the phantom !

[serendipitywest]

The more the woman droned on, the closer Pity was to... either snapping or just walking away. It was getting increasingly difficult to so much as stand there, listen to her talk and talk -- the idea of helping her find her son? Who, very likely, was not there?

Pity pinched the bridge of her nose as the woman began talking about the smell of his shadow and the wind carrying his name and she couldn't help but whisper to herself, "What the fuck?" How in the hell did she get caught up in this? Had she looked a little too inviting? That wasn't the goal! Was she not making that clear enough!? Was she going to have to tell the woman to go find her own damn son, they had not seen anyone!?

And then the woman said something that she actually understood.

She was familiar with grief -- or whatever the hell her version of grief was -- and she knew she was there, in that moment, because she would give anything to see Calliope just one more time. And a sinking feeling hit that this woman also had her own version of grief, one that brought her here -- one that made her think everything would be okay if she could find someone who was no longer walking the Earth. No wonder she looked like she'd just stepped out of a 1930s psych ward...

She, herself, was barely hanging on by a thread, and she had never had (nor lost) a child! She could only imagine how mad that may drive a person!

Nonetheless... it was all speculation. But she understood now. She understood the desperation.

"You're right," Pity replied, tone level and soft. "How long has he been gone?" Grief didn't always necessitate dying, now did it? @thevirginabilene

[thevirginabilene]

Abilene felt insane for entertaining any of this, but she was just thankful that whatever lash out she had earned, was gone for a moment.

Why do you smell of his shadow? Why does the wind carry his name when it brushes past you?

She didn't even want to think about what the woman meant and if it wasn't brought up again, she wasn't going to bring it back up.

Abilene exhaled slowly, tilting her head just slightly as she took in the woman’s hollowed-out frame, the way sorrow twisted her voice into something raw and desperate. There was something in that desperation that tugged at her, something she didn’t want to acknowledge but couldn’t quite shake.

Abilene had never lost a child. She’d never had the chance. But she understood the weight of ghosts. How they lingered in the corners of a room, how they made a home in the silence between words.

Her voice, when she finally spoke, was measured. Careful. “If you want someone to help you,” she said, her drawl quieter than usual, laced with something softer, “then you have to give us something to go off of.”

She wasn’t mocking. She wasn’t cruel. But she needed facts, not poetry and riddles. “Like what Pity said, how long has he been gone?"

[mistymountainphantom]

The woman swayed where she stood, her presence less a body and more the shape of absence itself; the outline of a woman carved from longing and grief. “How long?” she echoed, her voice a threadbare whisper, unraveling as it left her lips. A slow tilt of the head, like the question itself was foreign, like it had never occurred to her to count the days. The empty wells of her eyes fixed on them both, unblinking.

“He was here,” she murmured again, voice drifting, as though speaking to something just beyond their reach. “I held him in my arms. I kissed his brow. I called him by name, and he answered.”

A pause. Then, her voice cracked like splitting ice.

“Then the ground took him. The dirt swallowed him whole. And yet,” her breath hitched, a sharp, shuddering thing. Her fingers twitched at her sides, curling against the fabric of her tattered dress. “And yet, I hear him. I wake in the night to the sound of his laughter. I see his shadow slip between the trees. I feel his hand in mine, right here,” she lifted her palm, fingers trembling, as though the weight of something unseen still lingered there.

Her gaze snapped back to them, sharp as shattered glass. “Gone. That’s what they tell me. But you don’t smell like people who believe in 'gone,'” her lips barely moved, but her words slithered out, curling at the edges like something just shy of human. “You smell like loss.”

“You would tear apart the earth for the ones you've lost," she whispered, stepping closer, "If your dead called to you, would you not listen?"

[ovrcasts]

She'd just been about to deliver some well-placed barb, her lips parting to shape the next saccharine syllable, when the air turned. She felt it before she saw it; something off, something wrong. The kind of wrong that didn’t come from bad company or poor taste, but from things that should have long since been put in the ground. It prickled at the back of her neck, ran icy fingers down her spine, and made her stomach curl the same way it did at that night in the cemetary.

Her fingers, so poised and practiced in their little motions, stilled against the napkin she’d been toying with. Liliana turned stiffly, her whole body slow to react - as if moving too fast would draw attention she didn’t want. And then she saw it. Pale, moving like she wasn’t fully here, like she was drifting through a space that had already forgotten her. Liliana’s mouth dried. That dress. That hair. The dirt. The silence.

Her heart tripped over itself as she turned to Sugar, fingers curling into the vinyl of the booth, sputtering out in a whisper, small and sharp like a snapped thread - "Is that…"

[sugarpascals]

Sugar wasn't prone to hysteria. Not in the way that the ladies in the town thought she was, the things they whispered 'fore they got right with God on Sundays and apologized for gossipin'. See, she never lost control of nothin'. Her actions were measured, thought out, premeditated. She mighta' acted on impulse a dozen or so times, but even those impulses came from somewhere. Mamaw taught her all about that, about admittin' your darkest desires and plannin' for the inevitability that one day they'd seep out.

So, on account of her status as a non-hysterical woman, Sugar knew to trust her gut about the pale woman who all but floated past them. She and Liliana were no stranger to the paranormal, not after that night with Tank Thompson, and Sugar for one wasn't afraid of a ghost. 'Specially not one who looked like she oughta be somebody's great-grandma. "Y'gonna sit and stare or y'gonna do somethin'?" she whispered back to Lili, pushing to her feet and abandoning her salad without a second thought.

"'Scuse me, you mind if we keep ya company?" Sugar asked with a smile, sliding across the red, cracked vinyl and patting the booth next to her for Lili to do the same. "My friend 'n I were just sayin'... you look awfully familiar."

@mistymountainphantom

[mistymountainphantom]

The woman sat motionless, her hands folded on the table as if she had been waiting a long, long time. The dirt beneath her nails, the way the fabric hung off her bones, the dull glaze in her eyes, it spoke of years lost, of something stolen, of a story that had never found its ending. The scent of damp earth clung to her, thick and heavy, like the breath of a grave left half-open.

Sugar’s voice broke the silence, soft but steady, threading through the space between them like a bridge stretched over a chasm. An invitation. A recognition.

The woman did not turn, did not blink, but the air around her thickened, the pressure shifting like the hush before a storm. She felt it coil tight, the aching pull of something that had been waiting too long, unheard, unseen.

Then, a breath - thin and shallow, stirring the dust on the tabletop. And a voice, cracked and distant, as though it had traveled a long way just to be heard.

"You remember me?"

[serendipitywest]

Well, fuck, Abilene! If you want to go search for some Samara-looking weirdo's strange woman's son, do it by your lonesome! Don't say 'we'! C'mon, now!

And now the woman is being even stranger, great! Man, all Pity wanted was to angst over a grave in peace...!

Pity stood with her arms crossed over her chest as the woman started throwing out accusations of Abilene lying. Weird fuckin' assumption. What would Abilene have done even if she (and/or they) had seen him? What would that have accomplished? 'Yeah, we saw him.' 'Take me to him!' 'Motherfucker, he's probably long gone now!' 'Take me to him!' -- and cue the wild goose chase. Man, ghosts strange women who looked like they had just stepped right out of a well the 1930s were just so impatient!

(As was Pity, quite frankly, to get out of this conversation. She could always just walk away! But, at this point, she would not be surprised if the woman followed her... and, like, maybe all the way to her house?) Ghosts, Strange women who looked like they had just stepped right out of a well the 1930s, always so persistent!

Of course, the conversation just had to be turned to her. If the woman had kept accusing Abilene of lying, at least Pity could have just, like... stared at a tree and nodded at random intervals or something! But now she had to decide whether she was going to decide with the weirdo or Abilene. Which would end this sooner?

On one hand, telling the weirdo that Abilene was lying could mean the woman just yelling at Abilene! Maybe she could walk off! But it could also mean the woman trying to get them both involved in trying to find her son (who?!). On the other hand, telling her that Abilene was telling the truth could mean her yelling at the both of them and insisting they were both liars. The real question here was: did the woman have a weapon? If she did, lying was the obvious answer. If she didn't, really it was a 50/50. Throw Abilene under the bus and potentially walk away or potentially be enlisted in finding 'her son'? Or back Abilene up and inevitably get stuck in some idiotic confrontation?

"I don't fuckin' know, man." She was pretty sure Abilene was telling the truth, but she didn't 'fuckin' know' which was the better decision. "I saw some 80-year-old guy a few minutes ago -- all I've seen." She gestured towards the slope of the hill with her thumb, indicating where said 80-year-old man had been. Maybe he was her son, genetics were fucking weird! This was before Benjamin Button and/or Orphan, but maybe that was why he looked 80 while also being her son! "This is a fuckin' cemetery, 'right? People are always coming and going so they can mourn." Way to interrupt their mourning! @thevirginabilene

[thevirginabilene]

Abilene’s hands fell to her sides, her breath still misting in the air as the phantom’s accusations lashed at her. She felt the weight of the woman’s gaze, sharp and unrelenting, burrowing into her like nails into wood. And while Pity’s exasperation crackled just behind her, Abilene kept her eyes on the figure, even as a chill crept up her spine.

The desperation in the woman’s voice stirred something deep in Abilene - something she didn’t want to name, not here, not now, but couldn’t ignore. She knew the sound of grief when it came knocking. Knew how it could hollow a person out until they were more shadow than human.

But there was something darker beneath this, and Abilene wasn’t naive enough to pretend otherwise.

“I’m not lyin' to you,” Abilene said, her voice calm but firm, her Southern drawl softening the edges. “I swear it. I haven’t seen him. But if he’s out there, I’ll help you look. I’ll help you find him.”

She shifted slightly, catching Serendipity's eye - not in accusation but as if trying to steady her, to share the weight of this moment. Abilene didn’t miss the frustration flickering across her face, the silent prayer for this conversation to end. But that wasn’t how Abilene worked. Not when someone was desperate, not when a mother - ghost or no ghost - was searching for her child.

“But you gotta help us too,” she added, her voice lowering, taking on an almost soothing cadence. “Tell us more about him. His name. What he looks like. When you last saw him. Anything you can remember.”

[mistymountainphantom]

The woman's presence stretched thin and brittle, like frost creeping along glass. The flickering lamplight did not reach her eyes. They were bottomless things, fathomless wells of grief and something older, something more starved.

“She swears it,” she repeated, her voice curling at the edges, souring with something between mockery and fury. “She swears it.” Her lips barely moved, but the words came sharp, brittle things snapping between her teeth.

A laugh, choked and wrung dry of humor. Her shoulders jerked as though the sound had been torn from her against her will. “He was here. He was here, and now he is gone.” Her fingers twitched at her sides, curling inward. “You say you have not seen him. Then why do you smell of his shadow? Why does the wind carry his name when it brushes past you?”

“You say you'll help me,” she murmured, soft as a lullaby. “Then find him. Bring him back to me. Tell me where my boy is."

Then, a crush achingly sob came from her body. "A mother shouldn't have to live without her son."

[ovrcasts]

Liliana slid into the booth with an exaggerated smile, her coat shrugging off her shoulders like it had a mind of its own; shit, could a girl not sit and eat in peace anymore? She set her bag down beside her, a sleek designer thing that looked out of place against the cracked vinyl of the Tastee booth. Quickly, she smoothed out the sleeve of her shirt before turning her sharp smile on Sugar. It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold either - it was just enough to keep things polite. After all, Daddy always said it was important to stay on the Pascal family’s good side.

“Sugar,” she said, her voice dripping with an almost saccharine sweetness that didn’t match her piercing gaze. “I didn’t think you’d notice.” She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, her posture languid, as if she had all the time in the world to spare for someone she’d NEVER choose to sit with... willingly. Lili reached for a stray napkin from the table, idly folding it into neat corners. “If I’d known you’d feel left out…” Her eyes flicked up, smile still on her face. “Well, I’d have phoned over an invitation just for you.” Liliana tilted her head, a glossy, brown curl falling over her shoulder. “Isn’t it hospitable of me to join you now? We could call it even.”

[sugarpascals]

If Sugar looked out of place in civilization most days, what with her ratty hair and bare feet traipsing all across town, Liliana looked too picture-perfect for their tiny town. Lips always glossed, hair always in place, and always toutin' around some bag that was definitely form over function. They were a funny pair, the two of them sittin' across each other in the booth.

"Well, I did," Sugar said, 'cause it really was that plain and simple. She'd never liked her classmates much, and she rarely deigned a function worthy of comin' down the mountain for, but she was still a girl. It was nice to be thought of! Sugar bit back a smile when Liliana showed her hand, what all this fawnin' was really about. She shrugged, eyes trailing the table as if she was bored of the conversation. "I don't care for even and odd much," Sugar said, lifting her eyes to Liliana's face, "I just take notes, is all."

[mistymountainphantom]

The diner door creaked open, letting in a blast of cold air. The wind carried the scent of damp earth and something ancient, stirring the napkins on the tables, and in the breeze, a woman walked past, her footsteps silent on the linoleum floor... Familiar in a way that made the hairs stick up on the girl's arms - they had seen her before, hadn't they?

Dressed in a faded, dirt-stained dress from the 1930s, its edges frayed and hem dragging, she moved with an ethereal quality. Her shoes were scuffed, the leather cracked, and her face, pale and gaunt, was nearly hidden by a tangle of dark hair. She was lost in a world of her own, her eyes glazed and distant.

As she passed Sugar and Liliana's booth, a chill followed in her wake, growing more intense the closer she got. Without acknowledging them, her eyes unfocused, she slid into the booth next to theirs. Her dirt-stained hands rested on the table, motionless, as if she had all the time in the world - and yet, none at all.

[serendipitywest]

Pity was about ready to let the air settle over the conversation, lest she start ranting about civilization and cursing the name of God in the middle of a cemetery (actually, that would've been fine -- more 'ranting about civilization and curing the name of God' right by her sister's grave), but it seemed the graveyard had different plans.

She tended to be a rather skeptical person. Did she believe that the mountain had a certain... humanity to it? In a way, yes, but it was no different from her views on nature as a whole -- almost spiritual. Did she believe in cryptids? Nope, they were undeniably all just animals with some hint of disfiguration -- she'd seen enough of them! Did she believe in the supernatural as a whole? Well, not the vampires and werewolves and swampmen and etc etc etc... but ghosts...

This woman... Pity's first thought was not 'ghost!,' nor was it the primary thought, but she certainly didn't look or feel entirely human. She couldn't smell her! Now, she knew that a lifetime of gunfire, oftentimes using a poor excuse for hearing protection, had made her hearing a bit worse than the average bear, but she hadn't heard this woman approaching either. Was the woman a ghost? You know, logic says probably not! But was there something incredibly ghostly about her? Oh, 100%! Even the pleas she began spouting were very stereotypical ghost story things!

Pity glanced towards Abilene, attempting to judge her take on this whole scenario, before turning to face the odd... woman. "I -- no, I don't think so. Sorry." She'd seen a guy a few yards back, but, given that he was probably somewhere in his 80s, he looked a bit too old to be her son! She looked towards Abilene again, both ready to shut down the conversation ('what does he look like?' would be the average thing to follow, but she had never memorized the social script! she just wanted her to leave!) and... figure out if she was justified in her 'who/what the fuck is this?' train of thought.

[thevirginabilene]

Abilene’s breath clouded in the icy air, but her chest felt too tight to pull in a full inhale. Serendipity's sharp words lingered, their bite only magnified by the tension between them. But it wasn’t just the weight of their exchange hanging over her. The figure - undeniably there yet somehow not - had emerged like something pulled out of a nightmare.

She wouldn't say it out loud to Serendipity, but she had felt this before. Only once. And she had never even uttered her suspicion. She believed in ghosts. Of course she did. Anything in the Bible was taken as truth - but even with her lack of believing lately, it was hard to deny something you had experienced yourself.

Nothing about this seemed like a normal interaction.

Serendipity and Abilene could have ignored her. If she was a figment of imagination or some lost soul, she would go away at some point, right? My son… I’m looking for him. It snapped Abilene out of ignoring the figure. She didn't know if it was Baylor's funeral or the thing growing in her - but she couldn't turn herself away from a mother.

And maybe, if they played their cards right, they could help whoever this was pass over. "No, we haven't," Abilene shook her head. "Is he here?" She asked, looking over at Pity and giving her a bit of an I'm sorry look.

[mistymountainphantom]

The woman's chin tilted as her hollow eyes locked onto Abilene, noticing something, and her expression contorted with something like suspicion. Pale lips parted, trembling as though the words were caught somewhere between a plea and a growl.

“You’ve seen him,” She insisted, her voice louder now, cracking like ice under pressure. “I know you have. Don’t you lie to me.” Her tone sharpened with each word, anger rippling just beneath the surface. “You know where he is. Why are you hiding him from me?”

The figure’s head snapped toward Serendipity so suddenly it was as though a string had yanked her neck. Her dark hair hung like a curtain as her eyes searched Pity’s face with an almost manic desperation.

“You,” she demanded, pointing a pale, shaking finger. “Do you trust her? Do you believe her? Is she a liar?” Her voice cracked on the last word, and for a moment, she was human again – broken, desperate, a mother on the edge of despair. But the moment passed, and her presence seemed to darken, a shadow creeping outward like spilled ink.

“Tell me,” she hissed, her form trembling with barely contained rage. “Tell me if she’s lying to me.”

[serendipitywest]

"I don't need the preaching." Perhaps Abilene had clarified that that was not she was doing, but it sure as hell came off as it! She'd gotten enough consoling for five lifetimes by now, and she'd gotten enough 'why are you really [xyz]?' for... eh, maybe three? "If that's what I was looking for, I would've gone t' the Pastor." -- The Pastor who she did not plan on seeing ever again, and not just because God had become a ghost!

"I ain't mad at the mountain." Quite frankly, the mountain had become the one thing in the town that she still respected. Nature was gonna do what nature wanted to do -- you don't fuck with nature. You let it live, you let it be. "Civilization's been what's letting everyone down." That continued to elude her, no matter how hard she tried to be a proper part of it (once to spite Isaac after his passing, now to essentially infiltrate it in order to perform this vigilante investigation), but nature? It was easy to understand.

Civilization, which contained the police who were failing to lead Calliope's official investigation. Civilization, which made her grand plan unacceptable to share. Civilization, which put Baylor in a hospital bed and said there was hope.

Civilization was a failure.

Without civilization, there would be no police that let Calliope down. Without civilization, there would be no town that let down so many of its residents. Without civilization, some sort of lawless land, it would all be fair game. Maybe Callie would still be dead, but there'd be no possible repercussions waiting at the end of her real investigation! Maybe Baylor would still be dead, but there wouldn't have been the false hope of him recovering in the hospital. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But, but, but.

And there was everything to do. Everything was to be done -- she just couldn't share that because, say it with me: civilization! She may not have been the best with the social script, but she knew enough to know you don't tell a person that you have a very detailed plan as to how you will torture then kill your sister's murderer -- years of pent-up rage and pent-up pain to be inflicted upon one individual! 'I won't close my eyes, don't worry! I will find them and I will shoot them in the legs and I will stuff their mouth with a rag and I will bind their hands and I will skin them alive.' -- see, it just didn't really flow.

[thevirginabilene]

Abilene’s breath misted in the cold, the quiet between them deepening as Serendipity’s words settled like frost on the graves surrounding them. The sharp edge of the other woman’s tone didn’t faze her; if anything, it was familiar, like an old hymn sung out of key but with conviction. People lashed out when they were hurting, and Abilene had heard enough biting remarks in her time to know when to stand firm and when to let them pass.

She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, as Serendipity dismissed her words as preaching. Instead, she stood her ground, her arms loosely crossed and her gaze steady, the resolve beneath her quiet demeanor unshaken.

“Fair enough,” Abilene replied, her voice low but sure, carrying a hint of warmth that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You don’t need preachin'. Don’t reckon that’s ever done much good for anyone anyway, least of all someone like you.”

“You’re not wrong,” she said after a moment, lifting her eyes back to Serendipity. “Civilization’s let a lot of people down. Promises of safety, justice, healing - it’s all a pretty story, right? But pretty stories don’t keep people alive. They don’t bring them back, either.” Her voice softened, the edges smoothed by something like understanding. “I get that.”

It was Abilene who had ran to police, covered in blood, sobbing uncontrollably, leading a team of officers to the scene of a crime in the woods only to get dismissed. How you could dismiss a girl covered in someone else's blood never ceased to amaze her. All because there was no body.

"I hope you get the answers you're lookin' for," she offered. It wasn't ill intended, or meant to come across as pity (no pun intended!). "She deserves it."

[mistymountainphantom]

The cold air thickened as a figure appeared from the fog. She was a woman, standing a little too still, her presence strange and unsettling. Her dress - an old thing, from the 1930s, perhaps - was ragged at the edges, faded and dirty as though it had been worn for far too long without rest. The fabric clung to her form in places, and in others, it hung loose, torn from time and wear. She looked like she had stepped out of another time entirely, out of the forgotten halls of Misty Mountain Sanitorium, maybe.

Her face, pale but with the faintest trace of something still human, was framed by dark, unkempt hair. She looked bewildered, like she didn’t fully understand where she was or how she had gotten there.

When she spoke, her voice was soft, but there was a quiet desperation behind it. “Excuse me,” she said, her eyes flickering from one of them to the other, as if trying to place them. She took a hesitant step forward, but her feet didn’t seem to lift, like they were glued to the ground. “Have you seen him?” Her eyes shone with an intensity, though it was unclear whether it was from fear or confusion. “My son… I’m looking for him.”

Her gaze darted between them, but there was no further description, no name, no clear sense of what had happened. Just a woman, lost and searching in the fog.

"Have you seen him? Have you seen my son?"