Freedom

One good thing about my birthday is that I'm a YA, which means I have the freedom to come and go as I please. Even though I'm still in my parents' mansion (I don't know for how long), they have no more say-so over me. I can disappear in the dead of night and they can no longer say a damn thing to me.
Which means I can stay in perhaps my favorite place in town -- the cemetery -- as long as I want.

The night after my birthday -- which happened to be Halloween night -- I decided to go to the cemetery after I'd come from the library. I didn't see my grandparents' ghosts milling around, but I did see Aunt Margaret's! I was a little bit surprised, but I found that I could talk to her just like I did when she was alive -- but only when she was present.
"Aunt Margaret?"
"Yes, dear Savannah?" Her voice cadence hadn't changed, except it had taken on a more ethereal quality. She then took a good look at me. "Oh my, you grew up!"
Hearing her speak surprised me, because she hardly said anything to any of us while she was alive. She left her words behind in her laptop and in the volumes and volumes of books she published.

Then she did something even more surprising. She reached for me and hugged me. I wanted to hold on tight and not let her go at all. But it wasn't flesh I was feeling. It was hollowness. It was something I can't even describe. She wasn't my aunt anymore. She was a shell of herself.

She leaned over rather conspiratorially and whispered that "the afterlife really isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"What do you mean?"

"There's really nothing to do! You sleep and then you glide around this dastardly place at night. Being a ghost really isn't good."

I suppose I like the idea of the unknown, and the ghost state is the unknown for me. If only there was a way to ease her unhappiness...and make her afterlife better for her...