Richard opened the door and took a step in, saying "Don't worry, while ornery, most of 'em aren't dangerous to your-" Richard stopped as a safe smashed into the doorframe and dropped to the floor with a thud, missing his head by inches. He stared at the hurled heavy object with much the same expression one would wear upon having yogurt splattered on their shirt by a petulant child. A tick passed before he looked up at Bridie. "Well." The Spiritist's veneer of apathy broke as he barely ducked a lobbed letter opener and scrambled behind the wall just next to the doorframe. "Scratch what I said." he said tensely. "This one wants your booty." 'And..." Richard ventured as he leaned towards the open door to listen in on the crazed ghost's demands. "Her baby, apparently." 'Ma'am," he said with an apologetic grimace, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I've experienced a similar situation, funnily enough with another hot exotic woman, and I figure askin' won't hurt. Did you eat this ghost's baby?"

[Shakune]

He's a strange man, Havzi thought as she led Richard Blow back to No Questions. They travelled in relative silence, mainly because Havzi was too afraid to ask him what exactly planned to do with Bridie, and also because she didn't really know about the history of the ghost, or why it was her employer Bridie had decided to haunt.

The usual sense of relief Havzi felt upon seeing No Questions was absent this time -- and for good reason. Bridie was shrieking as usual, and every so often, she heard Shakune yell or swear in response to a particularly violent-sounding clatter or smash.

"Thank the Gods!" Shakune cried as she saw Havzi return with Richard. Her black pitless eyes flickered from slave to spiritist, and the half-Chaktawe had just enough time to raise an eyebrow for Bridie lobbed the padlocked chest towards the man's head. It landed with a dull thud, but mercifully remained intact. "Havzi, grab that and go home." She indicated quickly to Axel, and for the once the red-eyed dog actually looked fearful. "Take Axel, too. I'll be home soon." The girl could hardly contain her excitement. She gathered up the chest, called Axel, and literally ran away, not even glancing behind her.

Shakune finally turned to the male Havzi had bought back with her. He looked... not quite what Shakune had hoped for. Not that she had had a clue about what she had expected. But this man - with his dreadlocks and apathetic expression - was certainly not it.

"My baby, where is he?" Bridie was saying again, throwing herself around the room with a squeal. The ghost paused, lunged the pair of scales that stood on Shakune's desk at her head, and gave the courier a horrifyingly dark glare, "you. You know what happened, don't you?" Suddenly she turned upon Richard, rounding up on him like a school bully, "who are you? Where's my baby?" she screamed in his face before turning sharply away, storming around the shop once more.

"No. I have not eaten her child." Shakune hissed, both offended and irritated by the man's calmness and lack of panic. Surely even the most laid back individual would raise an eyebrow at the ghost who was ruining her shop? "Brief history. Bridie is the wife of the man who adopted me. She died a long time ago. Her baby--" She gestured briefly to the ghost's bleeding stomach, "died at birth, shortly before Bridie. There were two other kids, but I don't know what happened to them."

How quickly she had managed to offload the preposterous tale to this complete stranger! Only last season, Shakune had been overwhelmed with the news that her stand-in father had once had a wife, as well as his own biological children. And shortly after learning that, Bridie had come along, permanently stuck in the past despite having been dead for over forty years. And then there was the mystery of the other children, who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the world...

"I don't know what caused this... episode." Shakune's voice was filled with sadness and pity for the dead woman, "she sometimes gets very sad, like she's just realised she's dead. But nothing like this. This is..." She fell silent. There were no words to describe the Bridie's obvious heartache. Sighing, Shakune glanced hopefully to Richard. "Who exactly are you?"

[Richard Blow]

Richard didn't respond to a ghost in his face in the way one might expect either. When Bridie got in his face, he responded by promptly backhanding her right across the cheek. The act wouldn’t shred much of her Soulmist, but it served nicely to demonstrate to Bridie that when it came to him, she wasn’t untouchable. "Stop it." the Spiritist said with the air of an exasperated school master. This seemed to aggravate the ghost. Admittedly, Richard didn’t really think she would listen, even with the shock of getting hit by a fleshy human, but it was worth a shot. To Shakune's irritated rebuttal, the detective shrugged. "Worth checking." He listened to the rest of the courier's tale with quiet interest, eyes sparking slightly at the mention of Bridie having a husband. Though he had just met Shakune and her unhappy adoptive mother, he still felt their pain keenly, as he did with all his clients, fleshy or otherwise. Richard nodded silently in sympathy when Shakune paused. When she finally finished, he put a hand on her shoulder, gave it a squeeze and said with a reassuring smile. "I'm a professional. Don't you fret Miss, We'll have Bridie at peace in no time." He then had to break his empathetic gesture to dodge a flying stamp. "Anywhere you don't want her going?" Richard asked as he took off his necklace and started to unfold it. While he could run after Bridie and start punching until all her Soulmist was shredded, that was a very temporary solution, painful for both himself and the unhappy bride and and such a time-consuming task with just firsts that the office could easily be shambles before he finally tuckered Bridie out. Fortunately, the detective had more tricks up his sleeve than ghost slapping. "I need your adopted dad's name. Should be able to bluff her down

[Shakune]

When Richard's hand connected to Bridie's cheek, both ghost and courier gave a surprised yelp. Shakune stared at the man, her gaze a mixture of fury and genuine admiration. She always kept a safe distance from Bridie avoid the painful frostbite-like sensation that occurred whenever the two almost touched. But the Spiritist had actually slapped her! The contact had made the typical smacking sound, as if real skin had touched real skin.

Bridie, in comparison, was not so enamoured by his action. She was shocked, surprised, hurt. It was clear that she had never received such treatment before, or at least in her memory anyway. She cradled her cheek, which was now turning pink at the site of the offence, with both hands. Her lips pouted. "Who are you?" She asked in a quiet, weeping voice. Her blue eyes moved to Shakune, pleading with the courier, "why is he here, Shakune. Where's my husband?"

Shakune did not respond to the ghost, but the two did share a mutually sad look before Bridie turned sharply away and once again began flinging objects to the two still-alive specimens in the room. Now though, her fury and fire had burnt out. She was once again a broken woman.

"Alfie Salt." Shakune said quietly, her voice once again filled with regret as she dodged a handful of screwed up paper balls launched from Bridie. She sighed and finally dragged her black eyes off the ghost and back onto Richard's face. "What will you do with her? You won't hurt her, will you?"

Her genuine desire to protect the ghost was unexpected. Bridie had been burden to Shakune's life for a while now, and quite often the courier silently wished the dead woman would simply move on to whatever spiritual world awaited her. But now, the idea of Bridie suffering any additional pain was almost too much for her to bear. This was, after all, the wife of her beloved adopted father. A connection that had once made Shakune feel jealous and second best was now a sacred one. "I just want her to be... content. I know she's never going be overly happy again -- she is dead after all."

Suddenly Bridie came to a sharp stop. The woman clutched desperately at her stomach, where the dripping red slice was suddenly opening wider and wider, as if an invisible surgeon was prising apart the wound. Shakune gagged, turned away and vomited violently outside her store. Without looking back into her shop - she had no stomach for blood or gore - she shouted to Richard: "That's never happened before! She died in childbirth though, so maybe that's what happened as she--"

Shakune vomited yet again.

[Richard Blow]

"I'm the guy here t'stop th' chuckin' a things." Richard replied to Bridie bemusedly, shortly before the ghost returned to chucking things. At the very least, her new projectiles didn't pose much threat of awful maiming. He shook his head and hands emphatically at Shakune's question, narrowly sidestepping a half-eaten bone of dubious origin as he did so. "No, no." he said with an affable chuckle. "Gonna try t'find her some peace. Thanks to you, should be easy." Shakune supplying the name of the husband Bridie asked so vehemently for sped his work up delightfully quickly. Normally the Spiritist needed to do a little detective work to find out what kept the ghosts he dealt with clinging to the world, but Bridie had handily supplied an awful large clue regarding her reason. She wanted to see her family, or at least one member of it. If she got what she wanted, she would be more likely to decide her ghostly work was done and reincarnate. Briefly, Richard followed his client's gaze to see what the hubbub was about and immediately regretted it. Though he didn't vomit, he still blocked the sight with his hand and turned away. Being a native Sunberthan meant being desensitized towards gore and violence to an extent- indeed, Richard himself had been shivved more than once- but that didn't mean he had to enjoy the sight of blood and guts, and he most definitely did not. The Spiritist followed Shakune outside, stepping to the other side of the doorframe out of Bridie's view, grimacing at the puddle of sick. "Died, yes." he said flatly, finishing her sentence as he squirted a tablespoon of Soulmist onto his hand and started rubbing it into his face. "Now if y'can, I'd appreciate you trying to heave a quietly. I gotta focus." The Lie was a potent tool in a Spiritist's arsenal, but one that required a great deal of concentration. A thimbleful of Soulmist he swallowed as he squeezed his eyes shut and devoted the whole of his mental faculties to the name Alfie Salt. The cold, clammy texture of his Soulmist slithering down his throat broke his focus, eliciting a snarl of frustration as he started over, silently muttering the name to himself. After about twelve ticks, though to Richard it felt much longer, the Spiritist opened his eyes, Alfie Salt still seared into his forebrain, and stepped into the room again. To Shakune he was just a black guy with some gel on his face, but (assuming she knew him as Alfie Salt) the unhappy ghost would see her husband in the doorway, looking at her with a faint smile on his face. "Bridie?" he said with the father of her childrens' voice. "Is that really you?"

[Shakune]

Shakune did not know what to expect. Until meeting Bridie, the courier had not even decided whether or not she believed in ghosts. But Richard's promise of finding Bridie some peace was enough to silence any concerns Shakune had. With a solemn nod, she stepped out of the store and hovered at the doorway.

Her desire to vomit had thankfully subsided, but she still held onto the doorframe for physical and psychological support. This whole day had been turned completely on its head, and Shakune felt as if she was drunk. These fanciful things never happened to her, and yet here she was employing the services of a Spiritist to once again tame the spirit of Bridie Salt.

To Shakune, nothing seemed to be happening. She briefly noticed Richard drinking something, and she was just about to complain (or at least request that he share the suspected liquor with her), when something unexpected happened.

Bridie had completely frozen, and was staring at Richard with childlike amazement. Her open mouth slowly formed into a delighted smile, and the ghost dropped the wooden paperweight she had been preparing to throw out the window. "Alfie." Her voice high pitched, and it was obvious to Shakune that Bridie was suddenly on the verge of some kind of emotional meltdown. Utterly confused, the courier glanced from ghost to Spiritist. As far as she could see, Richard's appearance had not changed at all. Yet Bridie suddenly seemed convinced that the Spritist had taken the form of her beloved husband.

"Yes, my darling. It's me." The ghost moved smoothly towards Richard, arms extended. "I knew you'd come back! How was business? Oh, the children will be delighted!" Coming to a slow stop, Bridie glanced around the trashed shop as if she had only just remembered where she stood. "Shakune! Look who's here!"

The courier stepped inside her store, staring blankly at Richard's unchanged face. This was obviously some sort of trickery, and for whatever reason it was only Bridie who had fallen for it. Nevertheless, she gave a sad smile to the ghost and murmured, "yes, Bridie. I can see."

The ghost beamed back to her husband. She began twirling around the room, sheer joy and relief emanating from her transparent form. When she stopped dancing, Bridie placed to hands on her bulging stomach and said in a near drunk state of happiness, "I think our little one is almost here, my love. What shall we name him?"

Edgar, Shakune thought sadly. You name him Edger and he dies, and kills you in the process.

[Richard Blow]

Richard couldn't share in Bridie's joy as fully as he wished, focusing as he was on the name that kept the deception going, but a smile still crinkled the corners of his eyes and brightened his features. It was always rewarding to see his work bring some happiness to the poor souls his clients contracted him to deal with. It was doubly rewarding when that meant he was getting somewhere. The detective succeeded in getting Bridie's trust; now came the delicate work of convincing her into Lhex's office. "Yeah. I've come back." he said in a measured tone, willfully ignoring the ghost's question about the baby. "When we didn't find you on the other side, th'kids and I, we knew something'd gone wrong." The Spiritist smiled morosely, unsure if he should reach out lest he break the illusion. In the end, he decided against it. "I know this must come as a shock, Bridie..." he said carefully, soothingly, hoping to lessen the blow. "But we all done lived our lives and gone on t'the Givetaker." The man masquerading as Bridie's husband sighed wistfully, looking at the ghost with the expression one wears when they find out someone they love ruined their favorite shirt, but can't bring themselves to get angry. "You been lingering though, honey. Lingering on here lookin' for us, while we done the same on the other side lookin' for you. I guess we must've missed each other, and both been waiting ever since." Richard chuckled softly then bit his lip. Here came the tricky part. "Well, we realized what happened, th'children and I, and I been sent back t'fetch ya." The Spiritist grew serious now, and he reached out to Bridie with a pleading, puppy-dog look. "Won't you go with me, darling? The kids all miss you sorely. I miss you sorely." His expression softened, a comforting smile rounding his face. "I know it might be scary, but we'll find each other again on th'other side. We'll all be a family again, on th'other side. We gotta move on, Bridie dearest. Won't you please move on with me?"

[Shakune]

A frown slowly began to creep across Bridie's face as she placidly listened to what her husband was saying. His words weren't making sense: what other side was he referring to? Bridie had never even left Sunberth, other than when the two had sailed out into the middle of the ocean for ten days' worth of privacy after getting married. Her cheeks flushed at the memory of those delightful, sweaty days.

"You're talking nonsense, darling." She said hurriedly, dismissing her husband's words with a flick of her pale hand, "have you been drinking with Richard and the boys again?"

She began to smooth down her dress, her lips pursed in a way that suggested thinly concealed worry. Clearly something that Richard had said had broken through Bridie's otherwise docile persona. Something had shifted, and a desire to move on gripped the ghost in a way that it had never done before. In a timid little voice, she said, "what about the children?"

Shakune watched this tragic scene through saddened eyes. She had stayed silent so far, completely overwhelmed with what was happening before her. But now she shifted into Bridie's view, and the ghost glanced up in mild surprise. "Shakune." She whispered, stepping forwards eerily before blinking in and out of reality, "what's happening?"

Shakune wanted to say: you're moving on, Bridie. Or at least progressing towards moving onto whatever awaits you. But the courier could not find the words. Her mind was too preoccupied with Bridie's last question of what about the children? Unbeknownst to Bridie, two of her children were still believed to be alive, though their location was unknown to Shakune. She had hoped to find Roseanne and Lark Salt before Bridie moved on, whatever that meant. And now Shakune was realizing just how much she wanted that to happen.

"Richard," The courier whispered to the Spiritist, "I don't think Bridie should... move to the next realm just yet. I've yet to find her two surviving children and--" Surprisingly, Shakune found her voice cracking ever so faintly. She swallowed and concluded: "--and I want her to see that they're alive and healthy. So she can tell Alfie when they... meet again."

[Richard Blow]

Few outside those with the knowledge gave ghosts appropriate credit for merely existing. Simply wishing to return to Lhex's office would see them zipping right off the face of Mizahar and straight to their next life, and by the looks of it, Bridie was making her wish. She just needed one more little push. "They're waiting for you, honey." he said with an encouraging smile. "It's just a little step to them. We'll go see them together, we will." A couple beads of sweat formed on the Spiritist's brow: devoting his energy to Alfie Salt's name wore on him like running a marathon, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it up. When his client started whispering to him, he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath a moment, redoubling his efforts to maintain the Lie. A few ticks he breathed his response tensely out the corner of his mouth. "While I normally do ghosts, I can also be a regular detective. I'll help you find the children; just let her go. It's what's best for her Miss, trust me." Regardless of what Shakune felt, Richard wasn't about to allow Bridie to spent potential decades more searching hopelessly for something she would likely never find, agonized and desolate. Once he was done answering the nice lady who hired him, Richard turned his attention right back to Bridie, assuming she was still there. "Go on... We're all waiting for you on the other side, darling. It'll be like being alive all over again." "Because it will be exactly that."