Tree of Wishes

This Borrowed Corpse: An Anubis Perspective

Humans are really smart. They can build, create, and destroy in ways no other creature could ever imagine. I happen to be super lucky and live with a bunch of geniuses. Cypress uses his deep wisdom to practically predict the future, Eddie uses his street smarts to find hidden connections, and my newest bestest friend June can read people both literally and figuratively. Like the other day she stopped Cypress from saying something that would have caused a grown lady to cry, which would have been really sad. Rather than keep a safe distance like Cypress would, June was quick to lend a helping hand and let the lady talk until she felt better. I thought it was nice.

When asked about why Cypress didn't get close to people, he answered, "It's not our place to meddle. We are merely bystanders living our own everyday lives and performing our duty. Tending to the needs of every person who stops here would be mentally and emotionally exhausting."

"Well we don't have to do it for everyone," June argued. "Just for the people who need it."

"It's normal for people to be distressed over their powers at first, yet the majority of them adapt and move on after a while. Those who still struggle are free to seek help, but only if they can admit that they need it. When that rare case does occur, even then all we can do is refer them to support groups specialized in dealing with this sort of thing, and they are left to deal with the rest themselves."

June seemed disappointed by this, but there wasn't much else she could say. "Are any of those at least backed by the company?"

Cypress gave her a reassuring smile. "Of course. We'll review that when it's time to go over filing taxes."

June groaned and plopped herself on the couch, burying her face in a pillow. I hopped onto her belly in an attempt to comfort her.

"I think it's great you want to help people!" I said. "It can be hard, but also totally worth it. Your powers could probably find out a lot about people too. Like stuff they'd never know about!"

Pulling the pillow off her face, June said, "Yeah... you're right. I could be like Sherlock Holmes but less of a dick."

"Yeah, totally!" I said with my tail wagging faster from getting excited.

I got off of June when she started to sit up, then I sat next to her while she rotated so she could grab her laptop off the coffee table and place it on her lap.

"In fact, I should start with you," June said. "Your story had been bothering me, but I can't put my finger on why. After a little digging around, I then remembered that same year you met Cypress, there was a huge search for a missing person." She then pulled up a news article about the missing person to show what she talking about, pointing at the picture of guy in question. "See?"

I did see. The guy was named Hugh Mortimer, and he went missing not long before I found the bone and brought it to the tree. He had been a college student at a prestigious university specifically set up to put graduates in important, high ranking jobs, so losing him was a big deal. Apparently, he was majoring in advanced biology, but you wouldn't think that when his sharp, brown eyes and matching, spiky hair made him look more like a punk.

"And that's not all," June said, then opened up another website filled with a bunch of pictures of the guy. "This is his social media page. You'd think nothing of it since they're all pretty standard, but look at his clothes."

I leaned in to get a better look, and my eyes widened when I realized what she meant. In most of his pictures, he was wearing an outfit that was exactly like mine when I turned into a person, but the main difference was his striped shirt was purple and white. Other than that, it was spot on.

"Oh my gosh! You're right!" I said, then gazed up at June in hopes of more answers. "What else is there? Did you use your powers to find out how he died?"