Chapter 16: Unfinished Business

Back at the old church, things had taken on a strange sense of normalcy, or at least, what passed for it in this new, halfway haunted slice of a second life. The sun peeked through the broken arches of the chapel roof, spilling its light across the overgrown yard. Laughter echoed in the air. A bunch of grubby kids darted around the patches of wild grass and stone, playing tag with more chaos than coordination. Nira was “it,” and judging by her screeching war cries, she wasn’t taking the role lightly.

“I swear, if you don’t stop laughing, I’ll curse your future wives!” she howled after one of the older boys who had the audacity to stick his tongue out at her before vanishing behind a column.

I sat with Lydia on the wide stone steps in front of the church’s weathered double doors. It was one of those rare, peaceful moments where everything just seemed… normal.

“Thank you,” Lydia said softly.

I tilted my head at her, confused.

“For resuscitating me,” she clarified. “Healing magic consumes quite a bit of spirit, and I should’ve known I was close to draining myself. I just…” She rubbed her arm absently, eyes fixed on the children. “I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“It’s fine,” I muttered. I wasn’t exactly good with heartfelt gratitude.

A loud thwack, followed by a startled yelp drew our attention. Nira had taken off one of her dainty shoes and hurled it like a miniature war hammer. It connected squarely with someone’s face. The boy dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“Ah,” I said, wincing. “That had weight.”

Nira cackled like a gremlin.

“Shouldn’t you scold her?” Lydia asked, arching a brow.

I glanced at her, confused. “Why?”

“She just committed an act of footwear-based assault.”

I raised a hand and shouted toward the battlefield, “Nira, flick your wrist a bit more when you throw!”

The girl grinned, took her other shoe off, and chucked it like a professional pitcher. It nailed the same kid again. He screamed and ran in the other direction.

Lydia turned to look at me like I was the strangest spirit she’d ever met. “Really?”

“No rocks!” I added quickly, just in time to see Nira bend down and grab a stone.

She paused, held the rock above her head like a tiny barbarian princess, then glared at me.

“What am I supposed to do now?” she grumbled.

“Chase,” I said flatly.

She dropped the rock with a sigh. “Ugh… Come here, you cowards!”

And just like that, the hunt resumed.

Lydia watched the scene unfold, shaking her head with an amused smile. “That’s some parenting.”

“I’m not her parent,” I said automatically, even if I was starting to sound like one.

Lydia folded her hands in her lap and looked at me, gentle curiosity lining her features. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly. “You… are her father, correct?”

I scratched the back of my head, even though technically, being a ghost, that did nothing. “I don’t know what really happened, but… It’s hard to explain…”

She waited patiently, her silence coaxing more out of me.

“Think about this,” I said, trying to shape my words into something that sounded coherent. “One day, you’re just one mortal among many. The next, you die. You expect the afterlife, judgment, reincarnation, a tunnel of light… whatever it is you religious types believe in. But instead, you become a ghost, you get dragged to some magic ritual by accident, and somehow, you’re now tethered to a little girl.”

Lydia hummed thoughtfully. “I understand. Specters or undead in general have a tendency to forget the lives they lived. However, their instincts remain.”

Was she implying something? Because that sounded dangerously like she was implying something.

“There must be a reason why you’re protecting this child,” she said. “If it isn’t fatherly instinct, then what is it?”

“Huh?” I blinked at her. “Wait, no, no, no. I am not her father. We don’t even look alike. I’m not even sure if I’m technically the same species anymore.”

Lydia nodded in that annoyingly serene way of hers that reminded me of my chief editor, as if I hadn’t just protested. “That’s a symptom exhibited by most evil spirits too,” she said. “Denial. I don’t know what circumstances surrounded your death, but I want you to know… I am willing to listen.”

I stared at her, slack-jawed. How the hell had we ended up here? A minute ago, we were sitting in relative peace. Now I was apparently a deadbeat dad in spiritual denial. I was ready to slap my own forehead. But I held back…

“Look,” I said, sighing. “What I can tell you as a matter of fact is that I’m not from around here.”

That was putting it lightly. I doubted they even had words for “tabloid journalist” in this world. And even if I tried explaining Earth, what would I even start with? Electricity? Fast food? Wi-Fi?

But more importantly, I didn’t want to mess this up. Lydia was someone good and someone who cared. Nira needed that. The last thing I wanted was to make the nun suspicious, paranoid, or worse… disillusioned with the girl. If letting her think I was a confused, overprotective ghost dad meant Nira got a better life, then sure. I’d wear the damn label.

“The first thing I saw,” I continued, softer now, “was Nira. And her mother.”

Lydia’s expression didn’t shift, but her fingers twitched in her lap.

“It was night. There were four thugs. They had weapons. There was shouting, and… I knew something was wrong. I just… acted. I didn’t even think about it. I killed them. Possessed one of them, made a bit of a mess.” I rubbed my face, recalling the panic and just about everything.

I left out the worst of it. No mention of the word witch. No whisper of witchspawn.

“I tried to protect Nira,” I said. “But I couldn’t save her mother. Only Nira.”

Lydia nodded slowly. “I see… Such traumatic events could’ve harmed the mind.”

That made me pause.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

She looked out at Nira, who had just claimed victory by body-slamming a much taller boy into the grass. Her silver hair gleamed in the sunlight, her laughter ringing high and clear. She looked like any other child.

“Nira might be suffering from memory loss,” Lydia said gently.

I stared at her.

Because somehow… that explained far too much.

I had thought about it for a while now. Nira had changed.

For some time, Nira’s eyes had been empty. Not the kind of tired emptiness you see in overworked adults or sleep-deprived college students. No, hers had been deep and hollow, like all the light had been scooped out and replaced with cold ash. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t screamed. She had simply… existed.

But now? She was laughing. Full-throated, squeaky, snotty-nosed laughing. The kind children only dared to do. She chased after the other kids in the courtyard with both shoes missing, her wild hair flaring out like a battle standard. She was alive in every sense of the word. That should have been a good thing.

And yet, it unsettled me.

She let me possess her too easily. It didn’t even faze her anymore. As if having some dead guy speak through her mouth was as natural as brushing her teeth. I couldn’t tell if that was trust or something more dangerous: dependence.

“Any advice, Lydia?” I asked.

“Please call me Sister Lydia,” she corrected gently.

I inclined my head. “Sister Lydia,” I said, this time with the proper address, “can you help me move on to the afterlife?”

She blinked, surprised, as though I’d asked her how to turn myself into a cabbage.

“I don’t know,” she admitted slowly. “Maybe if I got an archbishop involved… but even that’s uncertain.” She turned fully to face me now, her expression softening. “Listen, Ren… can I call you Ren?”

The name sat oddly on my translucent shoulders. I paused.

“Renzo,” I said at last. “Call me Renzo.”

I never liked people using my nickname. Not back on Earth, not when I was writing garbage tabloid articles under it, not when colleagues shouted it across cubicles. It was too casual and familiar. I guessed Nira was the exception… More like a slip of the tongue, really… I’d only let a handful of people use ‘Ren’ after all.

Lydia nodded slowly. “Renzo,” she said with a hint of something like gratitude. “You are… an anomaly. There’s no such thing as a ghost who wants to move on and still manages to linger in this plane. Most spirits are bound by resentment, regret, or some desperate attachment.”

She gestured toward me, not unkindly, but as if pointing out the obvious. “And yet, here you are. Cognizant. Thinking. Trying to be helpful.”

“Shocking, I know,” I said dryly.

She smiled but didn’t take the bait. “All ghosts exist because of their obsessions. Their unfinished business. Something powerful enough to anchor them here.” Her gaze drifted out to the field, to the patch of sunlight and laughter where Nira was now wrestling another kid to the dirt. “Do you have something like that?”

I frowned, staring after the little girl who was now proudly holding a captured shoe over her head like a trophy.

I didn’t know.

Was she it? Was she my anchor?

Lydia’s voice was quiet, but certain. “This is what I think… That little girl, Nira, she’s your unfinished business.”