🍭 Ghosted in Sugarshore 🍭

🍰 8. HAPPY HALE 🍰

What? I stared at her blankly. Why? I stared at her slowly.

I stared at her, building her up like a multi-layer cake, saving her from the sunlight. But there was no saving Hale and we both knew it.

"Hale? What happened?" I asked. "Why are you not alive?"

She giggled. "I am alive, silly. I told you, everything is alive at some point. This is mine."

"No," I said. "How could this happen? I killed him."

She laughed. "You did. You so did! Splash, boom, yum. I saw everything."

"Hale, it is your killer, right?" I asked. "It just takes more time than usual because you're so faded, right?"

"Silly, you're so pale," she said, flashing me a mischievous smile. "Don't turn into mint now. Well, you're what you eat, or so they say."

"Cut the crap!" I shouted. Her pretty little lips were twisted. It wasn't just a smile anymore; it was going to eat me whole. "What have you done? Why? I wanted to save you!"

"How typical," she sneered. "You so-called 'spooky sprinkles' think you're some kind of heroes or something, while in the reality, you're villains."

"Spooky sprinkles? Who calls us that?"

"I'm here to teach you a lesson or two. You bring ghosts back to life, but we never asked for it! What if we wanted to die, you ever thought of that?" Her voice was completely calm and collected, but poisonous. I felt sick, and not only because of all the mint.

"Why would someone want that?" I asked, shocked.

"Exactly – you don't understand," she said.

No, I did. I did understand. I knew them all, once they were my ghosts.

They wanted me to save them. They were happy. Once they got their lives back, they moved on, on their own. They didn't visit me and that was okay. They didn't thank me either, most of the time, but it was understandable. They looked at me, eyes glistering with new life, and waved at me. Happily. They rushed to live their lives again. I understood that. They wanted to get away from me and everything that reminded them of the death they once lived.

That was to be expected, right? That was normal, right?

"You can't know the whole story. You never know," she continued. "We can lie to you, as I did. Deceive you. We can make up or hide whatever we want. But we can't hide the fact that we are dead. Not completely, but dead for you. Dead for others. Dead. Maybe there's a reason for it?"

"What... What kind of reason could a ghost have to stay dead? They have another chance for a reason. They-" I said.

"They don't deserve it. Sometimes candy-men deserve to die long before they kill anyone, you know? Bad, bad, awful people. Killing is not the only way to be bad, it's one of many," she said. "Do you want me to tell you my real tale of woe? This one is sadder."

I nodded, unable to move beyond that. I wanted to run for my hill. I wanted to run to the sea. I wanted to run from the mint in my body. It was refreshing and minty, but bitter too. Bitter most of all.

"My real father was bad, no lie in that. Mom found comfort in a green jelly-man and the jelly-man knew how bad my father was and he decided to do something about it. Something permanent. He killed my father to save mom and me. He knew that someone would seek revenge, but he thought it was worth it to save a family. His new family. We ran away, all the way to Sugarshore. A promised land, a pretty place where no one would know. We would start the life anew."

She smiled again, happiness returning to her eyes for the blissful moment before it's gone. "My mom got sick, but she didn't die. She wanted to. Her body wasn't sick, but her head was. Her heart. It broke my dad's heart to do it, but he did what she asked of him, to set her free. Because he loved her. He loved her daughter as well - me. So, he killed her."

She took a deep breath and continued, "When I went to talk to my mom's ghost, I cried. I didn't understand then, but I was a girl. I screamed at her for leaving me and begged her to come back. There was a way, but it would destroy my dad in return. I was sad. Then, her ghost told me something I will never forget."

She turned to me and looked deeply into my eyes. "'Hale, honey, don't cry. Your mom is finally happy, to be here and to know there is someone to take good care of you there. We all die in different ways, Hale, but some of them are beautiful.' My dad hugged me that night as we both sobbed. We were sad and sad some more and then we weren't. We had each other and my mom was everything until she was nothing. Nothing to cry over."

Her stare became more intense. "We lived happily in Sugarshore, but not ever after. One of you came along. Spooky sprinkle, in for the cheap thrill. He killed my dad, my beloved dad who saved me, right in front of my eyes. Then he smiled at me and said, 'Don't worry. He deserved it.' Deserved it! For what? For protecting his lover and her child? For putting the loved one out of misery? For wanting a better life for me? Is that it?"

She shivered. Her whole body trembled with grief for her dad and hatred for me. "You're all the same! Killers, but you can't even admit it. You can be however bad you want if there are no consequences. Killing killers doesn't make you heroes. It makes you cowards. There, that's my lesson for you."

A moment of silence, a long and painful one. She didn't take her eyes off of me. I didn't know how to feel or think, about her, about me, about anything. I pushed my emotions aside, putting them into the gingerbread chest with other lost and unwanted things. After everything else was contained, one thought lingered. A painful one.

"If he was killed, they were freed, right?" I asked. "Your real father and your mother, they were brought back to life."

"Yes, they were freed," she almost screamed at me, every trace of her smile gone. She was a cotton candy lady no more, but an angry ghost.

"You must be a genius for figuring it out! Yes, they were back to torment me and to torment each other. But I ran away and got killed. On purpose. I don't know who my killer is. I never did. It was a big fight and I joined in, looking for trouble. It was the only way to set things right. If revenge is good, then I am the very best."

The smile came back, but a bad one. Ugly one. "My dad was bad, my mom sad. Now they're both dead again, as it was always supposed to be. Oh, it rhymed."

We stared at each other, her violet eyes full of hatred, my brown eyes broken. One look is worth a thousand words. We had nothing more to say to each other, nothing at all.

I turned around and walked away.