Watercolor Blue

7-Grey and white

The dirt path that ran inside the iron fence of the desolate community park was now covered in dates that had fallen from the trees that grew on the sides, it was a sad sight to see really and there were no children about to swing on the rusted chains of the playground. Wild shrubbery full of thorns was spilling on to the path and apart from an occasional passerby taking a shortcut through the park; there was absolutely no one to be seen around the time the running group came for a run.

Dark clouds were sailing overhead, creating giant shadows onto the landscape of the peaceful neighborhood. Constance squeezed her toes beneath her sneakers -there was a minuscule stone in the right one but she had tied her laces too tight for her to be tempted to take it out. After a moments worth of struggle she gave up on ridding herself of the stone and trod down the little garden of her mother's house and out to the street which was alive with laughing children.

Constance didn't nearly catch as many an eye as her younger sister; she had inherited her mother's complexion and eyes whilst her sister; Neelum, had taken after her father's fair skin and cloud blue eyes. Her hair was a hallo of light chocolate and it stood on ends like cork screws. It was a little odd to look like that here, in her mother's land. The local born were brown and dark like her mother but not quite the same, there was diversity but not quite extreme. Adapting to the new country had been strange, challenging almost but not necessarily so. It was as if she had never lived the life she had before her father's death, it seemed to her like a very absurd dream- detailed and fading around the corners like ink on old paper.

There were a lot of foreign embassies in the area where they lived, hence the diversity of race and culture at her college was mildly surprising. She looked like she belonged here even if in her heart nothing ever felt quite right. Constance brushed back a strand of her hair and continued to curve every child that ran into her on the street.

The air was damp from the rain that had bombarded the city last night and the sweet smell of moist soil now rose into one's nostrils like a persistent and expensive fragrance. The discomfort that ensued from the little stone in her shoe dulled the moment she caught sound of familiar voices near the park ahead. There would be no running today as there was mud and wet puddles about the entire track and it would not do well to be running in such conditions.

"-of the story behind it?"

"Don't care and don't want to know"

"Heard it was owned by a widower...abandoned house cause' the wife's spirit still lurked. They say he was abusive... didn't take care of the poor woman...said she was sick"

"Sounds like a ridiculous yarn to me, Irwin"

"Oye Constance! Good to know you're alive, what took you so long?"

"Sorry guys, Ma needed a hand with the dishes"

****

"Guys I think I'm just going to wait outside the house...you know keep watch" Martha declared in a small voice.

"Keep watch of whom: the ghost of the widower's wife? Martha I hope you realize that she isn't coming through the garden gate." Hunter shook his head.

"I'm in the favor of Martha staying back; I don't think she has the nerves for this sort of thing." Alan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, protectively.

"Oh yeah? Watch me!" Martha shrugged away his arm and climbed over the gate without any assistance.

"This, my friends is the classic example of reverse psychology, Thank you Alan and Martha for educating us" Hunter laughed as he bent to give Constance a leg up.

"Shut up and hurry over" Martha grumbled from the other side of the gate.

The four of them propelled their bodies over the gate, their veins full of young blood and their hearts filled to the brim with secrets they'd rather not exhale. Word of Roth Stone's death had not yet spread through the halls of their college but once it does Constance was sure she'd want to run again and perhaps she might as well just do it.

The five of them gaped at a grimy hand print on the window from which they had previously gotten in, the print seemed to have been made from the inside and from the looks of it, seemed recent.

"How do you explain that?" Martha whispered.

"Don't know any ghosts that leave hand prints" Hunter tried a smile that didn't quite meet his eyes.

"You're not dead enough to know ghosts you idiot" Martha glared at him and inched closer to Constance.

"Seems to me like the case of a human" Alan scratched his head and moved closer to eye it better.

The greyish hand print on the window stared back at them like an ominous omen but that did little to discourage the curiosity behind their glittering eyes. Without warning Hunter slid open the window and got into the dark room.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm willing to find who put that there" and with that being said Constance got in after Hunter.

It didn't take much to convince the rest; before you could blink they were all crammed into the murky living room together. The wind whistled outside like a spirit deep in a siren song, Martha shivered as she clung to the back of Alan's jacket, there was not much to see and not much to light the way either and soon enough they found themselves fumbling for the torches in their phones.

"These apps always come in handy eh?"

"Although not quite in the way you'd expect"

"There doesn't seem to be much here" Irwin strolled into the hallway that stretched far into the depths of the dark and damp house.

There was a wide wooden arch that dripped with an apparent leakage from a supposed bathroom upstairs. Irwin walked into the room opposite the dilapidated living room and flashed the narrow beam of his cell phone at the walls; there was no one around except for an occasional insect.

"Are those roaches!" Martha screamed.

"Martha shut up; do you want the world to know that we're barging into someone else's property?"

"You're a cockroach to me Hunter; I want you to know that."

"So I scare you?"

"Disgust me"

A ball rolled upstairs, one small spherical object, then another and then a crash down the landing. Constance held her breath and clutched Martha's sweaty palm. Hunter's flashlight along with everyone else's was pointing indefinitely into the floor boards, there was someone upstairs or so they thought.

The grey hand print no longer felt like a joke now.