Ashes and Flames

Chapter Five

My first day of fifth grade had been horrible. It was filled with being surrounded by people I did not know and being teased excessively. It came with the territory of being the weirdo new kid.

Ash kept true to his promise and stayed with me throughout the whole school day. I always managed to sit in the back of the room with an empty desk beside me so that Ash could sit with me. Ash wasn’t very good company though. He kept falling asleep, while mumbling about how he already took these classes.

There were several instances when I got stared at funny because I was talking to Ash. Sometimes I forgot that I was the only one who could hear and see him. I got picked on a lot that day. The other children were relentless in making me feel like an outsider. It had gotten even worse when a boy had approached me at lunch.

“You don’t belong in fifth grade. You still have an imaginary friend like a baby! Maybe you should be in kindergarten!” a rude boy with black hair and brown eyes had teased me.

“I don’t have an imaginary friend!” I had denied.

“Then who do you keep talking to! You certainly don’t have any friends!”

With those words my whole world had felt dead. Ash couldn’t cheer me up either. I had gone home and locked myself in my room to sob hysterically. My nanny had tried consoling me, but I kicked her out each and every time. Ash had stayed with me. He stayed quiet though while he patted my back. I had never wanted to go back to school after that.

It was late into the night when Ash finally came back to me. He still had a rather solemn look on his face and it made me feel kind of guilty for not being able to be much help. He always kept his promises to me, but I couldn’t even keep the most important one to him.

Ash sat dejectedly in the chair to my desk and just stared out of the window. His normally expressive green eyes were dark and appeared more hazel than green. I would’ve given anything in that moment to be able to take the pain away from him. But, alas, there was nothing I could do except keep looking.

“Ash, how about I ask mom for her laptop again? I can try to see if I might’ve missed something when I went through the online public archives,” I asked Ash hopefully.

“You’ve already looked. All you could dig up was the name of this stupid, old house. Someone made sure that the fire and everything else was practically erased!” Ash rebutted after a few moments of silence.

I sighed. He was right. I had looked online prior to leaving to the library. It was six in the morning and Ash hadn’t been awake. My mother was getting ready to leave when I asked her if I could borrow her laptop. I had sat on the old living room couch and looked up everything I could. It took nearly an hour for me to even find the name of the house! When I had finally found it after several attempts of typing in the address, the public archives refused to let me see any information on it. I kept getting an error notice.

Unfortunately, that was the moment Ash decided to wake up and come looking for me. I had explained that all I could find was the name of the house and I could visibly see the disappointment that came off of him in waves. I had given him a reassuring smile before telling him that we would go to the library anyway later on. He had flashed me a brief, if not dejected, smile before we had gone back up to my room.

“Who would want to erase the history of the house?” I questioned myself out loud.

Ash just continued to look out of the window. I sighed before getting up and leaving in search of my mother. I found her in her room laying out her morning nurse's outfit. Her room was far more decorated than mine. She had pictures of her wedding day, the day I was born, my father, and even pictures of my younger self all over her room.

“Mom can I ask you something?” I asked after she noticed me and invited me in.

“Sure, Mae flower. What’s on your mind?” she responded.

“Well, I was wondering about the house. I couldn’t find much of anything online in the public records,” I answered after taking a seat on her bed.

“Why are you wondering about the house hun?” She inquired suspiciously.

“I’m writing a story and I wanted to see if the house has any cool history that I could add to it!” I quickly lied.

“Well, I could stop by city hall and see if I can get the property records for you. sweetie. It’s always a good thing to have those anyway,” my mother replied after a moment’s thought.

“Alright mom, thank you. I’m going to go to bed. Sweet dreams.” I kissed my mother on the cheek before hurrying out of her room.

I couldn’t wait to tell Ash the good news. This was a lead! If my mother is successful in getting the records, then we might have a chance to finding out Ash’s real name!

Hurrying into my room, I closed the door behind me before turning to Ash. He was lying on my bed tossing a tennis ball up and down again. His brown hair was covering his eyes and I could see tear stains that ran down his cheeks. Walking over to my bed, I sat down. Ash didn’t even acknowledge me when I laid my head on his chest. All he did was stop tossing the ball up and down. I curled my hand into his shirt and inhaled his scent.
I’ve always taken comfort in his scent of spring rain. It was a comforting scent when I couldn’t leave my assigned room because I was a “hazard.” Ash was the only thing keeping me sane in that nut house.

“Mom said she’ll get the property records for me,” I spoke after a long moment of silence.

Ash didn’t verbally respond. He tightened his arm around me and dropped his head onto mine.
“Do you think we will be able to find anything?” I asked after not being able to stand the quiet.

“Hopefully,” was his only response.

“Well why don’t we change so we can go to bed, okay? Tomorrow’s another day.”

Ash replied with a curt nod of his head before I got off of him and he disappeared.

According to all of the folklore about ghosts, they can’t change their clothes from what they died in. That’s not the case. Ash can change his clothes any time he wants. Where he gets his clothes, I’ll never know. I don’t even want to ask. I’ve always assumed he bases his style off of the clothes he wore when he was alive.
I couldn’t very well ask anyone else, though. I didn’t know any other ghosts and I didn’t know anyone who knew anything about ghosts either. So there was no one to really ask except Ash. I don’t think he knows either, to be honest. He was alone for a long time and he didn’t know any other ghosts.

I shrugged my thoughts away before rising from my bed and heading over to my dresser. I pulled out a pair of long pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that had a cuddly kitten on it. I placed my clothes on my bed before removing the clothing I had already been wearing.

After putting on my pajamas, I tied up my long, dirty blonde hair into a high pony tail and headed towards the bathroom to brush my teeth.

By the time I got back into my room, Ash was already asleep on my bed. He looked so innocent when he slept. I would never tell him that though. He would freak out!

I had discovered ghosts slept after staying up one night with Ash when I was younger. I was reading a book when I heard snoring from the left side of my bed. There was Ash, sleeping with an arm over his eyes and the other hanging off of the bed.

A loud snore took me out of my memories. I shook my head before closing my door and turning off the light. Ash was strewn about the left side of the bed, as usual. I pulled the blankets from under him and got into my side of the bed before turning over and falling sound sleep.