The Ghost of Winn Peterson

1. Vicar

The stairs to the attic creaked with every step. Most attics Vicar had been near were accessed via a ladder of some sort, but this house was always a bizarre blip in the world of order and consistency. Attics were of no exception. He would have tried to hide the creaking had it been any other day, but the guests and the remnants of his family were otherwise occupied with their condolences and gifts and bland food. Why on Earth funerals were arbiters of the same four, tasteless dishes at gatherings for the dead was a mystery Vicar wasn't keen on solving. Better to stay out of the way of the salads and loaves from the safety of the unexplored house.

Brushing spiderwebs from his hair, he pulled himself over the last step and peered around. It looked as much as he would have expected a cramped, small space for storage would have. At least in that respect, the house bowed its head to conformity. Boxes were half-opened and gathering dust in their mouths, ruffled through some twenty years back and never closed. Books were stacked on bizarre instruments, wires and strings bent over the pages like ivy. He was certain he saw the tail of a rat scurry out of sight, though the tail slithering into the gloom hardly upset him.

"I wouldn't have hurt you," he grumbled after the rodent. Nudging his way past the violin cracked down the spine and over the lump of moth-coloured curtains, Vicar chose a seat on a crate covering a dozen or so glass bottles. How intriguing this all was! He blinked serenely, glad not to have to look at any more black clothes. Here, at least, was vibrancy, despite the muted nature of the dust. Things forgotten seemed to lose their sense of colour, as though a lack of eyes meant the hues were unnecessary. A shame, Vicar thought with a grunt. He lifted his shoe, the point of the toe lifting the corner of a sheet. Who had thrown these items in here together? Appearing very much as though everybody in his family line had walked through and deposited some artefact before leaving, the attic maintained an air of usable desertion. It was a nice aesthetic, Vicar decided, and he enjoyed the dance of dust in the afternoon light, struggling through the intensely filthy little window at the corner of the ceiling.

Prone to periods of thoughtless contemplation, it was some time before Vicar began to focus his consciousness on any one subject. He hadn't wanted to think about his brother, but alas, his self-imposed isolation made such a task easy to sink into.

Gaston Andrews was a figure given to even more perplexing and eccentric behaviours than Vicar, a trait passed down to them by their father, and his father before that. Why the Andrews men were so predisposed to unusual behaviours had never been explained, but as long as they continued having children, those offspring were invariably different from their peers. Vicar didn't know much about genetics - Gaston had been much more interested in the art of science and prophecy and philosophy - but he'd always suspected the family's inability to sire women was of significant importance to their legacy. Always destined to marry into their cool-headed counterparts, the Andrews found their only source of stability from the wives they collected over the years. Vicar and his brother were the only children of their mother, a long-dead creature of fantasy to Vicar. He'd never met her, or at least been far too young to remember her passing, but every story Gaston told him of their mother had been full of pure fantasy. A fairy some days, a white witch others, Gaston painted her at least in some shining light when he did speak of her.

As he cracked his fingers on his perch, Vicar wondered how his brother really thought of the late Mrs. Andrews. What memories did he possess of her that he kept to himself? Gaston had been a stark fifteen years older than Vicar, and was already an eclectic individual when Vicar was old enough to ask questions about the lady of the house. Had he been incapable of processing the death of their mother, or was he just selfish, eager to keep her memory away from this new child that had taken her place?

"Vicar!"

He flinched, shaken from the depths of his musings by a shout from downstairs. "I am in hiding," he whispered to the dust, and he crossed his arms as though this would be seen by whoever it was that summoned him. The voice called his name twice more, before sighing up the stairs.

"You must come down at some point! You cannot hide forever." The voice and the accompanying steps retreated, somewhere down the hall on the second floor. They hadn't been close enough to discover him, but the relief of their departure still realised from Vicar a tense breath. He shook his head and clicked his tongue.

"You may very well try me at that," he cried in a low, strained voice. There were books to inspect and clothes to sort, and he didn't have much time. The very minute he descended those stairs, he would be swept away in a mess of mandatory host duties, ceremonial preparations, and then the eventual burial he wished so dearly to avoid. After that, the guests would have to be walked back to their vehicles, the will read to the remaining relatives, and then the sorting of whatever was left to the auctioneers and such. No, Vicar would not be going downstairs until he had said his goodbyes to every last thing in this room. Downstairs was damnation for Gaston's things. Had the estate been passed to him, Vicar would not have minded so much, but his departure from the family home eight years past meant forfeiting any rights to an inheritance, as his father had so kindly reminded him in the form of several angry letters.

Raising his gaze to the window once more, Vicar let himself sink in the weight of being the last Andrews in the whole world and yet unable to live in his very own home. Home is across the sea, he reminded himself sternly. Home was where he had escaped to, made his living, found meaning and purpose. Alas, home hadn't been very good to him as of late. At the very least, Gaston had been there for him the last year or so. He hadn't needed to offer Vicar his old room back, or even support when Vicar's endeavours all resulted in miserable failure, but then, Gaston always had a bit more of a heart than their father.

Ah, he was musing again. A snort and a slow stand pulled Vicar back to the present. He spared one last worrisome glance to the attic door (carefully shut upon his entrance), and then began to explore the discarded items from his brother's past, trying hard all the while not to imagine what Gaston looked like in his coffin.