living on the moon

by lumalees

Summary:

You tell a joke about a kid who slept in the soil.

Asriel’s new place might be haunted.

Notes:

deltarune is fun, but playing it as someone who holds undertale so near and dear to my heart has been strange, in no small part because of how odd it’s been to imagine a version of asriel who isn’t defined by his relationship with chara

that being said, I do recognize this is projection on my part. deltarune!asriel isn’t the same person as undertale!asriel, after all

on that note, please be aware that this isn’t really a deltarune fic so much as an “it’s interesting to think about what aspects of undertale aren’t in deltarune” fic (hence the tag “alternate universe”). because of this, there are likely many small details that won’t quite align with the content and timeline of the actual game

finally, please do be mindful of the tags. I don’t know that I would consider this a horror story, exactly, but it is very much a ghost story

Chapter 1: Near Side

The house stood, not alone, but embraced by others very like it on a tree-lined street. Like dollhouses, they were nearly identical in their construction, a nigh-uniform line of two-and-a-half stories of white vinyl and bay windows. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; without, you asked, “And you’re sure that was the right number of zeroes?”

The human nodded with an embarrassing amount of eagerness, head bobbing like a broken puppet.  “If you’re interested, we’d be glad to have you come back to the office so you can sign the paperwork.”

The rent you’d been offered was, you knew, absurdly cheap for a property like this. Most of the shorter-term rentals you’d seen had been asking robber’s prices for what amounted to little more than a furnished side room. This, in comparison, was a house. On the small side, certainly, but in a quiet area, partly furnished, and, perhaps most attractive of all, in possession of a fully fenced backyard and garden.  

Naturally, you were suspicious.

What’s wrong with it? you wanted to ask. But that would be too blunt. You were raised to be softer—to be kind. To not make others feel uncomfortable. Such a thing had only become all the more important since moving to a city with more humans in it than monsters. Some people will have never seen a monster before, your mother had told you once; it’s up to you to give them the best impression of monsterkind you can.  

“Is there anything I should know about this place?” you asked, careful to keep your voice bright, your smile unwavering.

“Everything relevant should be outlined quite clearly in the lease, if you would be interested in coming back with me to look it over.”

That meant ‘yes’, but in such a way that the human was unwilling to elaborate.

And the fact remained that you needed housing now if you were to justify not spending the entire summer at home. Otherwise, it would be, why waste time looking? You can just stay here, can you not?

And so, defeated, you said, “All right.”

 

---

 

There was no need to hire movers, given how little you, a mere college student, actually owned. You had inherited your father’s bulk, and with it, your father’s strength, meaning it wasn’t particularly difficult to bring what few boxes you had in from the rented truck by yourself, although you did have to make more than one trip. But this was a neighborhood, and that meant you had neighbours, whether you liked it or not; neighbours like the elderly human woman, who, upon venturing out onto her step to get her mail, saw you with your boxes and frowned. 

You stopped when you saw her. She may have been frowning, but you knew your duty.  

“Howdy!” you called. Bright, unwavering. “I’d wave, but I kind of have my arms full right now. Looks like we’re going to be neighbours. It’s nice to meet you!”

“You’re moving into number nine?” she asked sharply.

“Sure am!”

“It’s a bad house, you know.”

“Bad? In what way?”

Any number of possibilities came to mind—pests, crime, a slowly sinking foundation. But what she said was, “Something wicked lives there.”

That she looked you in the eye as she said this seemed to suggest that you ought to give her the benefit of the doubt and not necessarily assume she meant you.

And she did appear to be quite old. She had that look older humans tended to have about them—that grey and weathered look, as though by the end of their lifespan they were becoming dust without even first having fallen down. She was probably just confused, you decided, and you had been taught to respect your elders, and so, still smiling, you said, “They would have moved out already, I think. I’m the new tenant.”

She gave you a strange look, then, before turning and muttering something about monsters as she tottered back inside.    

As for you, you took a deep, steadying breath, and resumed carrying your belongings into your new house.

 

---

 

There are houses which can seem to some to be awake or watchful. This was a house that had been slumbering. As a result, you saw no sign at first of the deep, unhappy wrongness that is said to be written in the countenance of some houses. Instead, you saw the narrow living room with the bricked-up fireplace that nonetheless reminded you of home; the kitchen in which you imagined hanging yellow curtains; the bedroom on the second floor from where you could see the mountains, hazy blue against the sky. You were getting ahead of yourself, you knew, already thinking past the summer you’d been promised, but that was easier, wasn’t it, than thinking of the now?

It would be better here, you thought as you lay on the living room floor that evening, exhausted from moving and unpacking. The room was slowly darkening, the things around you gradually losing their outlines and colour, but you couldn’t be bothered to stand and fumble for the lights and so allowed the edges to fade. You may be tired now, but you would be able to breathe here, in time, moreso than you had been able to breathe in student housing, and that would make things easier.

Still. There would be no way to avoid telling your mother, if you stayed past the summer. Your father was easy enough to persuade into keeping secrets, and you didn’t think that Kris would care, but your mother was the type to send care packages, no matter if the holidays were already past. If you ever mentioned feeling cold, she would be bound to send you a hand-knit sweater along with a packet of cookies for good measure. There would be no way to hide your not returning to the dorms, if that was what you did, and once she knew, you would have to give a reason.  

What reason would you have?

Students are only required to live on campus for the first year, you argued in the court of your imagination. What was so wrong with wanting to live off campus after that? It would allow you to focus on your studies; it would allow you to avoid bad influences; it would allow you to…

There were any number of reasons you could offer. None of them were completely wrong. None of them were completely honest.

Summer daylight had a way of lingering even as the shadows crossed the floor. The sun may have been low, but it had not yet fully set, and it occurred to you that in your determination to get settled in as soon as possible, to make the move that much harder to take back, you had not yet taken the time to really see the garden that had been promised you.

You had not been able to make yourself stand up for light, but you could make yourself stand up for flowers. You hauled yourself up off of the floor, rising to make your way towards the back door.

What you saw, when you opened it, was a garden that had been well-cared for, once. The grass had clearly not been cut in quite some time, and the trees stood thick against the evening sky, creating a natural canopy through which light bled. Towards the end of the yard stood an overgrown mass of weeds that had clearly been left to grow wild; there were signs of a flowerbed edged with white stone, but any order to it there may have been once had been lost to wildflowers running riot, casting their shoots in every direction—anemone and thistle, Queen Anne’s lace and buttercups, a scattering of golden flowers.

It was late, and you were tired. But you saw the way the setting sun broke through the leaves and gilded the garden, staining those golden flowers the colour of flame, and thought: how pretty.

Riot though it may have been, it was a lovely riot. A corner, however small, of this dollhouse like any other that had sought to assert itself and found its reward in its ability to bloom even now, after years of presumable neglect.

You returned to the house. When you emerged, it was with a knife taken from the kitchen. You had had no need for gardening tools in the dorms and so owned nothing better. A knife would have to do.

With it, you cut a handful of the largest blossoms. You would leave the garden to its wildness, but you would bring just this one small part of it indoors to keep you company.

And if, upon returning inside, your eyes happened to flicker towards the mirror hanging in the hallway—and if, upon doing so, you thought for the briefest of moments that you may have seen a silhouette other than your own reflected back at you—then, well. It was late, and you were tired. And summer shadows had a way of playing tricks on people, didn’t they?

 

---

 

That night, a knocking broke through your dreams, tearing you from sleep.

You heard it coming not from downstairs, where you might have been able to convince yourself it was coming from the street, but from down the hall, too close to be ignored.

After a few moments of careful listening, you heard it again, but this time, a little closer.

You recalled that the second floor of the house had four rooms—a bathroom and three bedrooms, two of which stood empty—and your sleep-leadened brain helpfully supplied the thought, it doesn’t know where I am.

The knocking came to your door, making you jump. It was a sharp, quick rap, as solid a sound as any made by knuckles on wood, and you could have chosen not to answer, but that is not the choice you made.

Instead, while still in bed and in something like a whisper, you said, “I’m here.”

What was it that made you read the silence that followed as a pause, as though the thing that knocked was listening?

What was it that made you read the silence that came afterwards as mere silence?

Whatever it was, that was how it felt to you—a listening, an acknowledgement, and a departure, as the one that knocked retreated.

You were there, and you would answer. That was all it had wanted to know.

 

---

 

Come morning, you had all but convinced yourself that it had been but a dream. It was a simple enough thing to do. You often dreamt, and you had grown used to folding those dreams away. A restless night couldn’t be allowed to change things.  

The night before, you had placed the golden flowers you had cut in a bowl which you had then set upon a bookshelf in the living room that had seemed positioned in just such a way as to catch the morning light. The shelf had come with the house, but it hadn’t come with books, and you didn’t own very many yourself, only textbooks and a handful of novels. The room had struck you as feeling empty before now, but the presence of the flowers helped, in a lukewarm sort of way.

The house as a whole had an odd sort of empty quality to it. It was as though it didn’t much matter what furniture it held within. It wasn’t that the house was actually empty, but more that it had grown accustomed to its own stillness. Most of the furniture was made of pale wood that seemed to disappear in daylight but drew shadows to it when the hour grew late, and when you moved, your footsteps were near soundless, despite making no particular effort to be quiet. The wilderness of the garden was the only vivid thing on the property. To have brought its flowers indoors was like adding a single splash of muted colour to a canvas, soon to be consumed by the brushstrokes of evening shadow.

Perhaps that is why, when your first sketchbook assignment involved still lifes, you lit upon those flowers.

Upon deciding to draw them, you took the bowl from the living room and into the room you had claimed as your studio. “Studio” was generous; it was little more than a spare room on the second floor with decent lighting and a table and chair you had brought in yourself. But the thought of having a dedicated studio space made you feel just a bit less like you were only playing pretend, and so you stubbornly persisted in thinking of it that way.

The summer heat that found its way into the studio flooded the narrow room with a drowsy sort of warmth. You didn’t mind it; you were prone to distractibility at the best of times, but when it was something you actually wanted to do, like draw, there was very little that could detract from your focus.

In fact, your concentration was such that, as the flowers gradually took shape on the page before you, you almost didn’t notice when that warmth began to fade.

The chill began slowly, creeping forward as you worked. One moment you were absorbed in the rough lines emerging from your pencil; the next, you were thinking, when did my fingers get so stiff?

If it began slowly, the chill sharpened drastically upon your acknowledging of it. Just like that, your fur was standing on end as a brutal wave of cold descended upon the room, and in an instant, it was colder, far colder, than could be accounted for by a malfunctioning air conditioner.

You could feel it pressing against you, barely able to breathe for the weight of it, but even so, you rose, allowing your pencil to slip from your fingers and fall to the floor. The cold that came to greet you was as thick and very nearly solid as a wall of ice, but you forced yourself forward, towards the table upon which you’d set the flowers. You extended a hand and touched a golden petal, half-expecting to see, feel, frost, but somehow, despite the way your teeth were chattering, the petals were still warm.

You took the bowl into your arms and stumbled for the doorway, ignoring, to the best of your ability, the piercing cold that struck you anew with each step. It was so sudden, so violent, that surely you would have been forgiven for abandoning those things that were already dead, but you brought them with you regardless, crossing the barrier of ice into the hall beyond.

In the hall, the cold vanished, but you were still stiff, shaken and breathless.

You turned back towards the studio, half expecting to see some physical sign of what had happened. A carpet of snow, perhaps, or windows edged with frost. But there was nothing, and when you took a tentative step back inside, the drowsy summer warmth had returned.

“That was strange,” you said out loud.

But of course, there was no one you could have been talking to.

 

---

 

There was something odd about the second floor, you decided. Something wrong with the air conditioning, or maybe with the central heating. Whatever was wrong had to be what caused the sound—a rattling or creaking, perhaps, certainly not a knocking—that found its way into your dreams. Whatever was wrong had also, of course, caused the temperature in that room to plummet. If it happened again, you would call someone, but for now, there was a den on the first floor you could use instead. No need to try and make yourself work on a floor so prone to fluctuations.  

You were still foolishly attached to the idea of a studio. It was the child in you, the one who still fantasized about a life that could be illuminated by daydreams alone, where your highest calling was to play and summer meant popsicles in the garden and late-night scary movies with friends. In the real world, you knew well the weight of being someone; in this world, you could be somebody who simply drew and even had a space devoted to that very purpose.

The den was a small room towards the back of the first floor. It was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house—a desk and chair, an empty bookshelf, a long, low table. The furniture was as colourless as everything else in the house, the light that came in through the windows just as pale, but you frankly had no interest in that. Your interest was solely in the flowers you had once again brought with you, this time setting them atop the long, low table along with a book and teacup you had randomly selected as your other objects.

It was summer, but you had put on your thickest sweater all the same.

You were ready that time. While shading, you felt the chill descend like a dark hand passing over the room, but it seemed less violent now. The cold was still bone-deep, but it wasn’t as sharp; less like the piercing of needles, and more like a blanket that bled warmth from you as it settled itself around your shoulders.

You set the pencil down and rose. You could almost imagine that the cold took notice of your doing so, as though it were waiting to see what you’d do next, but you shook your head to clear it of that thought. If the cold were caused by a malfunctioning air conditioner, then it made no sense to think of it as watching you.

But it was, wasn’t? And you knew that even then, didn’t you? Just as the shadows in the corners had been watching you, just as the knock had taken notice of your answer.

You were being foolish, you told yourself. You were being foolish, and you would have to call someone about the air conditioning, but for now, if it was going to be so cold, you would do something to warm yourself up. You would make a hot drink, and that would warm your hands, and that would help you draw the way you wished to.

In the kitchen where you had imagined hanging yellow curtains you found a saucepan. In the cabinet above the sink was a box of hot chocolate mix you had chosen for yourself and had opened only once in the past year. You took the box out of the cabinet, staring down at the familiar red label. For some reason, seeing it made your throat tighten up.

Your hands were shaking. Perhaps it was the cold.

Before you could either open the box or return it to the cabinet, there came a great iron crash as though the house itself were coming down around you. A violent hammering, mindless and insistent, pounded against the walls as if it sought to shatter windows, and you could not help but shout from the sheer surprise of it, arms flying up over your head as if to shield yourself from the blows of an unseen giant.

The noise filled the world, resonating in the hollow spaces of your skull and to the very roots of your teeth—but then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped, leaving you hunched forward, soul-pulse racing.

You made your careful way back towards the den. You crept carefully, knowing without knowing that it would be at the heart of what you had just heard.

Upon reaching the doorway, you peered inside. There, you saw a bookshelf lying on the floor; a chair turned over on its side; fragments of a shattered cup; pages from your sketchbook torn and strewn about the room.

Quick steps brought you forward to where the nearest page was. You bent to pick it up, and it had been marked with a hand other than your own, rough black strokes slashed in a silhouette that should not have been familiar to you. Beside it, on another page; two raw holes for eyes, a smiling mouth.

Your hands did not stop shaking.      

The room was a wreck, and it was still so very cold, and it seemed as though the walls were rattling even now despite the cessation of the noise, a great silent cacophony that seemed to be saying not here, not here, not here.

But even so, the bowl of flowers stood untouched.

 

---

 

That night there came a knocking at your door. That night there came the sound of footsteps walking back and forth, back and forth, the hallway creaking and groaning with every step, as though somebody out there were seeking something, as though somebody were awaiting a response that would let them know that they could stop.

You did not know if there was anything you could have said to make it stop. You did not know what would happen if you tried.

There was the knocking and the knocking and the knocking, along with the creaking and the groaning in the hall, and you slept with your head under your blankets, trying not to know that something out there was waiting for you to answer them once more.

 

---

 

The maintenance worker who came to inspect the air conditioning found no problems, and still that evening you had to wear a sweater when the cold decided to follow you into the living room and rime the windows with ice. You weren’t sleeping, your dreams made too restless by thoughts of the unseen animal presence pacing the halls. You couldn’t look in mirrors without flinching, almost certain you could see an apparition bleeding from the shadows that clung to every corner.

But one way or another, you found your way to the weekend, and on weekends, you called home. That never changed.  

You called your father first. He was the easiest to talk to. He brought with him an air of affected joviality, and all it took to please him was answering with the same.

How were your friends? he wanted to know. What were you doing for fun these days? Have you been doing anything ‘cool’ in the city? Were you happy?

Your friends were great, you lied. You were spending so much time with them. You studied together, went to movies, had parties. But don’t worry, you were being responsible. Of course you were happy.

You called your mother next. She was harder. She cared about you, but worse than that, she trusted you.

You sounded so busy, she said. It must be quite difficult, to have a summer so full of work and study ahead you. It was sad that you could not come home for the entire break, but wonderful that you were so full of plans.

You appreciated that she understood, you lied. It was difficult, but you were happy to be here. You wanted to make everyone back home proud.

You called Kris last. They were the hardest of all.

They only had one question.

When are you coming home?

Soon. You couldn’t wait.

 

---

 

There is an age after which a family breaking can’t hurt you anymore. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say there is a point at which tension at home becomes so familiar as to become something like an old friend. Once you’ve reached that point, the breaking serves as more of a bittersweet relief than a fresh injury.

You were that age. You had long ago reached that point. When you were younger, the raised voices and bruising silences might have been unbearable, but as it was, you had simply woven what distractions you could for you and Kris, and waited for the end.

It was a good thing you had been at that age when everything had happened, because had you not been, what remained of your family might not have survived. Kris was already so vulnerable, your mother already so preoccupied, your father already so…much. Dess was gone, and the grief that hung over the Holidays like a shroud could not contain you too.

It had been necessary that Just Fine be not some distant horizon for you, but a place over the next hill, well within your reach.

People liked you. You liked people. They wanted to believe you, and you wanted to be believed. That made it easy for the truth to be whatever you wanted it to be. As long as you smiled and played your part well, there was no reason to doubt.

You did well in school. You had plenty of friends. You were not the one who needed a therapist. You had not changed, despite what happened. You would not change. You could be the perfect son.

Still, there were any number of ways a truly serious student might be expected to spend their summer break. Volunteering, perhaps. A job or internship. All things the truly dedicated were meant to have been planning for from the moment they first put crayon to paper in kindergarten.

Not included amongst the acceptable possibilities for the ambitions you claimed to have were summer art classes at a college other than the one where you had just completed your first year, but, well, no one needed to know, did they?

It wasn’t that a drawing class was a problem; it was the absence hollowed out around it. Why weren’t you volunteering instead? Why hadn’t you applied for any jobs or internships?

And if someone were to follow that thread—yes, your GPA was fairly high, but had you made any meaningful connections with your professors? What about your fellow students?

It was all very well and good to allude to ambition when it made your mother’s eyes shine with pride, but…how serious were you, really?

Why didn’t you want to come home for the entire summer?

These were questions that you didn’t want to answer.

And so, you didn’t.

You just wanted to be left alone for a bit. Was that so wrong?

When others spoke of you, it often felt to you as though they were speaking of someone other than the self you actually inhabited. They spoke of ■■■■■■, your parent’s son—■■■■■■, a caring brother—■■■■■■, who’d lost a friend. Loved ones and strangers alike drew conclusions you were left to either prove or disprove. You weren’t allowed to be alone; you carried them all with you whether you wanted to or not, dragging the weight of their gazes along with every step.

Even if, in the end, your cowardice won out and you returned to being ■■■■■■ after all—a summer spent away from all of that, in this place that felt more like a playhouse or a secret base than a real house, might at least provide a pocket of comfort in which you could simply lay on the grass and dream. A place where, if only for a little while, you could breathe, without it mattering to anyone whether or not you did.

  

---

 

The night after you called home, there came again the knocking, accompanied by a rattling of…something, a grinding of…something, a noise urgent and great that pushed itself against the walls, overfilling the narrow halls of a house too small to contain both you and whatever was causing it, and you did, for the first time, something that should have been unthinkable.

You sat up in bed and slipped out.

Your footsteps were silent as you went across the room and reached for the doorknob. Your footsteps had always seemed oddly silent in the house.

You reached for the doorknob, and as you put your hand upon it, you felt the room rock and time stop.

You twisted the knob, opening the door, and all at once, the noise stopped.

The hall was cool, but not piercing. Slowly, carefully, you stepped into it, and you felt an urgent parting of the air to welcome you.

You caught a glimpse of motion in the corner of your eye, but when you tried to look closer, there was only darkness blanketing the hall. But that didn’t change that you had seen it, nor that you could feel the restless current of energy enveloping you, pinching and tugging at your nerves, stirring and waiting and whispering.

You padded down the hall and down the stairs. The stairs that led to the second floor stood near the back entrance, the door of which was now rattling on its hinges. It was locked, and so it could not open, but you could only imagine that it trembled and shook so because…

You placed your hand on the knob. In doing so, you caught a glimpse of your own reflection in the door lite. Behind your reflection stood a shadow, vaguely human in shape, and yet you did not feel afraid.   

Isn’t that strange? A normal person ought to have been afraid.

You opened the door and stepped outside. The garden stood empty, but in that emptiness, something moved. It was something unseen, something that chilled the moonlight slipping through the canopy of leaves overhead.

The trees seemed to hold no colour, and neither did the grass, but the flowers on the edge of the yard still did. They held onto their colour so carefully, despite the annihilation of white trying to smother them.

More alive than you.

You approached the flowerbed, stopping when you reached the white stone edging. Your breath was coming hard, but you didn’t know when it had become so laboured. Your arms were wrapped around yourself, as if to shield against a cold you couldn’t really feel, so focused were you on the dark shape before you.  

You could see it more distinctly now, even amongst the shadows cast by the trees. If there were gaps in your ability to perceive whatever it was, they were filled by your memories of the jagged black scars that had been etched across the pages torn from your sketchbook; two raw holes and a smiling mouth, set in a distinctly human-like silhouette, the black edges of which shivered and bled like ink on paper.

You could feel the weight of its gaze like a hammer, but this time, you did not look away.

Perhaps you knew by then that the house you had found yourself in had gone empty long ago. There was no grand gothic history clinging to its walls or flimsy furniture, only this presence, akin to a scavenger picking clean a corpse, and what it wanted had become impossible to ignore.  

It wanted you to wake and know the reason for your waking. It wanted for the unreal cold to follow you from room to room to make it obvious that it could do so. It wanted you to know it saw you.

It was there, and it saw you, and it was asking for you to meet its gaze in turn.

And so you said, “Hello.”

The silhouette flickered, a smear on reality struggling to form.

But as you met that hollow-eyed gaze, it began to settle. And slowly, slowly, the figure grew less hollow than before.

As the shadows leaked away, you began to see a tall, thin figure, with lustreless hair framing a gaunt face and dark eyes sunken deep. It cast no shadow, and when it stepped forward—towards you—no grass bent or rustled.

“Finally,” it said in a rasp of a voice. “I’ve been wondering what it would take to bring you back outside.”

Chapter 2: Far Side

Notes:

it’s going to seem as though a bit of a tone shift has taken place

please remain mindful of the tags

“It won’t hurt the flowers?”

“Just do it.”

You tipped the cup forward, pouring chocolate milk over the soil. You were careful to aim for the roots and not the petals, although you weren’t sure it made much of a difference. It had begun as hot chocolate, but you had let it cool before bringing it outside, meaning it shouldn’t damage the stems; still, you couldn’t imagine it would do them much good, either.

The apparition shuddered, edges shivering and twisting as if from the sheer elation of tasting chocolate.

Even when they weren’t too distracted to be visually coherent, you felt at times as though you were drawing them anew every time you looked at them. The precise cut of their hair and shape of their face often fluctuated, as did the remnants of what might have once been clothing. Yet there were certain constants as well; their eyes, for one, sunken copper buried deep in a face too thin. And then there was their smile; by turns grotesque, merry, and sly, but never faltering.

Once the joy of tasting chocolate seemed to fade, they turned to you with one such a smile. “You don’t have to worry about the flowers,” they said. “They can take it. My demonic power strengthens all that is under my control. I can lend you power as well, if you wished to become strong. But—you must do as I say.”

Their face distorted as they said this, splitting and melting into a vicious mockery of a grin, and you felt a delicious shiver of fear crawl down your back.

It was how they had introduced themselves that night you had first seen them in the moonlit garden; you, breathless, had asked, what are you? and they, seemingly without hesitation, had answered, I’m a demon.

And you, they had added, are now under my thrall. There is no saving you now.

It was nonsense, you had thought at once. You couldn’t have said why you’d thought it so decisively, only that it was just the sort of grandiose and bold nonsense you’d admired as a child.

So grandiose and bold, in fact, that you couldn’t help but want to play along.

All right, you had said, and you hadn’t missed the flicker of surprise that had crossed their face at your response.

“I’m already pretty strong, I think,” you said, setting the cup aside and reaching for the knife you had appropriated for the task at hand. The fact that they spoke nonsense only seemed all the more probable when this, of all things, was what they asked of you. Surely it was strange for a demon to ask for chocolate and a tended garden. “Can you really make me stronger than I am right now?”

“If I chose to.”  

“What would you ask for in return?”

“Your soul, of course.”

“Hmm,” you hummed as you pretended to mull it over. “I probably shouldn’t, then. Souls are pretty important to us monsters.”

“Oh?” Their form crackled like gathering storm clouds as they drew near, but their approach did nothing to change the sweet smell of summer in the air or the sun-warm feeling of soil on your hands. “And you think that is any different than how it is for humans?”

“Well, sure. Have you ever met a monster before?”

They didn’t answer.

“A monster’s soul is the culmination of their being,” you explained as you began clearing space around the small green shoots struggling to push their way through the tangle of dead weeds. “A human might be able to give you their soul, but if I gave you mine, I’d stop existing. And if I did, it wouldn’t really matter how strong I was, you know?”

They were silent for a moment, until finally they said, “I would not take it right away.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“It is a mistake to be so arrogant. You should be afraid of me.”

“Sorry,” you said, not feeling apologetic in the slightest. “You just don’t seem as scary by daylight.”

They seemed annoyed by this, but their form had nonetheless begun to settle, winding itself around an appearance you had privately begun to think of as more them than the other thems you’d seen them flicker through.

“I used to get scared more easily,” you added, surprising even yourself with the confession. “But I grew out of that.”

“You grew, and so you stopped being afraid?”

This time, it was your turn not to answer.

“I see,” they said, smiling wide. “Thank you for this information.”

 

---

 

That night, you were awakened not by a knocking or a rattling, but a slamming. It cut through your dreams, the sound of the bedroom door swinging open and the ensuing rush of wind startling you upright. The door almost seemed to be pulling away from its hinges as the house shook, and never before had the door opened on its own; it was your fault, you realized, your fault, for you had opened the door, for you had let it in, for you—

All at once, a black silhouette was standing over you, looming with its eyes and mouth like bleeding holes in the world. Its weight was crushing you, crushing you, crushing you, and it was all you could do to hold its gaze, your own eyes wide with the shock of waking.

It began to laugh, the sound swelling slowly into a shout, and when the volume of the noise became unbearable, you closed your eyes against it, gritting your teeth and forcing yourself not to pull the blanket up over your head.

But then it stopped. And when you opened your eyes, the silhouette was gone, and the house was still once more.

 

---

 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’ll work on me anymore,” you apologized. “I mean, I know it’s you, now.”

“You were afraid,” they accused.

You had been afraid. But how could you explain? How could you explain that, for all it had frightened you, it had also reminded you of watching horror movies through the gaps in your fingers in the hopes of catching a glimpse of what lurked in the shadows onscreen, thrilling every time you did?

You were again in the garden, working to clear away what was old and dead, despite the exhaustion clawing at you due to your restless night. For you had promised, and you were surprised to find that you had already come to think of them as someone you would not like to break a promise to. Not because the threat of their anger frightened you, but because…

Well. Why?

“Even if you are not as fearful as you should be, you are still weak,” they said. They had taken to affecting a seated posture on a low branch and seemed pleased with the insouciant effect. “And if you are weak. You can be broken.”

You couldn’t help it; you laughed.

Suddenly, their face twisted into a black nightmare as the wind whipped around you, stirring the tall grasses holding you, and then they were no longer on the branch but before you, demanding, “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry,” you managed, forcing down the hysterical peal that had been torn from your chest. “I’m sorry! It’s just…I know that already, duh.”

Why do you think… you almost started. But you stopped yourself.

The wind stilled. Their face once again became theirs, sunken copper gaze meeting your own.

“Why do you know that?” they asked.

And, strangely, you found that you wanted to tell them.

 

---

 

Slowly, the pattern of the days grew and drew themselves around the time you spent in the garden, but that couldn’t be your everything. The first drawing class you had since the night the two of you met, you found yourself wondering if you really ought to go, but of course you eventually did; you had chosen the class for yourself, and however tempting it may have been to cast it aside in favour of this new and shining thing, you were too stubborn to let the class be relegated to the status of mere whim so easily.

So you went. The three hours passed in a haze, and as you were making your way back, you found yourself wishing you could walk across the sky rather than the living world, so mired down it now seem to be with the grey of the mundane.

This—whatever this was—was exactly the kind of thing you’d used to dream of, back when you were younger. It was something unreal, yet small enough that it might be only yours, not something it was your duty to share or give up. You had often wished for something to happen to you as a child; when something finally had, it had broken everything, but this was just the right size. This was only for you.

From the street, the face of the house stood impassive and blank, and what you saw upon crossing the threshold wasn’t much better. It didn’t seem to matter much what belongings of yours had made their way inside; little could survive with its colour intact in a house like this. You didn’t linger. Instead, you cut straight across the living room and headed for the back door.

Even if you had not crossed the sky to get here, the garden was still like some distant planet, the trees that crowded overhead your new sky, the golden flowers your new stars.

As always, you couldn’t see them clearly until you drew close to the flowers themselves. You did, however, see small empty footsteps move across the grass of the lawn beside you as you approached. It made you smile. No grass had bent or rustled on the night you met; for it to do so now would mean they willed it to, so that you might know they walked beside you.

Upon reaching the stone edge the flower bed, they came into focus, resolving themselves. “You’re late,” they accused.

“Sorry.”

“You apologize too much.”

Hardly the words of someone who had, not long ago, accused you of failing to be appropriately cowed by them. But you said nothing.

“I brought the books you asked for,” you said instead, pulling the offerings in question from your messenger bag. “They’re library books, so I’ll have to bring them inside at night in case it rains. The forecast is saying it might.” Sorry, you almost added, but you caught yourself in time.

It had been a long time since you had been so conscious of yourself. You suspected it was because their eyes were on you, now, and they knew nothing of you aside from what you shared with them. You felt as though you were drawing yourself anew for them, as they were drawn anew for you each time you looked, but it wasn’t so very new, really—it was the you you used to be, the you you could have stayed, under different circumstances.

You wanted to be kind for them. You wanted to be curious. You wanted to play along. You wanted, oddly, to be cowed if that was what they asked of you. These were all the patterns of the you that you had drawn as a child, but those patterns had been redrawn many, many times in the years since, clumsily at first but then gradually with a steadier and steadier hand, until finally, your own silhouette had become something you could hardly recognize. But if you peeled all those layers away, there was still a you that lingered, and that was what you wanted them to see.

You placed the books in a patch of thick clover, side by side, where the wind might catch the pages. They made for them hungrily, an eddy opening the volume closest to them, and said, “You wouldn’t have to bring them inside if you stayed out here tonight. Then you would know if it rained.”

They said this so casually you almost couldn’t understand their meaning at first. Then you pictured it; the grass and cool night air arranging itself around you, nothing between you and the cold fire of actual stars as seen through the branches overhead, the nighttime duet of crickets and a rasping voice telling you what they read.

How long had it been since you had last slept outside? When had you stopped?

Why had you stopped?

“All right,” you said, and they lifted their head, another little flicker of surprise crossing their face, and then they lowered it once more, the curtain of their red-brown hair—or at least the memory of it—swinging shut.

 

---

 

That night, you brought a blanket out into the back lawn and spread it beside the flowerbed. “Could you lie on this too, if you wanted to?” you asked.

“I have been going into the house all this time,” they said. “You think I can’t manage a blanket?”

Like liquid, they spilled into shape beside you. They were difficult to see in darkness, even though they relied on it to manifest indoors; you were glad for the glinting hollow of their eyes, that you might know when they looked at you, so you might look back before returning your gaze to the cracks of sky above.

“I thought you wanted me to stay outside so you could read longer,” you remarked. 

“I did. I will.”

“What are those books, anyway? Are they interesting?”

“I would not waste my time reading something uninteresting,” they said, before launching into a description of an author you had never heard of and their treatises on youth, escapism, and urban existentialism.

“How do you know so much about human books if you’re a demon?”

“I know many things.”

“You didn’t know about monster souls.”

They waited a long while before answering, and you wondered, uneasily, if you had said something you ought not to have said. But at last they spoke, saying, “I have not always been a demon.”

Then what were you? you could have asked.

But you didn’t. Instead, you nodded, as though the answer they were willing to give was the only answer you needed, and you asked, “If you know so much, do you know anything about stars?”

“Of course,” they answered, sounding pleased by the question. “Peak visibility would have been in April, but you can see the Spring Triangle from here. First you find the Big Dipper—there, between those branches, and—"

There were many things they could not seem to keep themselves from talking about, you were discovering. Gardening and books, of course, but now stars as well. Their opinions on your drawings, including the more childish scribbles you held onto primarily to ensure no one else would ever see them. Their thoughts on the neighbours you tried having nothing to do with, but which they could always make you laugh about, however guilty it made you feel.

Yet they listened, also, when you told them things. They had even listened when—in that halting way you had when you knew you ought not to be saying something out loud—you had told them why you had really come to the city.

It had been such a long time since you had had anyone you might share those halting thoughts with. Such a long time since you hadn’t had to fear the person you were speaking to might be damaged in some way by hearing it.

You couldn’t have said when you fell asleep that night. But when you awoke in the dew-bright morning, the blanket had been folded over you, and among the flowers, they were reading, quietly.

 

---

 

It hadn’t rained in the night, but the promised rain did eventually come, slanting past the windows and deepening the garden’s green. You entered into the cool haze with a raincoat and umbrella, but when you reached the edge of the garden, you couldn’t see them right away. You were puzzled until you heard a voice say, “I didn’t think you would come.”

“Why wouldn’t I come?” you asked, turning to where they stood. You were surprised to see them unaffected by the rain; you knew it was unlikely they’d get wet, but you had still expected a shift of some sorts. Ripples, perhaps.

“Because it’s raining, idiot.” They said this more bluntly than they usually spoke, but it was becoming less and less uncommon for them to flit away from terse formality. Once, you had elicited a gonna from them that had caused them to withdraw into the bark of a nearby tree, glaring at you from the knots of the wood.

“I don’t mind the rain,” you answered. “And you’re still out here, aren’t you? I thought you might get bored.”

“You would come out into the rain just because of that? You’re strange.”

“I don’t mind the rain.”

“Repeating yourself. Sloppy.”

You laughed, and they smiled. They always smiled, but still. They smiled.

“I just laughed at you,” you pointed out as you knelt, setting your umbrella down so you could place the book you’d brought them underneath. “Shouldn’t you be reminding me that you’re actually scary? Show me your scary face.”

They surged forward, their face a melting ruin, and you yelped, but that yelp soon dissolved into another peal of laughter.

And when their face resettled into something more recognizable a moment later, they were wearing a new kind of smile entirely.

 

---

 

But the next day, you asked an unthinkable question.

You asked, “What will you do when I’m not here?”

You shouldn’t have asked that. The days you were spending in the garden were like the words of a spell you were weaving around the two of you; to ask such a question was to risk breaking the spell and letting the world back in.

“What do you mean?” they asked, and their voice was cool.

But you pressed on. Perhaps there is an age at which people cannot help but press about these things, even when they know that it will hurt. 

“It was raining the other day, so you didn’t expect me to come,” you said, keeping your head low under the guise of checking the moisture of the soil. “And that made me realize that…soon, I won’t be able to come. I’ll be going home. Just for a couple of weeks, but…”

But on the other side of summer stood an unknown future. Your rental had only ever technically been for the short-term; come fall, you had no guarantee that you would be able to stay, even if you wanted to.

You shouldn’t have asked. It was a terrible thing to have asked. Now the canopy of leaves that had once stood so protectively overhead felt broken open and wide. The grass that had felt tall enough to hide within was nothing at all. On the other side of the fence were other people living other lives, and yours was going to dissolve into theirs, for there was nothing holding it together, nothing holding it apart.

“It appears that you have misunderstood,” they said in a tone like ice, and for the first time in a long, long while, the sound of it chilled you, bringing you back to the rime of those early days. “I have never needed you. I have been here for many years, and I will be here many more.”

“Isn’t it lonely, though?”

They laughed, an airy, careless sound. “I don’t get lonely,” they said, their back to you as they drifted through the flowers. “You, on the other hand, have been so desperate for companionship that you have been happily deluding yourself about my true nature.”

“That’s not true.”

“Which part?  Are you about to say you’re not desperate? Or are you so delusional you intend to argue with me about what I really am?”

With something like hurt and something like anger, you said, “I’m not so desperate I’d let myself be tricked.”

It was a kind of compromise; a way of defending yourself while also asserting that you didn’t think them bad.

A way of not denying that, for all you wished to be alone, you still knew that you were lonely.

But then they laughed again, and the sound was unkind. “Because you’re the one who does the tricking, aren’t you?”

You froze, your hands still partly buried in the soil. The stutter of your soul would not allow you to remove them.

In the silence this left, they continued, “You say you’ll be going home, but I cannot understand why you would want to go home in the first place if you were truly as unhappy there as you say.”

“Everyone’s expecting me,” you answered mechanically. “I can’t just…”

“You say you find everyone’s expectations stifling, yet bow to them so readily. I’d call that self-delusion.”

“It’s complicated,” you protested, but even you could hear how feeble a protest it was. “I’ve told you it’s complicated. They…everything back home, it’s…it’s hard, sure, but if I do well, and show them that I’m doing well, then that makes things better for everyone. And—"

“And yet you lie,” they cut you off. They’ve finally turned back to you, fixing their uncanny smear of a grin on you, enormous and inescapable. “If you truly wished to sacrifice yourself to appease others, you’d do it. You choose deceit instead. What you want is to be rewarded without effort. You want to be above consequences. You’re a hypocrite.”

“That’s not true!” you cried. Your hands were still twisting in the dirt, curling into fists, and for the first time, you spoke with genuine heat, glaring at them. “I’ve been putting in a ton of effort! I’m just…I’m just tired—”

“Tired of what?”

“Of everything!” And your hands were still in the dirt, still twisting and curling, curling and twisting, as though without your knowledge, they were trying to grasp at something you could not see, as though they were your roots and you were rooted deep. “That town is so small, I—I couldn’t just keep on reading the same books and playing the same games and having the same conversations over and over and over again! But I, I couldn’t just leave, either, because…because that’s my family, and…and sure, sometimes I wish I still felt the way I used to, like they were all I really needed, but…”

But I don’t, you couldn’t bring yourself to say.

“I didn’t think this would be so boring too!” you cried, and despite the words you couldn’t say, you couldn’t seem to make yourself stop, either, the rant pouring from you in a flood, unceasing and relentless. “I needed to get out, but I don’t care about any of the stuff I’m doing here! And it’s not like anybody ever said I have to, but I wanted to make people happy, and I’ve seen how proud they are—I can’t just say I’ve changed my mind—but I hate it! I hate all the work, I hate all the studying, I hate having to suck up to people, I hate how stupid everyone is—everyone else gets to waste their time like idiots, why do I—"

Suddenly, they were close to you. Too close. You flinched, falling back onto the grass as your hands were torn from the soil.

And even though it was daylight—even though their face was not distorted—you felt a little swimming curl of fear when you saw the way their hollow eyes bore into you.

“I know what’s wrong with you,” they said. “You’re empty inside. Just like me.”  

 

---

 

“I could hear you the other day.”

“Huh?”

It was the sour old woman you had spoken to briefly on the day you had moved in and had been trying not to see again. Her mouth was a grim line as she glared at you from over the hedge as you were coming up the step with a bag of necessary groceries.

You cast your mind about for a reason she might have sought to mention such a thing to you. “I’m sorry,” you settled on. “Were we too loud? I’ll try to—"

“You didn’t have any guests.”

You froze.

That she should be saying anything at all to you was already a violation. That she should be trying to force her way into the memory of a conversation that had taken place in your private world—an unhappy conversation, to be sure, but still within the realm of safety, because you had known, really, that what they’d said was true, and they had known you’d known—it was an intrusion, a breach of the highest order. Surely anyone would think it unacceptable.

“You were talking to it, weren’t you?” she continued as you struggled for the words that you might offer her. “I told you there was something wicked living in that house. You’d best be mindful or it’ll get you too.”

“Too?” you asked despite yourself, and the woman shook her head with a tsk.

“I’ve lived here for a long, long while,” she said. “No one’s stayed in that house for very long. Not since the original owners died. You’d best be mindful, all right.”

 

---

 

That afternoon, you asked your second unthinkable question.

You made the call from inside your studio, a room that had not been disturbed since they had successfully brought you outside. You had no reason to think they might not still know what happened there, given the tenuous influence they had over the rest of the house, but you thought there was a chance they would leave it alone if they thought you to be working.

You had to wait quite some time before a human answered. When they did, you asked, “Did the original owners of this house die?”

“Yes, but with older—"

“Did they die in the house?”

Silence. Breathing on the line.

 “Yes.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“We aren’t required to disclose that kind of information to renters. Furthermore, our records show that you were offered a chance to discuss any concerns you had about the property prior to signing the lease. We would have been happy to discuss its history with you then.” 

“Can you discuss its history with me now?”

“We prefer not to indulge in gossip.”

You ended the call.

 

---

 

That night, you asked your third unthinkable question.

It was accompanied by an even more unthinkable act; going to the house of the woman next door and knocking.

She invited you in upon your asking, clearly too stiff to speak to a visitor on the front step, and you were too well brought-up to refuse. She sullenly offered you tea, which you accepted with a smile for the sake of inconveniencing her, and sipped at while pretending that it didn’t taste like mud.

“I’m no gossip,” she said sternly as she seated herself in a stiff, slippery looking chair. “I’m only telling you because I’m a Good Samaritan, and folks ought to know.”

You nodded, trying to look as though you cared about her sense of righteousness, and she took a long, irritable sip of her own tea before setting the cup down with a click and sigh.

“I knew the original owners of that house,” she said at last. “They lived there maybe… ■■ years ago. A husband and a wife and their ■■■■■.

“I don’t know that many in the neighbourbood would have known about the ■■■■■. ■■■■■ rarely went outside. But I saw ■■■■■, now and then, sitting in the back garden. I asked the wife once, and she said they kept ■■■■■ at home because ■■■■■ was sickly and required special care. She didn’t say much else, though. That’s the kind of family they were. Quiet. Kept to themselves.

“And then one day—it happened quite suddenly, you see—the husband and wife stopped going outside too.

“Some time afterwards, a stench began coming from the house. An awful, awful stench. But no one answered anyone’s knockings, and so the police finally had to break down the door.

“Inside, they found the husband and wife lying around the dinner table in a puddle of their own blood and vomit. Poisoned, apparently. As for the ■■■■■, ■■■■■ was gone. Vanished clean into thin air, near as anyone could tell.

“But the thing is…

“Sometimes, I would see ■■■■■ from my little window on the second floor of this house, and ■■■■■ would suddenly look back at me as if ■■■■■ knew I was there, mouthing something, and ■■■■■ eyes were the most unnatural thing I ever saw.

“The trees are so thick now that I can’t see into the garden anymore. But if no one ever found ■■■■■, then I can’t help but wonder, sometimes, if ■■■■■ might not still be there.

“Those eyes…”

She shuddered, shaking her head.

“Since then, no one who’s stayed in that house has stayed for very long. They always make some excuse to be off within a month or two. I suppose that’s why they’re renting to even monsters now. But don’t think you might be safe just because that ■■■■■ may see you as kin. It takes something truly evil to murder one’s own parents, after all.”

Humans die so easily, you know. It would have taken very little, to kill the woman who sat before you. To snap her neck, to tear out her throat, to force her head under the sink and—

“Thank you,” you said brightly, setting down the tea you’d barely touched. “I appreciate your letting me know. But I should probably get going now; I wouldn’t want to trouble you by staying too late.”

 

---

 

When you returned to the garden, it seemed changed, somehow. The trees that had once seemed so sheltering now loomed possessively overheard, the shadows cast by their branches layering into deeper and deeper thicknesses and blotting out the colours of the garden, swallowing all possibility of sound. Whatever the woman next door had thought she’d heard, it seemed impossible that she could hear you now; this was a world only large enough for two, where no sight or sound could escape.

They were waiting for you among the golden flowers, and upon reaching the flowerbed, you asked your final unthinkable question.

“Hey,” you said. “What are you, really?”

They smiled, the way they always smiled.

“I told you from the very start,” they answered, wind rustling leaves made gilt by sunset. “I’m a demon.”

Perhaps, for a moment, you wondered: could it be true?

But the next, you thought: of course not.

Because what demon asked for chocolate and books? What demon would laugh over your childhood scribbles?

What demon would it hurt so much to imagine leaving or being left by?

Suddenly, it was as though you had never before seen them as clearly as you did in the evening twilight, the shadows they carried on them resolving into details that had previously been too fine for you to understand.

Dirt on their clothing. Bruises on their face. Long limbs, thin and sick.

A demon, they had said.

“I don’t think you are,” you said out loud.  

“Of course I am,” they answered immediately.

“But…”

They laughed, turning on their incorporeal heel so they might stride through the flowers, hands clasped behind their back. Every inch an affectation, a posturing.

You were a liar too. You knew it when you saw it.

“The good die young, but the wicked, the devil takes in his own time,” they recited. It was as though they were old, old words, words that had long ago been impressed upon their memory. “No one ever came for me, though. I had to do it myself.”

It took you a moment to understand.

“It?” you asked. Despite yourself, your voice cracked.

They turned around, beaming.

“It!” they repeated. “And that must make me something else completely, right? Something even the devil doesn’t want. So why not a demon?”

 

---

 

That night, you lay awake not because of any noise within the house, but because of the cacophony within your head.

What had they done?

Why had they done it?

How had they done it?

 

---

 

 

How had they done it?

 

 

 

How had they done it?

 

 

 

How had they done it how had they done it how had they done it how had they done it how had they done it how had they done it how had they

 

 

---

 

 

 

How would you do it?

 

 

 

---

 

 

There were so many ways a human could die, you realized. Like with a knife. Like with your knife. Like with the knife you had been using in the garden all this time.

And you knew a little something about human anatomy, didn’t you? Instead of dust, humans had blood. Blood was pumped throughout their bodies by their circulatory systems, and when something broke their skin, the blood came out. When they lost enough of it, they died.

If they had used a knife, would they have bled?

What would they have had to cut to bleed enough to die?  

Where would they have done it? In the bathtub, to contain the pooling red? In the garden, to feed the wildflowers? Right there in the living room where you had lain on that first night, to—

Who would have found them?

Who would have known?

Monsters were sturdy, in comparison to humans, but all it really took was being cut with an intent to cut. Could you do it to yourself? Could a monster take a knife and cut their own wrists, watching as their own dust scattered and shimmered and faded, until finally they’d lost enough they ceased to be entirely?

It would be difficult. It would be slow. If you ever took it in your head to die, you would need something more decisive than that.

Wouldn’t you?

 

---

 

So how would you do it?

 

 

 

How would you do it?

 

 

 

How would you do it how would you do it how would you do it how would you do it how would you do it how would you do it how

 

---

 

Without a car, you ran errands and went to class by train, and as you stood on the platform of the nearby station, surrounded by the crush of grey-faced strangers while the train pulled screeching in, you thought, oh, of course.

Trains were large. Trains were heavy. You could be reduced to dust in no time at all if you were to fall from the platform when the train pulled in.

And you had oh-so-carefully avoided making any friends in this city; who would care enough to pull you back?

But that was no good, was it? Easy though it may be, that wouldn’t have been how they had done it. And however it had been when they had fallen, you knew it ought to be the same for you.

Blood and dust. Blood and dust.

 

---

 

What did you even do that day? You couldn’t have remembered even if you’d tried. The world seemed more lost to you than usual, yourself even more absent from it. You couldn’t have said how or why you’d left the house, nor what you had done while you were away. You knew you returned by train the same as always, but you did so in a daze, unable to think of anything but how unsuitable a train would be.

The house stood as impassive and implacable as ever as you approached, but when you entered, the living room felt cold in a way you hadn’t known it to be before. You could almost see the outline of your own body on the floor. It was as though you had lain down that first night and had failed to rise without ever realizing it. Perhaps all this time, you yourself have been the one who was unreal.

The parents had been found around the dining table, you recalled. That meant you couldn’t take poison. Such an overlap would be unthinkable.

But then, as you made your usual way towards the back door and stepped into the garden, you thought, oh, of course. The trees, the trees! The tall, beautiful trees, with their lovely low branches and sheltering leaves, so sturdy and strong. They were the walls of your castle, standing nobly against the beasts of the grey wilds beyond. No blood, no dust, no fuss! Only a knot around a branch and a loop around your neck, and then, whether human or monster, it would be ended just the same. What better way than that? And couldn’t you do it? Couldn’t you do it right now? Now, so that the final thing you saw might be the flowers in the dusk? Now, so that—

“Chara.”

 

…

 

…what?

 

“Chara, what are you doing?”

Chapter 3: Void

Notes:

Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. New York, Viking Press, 1959.

Jackson, Shirley. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. New York, Viking Press, 1962.

Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. Translated by Megan Backus. New York, Grove Press, 1993.

“Chara.”

Don’t say that.

“Chara.”

Don’t say that name.

“Chara.”

You are looking at me.

You are looking at me with pained eyes.

What do you see?

Perhaps you see the demon you have always known me to be, however you might have tried to deny it. You were fooled by my superficial resemblance to humanity, perhaps, but—

“I don’t think you’re a demon.”

You don’t think that?

“I already told you I don’t think that.”

…

I wish you hadn’t said that name.

“Isn’t it your name?”

Yes.

But…

Ah.

And now you’re coming closer. And now you’re kneeling in the grass where you have always knelt before, as though nothing has changed, although you’ve brought no garden tools or chocolate or books with you this time. You are empty-handed; you have brought only yourself. And you are looking at me with such expectation in your eyes, as though you are waiting for me to join you.

But you cannot possibly want something like that. Not now.

“I want to understand. I don’t right now, but I want to try.”

There is nothing to understand.

I am a demon.

I have told you that many, many times before.

“What does that even mean, though?”

It means…

It means I should not exist.

“But you do.”

It means I hurt people.

It means you will be hurt by me.

It means I can’t be happy.

Not without hurting others.

You’ve seen that for yourself. 

…

…

…

“Was it…going to make you happy, if I died?”

…

…

…

“Do you…hate me?”

…

…

…

That’s not…

…

…

…

You…

…

…

…

You’re going to leave.

“Huh?”

It isn’t fair that we could only meet now.

“Chara—"

No. Stop.

Why couldn’t we have met sooner? I could have tried to make you laugh, instead of only trying to make you cry. I could have shared my secret chocolate stash with you. I could have shared my favourite books with you. It wouldn’t have been so painful if I hadn’t been alone. But I was, and I always will be, and it’s your fault. It’s your fault for not being here sooner. You left me alone. You will leave me alone. You betrayed me. From the very start, you’ve let me down. I do hate you. I despise you. I—

“Well, shucks, Chara, if that’s all it was, you could have told me, you know?”

…

…

…

‘Shucks?’

“What’s wrong with shucks?”

I am the ■■-year old ghost.

Why do you talk like more of an old person than I do?

“C-Chara!”

Heh.

…

…

…

“But it’s nice hearing you say ghost and not demon.”

…

…

…

“A ghost is probably better, right?”

…

…

…

Ghosts can be wicked too.

…

…

…

I killed my parents, you know.

…

…

…

“…I know.”

…

…

…

They hurt me. So I killed them.

“I know.”

…

…

…

No. That’s not right.

I killed myself first.

Because I could not take it anymore.

But I was still here afterwards.

I could not understand why.

They thought it was a hassle when they found me.

They did not want the hassle.

So they decided, if anyone asked, to pretend I’d run away.

I was just a toy of theirs that broke, after all.

And there was nobody who cared enough to even ask.

Not even the witch next door.

Who knew I lived here.

Who thought I was sickly.

Who had seen me ask for help.

And still did nothing.

I had thought that in breaking their toy for them, I might have the last laugh.

So I was furious when they chose to ignore it.

But I was still here.

And so I took my revenge.

I made them swallow death.

Death from the garden

But I wouldn’t do that to you.

You know that, right?

“I know.”

I wanted you to do it quickly and cleanly.

Not like it was for them.

For you, I…

Well.

I thought perhaps then you would stay.

If you were like me, I mean.

And we could…

…

…

…

It doesn’t matter now.

I was being foolish.

You should leave.

You don’t belong here.

But I do.

…

…

…

“Chara.”

…

…

…

…what?

…

…

…

“If they…if they thought it was a hassle, then…”

…

…

…

“…then what happened to your body?”

 

---

 

 

You dig. You would not leave to find a shovel or a trowel, and so you are digging with your bare claws like an animal in frenzy while I watch.

“There’s something wrong with me,” you’re saying as you do so, as though the actions you’re taking are not already perfect evidence of that. “You were right before. I’m empty inside. I just fill myself up with what other people expect of me, doing anything they say, even when I wish that I was doing something else. But how is that any different than calling yourself a demon just because they say you are?”

It’s very different. From what you’ve told me, you’re quite beloved in your hometown.

“I’m not!” you cry, pausing so you can give me a look of anguish. It’s a ridiculous look. It makes me want to pull on your ears. “Don’t make fun of me, you know I’m not! I’m just pretending to be someone people will like. And that’s basically what you’re doing, isn’t it? It’s just that with you, people wanted...”

A demon?

“Well, yeah! They wanted to blame you for all the bad stuff they did, so they said it was you who caused it, and you went along with it, and—and that’s the same, is my point! We’re the same. Aren’t we?”

You’re either being awfully generous or awfully self-deprecating.

“We’re the same,” you repeat, like the stubborn idiot you are. “And if we’re the same, then…then I don’t want to say goodbye, because when am I ever going to find someone else who gets it again? I know it’s selfish, but—but it’s going to suck at home! I don’t have any real friends there anymore, and my dad’s going to make everything awkward, and my mom’s going to make me feel guilty, and I won’t have any idea what to say to Kris—"

You could tell them you moved into a haunted house. I imagine that might at least be distracting.

You stop digging. Your expression turns thoughtful, as though you’re genuinely considering it.  

“Maybe,” you say after a moment. “But…”

But you don’t want to share your ghost?

“I didn’t say that.”

You like feeling special.

You can’t hide that from me.

“I feel like I can’t hide anything from you,” you say wryly. “I didn’t realize you could get into my head like that.”

You should be more careful. There’s quite a lot of empty space in there.

“Chara!”

Heh.

It’s strange, though. I hadn’t realized even someone raised with love could feel they don’t belong.

We really are all just inching our way along steep cliffs in the dark. And then one sees the moonlight—

“What?”

Nothing.

Somewhere in the flowerbed lies my bones, held fast by the earth, cradled by roots. How far down do you have to dig, I wonder? How far down would they have thought to bury their secret?

I don’t know the answer, myself. I can feel that something draws me here, but I am as much in the flowers and the air as I am in the earth these days.

Still. When I see how intent your focus is, I find that I almost wouldn’t mind if you never found it, even if it meant your digging here forever. I got so tired of always tracing the same patterns, but…it doesn’t feel as suffocating, to imagine doing so with company.  

That was the worst part, you know. I despised the humans who tried to live here without seeing me, but…I still wanted them to see me.

“I know,” you say. “I know.”

I know you do.

Because even before you looked, you answered me.

No one else has ever done that before.

Only somebody who understood would do that.

How awful, I can feel you thinking as your claws sink into the dirt again and again and again. How awful, to be bound so to soil.

Ah. You’ve stopped.

“I think I’ve found it,” you say.

A moment later, you’re holding in your hands a piece of bone. I know without knowing how that it must be one of mine. I can feel the tether between us; it pulls me to it, draws me in.

You don’t appear at all horrified by your discovery. You simply hold the fragment up to the dying light as though expecting it to glimmer, rotating it as you examine it.

Isn’t that strange? A normal person ought to have been afraid.

“When monsters die, their dust is scattered on their belongings so they can take on their essence,” you say.

I know. You will not leave behind any bones yourself, but you will still exist as something beyond rot, even as the years continue spinning on without you.

“Humans don’t have dust, but they do have blood. That’s your dust. So if you were buried here, and I can only see and talk to you properly here, then maybe it’s because your essence—your dust—is here. Maybe it’s in your bones?”

An interesting theory.

“If your essence hasn’t disappeared, then I can move it, right?”

Excuse me?

Your eyes have taken on an odd gleam. It’s almost alien in that soft face of yours, but—perhaps not so alien for one who carries as much hidden bitterness in them as you do. It’s the gleam of something hungry, fixed on the white fragment in your hands.  

“Even just this piece might be enough,” you say. “We can test it. I could find something safe to carry it around in to make sure I don’t lose it—a box or a satchel or a locket or something—and if it works, then you could come home with me. We could go anywhere together.”

You tear your eyes away from the fragment to look at me, gleam of hunger vanished in favour of a newly troubled expression.  

“Only if you want to, though,” you say. “It’s just…if it works, then it doesn’t have to end. You know?”

And then, almost shyly: “Even living in the dorms again might not be so bad with you.”

Even though we’ve come to be standing side by side, even though we may yet grow closer to each other than anyone else in the world, even though we contain within us the potential to be friends forever, we can’t join hands.

But you still yelp and fall backwards, caught in a sudden movement of air and sound so solid that you stagger and feel yourself be held.

And then you start to laugh, for you know that to be my answer.

 

---

 

You and I are dead things.

That cannot change.

Still.

Despite everything.

This, I have come to believe: 

We’ll be together forever, won’t we?

Asriel.