1998

-.-

"I think he's sorta cute." Maddison confessed.

"Me, too." Hannah agreed, letting out a short flirty laugh.

"Who?" Dani piped up, just as she was tossing her backpack to the ground and she plopped down into her desk.

"Harvey Kinkle." Hannah said.

"Really? What grade is he in?"

"No, he doesn't go here," Maddison filled in suddenly. "He's that boy from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch? It's like the best show ever!"

"Oh. Right." Dani suddenly felt her interest in the topic drop to the floor. That show was the talk of the school lately even though the polite aired two years ago already. "That one."

Hannah raised her eyebrows at Dani. "You don't watch it?"

"I watched the first episode with my mom years ago, but I don't know—" Dani tried her best to not sound too emotional for reasons they would not understand, "—I mean, a story about three witches and talking black cat that was once a person? I just don't think it's that funny."

Or original, Dani added privately to herself.

"It's a T.V. show, Dani. Besides, remember when I first met you on your first day? I thought you liked the story about the Sanderson House."

"I said it was weird." Dani insisted. Though it was no use; her classmates still looked puzzled, so she changed the subject quickly as "Whatever, forget it. Did you see the librarian talking to Mister Bates in the hall this morning? I think she has a crush on him!"

The faces of the girls brightened up and they all started giggling again.

Dani just felt relieved they've already forgotten the previous conversation.

Yes, most days, she hated how one single night had such a powerful impact on her life.

...Was it insanity if she unconditionally adored and missed the spirit of boy she knew for only a matter of hours?

And as she grew, she started to contemplate over these questions more deeply, which made her feel somewhat more of a freak...and thirteen was an awkward age as it was.

Was it wrong on her part if her standards of what a boy should act like were already set by the same spirit? Would any of her future male suitors be willing to face three wicked witches to save the children of an entire town? Would any of them sacrifice their lives on the spot if she was moments away from drinking a fatal potion?

Other days however, Dani found herself slowing waking to the sound of graceful pitter-patters across her wood flooring. And then a distant purring in her ear soon followed—growing closer and louder—louder—louder in her ear—a strip of fur appeared beneath her fingertips, and it moved up to caress her cheek—its purring ultimately triggering her tired morning-brain to react. The moment she would open her eyes in sudden awareness and shot up her in bed, looking around frantically for a stray dark critter on the lose, she'd only see that the room was empty.

Some days, deep down, Dani hated Binx. Or she wanted to hate him...just for a little while. She wanted to blame him for messing up her childhood, just a tiny bit. If she hadn't met him years ago, her life may have turned out relatively more normal. There was no argument there. Binx didn't want her to be sad for him...but she was just a girl, so of course sadness was what she felt whenever she thought of that morning he and Emily had disappeared.

It was just what it was. And yet his short-lived companionship had inadvertently raised her expectations of those Dani liked to call friends today. If Dani believed any of her contacts were not worthy of his memory, it actually felt like she was betraying him!

Silly to think this way, yes, she figured that. Then again, Dani was never really a stupid child. Her teachers were always impressed with her understanding of words and phrases that weren't in her grade's vocabulary. Having Max for a sibling did give her access to regular teenage slang and gossip right from the start.

There also had been days when she would walk home from school and she'd cross paths with several black cats prowling the streets—all in that twelve-minute sitting. One would be up in a tree staring down at her, another would sprint out from the bushes and dive under a parked car before she got too close, and the rest of them would be strolling on the porch railings of the houses she passed or meowing at her from the stone walls built along the sidewalks.

She began to wonder if all of these strays were all actually one cat; one cat that seemed to vanish in a blink of an eye, and then suddenly reappear from an illogical sense of space.

Still nowadays, Dani still wasn't quite sure what to make of it since she wasn't sure how stable her sanity was anymore.

She knew real magic was possible, but where was she supposed to draw the line?

Dani was yet fully amazed how just one single spirit from her past had such a powerful impression on her present life.

Nonetheless Dani assumed that's what ghosts did best, wasn't it?

They lingered.