Chapter 11 – Diffusion, distraction
"Why do I have to keep meeting strange people whilst I'm out?" mumbled George, shaking his umbrella to get the rain off. "First it's Emiline, now it's some crazy old guy threatening me with a walking cane, going 'I know what you are!'."
"George, for the third time, your boots are spreading muddy footprints all over the place!" yelled Annie "And I shouldn't worry about him; there're probably just people out there who still think that you're a paedophile."
"Thank you for putting me in the league of old men with scary walking canes." Added Emiline from the lounge.
"Oh, just… shut up, both of you." George removed said criminal boots, and flopped down on the sofa, next to where Emiline was sitting.
"Hey that's not half bad," George said, leaning over her shoulder in an attempt to distract the others from the obvious trail of destruction he had made on his way from the door to the living room. He pointed at the ink-pen drawing Emiline had been doing, and then looked up at the unsuspecting subject.
"If it weren't for the fact that that's my fountain pen, I'd say you'd got his expression just right." Mitchell snapped out of his intent day-dreaming;
"What-what?" he said, looking worriedly from George to Emiline "What's going wrong?" they laughed.
"Oh, but Mitchell, you've lost that intense look now," Emiline groaned "it was so interesting to draw." Annie was there as well then.
"God, that's amazing." she said. Mitchell stomped over half-heartedly, not entirely sure what was going on. Peering into the girl's lap, he saw the object of attention. Not knowing how to respond, he just said
"Do I really look like that? I mean, has my hair got that long?"
"What do you mean?" asked Emiline. There was a pause
"I can't see myself in the mirror… or have a picture or film taken. This is the first image I've seen of myself since I died. Unless you count the stick-men-type drawings George made." George's 'they were not stick men!' faded into the distance. Emiline's eyes asked 'really?' Mitchell nodded back. Or at least that was what he assumed they meant. She could have been trying to tell him anything with that sad look, anything at all: 'the curse of death is not an easy one' to 'I wish Mitchell would stop leaving his fingerless gloves all over the place'. It was so difficult to tell.
"Could you do one of me?" Annie asked. Without knowing it, she'd completely diffused the situation. Emiline nodded without taking her eyes from Mitchell's.
"Of course." Emiline replied, but they didn't stop looking at each other.
'What else have you got hidden up those sleeves, Em? There's more than slit wrists and a source of blood, that's for sure.'
"Is that what you were going to study, then?" asked George.
"What?"
"You said that you had a place at uni, but your father wouldn't let you go. Were you going to study art?"
"Oh, no; modern foreign languages, actually. French and Spanish combined course."
"Looks like we've found you a fellow linguist, then George." Laughed Annie "You're clearly one of many talents, Emiline… I'd like to know what else you've hidden from us." 'Precisely: what else have you hidden?'