Ginny's New Charge

Ginny slept that night, and dreamt of the waking. 

And that’s why, when she awoke to an empty room, she was not surprised. The others, after all, had their own work to do, and she now had to get to hers.

Through the door she went, to the outer, even more shapeless room beyond, and there sat Manley.

Manley was dressed as he always was, a simple pair of slacks, a wrinkled, torn, disused baseball jersey over it. No shoes, no socks, and for him, no problem.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me, Matheson,” he said, stretched out, hands behind his head, a gray, shapeless chair holding his lanky frame at a dilapidated angle.

“When you’re on a last name basis with someone,” Ginny replied, choosing a blob across from him, “there’s not much room for surprise. What brings you here, something new?”

Manley repositioned himself, one elbow on the table, the other flat next to it, but he still sat like someone about to tumble from a stiff breeze. “You’ve come to my home, not the other way around.”

Ginny’s face betrayed only a slight surprise, and she took a look around her. “So it would seem.”

This seemed to irritate Manley, and he jumped to his feet, both hands slapping the table, reforming the blob into a tilt towards him. The other edge of the table nearly crashed into him, and he had to drop and roll out of the way. And his guest’s chuckle did nothing to help his mood.

“Can’t you, at least, act a little intimidated by me? For crap’s sake, I made my grandma wet herself a few weeks back, but you, you barely make a face.”

“You’re not the first I’ve seen,” Ginny said, crossing her arms, “You won’t be the last, and the important thing is I know how to help.”

Manley raised himself back to his feet. “It’s just wrong. I don’t even have a place of my own anymore. In this place, everything shifts at the slightest touch. The others...they treat me like some punk kid. I mean...I appreciate what they’ve done, but--”

“Believe it or not, Manley, they’ve got your safety at heart. They brought you here, not to keep you a prisoner, but because you’re a special case.”

“A special case?,” he snapped, then kicked at the blob he was sitting in. It held onto his foot, dropped him on his butt, and he got no satisfaction out of the hole he put in it once he pulled his ankle free. “I feel like I’m going to explode in here.”

“You are in a fragile state, and this place keeps you from falling to pieces. For reals. And if you do that--”

“There’s no bringing me back.”

Ginny nodded and sat quietly. Manley wanted her to teach him how to be unnerving with only a look, because he would need some scaring skills, and soon, if things kept going as they were. Growling, he stood back up again, reshaped the blob into the crude form of a chair it started as, and sat down.

“OK, Matheson. Why do you care? Why am I so important to you?”

“I find you...interesting. And once the others reached out to me and my friends, I got even more interested.”

“So, since you don’t care, that’s why you can look at me like a lizard in a tank the way you are.”

Ginny turned her head slightly, blinked once, but said nothing.

Manley’s response was to throw up his hands and let them fall to his sides in defeat. He made a half of an attempt to straighten the table back out for something to do, tilting it back towards Ginny. It still was tilted, but there was nothing to put on it anyway, so life went on.

So to speak.

The young man put his head in his hands, and seemed to lose all fight, judging by the volume of his voice, a whisper, when he spoke again.

“Tell me again. Tell me what you do. Give me some hope.”

He sat up, or did what he could to. He ended up leaning backwards, his left arm the only thing in contact with the table now, but his eyes were firm and locked on her. 

So she told him again.

“When I first came to the island, things were confirmed for me that I knew all along. That everyone I saw wasn’t what everyone else could see. Of course, that’s the kind of thing that’ll make you grow up fast.”

A smirk crossed Manley’s face. “Tell that to the rest of your body, shrimp.”

Ginny took a deep breath, and then cracked a little grin. “You’re having a rough afterlife, so I’ll let you have that one.”

“Don’t sprain your face by smiling, Matheson. How else can you annoy others with your voice?”

“Anyway,” she continued, face back to business casual, “I was able to reunite a mother with her son. A son she helped grow with her love and her art, even from miles and years apart. Did you hear the important part there? I couldn’t do it alone. She had to do her part. You have to do yours.”

A nod from Manley, and Ginny continued.

“What needs to happen in your case is yet to be seen, but know that people are looking out for you. And someone wants you back.”

At the look that found its way to the young man’s face, Ginny narrowed her eyes. A look was enough question to prompt him to answer.

“Wonder who it is?” He looked up at what passed for the ceiling, going further off kilter by sliding to the right with the effort. “And I wonder what they could want from me?”

“You don’t think it’s someone who loves you?”

Manley stopped looking up, locking eyes with Ginny for a second before closing them. Ginny, since it bothered her, tilted the table down a little bit, then stood and walked next to the gangly teenager.

He opened his eyes, took a breath to speak, then nearly fell off his blob again when he noticed Ginny was next to him.

“Why did you do that?”

“That’s for the shrimp crack. I’m only eight.” She took a beat to notice his heavy breathing. “Oh, get over it, what am I going to do, scare you to death?”

For the first time, she heard Manley laugh. A higher pitched sound than she thought a 15 year old boy could make, and it made Ginny give a rare, full on smile.

“Two smiles and an attempt at a joke,” Manley cracked, “Now you’re really scaring me.” He pulled the sleeve of his jersey. It didn’t straighten, and he didn’t notice. “I can’t think of who. My parents went in the same accident I did. So, I have to wonder, but I’ll worry about that when I get back.”

All business again, Ginny went to the door. “So, there’s nothing to it but to do it.”

She reached for the handle, but stopped and turned back.

“I’ve learned not to let things show, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care, Manley. And I want you to know that’s one of the reasons I’ve gotten very good at this. Whatever’s going on, I’m going to find out, and find a way, and you’ll find your way back. In the meanwhile, listen to the others, and stay together.”

Manley nodded and put up a hand in salute, but screamed when he noticed two fingers missing.

Ginny rushed towards him, panic rushing in, feeling the weight of a new deadline before...he...reflexed the fingers out he had folded down behind his palm.

“Made you look, Matheson.”

She woke back up in her bedroom, and wondered, not for the first time, if she could learn how to slap a ghost.