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the-headbop-wraith · 4 years

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1_8 Edge

The van was moving when Vivi came to. She didn’t feel the vibrations crackling through the undercarriage, so she decided they must have moved onto a smoother pavement, maybe closer to home. Vivi wanted to laugh. What was home these days?

Voices flutter back and forth, distant and beyond her reception as her brain worked to shrug off the fog of memories from the previous evening. She felt annoyance at the recollection.

“S’you don’t like the sun?” That was Arthur’s voice.

“It’s tolerable,” another voice. “But it’s hard to enjoy when you’ve lost your eyelids.” The bite of that comment sent the conversation flat. There was a short span of silence, then Vivi heard the unmistakable sounds of shuffling around in the cup holder.

“Would some sunglasses help?” Arthur asked, the pitch in his voice changing as he leaned over into the back of the van. “These aren’t great, but I’ll get you some better ones later.”

Vivi felt her position shift and uncoiled a bit in response. She turned her face up to the skull, magenta eyes brightening as they fell on her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.” Lewis leaned over to take the thick lensed glasses that Arthur held back.

“I was already awake,” Vivi mumbled. She gave her eyelids a gentle rub before she raised her attention back to Lewis, who was inspecting the glasses he had been handed. Vivi bit her lip and tried not to smile.

“What?” Arthur called, when he picked up on the tension. Vivi covered her mouth. No argument Lewis was at a disadvantage when it came to expressions as just a fleshless skull, but somehow he managed to express so much.

“Do you have a death wish, Arthur?” Lewis hissed.

Vivi lost it at the horrible squeak Arthur expelled. “What’d I do this time?!!”

“Arthur,” Vivi chimed. “Lewis has no ears.”

There was a brief pause as Arthur’s mind sort of clicked. Sort of. “Vivi,” he chirped, “you’re awake? Oh wait….”

“It’s fine,” Lewis said. He was sporting his pink fluff hairstyle that seemed solid, if it were made by his spiritual fire. “I’ll figure something out.” Lewis tried a few times, but failed to make the glasses stay on the edge of his nose. He inevitably gave up and perched the sunglasses on the edge of one of the cuvees in the vans wall.

The vans occupants resumed their silent contemplative thoughts, as the vehicle rattled down the road. Vivi began to wonder how long they’d been traveling, and when it was that they resumed. The time at current must have been noon, warm sunlight soaked through the windshield and filled the interior of the vans back quarters. There was no sign of Mystery, the pup was probably in the front seat with Arthur.

“Sleep well?” Lewis asked.

Vivi tilted her head back to meet the glimmering flames inside the eye sockets. It took a moment for her mind to reset and sift through the events of the previous days, what she had learned and what she understood of her relationship with the late Lewis. Sudden clarity struck her, and she felt afraid for some unexplained reason. Beyond the haze of influence that area, that zone, had injected in her mind, she found her perception shifting. It was an unpleasant sensation.

“Yeah, I did,” Vivi said. “How close are we to the college?”

Arthur answered, leaning up slightly from his seat. “About an hour, if I speed up,” he said.

Vivi nodded and thought carefully. She refused to raise her eyes to Lewis face as he watched her. “Lewis,” she says, “You said your home was gone?” The skull hesitated, before it bobbed in a nod. Vivi pondered more over this. The night had seemed like a dream, she had thought it was a dream. She knew now it wasn’t, Lewis was here. Finally, she inquires, “Did we kidnap you?”

Lewis seemed to blank out at this. Honestly, he had not considered the scenario critically enough, everything had happened too fast to consider (excuse the pun) being spirited away by former friends. He judged the delicate process of restoring his ‘essence’ had drained too much of him, and that had rendered him unable to consider marginal focus when one was trying to draw back their core and sense of self. This situation had occurred only rarely, maybe only twice in his new state of existence. Lewis wasn’t mortified to admit it himself that each and every time the sensation did occur, it had terrified him.

Until now, he hadn’t considered that he was just abducted - by friends of course, but his reluctant company was not anticipated by them and it amused him.

“I think… you did?” Lewis answered. Vivi slipped out of his arms, and he let her go. She sat against the wall of the van close to him, her gaze raised over the rim of her magenta spectacles.

“Are you okay with that?” she asked.

Lewis stared at her, trying to understand if there was hidden meaning in her interrogation. He could detect confusion in her aura, the hollowed pockets of her memories where once a Lewis existed. He felt the regret roll through his own soul, until he smothered it out with hot pink sparks. For Vivi, his expression did not shift in the slightest to indicate his inner woe.

“Yes,” Lewis said. “I think I am.” He glanced up and caught Arthur’s eyes peering at them, from within the rear view mirror. Arthur ducked back the moment Lewis had raised his attention.

“We’ve been talking, Vi,” Arthur said. “Just idle chit chat. Catching up.”

“Oh,” Vivi said, and Lewis made another odd sound that echoed in her mind. “A conversation segment I might not be able to follow along with?”

Arthur’s twinge was so palpable, Lewis decided Vivi must’ve felt it. It was true he and Arthur had discussed some aspects of Vivi’s memory loss and some of their old adventures together, while she was still asleep. Lewis had kept alert for the event Vivi may have spontaneously awoken, though he had used a small sliver of his power to keep her resting.

“Well, yeah,” Arthur admitted. “But only because you elected to sleep in. Otherwise, our conversation would have been the more appropriate… er, what do we do now?”

Lewis met Vivi’s stare when she turned back to him. They remained locked like this for what felt like hours, the van rattled and groaned as it chugged up and down hills. Vivi blinked fifteen times every few minutes; but Lewis didn’t blink, but the glow of his ethereal flames would dim and brighten.

Vivi’s eyes became unfocused, as if she’d forgotten what she was doing in the process of completing her task. “Lewis?” she said, as if seeing Lewis as he was for the first time in their little adventure. “You’re here.” Lewis wanted to sigh with exasperation. “No, I’m sorry,” Vivi quickly said. She shook her head and closed her eyes. “You’re here, with us. But do you know why?”

“No,” he said. Lewis reached up to tug at his sharp collar and adjusted the locket on his chest. “I have no idea.”

“Stop fidgeting,” Vivi said. She set her hands on his and guided his fists down to his knees. “It’ll be all right.”

“All right?” Lewis hissed. He chided himself, and adjusted the tone of his voice. He wanted to stab out and blame Arthur for this, but he couldn’t. “Nothing feels all right.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Vivi assured. She withdrew her hands but kept her eyes on Lewis. “Would you want us to return you to the place where we found you? Arthur, did you—”

“I was not going back.” Arthur cut in. This time he made a point to snag Vivi’s gaze, when she caught Arthur’s eyes framed in the rear view mirror in the vans front windshield. Arthur had his ‘I’m DONE with this’ face, the skin around his eyes seemed darker and his skin had gone gray “And I did ask,” Arthur muttered, as his eyes darted back to the windshield and he adjusted their jagged movements on the road. It was bad policy to drive with one arm, and it was borderline lunacy to take your eyes off that road.

Lewis reached a hand up to cradle his skull. At the time he didn’t even care, he just wanted to stay with Vivi. Maybe that had been a mistake, he had never left that place since…. He woke up there. It was all he knew. He was so confused.

That’s why none of it mattered now, none of it. Vivi placed a hand on his and leaned toward his face. “It’s not the end of the world,” she said.

Lewis wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to burn a forest down, because his world was over. Now, he didn’t know what he was doing.

The sun was rising higher in the sky, dragging its light away from the interior of the van. Arthur made mention that they were getting into more traffic, as they moved from the back roads and returned to the populated highways. Without a word Lewis retreated into the back of the van away from Vivi, eyes glowing from the dark sockets of his skull. Vivi had watched his slow progress until he had reached the furthest corner, but didn’t question his movement. Lewis had seemed agitated and may need time to adjust, and she theorized being torn from his own territory may have jarred Lewis in some way.

Vivi had her own theories and some testimonies from willing spirits, of those bound to specific areas regardless of their direct relationship to a zone. Most cases regarding spirits noted that they were unaware of this law prior to entering the afterlife and those spirits could not attest for why they would remain in a place of evident emotional trauma. Vivi’s concerns lay that Arthur had unwittingly uprooted Lewis and relocated him, without his consent. This incident could hinder a spirit in a psychological sense, but Lewis should be aware of this danger. But he was a spirit now, he couldn’t be aware of it in the same nature now as he was when he was alive, and now could be vague to those laws that spirits were compelled to obey.

Vivi’s head hurt.

“Do you remember The Frighteners?” Arthur’s voice cut through the low and rising drag of the engine, as he guides them through traffic.

Lewis raised his head a bit from the top of his collar. His skull had been idly swaying above the crisp white collar as if debating nesting in the neck of his suit. “Frighteners?” Lewis echoed. “Wha—”

“The Frighteners,” Arthur cut in. “The movie. Remember? You and Vivi made me watch it.” His voice trailed off, as Arthur recalled the unpleasant experience. Or was it Arthur’s own realization that Vivi would not remember? “Viv?”

“I remember,” she answered, with hesitance. “That’s the sci-fi with Michael J. Fox, playing as a medium? Or something.”

“That’s the one,” Arthur says. “Frank has that Ghostbusting business, because he can communicate with the ghosts.”

Lewis made a sound that could have been a grumble, or a growl. “If you’re going to suggest what I think—” Arthur cut him off again.

“No, no!” he pipes up. “But maybe if we’re running dry on some leads, we could—” Arthur’s voice cut off into half shrieks, as he stuffed his shoulders down somewhere beneath the headrest of the seat. There was honking as the van swerved between yelps of, “Sorry,” or “not serious!” Apparently Arthur had taken a shift in the tension as Lewis’ preparation to retaliate, but Vivi had seen no movement from the brooding spirit as he swayed in his corner, his shoulders fading into the sides of the van due to the erratic movement. Arthur’s anxiety could have just been on a steady rise and his attempt at friendly conversation to ease his unease had the opposite effect? Whatever motives or rhyme, they were going to crash if Arthur didn’t get control over himself. He seemed hopeless at this point.

Vivi threw herself to the front seat and took the wheel in both hands, struggling to get them straightened out on the road. “Move over!” She crawled over the seat as Arthur shuffled over, pushing Mystery on the middle seat aside with his transfer and dragging the broken prosthetic at his shoulder. The van was still in cruise mode so Vivi didn’t need to stuff her foot to the accelerator, she just needed to make sure they wouldn’t slam into some idiot that decide to stop on the highway in front of a big, swerving van. “You’re good!” she snapped. “Take it easy! Just chill and re’ax.”

Arthur curled up around Mystery in the passenger seat. Once settled Arthur didn’t take his eyes off Vivi, face pale and eyes glassy.

“Holy shit,” Vivi sighed. She shut her eyes to run a hand over her face. Vivi wanted to probe further into the conversation Arthur and Lewis had exchanged while she was asleep. The topic of what had happened in the cave at the forefront of her thoughts, she yearned to ask about it and what the two may have discussed over it while she was asleep. But given the disturbed look Arthur now offered, she decided that the time had not come up. Possibly, the topic was skirted over and avoided like a plague, which at this current time it was. If Vivi knew her history, and she usually did, direct confrontation of the subject would benefit no one until it had lost some of its potency. Or a potential vaccine was synthesized.

“Is it just Frighteners, or The Frighteners?” Vivi asked, hoping to slay the thick apprehension coating the air and walls.

“The Frighteners,” Arthur squeaked.

“Okay.” Vivi reached an arm over and wrapped her hand around Arthur’s metal wrist, just under the little black band he wore. He stared at her hand, eyes still vacant. “Lewis,” she called. Arthur gave her a distrustful glare, but Vivi ignored it. “Later, can I take your picture? We can all take a picture together.” Mystery nudged her hand with his cold snout, before returning his chin to Arthur’s thigh.

From the back of the van, Lewis answered with a toneless, “No.”

“A personal photo,” Vivi went on. Traffic on the highway was getting thicker and she needed to keep her eyes fixed to the road, as cars slowed or weaved around slower vehicles. She saw the large green sign overhead that labeled off the roads, and the one highway she needed to exit off onto. They were a town away from the college, ten miles.

“Maybe,” Lewis answered. “Lemme give it some thought.” His voice faded out.

“Would he even show up?” Arthur muttered. He said this quietly, as if to keep Lewis from overhearing. “Or… what?”

Vivi looked over briefly and shrugged.

It was twenty minutes of silence, before they hit the town where in which stood the university that at current funded the Mystery Skulls research. It wasn’t as rooted in physicality as Harvard, or as esteemed as Princeton, but the school offered a lot of leniency and was an upgrade from the freelance work Vivi’s group undertook when they first started.

The university was up in its age, with new departments and renovations taking up some of the outdated sections. Rent homes and small community housing was set up around the perimeter of the school, and the roads were small and demanded below fifteen mile an hour travel. It took some time before Vivi found a descent parking space on a road, amongst parked vehicles from others students on campus. Up under some fall driven leaves, splashed with golds and ambers that could match the textures of the van. It was a nice cool, somewhat secluded, and peaceful spot to park.

“Is this good enough?” Vivi asked, as she peered up and out of the tilted windshield. Arthur mumbled an affirmative, his good hand stroking Mystery’s ears. “Cool.” Vivi didn’t move immediately, but drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as the engine of the van hummed. After some time she turned the key and took it from the ignition, and then spun around in her seat to peer into the back.

“Lewis?” Vivi said. “Have you… been here before?”

“Depends,” he said. He seemed to hover up to see through Vivi and the windshield behind her. “Where are we?”

Arthur hastily gave the name of the university, and when the three of them, excluding Lewis, had begun research for them. “They don’t ask a lot of us,” Arthur went on. “Mostly, they pay all our gas. They never knew about you. Vivi?” Arthur looked to the blue haired girl in the driver seat.

Vivi fumbled a bit, turning back to Lewis before she resumed. “I don’t remember what it was like without you, Lew. I just don’t.” At a loss for what more to say, she asks, “So… well, did you want to come in with us?”

Lewis cocked one eye at her. “Like this?”

Vivi shook her head. “Can’t you make yourself look… like you did before? Alive?”

To this, Lewis seemed disbelieving, or suspicious. He tilts his skull the other way. “What?”

Vivi sighed and held her hands up. “I saw you in the mansion,” she says, gesturing, “when you banished the evil spirit – demon. You looked human, but I don’t think all the way to who you were. I don’t know. But, you did look like flesh, and solid. You didn’t know you could do that – or, that you did that then?”

An odd crackle came from Lewis, like a dry scoff. “If I did, don’t you think I would use that ability now?”

“Well,” Vivi said, as she adjusted her hair band. “Afterwards, you did sort of vanish.” She shuddered at the memory. “Never mind. We won’t be gone long.” She reached out of Lewis sight and when she leaned back up, it was with Mystery clasped in her hands. Vivi set Mystery in the back. “Mystery will keep you company.”

Lewis watched Mystery pad over to him and stop to sit before him. The dog stared up at his skull, and Lewis glowered back. Meanwhile, Vivi leaned over the seats back, nearly kicking Arthur in the face as she rummaged around for the laptop stashed under the passenger seat.

“Viv, please,” Arthur grumbled. “You know, I still need to go by my place and get parts to repair my arm.”

“Later,” Vivi said. She climbed over Arthur and out the passenger door. “We need a check first.” After Arthur had flopped out, Vivi poked her head back in to check on Lewis one last time. “You won’t go anywhere? Right?”

Lewis looked over Mystery’s head to the concerned eyes locked on him. “Blueberry, I promise you I won’t disappear.” With these last reassuring words, or echoes, Vivi slammed the door shut. From the walls Lewis could hear Arthur’s whining:

“I don’t think this’ll be worth much,” he said.

“It’s a great photo,” Vivi said. “There was a ghost. We have the docs typed up. They can’t say no.”

“But if Lewis were to—”

Vivi’s sharp voice cut Arthur off, “He is not some attraction we can pawn off!”

Arthur pleaded back, their collective voices fading from range, “I don’t mean photos of Lewis. If he just, spooked something. Made Saint Elmo flames, it can’t hurt..”

Lewis would smirk if he could. Arthur had always been excellent with debunking faux reports, or finding the intricate scientific explanations in a case in which the skittish home owners thought they were spooked but in truth, it was just a draft or some leaky pipes. Complete waste of time, but Arthur always brought the logical explanation of a case to the forefront before too much time was wasted.

That was before.

And then, there was now. Lewis tucked into the back of a van, thinking, as he reached a hand out to pet Mystery. The dog, or whatever he was, raised his muzzle to press into Lewis’ palm. “Do you remember me?” he asked, as he ran his hand down Mystery’s shoulders. “Or did I make you forget too? Or don’t you care?” Mystery turned his head away from Lewis’ sleeve and looked the skull in the face, recognition and deep cognition buried in those red eyes.

Lewis had to avert his gaze. It had been a mistake. But at the time he didn’t know what else to do, what would be possible. Ripped, confused, disorientated, he had felt himself adrift in thoughts and emotions. Raw, in a sense. What did it feel like to be raw? What did that even mean? Torn from your skin, a deep sense of loss and losing piece by piece, scattered on the cold drafts of that gloomy place. He had reached out for one person, but her sense of concentration was as butchered as his sense of physical presence. It was selfish, but Lewis… that was the first time he had ever felt pure, condensed terror. It was then that Lewis realized the penitential truth of existence. When you die, you still don’t know what happens after death. It—

A sharp yelping and sharp pricks in his sleeve tore Lewis from his daze. His fingers snapped open, though it didn’t hurt, he instantly sympathized with Mystery’s pain and released the scruff of his neck. “I’m sorry!” he snapped.

Mystery unsnagged his teeth from the sleeve and jerked back, but didn’t flee or make further sounds. Once he recovered, Mystery gave Lewis a curious frown before approaching again and sitting beside his knee. The dog raised his dark paw to set it on Lewis’ thigh and tilt his snout a little higher to the spirits face. Skull.

Lewis set his hand on the dogs paw and rested back, in what may have been a more comfortable position. He heard Mystery whine, and the dog started pawing at his hand with his free paw. Lewis decided he didn’t like the contact with his hand and removed it, but Mystery leaned over to snag his glove with his sharp canines. Lewis narrowed his eye sockets, frowning as Mystery tugged at his hand. It was obnoxious if it was anything.

“What?” Lewis said. His eyes flicker as Mystery spun away and began nosing around the walls of the van, going between the left and right sides as if searching for something in the cuvees. “What is it?” Lewis glides over to the dog, but not before glancing out the windshield should anyone be outside and chance a glance into the van and the strange scene to be played out. The road and sidewalks were empty, save for birds and a squirrel. At ease by this notion, Lewis drifted to where Mystery was prodding beneath the driver seat. “Yes?”

Mystery stuffed his front feet up with his upper body, tensed, then backed up. With his teeth, the dog dragged out an old beaten up box that had been crushed and stuffed up under the seat. Lewis eyed it, then the dog that now sat beside it, tail wagging. Without a word Lewis worked at the crispy tape, the many layers of tape set over the boxes top, until it was open. Mystery sneezed audibly from the dust to lift off from the box as Lewis brushed it off, and opened the box.

There was nothing inside the box save for some sheets of paper print outs, a few beaten and thin paged notebooks scratched up by layers of notes and pictures. And a bag. Lewis ignored the notepads and ignored the tug they demanded from his spiritual presence, he pushed the notepads away as he brought out the bag and set it beneath him on the thin carpet of the cluttered van. He went through the pockets until he found a phone.

His phone.

Lewis settled down before the box and stared at the phone. It was by now outdated, it had been for a long time scratched up with a crack in the screen. That was from when Vivi dropped it, they were fighting over it. He rubbed his thumb over the thin crackle of lines, not feeling, but sensing their presence. Like the way he could sense people, or souls. If he wasn’t focused, the world was colors and lights and darks, sounds were vibrations and smells were tendrils working through his vaporous and languid shape. He felt more than he saw. He was no longer a physical obstruction projected into the world, he was a collision of consciousness that existed between the worlds.

He set the phone aside, and set his hands upon the bag. The grimy texture of too much use, not enough wash. The fabric once stiff and course was now soft like paper, and folded over in his pseudo physical digits. Lewis stared at the pristine polished bone of his knuckles, in contrast to the muggy bag that had been forgotten.

Or preserved.

His fingers found the snaps of the bag up under its flap. Lewis undid them and flipped the flap open, and pulled the opening up and widened it so he could see in. The soft flutter of his ethereal fire illuminated the foremost contents with a fuchsia tinge. A lighter, tarnished. A pair of pants. Some glass bottle that once held chilled coffee. Purple shoes. A shirt with a rip in the sleeve. A comb. An cold wallet. Some lost pictures he refused to look at. A purple sash.

Lewis piled the contents of the box back inside and haphazardly closed it before shoving it back under the seat, more or less. He leaned into the wall of the van and set himself to glower on a spot of the floor, clear of clutter. He wanted to make the spot go away. He wanted to take the spots place. Somehow, he wanted to become that spot. It didn’t make sense but he didn’t want to think about anything else. Focus on what and where his current state was.

Mystery studied Lewis’ display carefully. With a whine, Mystery went back to the driver seat and dragged the box out. Lewis caught his actions and moved, to try and stop Mystery and shoo the dog away. Lewis didn’t want to hurt or startle Mystery again, and Mystery knew this. Which is why the dog did not relent, and refused to give in to Lewis’ reluctant efforts. Mystery snapped the box out and plants his feet on the inner side, despite Lewis irritation and scolding. Mystery nosed around until he found the pictures and sent a few tumbling to Lewis’ knees. Lewis reached over to snatch them up, but Mystery shoved himself between the ghost’s hands and the pictures and plucked up one.

Lewis dithers as Mystery offers him the picture. It’s beautiful. A nighttime shot, the van in the background beside a large dark house, it’s a full moon and the cameras flash has gone off illuminating the entire area in yellow. Much too close to the camera is Vivi, wearing her traditional scarf and sweater as blue as the sea. Arthur in his white work shirt and amber vest has ducked behind a tall figure; his expression is shock, not expecting the picture to have been taken. For a moment Lewis is dumfounded by the figure Arthur has chosen to hide behind, tall with broad shoulders and dressed in a purple vest—

A sharp spark ignites in Lewis’ soul. That’s him! How could he forget? How does anyone forget what they look like? In his locket, it’s in his locket… oh fuck. Lewis set his hand over the heart pulsing on his chest. When was the last time he looked at that picture? How long? He didn’t remember anymore. He had forgotten so much, too much. And he made Vivi forget along with him.

He gripped the picture in his fist, before he set his hand down. Mystery whined, and growled, and whined. Lewis looked to the dog as he continued making sounds both demanding and consoling. Lewis set his hand on the dogs head, and then looked back to the picture. “I know. I know.”

It had taken longer than Vivi had anticipated to get audience with their supervisor. Mostly because their supervisor wasn’t in, and they had to schedule an appointment with the secretary for a time the following day. A whole waste as far as Vivi was concerned. Arthur couldn’t believe she could keep track of relevant and irrelevant information, the history to an area, and balance her check book; but constantly forgot when their supervisor’s office hours would be. Vivi had asked him to shut up, politely so there would be no ill will for the next hour or so. On their way back they had stopped to get a snack, get nourishment out of the way before checking up on Lewis and Mystery. Mystery was not forgotten, and a bag of chicken meat would be his reward for keeping Lewis company.

Some apprehension did enter Vivi more than often as they waited in the nice furnished office. But that was to be expected, and whenever she could Vivi would turn to Arthur and inquire, “We left Lewis in the van?”

To that, Arthur would go pale and gripping the metal arm set in its sling, he would nod. And Vivi then satisfied, would nod as well. “Good. Then I’m not losing my mind.”

Arthur felt like he was losing his. As Vivi had so eloquently put it before, they had abducted the ghost of their friend. And nothing about it felt right.

They were at a powerwalk pace to reach the van, chewing through the last few yards to the parking spot. Without thinking Vivi had gone to the back, intending to open up the doors and let Mystery out for a break and to have his food. Arthur barely made a noise of warning when the doors were wrenched open, and Vivi froze up in realization to what she had done. Though, no one was on the sidewalk or in the nearby area, the campus was almost deserted at the highlight of classes at that point in day.

Nonetheless, she was staring in shock at the face inside. And Lewis gawked back, as if he had been caught smashing a kid’s piggybank.

Curious to the sudden stupor Vivi had collided with, Arthur had rounded the door of the van and looked into the darken interior. “Hey. Lewis.” As those words were uttered, Arthur’s eyes slid back into their whites and he crashed over the bumper of the van before slumping onto the hard asphalt.

Vivi couldn’t bring herself to save the sudden weight now pooled at her ankles. She dropped the greasy bag of chicken, and put her hands to her hair as she looked from Arthur to Lewis. The Lewis she had yet to know, the Lewis she had seen briefly in the mansion, the Lewis snatched from her memories. The Lewis that had terrified Arthur with a wave of memories fought to be forgotten, but instead their retribution sent him into a dead faint. That Lewis.

“So,” Vivi choked. She brought her eyes back to Lewis and swallowed. “You figured out how to make yourself look alive?”

Lewis seemed to relax but his expression was odd. “I… what?”

A few yaps came from the van’s back, as Mystery darted out to the bag forgotten on the road beside Arthur. Arthur was deep out, maybe suffering a mild concussion from the blood dripping from his forehead. Mystery lapped at the blood, before turning his snout to the bag and tearing into it.

Vivi didn’t interfere with the dog’s business; too engrossed with the befuddled Lewis huddled in the vans back. Vivi climbed inside and without a word passed the spirit, or half ghost, to rummage through the front seat. A bit conscious and still unaccustomed to the erratic comings and goings of close proximity with living beings, Lewis swayed back from Vivi as she fumbled around, before twisting back to him. She held a glistening silver surface and shoved it into Lewis’ face. “Here.”

Lewis fixed his dark… eyes on the reflection and lost himself in the pool of memories. If he thought he had lost pieces of himself before, he was to receive a dreary reminder that he had given up far more than he could previously recall. The question persisted as an echo in his thoughts. When did I lose so much?

But it was all here now. His combed hair style, just as he had envisioned it, maybe a little poofier. His face, but his eyes…. Lewis reached a hand up to touch his face, but stopped and looked at his hand. Still dark, still clad in polished bone.

Vivi noted his gaze, and gripped her fists on her skirt. “Yeah, it’s just your face for now,” she said, with a soft undertone of optimism. “But you didn’t realize you were doing it?” Vivi wasn’t sure if Lewis had been listening, until he shook his head. He shook his head, she noted, it did not swivel or sway. It looked odd to her, but she was so far only familiar with the levitating skull. It was endearing to see the face that had been torn from her dreams. Vivi shut her eyes. “Oh, Mystery! Don’t eat the bag!” Vivi spun away from Lewis and ducked out of the vans open back.

Lewis watched her go. Even if he wanted to remember and absorbed the face he had lost, Vivi antics would always take priority. He smirked, and almost felt it on his wispy lips.

“Arthur!” Vivi yelped. “My god, your head!”

#mystery skull animated #mystery skulls #msa fanfic #mystery skulls fanfic #msa fanfiction #mystery skulls fanfiction #msa arthur #msa lewis #msa mystery #msa vivi

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by Wardog

Monday, 23 July 2007Wardog opens the inevitable slew of Harry Potter by bitching and moaning.~Reviewing Harry Potter has got to be something of a pointless endeavour; I mean, if you like Harry Potter you'll read it anyway and if you don't, well, you probably have more self respect than I do just about now. The truth of the matter is, I don't like Harry Potter any more. Once, upon a time, when they were tautly-plotted, slim-line, above-average children's books I was very fond of them. But now that they're a sprawling, insufficiently edited Phenomenon I can't read them without frustration, and yet seem to be incapable of, you know, stopping. It's depressing, I think I need a twelve step programme. Given that the book has evolved beyond conventional reviewing (and that's not a good thing) here are some assorted observations.

Needless to say: spoilerific, including death spoilers

Plot & Pacing

As in the preceding two books, this is completely wrecked. Although it has a beginning and a reasonably climatic ending sequence (the Battle of Hogwarts, because that's all we ever really cared about anyway, wasn't it?) everything in between seems jerky and uneven. Essentially, it consists of long stretches of exposition interspersed with pockets of reasonably exciting action sequences, as Team Potter infiltrate the Ministry, Gringotts, Malfoy Manner and finally Hogwarts with varying degrees of success and pointfulness. If I was feeling generous, I would comment on the thematic nature of these incursions, and how resonant it is that everything that Harry was introduced to in the earlier books as a source of protection and authority is now corrupted. But I'm not feeling generous; Harry, Ron and Hermione spend an enormous quantity of the book sitting in a magically protected tent in the middle of nowhere, dithering between hallows and horcruxes and reading Rita Skeeter's biography of Albus Dumbledore.

Aside from one or two chapters at the beginning of the book, the Harry Potter books have always been told entirely from Harry Potter's point of view. The reader sees what Harry Potter sees, and hears what Harry Potter hears. This comes with attendant advantages and disadvantages. It brings the reader close to Harry and makes you root for him, it also rigidly controls the flow of information between author and reader. But it also means that for anything to happen, Harry has to be there. That's why he spends such a lot of time crawling around beneath his invisibility cloak listening in on plot dumps. Needless to say, the same holds true of the seventh book; the whole wizarding world is at war but we hear of it as Harry does, through daily prophet articles and occasional communications. There's no sense of scale or grandeur. It's unpleasant, yes, and oppressive but it packs only a limited emotional punch because the reader, like Harry, it stuck in a freaking tent.

Furthermore, a large portion of the book is told through letters, extracts from books, articles, memories, long autobiographical interludes from minor characters who suddenly turn out to be important. It's not precisely tedious but the preoccupation with the backplot, as ever, hinders the build to a dramatic climax. There's even an intermission, I kid you not, an intermission in the final showdown so Harry can peg it off to Dumbledore's office to re-live the last seven books from Snape's perspective. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but I don't think three chapters from the end is a good place for a massive exposition.

I'm not saying there aren't good bits, because there are. Neville kicks Dark Lord ass, for example, Dudley, of all people, has a moment of touching redemption and Luna remains just fabulous throughout. But the book seems to have no sense of itself as, well, a book. Books need to build to something, books need pace and structure, books need to be edited! But as Dan said, it's not a book, it's source material.

Style

Perhaps a demonstration is in order...

A quote from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

"Hang on..." Harry muttered to Ron. "There's an empty chair at the staff table.... Where's Snape? "Maybe he's ill!" said Ron hopefully. "Maybe he's left," said Harry, 'because he missed out on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job again!" "Or he might have been sacked!" said Ron enthusiastically. "I mean, everyone hates him --" "Or maybe," said a very cold voice right behind them, "he's waiting to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train." Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape. He was a thin man with sallow skin, a hooked nose and greasy, shoulder-length black hair, and at this moment, he was smiling in a way that told Harry he and Ron were in very deep trouble.

Aww. Just typing that out made me nostalgic for happier times when I actually used to enjoy reading Harry Potter. A quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows...

And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great, glassy orbs sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.

I know they are very different books and the seventh book is infinitely "darker" (I'll come on to this later) in tone, setting and intent from the second, and I also know that there's something like seven real world years between them. But if this is evidence that JK has developed as a writer, I would like to point out that she appears to have developed a rambling, overwritten and overwrought style in place of the clean, sharp and witty one of the earlier books. You're meant to get better, the more you practice, right?

I could, perhaps, forgive the above but it's not an isolated incident. The stars are cold and unfeeling throughout; it's worse than being in a Hardy novel. And people don't just die, they die with Tragic Gravitas, their "eyes [staring] without seeing, the ghost of [their] last laugh still etched upon [their] face." A little less verbiage and a little less hysteria could have benefited this book immensely.

Character Death: the Massacre of the Minors

Characters die in Harry Potter, we have always known this. JK Rowling makes a big deal of it. It's how we know she is writing Serious Literature for children instead of a bunch of silly books about a teenage wizard. Reading the books, it's obvious that JK prides herself on her portrayal of death and its after-affects on the loved ones of the deceased.

The suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence - The Deathly Hallows.

This is at its best when it's understated, for example the lingering psychological consequences of the death of his parents on Harry which seeps through the pages of all the books. When it is all about Making A Point about JK's conception of herself as a writer, it is unsurprisingly less effective. I don't mind that Sirius died, I mind very much that he died to Show Us Something About The Nature of Death.

The Deathly Hallows has a higher death count that Hamlet, except that they're all relatively minor characters including, of all people, Colin Creevy, the poor pointless bastard. This says nothing to me about the harsh and futile nature of warfare, but it does scream "cheap shot." I hate it when authors kill off their emotionally engaging wallpaper characters just because they can and then expect the reader to applaud them for being dark and courageous. I felt exactly the same way when Joss Whedon gratuitously killed off Wash in Serenity. It was easy to kill Wash, he was a great character who everybody loved but he was also completely irrelevant in terms of the plot. His death was a quick way to wring an emotional reaction from the audience without causing the writer any inconvenience to do it.

People die by the bucketload in Deathly Hallows (including Harry's owl, for crying out loud), but none of the deaths are meaningful, with the possible exceptions of Fred, Remus and Snape. Most of them, including Lupin's, occur off camera and are thus stripped of any emotional resonance whatsoever. I can't help but suspect that JK must have loathed Remus, one of her most popular characters, by the end. He spends the whole book dashing in and out of focus being stripped of any plot and then, oh look, by the way he's dead. And Fred was essentially a

spare

Weasley, having, you know, an identical twin. It's the most cowardly half-hearted selection of deaths I think I've ever encountered.

Against this arbitrary massacre, the survival of all the main characters seems both ludicrous and damnably unfair. I'm not saying that I wanted Harry, Ron, Hermione and/or Ginny to die but if you're going to make a hoo-hah about how being a children's author is like being a cold, callous killer you probably ought to stick by your machete.

Which brings us nicely onto...

Dark, man, dark

I have one answer for this and it's oh pulease.

Having waited around politely for Harry to finish school, Lord Voldemort has finally got round to taking over the wizarding world. Quite a lot of nasty things happen in Deathly Hallows and there's a 1984ish air of secretive corruption and control but Harry Potter's darkness is about as sophisticated as a teenage goth's, and remains about as cosmetic. The nastiness is always a hazy, unconvincing background to the well nigh miraculous survival of all the main characters. Hermione, for example, gets captured by Bellatrix at Malfoy Manner and, although she horribly tortured in a scene that is genuinely chilling for about half a second, she shrugs off the experience with the ease de Sade's Justine. And Hogwarts may degenerate into a horrendous nightmare of cruciatus-enforced discipline but the students respond to this with a Blytonesque "down with those rotters" jolly hockey sticks glee that completely undermines any sense of oppression or abuse.

Similarly, although Lord Voldemort swoops around being threatening and imprisoning wandmakers, the Death Eaters themselves continue to be the most appallingly incompetent bunch of nazi-wanabees ever to grace a page. Not only do they routinely fail to capture or kill (and, occasionally, even recognise) the three teenage wizards who keep infiltrating their strongholds but they spend so much of the book being punished for ineptitude by their own master, it can almost be considered a form of self-harm. Regardless, it's hard to take them seriously as opposition.

It is mildly interesting to see Harry himself stooping to some of the unforgivable curses with barely a qualm. But this seems to be less a case of dark, man, dark than convenient, man, convenient.

Paging Lord Voldemort

This is an aside connected to the general incompetence of the Death Eaters. In the seventh book, the Dark Mark seems to function primarily as a communicator, which means the greatest dark wizard, like, ever spends the book being yanked about the country by his incompetent minions. There isn't a scene like this in the book, but there should be:

Random Wizard: ARGHRGHGH!!

Lord V: CRUCIO!

Random Wizard: ARGH! Mercy! Mercy! I'll tell you everything. Please ... stop the pain.

Dark Mark: [ring ring]

Lord V: I'm sorry, I have to take this... [talking into his elbow] Hello, yes, Lord Voldemort here ... I see ... are you absolutely certain of that? You thought you'd captured Potter fifty pages back. Oh. You've definitely got him this time. On my way.

Remus, Tonks and Sirius

Let's move on to character for a bit. I have always thought the Remus/Tonks relationship felt bolted on, and suspected it was a "ya boo sucks" to fanfic writers which made me even less sympathetic to its inadequate presentation. As Harry and Cho and Harry and Ginny have comprehensively revealed, human relationships, especially romantic ones, are not JK's strong point. But Remus/Tonks, partially because we only ever see it second and third hand, has always seemed particularly lacklustre. Harry, as a protagonist, does not preoccupy himself with the moods and inner workings of his companions; therefore in Half Blood Prince we were occasionally told Remus and/or Tonks looks sad or angry or otherwise distracted but then left to either draw our own conclusions or hear about the reasons long after the events that inspired it.

This unsatisfactory portrayal continues, unabated in Deathly Hallows. Off-camera, they get married, have angst, and Tonks becomes pregnant. Remus comes on-camera long enough to angst further and then retreats back into married bliss. Their child is born (Team Potter are sitting in their tent as usual at this point), Remus evinces delight and then he and Tonks are both killed at the Battle of Hogwarts. To say it's massively dissatisfying and frustrating is to do massively dissatisfying and frustrating things a great disservice.

Oh and as a footnote to this, it turns out that Sirius has girly pics on his bedroom walls. Just to make it absolutely clear that he's straight, completely straight, you got that slashers?

Dumbledore

You would have thought the one concrete advantage to Dumbledore being definitely dead would be avoiding the long Dumbledore Explains The Plot chapter at the end of the book. But, no. Death just isn't the handicap it used to be in the olden days and it happens anyway. Stab me. Stab me now.

Just as Order of the Phoenix tore away the veil of unquestioning admiration and idolisation Harry (and, presumably, the reader) felt for the Marauders in a conceptually interesting but badly executed way, Deathly Hallows does the same for Dumbledore. Harry is forced to confront the truth that his beloved mentor was a real person, a man with faults and weaknesses just like any other. I always found Dumbledore a little difficult to take but it's hard to tell how much that was deliberate on the part of the author (he's the worst headmaster in the world, for example - imagine you were in Slytherin house at the end of Philosopher's Stone, how would it feel to have the house trophy goiked out of your hands by some random world saving after the whole hall had already been decorated in your house colours, saving the world is all very noble and everything but it's hardly a legitimate extra curricular activity) and how far it was me reacting against his role as a plot device, explaining or withholding information on the most spurious personal pretexts to make life easier for his author.

But the fact of the matter is that Dumbledore is too imperfectly drawn in books one to six to be effectively interpreted as anything other than a two dimensional mentor figure. Therefore Harry's Dumbledore-related angst in the seventh book interferes with the smooth running of the plot and feels completely hollow because ultimately it doesn't matter. He's dead, for God's sake, dead. It's just too late in the day to care about Dumbledore's family skeletons and, since he was always presented to the reader as a kindly jelly-bean eating mentor figure, the additional "complexity" feels like an unconvincing and irrelevant ret-con.

That Bloody Epilogue

Of all the stuff that was leaked onto the internet before the book was officially released, the epilogue was the only one I investigated. I dismissed it as a clever parody. It was just too sickening. Draco's receding hairline had to be a joke. The legion of incestuously named rugrats, ha ha, very funny.

Oh wait.

No.

That was real.

It was really real.

Dear God.

Worst. Epilogue. Ever.

Conclusion

Sadly, everyone else I've spoken to (with the exception of Dan, obviously, but we share a brain) has been deeply enthusiastic about Potter. So perhaps I'm just a grumpy old git and didn't deserve to enjoy it.

It still sucks though.

Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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~Comments (

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Arthur B

at 19:21 on 2007-07-23Don't worry, I am also grumpy about Potter. I briefly considered actually bothering to read

...and the Half-Blood Prince

in order to prepare for

Deathly Hallows

, since I'd stopped after

Order of the Phoenix

, but in the end I couldn't be bothered - especially after I got around to reading summaries of it, and reading patches of it in Borders.

Thoughts:

- Speaking of cheap shots, doesn't Voldemort randomly kill the Sorting Hat for no good reason?

- And doesn't Voldemort essentially die because of a totally newbie mistake? Which Harry carefully explains to him before Voldemort goes ahead and screws up anyway? Doesn't Harry basically loophole his way to the win?

- Aren't

these people

overreacting a little?

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Wardog

at 20:42 on 2007-07-23Oh I totally forgot about the random death of the Sorting Hat! And, yes, Harry Potter wins by being a PC - he is the Joe Williams of children's fantasy.

That is a slightly over-reaction, yes...but people are not sane when it comes to HP.

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Mystiquefire

at 18:36 on 2007-08-11Trust me you are not the only one who thought this book sucked.

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Wardog

at 21:38 on 2007-08-11I think I'm so bitter because I was once very into Harry Potter. And I think I've become incapable of recognising its strengths any more. I mean what I've come to think of the puzzle-box aspect of the books (plots within plots) is probably better done than I give it credit for being. For example, according to the friends I have who still like Harry Potter, if you go back, you can genuinely trace a hint of the "true" Dumbledore throughout all the books. Sadly I genuinely can't be bothered.

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empink

at 12:12 on 2007-08-24

No, you are not. My hate for DH grows with time's passing, actually, and though I'm well out of my tween years, I'm not yet a grumpy old git or anything approaching it ;).

Well, I might just be plain grumpy, but that book was enough to make me so, even when I just expected more possibly crappy source material for fanfic, fanart and so on. While it hasn't seemed to have as great an effect on fannish output in my little corner of fandom (mostly because of extenuating wankumstances), what little effect it *has* had has produced fic and art I'm still avoiding. Not because the fans I keep track of are not talented in their own way, but because I still can't bear to read things that are compliant with Deathly Hallows, cracktastic though they may be. Instead of making me chortle at the weirdness of fandom, the cracky ships that have sprung up just make me see more red. More...more epilogue. *shudders*

The whole book was just so *bad*, in places where it wouldn't have taken more than a little judicious effort to be the opposite. The few good bits it had just weren't enough to hold back the tide of useless jokes, stupidities, non-characterizations and daft deaths. It therefore feels hugely ironic that DH is the only HP book I have a copy of to this date (well, a paper copy).

Then again, I doubt I could reread the earlier books now without rolling my eyes and sighing knowing what is ahead for Harry. Incapable of recognising the series' strengths looks about where I'm standing now.

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Wardog

at 10:54 on 2007-08-27Many thanks for the comment - one of the problems with DH in terms of fandom, perhaps, is that it closes off more avenues than it opens, if that makes sense. Especially in terms of the Epilogue of Death because everyone is permanently dating the person they were doing at school. I wouldn't say no to a bit of twisted Dumbledore/Grindelward m'self but I can't see it eclipsing the amusing if pointless popularity of Scorpius/Albus-Severus (just *shudder*). Sadly, I have copies of all the books and although I tried to re-read them a few months ago to prepare for DH I couldn't actually get beyond 3. Sigh.

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M Harris

at 11:19 on 2007-10-04One of the most irrating things in book seven was Voldemort's lack of a plot or any sort of meaningful action. I spent the duration of the book waiting for him to kidnap people Harry was emotionally attached to and torturing/killing them until Harry came to him. We are continuously told of how unusually smart and clever and intelligent (and handsome)Tom Riddle was. So it is completely out of character to have him become inept. But of course Lord Voldemort being strategic and cunning would mean that Harry would have to form some sort of plan, and as he is clearly incapible of that I guess JKR had to stick with him sitting in a tent for a very long amount of time while Voldemort killed time by killing minor characters.

Another thing that really angered me was JKR writing that Snape based his entire life on the fact that he was in love with some girl when he was fifteen. It made his character lose any sort of depth he had gained through the other books. The dialogue between AD and SS of "After all this time?" "Always." made me want to kill people.

The halfnaked!pictures in Sirius' room could have ONLY been put there as a "fuck you, I'm writing the book" from JKR to the slashers. I have no idea why she felt so threatened that she needed to close that particular opportunity for straying from 'everyone is straight and get married to people they met when they were eleven and have large amounts of children named after dead relatives' Deathly Hallows.

(Hahahaha, Dumbledore/Grindelwald is canon, because she can't write another book to insert girl!porn in to say otherwise.)

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Wardog

at 12:40 on 2007-10-04Indeed, Voldemort's ineptitude is particularly annoying in book full of things that are particularly annoying. I remember those halycon days when Voldemort was actually rather scary... the drinking unicorn blood business really traumatised me. To be fair, the whole seven book arc is so unwieldy I'm not sure I could easily come up with a way for Voldemort to have been effective by book 7 without completely hindering Harry's ability to take him out. I think it actually comes to the contradiction that lies at the heart of most children's books (and for that matter a lot of detective stories): why is that the group of feisty kids able to take out fully grown villain when conventional law authorities have failed, or why is this cocaine-saturated amateur able to catch the criminals who have been defying the finest minds at Scotland Yard. Most texts go some way towards smoothing over these inconsistencies (i.e. the Secret Seven always end up alerting the police when it comes to the crunch, Sherlock Holmes is a specialist in a proto-forensic techinque that - although nonesense in the modern day - is unknown to the authorities) but JKR manages to have the worst of all possible worlds: hugely powerful wizard we should all be scared of who has taken over *the entire ministry of magic* versus one short-sighted kid with an expelliarmus.

And, yes, you're right - the whole Lily business makes Snape much less complex and interesting than he used to be.... although I almost hovered on the verge of finding it just a little bit sweet. I was desperate for emotional connection by that time in the seven hundred page monster.

Dumbledore/Grindelward? Ouch.

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Melissa G.

at 15:07 on 2009-12-08So, I've been in a "reading sporks of Harry Potter" mood which led me back to many of the articles here, and I just wanted to point something out about Colin Creevey's death, and maybe someone else has said it already, but...it is not actually possible for him to have been there to die.

It's said that he snuck back from the Hog's Head into Hogwarts to join the battle. The only problem is: he can't have been at the Hog's Head in the first place. He wouldn't have been at Hogwarts that year - being Muggleborn, he would been arrested and sent to concentration camp(?) - so he couldn't have been evacuated from Hogwarts to the Hog's Head to sneak back. And he couldn't have gotten into the Hog's Head from the outside because Hogsmeade has a curfew curse thing that would go off if anyone was walking around the streets late at night. Perhaps he Apparated into the Hog's Head? But why? How would he have even known the battle was going on then?

I know it seems obsessive, but it's just that it was such a cheap shot, and it isn't even possible given the rules she set up. Arg.

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #J.K. Rowling #Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows #Wardog

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