The Phantom Touch

Taking Shape

In that moment, I felt everything escaping me. All feeling, all sense of the world around me, all understanding of who I was, being drained through the silent scream trapped behind my frozen lips. It wasn't until a swift breeze and a shock of bone-chilling cold passed through my body, that my muscles finally gave out and I collapsed to the floor.

"You need to leave here now," demanded a voice that floated a little ways from me.

As my body retaliated with a fit of shivers, fighting off the lingering cold left by the sudden passage of a ghost through my body, I managed to look up to find a familiar face drifting above me.

"T-t-trevorrr," I muttered, my teeth chattering.

"I'll explain later, but for now go upstairs and get warm." The ghost, a young man with wispy hair and a determined set to his jaw, gave me one last look before facing off with the still shrieking ghost, that undulated and whimpered before the new arrival.

Not waiting to be told again, I dragged myself along the floor until my legs found themselves and managed to propel me towards the stairwell some distance away. Without looking back, I fumbled up the stairs, relying heavily upon the railing to keep me aloft. Once I managed to scale three basement levels, I finally emerged on to the first floor where cheery sunlight filtered through the many windows and burned away the remnants of the chilling touch I had felt down below.

With my legs now reliable, yet still weak, I made my way to the closest sofa and fell down with a grateful sigh. Though I must have looked pale and frightened beneath my trembling, none of the handful of patrons perusing the shelves gave me any notice. Strange was simply the norm in a town like Whisper Valley.

"I'm really sorry about that Del," said a voice that once again startled me from my stupor. Hopping up into a sitting position, I wrapped my arms tight around me to stifle my shiver and looked for the source of the voice.

"Trevor, you're okay," I said with relief curling my words. The assurance that my savior made it unscathed offered a drop of warmth that spilled over my shoulders and eased the tension pulsing through me. My arms unfolded and my hands fell to my sides as I reclined back into the chair.

"Yeah, it takes a lot to do a ghost in," he said with a playful smile, before a nervous hand went up to run through hair that was far too ethereal to be in any need of combing. "Were you actually worried about me?"

"Of course," I replied. "Despite the variety of unusual and sometimes horrifying things I've seen here, what just happened is a new experience. I didn't need my favorite librarian being destroyed by whatever that was." It was true, though I may have worried for any other ghostly attendant that worked at the library, Trevor was the only one I was on a first name basis with. The others tolerated my presence and offered me help when I needed it, but, like with most ghosts, they seemed to lack any particular interest in the material world. Trevor, however, often chatted with me about the books I was reading and always greeted me with a warm smile.

"Well, that was just another ghost like me," he said with an even wider smile that created a rather jarring juxtaposition alongside my memory of the ghost he was now equating himself to. "She's just troubled."

"That looked like more than just trouble to me."

"How much do you know about ghosts, Del?" There wasn't frustration or annoyance in his voice, only curiosity.

"Well, I know that to become a ghost, you have to tether yourself to the world. You can't be converted by another ghost, like vampires, werewolves, and zombies do." I knew that little fact thanks to a fellow human and Body, Violet. I still didn't know her reasoning for wanting to become a ghost, since the first rule of the Body code was to never ask about a Body's first life, however, I did know that was her intention. She was being trained by a ghost and a mage to best prepare herself for anchoring her soul to the world when she is euthanized at the end of her contract.