It was yet another rainy day. It had been pouring for days, the air heavy with moisture and the scent of mildew creeping from nearly every corner of the apartment. Alice dragged an armchair to the window and watched raindrops slide down the glass.

  “What do you even like about rain?” Marcel asked, emerging from the next room.

  Alice stayed silent for a moment, searching for the right words. Eventually, she gave a small smile.“Melancholy. Look, Marcel. The sky weeps, and its tears wash away the sins of the world.”

  “I thought that was the Lamb of God’s job or something,” the ghost interrupted.

  The girl gave him a look so full of disappointment it could curdle milk.“Thank you, Marcel. You just ruined a beautiful monologue.” She reached for a cigarette and added, “Why do I even talk to you?”

  “No idea... Maybe because I’m the only one here? You haven’t stepped outside in three days. Any longer and you’re going to go full feral.”

  “Really?” she said with a chuckle, then turned her gaze back to the weeping world.

  Streams of water flooded the streets. A few stragglers hurried by, soaked and shivering. The sight amused her. In some distant, abstract way, she felt completely detached from it all, from the chaos of the modern world. And here she was, wrapped in a warm blanket, a mug of tea in hand, smoking in silence. Above it all. Better than it all.

  Thoughts swirled in her head, colliding, blending, dissolving. Something loomed at the edge of her consciousness, just out of reach. She tried to give it shape, to press it into rational form, but it slipped away every time. Eventually, she gave up. Whatever it was, it felt important. That, she knew. But what could she do? All she could do was wait.

  While one part of her mind chased the elusive thought, another pondered her life. Money was coming in steadily, her studies were flying by, her potential slowly growing. Every problem that had come her way had been dealt with swiftly and efficiently. And yet something still felt off. She couldn’t stand this gnawing sense that she was forgetting something crucial, something so obvious it practically screamed in her face. She tried to focus on different areas of her life, but that led nowhere. So she began a systematic review. Item by item, she crossed off the possibilities. Everything was going according to plan, exactly as she’d designed it.

  “Ash is falling,” Marcel said suddenly, snapping her out of her trance.

  He had popped up right in front of her face. Alice stared at him blankly for a moment, then a third corner of her mind kicked in and she moved her hand toward the ashtray.

  “What on earth are you thinking about, girl?” the ghost asked, plopping down in the second armchair and watching her intently. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love?”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  But that didn’t discourage the dead man.

  “Because that’s exactly what it looks like, Alice. You haven’t eaten anything. You’re alternating tea and coffee. You just sit there, staring out the window and sighing.”

  “Sighing?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Oh yeah. At regular intervals, too. And your face is so… tragic. So dramatic.”

  Alice turned her eyes to him. Her face became an expressionless mask, but her eyes radiated the deepest, purest disdain she could muster. Marcel ignored it completely, his mood improving with every passing second.

  “You know, you’re still young, and…”

  “Oh, shut your damn mouth, Marcel,” Alice snapped, letting out a heavy sigh. “You’re boring me already.”

  She froze mid-sentence. The ghost’s mood plummeted instantly, and he didn’t like it one bit. Trouble was coming. He could feel it in every fiber of his being.

  “That’s exactly it, Marcel. You’re boring me,” she said, savoring every word. “You’ve been sitting like a dead weight on my conscience this whole time.”

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  This time, it was her dearly departed roommate whose face twisted into a cold mask.

  “Be glad you’ve solved your little problem,” he hissed, but Alice paid him no attention.

  She kept going, clearly fascinated by her sudden revelation, though she seemed to be speaking more to herself than to him.

  “I’m bored because I’ve got nothing meaningful ahead of me. I need a new goal. I need to raise the bar, do something, anything, or I’m going to lose my mind. How the hell is anyone supposed to notice me if I’m living this slow, tidy little life?”

  That set off the ghost’s internal alarm, screaming at full volume.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “Whose attention are you even trying to get, huh? I’m not okay with this! I don’t know what this is about, but nothing good’s gonna come of it. I just want peace. Send me off first, then go do whatever crazy crap you want. Didn’t your mom ever tell you drawing attention to yourself is bad?”

  “My mom’s dead,” she answered calmly, then added, “And as for whose attention I want... you’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking yourself whether you really want to know.”

  “I... honestly, I don’t.”

  “Too late, Marcel. There’s no backing out now. I want everyone’s attention.”

  At that, Alice burst into manic laughter so loud the neighbor downstairs started banging on the ceiling with a broom. She fell silent after a moment, staring blankly at the floor, as if she couldn’t quite grasp the idea that someone dared interrupt her.

  “Old Berta,” the ghost muttered dryly. “Or that’s what everyone in the building calls her.”

  Alice didn’t respond. She just kept staring at the floor with strange intensity. If this were a fairy tale, you might expect to see giant, rusty gears turning slowly in her head.

  Marcel knew it was time to disappear, to melt into the air before those gears picked up speed and activated the part of her mind he had no interest in meeting. Without another thought, he dematerialized and let his awareness drift a few floors down into the nursery of the young couple on the ground floor. The sight of a two-year-old sleeping peacefully, drooling with pure, unknowing joy, was oddly comforting. But it also stung.

  It’s not fair, Marcel thought. So damn unfair that this kid got to sleep, and he’d been stuck in limbo for so many years.

  “Come back, Marcel.”

  The voice pulled him like a hook. In the blink of an eye, he was back in Alice’s room.

  “I don’t recall giving you permission to leave.”

  If he’d had lungs, he might have taken a deep breath.

  “Right. You didn’t. That’s why I’m still here. Every damn minute of it.”

  Alice finally lifted her gaze from the floor and looked him straight in the eye, or rather into the ghostly hollows where his eyes used to be. He felt a chill run down his spine before realizing how ridiculous that was. He didn’t have a spine. Or a body. And she was just a human. Sure, not your average girl, but still human. If anyone could hurt anyone here, it was him hurting her, not the other way around.

  “I’m dead, Alice. Don’t try to guilt-trip me. You might regret it,” he said quietly.

  But the moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them himself. Best not to poke the lion, as people used to say. Especially when the lion’s just barely finished puberty and has a raging superiority complex.

  “I’m in a melancholic mood today, so I won’t ruin it with a tantrum,” she muttered, reaching for another cigarette. “But you’d better watch your mouth, Marcel. My patience is running on fumes. Don’t test how close you are to the edge.”

  He seriously considered apologizing right then and there. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. But then he looked into her eyes, and was shocked to discover that for a ghost, nothing was truly impossible.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, then added under his breath, “Goddammit.”

  Alice heard him but didn’t reply. A faint smile tugged at her lips, though her eyes still seemed distant. Her mind had already resumed its silent calculations.

  Minutes passed. The ghost, ever cautious, drifted to the farthest corner of the room. He never felt entirely safe around her during moments like these. There was something off about her, like she was both less present and somehow more present than anyone else in the world. It was as if the calmer, more reasonable part of her withdrew and something else took over. Something darker. Something soaked in something he didn’t have a name for. And that terrified him.

  Alice let her thoughts drift freely, jumping from one subject to another. If there really was something important she needed to think about, something she truly needed to deal with, she’d eventually land on it. So she stared out the window, watching raindrops slide down the glass, while silently calculating the storage capacity of her closet, the thickness of the ceiling, the behavior of people in her year, and the psychological profiles of her professors. She thought about her parents. The car crash. That crushing sense of despair. Her aunt’s face had slipped away from her memory completely. She tried to recall it: her eyes, her mouth, her height, but nothing. Absolutely nothing came to mind. She remembered the woman smoked, though. Was that why she started smoking herself? No. More likely it had been the Not-a-Doctor’s influence. But did it really matter now? She should probably return to intense energy manipulation training, but she’d already mastered it as much as one could, given daily practice. Everything at once. Nothing specific, nothing clear, and nothing finished.

  Until finally, the thought she’d been missing surfaced.

  “I need to find a medium,” she whispered, smiling faintly. “Or just book a séance straight away.”