Bone Black, Zing, Dove Grey

[auguris]

Name: auguris
Story: Ghost Sight
Colors: Bone Black 5: Grave; Zing 7. You remind me of when I was young and stupid; Dove Grey 3. To live in hearts we leave behind / Is not to die.
Supplies and Styles: n/a
Word Count: 2600
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing. Discussion of parental death. Mentions of a made-up religion.
Note: Mods, can I get tags for author: auguris and story: ghost sight? Thanks!

Aside from the staff, The Lady's Sacred Memorial of Krixos was usually empty after sunset. Old superstitions clung to even the most erudite of wizards, but Mitchell knew better. Ghosts didn't disturb their own graves.

The place didn't look like much from the outside -- a two story brick building not much larger than the average house, the few windows tinted to hide any inhabitants. Short green grass lined the single stone walkway to the door. The building was hard to find even if you knew where to look -- spellwork, subtler than Mitchell would ever be able to manage, kept a person from looking directly at the building for too long.

Inside it could have been a hotel lobby. A number of chairs lined the walls, interrupted by coat racks and potted plants. The desk warden barely looked up from her magazine, recognizing Mitchell as one of her own in a glance. She looked up again as he walked past, squinting. He looked back, eyebrows raised. He didn't recognize her, but his face had been in the paper once or twice. She muttered an apology and shook her head, returning to her reading.

The elevator was bright and sterile -- it reminded him of a hospital. The elevator buttons had letters instead of numbers. The first time he'd visited, Tam had told him that there wasn't actually a floor for each letter. When a person chose their letter, the elevator read them and brought them to correct chamber. The buttons were simply there to help the wizard focus.

Instead of pressing 'P', he held his hand over the panel and thought of his mother. The working passed over him like a caress, drawing out impressions: wheat colored hair, sky blue eyes, smiling down at him, lips moving, cotton scratching his face, arms around him.

He smiled when the elevator began to move.

He stepped directly into his mother's chamber. He figured the chambers were somehow rotated, or the elevator itself rotated -- or it somehow defied the laws of magic and physics and moved around freely through the building.

The doors slid shut behind him, removing the main light source. The walls were the same slick metal as the elevator, dark as obsidian. Ever-burning candles sat on each table of remembrances, concentrated on the floor-to-ceiling glass case at the far end of the room. Benches lined the walls, one sitting in front of the glass case.

Moira Pathing had been well-liked and well-known; remembrance tables littered the room, creating a haphazard path to the other side. He touched each table as he passed, fingers passing over trinkets, jewelry, photos. He had memorized each item, knew the feel of every ring and bauble, the face in every photo. For a few years after her death, new items had shown up regularly -- but that had tapered off, and now the room was as static as she was.

The glass was opaque. A voice in the back of his head said to leave it that way -- they same voice that had told him to run all those years ago; run away so you won't know, so you won't see, so you won't have to send her away.

So you won't have to face it.

Mitchell murmured nonsense, focus words that meant nothing, and the glass cleared. She looked the same, of course -- she always would. Long after he or Tam or anyone else who knew her was gone, long after she was even a memory, just a name in the records. Long after she was important in any particular way. Lady willing there would never be another Cleansing, and what was left of Moira Pathing would remain her until the end of time.

She was dressed in blue-trimmed black robes, cinched at the waist. Her hair had been tied -- he couldn't see but knew that a long braid lay down her back. Her head was bowed and her hands were clasped at her waist, as if she were ever praying to the Lady of the Lake. Ironic, as she hadn't been particularly religious in life.

There was something in the case. Something that didn't belong, near her face -- candlelight reflected off it, barely noticeable. He leaned forward, hands against the glass. Something in front of her eyes -- no, her eyes were open, they weren't supposed to be open, and her head snapped foreword to look at him. He lurched back with a cry. His thighs hitting the bench, throwing his balance, and he fell into it. Her eyes followed him, glowing in the candlelight--

When elevator chimed he whipped his head around in time for the opening doors to reveal -- Broker. Of course Broker. Perfect.

Mitchell turned back -- she wasn't looking at him anymore. Head bowed, eyes closed -- at least no glimmering reflection, not that he could see. He struggled to breath normally -- he sure as hells didn't want to explain to Broker why he sounded like he's just run a marathon. Or, well, in his case, taken the stairs too fast.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Mitchell didn't bother looking at the other man. "Why are you here?"

"If my mother was haunting my childhood home, I'd be at her grave, too."

Mitchell rubbed his face. Of course Broker knew; he had been at the house more than long enough to sense her, even if she refused to manifest. "Does Tam know?"

Broker hesitated before saying, "I haven't told her. But your sister isn't stupid, Mitch. If she hasn't figured it out by now, she will eventually."

He was loathe to agree; he was surprised Tam hadn't seen her at all. She didn't have the Sight, but it was their mother. "Whatever. I meant why are you looking for me? What do you want?"

Broker leaned against back of the bench. "I figured you could use some advice."

Mitchell laughed. "Why in the six hells would I want your advice?"

"I don't know, maybe because I'm the only other Seer in country and, again, your mother is haunting your house?"

Mitchell slapped his thighs. "Tell you what: you give me your advice, and I'll do the exact opposite of what you say."

"Emeris you are such a little prick," Broker muttered. "We shouldn't be fighting like this. We should be working together. There aren't that many of us, kid."

"I don't need your kind of help. And I left 'kid' behind years ago."

Broker snorted. "Sure you did. Adults know how to be polite to people they disagree with."

Now Mitchell did look at Broker, eyes raised. "Which adults would these be?"

Broker shook his head, chuckling. "Fair enough." He let out a breath. "Lady, you remind me of me. When I was young and stupid."

"And now you're old and stupid?"

Broker sighed. "Older. Less stupid. Maybe not less stupid enough." He came around the bench to sit next to Mitchell. "Look. You don't like me and you don't like the way I operate. Fine. But I've been doing this longer than you have, and it's maybe sort of slightly possible that I might have some useful experience under my hat. I haven't spent the last twenty years with my thumb up my ass, despite what you want to think. And as incredibly brilliant as you obviously are, this is your mother we're talking about, so there is the minute possibility that you're a little too close to the situation and not thinking rationally. So maybe -- what are you doing?"

Mitchell shook his hands as if they were wet and he couldn't find a towel. "Trying to get the sarcasm off."

Broker threw up his hands. "I find it incredible that you've survived this long."

Mitchell rested his hands on his knees, looking up at his mother's body. "I-- fine," he sighed. "Just say what you have to say."

"You have to let her go."

Mitchell set his jaw. He wanted to argue, pointlessly, until Broker left. "I can't."

"Of course you can. You just don't want to." Broker put up his hands. "I get it. She's your mother and she's gone and she's never going to be not gone. You don't want that world, the one where your mother is dead. But you don't have a choice in the matter, Pathing. She's dead, and you're sitting here doing the worst thing the living can do to the dead."

"Keeping her here," Mitchell murmured.

"You know better than that. It's worse when we do it. What we are, what we can do -- you know what Seers used to be called? I mean way back, before the Cleansing?"

Mitchell sighed. "Deathlords. I know. I don't need a basic fucking lesson--"

"Clearly you do, because you're making a pretty basic fucking mistake. You've seen first hand what happens to the dead that become trapped here, in some inbetween vague existence. You know the harm caused to them, and to the people around them, and to the area itself. You ever been to a deadspot?" Mitchell shook his head. "It's aptly named. They're little pieces of the world that just don't fit right anymore. Nothing grows right, if anything grows at all. The room or the building falls into a sort of static decay -- like it's in the middle of falling apart but never quite gets there."

"Like the ghost."

"Pretty much, yeah. You know there's an entire neighborhood, way up north? Little town called Balsen. My master brought me there, early on in my training. I didn't sleep for a week -- an actual, literal week. He wanted to make sure I understood what happened when we don't do our duty."

Mitchell dropped his head into his hands. "I know. I know all this, damnit, I know what I need to do, why do you think I left? I thought if I had space to, to accept it I could -- but I couldn't tell Tam, not yet, and she got mad and..." He pressed his palms into his eyes. "She told me not to come back. And I... I used it as an excuse." He was not going to cry in front of Broker. Not for a single second. "I let it go. I told myself she would go away on her own. I told myself I couldn't go back into the house anyway. I let..." He swallowed, but he couldn't keep his voice steady.

Broker sighed. "My sister died when I was fifteen." Mitchell knew he should say something, even to Broker, but he couldn't make his throat work right. "And I kept her here. Not on purpose, obviously, but it happened. I didn't want to send her, but I didn't want to hurt her. I asked my Master to do it."

Mitchell glanced at Broker; the other man was staring at empty air, for once not smiling. Mitchell wiped his eyes. "And?"

"He refused."

Mitchell sat up. "What?"

Broker shook his head. "Yeah. I begged him for days, but he said I had to do it or it wasn't going to get done. He wouldn't even help, just supervise. I thought it was because of my connection to her, you know, I was the one keeping her here and because of what I was I had to send her -- but no. He said it was my responsibility."

"So he's the one who taught you how to be such an asshole."

Broker barked laughter. "It's called tough love. Everyone dies eventually, Mitch. We have to be able to let them go, more so than anyone else. He was ensuring that I wouldn't make the same mistake again."

Mitchell shook his head. "Still sounds like an asshole."

Broker shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. But it wasn't like he pushed me in with a leaky boat. He taught me something pretty important."

Mitchell waited, but Broker just sat there. "You're going to make me ask you to tell me, aren't you?"

"Hey, you called me an asshole."

"You're not doing anything to prove me wrong." Broker only raised his eyebrows. "Lady's sake. Fine. What did your master teach you?"

"Please."

"Please what... oh come on."

"And you called my Master an asshole."

Mitchell rolled his eyes. "Please teach me your Master's clearly invaluable lesson oh wise and venerable Seer who posts videos on his exorcisms on the internet in an obvious sign of respect to his own ego."

Broker laughed. "Venerable's good, I like that."

"Thought it was a nice touch."

Broker shook his head. "All right. He told me that I had to let her death go, but I didn't have to let her life go. It's not the same thing."

Mitchell scrunched his brow. "I don't understand."

"Her life is over. Full stop. But her life still happened, and it will always be a part of you and a part of the world. You can hold onto what you had. But you have to let go of what you don't have. You didn't have her all of a sudden six years ago, and you don't have her now, and you won't have her tomorrow, or six years from now, or ever again. That's what you have to accept. You have to accept your life without her. That's what's keeping her here. You want her to see who you've become. You want her to meet Cagri, to read your column in the Paranormal. You want her advice on how to fix things with your sister." Broker shrugged. "I'm guessing, anyway. That's what I'd want. But you can't have those things. And you have to believe that before you can send her away."

Mitchell clasped his hands over his mouth. "I want you to be wrong."

Broker shrugged. "I figured."

Mitchell looked up at his mother's body. Part of him hated seeing her there -- seeing it there -- on display for the whole world to see. The mundanes had the right of it: burn or bury the dead, leave nothing physical behind. Too much could be done with bodies: a dozen dozen ingredients for workings and potions, encased in glass. If anyone tried to break past the preservation spell without the right unweaving the body would burn up, leaving nothing behind at all. Nothing to use against him or Tam. Nothing to use at all.

Even less to tie her to the world.

But that was the easy way out again, wasn't it? Maybe he wouldn't have to send her away, if her body was gone. If his desire to see her one last time, to say goodbye properly, was the only thing tying her to life, then maybe she would go away on her own.

Maybe he wouldn't have to watch her leave again.

"I might need... Lady fuck it. I might need your help."

He couldn't look at Broker; the other man had every right to say no, even if he wasn't a total asshole to begin with. Hells, he probably would, what with that whole tough love bullshit his Master had pulled. Did Broker think Mitchell needed that lesson, too?

"Okay."

Mitchell let out a breath. "Thank you." Maybe not a total asshole. Still in the asshole range. A pragmatic asshole -- he was living in a haunted house, after all.

"When are you going to do it?"

Oh yeah. Pragmatic asshole all the way. "I need a few days. Three days from now." Three was a good number. He didn't believe there was any power behind numbers, but he did believe there was power behind traditions. If enough people believed the same thing, their belief on its own would give it power. "Right after sunset."

"Okay." Broker clapped his shoulder; Mitchell resisted the urge to shrug him off. "Don't stay down here too long. These rooms are unhealthy."

Mitchell glanced at him. "It's sanitary."

"That's not what I meant." Broker grunted as he stood up. "Take care of yourself, Pathing."

All at once the room felt too big, to empty, too cold. Mitchell kept his eyes on the floor, wishing Broker's footsteps weren't so loud.

He turned just as the elevator door closed. He stared at it, sighed. "You too."

Comments

[isana]

Wow, good first post! I feel really bad for Mitchell, missing his mother after all that time, but Broker's got a point, despite being rough around the edges.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes from here!

[auguris]

Thank you! I wanted to do something a little shorter but apparently this is my 'short' nowadays.