In school I was always the weird one. The one just on the outside. Even my best friends thought I was a little 'off'. Especially after I turned twelve.
Not for the sorts of reasons you are thinking.
No, in my case it was for knowing stuff I should not have known. Talking to the air. And, occasionally, having a D&M with a bird.
I know I got it from my Mum, although it skipped her generation. Gran filled me in on what I needed to know. Never mind that she'd died when I was three. Yeah, I could see and speak with spirits. Not just dead folks - in fact it was rarely dead folks. More often it was the local spirits - the genus loci - who talked to me. Gran moved on when I was sixteen. Said that I'd learned enough, and that it was time. She had a laugh when I told her I was going full goth if she did. Told me to go for it, and shock my parents, scare my kid brother, and generally own it.
So I did. I went full goth mode for five solid years. I had a ball.
Then I met Les. Leslie was so god-awfully straight-arrow. Pressed shirts, ties, the whole bit. But he could dance like nobody's business and argue the pros and cons of Depeche Mode vs Modern English until 3am.
We married a year later. I had a daughter. And the spirits stopped.
I knew what it meant. That Erika would be seeing them next.
So, when she was about ten, I started explaining about them.
Then a year ago, when she was sixteen, she called me from school crying and said that I had to be strong.
She hung up before I could ask anything, and then the doorbell rang.
It was the police. Leslie was dead, killed in a car crash with a meth addict. The other driver was unharmed. Of course.
What happened next shocked me. Nothing Gran had said prepared me for seeing Les walk up to me. And for me to see all the other spirits around our house following him. My ability was back. All it took was the death of my husband. He did not stay long, just enough to say goodbye to me. As he had done with Erika at the school.
One of the local bird spirits landed next to me a few months later, changing to take the form of a dark haired lady. She said that she missed Les as well. He'd always taken time to talk to the ravens.
Then she touched my arm.
At first I thought it meant that I had died. Then she explained that my loss allowed me to touch the spirit world. She kissed my forehead, and told me that I was not the only one.
The gate to the garden opened, and I watched Erika walk in, hand-in-hand with a girl with black, white, and yellow hair in a most striking pattern.
We looked at each other. Then I said "You too?"
So my daughter is dating a honeyeater spirit. And I'm in the kitchen baking with Raven.
I'll always miss Les, but I've still got a family. As weird as it is.
#UrbanFantasy #SF #SFF #microfiction #tootfic #microfic #IAmWriting
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