Page 10 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope
Bythings,I mean the people I wanted.
Silence falls around us and I stare out across the river—the small waves are the only soft noise that grounds me in the moment.
I flinch as Ophelia brushes her hand across my cheek, the warmth and care very much present. My eyes find hers and I fight the urge to lean into her palm. She smiles weakly at me.
“Who says death is the end of us? We’re here for a reason, are we not? You are still as much alive in spirit as you ever were.” Her lips remain parted just enough to make my throat dry.
“What reasons? I can’t seem to find mine. Why am I still here?” I mutter as my gaze returns to the dark water behind her. It laps against the ground with fervor, starved for lost souls.
She shrugs. “We all have reasons, Lanston. Ones that we need to uncover ourselves.” Ophelia looks into the distance and starts walking toward the shadows of the bridge.
“Ophelia,” I say her name with such utter tenderness. She stops and looks over her shoulder at me, her cheeks rosy, waiting for me to speak. “How did you die?”
Her green eyes are somber. The memory must be like a knife in her heart.
She turns her head before answering me—the warm light of the streetlamps above halo her head as she murmurs, “I was murdered.” She pauses and clenches her fists at her sides with anger for herself and her fate, I’m sure, just as I’m enraged on her behalf. “You?”
She was murdered.
My first thought is,why? Who?
Who could possibly touch a hair on this enthralling woman’s head? No wonder she’s guarded, a bit callous. Have I not become those things too? Warded within my own mind and heart… Because life was stolen from me. Friends. Love.
But it was never meant to be mine. That life, as short and lovely and sad as it was. It was never mine.
I was never going to have the things I craved most.
And somehow, I think that might be what’s truly keeping me here. The not knowing. I died, not even knowing what I truly wanted. Do any of us actually know? My desires and enjoyments change year to year. What I find fulfilling and meaningful alters after time. I yearn for the answer.What was I meant for?
“I was murdered too,” I whisper. It sounds so wrong sliding from between my lips. Is it really the first time I’ve spoken of how I died out loud? The cruelness of it is unfair. Both of us have been left behind while the world remains awake.
Ophelia turns to face me with a look of anguish.
“You?”
I give her a crooked smirk. “Me.”
She stares at me for a while, mournful. Many questions flicker across her expression. I have many of my own as well. But neither of us seem able to ask.
“I’m sorry, Lanston. You seem like a man who still had so much to give.” She starts to walk back toward the shadows of the bridge and my legs instinctively follow.
“You do too, I was hoping?—”
“Stop,” she cuts me off, continuing to walk steadily, but my steps falter. “I don’t do the afterlife with others. It was nice meeting you, but this is where our joining ends.”
That must be one of her walls. I’m surprised I even made it this far.
“Doesn’t that get lonely?” I call after her, shoving my hands into my coat pockets to keep myself in control.
She struts confidently ahead, fisting her small hands at her sides and I can’t help but smile at her resolve.
“Heartachingly so,” she admits on a pained half-laugh. “But I never get hurt this way.” There’s a sad truth to her words. To choose to be lonely rather than opening yourself up to others.
I know that pain.
I’m about to say that’s a tragic way to exist but in my next breath, all the lights around us are snuffed out and a chill unfurls in the air. Pitch black consumes everything except me and Ophelia. Terror slips inside my veins.
What is this?It’s freezing and dark. For the first time since entering the realm of phantoms, I’m afraid.
