Chapter Text
He slammed out of the house, screen door flying, screeching, as it barely hung onto rusted hinges. He couldn’t stand being indoors with those fucking mindless morons for one more minute, one more second. He threw his beloved copy of Crime and Punishment down into the fall leaves as he raged, stomping over to the tree house. He paused though, in his tirade, to pick it up remorsefully, instantly regretful. It was not like he could just go out and get new things.
Jeremy sighed, tucking the book under his arm, and climbed up the ancient wooden boards to sit, legs hanging over the side, and stared out into his quiet small existence. He wanted to scream but he had learned years ago, decades probably, that it wasn’t worth it. No one could hear him. No one could see him.
Only those two.
His entire life he had begged to been seen by them but it was only then, in death, when he couldn’t stand the sight of their fucked up faces, that they took the time to look at him.
The irony of it wasn’t lost; even with only an eleventh grade education.
Perhaps fifteen minutes passed, the blink of an immortal eye, before he heard shouting, honking, from the road beyond. Jeremy considered glancing over the fence, caring, but he couldn’t bring himself to. For years he had entertained the notion of meeting someone, another dead person, a ghost, besides his parents. But after that so much he had slowly given up on that thought. And generally quit subjecting himself to human matters in the world around him, outside of him.
As it was, the only time he interacted with others was entirely one sided. Once, when that realtor woman had come by with a couple from the city, extolling the charm of small town life with easy access to highways and the train, he had knocked over boxes in his room until the trio rushed back out onto the sidewalk. The man gesticulating furiously as the woman practically dove for their sporty looking electric car. That must have been five years prior. No one had been back since.
Jeremy never could figure out if it was a tragedy or a triumph.
He watched the world pass him by; children across the street growing up, graduating, moving on to college. All of the things denied to him. And it festered. A wound left open, lingering, seeping, turning vile, never healing over. It was an infection within him; the darkness of it in his veins.
Though, his therapist, long ago, would have said there was already a darkness inside of him. Something desperate and cruel. Jeremy was too sensitive and while the other kids at school had watched him warily, sidelong looks tinged with fear in the hall, whispered words like, “Trench coat mafia,” as he passed, he had never had it in for his classmates. It was his parents who he had grown to loathe, to hate, over the years. It was them who never had the time for him; too busy, too tired, too detached.
Jeremy was no athlete so his father lost interest. And while his report card showed consistently that he had exceptional intelligence and reasoning skills, his inability to keep from acting out in class consistently embarrassed his PTO secretary mother.
Class Clown.
Social Butterly.
Disruption.
Suggest having him tested…
Eventually it was as if he and his parents lived in two different dimensions, existing in the same space, but not together, not at the same time.
Why couldn’t they see him? Who he actually was? Not what they wanted him to be. He was an intellectual. Artistic. Interesting. He enjoyed music; current and classical. He liked painting, sketching. His taste for literature knew no bounds. But what was that compared to class president or football star? Popular.
Jermey had never, and would never, be popular.
He was ruminating on, “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,” a quote he quickly memorized then had both highlighted and underlined in his battered copy of Crime and Punishment. Not that his townie parents would have understood it, the concept, if he had read it to them. In life, or death. In fact, his father probably would have called him a sissy or a fag for bothering.
And then an entire section of fencing, already decaying and brittle, flew from its place on the hill and a black bicycle and a dark flash careened into his backyard, stunning him. Everything happened so fast; in a blur, whoever it was, slammed into the tree below him with a, “Oof,” and the thud of flesh meeting an immovable object. For one flash, an instant, he thought, did they die? Was he about to share his yard forever with some other ghost? But then they looked up at him and it was a girl; a pretty girl, dark eyes, purple bruises under them like she hadn’t slept for a week, a pouting painted mouth, and she saw him, really saw him, you could have knocked Jeremy over with a fucking feather.
He stared, mouth opening and closing, hearing words stumble, unbidden, past his lips. “Are you okay?” He began climbing down immediately. How long had it been since he uttered words to more than himself? Since he had had an actual conversation? Shared thoughts, had them absorbed, analyzed, by another person?
Since he was alive? Twenty-three years? Was it longer? When had he last really talked with someone, not a therapist, not a concerned counselor at school, before the incident. The accident.
And then she was speaking, returning the words and conversation. She rubbed a spot on her head, glancing down at the book in his hand, he had forgotten for a moment he was even holding it, “Crime and Punishment?”
“Uh, yeah,” was all he managed, brain misfiring, between her mere existence in his space, her tragic beauty, that she saw him, that she knew the book. Did she know the book? “Have you read it?”
“Yeah,” she huffed, “like three times.” She offered a shrug of her narrow shoulders. She had freckles. Was he breathing? “Something about pain and suffering being inevitable speaks to me, I guess.”
What was it Anne of Green Gables had said? His mother loved Anne of Green Gables.
A kindred spirit.
She was a kindred spirit.
After everything and all that time, he was meeting a kindred spirit. He could kiss her.
Wait. It struck him like a heart attack; he wanted to kiss her. That was a wholly new sensation.
She was sat beside him in the treehouse, legs swinging, heavy black boots banging against the part of the trunk she could reach. She was small next to him. She smelled like a flower he couldn’t place and her eyes kept shifting to take him in as if she couldn’t believe he were really there either.
He wanted to ask if she knew; knew that he was dead, was a ghost, that his neck was purple and blotched and bruised where it had snapped when he hit the ground, raging and drunk and sorrowful, as the police stormed his yard.
But she didn’t look at him like she knew. Unless she saw dead people all the time like that kid in the movie.
Did she have a boyfriend?
What?
Fuck, she was looking at him. He was being weird. He was supposed to speak. “I, uh,” his brows pulled down, “haven’t seen you around here before.”
Lame. He wanted to smack himself in the face.
But she nodded, bit her full lower lip and looked out at the horizon, gaze taking on something sad and distant.
“My mom grew up here. That old house on the hill.”
“Wait. The ghost house? Is your mom Lydia Deetz?”
“Unfortunately,” she sighed.
Oh shit. Seriously? Was that why she could see him? What was the rule in his book? The living usually won’t see the dead. Because people ignore the strange and unusual.
But if her mom could see ghosts it could be that she could see them as well.
“She’s kind of a legend,” he told her with a shrug, not belying his intense inner turmoil.
“Yup,” she agreed, tone defeated. “That’s my mom.”
“Wow,” he breathed.
“Yeah.”
He understood the face, the tone. He didn’t want to talk about his parents either.
“So,” he slapped his palms on his thighs, grinning, “while I have you here…”
She cut him off abruptly, voice turning chilly in the autumn afternoon and Jeremy nearly shivered, “You want her autograph or something?”
“What?” He laughed, “No.” That was all he needed; meet some ghost hunting psychic medium. Unless she knew how the fuck to get him out of there. But, he took in the smattering of freckles on Astrid’s nose, her cheeks, the petulant way her mouth set into a frown, did he want to leave? Because for twenty-three years, five months, and four days, he had. And suddenly, he could wait a little while? He glanced sideways at her, corners of his mouth lifting, “I’ve just been wondering what’s up with the black crepe all over the house. Don’t get me wrong. Very dramatic. Very New York. But not very Winter Haven,” he lifted his brows expectantly.
And she smiled, relief seeming to change her entire expression. Just as quickly her face turned back to gloom; he loved it. Her joy and her misery were contagious after so much time simply feeling numb. He had forgotten how quickly the living could vacillate between emotions. It seemed in a single heartbeat they could go from happy to sad to angry to fearful. It was incredible.
“My grandpa. He died. And my Grandmother, god,” she breathed, “she’s so embarrassing. Really, they all are. She’s treating it like it’s some piece of living art, our grief. And my mom brought her repugnant boyfriend; he’s,” she shook her head, “I’m sure he is a succubus.”
Jeremy’s gaze stayed locked on the leaf covered ground as he muttered, “Incubus,” correcting her.
“What?”
He looked at her, rolled his eyes at himself. He really was a loser. “A male succubus is an incubus. It comes from the Latin word for nightmare.”
Her brows shot up into soft wispy bangs, “Really?” But she wasn’t running for the hills just yet.
Cheeks flushing, something he did not know he could still manage after death, he winced, closed his eyes, and admitted. “I was,” amended, “am, pretty into like, folklore and mythology. It all ties in really well to gaming. You know, characters, monsters, world building. That kind of thing.”
“Like online?”
“Like,” he exhaled, shoulders slumping, “table top?”
“Oh,” she smiled, surprising him, “cool. Like Dungeons and Dragons?”
His flesh felt hot all over. “Yeah. Do you play?”
“No,” she was watching him and he tried not to squirm too much under the scrutiny. “But I always thought it sounded fun.” Astrid bit her lip, eyelids lowering, “Maybe you could teach me?”
His heart bottomed out into his stomach. Was she, even his own brain stumbled over the thought, flirting with him? A girl. A pretty, hot, girl. Wanted him to teach her how to play Dungeons and Dragons, because it sounded cool.
Had he just died too soon, Jeremy wondered for the first time in his afterlife.
“Sure,” he said, voice high, before clearing his throat roughly. “Of course,” he nodded, emphasizing, “yes.”
“Cool,” her chunky heel knocked into his busted, scuffed, black Chuck Taylor.
“Cool,” he returned, terrified to say anything more for fear of ruining the moment.
They were quiet for a long stretch, each staring out, each with their lips pitched up in a smile, then, with a sigh she told him, “I should probably get back. My mom, she’ll be looking for me. Or, she wont be, because her ridiculous fucking boyfriend turned my grandpa’s funeral into an engagement party and she will be far too busy planning her wedding that’s happening in two days.”
“That’s,” he considered, “despicable.” His teeth tugged at his lip, “Is your dad not in the picture?”
She stared at her lap, fingers entwining, twisting, “No. Not for a long time.” Astrid didn’t look at him as she said, “He died.”
“Oh, shit. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“No, it’s,” she stuttered, continued, “fine.”
He shrugged, cocked a brow, “At least you have a psychic medium for a mother?”
“Oh jeez, you don’t actually believe that bullshit she spouts, do you?” She demanded, voice laden with disgust, taken aback.
“You don’t?” Seriously? She didn’t believe in ghosts? Did she not even know she could see them?
Was he the very first ghost she had interacted with, even unknowingly? Fuck, that made him so much more. More everything; nervous, excited, enraptured.
“It’s a scam!” She told him vehemently and he swallowed. “Seriously. And that incubus,” she smirked, eyeing him, “plays off of my mother’s delusional fantasies, exploiting her at every turn. It’s foul.”
All he could manage was, “Wow.” Her fury was freaking adorable.
“Shit,” her phone buzzed between them, lighting up. Jeremy was so tempted to snatch it, learn every little thing about it. He had never been so close to one of the smart screen devices. His last cell phone had been a black brick, barely useful. She turned to face him, giving him a look and an eye roll, “Text diarrhea incoming.” He stared back in morbid fascination of what she meant and glanced at the glass. A constant stream of notifications appeared, stacking one over another, as they stared at it. “Alleged Mom,” on each.
They climbed down from the treehouse, feet back on the earth, and his hands found their way into his pockets. “I, uh,” his foot ground into the soil beneath his toe, “I’ll be here tomorrow, same time, same place, if you, you know,” he glanced up at her dark eyes, her freckles, “want to hang out again.”
“Oh,” Astrid’s cheeks actually flushed a delicate shade of rose. “I mean,” she appeared as shy as he felt, “I don’t have anything else going on, so I could probably…”
He cut her off, “Awesome! See you then?”
“Yeah,” she grinned standing up her bike. “I really am sorry about your fence.” Her straight, white teeth ran along her lower lip, showed her dismay as she continued, “If your parents are upset, I am sure my mom will pay for it.”
“Nah,” he returned. “They wont even notice.”
She eyed him as if she didn’t believe him but Jeremy knew his parents couldn’t even leave the house, not one step beyond the porch, or they were Sandworm food. So he merely shrugged.
He guided her down the torn up driveway, roots bursting through the unattended asphalt surface, and suggested, “You should probably go that way,” pointing down the street. “Make a left at the stop sign. Then a right and it will take you back across the covered bridge toward your house.”
Astrid offered him one more coy smile and a, “Thanks,” riding off into the dim light of an autumn afternoon. Jeremy prayed to anything and everything out there that he would actually see her again.