Duke, The Spook

10. Violet's Hope

The second Duke saw that his clothing had changed he knew he was going to go out to meet Violet. He walked tall, feeling sharp in his new suit and more free than he had in a long time. Part of the excitement was the fact that he no longer needed to worry about his clothing, but another part of it was the fact that he had learned something new.

What else am I able to do? Duke wondered. What else could Vincent teach me?

He stopped himself just before he gripped the handle on the kitchen sliding door.

No. You can't trust Vincent, he thought. You know what he's like, and now you owe him a favor. He knew he should be sceptical of anything that involved Vincent, but that hint of pride in his voice and eyes stuck with Duke. It made him wonder if maybe Vincent wasn't so terrible after all. Perhaps he was looking out for Duke, in the end. After all, Vincent had only shown Duke how to do new things while Earl had only tried to make him move on—whatever that meant.

"It's called an afterlife for a reason," Vincent had once said. "Let me show you how to live."

Stop it! Duke told himself. You know what sort of life he wants for you.

He grabbed the handle, slid open the door, and stepped outside. The sound of the outdoors hit him hard again, and he stood there, basking in it, for a few seconds before he slid the door shut behind him.

He circled the house and started down the sidewalk. He was invisible, but he made himself solid and enjoyed the sound of his shoes crunching on the dirt and tiny pebbles on the concrete. One section in front of a freshly-mown lawn had blades of grass blown across the sidewalk. He liked the feeling of his shoes slipping on the slick blades for just a split-second before gripping the rough concrete underneath.

The park was silent as he walked through the trees and up the slight incline to the playground. He stopped and made himself solid just before the park came into view. As he stepped out from the trees, he saw the single light bulb shining down on the swings. Violet was not on them.

He quickly looked around the playground. There was a pair of teeter-totters, a merry-go-round, a sandbox, a pole with a ball connected to it by a rope, and a patch of concrete with various configurations of boxes painted on it. The one thing that caught his interest, however, was a large structure. It had stairs and ladders and slides and platforms at varying heights—and everything was connected into one towering tangle of colorful pipes and ropes.

Duke went to the structure and climbed up a red ladder to a yellow platform. Purple stairs led upward in one direction and a blue pathway led off in another. He followed the blue pathway, surprised when it moved slightly from side to side beneath him. He stopped and looked down to find that the path was actually divided into small sections that were each connected by chains, allowing them to sway just a little bit when stepped on them.

Duke laughed and gripped the chain railing. He jerked from side to side and sent the sections swaying. It made him laugh even more.

For the next twenty minutes, Duke ran through the structure, jumping and climbing and sliding and exploring every twist and turn and dead end. Just when he thought he had seen it all, he found a row of handles suspended along an overhead bar that lead from one platform to another over a section of fine gravel.

Duke smirked and backed up a few steps. Then he ran and leaped from the platform. He gripped the first handle and felt his body swing forward. Instinctively, he reached out with his free hand for the next handle. And just like that, Duke swung all the way across and landed with a thud on the far platform.

"You're like a squirrel."

Duke spun to find Violet sitting on the merry-go-round, facing him. "Oh! Hi!" He was so excited from the playground and surprised by her sudden appearance that he completely forgot to be shy. "A squirrel?"