The Repleting Papers has been launched! As the title says, I will be posting little things here when I think of them, anything that isn't full enough to be its own thing stored elsewhere on the site. Things like short stories, snippets of story ideas, maybe some world- or character-building information, sometimes theories, sometimes just stuff I know, and even logs of dreams! It's largely miscellaneous. At the moment my intention is to make some kind of post each week (even if it's an apology post for being absent for a clarified reason), but when and what I'll post with is something I'm still working on. I can't be too dedicated to this yet.
To start this very first blog post, I would like to tell the few people who visited the site for artwork why I haven't been updating it much lately. I've been working on a very important project for the past couple of years, and what art I have been making during that time has been either left unfinished or pertains to this project. Now, I did make a foolish mistake by expecting the project to only take around six months to complete... so my intended art hiatus has gone on for far too long now... but you live and learn. This project is still near the top of my priority list, so hopefully I'll have a big update for you all soon!
Secondly, I would like to kick off the blog with its first Story Teaser! Dreams make up a significant portion of my creative process, and while the Dream Log will try to tell them in their rawest form, for the sake of your entertainment (and my impulsive need to make my writing as eloquent as possible), many of these dreams may come out as either Short Stories or Story Teasers instead: more polished, thought-out versions of the dreams with extra content that make them better reads, while keeping the more mystical elements intact. Who knows, maybe some of these ideas will form proper stories someday...!
To start this very first blog post, I would like to tell the few people who visited the site for artwork why I haven't been updating it much lately. I've been working on a very important project for the past couple of years, and what art I have been making during that time has been either left unfinished or pertains to this project. Now, I did make a foolish mistake by expecting the project to only take around six months to complete... so my intended art hiatus has gone on for far too long now... but you live and learn. This project is still near the top of my priority list, so hopefully I'll have a big update for you all soon!
Secondly, I would like to kick off the blog with its first Story Teaser! Dreams make up a significant portion of my creative process, and while the Dream Log will try to tell them in their rawest form, for the sake of your entertainment (and my impulsive need to make my writing as eloquent as possible), many of these dreams may come out as either Short Stories or Story Teasers instead: more polished, thought-out versions of the dreams with extra content that make them better reads, while keeping the more mystical elements intact. Who knows, maybe some of these ideas will form proper stories someday...!
Story Teaser 1: The Interview
I stepped up onto the landing of a quaint craftsman home and knocked on the tired, wooden door. I was in a rather unremarkable part of the inner city: old, but not polished up to modern standards. Huge elm and oak trees lined the quiet street, most of their leaves gone from autumn, and many of the houses were dilapidated or simply worn out, with peeling paint and chipped siding, many with yards infested by weeds or tall with grass. A couple of the houses were like this one - in marginally better condition, just enough to not be an eyesore - but the age on it painfully showed. I looked sadly at the turned spindles of the porch railing, their white gloss now a faded antique yellow, the finish rubbed off in many places revealing a dark wood. One spindle had even broken off and, for some reason, the broken end was sanded down to a smooth stump. The rest of the porch wasn't in much better condition, nor was the siding or the trim, and the shutters had been pulled off at one point and leaned against the wall.
I tried not to stare too much at the home's state and turned my attention back to the door, waiting for someone to answer. A couple of minutes passed where I heard nothing, and I brought my journal out of my handbag in preparation of noting how long it was taking, but just then I heard a stirring. Quickly I dropped the journal back in and put on my most cordial smile.
Click, click, click click - shink, click, click... The smile disappeared at the excessive amount of locks being undone from the other side, and I shot a look back at my car, second-guessing leaving the windows open. Was this really that dangerous of a neighborhood? Everyone did have closed curtains and doors...
I tried not to stare too much at the home's state and turned my attention back to the door, waiting for someone to answer. A couple of minutes passed where I heard nothing, and I brought my journal out of my handbag in preparation of noting how long it was taking, but just then I heard a stirring. Quickly I dropped the journal back in and put on my most cordial smile.
Click, click, click click - shink, click, click... The smile disappeared at the excessive amount of locks being undone from the other side, and I shot a look back at my car, second-guessing leaving the windows open. Was this really that dangerous of a neighborhood? Everyone did have closed curtains and doors...
The door opened, and automatically the smile appeared back on my face. "Hello Ms. Harrier," I introduced myself, "I'm Flora Stern, part of the Farfield Weekly. I'm here to interview you concerning your mother's recent passing."
The heart-shaped face of a young woman stared back at me, her blue eyes distant, and her smile weak. "I told Farfield Weekly that I didn't want an interview," she said quietly.
"I know, dearie, but with the unexplained circumstances..." I faltered off. "Well, we're just looking to see if you're okay. For the Welfare Society's sake."
The woman muffled a scoff and looked at the ground, her dark wavy hair briefly obscuring her face. "Even if they sent me checks I wouldn't accept them."
I didn't have much to say to that, but it would at least make decent paper material. The story was so tragic, yet so unexplained; the front page needed to be filled with something.
"Do you mind if I come in?" I asked amiably, "All of your locks have me a bit nervous."
She looked up in surprise, before calmly smiling in realization, a bit less tense now. "Don't worry Mrs. Stern, it's not the neighborhood we're worried about. Sure, come in; do you want me to get you something? I like tea for the nerves."
"Sure, tea would be nice," I said, and Ms. Harrier stepped back to let me through. She was quick to close the door behind me, promptly redoing all of the locks. It was almost like a scene out of a movie: I swear every type of lock conceived by man was on that door! She then proceeded to walk down the hall, her pastel dress flowing behind her, and took a left out of sight. I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the nearby rack.
The inside of the home was in better repair than the outside, I noted. The stairs to my right went up two steps before turning into a landing at the corner and going up, the hallway ahead split at the end and only had two double doors under the stairs, and to my left was an archway leading to an elongated sitting room, with another archway at the other end, possibly leading to the kitchen in the back. The entry and the hall had aged tiled linoleum, possibly from the 50s, and there were no windows beside the sidelights around the door. I assumed we would be chatting in the sitting room, and went in to situate myself.
Surprisingly, it was minimally furnished. I looked around curiously as I heard Ms. Harrier start boiling some water. The left wall had a row of windows looking out onto the porch, but the curtains were pulled on all of them except for one on either end. To my left in the corner was a display case full of nothing but white candles, some still tall with the original plastic on them, others burnt down to nubs, and ahead of it in the opposite corner sat a piano, dusty from lack of use. To my right against the wall was an old, well-kept couch with a powder-blue weave to match the carpet and the walls. I came forward to the wooden coffee table in front of it, and pulled up one of the two wood dining chairs at either end, supposing Ms. Harrier had set it up to her comfort despite the couch nearby. It didn't bother me beyond being a curiosity; I had interviewed stranger people.
I made myself comfortable and opened up my journal to jot down the layout of the dim room I was in. It was overcast out, but I didn't expect it to feel so grim inside, like a storm was looming overhead. A minute later Ms. Harrier returned with a steaming kettle and a hotpad, and fetched me a cup while the tea cooled.
"Mm, lavender," I commented, accepting the cup when she returned. Again she broke a smile, and looked just a tinier bit relaxed. "I've always loved the smell of lavender."
"It's a shame Mother's plants died," Ms. Harrier agreed, sitting down in the chair opposite of me, "otherwise our whole house would smell like lavender."
"Ah, yes! I thought I saw a garden out front."
"Yes - well, used to be. Some unfortunate circumstances took care of it," she said honestly. I nodded, solemn again.
"I assume your mother took great care of the garden."
"Not necessarily; it was my job for several years."
I waited for Ms. Harrier to elaborate further, but she was quiet, staring down at the tea kettle. She still looked distant; possibly just her version of mourning. She seemed pretty stable, so I decided to save her my usual circumlocution and asked her directly, "Can you tell me anything unusual that happened before your mother's passing?"
It took a moment for her to respond, as if she had to remind herself that I was here for an interview, not just a sympathetic chat. She held on to her empty teacup in a sort of reassurance, letting the silence linger for a few more seconds.
"No," she answered. I made a quick note in my journal.
"Do you remember her saying anything before she left?"
The woman shook her head, turning her gaze to the corner behind me. "It was just the usual shopping trip. One day she left in the car. The next she didn't come back."
"You recall the police report, about how she was a victim of a hit-and-run operation, yes?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything you'd like to contest there? You didn't seem happy with it."
"Yes," she repeated. Still she stared into that corner. I glanced behind me, curious for a second if I had missed something in observing the room, but it was empty.
"Can you tell me what it is you didn't like?"
Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and she began to show anxiety, rubbing her hands over the teacup. "Um..." I gave her a moment to think by pouring myself some tea. "It was too... typical."
I paused and frowned, still holding the kettle over my cup. "What do you mean by 'typical'?"
"It's what I would expect the police to say," she said. I set the kettle back down, picking my pen back up to take notes.
"Wouldn't they only say what it is?" I asked.
"Not if they can't see the other factors."
I was growing intrigued by this odd string of responses, recording her words verbatim. "You say that as if you know something about the case we don't."
"Not anything they consider viable." Ms. Harrier finally set her cup down and poured herself some tea, but didn't pick it back up.
"Any information is useful information, dear."
"Not if it can't be proved or disproved."
Now I was just becoming perplexed and suspicious, looking up at her crestfallen face. "What do you mean by that?" I questioned. Her distant eyes suddenly cleared up back to reality, and they flicked up over my shoulder. The back of my neck prickled, and I turned around, but the entry was as quiet and vacant as it was before; still, the prickling lingered for a little longer, toying with my doubt even after I turned back around. "What is it?"
Ms. Harrier blinked, now very alert, and not answering me directly. "You know of the Mariana Trench, right Mrs. Stern?"
"Of course," I said, "Theodore wrote an article on it last summer."
"So you know that, even though we know it exists, and can go to it, we still don't know everything it holds."
"Yes?"
"What if the whole world was like that? Everything?"
I furrowed my brow, perplexed. "I'm not quite following you, Ms. Harrier."
"The ether," she said unexpectedly. "What if Earth is like the Mariana's Trench, where we know it exists, and can walk on it, and see the plants and the animals, and the ether is like all of the sea creatures laying at the bottom, waiting to be discovered? Completely unknown, unseen and untouched, neither proven nor disproved, as ambiguous as Schrodinger's cat?"
"...Are you talking about ghosts?" I asked slowly, skeptically.
"Far more than ghosts. Everything that will be disputed, in the past and forever," she said frankly. I frowned, uncertain of how I could weave this into a newspaper article. The notion of spirits and hauntings have been dead for decades; if I told the truth I would be painting Ms. Harrier as a quack! She didn't deserve that, not after losing her mother and having no father, now living in this big house all alone. Yet, I couldn't lie in a news article, could I?
I had to be sure I was hearing her correctly, and leaned forward a bit. "You... imply, that a ghost took your mother's life, and the police failed to consider that possibility. But, ghosts don't exist."
"On the contrary," she said confidently, "but it wasn't a ghost's fault. It's more complicated than that."
"Complicated? How? Do you have evidence?"
"It can't be proven," she said, sounding defeated. "I never told anyone what I knew because no one would believe me."
"So, you don't have evidence," I deducted.
"Not anything short of dragging you into this, no."
"'This'?"
Ms. Harrier abruptly fell silent, looking at me before her anxiety returned, and she picked up her tea to sip it. It was done almost cautiously, like she expected me to lunge forward and stop her. My skin prickled at how unusual this interview already was.
I began to suspect that Ms. Harrier was delusional, possibly with a more benign mental illness, possibly being raised with a more traditional family that kept their religion despite the switch of '15. It was even possible that she was just more creative, or lacked more sleep, or some other logical reason. Perhaps the loss of her mother weighed down so heavily on her mind that it cracked it; so much could happen with the human brain. If her blame on ghosts had anything to do with those, then I had reason to suspect that she had to do with the accident that killed her mother, either indirectly, willingly, both or neither. That meant there was something more villainous about the sudden accident that I might be able to find out!
"Ms. Harrier," I began, and the woman looked up at me expectantly. "I know that you're under a lot of stress right now, and I sympathize with that. I had a similar situation with my parents: my mother died when I was two, and my father went to prison when I was sixteen. I couldn't see him again for six years. I had to live on my own too, and the Welfare Society helped me with that. So I know what you're going through, even if you don't believe me. But, your situation is more important; whoever is responsible for your mother's death is, most likely, still doing hit-and-runs. It's imperative to the safety of the city that you tell us everything you know about this incident, no matter how implausible you might think it is. Okay?"
She was tight-lipped as I spoke, and was still hesitant at the end, breaking eye contact to look at her cup. "Please," I implored, "I promise nothing bad will happen to you. You know that Farfield Weekly works with our police force twenty-four seven to keep our reports crystal clear. If you're truly worried, I can call for armed guards, right now..." I faltered off as she began shaking her head in objection.
"No. The guards can't help me."
"Ms. Harrier..."
"Bullets can't pierce the veil, Mrs. Stern."
I waved my hand dismissively. "You don't have to worry about any veils, Ms. Harrier," I said, "Besides, if bullets can't do it, how could any of those creatures in your metaphor? I'm simply offering you solace, because quite frankly I think you're being tormented by some unknown criminal."
Her face fell in disappointment. "I wish it were that benign, Mrs. Stern."
I started feeling frustrated, not understanding why she was so reluctant to believe me and so stubborn to blame fairy tales of ghosts on her hesitance. I finally put my pen and journal down - I had hardly written anything in it anyway - and tried my last tactic. If this didn't work, the interview would go nowhere and we'd simply have to drop the article to the second page.
"Tell me this, then:" I said, "What do I have to do to make you tell me what you know?"
Ms. Harrier blinked slowly, not becoming any less anxious, but hiding it better. "You would have to be involved," she said.
"Involved in what? How?"
"Promise me you'll be careful first."
"I'll be careful, Ms. Harrier. Now please, give me something to write in our column so people can mourn your mother properly!"
The woman only seemed to grow sadder and sadder. Then, she put her cup down, looked up to her left, and pointed, directly at the mirror on the wall.
A mirror... I didn't recall seeing it in the room before. I must have been on a bad angle. It was a very simple portrait mirror, with a thin frame and square corners. It hung above the couch's far seat. I stood up from my chair and approached it, uncertain of what kind of game this was, but willing to entertain this mourning woman. I was almost afraid to see something astonishing in it, somehow proving her right, but I quieted the tiny, wheedling feeling. Ghosts were proven to be fake twenty years ago. There was positively nothing to be scared of. Everything above the sea was explained, even if the ocean depths weren't.
I stumbled a bit in front of the couch and caught myself on the arm of it, and quickly looked down: a blue cat toy. It must have blended in with the carpet. I let out a small chuckle and regained my composure, brushing the toy aside with my foot. Despite the ragtag, chewed-up appearance, it still had a delightful jingle; perhaps the Harriers had a cat at one point.
I stood up in front of the mirror, looking into it. All I saw was my face, framed by faded blonde hair, with brown eyes and the pearly lipstick I had put on while in the car. I looked around in the mirror's reflection of the room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The blue walls, the white trim, the cream curtains pulled over the windows... no mystical foggy shapes or strange colors.
"I'm not sure what I'm looking for," I said honestly. I turned around, a bit of my amusement betraying itself on my face. "By the way, did your family have a cat at one...?"
My words died away.
Ms. Harrier was gone, without a trace.
"...Ms. Harrier? Hello?"
The heart-shaped face of a young woman stared back at me, her blue eyes distant, and her smile weak. "I told Farfield Weekly that I didn't want an interview," she said quietly.
"I know, dearie, but with the unexplained circumstances..." I faltered off. "Well, we're just looking to see if you're okay. For the Welfare Society's sake."
The woman muffled a scoff and looked at the ground, her dark wavy hair briefly obscuring her face. "Even if they sent me checks I wouldn't accept them."
I didn't have much to say to that, but it would at least make decent paper material. The story was so tragic, yet so unexplained; the front page needed to be filled with something.
"Do you mind if I come in?" I asked amiably, "All of your locks have me a bit nervous."
She looked up in surprise, before calmly smiling in realization, a bit less tense now. "Don't worry Mrs. Stern, it's not the neighborhood we're worried about. Sure, come in; do you want me to get you something? I like tea for the nerves."
"Sure, tea would be nice," I said, and Ms. Harrier stepped back to let me through. She was quick to close the door behind me, promptly redoing all of the locks. It was almost like a scene out of a movie: I swear every type of lock conceived by man was on that door! She then proceeded to walk down the hall, her pastel dress flowing behind her, and took a left out of sight. I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the nearby rack.
The inside of the home was in better repair than the outside, I noted. The stairs to my right went up two steps before turning into a landing at the corner and going up, the hallway ahead split at the end and only had two double doors under the stairs, and to my left was an archway leading to an elongated sitting room, with another archway at the other end, possibly leading to the kitchen in the back. The entry and the hall had aged tiled linoleum, possibly from the 50s, and there were no windows beside the sidelights around the door. I assumed we would be chatting in the sitting room, and went in to situate myself.
Surprisingly, it was minimally furnished. I looked around curiously as I heard Ms. Harrier start boiling some water. The left wall had a row of windows looking out onto the porch, but the curtains were pulled on all of them except for one on either end. To my left in the corner was a display case full of nothing but white candles, some still tall with the original plastic on them, others burnt down to nubs, and ahead of it in the opposite corner sat a piano, dusty from lack of use. To my right against the wall was an old, well-kept couch with a powder-blue weave to match the carpet and the walls. I came forward to the wooden coffee table in front of it, and pulled up one of the two wood dining chairs at either end, supposing Ms. Harrier had set it up to her comfort despite the couch nearby. It didn't bother me beyond being a curiosity; I had interviewed stranger people.
I made myself comfortable and opened up my journal to jot down the layout of the dim room I was in. It was overcast out, but I didn't expect it to feel so grim inside, like a storm was looming overhead. A minute later Ms. Harrier returned with a steaming kettle and a hotpad, and fetched me a cup while the tea cooled.
"Mm, lavender," I commented, accepting the cup when she returned. Again she broke a smile, and looked just a tinier bit relaxed. "I've always loved the smell of lavender."
"It's a shame Mother's plants died," Ms. Harrier agreed, sitting down in the chair opposite of me, "otherwise our whole house would smell like lavender."
"Ah, yes! I thought I saw a garden out front."
"Yes - well, used to be. Some unfortunate circumstances took care of it," she said honestly. I nodded, solemn again.
"I assume your mother took great care of the garden."
"Not necessarily; it was my job for several years."
I waited for Ms. Harrier to elaborate further, but she was quiet, staring down at the tea kettle. She still looked distant; possibly just her version of mourning. She seemed pretty stable, so I decided to save her my usual circumlocution and asked her directly, "Can you tell me anything unusual that happened before your mother's passing?"
It took a moment for her to respond, as if she had to remind herself that I was here for an interview, not just a sympathetic chat. She held on to her empty teacup in a sort of reassurance, letting the silence linger for a few more seconds.
"No," she answered. I made a quick note in my journal.
"Do you remember her saying anything before she left?"
The woman shook her head, turning her gaze to the corner behind me. "It was just the usual shopping trip. One day she left in the car. The next she didn't come back."
"You recall the police report, about how she was a victim of a hit-and-run operation, yes?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything you'd like to contest there? You didn't seem happy with it."
"Yes," she repeated. Still she stared into that corner. I glanced behind me, curious for a second if I had missed something in observing the room, but it was empty.
"Can you tell me what it is you didn't like?"
Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and she began to show anxiety, rubbing her hands over the teacup. "Um..." I gave her a moment to think by pouring myself some tea. "It was too... typical."
I paused and frowned, still holding the kettle over my cup. "What do you mean by 'typical'?"
"It's what I would expect the police to say," she said. I set the kettle back down, picking my pen back up to take notes.
"Wouldn't they only say what it is?" I asked.
"Not if they can't see the other factors."
I was growing intrigued by this odd string of responses, recording her words verbatim. "You say that as if you know something about the case we don't."
"Not anything they consider viable." Ms. Harrier finally set her cup down and poured herself some tea, but didn't pick it back up.
"Any information is useful information, dear."
"Not if it can't be proved or disproved."
Now I was just becoming perplexed and suspicious, looking up at her crestfallen face. "What do you mean by that?" I questioned. Her distant eyes suddenly cleared up back to reality, and they flicked up over my shoulder. The back of my neck prickled, and I turned around, but the entry was as quiet and vacant as it was before; still, the prickling lingered for a little longer, toying with my doubt even after I turned back around. "What is it?"
Ms. Harrier blinked, now very alert, and not answering me directly. "You know of the Mariana Trench, right Mrs. Stern?"
"Of course," I said, "Theodore wrote an article on it last summer."
"So you know that, even though we know it exists, and can go to it, we still don't know everything it holds."
"Yes?"
"What if the whole world was like that? Everything?"
I furrowed my brow, perplexed. "I'm not quite following you, Ms. Harrier."
"The ether," she said unexpectedly. "What if Earth is like the Mariana's Trench, where we know it exists, and can walk on it, and see the plants and the animals, and the ether is like all of the sea creatures laying at the bottom, waiting to be discovered? Completely unknown, unseen and untouched, neither proven nor disproved, as ambiguous as Schrodinger's cat?"
"...Are you talking about ghosts?" I asked slowly, skeptically.
"Far more than ghosts. Everything that will be disputed, in the past and forever," she said frankly. I frowned, uncertain of how I could weave this into a newspaper article. The notion of spirits and hauntings have been dead for decades; if I told the truth I would be painting Ms. Harrier as a quack! She didn't deserve that, not after losing her mother and having no father, now living in this big house all alone. Yet, I couldn't lie in a news article, could I?
I had to be sure I was hearing her correctly, and leaned forward a bit. "You... imply, that a ghost took your mother's life, and the police failed to consider that possibility. But, ghosts don't exist."
"On the contrary," she said confidently, "but it wasn't a ghost's fault. It's more complicated than that."
"Complicated? How? Do you have evidence?"
"It can't be proven," she said, sounding defeated. "I never told anyone what I knew because no one would believe me."
"So, you don't have evidence," I deducted.
"Not anything short of dragging you into this, no."
"'This'?"
Ms. Harrier abruptly fell silent, looking at me before her anxiety returned, and she picked up her tea to sip it. It was done almost cautiously, like she expected me to lunge forward and stop her. My skin prickled at how unusual this interview already was.
I began to suspect that Ms. Harrier was delusional, possibly with a more benign mental illness, possibly being raised with a more traditional family that kept their religion despite the switch of '15. It was even possible that she was just more creative, or lacked more sleep, or some other logical reason. Perhaps the loss of her mother weighed down so heavily on her mind that it cracked it; so much could happen with the human brain. If her blame on ghosts had anything to do with those, then I had reason to suspect that she had to do with the accident that killed her mother, either indirectly, willingly, both or neither. That meant there was something more villainous about the sudden accident that I might be able to find out!
"Ms. Harrier," I began, and the woman looked up at me expectantly. "I know that you're under a lot of stress right now, and I sympathize with that. I had a similar situation with my parents: my mother died when I was two, and my father went to prison when I was sixteen. I couldn't see him again for six years. I had to live on my own too, and the Welfare Society helped me with that. So I know what you're going through, even if you don't believe me. But, your situation is more important; whoever is responsible for your mother's death is, most likely, still doing hit-and-runs. It's imperative to the safety of the city that you tell us everything you know about this incident, no matter how implausible you might think it is. Okay?"
She was tight-lipped as I spoke, and was still hesitant at the end, breaking eye contact to look at her cup. "Please," I implored, "I promise nothing bad will happen to you. You know that Farfield Weekly works with our police force twenty-four seven to keep our reports crystal clear. If you're truly worried, I can call for armed guards, right now..." I faltered off as she began shaking her head in objection.
"No. The guards can't help me."
"Ms. Harrier..."
"Bullets can't pierce the veil, Mrs. Stern."
I waved my hand dismissively. "You don't have to worry about any veils, Ms. Harrier," I said, "Besides, if bullets can't do it, how could any of those creatures in your metaphor? I'm simply offering you solace, because quite frankly I think you're being tormented by some unknown criminal."
Her face fell in disappointment. "I wish it were that benign, Mrs. Stern."
I started feeling frustrated, not understanding why she was so reluctant to believe me and so stubborn to blame fairy tales of ghosts on her hesitance. I finally put my pen and journal down - I had hardly written anything in it anyway - and tried my last tactic. If this didn't work, the interview would go nowhere and we'd simply have to drop the article to the second page.
"Tell me this, then:" I said, "What do I have to do to make you tell me what you know?"
Ms. Harrier blinked slowly, not becoming any less anxious, but hiding it better. "You would have to be involved," she said.
"Involved in what? How?"
"Promise me you'll be careful first."
"I'll be careful, Ms. Harrier. Now please, give me something to write in our column so people can mourn your mother properly!"
The woman only seemed to grow sadder and sadder. Then, she put her cup down, looked up to her left, and pointed, directly at the mirror on the wall.
A mirror... I didn't recall seeing it in the room before. I must have been on a bad angle. It was a very simple portrait mirror, with a thin frame and square corners. It hung above the couch's far seat. I stood up from my chair and approached it, uncertain of what kind of game this was, but willing to entertain this mourning woman. I was almost afraid to see something astonishing in it, somehow proving her right, but I quieted the tiny, wheedling feeling. Ghosts were proven to be fake twenty years ago. There was positively nothing to be scared of. Everything above the sea was explained, even if the ocean depths weren't.
I stumbled a bit in front of the couch and caught myself on the arm of it, and quickly looked down: a blue cat toy. It must have blended in with the carpet. I let out a small chuckle and regained my composure, brushing the toy aside with my foot. Despite the ragtag, chewed-up appearance, it still had a delightful jingle; perhaps the Harriers had a cat at one point.
I stood up in front of the mirror, looking into it. All I saw was my face, framed by faded blonde hair, with brown eyes and the pearly lipstick I had put on while in the car. I looked around in the mirror's reflection of the room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The blue walls, the white trim, the cream curtains pulled over the windows... no mystical foggy shapes or strange colors.
"I'm not sure what I'm looking for," I said honestly. I turned around, a bit of my amusement betraying itself on my face. "By the way, did your family have a cat at one...?"
My words died away.
Ms. Harrier was gone, without a trace.
"...Ms. Harrier? Hello?"