Death is a pair of moon-yellow eyes, shiny and moist like a ripe fruit. A sliver of black draws a vertical line through their centre, splitting the fruit into juicy halves that incite a revolting desire to be bitten into, tasted. To be experienced.
Death's gaze is not wrathful, merely cool and disinterested; a distant dismissal. Slump-shouldered, Myrtle walks away, stung by the rejection, except… she's not walking. She's floating. The world drifts and spins in a kaleidoscopic mosaic of images: lived, dreamed and unknown. Everything stills. Quiet.
The taste of Death's fruit takes a while to settle in and is neither bitter nor sweet. It is plain.
.oOo.
In the first few months, Mum's eyes are permanently swollen and tinted with an odd shade of purple. Her eyelashes recede. She looks small and dried up like a raisin.
Myrtle doesn't understand; she's still there, after all, she makes sure to visit often. She hangs above the sofa or at her favourite spot on the window sill. Mum's gaze darts away from her.
In December, Stephan brings a girlfriend home. Kate is only a few years older than Myrtle, and she blooms with rosy cheeks and wide grins. For the first time in a long while, Mum smiles.
After dinner, Myrtle keeps Stephan company while he's washing up the dishes.
"Listen…" he starts but pauses, not looking up from the sink. "Maybe it's time to let mum move on."
Mum's soft laughter carries from the living room.
.oOo.
From the top of the Astronomy tower, the students moving down below are minuscule dots; no more than ants. They go from class to class chattering anxiously about upcoming tests, bantering with their friends and gossiping about who snogged whom. Their petty worries and inconsequential triumphs were once Myrtle's. Now those feel just as distant as the dots crawling on the ground below.
The sight of a larger figure jolts her out of meditation; Hagrid is dragging two massive pine trees towards the castle, leaving road-sized trails in the snow. This will be Myrtle's first Christmas as a ghost, her first Christmas away from home, away from Mum. Tears well up in her eyes.
She too is an ant, but unlike the ones on the ground, she's not in motion. She's not dynamic. She is frozen in time.
.oOo.
"Quit snivelling, you silly girl," a familiar voice croaks.
Myrtle wipes her eyes and swivels round the U-bend and out of the toilet bowl until she's face to face with Peeves.
"What do you want?" She readies herself for a quarrel.
"I'm just worried about you Myrtle," Peeves says in an unconvincing attempt at concern. "I hear crying makes your acne grow even more gruesome." He flies a loop around her.
"Eat shit," Myrtle responds half-heartedly. Peeves sniggers in delight.
"You have all of eternity to blubber. Peevesy can offer a better alternative." He flies another loop around her then shoots to the window and throws it wide open. A blizzard is roaring outside, and within seconds a thin layer of snow covers the window sill.
"Live a little!" the poltergeist says and bursts in shrieking laughter. "Get it? Live a little? Because you're dead!" He swoops outside the window and lets himself be carried by the wind. "Weeeeeee!"
Peeves zooms above the castle grounds as if he's strapped to an invisible carnival ride. Myrtle hovers at the window frame for a few moments, then follows him out with a dive.
.oOo.
If a ball of chaotic energy that exists only to be a bother to everyone gives you advice, you probably shouldn't follow it. Peeves should not be anyone's life coach, he really shouldn't, yet ever since the blizzard Myrtle has been filled with a sense of purpose: she will make the most of her death.
After some contemplation, Myrtle's mind is set on travel. It takes her a year to explore Britain. Glasgow is a hot spot of ghost culture, but Pembrokeshire steals her heart. It's the best she's ever felt, so why stop there?
She dives at the Norwegian fjords and chatters with the merpeople. In the Alps she catches skiing rides from unsuspecting muggles and in Paris, she even manages to get a turn haunting Notre Dame, a very desired haunting spot among the local ghosts. She visits Red Square and Taj Mahal, drifts up Kilimanjaro and slides down Niagara falls.
At the South Pole, while she stares at endless planes of white wilderness, it really hits her that she is now immortal.
.oOo.
"Pining for the fjords, eh Myrtle?" Peeves sticks his tongue out at her, then makes a farting noise with his armpit.
Since Myrtle's return, he's been following her everywhere, trying to get under her skin. Although he's as much of a nuisance as ever, there are certain benefits to having him around. Who else would come up with the idea of stuffing Filch's fleece jacket with Bulbabox powder? Nearly Headless Nick certainly wouldn't deign to spend his time teaching tapestry trolls to throw dung at Barnabus the Barmy. The Grey Lady wouldn't even dream of something as undignified as shouting "Booger!" every time Quirrel opens his mouth.
Yes, Peeves can teach her a thing or two, and Myrtle is a diligent apprentice.
.oOo.
The posh interior of Olive Hornby's holiday cottage is illuminated gently by floating fairy lights. Wreaths hang on every door and a large Christmas tree stands proudly in the corner. In front of the crackling fireplace lays a white bearskin. A house-elf has been hard at work here, in preparation for the owners' approaching arrival.
Myrtle whistles appreciatively as she takes in the picture of cozy luxury, worthy of a Christmas card. She drifts to the kitchen and rummages through the cupboards. Cider vinegar? Barely leaves a stain. Truffle oil? Too small a bottle. Marmite? Impossible to get out of the jar.
She slams the cupboard shut and scans the rest of the kitchen. Brilliant! Two fancy bottles of red wine stand open on the kitchen plot, the glass twinkling at her with reflected fairy lights. She grins and grabs a bottle in each hand.
"Oh come, all yeh faithful," bursts from Myrtle's lips as she's drawing lewd shapes in burgundy on the stark white bearskin.
.oOo.
The funeral is small: only Stephen and Kate, their daughter Ellie with her wife and the baby. Stephen puts his arm around the sobbing Ellie and pulls her into a tight hug. He's ever the strong man Myrtle remembers from her childhood, but his hair is almost fully white now, and even from the distance she can see his face is craggy with age. You'll never grow old, a voice whispers in her mind, not for the first time, but this time the idea is fraught with ache. She leaves before anyone can see her.
Myrtle hoped, not without some guilt, that when this day was to come, Mum would stay behind. Myrtle could have shown her the ropes of being a ghost, could have done another round-the-world trip with her. Perhaps they could have settled down somewhere after that.
Mum chose to go on though, whatever that meant.
'When you die you go and live with the stars,' Mum used to say when Myrtle was a little girl, curious about the mysteries of life. Once that had seemed a scary inevitability. Now she looks to the stars with longing.
.oOo.
"How are you?"
No one has asked Myrtle this for years, not since Mum died. It's been a while since she's questioned this herself, but he… he's different. He cares. Ghosts don't have heartbeats. She knows that, she's not stupid. And yet, something flutters inside her.
Draco looks expectantly at her, and she stares blankly back. Although his face is sickly with stress and fatigue, he's still smooth and fine and aristocratic, while Myrtle is frozen in spotty adolescence. She shouldn't forget herself but something in his gaze compels her to reach out. Her hand moves towards his shoulder hesitantly, almost in slow motion. In this impossibly long moment, Draco follows the movement with unreadable eyes. Finally, contact.
He grimaces and flinches away from her icy touch.
.oOo.
Classroom, classroom, broom closet, classroom.
Drifting through the walls of the castle is her dreary full-time job. 'Hogwarts is boring' is not a thought Myrtle has ever anticipated to have, but the ancient stones hold no mysteries for her anymore. The other houses' common rooms are always a topic of curiosity and speculation among the students. Now every nook is as familiar to Myrtle as her own childhood bedroom. The novelty from exploring the kitchens, the Come-and-Go room and the prefects' bathroom faded with time. The Chamber of Secrets? More like the Chamber of Same Old Same Old. Myrtle has reenacted the dramatic basilisk entrance through Salazar's mouth tens of times, to an audience of friendly sewage rats and once to a cackling Peeves. After a while, even rearranging the files in Filch's office lost its appeal.
Classroom, hallway, classroom, classroom.
.oOo.
"… and the mulled wine has been flavoured with the strongest faun-gathered spices. Guaranteed ghost satisfaction, I tell you." The Fat Friar's voice is greasy with smugness. "Imported especially for us. I talked to Dumbledore, I told him 'Dumbledore, this won't do. Us Hogwarts ghosts, we-'"
Curiosity doesn't rear its cheeky head, but Myrtle floats towards the table on the other end of the hall for lack of anything else to do. A gold-encrusted crystal punch bowl stands among plates of rotting fruit and mouldy cheese. Steam is rising gently from the ruby-red liquid, like a tentative promise. Passing by a group of ghosts chattering with anxious anticipation, Myrtle pauses for a moment right before the table, then veers away. For some, hope does not spring eternal.
.oOo.
Gold is the colour of sunlight as it falls on the vast grounds of Hogwarts. Loving had once been its caress on Myrtle's skin; gentle among the blossoms of spring, passionate in the summer heat, mellow in autumn, wistful in winter, but always warm.
In death, the sun's caress isn't warm, nor cold. It is tepid.