The Red String of Fate

by Rebekah Fowles

  It felt strange, knowingly passing through a ghost. Just as before, gooseflesh prickled his arms and legs, and he felt a strange blockage in his throat that he wasn’t quite sure was of his own creation or not. As he suffered through the self-inflicted mess, he heard Vee raving behind him.

  “This is amazing! I was stuck in this house, but thanks to you, I’ve somehow managed to get out!”

  Landon opened the door to his car as Vee excitedly hovered through the windshield and “into” the passenger seat. He closed the door and finally turned his attention to her. He was actually a little jealous that she wasn’t constrained to a sitting position while in a car. He had plenty of legroom, sure, but watching her made him felt a little cramped.

  “Alright,” he said, “what do you want?”

  Vee twiddled her fingers, looking shy. “I mean, is this not okay? Following you to find out who killed me?”

  Landon closed his eyes, considering how much he cared before opening them once again to answer. “I suppose I don’t mind. But we definitely need to set some ground rules.”

  Vee nodded.

  “First, unless absolutely necessary, do not speak to me while I’m talking with others.”

  Vee bashfully looked down. “Sorry,” she said, “I know that wasn’t exactly polite. I was being childish.”

  Landon’s expression got a bit softer. She was a decent person. He had gathered that much. It just bothered him that she wasn’t exactly a...person. “Apology accepted. ...Thank you.”

  Vee smiled.

  Landon cleared his throat. “Rule two,” he said, “try not to stand in my path as I walk. And rule three, don’t...fly through me.”

  Vee nodded.

  “And can you do something about the temperature?”

  “Sorry...what?”

  Vee appeared lost. Landon sighed. “I don’t know what you did, but I feel three degrees colder than I should. It happened both when I entered and left the house, but now it’s not going away.”

  “I’m...not sure I can help you there...” Vee said.

  Landon bit the inside of his cheek. It was a bit of an inconvenience, but it wasn’t all terrible, he supposed. He could deal with it for a while.

  “Alright. I’m going to go, then. How fast can you fly, exactly? I imagine you’re not particularly constrained by my car, so you’ll have to keep up on your own.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Vee said. “I’m not really sure what my top speed is. I managed to get pretty fast just going in circles, though! Even if you leave me behind, though, I’m sure I’ll make my way back to you.”

  Landon chuckled a bit. What an interesting girl. It impressed him that she had so much energy, despite her lack of a body. From her story earlier, she sounded a little depressed and aimless—but now, of all times, she had mustered her spirit to achieve a goal. Literally.

  Landon was hardly a few yards out of the driveway when Vee’s head turned. “Cecil?” She said.

  Landon instinctively pressed the brakes when she flew through the passenger door, remembering a second later than she was fine and the action was unnecessary. Since he was stopped, though, he figured it best to await her return.

  She didn’t go far, just to the edge of the tree line. It surprised him that he could hear her clearly, as if the noise was hampered only by distance and not layers of plastic and metal from the car. As Vee spoke, it was clear she was having a conversation with someone, raising even more questions. Why could he see Vee, but not whomever she was speaking with? For that matter, was Vee speaking with another ghost, or could it have been some other supernatural phenomenon? He wasn’t too keen on the answer, so he focused on her conversation instead.

  “Cecil! Look! I’m out of the house!”

  “...”

  “Well, there was this man, Landon, who could see me somehow, and when he left, I just sorta...left with him, I guess.”

  “...”

  “Haunted? That’s a thing?”

  “...”

  “Oh. So I probably shouldn’t stop haunting him, huh...”

  “...”

  “You did? What did he say?”

  “...”

  “No way! Where is he? Maybe I can get Landon to take me there!”

  “...”

  “Thanks, Cecil. I really owe you one. Oh, and sorry about all the cops at your house. They can’t make more of a mess than we did, though.”

  After another moment of goodbyes, Vee returned to the car.

  “Landon! You’ll never believe this! Cecil says Ol’ Jones actually followed the person who killed me!”

  “Hold up,” Landon said, “who is Cecil? And who is this Ol’ Jones?”

  “I guess you couldn’t see ‘em, then, huh,” Vee said. “Cecil is a cat. Or, the ghost of one, anyway. Ol’ Jones is another ghost who lives in the forest. I haven’t met him, but according to Cecil, he should know exactly where my body is! Cecil told me where to find him, so we can probably retrieve my body today! Right now!”

  Landon covered his mouth in thought. It wasn’t exactly the plan he had intended, but it wasn’t exactly detrimental to the case. “We can go,” he said. “Where is this Ol’ Jones?”

  - 7 -

  Vee knew somewhere deep down that their was little actual reason for her to be excited; yet there was something driving her to stay motivated. She wasn’t sure if it was simply satiating curiosity, or if it might have been the promise of a beautiful afterlife if she could finish what she set out to accomplish. Both sounded pretty great, yet equally underwhelming. After all, there was no guarantee that finding her body or her killer would be enough for her to complete her purpose on Earth, nor was there any guarantee that there truly was something waiting for her beyond this existence.

  However, Vee chose not to dwell on these thoughts. She decided it would be better to deal with those things when they came, rather than pretend to know the answers now. After all, if she learned anything from this experience, it was that there were a lot of things about the world she didn’t know. It was no use to pretend she did, or fret over not knowing at all. Life went on, in one way or another, and that was enough for her.

  She turned her attention to the man tromping through brush in front of her. She felt bad that his pace was reduced and that his very nice suit pants were getting frayed. An unlucky pull of a thorn could even tear them, and then what could Vee do to repay him? Even if they found her body, it wasn’t as if she had any valuables on her. She couldn’t exactly write him into her will, either, considering she didn’t have one—and it was unlikely a lawyer would go off the word of some random PI who could see ghosts. Or, Ghost, rather. So far, Landon was only able to see Vee; and while she considered pursuing this train of thought, she stopped very early considering there were simply no similarities or connections they shared. In fact, the more she thought on it, the more she was convinced that the only thing they shared was the fact that they shared nothing at all.

  ...Which was a pity, really. Well, maybe not nothing, but it might as well have been nothing. Landon turned out to be a pretty decent guy after the initial shock of seeing a ghost had worn off, and his vexation with her thereafter was mostly due to her own discourtesy. She spoke without thinking—or rather, she spoke because she thought it was amusing how none of the officers could see the absurdity of the situation. When she said her behavior was childish, it was because it had been several years since she felt she could speak so unrestrained. In a way, it felt liberating; but then again, there was still someone she had to consider, and that someone was going out of his way to locate another strange ghost in the middle of the forest for her sake.

  And in light of all of this, she wished she could have made a better first impression. Granted, there was nothing she could do about being a ghost, but getting lost in her thoughts like this, she suddenly became very self conscious of his well being. It didn’t help that he was really quite attractive, too. ...Not that that mattered to a ghost. At least, it shouldn�
�t have mattered, but here she was, flustered over a man she’d never even be able to touch. Vee sighed.

  “Everything alright?” Landon said, noticing her sigh.

  Suddenly Vee was extremely relieved her face couldn’t give her away so easily, because she knew if she were alive in this moment, it would be beet red. “Yes! Great!”

  Landon smiled. “Good. But don’t hesitate to tell me if something is off.”

  Vee bit her bottom lip. Landon turned to continue forward through the trees, but Vee hesitated. She relented after a moment. “Actually, Landon, there is something...”

  He turned back around, waiting for a response. Vee curled in on herself slightly. “I’m sorry.”

  After a few moments, Vee opened her eyes to see Landon giving her a quizzical look. “For what?”

  Vee stammered. “W-well, I mean, you’re doing so much for me. Even if it is just for the Prez, you’ve been really nice once you got a grasp on the situation, and I’ve just been an annoyance. I mean, look at your suit...I just feel like you’ve gone pretty far to help a complete stranger, and a ghost no less.”

  Landon looked away, apparently getting lost in his thoughts. He spoke somewhat distantly, but no insincerely. “I guess,” he said, “but I feel like just about any person would do the same, given the information at hand.”

  “Maybe so,” Vee said, “but I still feel like I should apologize. It’s inconvenient, and it’s my fault.”

  Landon smiled, and once again, Vee’s heart—if she could call it that—skipped a beat. Was a person allowed to have a smile that nice?

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty interested in finding out more about this whole thing too, you know. I have a lot of questions I want to ask you, but I figure it’s best to focus on what’s in front of us first.”

  Vee nodded. “I agree. Thank you.”

  “If that’s it, then, I don’t suppose you’ve caught sight of Ol’ Jones?”

  Vee wished she had more direct directions on where to find this Ol’ Jones character, but Cecil was only able to describe his (very large) area of inhabitance. If they were lucky, they might be able to catch him in or around the crossover area, but there was no guarantee at this point. After all, ghosts weren’t exactly restrained the same way living things were. Which suddenly gave Vee an idea.

  “Wait here,” she said. When Landon nodded, Vee bolted upward, passing through a layer of leaves before once again hitting a border. She was grateful that the abrupt stop was never painful, but it certainly gave her a shock nonetheless. Landon looked on from below, hiding some level of amusement with a hand over his mouth. She had flown maybe 15, 20 feet in her experiment—not nearly high enough to pass over the trees and get the kind of vantage point she was hoping for. She dejectedly levitated back to Landon.

  He cleared his throat, and Vee knew he was working up composure. “So uh, what was that?”

  Vee looked away and melted into the ground a bit. “...I was hoping to see if maybe I could see Ol’ Jones from above, but I ran into a wall.”

  “That’s what it looked like, yeah. Is that what happened when you tried to leave the house?”

  Vee nodded, raising back up.

  “Interesting. What did Cecil call it? Haunting? It looks like you can’t get very far away from me as long as you’re haunting me.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. I guess it just hadn’t occurred to me.”

  “No matter. We’ll just keep going the way he directed. Feel free to fly in front of me. You’re probably a lot better at scouting the area than me anyway.”

  Vee nodded. Truth be told, she didn’t particularly like the idea of taking the lead. Even at school, whenever she was with a group of people, she preferred to stand behind. It was just how she was. And, in Landon’s case, being with him provided a certain level of comfort, which she was desperate to hold on to in her situation. He did have a good point, though, and it was only fair that she be of some use after everything he’d done for her.

  Vee was able to see a lot more a lot faster than Landon. As it turned out, not having to walk around trees or through underbrush provided a much quicker and thorough surveillance of the area; and while Vee felt bad she hadn’t considered it earlier, she felt like they were covering a lot more ground now, which was better than nothing. As a side effect, she was able to get a pretty decent feel for how far she could wander from Landon while tethered to him. Thirty or so minutes into their search, Vee spotted a faint blue flicker through the trees. She rushed back to Landon to tell him the news.

  - 8 -

  Landon could tell from Vee’s expression that they had probably hit their mark. Sure enough, she called to him before she even made it back.

  “Landon! I think I found him!”

  Landon raised an eyebrow. “Think?”

  “In the distance, that way,” she said while pointing. “He was too far for me to really see or get much closer, but I’ll make contact if you just keep going that way.”

  Landon nodded.

  The forest was pristine. Silent. Forcing his way through shrubs and vines had proven just how long the area had gone undisturbed, and Landon couldn’t help but wonder how many places like these were occupied by ghosts and spirits. Admittedly, it made him a little wary, even though he had a ghost-detector in Vee. For how long, though?

  It was something Landon hadn't considered until that point. He was going to help Vee find her body and her killer, but what then? What would happen to her after that? Would she go back to the house to float around for eternity? Not likely. It seemed she wasn’t too keen on being stuck there—to be fair, Landon would’ve also hated that. But, if not there, then would she haunt him for the rest of his life? He didn’t particularly like that option either. At least she didn’t have to be too close, or else personal hygiene would become infinitely more awkward. ...Which made Landon wonder how many ghosts had been peeping on him his whole life up to this point. The thought embarrassed him more than he expected it to, but then he couldn’t help but laugh at how absurd the thought was. Vee was already out of hearing distance, it seemed, making him a tad grateful he didn’t have to share his thoughts.

  More to the point, Landon wondered if he could handle being followed for extended periods of time. It wasn’t that Vee was particularly annoying, but her single-mindedness could easily become too much for Landon to handle if exposed to it too much. He wondered if this was what it was like to be in a relationship.

  Actually, how would being haunted by a ghost affect his relationships? Landon had too much to do to worry about women, but he knew he would probably settle down someday. If Vee was going to be with him, would he even be able to settle down? Even if she wasn’t in his direct line of sight, just knowing that she would be there could be enough for him to never actually pursue romance. He would be too self conscious about his forever-roommate. That’s what it would be like. Landon never got along great with his roommates, because even then, he could shut his door and pretend like they didn’t exist. ...Vee wasn’t restrained by doors.

  Then again, Vee wouldn’t eat his food. Or hog the bathroom. Or run up the electricity bill. Perhaps she might not be as bad. And perhaps he wasn’t giving her enough credit. Her first impression was absolutely wrecked due to circumstances beyond her control, and she was making some effort to remedy that. And that was something he respected in people. Not to mention, she seemed more self aware than a lot of the college students he knew. She even bothered to think of his inconvenience. He wasn’t sure if Lyndzi would do the same.

  Landon sighed. Now wasn’t the time to mull over these things. For all he knew, finding her killer might as well shock her out of existence. It hurt when the people close to you ended up being killers.

  Landon knew that feeling all too well.

  “Landon!”

  Vee called not far in front of him. Landon perked up and passed some trees to get a clearer look. Vee was facing his way, motioning him over.

  “Ol’ Jones, meet Landon.
He’s a private investigator helping me find my body.”

  Landon stood in silence with Vee, pretending he knew where the other ghost was. Fortunately he could read Vee’s body language well enough to see where she was directing her speech.

  “What!? No, that’s not...he’s helping me figure out who killed me! That’s it.”

  Even though Landon knew he wouldn’t hear the response, he decided to speak up. “Vee told me you had followed her killer. Did you get a good look at them? Where did they end up going?”

  After a briefer moment than Landon expected, Vee said, “No, he can’t see you, I don’t think. Can you?”

  Landon shook his head when Vee directed the last bit toward him. Then she said, “I don’t know why he can only see me. He couldn’t see Cecil either.”

  Landon watched as Vee became exasperated.

  “Mr. Jones,” Vee said, “I’d love to spend time and chat with you, but I really would like to find my body. Can you please answer Landon’s questions?”

  Vee nodded a few times, and her face was somber. Second-hand information was never the best, but at least Vee was acting more like an interpreter than an actual secondary source. After a few seconds, Vee turned back to Landon.

  “It seems he wasn’t really able to get a great look at the killer. Even though he followed him all the way to the river, his face was obscured...”

  Landon covered his mouth for a moment in thought before folding his arms and addressing the emptiness once again. “But it was definitely a man? What was he wearing? How tall was he?”

  Vee looked toward the air once again before relaying the information. “Yes, definitely a man, he says. He wasn’t particularly paying attention to what he was wearing, though...”

  “Well, why not?” Landon said.

  “Um, he says it’s because things like that don’t matter. There was a person carrying a large sack with a body through the forest. That alone was interesting enough. Also, ‘dead people don’t particularly care for the affairs of the living.’ Is what he said.”