A Walking Toward

On bad days I remember. The rest of the time I am free. They say this world we live in is grey as though that were a bad thing. There is no colour here, and there are those who claim it is not a blessing. I think they forget Before. Or they do not understand. A blessing. A gift. There is pain here, but it is only waiting. There are other pains, but they are not real.

Sometimes it is hard to remind them of that. There will be a whispering of voices from the real world. Sometimes flashes of memory desperate to imprint. I move. The Grey Lands are my home. The living have no power here. I move past others. People. Buildings. Entire towns and technologies all as real as the final breath of the dying. Not captured, but suspended. There are places beyond the Grey Lands, but I have no desire to know them.

I wander what becomes familiar. Drift. They say the Grey Lands are as large as the world of the living, but they are wrong. Only so many things produce a ghost. Certain places, events, buildings, people. And everything that is a ghost fades over time. We are like dew, fighting against the sun, almost never knowing why we fight.

That I can think thoughts like that worries me at times.

I have met him before. Briefly. In passing like two wishes in the night. He walks up to me in a casual movements, hands deep in the pockets of jeans. He is thin and solid both, a ghost and something Else as well. I know his story. Once every ghost in the Grey Lands did. The only ghost denied entrance into the Grey Lands entirely. But now here. He has been for some time.

I stop and wait. There are few ghost-eaters, and few of those become ghosts. Dyer was one. He has power here, as he did there. “I am not a poltergeist for you to banish,” I say. Formal. Distant.

He smiles. The smile is crooked and easy and he does not stop when he does. “I am aware of that.” His voice sounds soft but it is not soft. “Not all ghosts have the presence to return from the Grey Lands to haunt the living. Some never even have the drive. Of those who do, only some become poltergeists. Those are the ones I destroyed, when I had to. Then and now.”

“You can destroy a poltergeist in the real world from the Grey Lands?” I am shocked, and do not hide my shock.

“Their surprise is part of what makes it worth the effort,” Dyer says. “But I am not here about them.”

“I am no poltergeist. Nor haunting.”

“No, you aren’t. You never even tried to be one, not even once. People call you back. They try to, with their séances and requests. With tricks and wishes and stories.

“The Final Séance. I remember that one. A hotel. My wife, others. A photo burned. Ten years was long enough, she said then, to wait for any man. I thought it would stop them, but people continue. Persist.”

“You could have gone to her,” Dyer said, mild, without judgement. I think he is almost as old as I, but there is no judgement to him.

“Two words. I could have said two words. ‘Rosabelle believe,’ and Bess would have known it was me. They still have them, these séances for me. I feel them every year. Like small cuts. Pressure sores. She is dead, but they still try to call me. As if a séance could hold me.”

“Death is a box one does not escape.” Dyer pauses. “That sounded better in my head. Your wife did not become a ghost.”

“No. It was a blessing. All those years. Debunking. Disproving. Knowing that ghosts were not real. I could not have faced her. I, the Handcuff King, shackled by that.”

“If it helps, there are many fakes. There are even those who fake being true magicians, or think that managing a single exorcism makes them into an exorcist. You could not have known. The Grey Lands aren’t meant to be known by the living, in case more desire to become ghosts.”

“Why are you here?” I finally ask.

“You have been here longer than most. But all ghosts fade. The Grey Lands are not permanent. Few things are –.”

“There are permanent things?”

“A Jay that I know of.” I wait. “It is complicated, and not important right now. You have to leave, or some day you will be called.”

“Into the light?”

Dyer laughs. “Nothing like that, as you well know. I can help you let go.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. An adventure, I imagine.”

I stare at the ghost who could destroy me. I don’t understand all he has said, but enough of it. I am old. I am tired.

“Not yet. See me next week. Ask me then.”

He nods, and walks away, drifting between two ghost buildings.

I stare after him. I take a step. “Is it grey?”

He turns. “Is anything?” Dyer asks, and he is so gentle it hurts.

“Please.”

And I say nothing else. And we are alone. And other ghosts are watching. I am famous, even here.

(I am shackled, even here.)

And then, finally, I am free.