NECROMANTIC

one.

I am a necromancer.

That basically means, in a nutshell, that I can see ghosts and raise the dead.

To be honest with you, it's not a particularly fun gift ... well, 'gift' is the wrong word in itself there. Talent? No. Party trick? Hell no. Burden? That's more like it. But again, to be frank ... I guess I've learned to live with it. I've had to. And mostly, that's ok. And those ghosts don't bother me. But I've had cases where they've cottoned on to the fact I can see them, just as they can see me and ... well, things can get pretty scary. But again - I've learnt to deal with it.

I guess I should start at the beginning. The very beginning... the beginning of the beginning, if you will.

I saw my very first ghost at the age of six. Or at least, that's as early as I can remember seeing one. I don't doubt that there wasn't spirits at the end of my crib as an infant. Anyway, I digress.

It was the night after my sixth birthday, and the day of my mom's twenty-ninth, and so she and dad had gone out for the evening, leaving me in the care of next door's nineteen year old daughter for the night. And she was nice, letting me stay up a little later, playing snakes and ladders with me, even letting me have some of her cola. And it was during one game that her cell chimed, and she spoke for about a minute, before giving me a torn look and saying 'be right there.'

And she told me she'd be back in five minutes, leaving me with the half-filled cup of cola as a bribe not to tell my parent's, and I sat nestled on the couch, watching Acme cartoons.

That is, until I heard someone sobbing hysterically from the cellar.

I thought it might be the babysitter - maybe she'd fallen and hurt herself, and needed my help, or maybe the person she'd called 'Mr. Sexy' as she'd walked away with the phone (probably thinking I hadn't heard her, trilling it cooingly) had said something mean. And as far as inquisitive six year olds go, I was pretty nosy - so I went to look.

There was nothing of great interest or importance in our cellar, save for a few old boxes of stuff that we couldn't find a place for in the house, or dad's power tools, Christmas decorations, and a half constructed wine rack. Y'know, the usual crap that's stuffed into the dark and creepy rooms no one ever really goes in. But I wasn't scared, then. I'd never felt any reason to be unnerved by it. So I willingly trotted to the door, leaving it propped open behind me as I descended the old, creaky wooden stairs, the air so cold down there that my breath misted in front of my face.

"Hello?" (though if we're being one hundred percent accurate here, it was probably more like 'hewo?' I had the baby voice curse until about age eight) I called into the dark, pulling the light switch on, the single bulb spluttering out a weak yellow glow. "Who's therwe?"

The crying had stopped about a minute before, when I was half way down the staircase - but it had been clear enough that I knew it had come from the cellar. And then it started again.

I located the woman in the far corner, her back to me, hands raised to hide her face. She was wearing what I was sure, when new, was sparkly and every bit as pretty as a flapper girl dress was meant to be - but on her was old, dusty and dirty looking, torn fishnets, exposing grey veiny flesh on her legs, and heels. From her ears and neck swung pearls that had gone a sickly grey, but still managed to wink in a way that suggested that they were real, and were worth a pretty penny. And her hair was a short, dark pixie crop ... or what hair you could see past the massive wound taking up most of the back of her head.

And of course, being a small child, I wasn't immediately alarmed at what such a woman was doing down in my cellar. I just knew she was crying, and had an ouchie on her head, so I tentatively took a few steps towards her and asked "Arwe you ok, wady?"