The Ghost

This is a special one, folks. I'm going to share a distilled version of myself. I am not editing this, I am just posting it in all of it's 2007-Crystal-Charee glory. I was going through my Google Drive, looking for old story ideas that I might have forgotten about. There were some "oh, yeah!" moments, but nothing like this. I don't remember coming up with this idea, or writing any of this, and I certainly never revisited it. But, I am proud. I'll let you enjoy and then come back with some final thoughts.

Note: I wrote this intro before fully reading this excerpt.

Sara Lafflin has always dismissed personal encounters with fairies and mermaids and ghosts as products of an overactive imagination. She makes her living writing stories about these experiences. But when she wakes up one morning to a gnome bringing her breakfast in bed, and a goblin wearing an apron and wielding a vacuum cleaner--she realizes that her love of metaphors might be a little out of hand.

Her muse, Molly, demands that Sara start taking magical beings seriously, or she'll end up losing the gift of seeing them. Sara fires Molly. She's not about to go down the path of madness and let her fictional characters start telling her what to do. She holds out for three months. But no human maid can get her tiles whiter than white, and her new cook is scarier than any vampire she's ever employed--plus these people expect to be paid, and with her inspiration gone, Sara's running out of funds--fast.

When she stumbles upon a ghost, she rejoices, thinking it'll lead back to her muse. But the ghost is burdened by centuries of crimes it has witnessed, and can't remember it's way home. With every crime Sara helps bring to light, the ghost regains some of it's personality. But as Henry (the ghost) begins to remember, he reveals to Sara that Molly may not be as easy to get to as she'd thought. An entity Sara isn't about to start believing in is blocking the entrance to the realm where Molly makes her home. Unfortunately for her, belief is the key.

***

The car screeches around the corner. A gun stuck out the window spits bits of fire and metal. In my peripherals, I see people to my left and then to my right hit the pavement. Right about the time I decided it would be a good time to duck, my knees buckle and I fall. Pain rips through my shoulder and the butt of my jeans scrape against the concrete.

It's times like this when I really miss my muse. Not only is she great at distraction, (some people call it shock, I call it a blessed relief from reality) but she's got druids on speed dial. Unfortunately, at this point I am all alone and the pain is making my vision hazy. Actually, with all the adrenaline humming through my veins, I'm surprised by the blurred vision. Then the fuzziness moves away and I see something that I haven't seen for three months.

When Molly left, she took all of the magical creatures with her, including the ghosts. But there's one standing right there in the middle of the street, taking down a license plate number. "They're gangstas," I call out. "They're probably sporting fake plates." I look around as everyone on the sidewalk picks themselves up. Anyone hurt? I hope not.

I get a flash of a little girl with six braids sprouting from her head playing jump rope. Then I shake my head. That was a scene from a movie. It's noon on a weekday and we're nowhere near a school. I stand up and check for strollers. There are a couple of them, but no screaming or wailing. Except for the sirens. That was quick. They must be on their way to a crime in Bel Air. I wait for the sirens to recede into the distance, but instead they get louder. Real quick for this neighborhood.

"So you're a seer." I jump at the voice too close to my ear.

I jump. "Personal space, con permiso?" He steps back and I take a look at him. He's in a way weird outfit, something from the third century, if I know my history. "What year are you from?"

"1432."

Yep, a real history buff. That's me. "Uh. Okay, see you later."

He shrugs at my unfriendly tone, and starts to disappear.

"Wait!"

He becomes more visible and raises a brow.

"You on your way to the other realm?"

"Other realm?" He pauses and rocks on his heels for a moment. I'm reminded of my grandfather. Whenever he tells a story, he always pauses, like he's remembering. I always wonder if he's remembering how it went or how he wants to tell it. Something about this guy is a bit off too. Untrustworthy. Not that Gramps isn't great. Just really good at lying. "Not at the moment. Why?"

"Oh, nothing." I'm wary of telling this stranger anything personal. Then I remember that he's a ghost. Even so. "I have a message for Molly. S'all." I shrug.

"Ah." One corner of his mouth quirks up. He pauses again and looks through me. I figure that's fair. I can see right through him, after all. "If I see her, I'll let her know you're looking for her." He starts to fade again, and then stops. "Hey, can you do me a favor?"

"Why should I?" Then I remember that I just asked him for one. "Um. What is it?"

"Can you give this to one of the cops?" He holds up the notepad he'd been writing in earlier. "It'll take forever to find a real psychic at the station."

I sigh. "Sure." I pull out my own notebook and copy down the series of numbers and letters. Fortunately, I don't have to go far to get my mission over with. A cop walks over as soon as I'm done talking to the ghost.

"You okay?"

"I have the plate number."

The cop smiles. "I saw you write that down just now."

"I got it from a ghost--of a memory."

"What kind of car was it?"

"I dunno, gray sedan, I guess."

"Year? Make?"

"I don't know."

"We've got better info than that from other witnesses, and none of them saw a plate number."

I sigh. "Take it or leave it, pal."

He tugs the paper off of my pad. Rude. I scowl. I don't go around tearing stuff out of his hands.

"We'll check it out." He tips his hat.

I turn back to my stoop. Mrs. Rodriguez is leaning on her walker at the top of the stairs. "You're making up stories now, mija?" she says when I reach the top. I lean on the door and shove it open with my shoulder. That was stupid. Pain tears through my arm again. I take a look. Was I shot? I remember now. I scraped it on the newspaper stand when I fell. It looks nasty, but at least it's not a bullet wound.

"You never know when inspiration is going to strike," I say, stepping into the building. I pause at the mailbox, then continue on. No paychecks, just bills, probably. I'll deal with it later.

Okay! That was a lot. First of all, hate the ending. If I were to re-write this, she would definitely be shot, not setting us up to think she was shot and actually being fine.

Let's address the "yikes" moments. And, let's keep in mind that 2007 Crystal Charee was as woke as she possibly could be for someone who thought that racism was bad but, I hate to admit this, also thought that "slavery was a long time ago". I know. I took an Ethnic Studies class a couple of years later that changed my life. Anyway, back to my yikes'.

First, we have my very white-surnamed self-insert living in a "bad" neighborhood. Very woke of me to note that the sirens in the background were probably on their way to a rich neighborhood, though. But noting that a cop is taking down a license plate of a car on the street -- first, why? Second, my self-insert calling out loudly that the car belongs to "gangstas". Oh, my god.

I will say that the "personal space, con permiso" line made me laugh last night when I was skimming through this (I missed the "gangstas" part). But having a white bread character saying it is very 2007 me. I really thought that I could hang, with my half-remembered handful of high school Spanish phrases.

Oh, and the flash of the little girl with braid, wtf. There's no excuse for that. Also, like treating a drive-by like it was a normal, every day occurrence. I blame that on a combination of ignorance and the influence of chick lit. A lot of my stuff sounded way too quippy back then.

Also, wait, is Sara implying that she pays her human staff but didn't pay her magical staff? Who was I, JK Rowling? WTF squared!

But, there are some moments that I'm genuinely proud of. Actually, I was really proud of myself for starting off with a character getting shot in a drive-by. That's an exciting way to start a story. But then, I finished reading and she just scrapes her shoulder and that made me mad. And also, the kind of blase way that I write about the drive-by is pretty gross, but I didn't catch that while skimming last night.

Okay, back to proud! I love the immediate mention of Molly and how she'd be helpful in this situation, and then she's immediately brought back a paragraph later when Sara sees a ghost. This is the kind of worldbuilding I still tend to do, which is casually mention magical things and allow the reader to wait for a full explanation. Focus on what we need to know right now.

I love all of the dialogue with the ghost. The history buff line just made me laugh out loud. I am better at time periods now but 2007 me would not have been able to tell the difference between a 1432 ghost and a ghost from the third century. Especially the cockiness of the "if I know my history" line being immediately undercut.

I love the "Gramps" detail. Not an insert for my own grandfather for sure. He was not a good person. But characterization of the POV character often comes from how they see other people, and I love that her grandfather is a con artist and she loves him. Simple, quick way to add dimension to her personality.

I love that Sara resents the ghost for asking for a favor and then remembering that she just asked him for one. I don't know if I was trying to make her unlikable or just edgy. I think, edgy. Also, her telling him to get lost, and then immediately changing her mind. Great characterization this early on in the story. Like, Sara's personality might not be likable, but it's interesting. Lots of ambivalence and that's before I took a Creative Writing class and learned that you're supposed to do that on purpose.

I love that he's written down on his ghost notepad the driver's license number of the drive-by vehicle, but I don't love that I didn't make that clearer. I was sacrificing clarity for cleverness here, and it wasn't a fair trade.

The conversation with the cop is also pretty funny. I liked the ghost of the memory line. Yes, it is cringe, thank you very much, but I am cringe and this character is a self-insert, so.

The gray sedan thing is a nod to my face blindness. I'm not sure I even knew to call it that back then, but I have a terrible visual memory. I never found characters knowing the make and model of a car believable, so this was me writing myself realistically not remembering the make and model of a drive-by car. I wouldn't have noticed it, I'm sure. I still wouldn't, but I would try to remember if it was rounded like a 2000s car or sharp like a 70s car or these new cars all have square faces, which is so weird.

Anyway, moving on. I'm not sure what Mrs. Rodriguez's comment about making up stories was supposed to mean. The dialogue is too vague. But I know I named her after a coworker who used to call me "mija". No physical resemblance.

The mailbox thing, I didn't make clear. Sara would have stared at it and decided not to open it because she didn't want to deal with bills. It's an avoidant thing, also based on me. Good detail, but because I'm trying to be too clever again, it doesn't land without reading the sentence a couple of times.

If I were to re-write this today, obviously never lie to the reader. Writing a story is about revealing the truth, not obscuring it to make it seem more interesting. So if my character is shot in the first sentence, she stays shot, and the scene is about dealing with that.

Second, never use an act of violence, especially one not as racially charged as a drive-by, to show that your character is cool enough to hang. That she's "one of the good ones". Barf. Seriously.

Third, clarity is king. Never try to be such a good writer that the reader can't follow the action or thoughts of the POV character. I have way worse examples of this in my writing. It's probably best that I never worked on this story again, for a few reasons, but partly because if I had a later draft of this it might be unreadable.

Finally, the premise is iffy. I love the character who struggles with belief to the point of pissing off her muse. I also love the idea of a ghost who is so traumatized by the violence he's seen that he doesn't even remember which one is keeping him from moving on. The part that I don't like is the idea that Sara tells herself that magical creatures are metaphors. It's too convoluted. It makes her sound either insane or idiotic, and neither interests me for story like this.

I think, and I'm remembering writing this the more that I look at it, but at the time, I wanted to get my own place and the only place I might be able to afford was in an area that had a lot of gang violence. I grew up in Los Angeles county, but the very very outskirts. The two sisters cities that I grew up moving between was about 25000 people combined, so although I heard a lot of things, I was pretty sheltered.

In March of 2007 when I wrote this, I would have been twenty-nine, which sounds old enough to know better, but I also had been agoraphobic from the time I graduated high school until June of 2006, so I'd only actually been working outside the house for less than a year when I wrote this. I am not thrilled with the idea of using a violent setting as a background to make my self-insert seem "cool" but I was actively trying to picture myself in that environment, at the time I wrote this.

I'm posting this as-is, because I like it as an art piece. It's a time capsule of who I was in a very specific moment in my life; the good, the bad, and the cringe. Also, much as I hate to admit it, I'm a white lady and with that comes specific prejudices. I've changed a lot in the past nineteen years, not all for the better, but at least I can look at a piece of writing like this and be able to see what I'd do differently now, not just as a writer but as a person.

One of the reasons I came up with "A Thousand Auras" is because there are so many versions of each story that I could write, and I tend to get overwhelmed trying to figure out how to write the right one. "The Ghost", even this little bit of it, written a year earlier or ten years earlier or any time between 2007 and now, would be such different versions.

I also think about how different a writer I would be today if I'd actually ever finished any of these stories. I kept waiting to be a better writer, but I would be a better writer if I had actually been writing. Or would I? One of my worst fears is to be a super successful author (the horror) whose writing gets steadily lazier and more formulaic, and that may have happened if I'd figured out what could get me published twenty years ago.

So, I don't know. I hope that nobody stumbling across this post is offended by my insensitivity in 2007. But if someone stumbling upon this is offended by "woke" 2026 me, suck a dick. It's okay to grow up. Twenty-nine year old me wasn't the worst. In a lot of ways, she was a better person than I am now. But she would have been horrified by how insensitive this piece is. At least, she knew enough not to show it anyone but her mom. Here I am, posting it on the internet.