Chapter 3: Static on the Line

The phone on the front desk is a heavy, beige relic from the nineties. It doesn’t ring often, so it may as well be screaming.

You pick it up. "Front Desk, this is Alistair."

"It’s her again," whispers the night nurse, a woman named Clara. You could hear her adjust the peppermint in her mouth, likely from the anxiety. "Room 304. She’s throwing the Jell-o cups, Alistair. I can’t go in there."

"I'm on my way."

You hang up. You leave the Codex open—risky, but you’re in a hurry—and head for the elevators.

Memory Care is on the third floor. The air up there is different. It’s thicker, heavier with the fog of a dozen minds slowly unspooling. When the elevator doors slide open, you hear him.

"Alice! Alice, wake up! The train is leaving!"

You walk down the hallway. The lights are dimmed to a soothing amber, but the spectral turbulence coming from Room 304 is making them flicker blue.

You step inside.

Alice is asleep, a fragile shape under a heavy quilt. Hovering over her, vibrating with frantic energy, is Arthur.

Arthur has been dead for three weeks. He was a terrifyingly efficient tax attorney in life, and in death, he has retained his obsession with schedules. He is wearing a grey spectral suit, checking a pocket watch that doesn’t exist.

"Arthur," you say. Your voice is low, laced with a binding vibration.

Arthur spins around. His eyes are wide, manic circles of white mist. "You! You’re the doorman. Tell her! The 8:05 to Poughkeepsie! We’re going to miss it!"

He grabs a plastic cup of water from the bedside table and flings it. It passes through his hand, but the kinetic echo knocks the cup over. Water spills.

"She can't hear you, Arthur," you say, closing the door behind you. You keep your hands in your pockets, fingers tracing the sigil for Calm stitched into the lining of your blazer. "She’s sleeping. And you aren’t going to Poughkeepsie."

"I have tickets!" Arthur roars. The room temperature drops ten degrees. Frost spiders across the windowpane.

This is a Class-3 Haunting: The Loop. He’s stuck in a memory of a missed connection. If you don't ground him, he’ll freeze the pipes.

You shouldn't interfere. The Council would tell you to let him scream until his energy fades. The Company would tell you to call maintenance for the "HVAC malfunction and write up a report on Alice disturbing the nursing staff."

Instead, you sigh.

"Arthur," you say. "Look at me."

You drop the mundane act. You let your aura flare—just a fraction. To him, you suddenly look like a lighthouse in a storm.

He freezes. "You... you’re bright."

"The train is delayed," you lie. "It’s been canceled due to snow. Go sit in the waiting room."

You gesture toward your own chest. It’s a risky maneuver—a sympathetic anchor. You are offering your own bio-field as a temporary grounding rod to pull him away from Alice so she can sleep.

Arthur blinks. The frantic energy dissipates. "Canceled?"

"Canceled. Come on. I have the new schedule downstairs."

He drifts toward you. As he passes through your personal space, you feel a hook—a cold, sharp sensation behind your navel.

Click.

You wince. He didn’t just follow you; he attached. He’s latched onto your aura like a burr on a wool sock.

"Fine," you mutter. "Come on, then."

You walk out. The nurse, Clara, is peeking from the station.

"Is she...?"

"She's settled," you say. "Just a night terror, a side-effect from her medicine - please note that for her medication management team."

You walk back to the elevator. You are alone in the car, but the reflection in the brass panel shows a grey, anxious man standing uncomfortably close to your left shoulder.

"The service on this line is terrible," Arthur mutters.

The drive home is a nightmare.

Arthur criticizes your speed. He criticizes your choice of lane. He asks why the music (lo-fi hip hop) has no "melody."

By the time you turn onto Rankin Street, the sun is bleaching the sky a pale, humid grey. You are exhausted. The anchor hook in your gut is aching. Having a ghost hitchhiker is like carrying a backpack full of ice; it drains your stamina.

You park the Ford. Rankin Street is waking up. A Crow is cawing two yards over - pacing the yard for its breakfast. The smell of frying bacon wafts from Miss Etta’s house.

"Dreadful zoning," Arthur sniffs, looking at the overgrown hydrangeas in your yard. "This neighborhood needs a terrifying amount of landscaping."

"Shut up, Arthur," you whisper, unlocking your front door.

"What? I’m merely an observer. An auditor."

You get inside and lock the door, leaning your forehead against the cool steel of the door. You need sleep. You need to perform a banishing ritual to scrape Arthur off your aura, but you don’t have the energy. He can float in the living room for a few hours.

You stumble into the kitchen.

It’s hot. The AC unit in the window is rattling, losing its war against the humid Southern summer.

You go to the sink to get water. On the sill sits your latest failure: a Maidenhair fern. It is brown. It is crispy. It is dead. You forgot to water it for three days because you were too busy reading about time loops.

You stare at it. The guilt hits you harder than it should. It’s just a plant. But it’s one more thing you failed to keep alive in this mundane, limiting world.

"Pathetic," Arthur says from the refrigerator. "Dead as a doornail."

"I said shut up."

You reach out. You don't cast a spell. You don't recite an incantation. You just want it to not be dead. You push your frustration, your exhaustion, and a little bit of the excess energy Arthur is leaking into the soil.

Pulse.

It happens fast. Too fast.

The brown fronds turn a violent, emerald green. The stems untwist. The plant shoots up three inches in a second, leaves unfurling with a wet snap. It doesn't just recover; it explodes with life, spilling over the pot, vibrant and impossible.

You exhale, trembling. "There."

"Impressive horticulture," Arthur admits.

Then you hear the noise.

A gasp. Outside.

You freeze. Your kitchen window looks out onto the side yard—the narrow strip of grass between your house and the neighbors'.

You look up.

Standing there, framed by the window, is Zora.

The twelve-year-old is holding a basketball under one arm. She is wearing a oversized t-shirt that says NASA. Her eyes are huge. She isn't looking at you. She is looking at the fern, which is still quivering with magical growth.

Then she looks at you.

You can see the gears turning in her head. She saw the brown. She saw the flash. She sees the green.

You scramble to open the window. "Zora, I—"

"You’re a wizard," she says. It’s not a question.

"No," you say. "I used... miracle grow. It’s a new brand. Very fast acting."

Zora narrows her eyes. She drops the basketball. It bounces with a dull thud on the grass.

"You're a liar," she says. "And you're going to teach me how to do that."

Behind you, Arthur floats through the kitchen island. "Smart child. Terrible manners."

Zora’s eyes flick to the empty space where Arthur is hovering. She frowns, squinting, as if she sees a smudge on a camera lens.

"Who are you talking to?" she asks.

"No one," you say too quickly.

"You're talking to the air," she says. She crosses her arms. "I'm watching you, Neighbor. Don't think you can hide."

She picks up her ball and walks away, but she looks back twice.

You slide down to the kitchen floor. The fern waves happily in the stagnant air. Arthur checks his pocket watch.

"I believe," Arthur says, "that she knows your secret."

You put your head in your hands. The Veil is threatened. The Company rules are broken. And now, you have a pre-teen blackmailer.

It’s going to be a long day.