How to be a Ghost for Dummies

Lesson. 2

Cassie fell on her back with a loud thud. A small distressed sound left her lips, but then she realized that she couldn't feel the pain.

Yes, she thought glumly, rubbing her head. Already dead.

"Woof, and I thought the office was a lot dirtier than a grave," said Ash behind her, appearing out of thin air. He was staring at the ceiling and Cassie followed. Moisture had removed the deep blue color it was before and was starting to get gray spots. She tilted her head when a sudden bright shade caught her eye; it was a small speck of gold, hidden throughout the depressive environment. It wasn't the only one. Thousands of golden circles had been painted on the ceiling, making it look like some child's canvas.

As she stood up, Cassie's foot collided with one cardboard box. "BOOKS". It was written messily with a red marker, and Cassie couldn't help but shiver when she saw the small trail of water smudging it.  She and Ash were standing in a room full of boxes, all of them sealed with yellow tape and labelled to be carrying different objects. Clothes, dolls, shoes, school works, photos...

"Um, this is going to sound monotonous, but where are we again?"

Ash didn't answer. Instead, he went to take a seat on the green leather couch that had been propped against the farthest wall. He let out a sigh of relief when the furniture squeaked under his weight.

"I thought you already got wing of it," he replied a moment later when she didn't stop staring at him. "Go and have a look. Maybe that will refresh your memory or something."

Cassie frowned at him but did as told. She walked around the room, gazing at the shelves that hadn't been packed yet and let her fingers dance across the few movie boxes she found. There were particularly movie fictions, like the Back to the Future Trilogy, the Star Wars Saga, and notable T.V. series as Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. An odd feeling began to spread through Cassie and she walked back to the boxes. Ash watched her intently when she ripped open the box labeled as PERSONAL and saw her jaw slack open.

He didn't look remotely surprised at her reaction.

"These - these are my things!"

Bewildered, Cassie grabbed one of her Harry Potter books and looked inside of the hardcover. She always liked to mark her things with her initials since she learned to write and the books and movie cases were no exception to that rule.

Just as she dreaded, there were the curvy C.H. letters, circled inside of a small heart. She traced them with her finger.

"Where's my mom?" said Cassie suddenly. "And my dad?" 

Ash looked up from his Playboy magazine - Cassie didn't bother to ask where he got that from. The hawk-eyed man pointed to the nearest window - which was the one that had a seat to stare outside of the house. The blond girl immediately leaped towards there, her blue eyes looking through the glass. She absently noted that her breath did not condense on the window.

A big moving truck was waiting outside parked besides her father's red Pick-Up truck, stocked with the T.V. plasma he had so joyfully bought two years ago and with her mother's wooden closet.

"No, they can't be leaving!" Cassie sat up, and idea striking her mind and without notice, she ran outside of what she finally identified as the attic.

She ran down heavily but her body did not make any sound that anyone could hear. Cassie noticed as she passed by both her parents' room and her's that they were empty, but the girl didn't stop. Coming to a halt on the stair's railing, she grasped it tightly with her hands and panted, finally seeing who she wanted.