The Spirit Of Pride: A Pride Month Anthology

Soul Love

On Tuesday, Vanya moved into a small apartment above a small pharmacy in the small town of Dusk, Maryland, where nobody ever died.

On Wednesday, Vanya learned where the best Chinese takeout in town was, and that the baker at her new favorite coffee shop had a tattoo on her arm.

On Thursday, Vanya came home from a late-night grocery run to see the beautiful and quite clearly dead boy perched on her windowsill.

And on Friday, as it began afresh at 12:01 a.m., Vanya said: "Fuck."

--

The Ghost Queen of Queens. That was what she called herself. It was Vanya's shitty unexplainable gift; she was allowed to have fun with it. The problem with New York City was that everyone who died there had unfinished business---an ex-boyfriend to curse, a ring lost on the Q---and they would not let go. Dead attorneys crowded her on the elevator, only to dissipate into copper-scented mist on Floor 25. Wide-eyed old ladies stared at Vanya as she burned fried eggs in the mornings. Once, memorably, there was a dead woman who resembled a starlet from the 50s smoking and mouthing obscenities at Vanya outside of her least favorite café.

Vanya did not care for that shit at all. She got her degree and moved to Dusk, where, according to the torn brochure, there had not been a single death in all four hundred years of town history.

Whoever had said that was lying through their teeth, because she was out at 1 a.m. for the second time this week buying her ghost orange chicken. He had cravings. Allegedly.

"Darling, I'm home," Vanya said as she walked into her apartment.

Darling stopped doing somersaults in midair to look at her. "Doesn't have the same ring as 'honey', does it?"

"Is that your real name?" Vanya returned absently, flicking through her mail. She had been in Dusk for exactly a week and every small business in the area wanted to make it her problem.

"You wouldn't know either way," Darling said. Vanya couldn't tell if he said it pointedly or not. Because, sure, when she wasn't working on school or her relationship with her mom or her actual job, she was pretty damn good at figuring out a ghost's name and gently booting them back to eternal rest, which was the best place for a ghost to be. But this ghost had told her on no uncertain terms that he didn't want to be figured out. That he would just be her irritating dead roommate while she was in Dusk, that she could call him Darling in lieu of finding out his real name, and that he knew the tastiest and most cost-effective food to order in town.

So. Takeout and no prying. She was also pretty damn good at that.

"Sit down, Casper," Vanya said instead.

Darling executed another slow somersault. "I think not, Scrooge."

"I will exorcise you," she promised, and opened the orange chicken.

--

"You're new here."

Vanya jerked out of her spreadsheet-based stupor and blinked stupidly. The baker with the tattoo raised a singularly unimpressed eyebrow, but she still topped up the cooling mug of coffee.

"Yeah," Vanya said, and stifled a yawn. "I'm from New York City. Moved last week."

"Downgrade." The woman turned to wipe down a table nearby. Vanya realized that she was the only customer still in the café---her sleep schedule was the opposite of what it should be, which seemed out of place in the idyll of Dusk, but Curran's advertised itself as the only 24-hour establishment in town.

"You might be surprised," Vanya said. She closed her laptop and had some coffee. It was unsurprisingly excellent. "Are you Curran, then?"

The baker's mouth curved in amusement. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder as she moved on to the next table. "Curran is geriatric and demented, so no. I'm the co-owner. Jude."