The Sisters of Nowhere

t w e n t y - e i g h t : d r e a m s

Wyatt surveyed the dilapidated rose vines with distaste. He stood away from it, tapping his chin and wondering how on earth he was going to fix them.

He resembled a Parisian painter taking a step back from his canvas and realizing that he has forgotten to paint his subject's ears.

The roses were in bad condition. Wyatt was still unsure if he'd be able to revive them after the incident between him and Hal.

He'd spent his entire paycheck on fertilizer. He didn't know much about anything, but he'd been raised to have a keen sense to sniff out what were top-of-the-line products and what were not.

The fertilizer had certainly been top-of-the-line and Wyatt could only hope it did as much magic as the box promised.

Out of habit, he glanced through the greenhouse windows to see Hal's eerie blue light shining from his bedroom, as usual. And, as usual, no Hal.

Wyatt was hatching a plan to sneak up to his room one day when he was sure that Hal was gone. He thought back to all those notebooks and drawings scattered around his bedroom. It had to be Gwydyr, didn't it? It was too much of a coincidence that someone who had an obsession with a specific forest happened to live in its back yard when it grew overnight.

He wouldn't go tonight, though. But soon.

"This place sure is a dump," a voice said from the corner.

Wyatt tensed and spun around.

Silas lazed against a windowpane, absently looking out at the forest, then at Wyatt. The late afternoon sun glittered through his form like particles of dust through a shaft of light.

"What are you doing here?" Wyatt asked. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of a ghost being able to wander into his living quarters. Especially if that ghost was Silas.

"You get bored trying to remember things you've forgotten," Silas replied simply.

Wyatt found that he could not argue that. He bent down to pluck a few weeds from the soil of the rose bush and asked, "So what is it that you do remember? Has the forest helped at all?"

There was that angry stormcloud again, radiating off of Silas like a heatwave. Silas's jaw clenched--a sharp thing that looked both dangerous and unhealthy for his teeth. Then again, what was considered unhealthy for a ghost? Wyatt wondered if he even had to brush his teeth at all.

"I only remember hate," Silas said finally. Wyatt stopped tending the rose bush.

"I remember being happy," he added, then said, "once. Only the feeling of it. Nothing else attached. But now I just feel restless, like I'll never sleep until I find out why I'm here."

He kicked over a potted tomato plant with the toe of his too-big boot. Wyatt resisted the urge to scoff at such a careless act, thinking better of it and instead listening to the small tug of pity that yanked on his heart.

"Do you remember your life in the forest after you died, then?" Wyatt asked, trying to make lighter conversation and figuring there was no point in discussing things that couldn't be remembered. Or, perhaps, things that were best forgotten.

"Of course I do," Silas said, as if it were a silly question. "Except you can't really call it life. We just...exist."

"How long have you been there?"

"I dunno...twelve years or so."

Wyatt lifted his eyebrows. "Do you age in the forest, then?"

Silas sighed, already bored of the conversation. "Some do, some don't. I do. I was only six when..." His eyes sharpened with a sort of twisted amusement. "When I was killed."