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“What about a person? Can a person be haunted?" - Kentucky Route Zero
“Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?” - Mary Oliver
"Alive or dead, a ghost is what happens when a person is gone but still taking up space." - Kentucky Route Zero
When Catra looked at the water, it seemed unmoving, like a black, inky pit. She had heard stories of places like it before, utterly deceiving. She could remember one in particular about a kid a few years back after a rainstorm that swamped the back half of the town for days. There wasn’t a single ripple to the surface, but the second his head slipped under the water, he vanished. It took weeks for them to find him, miles from where he started. She tried to lock her eyes on a single point across the way in the darkness of the cave, but by the time it could register, they had long since passed it, careening through a void.
The tugboat whined and strained against the force of the current. Catra had never been one for boats. Something about the motion made her queasy, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She had started working for Weaver when she was fourteen, a few years too fresh for it, but it was one of those favors Weaver liked to do. They were the kind that were barely good enough to not refuse but lingered like a chokehold. She liked doing those for Catra. Something to keep her tethered like a dog to a yard, forever indebted, but that well had finally run dry.
Weaver was closing up shop with a sudden and sweeping hand. She at least had the courtesy to extend one final, wretched offering to Catra, with a job as lucrative as it was convoluted. There was only one load to be put in the truck, simple enough, but the destination was nowhere Catra had ever heard of — 55 Brightmoon Boulevard. She had lived and breathed every moment of her life in that one small town, there wasn’t a street she hadn’t driven down, but somehow this was new. Catra should have walked away from it the moment she saw Weaver’s sneer handing her the address, but she was never one to turn down a challenge. If she could go back and see the way her night had unfolded thus far — three wrong directions, a ferry through a cavern, a lost childhood love, an actual child — she would have run.
Catra had come out to the back for some privacy. The cabin at the center was too small, too warm, everything all too much. She couldn’t hear herself think over the voices. They swirled together, conversation over conversation, making for an endless night. She should have known that Adora would take her leaving as an open invitation. (She might have known.)
The door behind her cracked open, and Adora settled against the railing next to her. She still had that stupid red work jacket on Catra first saw her in when she returned in town, the elbows now faded in color from wear. Catra didn’t look at her as she moved into her periphery. She had already seen enough to know. She had already seen the same little cuts at Adora’s jaw, the way her cheeks caught a couple freckles in the summer sun. She had already catalogued earlier in the night the way her laugh lines around her mouth had deepened over the time missing between them, like a physical reminder that Adora didn’t need Catra to make her happiness happen. She didn’t need to see them again.
“What are you going to do once you get there?” Adora asked, like that would somehow be light conversation.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Catra replied, her voice bordering on offended, tensing her shoulders. She didn’t know if it was the way the underground chill air cut against her cheeks or whether she knew speaking something aloud made it exist, but every part of her felt on edge, like a string waiting to be cut. “I’m going to deliver whatever the fuck is clogging the back of my truck, and then I’ll make my merry way back home.”
Adora ignored her annoyance and tilted her head. “And after that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying not to think about that part,” Catra responded. It was flirting with the truth. She woke up every morning with dread sitting so squarely on her chest, her breath would catch in her throat. She spent her waking moments shoving the thoughts back down with every ounce of her body. If she thought about it too hard, the cracks beneath her feet grew teeth. But she knew what came next. Her life had been a cruel series of sinking her claws into every opportunity she could find. Catra knew how to survive, it just wasn’t going to be pretty. She clicked her nails against the metal beneath her hands and asked, “What are you going to do if you find Mara?”
Adora chuckled and said in a voice mimicking Catra, “I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. “I think I’ve had the opposite problem.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’ve been thinking about it too much,” Adora replied.
A chill ran up Catra’s spine as she remembered the way Mara had looked when she last saw her, like not a single day had passed over her body, only an hour before bursting through the front door of Adora’s storefront, her own favor on the tip of her tongue. Razz’s house had seemed like the only place in the world that could give her any clue as to how the fuck to even try to find Brightmoon. She had expected to find Adora there; she knew the deed would go to her by default, that fact made sense. But that was where everything fell apart. She was so blinded by the expectation that her vision tunneled. There were so many things that should have made her stop in her tracks — the lack of lights, the overgrown weeds, the way her knock echoed in a sickening way as she stood waiting on the porch. When Mara opened that door, she should have run. Catra had expended so much effort avoiding any conversation that looped back to Adora for years. If she had just put away her own pride, for just a moment, she would have known.
They weren’t speaking when Mara disappeared. It happened in one of the summers Adora was away, after a series of slammed doors and broken promises. Mara had existed in the background of Catra’s life like a fixed point, always there and never fading, but she didn’t know her well. She stood like a monolith, like something untouchable, unknowable. But that didn’t stop Catra’s surprise when hearing about the details of her spiral leading to when she up and vanished spilling out of Adora’s mouth. None of it fit. It wasn’t fair. Catra wasn’t above damning others. She had been raised on the idea of debts owed and debts paid. Mara was beholden to no one.
Something was wrong with it all, and the reality of what she saw hung in the back of Catra’s throat and made her gulp. She couldn’t stop the next words that left her mouth, “How do you know she’s still alive?”
Adora sighed, and finally turned away from analyzing the side of Catra’s face. She clutched the railing and rocked back to her heels. “I can’t know. But I can hope.”
Catra took her turn watching. To anyone who didn’t spend years of their life tied to Adora’s side like their life depended on it, she would seem fine, good even. The hint of bravado to her face, shoulders squared like she could take anything that dared take a swing. But Catra knew better, she always had. “Is that enough?”
Adora nodded in that stubborn way she did, “It has to be.”
A flash caught Catra’s eye making her turn. Sitting like a beacon across the span of the river was a building, tall with scattered twinkling lights that reflected off the water like an oily mirror. Catra couldn’t see the details, but it felt like a destination. By the way Adora’s hands tightened their grip, she saw it too. In a moment of naivety, she pitied Adora. Mara hung over her shoulders, haunting her every step, like an answer just out of reach. Her pity was falsely placed. At least Adora had the bravery to put a name and face to the skeleton in her closet. Catra had her own ghost standing a breath away with none of the strength to admit it.
“Have you thought about giving up?” Catra asked.
All their lives, Adora had idolized her cousin. When they lost Razz, Mara took Adora under her wing like a shining superhero. The older Catra got, the more she realized that Mara had been a kid too. Adora smiled, truly, for the first time since Catra stood in front of her that evening, haunted story in hand. She was never known for her ability to let things go. “I would be a liar if I said I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean I will.”
“Tomorrow,” Catra started and stopped, the pause filled with the humming of the engine. Adora waited with the patience she always possessed that Catra made a life of wearing thin. “If we don’t find Mara tonight...”
“Mhmm?” Adora hummed, clearly catching on the we with the way her grin stretched to the dimple on her left cheek.
Catra turned back to their exit, her voice catching in her throat in an awkward way, “Well, I’ve got nothing better to do.” Before Adora could respond, the boat scraped its side against the dock as it pulled in, nearly knocking Catra’s off her feet. Adora’s arm went out instinctively behind her in an effort to help steady them.
“Thanks,” Catra muttered. The engine’s roar cut out behind them, and the only sounds were the few voices rising up from beneath them as the door to the cabin opened and soft music drifting out from the building.
Catra leaned against the railing, taking one last look at the water, expecting her hesitation would give Adora an ample way out. It was a peace offering of sorts. That night, again and again, Adora went willingly when asked, but it was with the promise of learning more about Mara. Keeping Catra around served no greater purpose to herself, it gave nothing to be earned. Catra had been left before, she could take it again. She could feel Adora take a deep breath next to her but made no effort to move. After a moment or two, Adora tapped the back of Catra’s hand with her index finger. When Catra turned, she asked very softly, “You want to help me?”
“Don’t make me regret this.”
A weight came off Catra’s chest, and Adora smiled again and wrapped her hand fully around Catra’s. “I will.”