Ashes and Flames

Chapter Three

"Okay, Ash! I'm gonna go to bed. I'll see you in the morning!" I declared before snuggling into my bed and falling asleep.

"Good night, Mae."

For weeks Ash and I hung out. He played with me during the day and stayed with me until I fell asleep at night. He was my best friend, my only friend. As the weeks went by, I noticed that my nanny nor my mother paid any attention to Ash. I figured at least my mother would acknowledge him since she's the woman who drilled politeness into my head! A mother should always acknowledge their child's only friend and encourage the relationship! So I took matters into my own hands.

"Mom, why don't you ever acknowledge my friend?" I asked one night when she was tucking me in for bed.

"What friend, sweetie?" my mother questioned.

"Ash! The boy who's been playing with me all summer! You never even say hi to him!" I all but yelled. I was glad Ash wasn't there. My mother was being rude.

"Mae flower, no one has been here all summer. Now why don't you get some sleep and I'll see you tomorrow," my mother stated before she kissed my forehead and turned off the light.

Not long after my mother closed my bedroom door, Ash appeared. He looked weary and just about ready to fall asleep, so like any generous child, I invited him to lay in bed with me. It was quiet for a while, before I spoke.

"I'm sorry for my mother's rudeness. I don't know why she's acting like she can't even see you. Please don't go away forever because of her," I pleaded.

Ash sighed before he answered.

"Mae, Your mom isn't being rude. She really can't see me."

As soon as the words registered in my mind, I sat up straight.

"Why not?"

"I'm a ghost, Mae. I told you already, I'm dead," he replied, exasperation clear in his voice.

"You're not a ghost, Ash! Ghosts are white and they scare people! You don't look anything like a ghost!" I was quick to defend him from his own misconceptions.

"Mae," Ash started as he turned to look at me in the darkness of my room, "you're thinking of ghosts in stories and Halloween. That's not really what ghosts look like. When a person dies, they become a ghost."

"But I can see you, Ash," I protested.

"That's because we have a connection through my necklace," he explained.

"How does it work?"

"I don't know. Let's go to sleep, okay?"

I nodded before curling into his side and falling asleep.

"Mae! Come on!" Ash bellowed as he ran about my room searching for my clothes.

"Ash, I swear, sometimes you remind me of a Chihuahua with all of your yapping and-," I began to say as I turned around to see him, "Get out of my panty drawer, you pervert!"

I threw one of the pillows from my full sized bed at the now beet red teen. I was glad my mother was working all day today. Last thing I need is for her to walk in on me yelling at someone she couldn't see again. That'd be another trip back to the loony bin!

"Ash, how many times do I have to tell you to stay out of the drawers that have personals in them?" I ground out between gritted teeth.

"I don't know... a lot." he squeaked out.

I didn't dignify that with a response. Sometimes I swear I would strangle him if he wasn't already dead.

"Let me take a shower and then we will go, okay?" I relented after a few moments of deep breathing.

I grabbed the clothes he already had picked out and went into my undergarments drawer to gather the necessities before heading towards the bathroom down the hall.

Privacy was one thing I definitely missed. Whenever I would take a shower at the hospital, they'd have someone check up on me every fifteen minutes. I wasn't the only one they did it to. It was mandatory for someone to check on us every fifteen minutes, but it was really annoying.

After I set my clothes down on the sink, I turned to the bathtub and set it for the shower. While waiting for the shower to warm up, I removed my clothes. Only when I was certain that the water was warm enough did I hop in and wash my hair and body.

Twenty minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom dressed and ready to go. Ash was lying in bed tossing a tennis ball up and catching it over and over again. He's such a typical male.-bored beyond belief by waiting for a female to take a shower.

"I'm ready to go, Ash!" I hollered, startling the boy from his stupor.
"Finally!"

An hour later, we found ourselves finally making it to the library. I still couldn't drive yet, so we had to walk the whole way. It wouldn't have taken so long if Ash didn't demand we take our time and "admire the beauty of the world." We even got lost because of him.

I walked up to the front desk where a girl about my age was sitting.

"Excuse me, can you point me to the archives?"

The girl looked up and examined me before answering, "They're behind the historical section."

I nodded my thanks before walking in the general direction of the nonfiction departments with Ash close behind. It didn't take long for me to find the historical section. We wandered through the aisles until we found a door labeled "Archives."

"Are you ready?" I asked Ash with my hand on the knob.

Ash's face paled before he nodded his head.

Honestly, I didn't really believe him.