Chapter Text
Nathan used to be a little scared of ghosts. That was putting it kindly. The truth was that he had spent most of his adult life crossing the street to avoid old buildings after dark, flinching at the creak of floorboards in his own flat, and keeping a small nightlight plugged in beside his bed long after he should have outgrown such things. He was deeply, thoroughly afraid of them, despite being a whole twenty-eight years old and long past the age when such things should have troubled him.
But "was" was the keyword.
The few friends he had, Lizzy, Thad, Jade and Emily, used to worry about his paranoia. They would tease him gently about the way he checked his closet before bed or the way he refused to walk through the old churchyard on Miller Street, even in broad daylight. He had managed to surprise them, though. They were nearly shocked when it seemed as if he had completely changed his view of them overnight.
It had not happened overnight, but it had not taken that long either. It was February. Almost Valentine's Day.
That whole week had been a cursed week for him. The city was full of pink paper hearts and bundled roses, and every shop window seemed to glow with the promise of romance. For Nathan, it was heavy with a feeling that clung to him like an illness, so unwilling to let him go, all because of what he had lost. He felt sick watching everyone around him so happy during that time. He could be the most cheerful person on any other day, but during those weeks, he felt as though he was being someone he used to know, though he was not sure who exactly it was.
He had tried to bury himself in his work, but even that was a kind of haunting. His commissions were bright and whimsical, full of soft colors and gentle shapes, but they felt like lies whenever his own heart was so full of winter. He would sit at his desk for hours, the city moving beyond his window, and he would draw the same face over and over again without meaning to.
But perhaps that was the problem. He had been walking through Avington for weeks with his head down, and now the city was beginning to feel as lost as he was.
Two weeks ago, he had been walking listlessly through the streets of Avington. It would not be much for most people these days, but it did wonders for him. It let him feel comforted in the loneliness of his own thoughts, without letting the heaviness of the quiet throw him for a loop. He would be just enough a part of life not to feel completely drowned in his heaviness. He would look at passing strangers, give them little smiles, and pat Mr. Rudh's Golden Retriever named Shammy on the way.
Avington was a very old city, and it held the beauty of a time that the modern world had long since passed. The cobbled streets went past beside the steep side of what was once a volcano, breaking off into little lanes that sometimes opened up into many courtyards. They were usually surrounded by tall, terraced houses. People lived in them, but whenever the areas were quiet, it would seem like they were huddled together, whispering secrets of a long-forgotten past.
The sheer wonder of Avington as a city, Nathan felt, was often lost among the other people who lived there, when beauty had become commonplace and simply flit through their minds with nary a moment spent on it.
As always whenever his moods had hit, he had not been sleeping well. He had just finished his commissioned artworks. He had finished his work the previous evening around six, and while he did get a couple hours of sleep, his mind was still so loud, and his ADHD had not helped.
When six o'clock came, even though it was Saturday and he could have lain in longer, he gave up on his attempts to take a proper rest. So he got up and went out to face the world.
Still, it had been quite early in the morning, and the cold February air stung his face. Though Avington was more or less a bit of a tourist city, his home still felt rather deserted, even for a Saturday. A slight mist had risen up, likely from the nearby Lake Leath, making it feel all the colder as Nathan passed through the narrow lanes and empty pavements, entirely without thought of where he was really going.
As the shops opened, and the first trickle of tourists bled into the cobbled walkways from their hotels, he chose to take a detour into a quieter, mostly forgotten network of streets. His wandering mind had taken control of his body entirely by that point, for when he finally broke past his daydreaming, he found himself at the gates of an old graveyard. One that felt rather familiar, though he did not understand why.
He thought to turn back and head home, but something about the place awoke a compulsion in him. He had to go into it. He had to explore it. The gates, made of gloomy black steel rods, were a little unmaintained, and to his surprise, he found them standing open. So early in the day, too. Strange.
Entering the cemetery, he noticed how alone the place seemed. The sound of gravel beneath his feet kept him at ease while he walked, for it left no room for eerie silence to settle. He walked slowly along the path littered with small white stones. It was not much of a large graveyard. There were just two separate plots. The older graves were at the front, bordering the fence and gate, going backwards up until a diminutive nearby hill, where younger residents lay.
The oldest graves were truly old, wearing weathered scars and moss-stained surfaces. There was one he found that was even dated as far as the seventeenth century, nearly three hundred years ago. It was a bit of a sad little thing. The epitaph was barely legible. He felt a pang of pain for whoever it belonged to, so lost and forgotten to time, obviously uncared for and unloved, its relatives likely long passed.
He chose to indulge his thoughts and think of himself as a forgotten and lost soul, too. It felt strangely heavy, but not in a bad way. He moved on eventually, shivering slightly as he rubbed his arms through his jacket. Gosh, it was truly cold this morning.
At last he moved on, wandering gently up the foot of the hill toward the newer graves. He found himself drawn to a large sycamore tree, which loomed over several graves below it, as if holding the souls in a protective embrace.
He stared at one of the headstones, his mind reading the words, but for a moment they failed to register. As his mind was still lost in a hazy daydream, he felt that the grave still stood out from those around it. The headstone was black, while those that accompanied it were carved from bright white marble. Without thinking, Nathan ran his hand over the smooth stone, feeling the occasional mark of time's touch on it. At the foot of the headstone sat a small, innocent-looking purple vase.
It seemed a little off color, probably from exposure to the weather. Was this grave just as forgotten and uncared for as the one he had passed a few minutes ago? As he stood there, something slowly wormed its way into his mind and his heart: a feeling.
It bothered him greatly. And slowly, ever so slowly, he began to remember. At first, he was not sure what it was; all it felt like was a growing, hungry sense of discomfort. As this feeling reached its peak and broke apart the last remnants of haze in his mind, he finally realized what was wrong.
Oh.
His heart began to beat hard as tears welled at the edges of his eyes, and a long-forgotten feeling of a small, soft hand ghosted past his palm. The name on the grave. It was Suzanne Doorman.
He knew that name well. It was etched into the deepest depths of his heart, where he had shoved it deep inside him so it would no longer consume him whole. Everyone in the local area did, even his friends. Especially Lizzy.
Suzanne— "Call me Uzi, jerk!" — he had grown up with her. They had gone to the same school. He had been a little shy to approach her at the start, her attitude feeling a little too scary for him, but it was she who had reached out in the first place. Within the feelings of pain that had suddenly gripped his heart, the small memory caused a warmth to bloom.
He could remember the first time they spoke perfectly, as if it had been recorded by a high-definition camera. It was a moment so vivid that the strength of the image felt as solid as a general fact of the universe. She had approached him with tiny, stomping steps, coming up to him and pointing under his chin, looking oh so adorable as she yelled up at him asking why he was so cheerful.
Apparently, his presence had shone like a literal light, and it annoyed her because it had been messing up her Dark Queen image. An uncontrolled giggle escaped his lips at that, as he put a hand over his heart, still staring at the gravestone as tears spilled in a flood down his gaunt, pale cheeks. His light brown hair fell in front of his eyes a little, and he moved to get it away so he could stare at the resting place unhindered.
After that first encounter, Uzi had appointed herself his official nuisance and protector all at once. She would appear beside him in the lunch line, poke his shoulder, and demand to know if he had eaten anything that day. She started calling him "dumb puppy" in a voice that was half a taunt and half a term of endearment. Nathan, who had never had a nickname before, wore it like a badge of honor. He started drawing small things for her: a bat with a little crown, a knight without a sword, a moon with a sleepy face. She would roll her eyes and shove them into her bag, but the next day he would see them taped inside her locker door.
She was so bright. So full of life and exuberance, a spitfire so strong that even the bullies of the school could not contain her. In fact, at some point she had become his defender against the bullies. A guardian angel; it was a funny sight, her walking around in front of him ready to throw fists at anyone who even breathed wrong toward him, while he just stood behind her like a titan of his own, one that would probably fall backwards if someone blew air toward him. Uzi used to be a little annoyed with him for that, but he had learned to grow a backbone. It had taken time, and she had not been around to truly see him bloom. He hoped she had been watching from above when he did.
The moment he had first seen her coming toward him that day, it was as if a glowing comet had been thrown into him, setting his life alight as his shy and bright personality exploded into something that would make even someone like Thad or Lizzy proud.
He remembered the winter they were twelve, the first real snowfall of the year. Uzi had grabbed his sleeve and dragged him out into the street, her boots squeaking on the fresh powder. She insisted they build a snowman. Not a normal snowman, but a vampire snowman with twig fangs and a crown made of ice. Nathan had laughed so hard his stomach ached. Uzi had put her purple beanie on the snowman's head and stepped back to admire her work.
"Now that," she had said, "is art."
Nathan had agreed, because when she smiled like that, everything she made was art.
That beanie was part of why Nathan started wearing one himself. He had admired the way the purple fabric made her dark hair fall around her face, the little pompom on top bouncing when she walked. So he had saved up his pocket money and bought a simple black beanie from the market, pulling it on one morning before school. Uzi had stopped mid-sentence when she saw him, her eyes narrowing.
"You're copying me," she said, but there was no heat in it. "That's so cringe."
He had just grinned. "I like your style."
She had rolled her eyes, but her cheeks had gone a little pink. After that, she stole his beanie more times than he could count, saying it made him look like a golden retriever, too soft and too bright for his own good. She would run down the school hallway with it, laughing while he chased her, and when he finally caught up she would shove it back onto his head, still grinning. Once, she had put it on herself, and it had been too big, slipping down over her eyes. He remembered thinking she looked like the most ridiculous, wonderful creature he had ever seen.
On rainy days, they would share her umbrella. It was dark purple with a broken spoke that made it droop on one side. Nathan had to stoop to fit under it, and Uzi would tell him he was too tall for his own good. He would hold the handle over both of them, and she would walk close, her shoulder brushing his arm. Once, a car drove through a puddle and splashed them both. Uzi had shrieked, then thrown her head back and laughed so hard she had to hold onto his sleeve. Nathan had stood there soaked and grinning, because her laugh was the brightest sound on the greyest day.
Then there were the quieter moments. After school, they would sit on the steps of the old library, and she would read him her stories. Uzi wanted to be a writer. Her stories were dark and strange and full of monsters that turned out to be kinder than the heroes. Nathan had loved them. He would sketch in the margins of her notebook while she read. A dark queen with a crown of thorns. A golden knight who never drew his sword. A little robot with too many eyes and a heart too big for its chest. She had called him her illustrator. He had never felt more important.
They had even planned to make a comic together. The Dark Queen and the Golden Knight, she had called it. He still had the first few pages in a folder under his bed, the paper gone soft with age.
Uzi never liked big birthday parties. The year they turned thirteen, she had told him not to get her anything. He got her something anyway: a hand-drawn cover for their comic, The Dark Queen and the Golden Knight, with the queen holding a tiny golden sword. She had looked at it for a long time, then punched him in the arm and said it was stupid. The next day she brought him a small, cheap keychain shaped like a little bat. He still had it somewhere in a drawer, too rusted to use.
She had a habit of stealing his eraser and making him trade it back for a sentence of her latest story. He would hand over a pencil sharpener or a stick of gum, and she would read him one paragraph at a time. They made a game of it. The stories were always dark, but she had a way of writing moonlight into them, and he always told her so. She said he was the only one who noticed.
The words on her headstone came into sharp focus in his vision: Age 15.
That was all it took to break him out of his reverie, as long-locked feelings of grief and loss overwhelmed him, nearly blowing him off his feet, his next breath coming out sharp and pained.
He turned immediately, his small smile that had come from the memories suddenly vanishing as he ran, and ran, and nearly stumbled down the hill as his eyes felt as though they would spill into a lake of water around his face.
The cold wind made the tears sting harder.
He could not bear it. He had grown, matured, in so many ways. He was not as sensitive as he used to be, but he could not handle things he thought he would never think of again flooding back into his mind. He exited the graveyard as quickly as possible, not looking back.
Over the following days, Nathan was not himself. His friends noticed. Lizzy texted him, asking if he was okay, but he sent back a quick "fine" and nothing else. He stayed inside, staring at his old sketchbook. It was filled with drawings of a girl with dark purple hair and a white scarf. He had drawn her dozens of times when he was fifteen, each one a little better than the last. He had hidden the sketchbook under his bed years ago, but now it lay open on his lap, and he could not close it.
The memories came in waves. Some were warm. Uzi laughing at something ridiculous he had said. Uzi throwing a snowball at the back of his head and running away. Uzi standing on a desk in the lunchroom, declaring that anyone who picked on Nathan would have to answer to her. He had been so embarrassed then, his face hot, but now he smiled at the memory. She had always been so fierce.
He thought about their walks home. At first, he had been too nervous to speak. Uzi had filled the silence with chatter about the books she was reading, the music she loved, the way she wanted to be a writer someday. He had listened, sometimes nodding, sometimes laughing. After a while, he started to talk too. He told her about his drawings, his love of old movies, the way he sometimes felt like a ghost in his own life. She had looked at him then, not with pity, but with a kind of quiet understanding.
"You are not a ghost," she had said. "You are just too bright for most people to see."
He had never forgotten that.
Then there were the heavier memories. The Valentine's Day he never got to give her.
When Nathan was fifteen, he lived with his Aunt Tessa. Tessa was a warm, bright woman who had moved over from Australia years ago, and she had never lost the accent or the spirit. She had a loud laugh and a habit of baking too many cookies on Sunday afternoons. She liked Uzi. She had met her once when Uzi came to the door to walk with Nathan to the library, and afterward Tessa had whispered, "That girl has fire in her, and I reckon she's sweet on you, mate." Nathan had turned red and hidden in his room.
The week before Valentine's Day, Nathan had come home from school with a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket. On it was a list of gift ideas. He had tried to sneak past Tessa, but she had caught his arm.
"What's that, darl?" she asked, looking up from a tray of lamingtons.
He had mumbled something about homework. Tessa had raised an eyebrow.
"Nathan, you are the worst liar I have ever met. Show us."
He had handed her the list. Tessa read it, then smiled so wide her eyes crinkled.
"Crikey, you're sweet on the Doorman girl? Good onya, mate."
He had nodded, his face burning. Tessa had pulled him into a hug.
"Right then, we've got work to do. You got any dosh saved up?"
"A little."
"Too right. Let's hit the shops before they shut. We'll find something bang on."
She had helped him pick out a card. The shop had been small and cluttered, run by an old man named Mr. Alder who was always about to close. Nathan had looked at every card he could afford, and Tessa had stood by patiently, pointing out which ones looked too generic.
"Nah, too flash," she said, picking up a red one with glitter. "She's not a flashy sort. She's got a bit of dark about her, but not too dark. That purple one over there, that's the one."
Nathan had found it. The card was deep purple with a white circle in the middle, and inside the circle a boy and a girl were walking hand in hand into the distance, together. It was perfect. Uzi loved purple.
He had also bought a small box of chocolates with the last of his allowance. Tessa had offered to pay, but Nathan had refused. He wanted it to come from him.
"Good onya," Tessa said. "She'll be rapt."
On the way home, Tessa had stopped at a fabric shop and bought a length of white ribbon.
"For the box," she said. "It'll look more personal, don't you reckon?"
That night, Nathan had sat at the kitchen table and written in the card. He wrote about how much their walks home meant to him, how he had never met anyone like her, how she made him feel like he was more than just a quiet boy in the back of the classroom. Then he paused, chewing on the end of his pen, and added a poem.
You are the dark light of my life,
The moon that cuts through all my strife.
You storm in like a violet flame
And chase away my fear and shame.
You call me golden, call me bright,
But you're the one who brought the light.
A dark queen with a crown of thorns,
You keep me safe through all the storms.
I'd follow you through haunted halls,
Through crumbling towers, shadowed walls.
You're my beginning and my end,
My dearest, fiercest, truest friend.
He signed it carefully. Tessa had read over his shoulder, her hand resting on his shoulder.
"Crikey, darl, she's going to melt."
Nathan had just smiled, his face warm, and folded the card carefully before sliding it into the envelope.
She had helped him tie the ribbon around the chocolates, her fingers gentle and sure.
"Now, my mum taught me how to tie a bow when I was knee-high to a grasshopper," she said. "There we go. She'll cry happy tears, I bet."
Then she had kissed the top of his head and sent him to bed.
The next morning, Valentine's Day, Nathan had woken before his alarm. He dressed quickly, put the card and chocolates in his bag, and cradled the bag in his arms all day. He barely ate lunch. He kept looking toward the school entrance, waiting for Uzi. But she never came.
After school, he walked the same route they always took. He stood outside her house, holding the gift. The little white fence was overgrown, and the garden looked as if it had not been touched in weeks. He thought about knocking. He even took a step forward. But fear stopped him. What if she did not feel the same way? What if she laughed? He turned and went home.
For the next two days, he walked that route again. Each time he stopped at the fence, and each time he could not make himself go up to the door. On the third day, he asked a teacher where Uzi was. The teacher, a tired man named Mr. Randall, told him that Uzi had come down with a bad fever and was very ill. She could be off for weeks.
That news changed something in Nathan. He would go to her house, he decided. He would knock, and he would give her the gift, and he would tell her how he felt. He walked there that afternoon, but no one answered. He knocked again and again, and the house stayed silent. The next day he did the same, and again no one came.
It was Saturday. Five days since he had last seen Uzi. Nathan walked to her house with the chocolates and card in his bag. The sky had clouded over, and the street seemed darker than it should be. As he approached, he saw that the front door was open. Just a little. A sliver of darkness.
He stopped at the garden gate. His heart was pounding, but not with excitement anymore. Something felt wrong. The house had seemed so empty every other day, but now the open door felt like a wound. He thought about leaving. He thought about running home and pretending he had never seen it. But then he thought of Uzi. If she was sick, if she was hurt, maybe she needed him.
He pushed open the gate and walked up the path. The weeds brushed against his ankles. He reached the door and knocked. No answer. He called out, "Hello? Uzi? Mr. Doorman?" The only sound was a faint, rhythmic thudding from somewhere upstairs. It was not violent. It was soft, almost like a heartbeat.
He stepped inside.
The house was dark and warm, as if the heat had been left on for days. The air smelled stale and sweet, like flowers left too long in water. Nathan moved down the hallway, his footsteps echoing. He checked the living room, the kitchen. The kitchen smelled of rotting food. The thudding grew a little louder.
He climbed the narrow stairs. The landing curved to the left. The thudding stopped as he reached the top. Nathan stood still, listening. There were three doors and a bathroom. The bathroom was empty. The first bedroom was neat and bare. The second door was closed.
He knocked on it. "Hello?" No answer. He tried the handle. The door opened a few inches, then stopped. Something was blocking it. He pushed a little harder, and it bumped against something soft and heavy. He peered through the gap.
At first he saw only the bottom of a pale foot, then the leg of dark trousers. He followed the shape up and saw a face. It was Uzi's father, Khan. His skin was grey, his eyes closed, his head tilted at an angle. He looked dead.
Nathan's stomach dropped. He stumbled back a step. But then he saw something that made his breath catch. The face did not stay still. It turned, slowly, as if waking from a long sleep. The eyes opened. They were clouded, but not with anger. They looked at Nathan, and in them was a soft, immeasurable sadness.
Khan's head rose, not with a jerk, but gently, until it was level with Nathan's. Tears welled in those dead eyes and spilled down his grey cheeks. He looked at Nathan not with blame, not with rage, but with a grief so deep it seemed to fill the hallway. His lips moved, but no sound came out, or maybe Nathan could not hear it over the quiet. He seemed to be trying to say something, but all Nathan could see was sorrow.
Nathan did not run. He could not. He stood there, frozen, staring into the face of a man who should have been dead but was not. The tears on Khan's face were real, warm and wet, and Nathan felt something rise in his chest, something between terror and a sorrow he could not name. He did not know what Khan had done, or what had happened in this house, but in that moment he saw only a man lost in grief, and it shook him to his core.
The door slowly closed, or maybe Nathan closed it. He was not sure. The next thing he knew, he was outside, gasping in the cold air, his legs shaking. The card was still in his coat pocket. The chocolates were gone. He did not go back for them.
The police came later. They found Uzi in the cellar. Her wrists had been tied to a radiator. She had been strangled. Khan's body was found upstairs, slumped behind the bedroom door. The rope he had used had snapped after a few days of hanging. The police said he had lost his job a couple of weeks earlier. The bills had piled up. The pressure of caring for his daughter alone had crushed him. He had decided, in some broken moment, to end them both so they could join his wife. Uzi's mother. The date of her death was recorded as the 15th of February.
When Nathan learned the truth, he remembered those tears on Khan's face and finally understood what they meant.
Nathan learned later that she had been alive the day he stood outside her house with the gift. She had been in that cellar, tied and frightened, while he stood on the path, too afraid to knock. That knowledge was worse than any ghost. It stayed with him for years, buried under schoolwork and distractions and the slow work of growing up. But it never truly left.
Aunt Tessa had held him after the funeral. She had not said "I told you so" or "It will be okay." She had just held him and let him cry.
"Aw, sweetheart. I'm so sorry. I've got ya, mate. I've got ya."
She had kept the card he never gave. She had found it in his coat pocket that night, still sealed. She had kept it safe for him. When he was older, she had given it to him in a small box, along with the white ribbon. He had never opened the card. He had never thrown it away.
Now, at twenty-eight, standing at the gate of the old graveyard after his first accidental visit, Nathan could not stop thinking about that card. It was still in his apartment, in a small box under his bed. He had kept it all these years, along with the white ribbon. The chocolates were long gone, but the card remained.
On the morning of the 14th of February, Nathan walked to the graveyard with purpose. He stopped at a little newsagents and bought a box of chocolates. He had the card and the white ribbon in his coat pocket. The air was cold, but the sun was beginning to rise, and the light turned the stones a soft gold.
He entered the cemetery and climbed the hill. He found the black headstone under the sycamore tree. The purple vase was still there, a little more weathered. He knelt in the grass. He took the ribbon and tied it carefully around the box of chocolates. He placed the box and the card against the headstone.
Then he spoke. He did not plan to. He had never been good with words out loud, but they came anyway.
"I am sorry I did not knock," he whispered. "I am sorry I was too scared. I think about you every day, Uzi. I still walk the route home. I still hear your laugh. I still remember the way you told me I was not a ghost. You were wrong, by the way. I have been a ghost for a long time. But maybe not anymore."
He closed his eyes. The wind stirred the branches of the sycamore, and the leaves rustled like a sigh. And then he felt it. A warmth, soft and gentle, like a hand resting on his shoulder. It was not frightening. It was the same feeling he had when she hugged him all those years ago. He opened his eyes.
The graveyard was empty. But the air felt full. He could smell something faint and sweet, like the perfume Uzi used to wear, or maybe just the winter flowers from a nearby grave. He did not try to explain it. He did not need to.
He stood and touched the headstone once.
"Goodbye, Uzi," he said. But it did not feel like goodbye. It felt like thank you.
He walked down the hill toward the gate. At the bottom, he turned to look back. There, beside the grave, stood a blurry figure. A girl in a purple winter trenchcoat and a white scarf. Her dark hair was pushed back from her face, and she was smiling. Nathan's breath caught. She raised her hand and waved slowly. Then she disappeared behind the headstone.
He did not run back. He did not need to. He waved back, his hand trembling, his face wet with tears, but his smile wide. He walked home with a lightness he had not felt in years. The world felt bigger and softer and full of strange, quiet wonders.
When he got home, he called Tessa. She answered on the second ring.
"G'day, darl. You sound different. Good different."
"I think I saw her, Aunt Tess," Nathan said quietly.
There was a long pause. Then Tessa said, "I believe ya, sweetheart. Some things you just know."
Nathan smiled. "Yeah. I think I do now."
From that day on, Nathan was not afraid of ghosts. He knew now that death was not the end. It was just a different kind of walking. And whenever he found himself alone on a quiet stretch of road in Avington, he would smile and listen for the sound of footsteps beside his own. He knew Uzi was still walking with him, and she always would be.