Michael's Ghost Girl

Blessings and Curses

"Tisiphone's here." Mariah flew through the window and crumpled onto the dirt floor. "She's here. She threatened Michael, and he thought she was me. She knows she is forbidden to harm him, but he doesn't know that. I thought we'd escaped her, that we could do this on our terms. We were sent to take care of things in this house, but no one told me we couldn't take as long as we wanted."

"Whatever gave you that idea, Alecto, or should I say Mariah?" the voice of Tisiphone came out of the darkness, "We were sent to bring a murderer to justice. Instead, you fell in love with that poor boy and wanted a taste of what a mortal life might be like. Only we aren't mortal, and that means you are going to lose that boy you love so much. Now the one you came for is sitting in this house waiting for his next victim. You weren't supposed pretend to be the ghost of the departed. You're here to do your job and leave." 

Mariah stood up to face the figure clad in black. "I'm not scared of you, Tisiphone, not anymore. What can you do to me? I haven't abandoned the task that was assigned me."

"We can't take the monster until he's on the verge of death. And he's very much alive. We've made him afraid in his own home, where he thought he was safe. Those girls died, but not because of me. So I've played at being Mariah—I wanted to know what it was like to be human. And now I know what it's like to love, which I'll never know again." Bloody tears appeared in Mariah's eyes.

Tisiphone's expression softened for a moment, then stern. "All right little sister, I will forgive you this once. But the murderer must face justice. Do not forget that you cannot stay here, and do not stay here too long, or I will come and fetch you myself. We are here to do the bidding..."

"Yes, I know, the bidding of the gods," Mariah interrupted, "That's why I've been here all along. You don't need to lecture me. We were spared for a reason, now let me do it my way."

"Just see that you do." Tisiphone disappeared, leaving the two girls alone.

"That was close," Crazy Girl shuddered, "She's a real bitch, always has been. You're lucky you got a pass, it could have gone another way." Mariah said nothing. "I warned you about falling for that boy."

"And now I have to convince him the monster is going to go after his sister, and how can I do that if he wants nothing to do with me? I almost wish Tisiphone stayed." Mariah plopped down on the dirt that covered the grave that held the true Mariah's bones. "I'm tired of this. When the Titans were killed we were spared, but for what? A lifetime of being the cops of the gods? I'm tired of this, tired of it all. I'm beginning to wish that I could be mortal, I want to rest now, it's my turn."

"That's not for us, remember?" Crazy Girl warned her, "We bring the guilty to justice, we weren't asked if we wanted to, it's our purpose. Eternity is your legacy, even if you don't want it. We do what we do because no one else can do it. You never complained until you came here and started messing with that boy. You started this, now how are you going to finish it?"

"Well, I'm not going to finish it today. Damn you and Tisiphone! I'm still going to do things my way. I don't care what you do to me. In the meantime, I have something to do." She flew back out the window and into the darkness.

Michael couldn't sleep. The revelation of the true Mariah, not the girl he had loved so much, but a strange creature from some mythological world played itself over and over in his head. Bad enough that he had come to believe in ghosts, worse still that old myths and fairy tales might be real.

He kicked off his sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He threw on tee shirt and jeans, then opened his window. He paused a moment to breathe in the night air, the warm scent of early summer, then grabbed a branch of the old magnolia tree next to his window and climbed down it. He sat down in the old glider, swinging back and forth, trying not to think of anything.