Hunter

“I lost my ghost,” he says, shrugging off the absurdity like water off the smooth shingles of a roof.

“Which one?”

[The ones from the past are the worst.]

“Does it matter?” He runs a hand through his tousled hair, eyes flickering to the sparse apartment around them. “I don’t know how many I had to begin with.”

[Those don’t shy away from you.]

“People don’t usually keep ghosts,” she replies, amusement dancing on her lips. “What kind of ghost are we talking about?”

[They tend to sit on your shoulder and whisper.]

“A regret ghost. Or maybe a despair ghost. Something like that.”

[HE, however, had a nasty habit of collecting them.]

“Well, who was it?”

He chuckles bitterly. “That’s the trick. I don’t remember if it was a her or a him. Isn’t that funny?”

↞ ↞ ⚬ ↠ ↠

Etchers are hard to come by but easy to kill. They roam unknown alleys while hunched over their notebooks, always scribbling furiously.

Learn the craft or ignore the craft? You’ve always been indecisive, all the way back to when you were four and Mother bought two lollipops; urged to choose between the blue and the red, you shoved them both in your mouth like the greedy little thing you were raised to be.

[In the spiral of time, threats become promises, molded like play-dough under tight scrutiny.]

The skies are weeping liquid pools of memories at your feet, and you stop mid-stride to study the shimmery reflections in each drop of water, hesitant to disturb their fragile existence. And on this first Tuesday of the wettest March in three years, you think to stop an etcher.

“What happens if you forget them?” Curiosity weighs your head to a tilt. “Do they just…disappear?”

Foaming at the mouth, a sardonic smile curls across a pale, wrinkled face. “Oh, no. They linger. Like smoke after a fire. But the worst ones?— The worst ones grip you, devour you from the inside out.”

[They bend, they break, but they never quite vanish.]

Pretty image, that.

↞ ↞ ⚬ ↠ ↠

The café smells of stale coffee beans.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” you ask the reedy child seated at a table close by. The sweet almond filling of a croissant melts delectably against your tongue, but suffocatingly so.

“Papa tells me not to talk to strangers. He says they carry shadows in their pockets.”

“How poetic,” you quip. “But listen up, idiot girl. Ghosts are devils wearing silly costumes and dancing in circles until someone trips over their own heart. D’you get me?”

Her brows are furrowed, her voice muted. You wag your finger at her: “I called you an idiot, sure, but that doesn’t mean you must act like one!”

Frightened, she stares.

“Alright then, see here—teach me to capture my ghosts if you’re so smart,” you challenge, beginning to shake. “Well? Can you help me?”

The moment hangs, suspended, like dust motes in sunlight.

You see something in her eyes and lean in, suddenly able to glimpse how many ghosts are clinging to her, twisting like snakes. Compelled, you grasp her wrist. “Show me. Show me how to keep them.”

She pauses, considering, then tugs away. “You don’t want them,” she breathes. “They’ll bite, like hard candy that cuts your gums.”

“Then I’ll choke them down,” you smile half-heartedly, ignorance sinking into resolve.

↞ ↞ ⚬ ↠ ↠

The rain is falling again, a soft yet relentless percussion against the windowpane. Sitting among the disarray of cardboard boxes, you stare at the man leaning against the doorframe, feeling the presence of that ghost—the one you took from him—hovering just beyond the veil.

[HE was known to have never lost a ghost.]

“What’s so special about this one?” he asks, bitterness sharpening his words. “Just a specter like the rest, right?”

“Of course,” you respond, pulling out old photographs while he stands haphazardly by, clutching at faded echoes like fragile moss. “Just…give me a moment. This is all part of capturing them.”

He’s skeptical. Perhaps he can sense the truth, that this ghost is yours, too. But then, exactly on time, an old picture of them both reveals itself from beneath a layer of dust. Perfect.

“I’ll get back to you on this,” you scramble away, tucking the frame against your side. There’s no way to know how strong his forgetfulness is.

[It couldn’t have happened naturally.]

↞ ↞ ⚬ ↠ ↠

Time stretches in your apartment as shards from the fragmented glass facing cut into your palm. The ghost you seek swims just beyond your fingertips, flickering in and out of focus, and you can almost catch a glimpse of life shrouded in the opaque mists of regret.

You take a step forward, trembling with urgency. “Milo, love. You don’t have to drift away anymore.”

[Etchers bind cosmic essence to ink and paper, preserving.]

“Don’t you want to come back to me?” Your voice is unstable, balancing through the tremors of an earthquake. “I can bring you back.”

The silence is booming, but, desperate and defiant, you set about your makeshift ritual. Frantically, you pile objects: the photograph, brittle and stained; a lock of hair; a trinket. “I will not let you slip away again. You belong with me.”

[Hunters impress upon a soul, eroding.]

“He captured you, but he never cherished you—not like I would,” the air crackles as a pulse of energy surges through the room. “You’re my desire, my longing. No one could ever make me forget you, not like I could your brother. I won’t walk away.”

“Walk away from what, love?” Milo’s form finally flickers, wavering with uncertainty. “What have you done?”

His expression is somber, his corporeal body charged with unspeakable sorrow.

“I did it for us,” you plead, desperation clinging to every syllable.

“Us?” A vicious countenance cuts across his features, dark and angry. “What I am to you now is not living, but a prisoner tethered by your greed.”

His face twists in pain as a chilling hush envelops you.