Ain't got no body

It had been raining so much Melisande had stopped noticing it. The fact that water was her natural habitat probably helped with that- it had never really bothered her in the first place to be pelted by the rain on a daily basis, just reminded her of stormy nights with the clan.

However when the rain stopped, she noticed. For a few brief shining hours Melisande hoped she might get to sing again soon- perhaps even tomorrow night, if the powers that be deemed the park safe enough.

But then her dreams were dashed as rain came down harder and heavier than before; it really was just like being in the ocean, such was the intensity. Luckily Melisande was well equipped to see and hear in such an environment. She heard the tannoy call out for help transporting the werewolves to the higher ground cells and ran over.

There was someone else already there, some old guy- surprise surprise, who here wasn’t an old guy?!- and things seemed to be going okay. Just a bunch of wet, grumpy guys trudging up a hill.

And then the moon started to peek out from behind the clouds and a split second was not enough to think up a decent plan and there were four werewolves a few feet away. Melisande glanced over to the other guy present, and a thought struck fast as the lightening bolts she’d gotten so accustomed to over the past few days; she was a siren.  There wasn’t time to consider how dangerous it was.

“Are you dead?!” She questioned, not caring about her blunt delivery “if you’re dead that makes this easier” but there wasn’t really time to explain it in full because it hadn’t even been a minute yet and already things were getting vicious. So Melisande just started singing and backing up, watching their heads turn to her. 

Then, of course, because as mentioned before fate was as mad at Graham as his wife usually was, the teenager he’d been assigned to the werewolves with, had to turn out to be a siren.

“Dead as a doornail, sweetheart,” he shouted back over the sudden howling and the crash of thunder. She didn’t seem to be listening though because just a fraction of a second later she opened her mouth and started to sing. The four werewolves had fortunately –or unfortunately, Graham wasn’t sure which—not gotten far enough that her song didn’t affect them. Graham saw their ears twitch as their heads all swiveled at once towards her direction. It was a small mercy that Graham himself wasn’t affected, the perks of only being a projection of the soul.

                                                    She’d been there.                                                          She’d liked it. 

She took in a deep breath, fingers still twirling through his brown locks. “It was like satisfying a hunger that had been building inside of me since my attack. There was a voice in my head that reasoned, ‘do this. kill him. eat him. and you will feel normal again.’ Part of me called bullshit on that logic.” Evelynn admitted, slowing pulling her hand away and retreating into herself on the couch. “But the other part of me was ready to accept anything that justified killing you in that very moment. Making you hurt like I was hurting.” 

“I think I should have been scared–terrified even, with the disgusting things I did that night. But I never once lost my cool; I never felt regret for what I did. I think I still don’t.” That was the hardest part to admit to him. “If I hadn’t been attached, if I hadn’t been turned into what I am now I think I still would have killed you. Or tried, at least.”

                               “I don’t know if I’m the woman you married, but this is                               who I am now. This is what our grief has turned me into.”

He didn’t turn back to look at her when he grimaced. Graham didn’t want her to see the anger behind it, the quick flashes of rage that sometimes burned so bright inside him that they were the only things he felt. None of it stopped the words from spilling from his lips.

“I think you’re exactly the woman I married, Evelynn.” He didn’t know if he meant it as an insult or not, but the words were hard and made of stone. “I didn’t see it back then, sure. I don’t know that you even knew it was inside you. But you’ve always been capable of doing awful things.” He laughed, and the bitterness behind would have choked him if he was capable of choking. “Don’t think you’re fucking special, dear. We’re all capable of murder.”

He covered his face with his hands to keep down more hysterical laughter, rubbing at his eyes that felt tired despite his need for sleep. After a moment he tipped he turned around to look at Evelynn. 

Watching calmly he smirked a bit at the position. This guy was definitely bored, he supposed that explained the odd conversation starter… Maybe he didn’t like rain either.

Cody nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “You’re not as easy to get to talk shit as a lot of the employees,” he stated calmly, looking back down at his book lazily. “You looking for the word overzealous? Excitable? Dramatic?” he suggested with a cocked brow.

He continued balancing on his chair and then, when that got boring, brought it down with a solid thud on the carpeted floor. Another thing that would be ruined if the park did end up flooding. Not that anyone seemed to be too worried about it. Apathy ran through the entire park like a disease, especially on days like this. Graham rested his face on his hands and his elbows on his knees, staring at the man across from him unabashedly. Being dead had done wonders to shrink any sense of shame he'd had when he was alive.

"Something like that, sure. Though, I guess if I could shoot lightning out of my hands or whatever, I'd be pretty dramatic about it too." He sighed, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "Some people get all the luck and fancy powers." 

This had left her looking a bit odd- you could assume she had cried, but then why was the mascara still perfectly in tact? So it made little sense. Still she was starting to get a little cold, and so Evan stumbled in through the closest door, all soaking wet hair and heavy boots and a few eyeliner tracks trickling down her right cheek. It was certainly a statement.

And she seemed to have been just in time for someones monologue “I’m not sure witches do rain dances” Evan mused “but we do have that one guy who can make fire, so maybe we got someone who does it with water and has a vendetta against sunshine”

He felt like he'd probably been staring for too long. He kind of wanted to offer her a towel, or maybe his jacket, but since the second thing was only an astral projection created by his soul's mind, it probably wouldn't fit her very well.  

"Maybe a vampire's paid them off," he said, clearing his throat and rejoining the conversation. "Seems a bit selfish to me, and usually I wouldn't complain, but I'm not sure we're getting paid for the days we're missing while the park is closed. So I'd really like someone to blame other than God, who I already blame constantly."

“It’s not my fault your parents always let you win. They coddled you.” She remarked, gently lifting a hand behind her to rub his shoulder. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.” Evelynn knew where Graham was going–a blind nun would be able to tell–but she wasn’t really in the mood. She leaned her head back on the couch to look up at him, “What was it like to die?” They’d talked about it before, about the months Graham spent somewhere between this life and the next. “I figure not many murderer’s get to ask their victims that question.”

That wasn’t going to happen though, and they both knew it. Once Evelynn got on a topic like this there was no steering her away from it. He stood up and came around to the other side of the couch, dropping down to sit on the floor by Evelynn’s head. He made a thoughtful sound like he was trying to recall what it had been like, as if he could ever forget.

Sitting by a window in the common area, staring out at the rain, she had forgotten what it was she had come there for. Not that it really mattered, anyway. She just stared out, thinking about her family and her old life. She’d always thought it would come back, but now that had changed.

She barely noticed the man sitting next to her when he came, and almost didn’t react when he started speaking. Even in her depressed mood, the thought of ‘magical plumbing’ made her laugh a little, and decided she liked this new face, she turned more towards him.

“I think it’s just rain, actually. Although that is way more boring.” She’d seen downpours far more impressive than this on her travels, and she knew just how strong nature could be.

“You know, I’m no jeweler, but I think that thing is worth a little more than twenty dollars,” he said, leaning back in his chair with one eyebrow raised, his arms crossed against his chest.

Outside, a crack of lightning lit up the sky and the bright burst spilled into the room as well, casting them both in a white glow for just a fraction of a moment. Something about that struck him as funny. Here this woman was making a deal with a ghost while a storm raged on outside. It made him feel like his entire life was suddenly a very shoddily made B-list horror movie. But then again, maybe he was talking to something worse. Graham still had no idea what the woman was. He might not have been the scariest thing in this conversation.

“I wasn’t having fun, I was…” Unable to think of an excuse for standing with his arms wide in the rain, he awkwardly trailed off from that, rubbing the back of his neck as he determinedly looked anywhere but Graham.

Happy for something else to talk about, he nodded and looked up again at the sky. “Rain was rare where I lived…I remember a few stronger storms, though.” Often the Nile would flood afterwards, and he’d hear about the struggles of the poorer people who lived near it, but in his home high up with the temples and palace the rain had always just been a spectacle.

“As a ghost I assume the weather doesn’t affect you much either way.” Maybe that would have been better than keeping his body. It would have been nice to have gained powers of some kind from dying. Before he felt too jealous of this ghost though, Abasi thought he should learn more about him. After all, he could have died in some kind of horrific way.

“Yeah, I guess you could say one perk of being dead is that you don’t have to carry an umbrella around anymore. Sunburn’s a thing of the past too.” Graham looked Abasi up and down. “Well, I mean, you could probably do with an umbrella. You’re not rotting away underneath all those witch talismans. Are you?”

Of course, Graham already knew who Abasi was. He had a whole ride named after him so he was more of an attraction than some occasionally see-through guy that walked around near the park entrance. They were at different sides of the park so there was no reason for Abasi to know who he was.

“I’m Graham,” he said, sticking his hand out for the mummy to shake. Then he drew back slightly, an awkwardness slipping into his smile. “Sorry, did ancient Egyptians shake hands? This feels more like a Western thing but I was always pretty shitty when it came to history.”

Evelynn Carmichael + Graham Ellison Screenshots of Despair

&& Bonus made by Lottie:

“It’s a little rain. A little thunder. Worse comes to worse, the park floods and we all drown. But, newsflash, my sweet–You’re already dead. I don’t think you have much to worry about.” Evelynn returned her attention to the video, and after a minute decided to just shut the laptop. She sighed, putting the computer on the coffee table and lounging back onto the couch. “Want to play a game? Uno? Checkers? Go Fish?” She was painfully bored, and she knew Graham was too. 

“I’ll even promise to beat you fairly.”

Graham watched her stretch out and put his forgotten book aside to drift over and lean over the couch, looking down at her and cocking his head to the side. “Is it really fair if you only pick the games I’m bad at?” he said with something like a smile on his face. “Besides, don’t you think we could come up with something better than Uno?” His grin took a turn towards the shit-eating and he leaned down further to rest his chin atop one arm, dropping the other so he could catch a stray lock of Evelynn’s hair and run it between his fingers.

The morning had been spent hiding behind bookshelves with a flashlight in his mouth. He had yet to notice another soul in the library, so he was pacing around. A particular paragraph caught his attention and he found himself sitting, curled up over the book and replacing the flashlight once again with his nubs for nails.

A voice caught him off guard and he looked up, almost grumpy; that was until he noticed who it was. “Oh hey! Dead guy,” he let out a bit of a chuckle. 

“Yeah, the merfolk have their cove, I’d rather not have the entire park filled with water…” the cove was definitely enough water. Another pause. Honestly, being pretty well versed in elemental magick, he’d probably end up getting pulled into the fray if things got bad. He always hated working with water.

With a small smirk Cody nodded slightly, “you know what? You’re probably right. Witches are pretty slimey, so I can imagine one making this mess just for the fun of it.” He looked away and nodded, pushing up his glasses.

“Maybe that’s they’re plan after all. Fill the park with water so we can compete with Sea World.  Trying to go up against Disney World must have been getting boring.” Graham leaned back in his chair, pressing his feet up against a nearby bookshelf for support as he tipped the chair onto its two back legs. Balancing there, he regarded the other man, trying to think if he’d heard anyone say his name before. He looked like a Tim. Maybe a Craig.

“Slimy?” he said, quirking an eyebrow at TimCraig. Traig? “I think you’re thinking about slugs. Most of the witches around here are just sort of-“ he mimed an explosion with his hands accompanied with sound effects instead of finishing his sentence.  Flashy was the word he was going for.

Abasi had never quite become accustomed to the amount of rain at the park. In Egypt, he had seen maybe three rainfalls in his entire life, but now he’d lost count of the times he’d spent staring out of his window at the drops coming down. He found it oddly calming, actually, if a bit odd. 

There was a warning out right now, he’d heard, for the weather – but as he watched it drip down and into the cracks of his windowsill, Abasi wondered what rain could really do to someone already dead. His routine of sitting about in different places thinking about how bored he was, or reading while thinking about how bored he was, or taking a bath while thinking about how bored he was, was somehow getting boring.

In a moment of uncharacteristic improvisation, he found himself walking down the stairs and out of the building, into the storm. Rain hit his face and ran down his chest. He could feel it was cold, but that never bothered him anyway anymore. 

The thrill of doing something different made him considerably more giddy than just rain should, and he held his arms out, grinning up at the grey sky. It was unusual he felt quite so free, so unbound for just a moment. He was so lost in the sky that he didn’t hear anything around him, and only became aware of the other employee approached him as he finally looked down.

Mortified at being caught, he quickly drew his arms to his side and stood awkwardly, staring at the coworker with wide eye before trying to look away, uncomfortably staring to the side.

He stopped walking when he saw Abasi standing out in the rain, his arms spread wide and a grin stretching across his face. Abasi probably couldn’t see him, he’d gone invisible and intangible, turned himself into just a barely there piece of existence so the rain would fall right through him. But as he came closer, he let more of himself bleed into existence and Abasi finally noticed his presence. Graham grinned at the embarrassed cringing, this was probably the most adorable thing he’d witnessed all day. And that was saying something because he’d seen two bunnies chasing each other on his walk.