Author's Note:
In which Jazz attempts to make something of a life for herself, and it gets handily derailed.

Inklings
2

Jazz had found the apartment at least suitable to her needs. It was dilapidated, true, but it was also small, comfortable, furnished, and most importantly it was free of tenants. No one seemed to want the place, probably in part due to its sorry state and in part due to the fact that it now sported some very disturbing cold spots, with malfunctioning electronics as an added bonus.

… Well, she didn't really want to be causing any of that—in general she wanted to be causing as little trouble as possible—but as a ghost, and as one with so little experience, she had precious other choice. Things just happened. And God forbid when the owner tried demonstrating that the old CRT television still worked. The situation was traumatic for just about everyone involved, especially Jazz, who kept trying to move around to get the reception right only to end up making it worse.

The owner didn't notice the little additions to his house, however. Like the small pile of books that was gradually collecting on the shelf of the bedroom, most of them to do with psychology. Or the fact that library fiction books would appear and disappear off the coffee table over time. Perhaps he was a little air-headed, or maybe he was just too busy to concentrate properly. Either way, Jazz was glad for this; it let her live her life in relative peace.

Having her own space was nice. She didn't have to banish herself to the plane of invisibility all the time, and instead could gallivant around the apartment as she pleased, lounging across the squashy couch as she read some new novel or another. She'd get them from the library. No longer could she check them out properly, so she would quietly take them from the shelves when no one was looking, and then return them again a few days later when she was done.

She'd been reading a lot of fiction lately. She had to fill her days with something—though she would occasionally go and help Danny at school, she was starting to find her existence strange and purposeless, but was just as unsure what to do with it. And so she read. She read, and she read, and she read.

Sometimes she thought dangerous things, like going to her parents and revealing herself as the thing she had become. These thoughts were usually very quickly squashed.

When she wasn't around Danny, and wasn't able to distract herself, she found she missed him dearly. Some days she would sit in the armchair and stare out the window, wanting to cry over the life she still felt she deserved, over the loneliness and isolation she felt deep inside her heart, but it wasn't something afforded to her. All she could do was sit and stare, and brood inside.

A month went by. The owner was offering another inspection of the apartment it seemed, as that was the only time she ever heard the front door swing open. On reflex she sunk herself back into the formless shadows, remaining upon the armchair as she watched on with some sense of vague curiosity.

A young man walked in, perhaps somewhere in his mid-twenties, followed by the owner. His hair was very black and his eyes rather deeply green, with a strange untamed goatee and a body so thin it looked as though he were probably made out of a coat hanger.

"It, uh, leaves a bit to be desired but I'm sure you'll find it suits your needs, as far as shelter goes…" the owner reassured, sweeping his hand out to gesture vaguely at the space around them. "Was there anything particularly you wanted to look at?"

The man gave a gruff shrug. He seemed sad, dishevelled. "I just need a place to live before I end up homeless. I don't care about the bells and whistles."

"… Well I can assure you, it certainly manages that," said the owner, as if he weren't completely sure. Jazz knew for a fact that the taps weren't going to stop leaking unless someone hired a plumber and there were a few other things wrong with the place, but it was otherwise serviceable enough.

Jazz started to get curious. It looked like this guy was genuinely interested in the apartment, and this was something quite new to her. She floated from her chair and approached him for a better look, staring at his face to take in his expression.

"Did it just get colder?" he asked, idly. He looked as if a bit uncomfortable, and Jazz backed away quickly. "… Oh… I think I just imagined it."

The owner looked as if he was sighing a breath of deep relief. Jazz knew her cold spots had been driving potential leasers away, so perhaps he was beginning to key into the fact that his apartment was quite literally haunted.

"There are some drafts," the owner admitted. "I'm sorry if they bother you."

The man, however, simply shrugged. "No, it'll be fine. Can I just try some light and taps and such to make sure they work properly?"

"Sure, that's fine, please go ahead… though the taps are a bit leaky. I can get a plumber to fix those after you move in, if you choose to?"

"Well, if everything works well enough, I don't see why not," said the man, his voice a little gruff but not unkind. He started to wander the apartment. Jazz followed him, finding herself quite curious indeed. Would it be that this person would move in after all? Did that mean she'd have to find somewhere else to inhabit, or maybe could she just hide in his living space?

… She didn't want to bother him, especially if he was going to end up paying to live here, unlike her—technically, she was squatting.

He tried the taps on the sink, and the lights in the kitchen, all of which worked as intended. A relieved smile caught up to him that he didn't seem to want the owner to see, but she saw it as she hovered up close, but not so close that he would feel the cold that radiated from her being.

When he stepped back into the living room he noticed Jazz's book on the coffee table, and she inwardly squirmed as he picked it up and looked at it with curiosity.

"Oh, you read, do you?" he asked the owner. The owner stared at the book, having never particularly noticed anything like that in the apartment before, and tried to recover.

"Um, not that much, I'm afraid… I think that must have been left there by the previous tenant."

"Huh," said the man, flipping it over. "It's from the Amity Park East Library. I'll take it back to them if you want."

"Uhh, sure." The owner gave a shrug, and Jazz grimaced as the man stuffed it into his bag. She was nearly at the climax of that book, and now she'd have to go to the library again to fish it back out of the shelves.

"Bit of a thankless job, writing," the man said, almost under his breath. "All that work to produce a book, and then people forget about them like this."

The owner didn't seem to hear or care, and the man took that as his cue to stalk off and check the bathroom fixtures.

"Is it to your liking?" the owner called, eventually. Jazz had stayed to watch him, now, feeling somewhat betrayed that her library book was being taken from her before she'd had the time to finish it. "The globes in there are brand new!"

"Yes, they're quite bright," said the man, thoughtfully, though Jazz wasn't sure he was really thinking about the lights. His mind seemed to be floating… elsewhere.

Finally, he checked the bedroom. Once again he did not fail to see the books stacked upon the shelves; he thumbed through them quickly and turned back to the owner, who had followed him in.

"Your previous tenant was rather into psychology too, by the looks of things," he commented. "Going to do anything with these books?"

"Me?" asked the owner. "I would only be putting them in landfill. If you want them you can have them."

"Huh. Free books, then," the man said to himself. "Well, I've never been one to complain about free books, even if the topic's psych."

That was a relief. For a few precious seconds Jazz thought her books were going to get tipped out if she didn't somehow defend them, and make no mistake she would; psychology was still precious to her heart, now perhaps even more so that she couldn't participate in everyday life anymore. The removal of those books would have tipped her over the edge.

"So, have you reached a decision?" the owner seemed to be on the tips of his toes, and if it wasn't clear that his agenda was to lease out this apartment as soon as possible, Jazz would have been quite worried about it. "As you will remember, the rent is quite reasonable…"

The man simply gave a shrug, and though it seemed somewhat noncommittal, he also nodded curtly thereafter. "It is. I think I'll take it, thank you."

The owner looked euphoric. Probably glad to finally have someone with standards low enough that they'd actually consider paying real money for it.

A contract was signed. The deed was done.

And Jazz wasn't sure how to feel.