#thread:care

“I don’t know if you’re in heaven or where you might be…But if it’s not too much to ask, could you watch over us please? Goodbye, Florence.”

A terribly wise and incredibly lonely person once said that a man died three times: The first was when he stopped breathing, the second was when he was buried, and the third was when his name was spoken for the last time. In many ways, Florence felt as if she had achieved the "perfect death" which came from being forgotten and left to physically rot in a cramped plot of land.

It was ridiculous to think that she could be truly forgotten, but Florence was well aware of her status as "just another dead girl" in a city full of bodies. The Puppeteer had ensured that her death would be overlooked in a matter of months -- and Florence truly couldn't have been happier with that fact -- but something felt strangely hollow and empty about the whole affair.  Somewhere deep within Florence Marsh was a fear of the quietude that surrounded her now on a daily basis. When noise and terror had been all she knew, Florence hadn't the time to think about problems that didn't involve finding peace... but now she had it, and she didn't know where to go.

There was the graveyard, of course -- and she frequented it regularly -- but there was also the pier, the school yard, her own home... Everywhere. Nothing seemed off-limits, yet everything was so very untouchable. Florence saw the world through the eyes of a dead woman instead of that of a living being or someone not quiet fitting into either category, and she had to adjust all over again. Those adjustments were what led her to Calvin.

She knew Maggie was planning to adopt a child simply due to the fact that Maggie was one of the people she followed frequently, but she never expected that little boy to be so special. He could see things most couldn't and, on a particular day in which Florence had let her guard down a little too quickly, he had discovered her. He saw her and it was her saving grace. 

After that moment, Florence did her best to look out for the little guy when she could. It wasn't as if she was great at being a positive influence, but she could make sure that he didn't fuck himself up like she had when she was younger. In a way, Florence became the watchdog she wished she had; keeping the nasty spirits at bay was simple enough, especially when most of them recognized the girl who would have quite the vendetta against their very beings. Florence's presence -- cold, yet somehow electric -- deterred small harms, though not the physical issues that Maggie would undoubtedly take care of.

Besides, Florence Marsh had a request to fulfill. If there was one thing her life taught her it was that you didn't half-ass something if you put your mind to it, and looking out for Cal and Maggie was one of her few priorities that she poured her heart into... Perhaps, for that reason, she let her guard slip just a little too far for the second time.

Standing in a shaded grove of Bentley's park, letting the wind rustle around her while her body itself remained completely still in the near-permanence she had achieved, Florence Marsh waited. Like every Wednesday afternoon, she waited for the boy who would call her his superhero, and she waited to remind him that she wasn't a hero at all. This time, though... something had changed. 

When a rustling in the bush caught her off-guard, she jerked forward and materialized in a flash. Unused to this new form that allowed her so many freedoms, she was left trying to turn into a mist just as her body spun the one hundred and eighty degrees that it took to see the source of the noise.

And there she was...