For a moment, Kayden wasn’t certain whether he was standing before a ghost, or before an ocean. It was just like the boy had said. He was faced with an awestriking power.
The ghost certainly looked the part of the might she exuded. She stood—or floated, he wasn’t certain—almost as tall as him, her hair flowing behind her like a curtain of depthless night pitted with twinkling stars. Her robes flowed over like water gleaming under a sunbeam, while her pristine face glowed like a dawning sun, tinged with the softest blush.
Kayden couldn’t even look at her eyes. Once, when he had taken a voyage across the sea, his ship had passed over an area that had been darker than the surrounding water. The sailors had said they were traversing an abyssal zone, a hole in the ocean that sunk far, far into the surface. A void in the middle of the sea that led all the way to its chthonic pit.
The ghost’s eyes held the same darkness, one that was liable to make him drown. Best not to look too long.
“Do you also always greet suspicious folks with a flower?” the ghost asked.
Oh, right. Also. It had asked another question earlier, one Kayden could no longer remember. But the talk of the flower at least helped pull him back to his senses.
He slowly straightened. “Everyone deserves to be greeted with flowers. What kind of flower depends entirely on the person, however,”
Something about that made the ghost smile. The shining glow of her face dimmed just enough to not make it hard to look at her, She was… she looked quite human, now that she wasn’t as luminous as a celestial body. “It seems I’ve been greeted with a rather pretty flower.”
Oh. Oh. Kayden coughed into his hand as he pulled his Witherbloom back. “Appearances can be deceiving. You, dear ghost, didn’t receive my pretty flower. The Witherbloom is my flower of alarmed surprise.”
The ghost laughed. It was a light, tinkling sound, reminding Kayden of wind chimes.
“I should consider myself blessed,” the ghost said. “That the first person who can finally interact with me is an amusing florist.”
“I am a cultivator I’ll have you know.”
“A florist pretending to be a cultivator.” She shook her head in apparent amusement. “You should stop chasing immortality. You realize it’s a myth, right?”
“Just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean all of us will join you. Though, I was hoping to catch the evil haunting this little village.” With affected care, Kayden tucked his Witherbloom back into his cloth belt. “Looks like fat is smiling upon me since you’re here all on your own. Thanks for sparing me the need to follow your trail of hauntings.”
She squinted her eyes, leaning forward a little. “Why? Are you so desperate to hunt down the pesky little ghost you’re supposed to exorcise?”
Kayden snorted. “Ha. Lucky for you, my skill at exorcism is abysmal. I could no more exorcise you than I could a dandelion.”
That earned him another laugh. “My, the heavens really have blessed me with their brightest light.” She tilted her head at him. “Someone who can finally see me, listen to me, and not feverishly spend his time wondering how to get rid of me.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve been nothing more than a sensation to the people of this village. No one here is a cultivator, after all.”
The spirit began pacing back and forth. Or floating, rather. He took note how her feet never touched the ground. Definitely emulating a celestial body, though of a different kind than he had first thought of.
Kayden’s attention was pulled to his surroundings for a moment. With the ghost finally here, he ought to inspect the change in spiritual energy around him.
He blinked as his spiritual sight came on. The world writhed. It appeared the apparition’s mere presence was causing all the energy to go haywire. Everything glowed bright as day, the intensity of the spiritual energy pressing upon Kayden’s soul like he was standing next to a volcano moments away from erupting.
Perhaps he should be counting his lucky stars this spirit didn’t seem inclined to cause any harm to anyone.
“If you aren’t here to exorcise me,” the ghost said, spearing him with an inquisitive look. “Then why are you here?”
“I was bored.”
She stared at him. “So… you decided to see if you could inflict your boredom upon the dearly departed?”
“Oh? Is someone grieving you?” Kayden cupped one hand around his ears. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear the sound of tears over the shrieks of terror.”
It was the ghost’s turn to snort. He pulled his head back with a frown. The jerky little laugh had lessened the ghost’s otherworldliness, making her appear a lot more human. This was further enhanced when a mischievous glint took root in her eyes. Kayden noticed it for a brief second before he looked away.
“It seems I can spend some more time here, then,” she said.
Kayden smiled despite himself. A ghost haunting a village for the sake of haunting itself? One didn’t see that every day. “How long do you intend to terrorize these poor villagers?”
“Until…” The glint in her eye evolved to a big grin. It was the kind of smile that, no matter who you were, dragged a smile out of you all the same. Like you were in on the joke whether you knew it or not. “Until I’m bored.”
Kayden laughed. A little too hard. His laughter gave way to another series of coughs, though he was able to curb them quickly before they got out of hand. He was out here to enjoy the spooky air and spookier company. Not to cough his lungs out.
“Well, that’s one mystery solved,” he said. “The elder was so convinced that you were nothing more than a superstition. Wait till I tell him of this interaction.”
“One mystery?” She arched an eyebrow that he hadn’t noticed was far too perfect. Did ghosts visit salons or something? “You have more you want to unearth?”
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“Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind knowing what you’re even doing here. A powerful spirit like you, who can be in multiple places at once. How would such a ghost even end up in a place like this?”
The ghost’s affability diminished a little. Maybe he had prodded something sensitive. “I don’t know what you mean. If I had the power to be in multiple places at once, if I could create clones of myself or simply exercise some sort of godly omnipresence…” She grinned, a little evilly. “Well, let’s just say the villagers would never be seen out of their huts again.”
For the sake of the poor villagers, Kayden was marginally thankful that wasn’t the case. “But if you can’t be at multiple places at the same time, then that means there must be something else going on.”
“I still don’t understand what you mean, but I believe I’m simply missing the context.”
“Ah, right.”
Kayden mentioned what the boy had said, about how two children had experienced two different ghostly incidents at nearly the same time.
The ghost was shaking her head, her star-strewn dark hair shimmering like a silken cloak. “That can’t be. Or at least, I don’t possess any explanations for such a phenomenon. I can only confirm that I was at the farmland, so your first boy must have sensed me. Perhaps the other one had hallucinated my presence after hearing all the scary stories.”
She said the last bit with great relish. The idea of someone being scared not just of her, but merely her reputation, was clearly something to be proud of. Kayden shook his head the same way he had when Great Grandfather Feronil had begun to lose his marbles.
“Excellent,” Kayden said. “Yet another mystery for me to solve.”
“Are you some sort of amateur sleuth?”
“Oh no. I don’t particularly enjoy mysteries. I’m simply collecting different ways I can rid myself of boredom in this sleepy little village where I suspect everyone would have headed off to sleep by now even if there hadn’t been a ghost haunting the dark.”
“Boredom. Such a shame.” The ghost sighed. “Too bad you can’t enjoy the pleasures of frightening the life out of unsuspecting victims and leaving them with lifelong trauma.”
“…yes, such a shame.” He realized something. “Oh! How clever of you—”
“Yes, I am quite brilliant, aren’t I?”
Kayden shook his head. “You almost distracted me away from my original inquiry.” He snapped his fingers. “Please, enlighten me as to what you’re doing here, dear ghost.”
She placed one dainty finger beneath her chin. “In all honesty, I don’t know. I don’t mind, though.” She offered him a sweet smile again. “The villagers here are very nice.”
Yes. So nice of them to get scared with such ease.
“Ah, another mystery,” Kayden said. “Fear not, I’ll discover it for you.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t. I’m enjoying my time here. I don’t want to be ripped from this village before I have terrorized at least two-thirds of its residents. Surely you know that revealing the reason behind why a spirit is stuck at a mortal location resolves the spirit’s lock, if you will, thus setting said spirit free.”
Kayden stared at the gleaming apparition. At the ghost that had grown odder and odder the more he had spoken with it. Though, not for too long. It was improper to stare at a pretty lady like that. “You don’t want to be free?”
“Not before I’ve accomplished the great deed of making the residents of this delightful hamlet lose most of their senses and start sucking their thumbs as they go insane.”
“You know, I believe I should stop trying to unearth mysteries and start calling in a cultivator who actually knows how to exorcise a malevolent spirit.”
She leaned towards him a little, her eyes somehow growing bigger and more depthless than before. “Can’t it wait? Please?”
Kayden was trying really, really hard not to stare at her, even after the ghost kept moving around to get into his line of sight. “Fine, fine, I’ll find out and make sure not to tell you.”
“Oh no, that won’t do at all. You realize I’ll demand you reveal everything you learn?”
“You act like our next meeting is already predetermined.”
“Well, I do intend to haunt everyone.” She turned away with a little pout. “Unless of course, you find me tremendously offensive. I have no wish to inflict my presence where it isn’t wanted.”
“You’re literally haunting people who’d happy to be rid of you.”
“Hauntings notwithstanding.”
Unbelievable. Kayden was almost tempted to groan a little. “Well, your desperation to know is your problem, not mine.”
“Such rudeness. And from a cultured cultivator from the capital too.”
Kayden was about to ask how the ghost knew he was from the capital, but a cough was what burst out of his mouth in place of the words. Unfortunately, it started a lengthier spell of his body attempting to eject his interiors. He was able to keep count of up to twenty-three before he lost track and focused more on curbing his rebellious lungs.
His soul writhed like it wanted to free itself from its diseased mortal cage. He couldn’t really blame it.
“Are you alright?”
He looked up from where he had bent over as soft light bathed him. The ghost had reached a hand towards him. He swallowed. Her touch glowed like a luminous mix of gold and silver, moonlight wrought into the shape of beautiful fingers.
A touch that brought with it the flood of spiritual energy.
With it cane the reminder to cycle. It came in easy. Far too easy. As though the spiritual energy had built up behind a dam and the ghost’s brush had just opened the sluice.
The entry of spiritual energy calmed him. His coughs abated and after a little massage of his chest, he almost felt normal again.
“I was starting to think you were about to join me in a reluctant haunting spree,” the ghost said.
Kayden nearly laughed at the quip, but that threatened to bring up another bout of coughs, so he stopped himself.
He straightened, wiped off the around his mouth, and offered a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the ghost said.
He blinked at her. “Do you… know why I’m thanking you?”
“Aren’t you thanking me for my mere presence? Shouldn’t I be thanked just for existing in your vicinity?”
Kayden licked his lips. Mm, still too much blood. He would need a good rinsing when he got back to his lodgings. “You’re technically not incorrect!”
She smiled in triumph. “The best kind of correct.” Her eyes seemed to note his mouth, dancing around his lips. It made him self-consciously lick them. Her voice dropped by a hair. “You see now why I said that chasing immortality is futile.”
“Please. This is but a minor setback. I’ll be good as new faster than you can say immortality is a myth.”
“Immortality is a myth.”
“It’s a figure of speech, dear ghost.”
“You’re arguing the worst topic against the worst possible entity.”
Kayden was tempted to lick his lips again. She was unfortunately not wrong. How could anyone stand there and tell a dead woman that immortality was absolutely something achievable. Seven heavens, one of the Elders who had taught Kayden half of what he knew had lived for almost a thousand years now. If that wasn’t immortality, what was?
But he wasn’t so insensitive as to continue embellishing the point here. It would just be rubbing salt on an open wound.
“You know, I’m dealing with a mystery of my own too,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I have no idea where I got my ailment from. It has been bothering me for a while now, but I’ve found no answers back home. And now I’m here… hunting for other answers.” He offered a smile, but it came out lopsided. “Ironic.”
“Just like a cultivator is wont to do. Always overcompensating for areas that you lack in.”
“A bit harsh to paint all cultivators with the same broad brush, isn’t it?”
The ghost paused, actually looking taken aback. He wondered if she felt as though she was rarely wrong. Sounded like it, from how she had talked so far.
“We can be partners in mysteries, then,” she said. “Your illness and my death. Though, now that I think on it, I am certain that I died somewhere not far from this place.”
Kayden’s ears perked up. “But you don’t know the exact location. Can you give me anything more concrete? A direction, maybe?”
“It’s too dark to tell.”
“Are you telling me a ghost can’t see in the dark?”
She shrugged. It made her star-strewn hair wave behind her like he was watching the night sky pass him by while he lay on a remote hillside.
The ghost turned away all of a sudden. “Speaking of the dark, it’s high time I took my leave. I have some hauntings to catch up on.”
True to her word, the ghost began to disappear. For some reason, that made Kayden feel a little despondent. He wasn’t sure why. Was he actually going to miss talking with her?
He didn’t say anything though. The act he’d kept up that he was fine, that his coughing fit had passed, was starting to fall apart at the seams. Abrupt though the departure felt, it was good she was gone. Now he could finally retreat back to his lodgings and recover properly.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow, he would figure out the rest of this mystery.