[How much do you remember of that night?]
[Some things I remember really clearly, but there are gaps of nothing in between them. I burn off liquor in waves.]
[Do you remember giving me the rock?]
[Yeah. Where did that go, anyway?]
[I was using it to weigh down my packing boxes after I moved. It must be somewhere in my apartment. Do you want it back?]
[It wasn't mine.]
[You think the park wants it back?]
[You tell me, spirit man.]
The cold, stiff metal of the swing squeaked up into the wide night sky as it swung back into New's hands. I felt only the barest press of his fingers urging me forward again, but goosebumps bloomed on those small spots he'd touched all the same. I kicked my legs to make myself go faster. As a kid, I'd always kicked my legs on swings in order to go higher, to beat my sister, to feel that second of weightlessness at the top. Muk freaked me out once, telling me that whenever I had that feeling, all of my organs were in their own freefall, loose inside me, dropping back individually of each other. It took Mum a year to convince me to sit on a swing again, and by then Muk had apparently outgrown them. Dad had been on one of his longest absences yet, so she'd already taken on a bossier, more protective role in my life. Now as I kicked my legs and pushed myself up on the air beneath them, not so that I could reach crazy heights but so that I could feel my toes return to the ground that bit sooner, I wondered if it would make Muk happy. I wondered if dads judged their sons' decisions even when they were thirty, like my sister did.
Because I'd have to talk to her soon. And I didn't have high hopes for our incoming 'I fell in love with a human' conversation. A conversation upon which kind of a lot hinged, because last I heard, she had the only keycard for accessing my body. (Word was that Mum and Gran didn't trust each other with it, though I had zero idea what they each thought the other would do if they had it.)
I blocked out vague images guessing at what my body might currently look like – which were almost as freaky as the loose organs thing – and re-wrapped my arm around the swing's chain so that I could send another text. I had to shake Alice's scarf out of my face more than a few times (of course the polar bear had refused to wear it when I offered it to him after we left Arm's). [Are we even allowed to take rocks from the park? What if it's illegal, like taking shells from the beach?]
Only one of New's hands gently met my back this time. [Dang, well I'm glad it's in your apartment then. I wouldn't want to be caught with a park rock the next time the police raid our building.]
[You joke, but I did my research on the place when I found out that's where you lived.]
[You mean when you followed me home.]
[We mean when the tether dragged me there. Anyway, there's some pretty shady history to that building. Did you know that eight dogs have gone missing in ten years?]
New leaned around to make sure I could see his frown before I swung away. [Is that a lot?]
[It sounds like a lot, for one building. Dogs can't generally escape from apartment buildings like they can from backyards.]
[True. So you're saying there may have been a budding serial killer dognapping his neighbours' pets to practice on or something?]
[And he's still there. A dog went missing last week.]
I almost tipped off the swing anticipating the touch of New's hand that never came. I glanced back and saw him furiously double-typing on his phone. I hadn't even reached the peak of my parabolic path before my phone pinged. [Wait, shit, what if he takes Luna?]
YOU ARE READING
The Ordinary Haunting II
Fanfiction~Sequel to The Ordinary Haunting~ Tay Tawan was not expecting to get tied to New Thitipoom when he died. He used to be a happy-go-lucky kind of guy; the kind with no real troubles or regrets that he considered important enough to stop him from his e...
