My Spirit Love (phan)

六 - 𝓞𝓶𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓟𝓪𝓰𝓮𝓼

The ten-year-old sat with his legs crossed over each other and a blanket draped over his lap. He held another book in his palms: one of three his grandma had lent him. He was always torn between desperation to spend time with his father's mother, and wanting to stay at home with Dan. But, when he did go to her home, they would sit together until the early hours of the next morning endulging themselves in the knowledge they shared.

She would explain her early encounters of her first spirits, the way she lost the ability through repression over the years. They were both thrilled when Phil settled on her sofa once as she told him, "I saw one again."

"You did?! Who?" Phil eagerly questioned, his palms against her arm.

"My old neighbour," she had smiled, "Although he was a difficult chap. It couldn't have been someone a bit more pleasant to talk to, could it?" she sarcastically grinned, ruffling her fingertips in her grandson's darkening hair.

Once Phil aged beyond his early childhood years, he learnt that it was easier to hide his friendship with Daniel rather than bother anyone else with his abilities. Nobody would understand him other than his grandma. He felt lucky he at least had one person to tell. He didn't feel as though he was still the 'insane' child he was growing up.

With Phil's depleting discussion of his best friend, his other family members grew to believe he was aging past his childhood games. It would be something they could laugh about some time in the future, reminiscing on him pointing at stars in the garden as he giggled with the imaginary boy. He would always be a lonely child in the eyes of his parents. He never sought external friendship and he was more than content to spend the hours of the day in his room with no more than the spirit they believed to no longer exist.

It was easier for Phil to hide Dan once his brother moved into his own room last year. They could simply both stay upstairs with the door shut and their words muffled behind the old, thick, brick walls. They never spent a moment apart, when Phil wasn't with his grandmother or being educated. It felt strange to sleep through private nights.

Throughout the years Phil taught Daniel to read, leaving him in their bedroom with an open book. It was through the spirit's desperation to read-on that he learnt he could still disturb the physical world; blowing upwards on the pages to turn over the words. He played with lights left on in the room, temporarily affecting the energy in them to flicker them ever so slightly. He quite liked being dead after all.

So, Phil was sat with his grandma's book in his lap, reading aloud to the inquisitive child who hovered his chin above Phil's shoulder, following along with the words. They learnt the terms used for specific behaviours and elements, being able to call Dan and his actions 'effects on energy', and understand why the curly-haired spirit continued to live at all.

A small wisp of air tickled Phil's neck, causing his head to flick around to see Dan curiously perched behind him. He chuckled, shaking his head. Dan's eyes furrowed, "What?!" he asked defensively.

"I felt you breathing on me, that's all." Phil dismissed. Daniel stepped past his best friend, sitting in front of him with his arms crossed over into his lap. When Phil looked up, he found Dan staring into him, an eyebrow cocked upwards over his maturing face. Phil bookmarked the page they were on and closed the dusty covers, sliding the lumps of paper beneath his bed, "What do you want?" he pushed, "Why don't you want to read?"

"I do!" Dan pushed, "But...I don't know." he admitted, falling backwards onto the floor and staring at the light bulb hanging above his head. His best friend chuckled, joining him by his side as they let their breaths pass out of their nostrils into the air over them. The world felt still. It was as though as the night drew nearer everything began to slow and falter into rest, despite everyone in his household still being awake. Dan turned around to the thinking boy, resting his body on his left elbow as he looked downwards towards the floor, "You know how a spirit only stays if they're very joyful or very distressed at death?"