The garden of names #5 (freewrite)

honeydue (68)in #freewrite • 7 years ago (edited)

This is the fifth part of the story. You may find the first parts here:

The man with the crooked eyes had snapped his fingers and that should've been more than enough to send the two nameless wanderers well on their way. But there had, in time, been a mishap, you see. Something had happened, there in the nothingness between here and another here and the boy and girl found themselves not only without a name, but also without a place in time where they would belong.
There must've been a mistake, they thought, but it was too late, for they had no way of correcting it. Nobody left to hear of what had happened and perhaps make sense of it.
They were, quite simply put, off for themselves. And they screamed, into the sea of white and nonexistence, but they screamed in vain, for nobody heard. They were now not only nameless, but voiceless.
Or perhaps they weren't exactly voiceless, but since nobody heard them, what good did speaking do?
They wondered this, as they sat on the edge of white and stared...into more white.
'I think we're stuck,' the girl said, eventually, after a prolonged and muddy silence and boy, how right she was.
The two children were stuck in the in-between place, in the spot where souls ventured only in passing, while going from one place to the next, as they themselves had been, until recently. And what a pity indeed, for the man with the strange eyes had never even told them where he was sending them.
So the two did what they did best. They walked. There had been a lot of walking to be done, in the garden of names and for the first time, the boy found himself missing it, the garden with all its nameless little flowers. They'd added a spark of color and delight to a world otherwise devoid of such things. A world much like this one, in fact. White.
It was not at all what they'd imagined such a place to be. The whiteness wasn't so much like clouds, all misty and soft, but rather like white, rocks, solid and intruding on the silence in their heads. The girl, a-frightened by the quiet whispers of this new, strange world slid her hand into the boy's own, like she used to when they'd been in the garden together.

'Who goes there?' a ghost asked.
And it was most clear that it was a ghost, both to the children and indeed to you, the reader, for it had distinctly ghost-like features, such as extreme paleness and an odd choice of words. It could, if kindly asked, even add some rattling chains on each ankle, because ghosts are well-gifted actors, prone to playing their part adequately.
'We're stuck here,' the boy blurted out and the ghost didn't seem in the least surprised.
'Yes?' it asked eventually, for it had the growing feeling that the children were expecting an answer out of it.
'Don't you find that the least bit...odd?'
The ghost smirked, as much as one can. 'My dear boy, nobody, in the history of places, has ever come to this one voluntarily. It is only natural that you two are stuck here, otherwise you would quite obviously not be here.'
The ghost blinked; it was now their turn to answer. It is quite an unnerving sight, especially if you've never seen a ghost blinking before. The layers of imagined skin cross over one another and blend through. Dreadful. If you are ever in the presence of a ghost, I do advise that you look elsewhere as much you can, although discreetly. A ghost is nothing if not a conscientious performer.
'But we did not ask to be here. The man said we would be getting on our way.'
Funny, the boy thought, their life had become so much of going from one man to another, trying to follow absurd directions.
'Well, of course. Undoubtedly, you are on your way. It's just that you are, how shall I phrase this, glitched in the system. Lost, in this whiteness, in this nothing.'
And one could not mistake the contempt in the ghost's voice even if one tried.
'Are you lost, too?' the girl asked, staring the ghost in its ghostly face.
'Me? Not in the slightest, I know precisely where I am.'
And the children seemed to stoop a little lower, as if somewhat disappointed with their host's reply.
'Of course,' the ghost continued, 'I was lost, once. Oh yes, one day, long long ago, I was very much like you, although handsomer and not quite so bed-ragged, but I was indeed lost. Once, I arrived on this...plane of places much like you, on my way to somewhere else. Although if you were to ask me now, I would not remember to tell you where I'd been going. I suppose it didn't matter really, 'cause I was never meant to arrive there, it seems. It became clear quite soon that the only place I would be arriving was here, in this nothingness, in this empty place. So I did the only thing I could do, I settled down to live here. As best I could.'
'But you're a ghost,' the boy said, before he could catch the words in his throat and give them a good spanking.
'Of course I am, my boy, of course I am. You can't stay here for too long and not be a ghost, it would drive you mad. You really shouldn't worry, it's not as bad as you think. You'll get used to it after a while.'

It stuck to the children's palates to answer that they were not, in fact, ghosts themselves and had no desire to become ghosts any time soon, but somehow, that didn't seem to matter. It was quite apparent that the ghost itself had never intended on being a ghost either, until it had.
Strange how your mind can betray you, after enough time.
So they sat on the nothing quiet and not quite looking at the ghost, who say patiently, waiting for them to become ghosts, too. And they thought good and hard about how they could get out of here, and there didn't seem to be an answer. And they fought hard to quench the anger burning away at their little stomachs, for they had been so very close to solving it, to leaving, to finding a way and perhaps a name, only to become...a glitch in the system, to get stuck in some murky in-between place.

And then, as if a thunder had rolled out, casting perhaps some pointy rocks around, an idea hit. It first made itself known in the boy's mind and his eyes lit up and appeared to sparkle. And he squeezed the girl's hand and pulled her up along with him and she understood. She saw in his head, as clear as if he'd spoken the words.
'Well,' the ghost said, not seeing much of anything through its hazed-over eyes, 'are you ready?'

'Yes,we're happy to stay,' the boy said and he'd never tasted such sweet words in his life. 'But there have to be some changes around here. We cannot be living in a nameless place, although we ourselves are nameless, it simply isn't proper. So, I think it would only be fair to give this place a name, like Uberrin or Grimwold.'
'Grimwold,' the ghost spat out the word, 'what kind of name is that?'
'It's a made-up name, I think it was a rock, of sorts, and this place looks kinda like a rock, so Grimwold it shall be.'
'Yes,' the girl joined in, bright fire burning in her soft cheeks, 'we'd love to live here, in Grimwold.'
And the ghost stared out at them, through waves upon waves of impending color. It was as if somebody had switched on the lights in the in-between place that was no longer the in-between place.
'What did you do?' the ghost asked in horror, clutching at its face that was changing from the face of a ghost into that of a once-ago-man.
'We gave this place a name. 'The in-between place' is not a name, and so everything that doesn't have a proper name is sort of...stuck, like us. But now, this is a place, this is a destination, not just some by-room. You are now somewhere, little ghost.'
The boy smiled, for he'd never heard such authority in his own voice.
Very well, young children, a voice suddenly boomed from the progressively bluer skies and they recognized it as the voice of the man with the mismatched eyes. You have done well, boy, you have passed your first test remarkably. You are free to leave this place and go on with your quest.
The children hugged and smiled in each other's hair. It was the only place they felt like someone.
'But what about me? What will I do?' the ghost, who was now turning into a man, sobbed behind them.
'You must learn how not to be a ghost anymore,' the boy said, still smiling.