“Thank you for your help,” Loren said as he shook hands with Steve and then Malory, pocketing the receipt he’d just been given.
“Glad to see a happy client,” Steve said with a smile as they stood next to the car that had brought them here. “I have some literature I can recommend to you back at the office. With a little work, you should be able to imbue Flame into some things to provide sensory stimulation for Sara. With aromatic oils and some cooking vene, you’ll be able to make what she needs on your own. Harmony tells me you’re an alchemist?”
“Alchemical pharmacist,” he politely corrected, but most people probably considered that close enough. To be fair, he did as well, but it was the principle of the thing. “Unless they need some kind of pressure vessel, I should be able to do most simple kitchen alchemy.”
Steve nodded and handed Loren the red and gold tin he’d been handling. “There’s another moon cake, and a few more incense sticks in side. That should last long enough for you to get your own supplies. I can give you the contacts I use to order them. Just remember to stock up before Ghost Moon and Day of the Dead, the prices tend to go up. Apothecaries selling traditional Qinzhou medicine often sell them too, but not all of them actually use venecite, so be careful.”
“I think I can deal with that,” Loren said. Real apothecaries were required to be operated with an alchemy-pharm license, and he knew one that he’d applied to. “Thanks again.”
Steve nodded, then hesitated. “Loren,” he said. “If you have any problems with Sara, talk to Harmony, all right? Ghosts… I know it sounds racist, but ghosts aren’t like the living. Their needs are different, their priorities are different, and while their minds are based on humans, that can change. And that’s perfectly normal for them. Staying sane in isolation is an issue for ghosts, and there are many ways they deal with it. Some of them develop a routine that they follow obsessively, others develop an interest or focus to concentrate on, others try to draw attention to themselves… I’ll give you the rest of the literature, though I suggest you don’t let Sara read it until you have and can help explain it to her. But the point is they need interaction and stimulation even more than people do. While you’re living with Sara, you’ll need to provide it for them. You just being around and paying attention to her will help, but you’ll need to sleep and work too, so you’ll need to find a way to provide something to occupy her during those times.”
Loren nodded. It… well, it wasn’t something he’d thought about, but now that the other man had said it out loud, it seemed obvious. “So, you’re saying…”
“You’ll need to invest in a good scrying line so she can watch ScryVids when you’re gone.”
“… I was going to get one anyway,” Loren said. “But thank you for the advice.”
Steve nodded, finally opening the car door. “It was nice meeting you, Loren. Harmony, be back at the office by lunch.”
“Yes, boss,” Harmony said cheerfully as Malory got into the car. “See you later, Malory! Save me a donut!”
“No promises,” the payatin said, but she was smiling when she said it.
The two friends watched as the car backed out and drove off.
“So… I don’t think she’ll enjoy me being there, so why don’t you go hang out with your new roommate while I go and get the stuff you’ll need tomorrow,” Harmony said, tapping the tin in Loren’s hands.
Loren pursed his lips, but nodded. “Yeah… there’s a place near here…” he pointed vaguely.
“I know where it is, I saw it on the way here. Text me a list, and I’ll see if they have it. Ghost candles?”
“Please.”
“Got it. Send me the rest. Do you need any help moving in? I can take a day off tomorrow.”
“I haven’t worked yet, but I’m pretty sure you don’t get that many days off.”
“Hey, my best friend is about to live with a strange woman he’s pretty much just met. I want to get to know her and figure out if I need to threaten her or something.”
“Please don’t threaten her. You’re not the one living with her.”
Harmony rolled her eyes. “Fine. But be careful, all right? If she starts hurting you, don’t stick around just for the rent. Run and set anything you need to on fire to do it.”
“That’s called arson, Hari.”
“Then we’ll find a way for you to skip town and smuggle you to Lasablica to live with your aunt. I’m serious, Lor. If this relationship becomes any sort of abusive, burn and bail.” The look on her face was utterly serious.
“…this was your idea.”
Harmony nodded. “I know. And I don’t think she’s the sort. But people change, Lor. And no matter what anyone says… ghosts are people too.”
He turned and glanced towards the apartment building. His apartment building again, now. “I’ll be fine, Hari.”
“The last time you didn’t listen to me about your apartment, it turned out to be haunted.”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
A wide, smug smile answered him. “Not any time soon, no.”
They went their separate ways as Loren pulled out his phone and started writing a shopping list. He still had oil in the room, so he could use that as the alchemical base… no, wait, that wouldn’t work, not for a scent. He’d need an essential oil, and—wait, he was overthinking this. Some baby cologne would do for now. It had a lot of denatured alcohol to hold Flame, and while it unfortunately had water, it meant it would aerosolize at boiling point. As a quick fix that would last longer than the incense sticks…
Loren texted his list for homebrew alchemy as he rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. The hallways were empty and quiet as he stepped out of the elevator, most of the tenants gone since it was a weekday. Hesitantly, he turned and began to walk towards what was no again his apartment.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
The door to 409 snapped open immediately as he stepped in front of it, sending a waft of cool air and burst of incense out into the hallway.
For a moment, Loren just stood there, staring at the empty doorway. Then he took a deep breath, smiled nervously, and gave a small wave. “Hey, Sara. I’m back…”
He stepped inside, and closed the door behind him.
----------------------------------------
The next weekend, Loren finally had his apartment warming party. It was a small party, both because he didn’t have a lot of room and didn’t have many people to invite. It was just him, Harmony, and his family. He’d invited Harmony’s parents, as well as her aunt, uncle and Maddie, but they couldn’t make it. His grandparents had also been invited, and they would be arriving later with his aunt and uncle.
“Why does your apartment smell like the perfume counter of a department store?” his sister exclaimed as they stepped inside. The table, wardrobe and bedside table had been assembled, the plastic storage container was in the corner holding alchemy and magic supplies, and for the moment he had moved his TV to his bed because otherwise the food wouldn’t have fit on the table.
“Because my roommate likes it,” Loren said. On the kitchen counter, the oil diffuser was lit with one of his Flames, heating the bowl full of citronella oil that he’d imbued. Thankfully, the literature from Steve had included directions for using Flame to give the oil a spiritual presence, which had been simple enough. It was simple Energy and Change. The hardest part, theoretically, was keeping the imbued Flame from consuming the oil, but as an alchemy-pharm graduate, that was a step he was very familiar with.
“Oh! Is she here?” Lily asked eagerly, looking around as if she expected to see Sara hovering in the room.
“Yes, always. Though I don’t think she’s ready to show herself—no Lily, she’s not under the bed.”
“Whoa, it’s actually clean under here!”
Loren rolled his eyes, although since his sister was still crouched and looking under his bed, she wasn’t able to fully appreciate the scathing genius of his reply. All right, so it was clean because he’d seen dust puffing out, which had been Sara’s way of telling him to clean there without them needing to light a ghost candle, but still, he’d cleaned it!
“How many square meters is it?” his dad asked, distracting Loren as he tried to remember the number.
There was a knock on the door, and a moment later it opened. “Got the drinks!” Harmony announced cheerfully. “Hey, auntie, uncle! Hi, Lily!”
“Big sis!”
Loren sighed as his sister scrambled off his bed, and he straightened the sheets, mostly because it would cause his mother borderline physical pain to have it wrinkled. “Thanks for opening the door, Sara,” he muttered. He wasn’t sure she could hear him, but it needed to be said.
His parents had been… skeptical was the best word for it… when he’d announced that he had a ghost in his apartment that he was cohabitating with, and had subtly suggested that maybe he find somewhere else to stay, but in the end they’d backed off, though with the air of letting him make his own mistake. Privately, he admitted they had a point. But if this was a mistake… well, he still didn’t have enough money saved up to both pay for early cancellation and the rent for a different apartment.
His sister had thought living with a ghost was amazing and she’d been eager to visit just to try and meet Sara.
“So, ready for them to see you?” he said.
The wind chime he’d hung in one corner of the room rang.
Nodding, Loren snapped his fingers to make a Flame so he could light the ghost candle he’d prepared.
----------------------------------------
“So, how are the internships coming along?” his mother asked. It was the question he’d been dreading.
“I… didn’t get any…” he said, not looking at anyone. “I might have maybe one or two more, but the ones who’ve called or emailed me back…”
He expected his dad to say something like ‘can’t you apply to anywhere else?’ and he was all ready to explain that there weren’t any internships close enough. That he’d applied to every internship whose program was acknowledged by his college, and that—
“Well, that’s all right. There are limited slots, after all,” his dad said reassuringly. “You can apply against next semester.”
“They won’t be taking new applications until next year,” Loren explained as Lily poured gravy, ketchup, and some of the Jack Daniels sauce at the bottom of the chicken box—he’d ordered boneless chicken from a place they all liked—together into an empty plastic gravy container. Sara floated over her shoulder, visible in the light of a ghost candle Loren was maintaining. Best not to strain her reserves by having her maintain her own visibility. She was careful not to intersect her spiritform into the space Lily was occupying. While it wasn’t immediately harmful, the feeling of cold that resulted could become very uncomfortable.
“So what are you going to do until then?” his mother asked as Lily accepted the little packet of cooking vene from Harmony. Tearing it open at the perforated line, Lily poured the mix of salt, pepper, MSG, and venecite into the plastic container, which she started stirring with a spoon.
“I’m… not sure. Find a job until then, I guess.” He’d need to pay for another six months of rent, as well as food and the things he needed to make Sara’s sensory stimulation stuff.
“You’ll need to ready a resume,” his dad said, and Loren winced inside.
Lily, satisfied with how well-mixed her concoction was, handed it to Loren. “Big brother, can you cook this so it alchemies right?”
“Sure, give it here,” he said, taking the gravy container. “Give me the spoon.” Gently, he channeled Flame through the metal utensil, and slowly started heating up the mixed sauce. While it wasn’t really necessary—dissolving the venecite into a liquid was all that was really needed to act as a medium—the heat would help spread the venecite across all the different sauces so that it would be equally distributed. The heat also added its own sensory stimulation for the brief moment before Sara drew it in to imbue her spiritform.
“Actually…” Harmony said as she poured more soda into her cup, “maybe you could apply to my job? Steve’s been looking for a Flame mage.”
“Huh? What for?” Loren stopped channeling Flame, but continued to stir the sauce for a bit to make sure the vene had spread even through the now mostly homogeneous sauce. He handed the now-alchemical sauce to his sister.
Harmony sipped her drink as Lily held out the sauce to Sara, who tentatively stuck her finger into the sauce, only to jerk back with a surprised look at the feeling of heat. “Well, Steve has been looking to hire a Flame mage for a while, especially one with some kind of alchemy experience. We know a few, but right now they’re busy working for bigger construction companies, and they’re mostly welders, not alchemists.“
Loren frowned, but his dad was already turning towards Harmony as Sara scooped up a little bit of spiritform from the sauce—she’d learned to pace herself and not to draw out the imbuement from the food all at once—and stuck it into her mouth. “What does the job involve?”
“Well, we’re real estate investment, so at the very least he’ll need to help with fixing up any properties we’re refurbishing. You know, carry junk out, bag them for garbage pickup… it depends on what stage of work we’re at. I’m usually doing research, looking up property titles, finding next of kin, the history of the property. Once that’s done, I help check out the site, and deal with the haunting if Steve needs me to. Then after that we still need to fix the place up for sale…” Harmony let out a sigh as Lily watched Sara writhe in the air from the mix of flavors in the sauce. “Ugh, just thinking of it is making me tired.”
“Hari, you realize I went into alchemy-pharm because it’s mostly indoor work with no heavy lifting, right?”
“Loren, I know it’s not the work you were looking for, but one way or another you need a job,” his dad said, and Loren had to face him. “With a job, you won’t have to dip into your savings to pay for your rent. What you do doesn’t necessarily need to be a job, but you need to keep yourself productive. When you’re applying for positions, it looks good to interviewers that you weren’t just doing nothing between graduation and your internship.”
He frowned. While it was true getting a job would make it easier to maintain the apartment, he did have enough to keep paying for the apartment. Though when he’d budgeted, he’d thought he’d have a minimal intern salary to help supplement it…
“I’m paid thirty thousand rings a month,” Harmony said. “And that’s with the only construction skills I knew being what welding uncle taught us.”
…
“So, do you think Steve will hire me?”