22: Red balloon
Chapter 22
An excerpt from the written diary of Delilah Tessel Rider, an Ambassador of the King of the Land.
Umbriere Day 35
Evening
- We bought a bunch of balloons. Helium-filled ones. All sorts of colours.
What Gerra supposed would happen was that “my” ghost would pick one. Essentially these acted as a sort of an offering. Then I would… state my terms, essentially. Tell the ghost following me to… not wake me. Especially not at such ungodly hours.
Gerra suggested I tell it to stop bothering me entirely. I was pretty sure she phrased that nicely when she was talking to her ghosts, and said as much. She insisted that putting things nicely did not change the inherent meaning of things. I still felt that it was such an awful thing to say to anyone at all. She then—can you believe it—told me that I had a problem with setting boundaries.
Oh! Gerra, sometimes you’re just so… so…
Sigh.
Right. Enough about our bickering.
Apparently what the ghost usually did after was to choose a room for itself. We would have to prompt it too, of course. Gerra advised that we did this because from her experience it seemed to settle the spirit, to have a place of its own. This ghost should be easy to figure out, because all we would have to do was follow the balloon. Probably. If all goes well.
We brought the balloons to my bedroom, together with some tea and biscuits. I shut the door, though there was no real need to. I mean, I knew that the ghost would come to us, the way she had every night for the past week. But I… wanted to have a clear sign to see—the door opening, basically—that she had arrived.
She. Simone Synnetta. A victim of dragon-fire at the age of five.
Unlike most of the younger kids there, she was not buried with her mother, or the rest of her family. What happened to them? I remembered thinking while I cleaned her headstone about a week ago.. I remembered saying, “Oh, you poor dear. I wish I could go back in time and give you a hug.” And I would not have been surprised if she caught my actual meaning: I wish I had been there to keep you safe.
Gerra was right. Somehow I knew that it was her.
The picture upon her gravestone showed a bright-eyed child, grinning widely, and clutching the string of a red balloon in her right hand. With her left, she pointed. Her mouth was parted slightly. I wondered what she was saying when this picture was taken. I will never know.
The door opened. It happened fast, this time. We had barely finished our first cup of tea. I felt my goosebumps rise, and I knew that it was her. For some reason I stood up. I don’t know, it makes me feel safer, maybe. Then I tried to smile. “Simone,” I said. I tried to remember her face, the picture on the gravestone. Mischievous eyes. Chubby cheeks. Pointing at her balloon. My heart softened.
“We got these for you, Simone.” I gestured to the balloons, floating about the ceiling, strings dangling down around us.
Nothing happened, for a bit. Some of the balloons bopped, left and right, up and down. I was not sure if that was her, or the draft coming in. Then a red balloon began to descend from the ceiling. I actually chuckled. Why, of course.
I knelt to the ground, because that was what I did when I spoke to young children. Gerra nodded her encouragement, so I proceeded. “Do you want to choose a room for yourself? Gerra says that there are some, here in the West Wing. There’s one next to mine, if you want to be nearby.” The balloon drew close, and stopped right in front of me.
“Try standing by the door,” suggested Gerra.
I did, and asked the same question. Once more, the balloon moved, and stopped in front of me.
“Hm…” muttered Gerra. “Try taking her to one of the rooms. There is one with a child’s bed, two rooms down.”
I tried, but the balloon stopped in front of me once more. It was close, this time. So close that I thought I could smell her. The scent of something sweet, like cookies, lingering still. Wet grass, from a time when she played in the fields…
(Mama?)
My eyes welled with tears. I wish I could hug her, but she was… She wasn’t here. No, she was, but only in part. I reached out my hand to her. There was a pause, of sorts. Then something cool, against my fingertips. My palm.
“Oh, Simone… I’m not… I’m not your Mama.” I wondered if she could hear me, or understand me. The balloon stayed where it was, without any sign of the ghost accepting the truth, or getting upset about it. The air about me did feel a tad bit colder, but it was hard to say if it was real or just my imagination at play.
“Let’s find you a lovely room to stay in, shall we?” I suggested. I got up, and went down along the corridor. The balloon trailed after me. Gerra followed behind us.
As I opened the doors to several rooms for Simone, I thought about what might make her feel better. “You know, Simone, I’m not your Mama, but… I could be.. ah, yes! That cool aunt that visits you every so often and buys you all sorts of toys. Balloons, perhaps. I’ll always make sure you have a red balloon to carry around with you. What do you think?”
“Cool aunt? Kah!” Gerra sniggered from behind. “And you better be careful about what you promise them. You have to see it through.”
I huffed. Of course I was going to see it through.
We reached the end of the corridor. “Well, which room do you like?”
The balloon bobbed for a bit… then inched forward and stopped before me again. I was bewildered.
“Gerra… I don’t…”
Gerra was frowning hard, wrinkles multiplying between her brows. Finally, she smacked her lips, and grumbled. “A thing that the orphaned ones do, yes. Yes, it could be.” She looked at the balloon, then met my gaze. “Remember the poltergeist I mentioned, who lives with me in the kitchen?”
I nodded …What did this have to do with the poltergeist?
“His name is Seth… I don’t say much about him, because he is annoying when he thinks you like him,” Gerra said, for some reason sounding like a grandmother speaking fondly about her grandchild. “He is… very similar to Simone. In many ways. This was how he was, when he first followed me here. Except you’re lucky. Simone likes balloons. Seth likes kitchenware. Particularly knives.”
Gerra scratched her chin. “You know how Seth lives in the kitchen with me?”
“Umm..” I said stupidly. It wasn’t because I couldn’t understand what she was alluding to. It was because I didn’t want to.
“Simone wants to stay in your room. With you.”
Ah, yes. I thought so.