Chapter 25: Day Seven, the Ghost Lady (4)
I endured the awkward stretch of hours until the sun had gone down completely and the dark settled in. Then, all at once, I needed to piss, so I climbed down out of the tree and walked to the cliff.
A glance over my shoulder showed Franc, only her face peeking out from a branch thicker than her body. She looked curious about what I was up to. I gave her an embarrassed smile and pointed at my cock, and Franc smiled just as awkwardly and hid her head.
I looked up. The moon showed through breaks in the cloud — full, so the light was bright, though the sky was so crowded that it kept going dark. Search meant the darkness hardly mattered, but I still hated the monochrome forest it painted at midnight. Eerie. Not to my liking. Somewhere an owl called, and a chill walked up my spine. The kind of atmosphere where a vengeful spirit might come stepping out of the trees.
A ghost didn't frighten me. A vengeful spirit did. Those were packed tight with grudges, the sort that cursed you and struck from the spirit side, and facing one would probably take some special item — a weapon carved from lightning-struck jujube wood, something like that. A common ghost, by comparison, seemed like it would just flee if you splashed it with holy water.
Maybe that was because holy water felt like the kind of thing a pastor or a priest could whip up in a minute if you asked at a Catholic church or a Protestant one. There was even a claim that it was nothing more than water with salt stirred in...
Which raised the question. Was Franc a ghost, or a vengeful spirit? My feeling said she was a gentle ghost — one who did no harm, still wearing the face and the memories she'd had in life.
In an age where nothing would be strange except the dead rising, a ghost existing wasn't strange either. But the moment I thought vengeful spirits might exist as well, the back of my neck began to itch. Would a vengeful spirit even be classed as an Aberrant? A vengeful spirit harboring Phase Power? And if you had to sort vengeful spirits from specters and ghosts, how were you supposed to classify them? I also wondered whether hitting one with a weapon imbued with Phase Power would even make it take damage.
I turned all that nonsense over while I pissed, then looked down at my thoroughly angry cock. I hadn't washed in seven days, but maybe because I'd been smearing mud on myself daily, it didn't smell as foul as I'd expected.
"Still, I really ought to wash."
Franc was a ghost, so she probably couldn't smell me. Even so, objectively, just looking at myself... I was filthy. Mud and sweat had caked together until I was past grubby, the kind of state that made you wrinkle your nose, and I worried I'd leave a bad impression on her.
"Hm?"
Wait. Did my cock feel a little bigger? And now that I thought about it, I seemed a bit taller, too. I shook off, zipped up, and looked down at my legs. The cuffs of my pants had climbed above my ankles. The sleeves had been tailored to fit exactly, and now they left my wrists completely bare. Had my arms and legs lengthened, so that I only looked taller? My belly had gone down a lot as well...
Judging by the hems, I'd grown two inches at the least. That would put me around five-six. A little more and I'd clear five-seven. Taller, bigger down there, longer limbs... Phase Power really was the best. Heh heh heh.
Business finished, I went back to the tree. Franc had turned so her face was toward me, which meant I couldn't stretch my legs out and had to sit cross-legged. If I extended them comfortably, she'd see exactly how hard I was. I wasn't sleepy anyway, so I figured I might as well make the spear-thrower I'd been thinking about since yesterday.
I took out the claw spear, used Detection to find a branch of the right size, and brought it back. Cutting was a generous word for it. It was more stab, yank, and tear. Franc watched me suddenly bustling around with a puzzled look, her head tilting this way and that, for all the world like a cute cat cocking its head.
Come to think of it, was Franc mixed? A spirit body's colors came in only three shades — light gray, gray, and dark gray — so I couldn't tell the color of her hair or her irises. But that small oval face carried an Eastern cast, and those large, painted-looking eyes, with features so distinct, gave off a strong impression of mixed blood.
She had been meeting my eyes the whole time, and when I kept staring at her face she grew shy. She covered it with her palms and started peeking at me through the gaps in her fingers.
"Ah, Franc, you're so pretty I kept looking without even realizing."
I said it with a laugh, and now she pressed her fingers together to hide her eyes as well, ducking her head. My heart started hammering. Past that bowed head, a back spread smooth and soft without an ounce of spare flesh, flowing down into a roundly rising—
Huff. Huff.
My breathing was about to turn rough, so I yanked my gaze away and started shaping the cut wood with the claw spear. I braced the wickedly sharp point, set the wood against it, and gave a light push, and the wood chunked away. I roughed the shape out fast, then drew the horn awl and began to refine it, and in no time the form of a spear-thrower — an atlatl, as it was also called — took hold. With Analysis helping, I shaved it down in quick strokes, and the shape I'd pictured was there in ten minutes.
Length and thickness about the size of my forearm ought to be right. Hmm. I wanted to light a fire and finish it properly. Used like this, splinters would probably stab straight into my hand. Surprise filled Franc's eyes as she watched through the fingers covering her face. Even with me tapping at it so casually, the basic shape of a spear-thrower was coming together, so that tracked.
I stole glances at that face while I carved, and at the same time I didn't neglect the perimeter with Telescopic Vision. Since I'd been with Franc, the time I spent with my eyes closed had dropped sharply — partly because I couldn't see her pretty face with them shut, and partly because I had Telescopic Vision. Even so, I couldn't slack on watching my surroundings, so I still closed my eyes now and then for a second or two and didn't skip the sweep. Thanks to that, Detection's proficiency felt like it was climbing fast.
For now I was prioritizing the blind spot at my back, the place Telescopic Vision couldn't cover. If proficiency kept rising like this, though, I figured a single blink of less than a second would be enough to sense everything around me perfectly. When I kept glancing about and blinking, Franc looked worried I might have a tic. Even so, I didn't explain my abilities in any detail. Just in case.
Back in middle school, deep in the storm of puberty, Dad had taken one look at this side of me and called it the early symptoms of paranoid personality disorder. PPD. I still remembered Mom and my sister beside him, watching me with worried faces. I hadn't denied it. I already knew I was the suspicious type.
Even so, I was fine. I didn't hide anything from Mom, or Dad, or my sister. They said if the suspicion got bad enough you couldn't even trust your family, and I wasn't that far gone. Honestly, who walks around with their heart turned inside out, blindly trusting everyone they meet? People live with two or three secrets and a reasonable doubt about everyone else. Even my sister had a best friend she'd known since they were little, and when those two got together they'd bicker over snacks — you ate more, I ate less. Look at that and tell me everyone doesn't carry a suspicious streak, just in different doses.
And if we're being precise, mine isn't suspicion. It's caution!
While I was lost in that, the spear-thrower finished itself. A clear image in my memory, the time I'd made one out of curiosity right after starting high school, Detection and Analysis laid over both — a finished piece came together fast. Franc saw it, bolted upright, pointed at it with her right hand, and started flapping her left arm. Her face said it plain: Ah! That! I know what that is!
Every flap sent her breasts swaying, and I forced my eyes up to her face before I spoke.
"Do you know what this is?"
She nodded. Nodded again. Barely containing her excitement, she sat the branch as if mounting a saddle, raised her right arm, and showed me the motion of gripping a spear-thrower and hurling. She definitely knew. Most women wouldn't even know what a spear-thrower was... What had Franc done for a living before she died?
That was when my eyes dropped to her lower half. The branch we were both sitting was thick enough that straddling it like a horse spread her thighs wide to either side, and because of that a slightly protruding knot of wood had nestled just a little into her crotch. I couldn't miss it. She looked as if she were seated on a pommel horse, the wood pressing into her there, and my heart started pounding. The stray thoughts came back with it.
Did it not hurt, because she was a ghost? But she was a ghost — no body, not even the senses a body would feel — and yet her breasts obeyed gravity, and looking at her outer labia, pressed and warped against the wood like that... how was I supposed to think about it? Hmm. From the way she'd lifted herself a little earlier, she could definitely defy gravity. Was her unconscious manipulating the phenomenon?
"Ahem! ...I'm a little confident when it comes to throwing. I never thought of it before — I'd never had any inclination that way — but while I was catching those big field rats I started to wonder if I might have a talent for it, so I decided to try making one."
She made an impressed little oh, I grinned back at her, and I went to cut one of the reasonably straight branches I'd noted while carving the thrower. It was a little over three feet long and four inches thick. A bit thick, I'd thought, but when I ran Analysis over the throwing posture, the size of the thrower, and the length of my arms and legs, I found this was about right.
At that moment something no bigger than sesame seeds poured down into my Detection range, narrowed because my eyes were open. What was that? It kept coming. I flinched and looked up, but the leaves hid everything, and at the same time a clear sound rapped the foliage — a tap, then a rattling patter, then a long rushing hush. The sound reached my ears as the count multiplied without end, and an enormous headache slammed into my skull.
The sudden, terrifying spike in objects made my head throb. I shut my eyes, and the range expanded, the numbers ballooned past all reason, and my brain began to overload.
"Gah!"
I clutched my head in both hands and endured a pain like my brain was burning out, wrapping my legs around the branch so I wouldn't slip and fall. Then I desperately started cutting the number of detectable objects down as far as I could. Only when I'd reduced it to the lowest count I could manage did the pain ease, and the situation around me finally registered. The tiny millet-grain things that had given me that agony were rain, falling out of the sky.
Shaaaaaa.
"..."
Rain pouring down as if the sky had sprung a leak. The sheer volume of it falling, and the way it burst apart when it struck the ground, registered as a terrifying amount of motion.
"Hoo."
Only then did the filter seem to recognize rain for what it was, and the flood of information coming in through Detection dropped sharply. Barely pulling myself together, eyes brimming, I could see Franc in front of me, utterly at a loss, fidgeting with no idea what to do.
"Ah, I'm all right now. I was keeping watch with an ability, and the rain brought on a headache for a moment."
The aftermath of the pain was still there — cold sweat, a face gone stiff — but I forced a smile and reassured her. She listened, then came closer on her knees and drew my head into her arms. I felt no softness, no warmth, nothing of a body at all, and yet her heart alone seemed to fill mine to the brim.
The spear-thrower and the horn awl had slipped from my hands while the pain had me, and lay on the ground. I meant to climb down and pick them up, and then I remembered the smell that had come off me while I was pissing. The rain was falling anyway, so I might as well wash. I stripped off the school blazer and the shirt, then the pants, spread them on a branch where the rain ran, and climbed down in nothing but my boxer briefs, claw spear in hand.
Franc saw me suddenly start undressing, screamed, and covered her eyes with her hands. Excuse me? If you're going to cover them, how about actually closing them? I can see both your eyes through your fingers.
Anyway, I stood under the rain — a downpour now — with both arms spread, and I could feel the grime coating my body washing away. I scrubbed my face, swept my hair back, and had been washing for a while when I glanced left and found her standing in the pouring rain. Not rain running over skin. Rain passing straight through her body and falling to the ground.
She was watching it with a desolate face, and when she realized I was looking she forced her expression bright and turned to me. The sight must have driven home, all over again, that she had lost her body. That she was dead. Of course it made her sad.
"...It's all right. I'll stay right here beside you. If you're sad, you can cry."
At that, tears finally spilled from both her eyes, and Franc broke into sobs. She looked so pitiful that I hesitated a moment, then gently held her. Physical contact was impossible between us, but for this moment I hoped my heart would reach her, and I stood still for a while in the posture of holding her, feeling the rain pour down.
After a little while she seemed to calm, and turned her head to look at me. I let go and stepped back. She smiled softly, came to me again, and pressed her lips to my left cheek.
"Huh?!"
Startled, I stared at her — and she broke into a bright smile and began a beautiful dance in the rain. In the pouring downpour, the beautiful ghost lady's dance was something like ballet. Soft, continuous lines, and very beautiful. Her lovely form in pale gray light, the mist of her spirit body scattering into the air and vanishing, the falling drops looking so much like starlight — she conjured a dreamlike air around herself.
The heart-pounding moment passed in a flash. When the dance ended she seemed to grow shy, turning her body slightly aside and covering her breasts and her intimate places with both hands, unable to meet my eyes. She was so beautiful that lust never even rose. I felt as if I had to sink to my knees and kiss the back of her hand, or it wouldn't be right. Before the feeling could fade, I fumbled my mouth open and said exactly what I felt.
Maybe the awkward description made her shame explode. She covered her face and ran, hiding behind the tree. My sister had told me that chasing a shy woman just to make her shyer was a breach of manners, hadn't she? My own words were already curling my fingers and toes, and Franc had to be at least as bad off, if not worse.
Tsk. A moment that would have fallen short even in a suit, and here I was in nothing but my boxer briefs, praising a naked woman. ...Thinking about it made my vision swim. What kind of grade-A pervert was I? It was a cold-sweat mercy that Franc had taken it kindly.
Shaaaaa...
As if shaking the embarrassment off, I scrubbed my head hard in the downpour — coming down like a shower — and washed the mud from my body. Sweat, grime, and mud that had clung to my hair and skin washed clean away, and a freshness started to settle in. I'd thought days without washing would leave a sticky film of oil on my face and hands, but it came off cleaner than I'd expected. Washing in the rain left me feeling as refreshed as if I'd showered with actual soap.
"Weird. Is it the mud?"
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
"Ow, ow, ow."
The rain hammering my ears had grown loud as drums, and the drops felt like they were striking my skin, so I hurriedly took shelter under the tree. She must have climbed back up in the meantime. I found her looking down at me from the branch where we'd been resting. I gave a small wave, and Franc smiled and waved back.
I watched the rain falling over the sea of trees for a moment, then picked up the spear-thrower and the horn awl.
"How am I supposed to get these up there...?"
I hesitated, wondering if I could throw them, and looked overhead. Forty-three feet... hmm. I might just manage it. I used Detection and Analysis to grasp the branch's position, its height, and the force I'd need, then went to throw the spear-thrower up—
"Huh?"
Suddenly a red dotted line appeared in front of my eyes and started drawing a parabola beneath the branch. Curious, I lowered my arm awkwardly, and the arc dropped lower still, then vanished. On a hunch I set my stance and put strength into my arm, and the red dotted line appeared again. When I clenched harder, the parabola climbed at a steep right angle, stretching up and up until it punched through the tree. When I eased off, the arc came back down...
This was that thing, right? An aim guide? If I kept Analysis active while I threw something, did it help my throws like this? Incredible. This was going to help spear-throwing enormously.
I calmed the surge of excitement, adjusted force and posture until they matched the guideline, and threw the spear-thrower up beside where Franc was sitting.
"Yes!"
I got it onto the branch in one throw, and I saw Franc blink in surprise. Grinning, I threw the horn awl up the same way, then scrambled up the tree in one go.
That night I watched the rain fall until morning while I made throwing spears. Franc watched me make them, and I spent the time ogling Franc's body. Now and then she looked worried, seeing me not sleep, but she seemed to remember how I'd been when the rain started, and what I'd said about not being able to sleep, so she didn't press it.
Scritch. Scritch.
While I was making a wooden throwing spear, I stole another glance at her. Franc sat with her knees drawn up, gazing out over the night sea of trees under the pouring rain. A real beauty looks like a painting no matter what she does. If I'd taken that pose, I'd have looked like a pig-squid, miserably soaked and oinking.
...The self-loathing ached in my chest, but I took some comfort in the fact that my body kept changing — that I was slowly becoming a person.
"..."
All at once I was ashamed to be sitting there in nothing but my underwear. The school pants I'd hung on the branch had been washed reasonably clean by the rain, so I put them on and rolled the cuffs up to my thighs. Franc tried to stop me, on the grounds that wearing wet clothes was bad for one's health, but I couldn't bring myself to say I'd gotten shy under her gaze. I explained that I was putting on at least the pants in case an Aberrant showed up.
She looked at me as if to ask whether a school uniform would even help in that situation, so I picked up the horn awl and stabbed the blazer again and again. Not a scratch. Her eyes went round. I smiled at her and explained why uniforms like this had come to exist, and Franc examined mine with an impressed look, then nodded with the face of someone who had no choice but to accept it.
Using the sound of the rain as white noise, I talked with Franc now and then and kept making wooden throwing spears.
It was the first comfortable night I had felt since entering the Phase World.